#he's a cop but i'll let that go in terms of the story

[grapecaseschoices]

this is for my gremlin blorbo det. val montemer (they/them). 

[arceespinkgun]

alright I know you haven't talked about this in a while but you're pretty correct about the way jazzprowl is written usually being weird. One or both of them is always portrayed in a weird offensive way (it's either racist towards jazz, portrays prowl as an ableist stereotype, BOTH, and MORE)

I agree with this. It took me a while to think of what I could add to this and I think I'd also say: it's important for everyone to know that when I see people injecting bonus ableism into fics with these characters in them, Jazz is also normally portrayed as an ableist stereotype (racist as well as ableist)! Whenever Jazz is written as being super disruptive, lazy, and chaotic, or when he's written as super violent and scary and people use terms like "schizo" (I'm sorry but I've seen it) to describe him, these all fall into the overlap between racism and ableism. It's the same bigotry that in the real world results in Black men and boys to be deemed disruptive and violent over their peers. And I probably don't need to say it at this point, but the character Jazz has never been portrayed like this in any media, not even close. And there has also never been canon media where Jazz disrupts an ultra-rigid Prowl into changing anything about himself (and there never should be because that sucks). Hey, is now a good time to point out that in the G1 comics, as far as I can tell Prowl is just one of the many, many Autobots who are massive Blaster fans and they have nothing but positive interactions, and Blaster in those comics actually is a super disruptive, loud, angry, sometimes violent character? I mean, they have to be friends because they both hate Grimlock....

I also think something I haven't discussed as often but is equally important is that we should all be looking at canon with a critical eye as well. If you look at the way some IDW writers like James Roberts, Nick Roche, and John Barber wrote the characters, they utilized a lot of extremely problematic tropes as well. For example, I personally balk every time I see someone saying that Barber did Jazz justice, when what he did to him was make his entire story center on cops and police brutality and barely let him grow or find any community. He also decided that Jazz's backstory would be that he was a beat cop on Cybertron... I think it's bizarre for anyone to look at how Jazz has been portrayed over time and think it makes total sense for that of all things to be his backstory. I'll also just never forgive Barber for writing that issue where he had Prowl point a gun at Jazz's head to get his attention, and had Jazz making fatphobic jokes about Prowl (weird in context for SO many reasons), and also tried to resolve the issue with some kind of friendship moment despite all of that.

Roche, JRo, and Barber also knowingly took every trait Prowl had as a character before their stories—ones easy to perceive as signs of disability—and twisted them into signs of cartoonish evil (I know Barber seems to think he did not write him as a flat evil character, but he's kidding himself). Understandable meltdowns about stressful situations and injustice get turned into a running gag and scary villainy, a lack of social awareness and literal thinking get turned into the most flatly evil dialogue I've ever seen ("You can apologize later," anyone?), a drive to make everything just and fair and better for everyone gets turned into arrogance (Barber, the fact that you wrote this character saying something like, "What's morality got to do with any of this?" means you failed). I especially hate these decisions because these writers also showed a ton of favoritism towards this character. You could feel how much they LOVED making him as revolting as possible while also making sure that instead of facing reasonable consequences he'd always go through the most disturbing, traumatic, worst shit ever so there wasn't even the catharsis of fair consequences... while also giving him tons of prominence.

I say all of this because both canon and fandom works should be examined critically and that IMO it's not only a good idea to not make things worse in fanworks, but also probably a good idea to go along with the better parts of canon and not the super problematic parts.

[themultifandomgal]

Kevin Atwater- High School Reunion

"YN? Is that you?" I turn around after grabbing my coffee from my normal coffee shop when I see one of my old high school friends. Friends is a loose term, she was a bully who took me under her wing but still occasionally bullied me, just not a very nice person

"Kelsey hey" I say through gritted teeth

"It's been a while hasn't it. How are you?"

"I'm good thanks, you?" I ask hoping it will be a short conversation

"I'm good thank you. 5 year married and got a little boy now"

"Oh wow, that's lovely"

"Here let me show...."

"I'm sorry I have to get to work but it was lovely seeing you" I start to walk off from her when she jogs up to me

"Are you coming to the reunion next week?"

"I wasn't planning on it"

"It's ok if your still single and only working in a convenience store, not all of us can be successful"

"Actually I'm a police office, intelligence. Plus I'm actually married so..." I notice Kelsey looks down at my ring hand "I don't wear a ring to work just in case I loose it, jobs pretty demanding"

"Oh well bring him along. I have to dash but I'll see you next week"

"Hey Kevin" I slide my chair over to his desk

"What do you want?" Kevin squints his eyes

"So..."

"Here we go"

"I ran into an old friend of my, well not old friend but that's a long story. Anyway, she asked if I was going to my high school reunion next week and when I said no she assumed it because I'm single and I work in a convenience store. So I told her I'm married and I thought..."

"You want to get married?" Kevin frown

"Kinda. I thought maybe you could pretend to be my husband?"

"What?" Kevin looks at me shocked

"Please, your my partner so you know me best out of everyone here"

"You want me to pretend to be your husband?"

"Yes?"

"I can't believe I'm going to say this but fine"

"Thank you thank you thank you" I jump out of my chair and hug him

"Atwater, YLN this is a work place not a social club" Voight shouts to us from his office

"Sorry" I sit back in my chair and push myself back to my own desk.

"Ok so remember we met in police academy, graduated together"

"We did?"

"Yes, but we then started dating once we were patrol officers together. You proposed to me on holiday to France and we got married a year later. We don't have children yet because we love our job, but we want 3 kids" I fix Kevin's jacket

"Ok I got it" taking in a deep breath we walk into the building our reunion is being held at

"YN you made it"

"Kelsey hi. We're not staying for long though we're working late"

"Of course. So this must be your husband"

"Yes this is Kevin. Kevin this is Kelsey"

"It's nice to meet you" Kevin shakes Kelsey's hand

"Are you wearing your rings tonight?" Kelsey asks

"Yeah I am" I hold up my hand, they're just pandora rings that I thought would work

"Oh... they're not that expensive are they, but I suppose with your jobs you wouldn't want to risk loosing $1000s right"

"Exactly"

"Let's go and get something to drink and sit shall we?" Kevin and I follow Kelsey over to the bar, we get a drink and head to a table

"Guys you remember YN YNL right? Well look who's here. She's a cop and married. Who'd have thought" we all sit down and I just feel uncomfortable, this was such a bad idea I should have just stayed home

"So Kevin tell us. When did you first realise you were in love?"

"Oh Errm. We were on a case together where she went into an abandoned building. She got shot and I realised that I couldn't live my life without her" this actually did happen a year ago

"Aww that's so cute, we'll not you getting shot"

"Yeah he came with me to the hospital and waited for me to be patched up"

"What about you YN when did you fall in love with Kevin?"

"It was the same day. He was super sweet and I saw a different side to him" Kevin's phone rings making him stand up

"You two are so cute together so when are you planning on adding to the family"

"Not yet, maybe soon though"

"YN we have to go. That was Voight. They've got a lead" I nod my head and get up

"Sorry to cut this short but duty calls"

"Of course maybe we can grab coffee one day"

"Sure" no chance.

Kevin and I leave getting into his car

"You know what I said was true" Kevin says pulling out of the car park

"Same"

"So my place or yours?"

"Huh?"

"That wasn't actually Voight. I asked Adam to call us to get us out of there"

"You are a genius" I laugh

"So my place or yours?"

"Yours?" I raise an eyebrow

"You got it"

[reiderwriter]

Hello!!If you were part of the writers on criminal minds,what would you have done differently when it came to the romantic relationships of it all and whats your opinion on some of the ships?Which would you erase and which are your favorites?I'm willing to read as much details and analysis you are willing to give on this lmao😂I loved the analysis on Reids sexual evolution season by season and am really curious on what you think on the ships like Reid and JJ,Reid Lila,Reid and Maeve,Reid and Elle😂Personally I would have created a diffrent character as a love interest for him all together.

This is practically an essay so I'm just going to apologise in advance of this. I'm not going to say I'd change much because the end product we got is my favorite show for a reason but yes, here is me talking about all the romantic relationships I can think of in CM and my opinions on them!

(Spoilers for season 1-15 of CM, CME, and season 8 of NCIS - yeah that's how long this post is).

Reid Ships

I think Reid ships are the ones most people have issues with in Criminal Minds so I'm going to start here with personal headcanons and my personal highlights. It's going to become clear that my biggest pet peeve in CM is when the writers want to give the characters a love interest and then just gender-bend their personalities, so let's start with Maeve and Spencer.

I've already talked at length in other posts about how I think the Maeve/ Zugzwang plotline wasn't my favorite. It was some amazing acting from MGG and Beth Reisgraf, but personally, I think it suffered from "serialized cop drama" plot line status. This show airs week after week with another case to solve in 45 minutes and they don't have the time or the format to pause through moments that in a standard drama would be very impactful.

To go on a slight tangent, that is partially why the relationships between the main cast are usually the only ones developed very well over extended arcs (I'll return to this when I talk about Jeid).

So, when you're trying to have an emotionally resonant moment, and you only have a handful of cold opens and one full episode to do it, you're going to have to make the characters motivations, personalities and back stories mesh in a way that makes you think: "holy shit they're perfect together."

Maeve and Spencer aren't that. I hate to use this term, but Maeve is like a manic pixie dream girl for Spencer? She's written as if she's too good to be true, which is why we're supposed to feel so sad when she dies. But they also tried to make her a complex character and didn't have the time to really do it, which is why we're given a back story that makes no fucking sense (as Spencer's DOCTOR no less) and some hints that she probably doesn't feel the same way as Spencer does for her (fiancé she never told him about etc.)

When Spencer's character starts evolving in later seasons to being more than just a genius, but a genius with trauma, they pull a similar stunt with Cat Adams/ Max

The show runner Erica Messer did mention that the Maeve plotline was always designed to be a three act plot: she's introduced, Spencer is in love with her, she dies. But, in my opinion, we didn't get enough of an introduction to her for me to feel really all that bad about it? They banked a lot on the audiences attachment to Reid, so when you feel bad about Maeve's death it's all about Reid - why do bad things keep happening to HIM, I wonder how HE will get through it - when she is the one who was just murdered. Those kind of dynamics always kind of throw me in romantic relationships.

I'm going to be clear, I do not ship Cat Adams and Reid either and I have pretty much no opinion on Max other than that if she were real I'd probably avoid her (teachers who hate teaching and blame the kids are weird! And I'm a teacher so I can say that I think lol).

Cat Adams is girl-Reid if he had a villain arc. She's 100% again there to push Reid's character development, and she's used as an action rather than a character. Max is the same. In season 15, with the entire team at a crossroads, they have to allow Reid two outs: one villain arc where he gives into his lust for Cat Adams, and one happy ending where he gets to start something with someone who is totally normal and a way out of the BAU the way Savannah was for Morgan. But it can't be as easy for Reid, and that's why we're left with the Cat/Max dilemma because he is really attracted to Cat, despite the fact that she was threatening to end the lives of members of Max's family.

By the end of the show, Reid had been actively on the team the most out of all the cast members (bar Penelope, but she wasn't out on cases first hand, so there's not as much emotional baggage there for her). He can't have an easy exit, so I kind of view this "love triangle" bullshit as a metaphor for Spencer choosing a normal life vs a continuation with the BAU.

Which is why I think that if CME continues, I think we're unlikely to see or hear from Max, because that means he's picked the BAU.

Okay now, not to sound like a broken record but, Jeid:

Before Truth or Dare, there is one single suggestion of Jeid being a possibility and it's a suggestion, from Gideon of all people, in season 1. It is CRAZY to me that after thirteen seasons they just decided to develop that one plotline again because jesus CHRIST.

My main problem with Jeid is that, actually, I think it had a lot of potential. Like I said, serialized dramas only have time to develop relationships between their main cast members, which is why we end up with a pseudo-found-family vibe no matter who happens to be on the team at any given point. A lot of similar dramas go down the route of coworker/ team mate relationships (think Ziva and DiNozzo in NCIS or Mulder and Scully in The X Files).

There was absolutely the potential for an opposites attract relationship with Jeid, but I think the minute they abandoned that after that small dialogue we got something WAY FUCKING BETTER. Their friendship is entirely underrated, Spencer regularly babysits her kid, she comforts him after Emily "dies," enough for them to have arguments about it after the fact. Your honor they are SIBLINGS. That is UNCLE SPENCER. Not your future step-dad.

When they decided to commit to JJ and Will, they should've stuck to it, and as a big fan of the Season 7 finale + Hit and Run it is very shitty seeing them trying to retcon both of these characters amazing developments and growth over 14 seasons and have them regress to shit tier versions of their Season 1 selves.

"But Kacie, there must be some Spencer relationships you like," I hear you ask. And there ARE:

Lila Archer is a great foil for Spencer. She has a happy, glamorous life until their paths cross, and then we can assume from dialogue in season 6 that she continues having a pretty fucking glamorous life after everything goes down. I don't think Spencer works best with characters that are traumatised or overly smart the way he is, because he needs something to return to after the cases that switch off that part of him, to help him forget the horrifying shit he sees on the job.

So Lila Archer was kind of a great love interest.

Another one that I'm so annoyed they didn't explore more is Austin. She's the bartender in the Season 4 Episode "52 Pickup" that is charmed by Spencer's card tricks. She is never mentioned again, but they had a great chemistry, she was quick on her feet and managed to spot the unsub first, and she was a really great foil for Spencer as well; it was a street smarts/ book smarts kind of dynamic. If they'd carried that character forward and had her reappear a few times, it could've been a great romantic plot.

I will just quickly note that the reason we most likely didn't see many romantic plots for Reid was because Matthew Gray Gubler didn't like the idea of giving him a romantic plotline, stating that there were so many more interesting things to do with the character - and he's right!

I'm a fanfiction writer, and the allure of characters like Spencer Reid is they are mostly romantic clean slates - you can write whatever you want for them within reason without having to disregard canon relationships. This is why similarly, Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Venom, and young "Marauders" fanfictions are pretty popular here imo too - canon compliance isn't disregarded, the reader is just written in. So I don't think I'd change a thing for Spencer to be honest (apart from maybe not kill Maeve off and give her the actual villain arc, but I say that so regularly I'm beginning to sound like a broken record).

Also I'll just quickly mention Elle because you mentioned her - outside of fanfiction there are literally zero hints (imo) of a thing between Elle and Reid lmao there's more of a case to be made for Elle and Morgan, but for some reason, writers and fans alike don't like committing to giving Morgan more than simply platonic connections. THEY SHOULD!! THE MAN IS SEXY AS HELL!!!!!!! GIVE ME A MORGAN WHO IS REGULARLY FUCKING!

Hotchner Ships

Speaking of characters that have a long time where they are single! Aaron Hotchner is another fandom favorite to write self-insert fanfiction for, because of the gap between Haley Hotchner's death in 100, and the introduction of Beth in season 7.

In general, I like the way Hotch's relationships play out on screen. Let's start with Haley:

You can tell that the writers really enjoyed the dynamic between work Hotch and home Hotch, because they played on it so much across the four first seasons. The very first time he is introduced he's in his bedroom picking out baby names with his childhood sweetheart, so any further scenes of him being more stern or serious are always in contrast with that introduction. It's a cold open to his character that immediately let's you know that there is more going on in his world than just the BAU, and he is the only member of the season one team that has that.

Then, they really LOVE taking that shit away from him. I'm not going to go into detail here about how fucking wack the time line is for Criminal Minds, but it is stupid and that's important here because:

I think Haley's reasons for divorcing Hotch are stupid.

She says that she married a man who was a prosecutor, not a man that was an FBI Profiler but realistically by the time of their divorce, he'd been in the BAU like 10 years. They rely more on the audiences sense of time (we're two years in, so they've all been on the team two years etc) to push this character motivation off. And for a while it makes sense that they were separated, until the events of 100. But also: in sickness and in health, for better and for worse, you literally signed up for whatever the FUCK happened, that's what a marriage vow IS.

Now I'm a sucker for the angst of 100,but would it not have felt 10x more emotionally disgusting if Hotch and Haley were talking about reuniting? If they had never celebrated in the first place, and had just finished working through their marital issues when Foyet comes back into their lives and Haley has to be whisked away again? Yes. Yes it would.

There's an episode in season 9 that really pisses me off, and it's the one that Hotch passes out from an old tear in his Foyet stab wounds and he goes into surgery and talks with Haley and Foyet in heaven while watching the rest of his life after the events of 100 on a cinema screen. It's cliché and also has no pay-off because it doesn't change the way he views his relationships after that, and it's not like he's at a crossroads at that point, so it means nothing to the audience except as a remembrance of an issue and an episode so far in the past that it feels like flogging a dead horse. They do this twice, btw, and this is the more successful use of this plot (the first time they do it to Elle in Season 1/2 during the events of The Wicker King - she talks to the father we didn't even know was dead, who died decades ago in an unrelated time. Not to keep bringing NCIS up, but I think the only time I've seen it done well is whenever Gibbs kept seeing Mike Franks in the diner scenes). They do not out enough effort into these plots to achieve the emotional resonance they are aiming for in my personal opinion.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this could've been the beginning of the era where Gibson was having a lot of issues with the cast, because it just felt like they didn't want to use him in the on-location shoots for a while lmao. Anyway, all that to say, Haley should've stayed dead, and not come back as a stupid phantom.

After the dust has settled on Haley and Hotchner though, we get Hotchner and Beth:

This is going to be a short note, because I actually really like the relationship between these two characters. They have the very slow cold-open build up that Maeve and Spencer get, but there's a lot more and a lot less to Beth's character that makes the dynamic between them really enjoyable to watch.

We're once again treated to the out-of-work Hotchner that had been missing since Season 4 (his in between scenes with Jack are cute but there's always the tragedy hanging over them). Beth is running a marathon in honor of her dad, Hotch is doing something similar for the FBI Triathalon, they train together the tension builds, they start dating. Now obviously it wasn't the purpose or aim of this character introduction to build to tragedy, and I think they just genuinely wanted to show a happy Hotchner again, but its still a valid criticism of the weird voyeuristic Maeve build-up that they literally succeeded a more sympathetic and audience engaging late minor-recurring-character EARLIER THAN THE MAEVE ARC.

I'll shut up now, but yeah, I like Hotch and Beth.

Penelope Ships

This post is getting ridiculously long, so much so that I'm even contemplating adding a fucking word count, but let's continue and dive in to my next issue.

Penelope's romantic life is used as a punch-line for the first 11 seasons and I HATE it.

There is no easy short to say this, but I despise Kevin. He is stupid, and a joke, and I hate him and I am SO HAPPY that she dumped him. They made her really pathetic about him for a few episodes, and then he kept fucking coming back too which was even worse.

Kevin is literally male Garcia but with all the worst attributes. He's clingy, and needy, and he may be smart but in a very "incel" way. In my opinion, Kevin is less a fully fledged character and more a joke line/ convenient plot point for when they need more tech analyst work. The best moment in the Kevin/Penelope arc is during the The Gathering, where she really lays into him and tells him off for being jealous of her ukelele instructor AFTER THEY'D BROKEN UP.

Penelope deserved so much better than what they gave her romantically in these seasons. First, her date tried to kill her, her boyfriend was a joke, etc. She never gets the serious romantic plotline that her other teammates do (Hotch/Haley, Spencer/Maeve, Derek/Savannah, JJ/Will, Emily/being a big old lesbian etc). Penelope is really great levity for the rest of the cast because she is happy and she is positive and she is unapologetic in her positivity. It's annoying that they don't let her be more than that in the romantic relationships they give he during these seasons.

Then Luke Alvez is introduced and there is some hope! Galvez truther's please, rise they are so adorable.

Anyone involved in the writing of CME - what the hell was that? Now I haven't seen it myself, to be completely fair, but I know enough to ask the question - really what the HELL was that?

Tl;dr Penelope's sexuality and romantic relationships should not be used as punchlines.

The Aversion to Homosexuality

This is just a general note, but the writers originally did plan to have Emily Prentiss be gay - amazing, great, it's a completely different time now, please let her have a gay awakening soon. It was obviously scrapped early in, but there's a lot of subtext that can be interpreted in that way.

They did commit with Tara, and she gets a gf in CME, so I want to see some Temily in the future if we do get more CM seasons.

So just so you know, everytime I mention Emily flirting with someone in my fic, assume it's a woman if you aren't already, lmao.

(They did also talk about making Reid bisexual as well, which would've also been great, but again, I don't think we're ever getting any more romantic plotlines from Reid).

Other Characters

Here's just a rating and short mention for all the other character couples I can think of in Criminal Minds, because this is already thesis length lmao:

Morgan + Savannah - 8.5/10, no notes, really just the gender bent love interest but done right.

Alex Blake + Husband - 7/10, solid couple, very much enjoyed when they started bringing in the people in established relationships again lmao.

Kate Callahan + Husband - 5/10, same as above but I wasn't as attached to her character rip.

Matt + Kirsty - 10/10 really no notes, I too would be called a breeder if I managed to lock that man down, damn.

Rossi + His 3 Ex-Wives - Make total sense for his character, very enjoyable to me, love that he has a nice moment with most of them again throughout the series, not going to rate it lol.

Rossi + Strauss - 3.5/10 - Last ditch attempt to make Strauss a sympathetic character, but I felt more attached to her growth after being called out by Derek rather than the effect that her death had on Rossi.

Gideon + the friend of his who is murdered by that Frank guy at the end of season 2 - stupid, worst way to go out, made no sense for the character, but I know Mandy Patinkin wanted OUT and honestly, anything for you Inigo Montoya.

Why I think Criminal Minds is Better Without Romance

Generally, I really do agree with Matthew Gray Gubler when he said that there were more interesting things to explore with these characters than their romantic attachments. It does frustrate me to no end that they focused on some of them more than others, and that post Henry, most of JJ's big moments are tied to motherhood and being a mother/ wife, but that change in her character is still amazing and leads her to a lot of growth (not mentioning Truth or Dare again, sorry it doesn't exist at this point in the post)(also I didn't have much time to mention Will and JJ, but I do love them).

Their best moments are the ones we get of them together as a team, saving people and putting away murderers for life, it's a perfect Found Family!!!

Also, no more romance = Spencer Reid can be mine. In conclusion, I am delusional. Thank you for reading this far.

[lifelessfan]

"Don't utter his name"

it's not exactly what was in the transcription of the interrogation but the basic same idea anyway so it's fine. Dall gets very protective. Ooc a bit I think

270-82014...it was him, one of our very own. But how did we find his name? Hoxton sits behind us, an unreadable expression but one can only assume he was feeling a little happy seeing Houston's name in the police database.

Nathan wasn't doing so good tho, staring down the police report and seeing his name. Shade sits by the computer, a repeat screen and looking through more of his reports on another monitor, taking Nathan's silence as not a good sign, figuring she should get to work before he burns up.

Dallas finally snaps out of it, straightening up, thinking about what should be their next steps, the reports wrote down a whole host of legal issues, and while never getting caught, he can only assume how many years he would be behind bars. Hoxton was stuck for 2, only a couple when compared to the papers saying "life sentence", and that was comparatively at the start of their small gangs story. But Houston? He didn't want to even think about it, not now, he just couldn't

He can't really stop himself, turning around and heading out from the safehouse, voice just loud enough to hear in the room, but not a decibel higher

-I need a smoke

The safe house was silent, the previous chatter about Clover and the messages going quiet as the prisoner was revealed, Dall storming out not a surprise though still painful nonetheless.

He had done a lot for the team, the first addition, the quiet, stealthy, mechanic, they practically took him for granted through the years

While some liked him less than others, they mostly still mutually agreed prison was going too harsh. Remembering what he was like, he wouldn't survive like Hoxton, not 2 years, not with anything less than a burn

Nathan stood outside, he needed a breather. The sudden stress and pressure increased 3 fold as he stared at the floor, eyes unfocused. He had wanted to reconnect with him for ages, just never had the guts. Left him once, what's the harm in leaving him again? Now thinking back it was a lot of harm, no security, his dreams a tightrope that seemed to have failed.

Dall wasn't good with emotions, most of the time only talking to Bain, keeping his emotions covered unless it was with specific personnel and Shade just...wasn't there yet, the team was still a team, not people he could open to too easily.

Finally dropping the smoke, mind set on one thing, he needed a second to sit with the news, he needed to break something, steal, come to terms, maybe finally realise just how important Houston was

-anyone call any jobs in? We need information, leads.

The stress was evident in his voice, he needed a distraction, something to help him calm down

-I asked around for anyone with access to the Houston files since they were under different handlers, said we needed to raid the newly opened jewellery street before he plans to help us

-how do you know he's safe?

-I'll have backup check his tracks and records, worst case we will be able to take the haul for ourselves.

It was something. shade had offered the same prospect multiple times, taking up a job and backtracking if the contact couldn't be trusted. While they didn't like to operate like that any more after Hector had proved himself to be a good manipulator even if they had slipped through more than once due to corrupt cops, at this point Dallas would be asking for anything. He needed to see him again, needed something to work with

-yes, take it

-Dallas? You sure. You know we don't do this any more. If-

-we need to take the risk. And we take extra precautions this time. Common, let's go

He he stuff to do, finalising his points and forcing the others to cooperate. Heading out to make a couple of calls to the others on the small-time thievery trips, they were going to be taking the next couple of days a little more seriously

<time skip>

Address, date and time. All details were supplied and agreed on. Final gathered items and they were heading out. Everyone of course had their reactions to the situation, Joy wondering just why Dallas was making such an exception, only getting caught up on the drive and holding her tongue to make up for the mass of questions. Wolf was just happy to get another job, of course, he still held quiet about why, still knowing the implications and opting to stay light for everyone's sake

Pearl was like Joy, except she was quieter about the questions, not willing to get in the middle of the stressed team, following along and listening only to be caught off guard having not followed the reveal like Hoxton. catching wind of a previous teammate heading to possible trial and prison, she had taken a second to take a breather for the possible implications

Hoxton and Chains were left with Shade, both choosing to stay out of the line of fire and instead opting to secure the contract, heading out for information instead of the jewels

The mission while loud, still is quiet when looking at coms. Even split amongst multiple stores and each with different funded security protocols, they all made due with Shade and her input for when and where, only really communicating for help.

Once the van was called, everyone had hauled all the bags they could, loud within the gunfire and running, gems and metals shaking in their bags. Familiar deadweight as each throw what they can in the back, a couple of words for those who finished quicker and running to help pick up other bags left.

Ammo left by the magazines in the rush, health bags slowly burnt away by wandering cloakers. it's not a sloppy job, but still one with enough faults to have calls for hand-on-hand help. A hefty pull by the hand to pull Joy in, blood down her leg, doors closed quickly and towels getting wrapped just as the car is thrown into gear and pulls out

Heavy breathing, and stuffy whines as the wound is attempted simple treatment by Dallas and Pearl. Better medical help once they were back at base but that wasn't for another 30min.

Hoxton and Chains were out of base all the same, looking for answers and any reason to doubt the possible trade. Shade helped where she could with the track down, people to talk through both logically and by brute force.

While not something they were used to doing after learning their lesson the first time, they had to protect what was theirs, they had to take precautions they usually wouldn't bother with.

Finally coming back just in time to meet up with the van, they all clean up. Helping Joy once she's brought into safety, cleaned blood tracks and comfortably placed on the couch. Chains comforts and works on the wound by reflex as he sits by her, both Joy and Chains still listen, following along with the conversation happening by Shade as they finalise and double-check the information

- he's clean, we had a look and he's worked with a lot of trusted people

- you have any more information on the insider?

- not much else of relevance, works within the prison Houston is being kept at, has access and is willing to offer the files

-then let's go through with the deal, the sooner we know what we are working with, the earlier we can make a plan

The finality of the statement, a huff in his words as he heads off, the team splitting up to head to their small jobs, Chains and an extra set of hands or looking for more materials to work with. They were getting close

<time skip>

it was like jumping through hoops, hiding their names and faces to drop the payment and once it all finally dose get through checks and into the right hands, everyone waited, they would be getting their rewards soon.

A ping on the computer and Shades sits up, hands on the keyboard and looking through the message, finding not only the files they had been promised, but an additional file that had been added

-*You were quick with the job, as a thank you, I happened to walk into an interrogation of the person you had been requesting information on. I've added the audio I caught*

The files were duplicated and analysed separately, the audio opened once everything else was analysed. The basic gist of the situation and convictions was understood, and at this point, they would take any more information they could get their hands on, including audio, as long as it wasn't edited. They had their suspicions

The screen dark as the progression bar ticks the seconds of the audio, shuffling, doors opening and closing, handcuffs, everyone's ears strained, heart heavy, Houston's voice was muddy in all their minds, just bare memories

North- Alright, Mr.Steele. You need anything, can I get you some water? Why don't you tell me why you're here?

His voice is gruff, heavy, clearly not here much by choice and willing to make the most of the moment. A smile in his voice

Houston- Officer, I think there's been a mistake. What...exactly am I getting accused of? And I believe asked you to contact my lawyer.

Even with the harsh microphone it was caught on, his voice echoes in all their minds, familiar, not...exact, but not too far.

Pearl stands close by, listening, a small smile from finally hearing the voice of someone they all seemed to stress over, Dallas the most of course.

North- We have enough evidence to put you away for a long time. Grand larceny... fraud...and tax evasion. Those are just the ones that make good headlines. It is quite the list, don't you think?

Houston- Grand larceny?... Wait, tax evasion?? You got the wrong guy, Officer North. I'm inno... This wasn't me

Innocent? Of course, he wasn't innocent...his pause, the refusal to lie that he was a law-abiding citizen and just respond with the same comment that it 'wasn't him'? Maybe that wasn't a lie either

North- Not you, huh? Explain this. We've got witnesses who saw you as the last person on the scene of the crime last week.

Houston- Witnesses?? I look like a lot of people. I can't answer for what these "Witnesses" say they saw but it wasn't me. You know how unreliable eyewitnesses can be.

It was weird, Houston wasn't much in terms of 'confident' years ago, not a complete pushover but not nearly this tough.

Thinking about it, it made sense, the gang were rougher around the edges, his calmer voice didn't mirror the same calm in the public eye. Dallas couldn't help a small scoff in his smile, the same Houston he was familiar with

Houston- How are you doing on that lawyer by the way?

North- And what about the security footage? Sure looks a lot like you.

Houston- Really? security footage? Crazy what AI can do these days and you still can't get security footage over 480p anyway. I don't know what you're fishing for here, or if you're just setting me up, but I've been living clean for the past.... 5 years, at least.

North- A setup, huh? It's always a setup isn't it. You expect me to believe that there's some conspiracy against you? Even with... all this evidence?

Houston- That's exactly what I'm telling you.

North- ...And the tax evasion? We've got your financial records. You're deep in the red, Steele.

Houston-  I'd have to see those numbers myself North. But, I pay my taxes, every cent. If there's been a mistake, I'll make sure to sort it out together with my accountant and the IRS.

North- You're full of it, Steele. This case is a formality, we've got video, papers, witnesses. In all my years I've barely seen anyone this royally fucked. Just confess, make it easier for us both, I'll even see if I can get you a good deal for cooperating and saving the state some money. What do you say?

Houston- Confess? to crimes I didn't commit? Not gonna happen. I think we're done here.

It did seem like a lost cause, the case file looked all formal, the clear backing up of those papers, witnesses, videos, there was no room to argue and it was a criminal word against the police and justice seekers. While it seemed useless, Houston still stood his ground.

Even Hoxton could listen and even quietly admire, his progression and even the now mirroring situation of jail with hands around their throats, a clutch tight, it was...A little admirable.

North-  Have it your way, it's not like the trial's gonna drag anyway Franklin

A pause. He said what?

Houston- Good luck with that. I'll be here, waiting for that lawyer you're supposed to be calling. And I'll take you up on that bottle of water while you're up, thanks.

A cold and hot flush, the moment of confidence, the admiration that maybe he could have some way out, Nathan couldn't keep his pain down much longer.

this was worse than the new accusations, worse to dismiss and trust the paper and videos that yes, can be manipulated. the bite as he said it, the spite and almost small clear hint of victory either way when he said his name. He could only lower his voice so much

- Keep his name out your mouth

A little more shuffling, a closing recording of the case number and participants cutting off as the contact finally leaves, takes the recording before seemingly bolting back to work

Nathan stands by the desk, knuckles against the wood and feeling his nails dig into his palm.

Houston had said, he didn't like using his first name at all, kept it quiet and out of courtesy, no one went much out of their way to find something they kept hidden.

His teeth grit hard, only he had called his first name, he didn't care what happened out of his range of hearing and now hearing it all over again, the pain in his chest, shoulders, muscles strained now and now body temperature unbalanced under his jacket

...

"Keep his name out of your mouth"

[xrd]

yknow what let's just go with everything. Go crazy go stupid. Have funsies <33

Getting a little silly?

Under the cut major spoilers for P4/P5/P5T

🎭 favorite Phantom Thief?

I used to flip flop round alot more but I think strikers (haven't finished it yet) has probably confirmed it's Makoto for me. I'm kind of sad I know she ends up sticking to her plan to become a cop because I think the way Zenkichi challenges her on it is really interesting.

Also he's not a Phantom Thief technically but shout out to Toshiro Kasukabe my goat!!!!

👓 favorite Investigation Team member?

Kanji by a landslide but we'll get to him soon enough.

Other then that I really like Yukiko. She's consistently very funny and charming to me and I like how her character flaw of passivity influences parts of her character outside of her home life. Really memorable part of my Golden playthrough was her beating me at the Trivia game several times

🔫 favorite S.E.E.S member?

Probably Yukari. I just think her character progression is really well handled, and I like seeing her grow out of her shell and grow closer with the group. I also think her dynamic with Mitsuru is really interesting, and I love the way it progresses. She was really good in The Answer too.

🎁 favorite character?

Kanji is among, if not my favourite character of all time and I find answering why I like him very difficult because of this. He's a surprisingly multifaceted character who has really unique inner struggles. I agree that the writers often go too far with alot of jokes surrounding him but I feel like there's still an earnestness to his portrayal as a teenager struggling with his newly questioned sexuality, as well as trying to find approval among his parents and peers. I like him he means alot to me.

🔗 favorite social link?

I really struggle with narrowing this down. Here's a few favourites from each game.

P3: Aigis, P3P Junpei, Akinari, Tanaka

P4: Teddie, Kanji, Nanako, Dojima, Naoto (platonic), Marie

P5: Takemi, Hifumi, Yoshida

🎶 favorite Persona song?

Extremely hard question to answer, but hearing Heartful Cry for the first time in the Answer was extremely memorable, so I want to say that. I also really like Naoto's dungeon theme

😈 best antagonist?

Adachi is like one of my favourite villians ever I think he's a genius foil to a protagonist of a game like this considering that a large part of how her functions as a villain is how mundane he is. I'll get around to actually making a dedicated post about my thoughts on him eventually.

⚔️ best boss fight?

Definitely the shadow Toshiro confrontation/cognitive Eri fight. Incredibly memorable moment in terms of story and I love how the addition of Toshiro as a party member changes up the gameplay from then on.

😶‍🌫️ favorite dungeon

I really really like Shido's palace I think the ship theming is really evocative and I think the outside is just visually very stunning, especially in game where it looks like it's atop an ocean of blood.

👾 have you played persona 1 or 2?

Played a fair bit of the sebec route but I have not finished it. I'll get back to it eventually. People drastically play up P1's flaws and it makes me sad that it seems to diswade so many people. If you meet it where it's at and make sure to buy items to lower the encounter rate it's a fun enough time if you like first person dungeon crawling.

I've played a little of IS ages ago but I lost my save file a few dungons in and never picked it back up. I'll get to it when I finish P1

❤️ favorite ship(s)?

Teddie/Labrys sweeps everything else for me they're incredibly sweet and charming. Labrys feels like the first person Teddie's ever taken an earnest interest in romantically which is a really fun change of pace for his character. (And it's metal surprisingly?!) I really like the similarities in their struggles. Teddie's arena story mode is sooooo good everyone please read it.

💛 favorite dynamic(s)?

I've been thinking about Akihiko and Mitsuru alot. I think they're really interesting because they have an incredible amount of trust in each other and I feel alot of their relationship is formed from the fact that they were defending each-others lives before they were even really friends.

🔥 character you would bully for eternity?

We all need to make fun of Adachi for being incredibly jealous of that 17 year old and also for saying this

👀 character that you hated but now love?

Keep bringing him up, but I used to really dislike Teddie during my initial play through of the game but I ended up doing almost a complete 180 of his character and now he's probably one of my favourites.

🤓 any spinoffs/remakes you want to see?

I really really want them to make a persona 5 arena in the same vein as the persona 4 one with returning 3/4 characters.

I think a P1 remake would also be welcome but I don't want them to try and make it like

🥺 a character you will defend at all costs?

I was talking about this the other day but the was people talk about Marie sometimes is absurd. I'm not huge on some of the implementation of her storyline, mainly that it gives away the stuff with Izanami but I like what she adds thematically a lot. People really over-exaggerate any faults in her plotline as well as writing her off because she's rude to the main character.

🤩 how did you get into persona?

A friend lent me Persona 5 on the PS3 and my and my brother ended up playing it. He liked it so much he bought all the avaliable persona games on the ps3 and I ended up just continuing as I finished 5. I ended up emulated p3p instead of playing fes on the ps3 though because I really wanted to play as the girl.

🥳 do you have any blogs/artists/writers/creators in the fandom you love? Drop recs.

Off the top of my head here some oomfs and other creators I like on here. (Sorry for the pings) @mustdie @parasitoidism @mangocandies @nyanfish @owainigo @akolnoix @retrokinetics @hoshizoralone @fizzily @evilresidentz Probably missing some obvious inclusions. Sorry

🤔 favorite headcanon(s)?

Yosuke making really bad music is like integral to my perception of him now.

[animehouse-moe]

Link Click Season 2 Episode 4: Let It Unfold

As we enter into the heart of this season in terms of story, the opening of this episode does struggle a little bit with some all-too-convenient exposition about Qian Jin, which thankfully the latter half makes you forget all about. Potentially a bit of rough writing to give viewers information, as we slip into the past we shed those struggles and present a more expected but refreshingly different plot line. Certainly still a good episode, and certainly still a good bit to talk about.

So like I said, the episode itself doesn't start off incredibly strong by any means. It details all the information leading up to the current events: the phone missing, the picture Lu Guang has, Qian Jin's past, and so on and so forth. I don't think it's explicitly bad, but it feels like rushed writing for the story. A big old exposition dump from multiple parties, it feels like. Personally, I definitely believe they could have done a better job with conveying the information, but I also think it would take considerably more screen time to do so which is where this tradeoff stems from in the first place most likely.

Anyways, I'll just quickly expand on a few of those key details here.

Qian Jin's contact with Xixi. They're obviously aware of one another, but apparently were not working together explicitly at this moment. Qian Jin's surprised to hear that his lackey doesn't have Liu Min's phone, but isn't unaware of who's calling or shocked at the phone call when (presumably) Xixi makes contact.

Qian Jin's past. A by the books cop that gets turned sour after the death of a loved one. It's not a novel story by any means, but is clearly the foundation for some sort of interaction with Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi. It does make me wonder though if Xiao Li will play a role in talking down Qian Jin, or if Cheng Xiaoshi will take over Xiao Li himself, since he's the one who oversaw the murder case.

And the last piece: the weight of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang's powers. Not quite exposition, but definitely the most important piece of dialogue through this front half. It continues to establish the regret and grief the pair feel over their previous forays into the past, and their hesitation and wariness of continuing with it once more. It's the natural conclusion from the first season, so I'm glad to see it referenced so heavily whenever the past arises between these characters.

Anyways, into the past we go with Cheng Xiaoshi as Xixi. I think similar to the first half there's not a world of stuff to talk about, but overall it's the much stronger and more put together sequence in the episode. The struggle of a single mother with a mute daughter is felt rather quickly through the story, and Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang are firing off piece after piece of information for the viewer to soak up.

Overall, it's a really solid sequence that teleports viewers back into the season 1 mindset as we explore experiences of the past and their regrets, challenges, and fears. Considering how well fitted it is to the overall idea of this season, I'm really curious to see how they move forward and how often we find ourselves diving back in time.

Regardless of my thoughts though, as I just said there's quite a bit of info here and there to take in, so let me highlight it really quickly.

We'll start off with this interesting notion. By pulse alone, the doctor could tell something was different with Xixi. This itself means that when Cheng Xiaoshi takes over the body of a person, they exert physical changes to some degree. Arguably only temporary changes, but a stronger pulse and physical capabilities were shown here specifically.

It's also just funny because Cheng Xiaoshi was worried about this specifically.

Next up is the eyes of the mother. This one makes things more complicated, as she shares the same eye color (but not pupil shape) with Lu Guang. Equally as interesting is the fact that Xixi's original eye color (that reddish-pink) does not come from her mother, but presumably her father? Considering that, is it possible that Xixi's father is the source of Lu Guang's abilities, and that the father (who has Xixi's eye color) is the one chasing Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang? That presents the question though of why a father would attempt to kill his own son, which is the right kind of dramatic for Link Click, if not a bit of a stretch.

Next up is our first callback to the opening, our stuffed animal. I know it doesn't look exactly alike the 3D one because of the style, but if you pay attention the design on the ears is the same. A rounded triangle on one, and a star on the other.

This indicates to viewers both the number of pasts we visit in this season, and also the order of them. We've started with the stuffed animal, will move onto the gun, and finish with the diary. Now, I'm unsure of who the diary may belong to, but I'm somewhat confident that the gun story will be related to Qian Jin who's past we learnt of today.

The next piece is this curious question: the deceased owner of a phone that was texted information about Qiao Ling. The name is Liu Lan, which has the same surname is Liu Min. Are they actually related? Is Liu Min the real brother of Xixi? It raises an incredible interesting question of just how things came to be, and if it actually is Liu Min that's Xixi's brother, or if there's any relation to Lu Guang. Incredibly curious detail to reveal, that I'm very interested to learn more about.

And last but not least, Cheng Xiaoshi's realization. Is it Liu Min's father that touches Xixi's mother on the shoulder? Or is it someone else that Cheng Xiaoshi would recognize? Whoever it is, their expression relays the notion to the viewer that Cheng Xiaoshi knows the person that's in front of them at this moment.

From here, we end the episode with (presumably) Xixi waiting for Cheng Xiaoshi to discuss things with him. Are they planning on airing out all of the pasts to provide a reversal of events? Knowing the past they now aim for the future? It's an interesting question to pose, but without knowing what it is that (presumably) Xixi wants to tell Cheng Xiaoshi, it's hard to say for sure what direction we'll be moving in with the next episode.

Building a mystery atop several smaller mysteries, all the while taking into account timelines and order of events can be challenging. So far though, Link Click S2 seems to have a pretty confident read on how it wants things to go down. At times it might be a little too literal with how it hands out information, but at its core it still aims for the heart like season 1 did, which leaves me very hopeful for how things go as we continue on here. Very much looking forward to the next episode.

[spumonibones]

I've noticed that yandere corrupted Venti pics are aplenty, but ...

I think a corrupted yandere Xiao fic has potential

Oh very much so, especially with the karmic debt, and the theory that Abyssal Corruption actually enhances your negative ambitions!! (Good stuff for twisting love from afar into an obsession that results in abandoning his post) I can probably type up at least af fic idea for it! Unfortunately at the moment I'm not at a point I could write a fic like that - still looking over my shoulder thanks to some personal experiences. These two have been a sort of "safe, comfort" ship since. But! I'm pretty sure I saw some fic summaries with that! When I find them, I'll send those your way! :]

As for a fic idea... Hmm. I know there's a popular Time Loop theory for Genshin. But, I'm not a big fan of it? Far too often those storylines get fumbled hard, and it would feel too much like a cop-out to escape the growing retcons instead of accepting that the story has changed since the game's start. (Which is pretty normal for games of this nature) Ah. Sorry. Anyway. There could be a parallel timeline. Maybe in that one, the Sinner from the Abyss acted sooner, and Teyvat has been coated in Abyssal energy? Oh, Xiao's beta design would work well for an Abyss-infected variation! (More under cut because WOW this got long??)

If his Barbatos died trying to stop the Sinner, it would be motivation to find ways of different times in which Barbatos still lives. Given the Monstadt story prologue, we know that Venti can get "poisoned" from Abyssal energy. If our... Let's call him, "Void Xiao," to mitigate confusion. As players we're taught to associate the Abyss Realm with the Abyss Order, though we've learned in Fontaine these don't always go hand in hand. Another term for the Abyss Realm is the Void Realm, so it'll function for these needs.

I looked up the definition of yandere, and included it for anyone that may need it! (I actually like this because it notes that this incorrectly tries to attribute these actions to mental illness. Individuals with mental illness are significantly more likely to be victims! When looking at "real life" examples of yandere attitudes, it's often individuals with no respect for the boundaries of others, and a sense of entitlement. No one owes anyone else their time or affection - always place firm boundaries, and if you ever feel unsafe do what you must to get out of the situation to be safe!!)

Back to the story idea! Hmm. Maybe VoidXiao got access to Forbidden Knowledge and that's how he jumped timelines...? If the Sinner took over Teyvat, the Heavenly Principles/Primordial One wouldn't be there to enforce the Laws they created. The whole world would be infected with Forbidden Knowledge and Void energy, and access would be easy. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure the game describes karmic debt to be different from Abyssal Corruption? But it (karmic debt) does sound similar to Forbidden Knowledge in its affects.

And if we go that karmic debt and Forbidden Knowledge ARE connected, he might even just have access to it as the Abyssal Corruption enhances that ambition to possess, and in a way protects him from succumbing to karmic debt to instead control it? Hmm. Might be bit of a stretch, but there's potential, maybe?

But, it would allow for a corrupted yandere Xiao! Though I feel like someone already wrote this...? Ah, if this is a fic summary I read and am just regurgitating, please let know the fic! 😭 I'll link it and delete my text if this is the case!

I'm sorry if this isn't a good request fulfillment orz

I think the first thing Void Xiao would do, is try to kill the main timeline Xiao and dump him in the Chasm where no one can find the body. Xiao could get saved by the Black Serpent knights, of whom are on a loop of protecting people and with the Abyssal Corruption on our Xiao, might mistake him for a dying hilichurl. The Fatui underground could then further help him identifying what they believe is an injured person and as we learn from them while in there, they aren't inherently bad people. I think they would genuinely try to help him, even with their limited resources.

Anyway, Void Xiao would split his attentions between capturing the time he lost with Barbatos, never being close enough to risk hurting Venti with the Abyssal energy (in Monstadt prologue, we get confirmation it "poisons" Venti when he gets hurt by it when the Traveler+Paimon interrupt him attempting to heal Dvalin). But also that distance is so Venti *can't* identify that Void Xiao is compromised. Lots of bittersweet moments, with Venti happy that what he thinks is his Xiao finally wants to spend time with him. Void Xiao savoring each visit, the painful reminder it could be so easily taken away again, that this was something he once refused and now sees was for silly reasons.

The other would be him trying to empower Venti by gathering more believers. I know there's general agreement that Venti is much stronger than he let's on, and I won't get into that discussion too much. But in this story, if however strong he is wasn't enough to survive the Sinner, Void Xiao would see fit to give him more strength to maybe stand a better chance when the time comes in this world. (Perhaps there was never a Traveler in his timeline, and that's why the Sinner acted sooner?)

I can see him rescuing people from old habits, telling them that Barbaros sent him to save them. Venti would notice more people going to the church, worshiping the statue. Would get a bit confused, why are people getting more into... That? All the while, Void Xiao is feeling jealous. He understands WHY everyone wants to fawn over Venti when he sings, when he plays music. But do they have to get so close? And Monstadt citizens start getting hurt, going missing. Venti recognizes the pattern, and while he investigates Void Xiao goes with, pretending he doesn't know who did it either. All while adoring how "kind" Venti is, even to worry about his "stalkers" (none on the citizens ever were).

Our Xiao has strength to call for help, and Zhongli comes. Gives him the adeptal drink to help stave off the mix of karmic debt and Abyssal Corruption threatening to consume him, too. His only resistance is that he SAW what he becomes if he let it, and that if he doesn't resist Venti WILL get hurt and he'll be helping to hurt him instead of warning him. Once strong enough, he struggles towards Monstadt, hoping he isn't too late.

Back over, Venti is noticing the trend and speaks with Dilic, well aware the man has also been following closely. They make a plan. Diluc pretends to be tipsy and be "too friendly" with Venti, and Venti "leaves." On Diluc's way back to the Dawn Winery, he gets attacked and is READY.

Except he's face to face with a demon. Diluc struggles in the fight, recognize the Abyssal energy his opponent is using. Venti shows up to help (he was tailing Diluc with enough distance), and is horrified to see the state Void Xiao is in, that HE'S the one that had been hurting people. Void Xiao holds Diluc hostage, telling Venti that he's doing what he has to. Doesn't Venti enjoy time with him, too? Doesn't Venti want to be with him? Venti asks him to let Diluc go. Diluc is one of his children, and was just pretending because Venti asked him to so he could find the culprit. He tries to reach out to the last goodness on Void Xiao, not wanting to hurt him but also trying to save Diluc.

Diluc is not blinded by the love that Venti is. He can very well see that Void Xiao is ready to kill Diluc once Venti isn't there to force the corrupted one to save face. He uses his Delusion (in Canon he has the one that killed his father), and the Pyro distracts/hurts Void Xiao enough he can put some distance. Venti helps hold off Void Xiao, and tells Diluc to run. Diluc doesn't want to leave, but Venti goes Full Barbatos and gives that look parents give to their kids to know they can either willingly go to their room or get carried to it. So Diluc runs, but back to Monstadt for backup.

Void Xiao, now terrified he's going to lose Venti again, shifts to more desperate measures. If Venti is corrupted, maybe he'll be safe? Maybe he'll understand? Too far deep into the affects of the Abyssal Corruption to realize this would kill Venti. So Void Xiao pleads - please? Won't Venti hold his hand while he succumbs to karmic debt? Playing on that kindness Venti has. And why would Venti refuse? Warped as Void Xiao is, he still thinks this is his Xiao! Yes, he'll get poisoned, but he'll just go to Windrise again to get cleansed.

Except Void Xiao grabs him, claws in and bites down so Venti can't get away without hang to literally rip the other off. The energy immediately starts trying to seep in, Venti struggling to get away, trying to find how to do so without hurting Void Xiao too much. Void Xiao is whispering it'll be okay, giving the soft kisses he always wanted to give but until then couldn't.

And then Xiao shows up, cutting clean off both Void Xiao's arms to save Venti. It's slow-mo. Venti turning, eyes widening to see his Xiao there, full of exhaustion but there. Xiao glaring at Void Xiao through his mask, more angry that he was killing Venti with cruelty while whispering how much he loved him. Void Xiao, who's eyes never leave Venti even as the corruption forms monstrous arms so he can "save" himself and Venti "from" this timeline's Xiao.

Diluc arrives with Jean, Kaeya, Rosaria, and Lisa (Jean knew, Kaeya and Lisa figured it out, and Rosaria learned about it while tailing Venti when doing her own investigation of the injured/missing citizens). Xiao orders them to get Venti to Windrise, as their best option is Barbatos not dying? But Void Xiao tries to prevent that, and it becomes a battle to not get infected themselves, and getting Venti who's getting weaker to the tree.

It's difficult and long, but they do get to Windrise. Venti gets stronger, Void Xiao gets weaker. And at the end, the last of the Abyssal Corruption leaving a dying Void Xiao, Venti holds him. Gives him those last moments that he never got. Afterwards, he checks on his children, on his Xiao. Everyone is hurt, but not tainted. Before Xiao leaves Venti tells him, "he told me that he regretted never spending time with me, and then it was too late." And then he asks, "Are you the same?" Hopeful that maybe, maybe all that time he spent with Void Xiao wasn't just the influence of Abyssal Corruption. That this isn't one-sided on Venti's part in this time.

"...I would like that." Xiao admits. Because his biggest regret in the Chasm, where he thought he might die... Was that he never spent time with Venti. Never got to be the reason the other smiled, and all this time... Now? He's learning Venti felt the same.

And so they do.

[bigyikes97]

recommend me another depressing Korean gangster movie

>:D

Hmmm hmmm ok so if you say "another", that means you maybe already watched either "The Merciless" or "A Bittersweet Life" or perhaps both, which were the depressing Korean gangster movies I posted about most on here and both of which I very highly recommend...A Bittersweet Life is one of my favorite movies of all time, if not my top fave. In case you watched one but not the other:

A Bittersweet Life - a story about a man who catches one imperfect glimpse of beauty and throws away everything in a inevitable and helpless grasp at something he knows he can never have. I cried at the soundtrack for days after my first watch, haha.

The Merciless - a stylishly shot and perhaps more hardboiled noir about a chosen one who really meant it when he said he shouldn't be the chosen one, which falls apart in a spectacular and heartrending explosion of betrayal, confusion, and devastation. Like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.

These are most definitely my top 2 in the whole world so far, and honestly nothing else really plucks exactly those same chords with me in terms of overall excellence, but here's a few others nonetheless:

A Company Man - More of a straightforward shoot-em-up. Could be taken as either an action flick kinda sorta similar to Bittersweet Life (gangster wants out, gang won't let him go) or a harsh satire of South Korean work culture, which makes it (imho) slightly more interesting. Definitely depressing gangsters, for sure!

The Man from Nowhere - it's more of a vigilante justice/revenge thriller and a lot of people liked it, but unfortunately since it was one of the first in the genre (at least from South Korea), in my opinion it's since been done better. Or maybe I'm just chronically Kdrama-ing so I have more stringent standards, lol. The main lead's looks are to die for though if that's an aspect that appeals to you--and many folks loved it, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes!

The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil - On paper it looks amazing--a brash cop has to team up with a gangster to take down an even bigger criminal, exposing the corruption of the cops and the weird code of honor among the criminals. Usually that's my cup of tea and I came in SO ready to love this movie but...somehow didn't. I don't know why. It even had Ma Dong Seok, who's usually great! However, it got 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe you'll see something about it I missed if you watch it :)

Gangnam Blues - So, I didn't watch this one myself, but it's got Lee Min Ho and a historical-fiction take on the real-life corruption and money/power plays surrounding the creation of the glitzy Gangnam district from a marsh in the 70's, it looks interesting! I'll probably watch it in the future.

Speaking of, Ma Dong Seok is pretty much the go-to guy for Korean gangster movies. He's been in the genre since forever, if you search his name you'll likely find some good ones I haven't heard about.

I don't know if you're interested in extending your search to dramas, but in case you are:

Insider - one of THE best kdramas I've seen, hands down. The set-up is similar to The Merciless in that a guy goes undercover in prison to catch a gangster and ends up forming bonds with a high-ranking member while working on the inside. However, the similarities stop there. I think I binged it in like 3 days. It's gritty and doesn't let up, but the main guy is one of my favorite protagonists ever and the ending was fantastic

Big Mouth - it came out around the same time and also involves a wrongful imprisonment, but with a hilarious twist (along with some Very Not Hilarious ones) that make it a different flavor. I got busy and didn't finish (and also didn't have subtitles while it was airing)

Watcher - This one's more on the one-righteous-cop-vs-corrupt-conglomerate side of things, which will always and forever be my jam. The moody atmosphere and insanely tight writing make this one of my favorites. I've seen it like 4 or 5 times and seem to catch something new each time, the writing is extremely satisfying and there are great female characters too, which I'm all about.

Nobody Knows - I'm watching this one right now and it's also more on righteous detective vs killer side of things, but it's got a fascinating female lead, great characters, consistent plot and great storytelling so far.

Triangle - this one is about gangsters and casinos and is unique because it's one of the WORST kdramas I've EVER seen, but it's so bad it crosses the line right back into good again because it's so freaking funny how everyone manages to act the worst plot and the worst characters with the deepest sincerity. Everyone's gorgeous, which helps. It's funnier if you're a chronic Kdrama enjoyer to see all the worst tropes played out in the funniest ways with dead straight faces. They actually wrote it episode by episode based on viewer feedback and ran out of time at the end because the feedback was conflicting--and BOY does it show in unintentionally hilarious ways.

Bad and Crazy - I LOVE this drama, especially the first act. It's violent and dark, with comedy thrown in, and one of the most interesting and sensitive portrayals of a mental illness on screen that I've ever seen in both American and Korean TV. Yet another righteous-cop-vs-conglomerate plot, my beloved. I'll eat that storyline up each time though.

So that's movies and dramas off the top of my head--if I think of any other good ones, I'll let you know! Happy watching and omg, if any of those tickle your fancy I'd love to hear your thoughts! :D

*Ok, one runner up: From the director of "A Bittersweet Life", "A Tale of Two Sisters" is a psychological horror that is just. so. good. I'm not usually a horror person and I was hooked and think about it all the time, very excellent!

[diazheartsbuckley]

Hello, I’m obsessed with all your snippets I’ve seen for omegaverse and priest au! Today can I ask about when a ‘broken man falls in love’ and ‘In the line of Love - Cop!Eddie/Doctor!Buck AU’???? 💞🦛

Hi Hippo!

Omg, thank you so much. I really appreciate that 💕

Gonna post it under the cut because it suddenly became very long lol

When a broken man falls in love

Okay, so this story is about a lot of past traumas and healing together and Eddie coming to terms with being gay. They meet before he joins the 118 and Buck is the first guy that Eddie has ever dated as he only just came out a few months ago. Eddie is struggling to find a job in L.A., despite his many credentials and he almost reenlists before Buck says that he put in a good word with Bobby. Eddie joins the 118 but struggles to be comfortable with publicly dating a guy and being as open about it and proud about who he is (which Buck really is). And they break up because of it but then something happens to make Eddie realize that this is what he wants and that he can't let his past affect his future. He has a lot of internalized homophobia because his dad is a massive homophobe and is outright disgusted by it. But both Buck and Eddie help each other heal, working through the things that life throws at them while working at the 118. There will be some flashbacks to Eddie's past that reveal a lot about him and why he acts like he does. And let's just say that there will be some very intense buddie moments and some good talks between Bobby and Eddie 👀 Snippet below When Buck enters the locker room, Eddie is sat in front of his locker, head hung low and close to his knees. His knuckles are bloody and bruised in various shades of blue, purple and black. Buck sees the damage to Eddie’s locker, along with the blood in the dented metal. Eddie’s breathing is heavy and his eyes are fixed on the floor, not even reacting when Buck sits down next to him. “Hey, Eds” Buck says in a low voice and Eddie doesn’t react. Not with words at least, he knocks his head back against the bottom of the locker and exhales sharply as he stares blankly ahead of him. “Hey” Buck tries again and touches Eddie’s knee gently but Eddie instantly pulls away. Eddie can feel his eyes welling up but he quickly rubs them with the back of his hands and doesn’t say a word, merely shaking his head a little. Buck backs away to give Eddie the space that he so clearly needs right now and Eddie takes a few deep, slightly shaky breaths to compose himself. After sitting quietly for a few minutes, Eddie turns his head slowly towards Buck and his right cheek is painted in deep shades of red and pin

In The Line of Love

I don't know if anyone even remembers this AU because I haven't posted about it for so long lol, so I'll give a short recap. Bobby and Athena are Buck's adoptive parents, having been in foster care for many years. And Athena just so happens to be Eddie's boss. Eddie and Buck meet at a station barbeque and they start talking when Eddie brings people to the hospital. Then Eddie gets shot and Buck is now his doctor, so they can't date until he's out of the hospital. And then they finally do so in secret, knowing that Athena is skeptical about Eddie as this man has been a bit of a man whore after his divorce, and the whole station knows that he's a hit it and quit kinda guy lol. Oh yeah and Shannon is alive in this one and is friends with Eddie. Eventually something happens at the hospital which is going to be traumatic for buddie 👀 It also has some of the best smut that I've ever written imo Snippet below

“Yes, Eddie. Please fuck me. Baby, please” Buck breathed out and the pet name had escaped his thoughts and went out of his mouth, clearly taking Eddie by surprise. Buck didn’t know if they were at that stage yet and while Eddie had called him pretty boy twice and he had called him angel, what Buck had just called him felt a lot more intimate. To show that he didn’t mind being called baby by Buck, in fact he might’ve liked it a little too much, he kissed the corner of Buck’s mouth before connecting their lips in a passionate yet affectionate kiss. “Shit, Buck. You can have anything you want” Eddie breathed out against his lips and Buck inhaled sharply, the energy changing for a quick moment before he grabbed Eddie’s ass firmly. Eddie reached into the drawer again, scrambling around for a few seconds before he sat back up with a condom in his hand and he ripped it open with his teeth, a skill that he had perfected with time. He rolled it on with one hand, the one holding Buck’s hand above his head and Buck watched his movements in amazement, completely stunned by the sight of Eddie Diaz towering over him. “I just want you” Buck murmured as he watched Eddie positioning himself in between his legs, then guided his cock with his hand. With a soft moan, Eddie slowly pushed into Buck, working into him inch by inch and Buck was twisting and squirming in pleasure beneath him.

Ask me about my wips 💗

[erinthesails]

izzy, pete, power, and queer desire

DISCLAIMER: this was written pre season 2 and i think there will be a lot more to say on the topic once we're through the season, but i wanna post this as-is because there's so much interesting stuff going on in season 1 alone i wanted to think through!

So i've been thinking about Izzy and Pete lately, and as threatened, i've decided to write way too much about the two of them as narrative foils. The more I think about their arcs, seems the more I'm realizing that reading them side-by-side offers a lot of insight into their characters and also what they represent in the story as a whole

Let's get the most obvious comparisons out of the way. Both Pete and Izzy...

Incite incidents aboard the ship with the goal of getting Stede killed

Have a serious sense of ego and an inability to lose gracefully (as well as a heightened sensitivity to what counts as "losing")

Are obsessed with the Legend/Persona of Blackbeard (TM), and reify it as ideal piracy and masculinity

Have a narratively significant relationship with Lucius

As a sidenote, I believe they're also the only two crewmembers (so not including Calico Jack) to explicitly use femininity as an insult ("that's women's work"/"namby pamby" and calling lucius "bitch"), which feels significant given the rest of these traits

Put simply, they're the two characters who start the story very much in the same place, i.e., not on board with the type of piracy Stede is doing, and by extension, the type of masculinity Stede is doing, to the point that they literally want him dead. They end the season, however, in entirely opposite places, which (or so I believe) can tell us something about the way queer desire, masculinity, and power work in the narrative, and I think looking at these 4 shared traits is a really useful way to make sense of that

So let's start from the top...

1. Mutiny

Pete starts the story trying to kill Stede. No, he doesn't get very far, no he doesn't plan it well, but it happens. He explicitly wants Stede dead and a new captain to be elected. It's mutiny, plain and simple, and it's kind of the first overt conflict Stede faces in the whole show.

Izzy tries to kill Stede multiple times, but I think the most relevant to these particular parallels is the takeover by the English Navy at the end. As I see it, the duel was about Izzy trying to restore his sense of "order," which meant Ed in charge and himself positioned as Ed's only confidante. Stede's approach to piracy was a threat in his mind (though not the kind of existential one that some people on here have made it out to be, but I'll get to that later), and by getting rid of Stede, he gets rid of the disruption to status quo.

Calling Ye Olde Cops, on the other hand, is NOT a return to order. Whether or not he had planned for Ed to be aboard the ship, selling Stede out to the authorities meant there could be no return to things as they were. Getting the navy involved threatened everyone on that ship, and he knew that it wouldn't end with Stede executed and the rest of them sailing happily away. Something would have to change, and it seems evident from his comments throughout the show that he's hoping that change will include more power for himself. The deal he made proves it: his "payment" for giving Stede's location is being given captaincy over the Revenge and being given "custody" (yikes) of Ed. Whether he would have willingly returned control of the ship to Ed, we'll never know, but regardless, this is a mutiny in pretty much every sense of the term. He's usurping Stede and Ed both, and taking power for himself.

Notably, these two things come at opposite ends of each character's arc for the season. It's where Pete starts and it's where Izzy ends, and the significance of that, I think, can be traced to two of their defining character traits: ego and idealization of Blackbeard.

A lot has been said about Izzy's reasons for attempting to get rid of Stede, so I do intend to go into more detail about why I think these are the two main factors for both mutinies (and not revolutionary sentiment or safe spaces), but let's get into what I mean by each of these traits first.

2. Ego

Among the first things we learn about both Pete and Izzy is that they're really really really poor sports, and Stede's first crime against each of them is insulting their egos.

Pete, by assigning work and encouraging activities he thinks of as "below" him. Literally the opening scene of the show is Pete fucking up a game of cards for everyone because he's losing, closely followed by him getting unreasonably pissed off by a game of...I'm not even sure what it is, pickleball? Racketball? Giant ping pong?

Izzy, on the other hand, is insulted by being beaten at his own game.

Stede is supposed to be an idiot, beneath him, not even worthy of his notice, and yet he keeps winning! He keeps fucking winning! And what's worse, Blackbeard (and I make a distinction here between Blackbeard and Ed) is taking notice too, and giving this guy attention! Someone else once pointed out that what Stede did in this "ambush" was essentially a fuckery, something the Blackbeard crew does regularly. So it's not so much the method Izzy objects to, it's the fact that he's the recipient of it.

These two are constantly losing from the time we're introduced to them, and making it everyone else's problem.

Their definitions of losing are also heavily influenced by the ideal set by Blackbeard. Whatever their concept of "Blackbeard" is doing, that's what they should be doing, and falling short of that equals failure in their eyes.

3. Blackbeard as Ideal

This hopefully requires little explanation. Pete is the first person to evoke the idea of Blackbeard in the whole show. And though Pete's story is obviously embellished, if not 100% made up, but I think it provides a useful picture of the kind of awe and respect Ed's established around the persona of Blackbeard. We get an image of what the world sees when they look at Blackbeard, and what other pirates think when they think of him. It also establishes that the greatest personal glory Pete can imagine is the approval and acceptance of Blackbeard, something that he continues to chase even as he gets to know Ed as a person.

The same is true of Izzy. He's risen in the ranks so that he no longer has to be just a fanboy, but we know that he joined ed's crew to begin with BECAUSE of his respect for the Blackbeard persona.

Throughout the show, he aggressively corrects people who call Ed his name, insisting he be called Blackbeard--not just because it's who he is, but because Izzy considers Blackbeard a title of respect. In fact, the ultimate title of respect. He's not protecting Ed. He's protecting the image of Blackbeard that inspired him to join the crew to begin with.

When it comes down to it, his respect and loyalty is for Blackbeard, not Ed, and he tells us as much in Episode 10.

For Pete and Izzy, more than any other characters, the ideal of Blackbeard, an ideal that is firmly established through Ed's experiences to have been a toxic one devoid of emotional intimacy and self-worth, is foundational both to their lives as pirates and to their identities as individuals.

4. Mutiny Again

Okay, so we've established that both Izzy and Pete have easily bruised egos and style themselves in accordance with the narrative of piracy that the Legend of Blackbeard tells. So how do we know these are the reasons for mutiny?

Well, in Pete's case, he just literally tells us.

Pete has no practical, material reasons to want Stede off the ship. He's getting paid a salary, he's not asked to do much, he gets to spend his days hanging out and hooking up and whatever else he likes. We're never led to believe that he thinks Stede's leadership is dangerous. On the contrary, he seems pissed that Stede isn't putting them in enough danger! There's no justification given, no web woven, he tells us directly that Stede is dressing them up like fancyboys, denying them the opportunity to pillage and loot and drink and scheme and plot and kill the way that he thinks Blackbeard's crew must be doing. It's ego and the ideal of Blackbeard that drive the mutiny--if it was really about danger or money or safety, he'd just join a different crew. But no, he wants to be the new captain, despite little experience and no real leadership qualities, because that would suit both his ego and his desire to measure up to the standard set by Blackbeard.

But Izzy, I would argue, tells us nearly as directly, most critically in this moment when he explains his betrayal to Chauncey and Jackie:

"Bonnet done something to my boss's brain" seems pretty universally understood to mean "Stede queered him up in a way I don't like." Stede is causing Ed to fall short of the ideal of Blackbeard, to do piracy and masculinity in a way that doesn't track with Izzy's idea of success.

I guess you could argue he's withholding the whole truth from Chauncey, but his response to losing the duel, the precipitating incident of him running off to the Sea Police, is this:

What did we just say about making it everyone else's problem when he loses? The mutiny is an act of revenge against Ed as much as it is against Stede, for the damage done to his ego in losing and for their failure to allow him (again, in his mind) to fulfill the ideal of Blackbeard.

Some people have suggested that Izzy's hatred for Stede, his desire to get him off the ship and restore order, is in service of protecting what he saw as a "safe space," equating piracy with queerness and seeing Stede as someone attempting to gentrify it for mainstream tastes. This pretty clearly is not what's happening. He states his reasons pretty straightforwardly, and even if we want to claim he's not telling Chauncey the whole truth, he has no reason to lie to Ed. His response is to threaten Ed for "allowing" him to face the consequences of loss. A loss that was precipitated pretty directly by his discomfort with Ed's moving away from Blackbeard, and with his fear of the kind of piracy and masculinity that Stede represents.

Izzy's reasons for mutiny are far closer to Pete's than any kind of revolutionary queer sentiment. In both cases, the leadup to mutiny is a) an embarrassment to the ego, and b) an environment that fails to uphold and pursue the Blackbeard persona as ideal.

But Pete, despite his ongoing obsession with Blackbeard, despite his desire for power, despite his ego still being a bit fragile, ends the story thinking positively of Stede, and actively trying to prevent hard from coming to him, while Izzy CONTINUES threatening Ed until he gets a mouthful of toes for his trouble.

The two start from a similar place and experience completely opposite character arcs. So what's the variable here? What causes one to embrace a more flexible, compassionate approach to piracy and the other to deliver a homophobic tirade to Ed's face?

Well, I'd argue it's because of...

5. Lucius

In a show about queerness, masculinity, learning who you are and doing it on purpose, it seems fitting that Lucius—the first character we learn is gay, and the most outspokenly queer, gender-nonconforming person on the ship—be a key turning point in the narrative and in multiple character arcs.

As far as we can tell, Pete's big turn for the better comes right around the time he and Lucius get together. In the first two episodes, he's pretty much complaining continuously about how lame and weak and bad at piracy Stede and the crew of the Revenge are. But after episode 4, when he and Lucius hook up for the first time (that we're aware of, at least), he drops that completely. He wants to impress Ed, of course, but he also asserts that the whole crew should be thought of as "real pirates in the real world," where just a few episodes before, he was making fun of how shitty they all were at the job. Pete's antagonistic toward pretty much everyone until he and Lucius get together.

And, weirdly, Lucius seems to be Izzy's breaking point too. People more eloquent than I have noted the significance of the fact that, after the raid, Izzy targets all the worst of his ire at Lucius: again, the most non-masc, openly queer person on the ship, and his insult of choice is an explicitly gendered one. He catches both Pete and Lucius hooking up, but only targets one of them, and when Lucius steps out of line, it's queer desire that Izzy uses to threaten him ("You've been a proper seductress..."). Izzy, at this point, is living firmly in the world of hegemonic power. Queerness is an ontological evil, an inherent insult. it doesn't cross his mind that anyone would refuse to accept it as such.

When that backfires and Lucius establishes that a) his queerness is not something he's interested in hiding, limiting, or keeping quiet about, and b) no one else on this ship is interested in asking him to do so, something changes in Izzy. He goes from being confident, domineering, aggressive, to impulsive and fearful. That doesn't mean that he's less of a dick, but this run-in with Lucius represents a real change in behavior and attitude.

6. Finally, the Conclusion

Pete and Izzy are very similar character archetypes at their core. They have fragile egos, a commitment to tradition and expectation, a presentation so dedicated to masc gender compliance it borders on the camp. They're both gay men (okay okay maybe this isn't absolutely confirmed for Izzy, but it's literally only barely subtext) who are afraid of expressing queerness and gender nonconformity. And to each of them, Lucius, in all his confident flouting of gendered expectations, his visible and unapologetic queerness, represents something pivotal.

What's interesting, is that I think they both see the same thing, but have wildly different reactions to it. Lucius is their lighthouse.

To Pete, Lucius is a guide. An offer of safe passage, a symbol of other ways to be. A promise that he can be something and somewhere different, and that someone will be there waiting for him when he does. Lucius shows him that queerness can be a beautiful thing, worthy of love.

To Izzy, on the other hand, Lucius represents a deadly warning for all the same reasons. He's a reminder of all the things to be defended against. Queerness are the rocks you crack up on. It's the way to ruin and ruin itself, and the language he uses to describe Lucius, Stede, and Ed in his softer moments proves this. Izzy thinks by breaking down Lucius he can get rid of those rocks, protect himself from the queerness he's afraid to see in himself. Pete realizes that Lucius is just illuminating what's already there (the sketch scene!!! "I'm just recording what's there"!! augh!!).

Izzy's reaction to Lucius represents a concern about the very definitions of proper personhood. Of what consitutes allowable masculinity, allowable piracy. The kind of boundary policing often done by marginalized people with a slice of the world they have power over. Who rather than end that marginalization for everyone, will cling to the piece of power they have (or believe they have). Izzy is a pirate. He's outside traditional systems of power. But he's found stability, power, a way to get ahead of everyone else in rigid enforcement of the social standards that suit him. And by refusing to play by those rules, Lucius represents a breakdown of his sense of order that, I think, leads to so many of his decisions later int he show.

But if Izzy's response to Lucius is terror at the encroachement of the other within his neat borders of acceptability, Pete's is realizing that the definitions and borders themselves are flawed. Lucius is someone he sees beauty in, who he sees love and joy in. And if his definitions of the world require seeing someone like Lucius as lesser, how could those definitions be correct?

These connections between Pete and Izzy are important, I think, because they show what izzy had every opportunity to be! He and Pete had all the same prejudices and all the same chances to examine them, and while Pete learned that queer love has a potential that fear and self-loathing doesn't, Izzy retrenched into a view of the world shaped by fear, homophobia, and self-hate.

Pete is a sign that Izzy could have been different, but he's also a sign that he still can be. I think this show is fundamentally about love, forgiveness, and the capacity for change, which means that Izzy always has the chance to follow Pete's lead, reassess, and recognize that proximity to power won't bring him any closer to happiness

[ichbinmeltdown]

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT "AUTOBOT SPIKE" and I'm going to ramble about them here

Ok first of all let me say I have a very intense love-hate relationship with this episode and might be biased because I'm transhumanist and desperately want to be a robot, no matter what the side effects would be. I also have some knowledge of robotics and computers, so I'll be basing my takes on that. Please correct me if there's anything I got wrong, I really wanna have a discussion about it, I got inspired by someone mentioning this episode on my dash.

Also, spoilers if you haven't seen it.

I hated that they went with the whole "IT'S UNETHICAL TO MAKE A HUMAN A ROBOT!!!!1" angle. I fuckin HATED IT. Honestly, I would do anything to get put in a robot body. If I woke up as a Cybertronian, I'd hug and kiss Wheeljack while crying and thanking him for finally making me strong and beautiful.

First of all, the situation isn't like Frankenstein's monster at all imo because they used spare parts that they presumably had around to replace their own parts with. Honestly Autobot X is on the same level as a less cohesive-looking Dinobot, in terms of how ethical it was to make him. They didn't see anything unethical about creating the Dinobots. They're not "Frankenstein's monsters". Reckless, yes, but reckless doesn't automatically mean "monster". Why was it ok to make the Dinobots but not Autobot X????

Furthermore, they went on later in the season to make the Aerialbots out of DEACTIVATED SHIPS ON CYBERTRON. That's a lot closer to the Frankenstein's monster story! Dead machines being used to make new ones, and having Vector Sigma make fully realized sparks to place into those bodies. Why, again, was it ok to make the Aerialbots but not Autobot X? The lack of Vector Sigma's sparks? The Dinobots didn't get anything from Vector Sigma and the Autobots didn't seem to mind then!

Really the only unethical part of the Autobot X experiment was how irresponsibly the Autobots did it. They made no preparations and then got surprised that things didn't work. Yes, I get that in that instance it might've been an emergency. But Wheeljack just said "FUCK IT WE BALL" and basically threw shit at the wall to see what stuck.

What I find odd is that Autobot X... had a "personality"? IIRC they made him as sort of a walking flash drive to hold any Autobots during repair. That would be like installing Ubuntu to a flash drive and then saying "I'm gonna use this flash drive for my backups". Why didn't they just leave him as a shell? Wheeljack would've had to go out of his way to create an artificial spark. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE WHEELJACK

Honestly though I feel like, the stupidity of him not leaving Autobot X as a big shell body aside, another problem is he didn't prepare the parts. There's no problem with using mismatched parts, as Cybertronians can swap their own parts out if they get damaged just like a real-life robot could. The best comparison here is when you see those cars IRL that have a door or hood or whatever that's a different color than the rest of the car. It still works, it just looks a little funky. But Wheeljack made ABSOLUTELY NO PREPARATIONS. He and the other Autobots just welded Autobot X together and said "oh well good enough". In my interpretation, Cybertronians have drivers for their bodies so they can work properly- drivers for their optics, speech synthesizers, microphones, each part of their motor system, etc. There was absolutely no indication that Wheeljack went through and transferred over the proper drivers- even then he would've had to edit them because, for example, a cop car's locomotion drivers would be way different from a Jeep's. All these different drivers in one memory bank would... Well, if you've seen driver conflicts on a real computer it's BAAAAAAAAAD. Crashes galore. That's probably why when Autobot X was first booted up he went berserk. The poor mech was in immense pain from his drivers clashing. And then they subjected Spike to that pain too. I can only imagine how bad it would hurt if your entire body was trying to go in different directions at once- and how scary it would be if you tried to move your right arm only for your left knee to bend backwards.

And speaking of conflicts... They not only put Spike's brain on his hardware without making a backup copy (if they could put a human's brain in Cybertronian bodies, presumably they could just... make a backup to keep on Teletraan I? Like in a zip file? I mean... what if someone tripped over the cord and accidentally made Spike unlearn English or forget how to breathe?! BACK UP YOUR DATA, FOR PRIMUS'S SAKE!!! It's like playing with the Windows registry!) but they also put it there when Autobot X already had sentience! Since they transferred Spike's brain over, I assume that they digitized it and turned it to files. However, they didn't port his "code" to the native Cybertronian programming language- it's just raw data of whatever human consciousness looks like to Cybertronian hardware. Then they stuck it there when there was already data, albeit garbage data, in Autobot X's memory banks. Helloooooooo, file system conflicts! "We have these super critical files that we can't risk messing up. ... LET'S JUST HAPHAZARDLY SHOVE THEM INTO RANDOM FOLDERS IN SYSTEM32, HIT YES TO EVERY OVERWRITE DIALOGUE AND THEN PLAY WITH THE REGISTRY! It'll be so much fun!!" - Wheeljack, probably

If they had made the proper preparations, this would've gone over without a hitch imo and the Autobots didn't need to wring their hands so much about the ethical implications. It would be like having someone who was born without several organs and missing all four limbs get donated organs and limbs.

Basically, here's what Wheeljack needed to do.

MAKE A BACKUP OF SPIKE'S BRAIN IN CASE THE WASTE SLUDGE HITS THE FAN

Analyze his brain to check how his own brain communicates with his body so he can optimize the drivers

Port Spike's brain into Cybertronian programming language

Wipe Autobot X's memory banks so there's no leftover garbage data

Tweak each of the robot parts' drivers to play nice with one another

Then and only then can you install Spike's brain.

That's why I'm gonna write a fic where one of my human OCs (who's an animatronics engineer actually) discovers Autobot X and begs the Autobots to try the experiment again with the proper preparations because he, more than anything, wants to be a robot.

I could be totally wrong about all this and forgetting some detail that changes everything, if I am do let me know, sometimes I'm just kinda stupid like that XDD

PS: Autobot X looks badass, I don't know why they all thought he was ugly. I love his mismatched aesthetic. Honestly the whole concept kinda reminded me of my old pre-Transformers robosona, MAV1S. She was left unfinished by her creator and had to build herself with whatever parts were lying around and sure, she does look kinda unsettling because she doesn't have a mouth and her limbs are bare, but Autobot X is made of fully completed parts, just mismatched like a car with 4 different colored doors.

TLDR: The Autobot X project wasn't any less ethical than the Dinobots or Aerialbots. The project only failed because Wheeljack and Sparkplug were negligent as hell.

[orbiorbster]

THE GALLAGHERS REVIEW PART 1: FIONA GALLAGHER

(Gonna start this by saying that I have recently finished the show in terms of s1-9 and will include opinions I have on it, but these reviews will only focus on each person in the Gallagher household and their romantic relationships. Part of this is also to kick off discussion so if I missed something or someone lmk!)

This show has one of the strongest plots to a dramedy I think I've ever seen. From its characters to its stories to the way it depicts the struggles of lower class for those in a large city, most of the show worked in a clever format made just for it. Even though Frank is the ambassador of what it's trying to represent, I take Fiona as the most rounded of the family. In fact I believe she is the true main character. Every gallagher is a protagonist but she herself is the center.

Even without her caretaker role in the family, she's one of the few characters I can say consistently grows and develops as a character. Each of her relationships-both good and bad-reflect back to her as a person and where she's at. Her flaws were dimensional and her conflicts with others were justified. Plus she's a damn good older sister character that I feel a lot of people could relate to.

I also feel that the mistakes she makes as a character hit harder than most of the others because of just how much effort she puts into breaking the cycle her parents included them in yet she falls right back into. Progress being nonlinear is a brutal realization she represents greatly.

I would say I have less grievances with her and more with the pacing and time given between her and her relationships, so I'll get into those now-

JIMMY/STEVE

Do I think Jimmy's persistence to be with her was sweet? Not really! Do I believe he was one of the bests to her? Not even close! But do I believe he was one of the bests? Yes

The thing with Fiona's exes is that they either lack compatibility or lack personality, and though he didn't treat Fiona exactly the best or even regarded her needs in certain situations, he is the best in terms of personality. When he left for good his absence was as clear as day because no one had the same charm or screen time. You would consider him a seperate character with his family interconnecting with the Gallaghers. He had such an interesting impact on the show which I enjoyed watching, but don't believe it was good for Fiona.

TONY

Tony was sweet and also a natural integration into how the Gallaghers originally get out of their degenerate crimes. Like of course one of them has a close connection with a cop in order to bail them out of serious shit, and of course that same cop protecting Fiona and her family would be the competitor to the bad boy who wants Fiona regardless. However he felt more like a tool for their plots than a fully rounded person. His family was just offscreen mentions, and he only returned to the picture when something was needed.

He also has a caring affection toward his community, which is surprising considering he's a cop in downtown Chicago. I knew he wasn't any real competition.

ADAM

V was absolutely right he's 100% the discount Jimmy. He's just alright, I forgot he even really existed. I can only give grace because his compatibility was in a means to help strengthen Fiona's conflict. He represented Fiona's struggle to let go of Jimmy and that independence outside of the kids she truly yearns for. Like finally a male character being the support tool for a female lead.

MIKE

Mike has the opposite problem of Jimmy. I don't think he stands out very well compared to the rest of the ex cast, but I'm gonna be honest he's truly the best relationship Fiona ever really had. He wasn't just a symbol for what she wanted or needed either, he actually got along quite well with her. He's a lot better than Adam and I felt their connection was going to mean a lot like FINALLY a real relationship that can fight with Jimmy. Too bad she fucked that up

ROBBIE

Fuck this asshole for being a really good affair arc. I personally don't like affair arcs because their cliche at this point but they threw this one out of the park. He didn't even get a lot of screen time, but here I could tell it was intentional, because his impact was what's really important. He showed Fiona she still wasn't ready for that full independence because it requires accountability that none of the Gallaghers had. He also showed that disastrous cycle of her family she's managed to avoid for years. Just because she was the best caretaker for the rest of the family doesn't mean she still wasn't psychologically impacted by their behavior. From ending things with Mike to the drugs left with Liam her character needed this wakeup call as a way to continue her growth.

GUS

This is when the pacing for her relationships began to stumble a bit. Not to say that Gus was a terrible one, but the contribution he had to Fiona wasn't there. Yes he was meant for Fiona to learn her impulsiveness and accountability still needed time to learn, but how it went about wasn't necessarily amazing or anything. That plus Jimmy felt out of nowhere. Like the scene where she finally lets Jimmy go was amazing, but that seasons story had nothing to do with it, more so the previous ones helping build this up. Also he is written to be antagonistic after, but his actions are a little justified.. Fiona started this and their pettiness is what made it continue. Instead of Gus leaving for tours, or the other characters telling us how to feel about him, they could've taken the time to show how his personality wasn't nearly as great as Fiona expected and her rose tinted glasses needed to be ripped off the right way. That would've helped with the relationship after.

SEAN

I NEEEEED JUSTICE FOR HIM. It irritates me so much how much they built on him just for him to be thrown out like another Jimmy when he's NOT. What about him or his personality showed that he would've abused drugs for that long without telling Fiona? HE ALREADY TOLD FIONA?? Then what showed he would straight up lie about it?? The entire point of him not wanting to be with Fiona in the BEGINNING was his truth in the struggles to stay sober, and yet FIONA grew and maintained herself for him then vice versa. We already had this together. He was (at first) honest all the way about his conflicts and it was Fiona who had to learn to open up and actually communicate instead of wanting to immediately axe what they had.

What I believe should've really happened is, yes, Frank still does continue to ruin the wedding, but either A) let the paid killer actually go through (esp since they REALLY wanted us to consider it, being a cliffhanger and everything) or B) have it just be a LIE to RUIN the wedding and have Fiona's family antics be the ultimate reason a relationship ends. She even says in the first season most men see how her and her family are and can't stand it by a year, yet NONE of the previous exes really show that. Sean also doesn't want his kid to truly interact with all of them, let alone integrate them as family in law? Right here would've worked so perfectly to say that Fiona's attachment and their dynamic had to be changed.

FORD

Quite literally the same problem as Sean except he doesn't even have a personality. He's not even subtle in representing a reflection of Fiona, he's just a lesson for her to learn. The end of their relationship means not a thing. He was as clear as a wine glass he had nothing to do with children. If he had a struggle with his previous wife, what is the point of making more? He slept with a lesbian for what purpose, writers, what purpose. He gets upset at Fiona and her flakiness for what purpose. If the only personality trait you give him is HONEST and RELIANT, him lying about a wife and child he doesn't care about makes NO sense. Again, use this time to give Fiona a chance at reflection, that it is ultimately HER decisions and HER failures that ruin a relationship. If you're not gonna make a dimensional character have them support the real one! That would make her downward spiral more realistic! She can find another tinder date, writers, please!!!

Everyone else I do not feel has the importance of the above. They are either summary of Fiona's character or are not a real relationship.

CONCLUSION

Fiona is an amazing character, but her relationships and their pacing could've used more work if they truly wanted to have them. She had a lot to add on the message and stories they wanted in this show, and her departure of the show was imo the real goodbye.

[basmathgirl]

Hey ya!! How do you do? Have you been enjoying the new season so far of DW?

Also!! Completely unrelated (sorry for all the messy thoughts all over the place, audhd is kicking my bum rn) but have you by any chance watched Bridgerton?? People on twitter are calling Polin (Penelope and Colin) the equivalent of Tendonna, and i was wondering if ot ever crossed your mind writing something regency-ish era with 10 (or 14) and Donna? I know for sure i would love to see a bridgerton au about them haha

Have a great week!!

Hello kind Anon

I'm enjoying the new series/season quite a lot, thanks. I hope you are doing so too.

Sorry your ADHD brain is running you around in circles. I'm used to coping with pensioner speech and the butterfly flitting of topics of conversation; so I don't mind in the slightest if you go on to something unrelated.

I've watched S1 and S2 of Bridgerton but won't be able to watch S3 until I can convince hubby to regain Netflix (we were an addition on my son's account but he cancelled it when they wouldn't let him access it). But I have read the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn (might not have spelt her name right so will have to come back and correct it later). Now, in the book, there is definitely no TenDonna vibe between Penelope and Colin whatsoever. Perish the thought. In the book he and other suitors only bother to look in Penelope's direction because she has magically lost weight - we are told she lost all that podginess but given no idea how or why it happened - which felt like a complete cop out to me. I was hoping Penelope would be loved for who she is but instead we got the usual "only slim girls can be loved" crap you get in romantic novels.

For that reason alone I'm keen to see how the TV series handles it.... pun unintended.

Now, I have intended to write a Regency-ish 10 or 14 and Donna story. Have posted one that sort of fits the bill, and am part way through writing another. Both are Jane Austen AUs, btw. As for doing a Bridgerton AU, I'm not sure I could manage to find that many lemons for them to constantly drink lemon juice (where the f*ck did that expensive habit come from in London Society? Getting orange juice was quite a treat) or be able to force myself to call the upper classes "the Ton". For some reason that really grated on my nerves when reading the books. And I've even seen other American authors use the term recently in other historical romances.

Now I've read absolutely loads of romance books over the past *mumble mumble* decades, including ones set in Regency London, and had never come across the ever-flowing lemon juice favoured by the Ton until I encountered Bridgerton. Hmm. Almost makes me suspect they took a slice of America and dumped it in fictional London.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Or flippant. I'll let you know later when the pain I'm currently in has buggered off.

Anyway, for all my griping, I'm not ruling such an AU out. Just let me get one of my versions of Persuasion done first and I can properly think about it. If you want to coerce/bribe me with images (manips or artwork) by all means throw them my way, as I find such things very inspirational. Honest I do.

I hope you have a great week too!

[the-stove-is-divorced]

Okay. What are your opinions on these three things from the choose violence ask game:

the character everyone gets wrong

3. a screenshot/description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

If you want to ramble, I'll be listening!! Love hearing people's opinions!! Have fun!!

OMG TYSM for the asks!!! :D ALRIGHT LET'S GO!

1) I feel like in general comic characters will get the higher chances to being wildly out of character because their own comic authors won't even know what they fuck they're even doing, so Imma just say all Batman + Bat-vigilantes gt done so god damn dirty. Rest under the cut 'cause I ramble a ton, haha!

I can't speak for all of them, so I'll just speak for Batman because have you seen comics where they make Batman, of all characters, actually abusive? HUH. WYDM??? He's been one of my fav characters ever since I was young, so I feel so passionately about it! In terms of fanfic/fandom, people can have their fun with characterizations obliviously, I'm not a writing cop, but too good of a Dad!Bruce and too bad of a Dad-like figure!Bruce always irks me. He should be trying his best at his core but still fucking it up anyway.

(That and Jason Todd, I do not have the evidence to back it up but I want to someday, but I am squinting at his character and his dynamics with others. I can't speak on it though, I've fallen into writing fanon much to my distaste or just inexperience.) But a someone who tried to find literally every Bruce Wayne-centric fanfic on the planet,,, y'all do this man so dirty.

2) Unfortunately do not have screencaps because for my own sanity I legit blocked the user, but there is legit someone who watched Invincible and blamed the protag Mark for "not training". I don't know if you've seen the show, but if you had, you would know you'd have to be fucking brain dead to legitimately have that take or just rage baiting. To make a long story short, the plot is legit set up in a way where Mark's father barely trains him, Mark unknowingly enters fights WAAAAAY above his skill level and barely survives, and the only opportunity for him to train is to try not to die through his own experiences. You do see him improve, but it's entirely on his own because he has no other way.

25) I think I stick to my own little corners for a lot of fandom tbh, so I can't think of one! Maybe, like, "Bruce Should've Killed Joker" or "Bruce Should Kill Takes", if any!

I feel like people forget a) not killing is Bruce's thing! He doesn't see any use for it, and to me, is a fundamentally hopeful character who always wants someone have the ability to be redeemed. Who is he to decide to who lives and who dies? Where is the line drawn?

Then b) Bruce kills joker, okay now what? Joker could get replaced by a copy-cat wannabe who does even worse things. Batman is probably going to hang up his coat, because there is one line he's not going to cross and he crossed it. He's not going back to play a hero, it would fuck him up so bad. You ruined a perfectly good Batman, that's what you did. Where's the league gonna get their funding, now?/j

C) If he doesn't want to kill, why should he be made to? He has the write to set a boundary. Killing isn't the end all be all solution here, especially not for crime.

TYSM FOR THE ASK!

[inspector-montoya-fox]

someone recently liked this post and i re-read it and honestly Sly 4 could have potentially been so phenomenal. i'll be the first to admit that i go grr and then zzz (in that order) when someone starts pitching their own idea for an entire game like how we all collectively loathed the announcement for that fanmade game remember that? i'm giving this disclaimer not because this post is gonna be like fanfic or anything but because i'm gonna be suggesting a lot of ideas. so with that out of the way let's briefly discuss the potential of Sly returning in 2013

SP set up such an interesting dynamic between Sly and Carmelita, where he lied first so she lied second but unbeknownst to her he knows she lied. the next game could have focused on that and that alone; at its core, Sly has always been a morality tale and lies are so divisive in terms of ethics. the central theme would be lies, but it wouldn't be explored just through the lens of Sly and Carmelita's relationship. although Bentley knows Sly lied about his amnesia, we never see if Murray does and that'd be interesting to see how someone who wears their heart on their sleeve accepts this (or doesn't). also, instead of getting the bullshit TiT "Sly lied so his gf is really angry with him", when Carmelita confronts him once the truth is out how would Sly bring up her lie? would he use it with spite, kinda like two wrongs don't make a right ? or would he be solemn because despite the lies, their relationship was what they both wanted. Sly and Carmelita's conversations usually follow the consistent pattern of him being witty and flirty and her trying to shut him down, but what if the roles were reversed because of this massive revelation? Carmelita usually has a comeback ready so how does she react when she's caught off guard?

the story would have to deal with the direct aftermath of Carmelita's lie. how would Interpol react when Carmelita pulled up with Sly like 'this is my partner ok' ? and if Barkley accepted this and recruited Sly as an Interpol officer, how would things play out after? in the original post linked above, @pixieluver suggested a tutorial for the game where you play as Sly undergoing police training and i personally find that so genius like can you imagine?? the game starts off with Sly's final Interpol exam or something as the game teaches the player the basics through a police test course and by the end Sly could catch like a breather or something to monologue and catch the player up to speed with the story after the series' 8 year hiatus. it's like undoubtedly an amazing idea

in this imaginary game, Sly has to deal with being on both sides of the law as well as eventually telling Carmelita the truth and the climax would centre around if their relationship could get past this. the exploration between black and white, the grey zone, would be more explicit than ever in the series. what happens when we experience being an Interpol officer through the eyes of Sly? how does he interpret the law and how loosely could he act on his interpretation whilst under his amnesiac facade? he could be more lenient as an authority figure but also him stepping into Carmelita's shoes could bring about some reflection. oh and would he have a shock pistol because i never knew i needed shock pistol/cane combo gameplay until now.

from Carmelita's side, how invested is she in her job? is being a cop part of her personality? can she reduce it down to an occupation and separate it from her personal beliefs? having now experienced the "reality" of being with Sly, would it be more difficult for her to draw the line once shit hits the fan? and circling back to the main theme, is she lying to herself? catching Sly was her career's goal so once she invites him into her personal life, especially in such an intimate capacity, how can she separate the two again? let's bring in the reality of how male-dominated the police force is: maybe Barkley and rest of Interpol are constantly on her case for bringing Sly Cooper into their circle. and maybe they wouldn't buy that Sly is amnesiac.

the main villain could be someone who knows Sly's secret and is threatening to expose him, pressuring him to tell the truth. we've had some pretty evil and ruthless villains in the series but rarely is there an element of mystery, so this could potentially be someone pulling the strings behind the scenes Penelope. let's have a villain who might not be 100% evil, like a sympathetic Justice for All villain à la Ini Miney or Acro. i doubt the gang are the only morally ambiguous characters so why not a villain the player can empathise with but who is also undoubtedly up to not good. we've kind of explored that with Panda King but i feel like after A Cold Alliance it was treated a bit like whatever. anyway, each episode could revolve around getting closer to the truth and finding out the identity of this mastermind by getting rid of his connections, who are like smaller crooks and "bad guys". each level would have the duality of cop missions and classic missions, with Carmelita and Interpol becoming increasingly suspect of Sly.

in closing i want to briefly touch on the fact that this would come out in 2013 instead of TiT: we were really in the midst of the departure from 3D platformers as first person shooters became more and more creative that year (The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, GTA V). maybe Sly 4 coming out back then was a bit premature? like in comparison to the late 2010s/ early 2020s where we saw like a small bump in nostalgia with the Crash trilogy in 2017 or the Sly reference in the new Ratchet and Clank. i don't know if a hiatus longer than 8 years would cause a loss of interest but my brain hurts and my heart aches when i try to think about a world where TiT never came out.