#i could literally ramble on about this topic for days on end

[headroom-moods]

When you realize it, Tim was never the other woman— it always has been Lucy.

[gibbearish]

a weird little thing abt me is i will definitely mock shitty ai art but it never feels right doing it about the hands simply by virtue of the fact that a lot of them look indistinguishable from the hands i was doing years ago when i first got a drawing tablet

[typing-catastrophe]

could you write a stanford pines x reader headcanon where the reader is an artist and always draws him and draws in his journals when he isnt looking? maybe he talks to the reader about the drawings and they get really flustered i dunno!!! <3

oohhh! yeesss, that's a great idea! thank you anon ^^ hope this is okay, enjoy!

1.2k words, no warnings --------------------------------------------------

Your little habit started out even before Stanford came back. Dipper saw you sketching in your notebook from time to time, and asked you to draw something for him in the journal. He handed it to you and pointed next to a text he'd written about some anomaly (maybe a Manotaur or the Pterodactyl). First you were unsure, how would you feel if someone randomly decided to draw in your sketchbook? But it actually seemed really fun, and you didn't want to disappoint Dipper. Also it was in the spirit of research and preserving observations. And honestly, what were the odds the mysterious author would ever show up again?

With that attitude you began, whenever you got the chance to, to doodle yours and the twins encounters with the countless strange phenomena in gravity falls into the journal.

Well, oops? Seemed like the universe decided that not long after you started doing so, it was the right time for the author to come back.

It wasn't a big deal really, Dipper kept the journal for most of the time and Ford told him that he liked the additions he made. You weren't sure if he only meant the notes Dipper added, or if he even knew that someone else drew the newly added creatures.

It didn't take long for you and Ford to get to know each other better and spend more time together. Literally everything about him was just so fascinating. From the way he talked about his dimensional travels, anomaly hunts and research, his interest in a shared hobby of yours (dd&md), to the way he held himself. And, even if you were a bit embarrassed to admit it, his looks.

You couldn't help it, he was captivating. So to no surprise, one day you found yourself sitting on the shack's porch, looking over at Ford standing in the yard, working away at something that was too bulky for the basement. You didn't even realise what you were doing until something startled you out of your thoughts and you looked down at your sketchbook, seeing a familiar figure on the open page.

And then it happened again, in the lab. He was explaining away, deeply invested in whatever topic he was rambling about, not really taking in his surroundings. You had started out just sketching his study, but somehow he turned out to be the main focus of it.

One evening you found yourself in the living room of the shack. Ford was sitting on the floor, which was almost entirely covered in graph paper. You had joined him while he prepared the next campaign session, the tv quietly proving some background noise. While he was franticly scribbling away sheet after sheet, you propped open your notebook and began sketching some of the characters that came to your mind. Ford's, Dipper's and your characters and some npcs you encountered on your travels. But looming over all of them, half hidden behind the dm-screen, the scheming face of the man before you took his shape.

The end of the evening was rather blurry, you remembered falling asleep on the floor and being carried to bed, half asleep in someone's arms.

"hmm thank you", is all you could mumble when you felt the soft pillow under your head.

"No problem, dear", you heard a deep voice chuckle.

-

When you thought about it the next morning, a smile crept unto your face and you kinda wished, you would've been more awake, so you could've enjoyed the moment properly.

The smile was quickly wiped off though, when you realised that you must've left your sketchbook in the living room, given that Ford probably didn't bring it with him last night. You panicked and jumped out of bed, stumbling to the door when your gaze was caught by something. Your sketchbook, laying on your desk. You exhaled, glad it didn't lay around for anyone to see. You took it into your hands and opened it to the last page you were working on. But instead of the drawing from yesterday evening, only the one before that stared back at you. Confused, you turned the pages a few times, examined it, maybe someone ripped it out? No, no remnants of a torn out page....

Then, it dawned on you. You left your notebook in your room yesterday. You didn't plan on staying or even going to the living room. God knows how you ended up there, but it definitely was without your sketchbook. Which could only mean one thing...

In record time you were out the door, down the hall and in the living room. Right in time to take in the scenery of Ford staring down at his campaign notebook, opened to the page of your drawing.

"Ahh!! No no don't look!", you jumped forward and put your hands over the drawing. Ford furrowed his eyebrows, looking quite puzzled.

"This? Oh I already saw it last night after getting you to bed. It is incredible!"

Your cheeks heated up. "Oh" was all you could utter.

"It was also you who added the depictions of the twin's adventures, right?"

"Uhmm" You didn't keep your passion for drawing a secret, but you also didn't make a big deal out of it. And honestly, the way Ford was always so indulged in his own mind, you didn't think he was paying much attention to what you were doing. Now you felt a bit stupid for believing he wouldn't connect the - admittedly - obvious dots.

"They really are marvellous. And this?", he gestured to yesterdays page "Truly phenomenal!"

You didn't know what to say. You weren't even sure if you could say anything at all. All you felt was blood rushing to the tips of your ears and a flaming hot sensation in your cheeks.

"I- well uhm, thank you", you managed to stutter "I uh, I actually didn't mean to- uhm, use your campaign book. It was a mistake, I'm sorry."

"You've got to be joking! It's the perfect addition!" Ford exclaimed. "Do you mind if I keep it?"

"Oh", his enthusiasm caught you off guard. "I-, I guess not. Actually, that would mean a lot to me." you admitted sheepishly.

"Very well then! Thank you, dear." He looked at you with a fond expression.

You were about to retreat back to your room, turning around ready to leave, when Ford spoke up again, the smile apparent in his voice. "I also liked your artistic rendition of the twins adventures. Anything else you want to show me?" You froze.

Your heart started beating ridiculously fast. Did he knew? Did he notice you staring at him while drawing? Your thoughts started racing, but came to a sudden halt when he leaned down. His lips were almost touching your ear when he started to whisper.

"Maybe another time." And with that he walked by you, leaving you to yourself.

-------------------------------------------------- thank you for reading <3 reblogs are appreciated

a/n: if you want a second part with romance and/or where ford discovers the drawings of him, let me know! Have a nice day/night!

[bicth-and-in-that-order]

Rambling thoughts of various Yuri manga I’ve read

1. Kase-San and Yamada (Morning Glories sequel series) by Hiromi Takashima

notice how Kase’s name is first, which is representative of her being the main one to cause problems in their relationship

If you asked me what my favorite yuri manga was like 2-3 years ago, I’d say Morning Glories and Kase San everytime. Every avid yuri fan has either read or watched Morning Glories because, at the time in 2010, it was groundbreaking, and I stand by the fact that the original series still holds up to this day. It was cute, sweet, wholesome and only had a few obligatory “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” moments. Most of all it wasn’t a pseudo-incest-straight-male-porn-pandering-garbage-fest—also known as “Citrus”. Was it cliche at times? Yes, but they all are lol. Did they add to the dumb ass “blonde femme and dark hair masc” trope? Also yes. But it was adorable and it was my first ever yuri so it holds a special place in my heart.

And it SEEMED like it was only going to get better in Kase San and Yamada, the sequel. The girls would be heading to college and the story could theoretically focus on more mature topics while they navigate their new relationship. Keyword: theoretically. Unfortunately, instead of exploring interesting relationship dynamics and storylines, the plot of each story arc boils down to: Kase is insecure because a man breathed next to Yamada or Kase is being completely insensitive to Yamada’s feelings…again…—> ✨miscommunication drama ✨—>big over dramatic apology scene—>boring makeup sex or other romantic gesture.

Literally that’s how every single plotline goes. Kase is so goddamn dumb and insensitive to Yamada’s feelings and Yamada’s a complete doormat who can only stay mad for 0.2 seconds before getting pussy whipped like a spineless ass bitch. And for all that Yamada sacrifices for Kase; her hometown, her dreams, her apartment, what does she get in return from Kase? Oh that’s right; bare minimum romantic gestures and a neglectful partner who can’t even call her “girlfriend” in front of others:

Like I thought we were over this shit. It’s been THREE years of them together, a whole anime production, and god knows how many irl years and we’re going back to “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” WHY???

And then Kase later goes onto bet her entire three year relationship over the ugly bitch in the next panel, so now I’m questioning whether or not Kase even loves Yamada with the amount of bullshit she’s put her through. Which COULD be an interesting plot point, but Kase never gets any consequences for her actions and the creator genuinely thinks this is romantic and full of tension so I’m 10000% positive that this arc, just like all the others, will end with some makeup sex and we’ll be right back to step 1. Sigh.

2. Tamen De Gushi by Tan Jiu

Tamen De Gushi’s problems are interesting but it’s NOT because of the Chinese government💀

So today’s dark haired masc and blonde femme of the day are Sun Jing and Qiu Tong, respectively. Their personalities aren’t anything to write home about, if you read ANY high school yuri romance, then you know exactly what happens in this story beat for beat. But, BUT, however derivative it is, I find their dynamic very endearing and down to earth. Idk maybe it’s just the translation, but other yuri stories often have this very inauthentic “anime” vibe to it. Which is to say the characters act very cutesy, overly dramatic, and have this stilted, caricature-esque acting of how the creator thinks teenage girls are supposed act.

However, I’m happy to report that Tamen De Gushi is a breath of fresh air in this regard. The characters and interactions they have are grounded and feel organic, which makes them feel like real people, not aliens pretending to be human. This really elevates the humor in turn, oh did I mention that Tamen De Gushi is super funny? Because Tamen De Gushi is super funny, here’s one of my favorite panels and it’s all because of Sun Jing’s goofy ahh expression:

Like go girl give us nothing

If you’re wondering why I haven’t spoke much about the actual romantic relationship between the girls, that’s because there isn’t one💀 Which, okay, that’s not a fair assessment, they have a ton of romantic tension and they flirt a lot. It’s certainly building to a great romantic relationship, but it can’t quite get there due to legal/political reasons sadly. 😔

Edit: I received new information in regards to what happened to Tamen De Gushi. While I reached my limit for posting pictures, I want to point out that the Chinese government had nothing to do with Tamen De Gushi getting censored, rather it was a dispute between the author and the publishing company. The prior information I received was false and I prob should’ve looked it up more so sorrrry. The fact still remains though that after their big lesbian kiss towards the middle of the story and maybe a few other moments, that’s just kind of it. You’re stuck waiting for something to develop, but nothing really happens. The comic very quickly becomes a collection of slice of life segments and cute pictures that imply a relationship between the girls, but not really ;) ;).  Now things are just kind of left in purgatory for the foreseeable future and, well, that’s Tamen De Gushi y’all.

Compared to Kase San and Yamada, the characters were much better, which is not saying much, but without an actual romantic storyline, there’s just not a lot for me to comment on to be honest. It’s really pretty though, look at this art :

3. Beauty and the Beast Girl by Neji

my personal favorite and the BEST yuri I ever read

So next on the list is Beauty and the Beast Girl (I’m going to abbreviate to BatBG from here on) , which I already spoiled my feelings on the matter so this will basically be me gushing about this story for several paragraphs straight, enjoy.

Contrary to what the title suggests, it really has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast’s story except in name. The main girls are Lily Blind, who is actually fucking blind 💀 and Heath the monster girl. Already I���m happy because instead of blonde femme and dark hair butch, it’s blonde femme and of-course-you-have-purple-hair-and-pronouns masc. Lol, all jokes aside, Lily, unlike her blonde femme counterparts is quite assertive and voices her opinions all the time. In fact, she’s the one who pushes Heath to be more open and communicate with her rather than the other way around. This is, in part, due to the story BatBG is trying to tell. I say BatBG is in name only to Beauty and the Beast because Lily isn’t trying to find the “beauty” within Heath or learning to love a beast or whatever, she’s fine just the way she is and her love for Heath is unconditional. Plus the only thing beastly about Heath is her appearance…which I’ll harp on later, but her behavior is in no way different from a regular human except in very rare, specific moments.

At its heart, BatBG is a story about forgiveness (the creator literally says as much) , but it’s also about the cycle of violence that results from being outcasted and deprived of love. BatBG is set in a world of humans and monsters, where the monsters are outcasted and either have to stay away from human society like Heath or assimilate themselves by hiding away their monster like traits, which is a really queer narrative on top of an already queer story. I don’t want to go into too much spoilers, but sometime before the beginning of the story, Heath in-directly hurts Lily before they ever meet. However, it’s not about Lily needing to forgive Heath, or trying to get over the pain she inflicted upon her, rather its Heath learning to forgive herself and in effect, learning to love herself as much as Lily loves her.

Another big aspect of BatBG is disabilities, Lily Blind is in fact Blind lol and while there are times she struggles with her blindness, she never views her disability as something she needs to be ashamed of and never, ever, blames Heath for it or holds it against her unlike what many, many, many, many other stories end up doing. Her blindness isn’t treated like a super power either, it’s a legitimate disability. She just accepts that it’s a part of her and goes onto say that if not for her blindness, she would’ve never met the love of her life, which I found to be an incredibly profound thing to say.

Now that I’ve gotten this far, I suppose I can add a bit of a disclaimer. So BatBG is waaaaay more explicit about the physical affection between the girls than in any of the previous stories I talked about. Heath and Lily are constantly kissing on, hugging, and almost always flirting with each other, and make no mistake, these girls do be fucking. The sex scenes are never perverted or gross, but genuinely super sweet and romantic, which makes it way hotter imo (huh imagine that🤔). And aside from being hot, it also serves a purpose! Lily’s pretty damn horny underneath all her nice girl antics and while it’s not a major part of her character, it does give a slight edge to her personality and, most importantly, balances out the dynamic between Heath and Lily. It would’ve been very easy to fall into that boring trope where Heath is aggressively horny and Lily is the submissive blind girl, but by making Lily be the one to initiate the sexual encounters, it not only compliments Heath’s more reserved nature, but breaks the stereotype that people with disabilities are pure precious being who couldn’t possibly have sex, which is ableist af btw. Many people think the existence of any sex scenes at all is superfluous, but in BatBG, it truly elevates the story, the characters, and the romance in ways that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying without it.

Now, with as much praise I gave BatBG, there is one criticism I have, but it’s a quibble really, and it can be explained in a single image:

There is a dissonance between the story and the art, the story says: “Heath is a big, ugly scary monster”

The art says:

And like yes, it can be argued that Heath is simply regurgitating the things bigoted people have said to her, but at no point in the story is this ever challenged or brought up in any meaningful way. Lily is blind so she doesn’t know what the hell she looks like and the other characters aren’t any help either. It’s not a big deal or anything, it just would’ve elevated the story if Heath was actually kinda ugly/more monstrous and not incredibly beautiful because right now it’s giving skinny girl who calls herself fat all the time, and it’s like, babe, who tf are you fooling? 😭

Other than that, BatBG is incredibly profound despite its premise being so deceptively simple and I love it to pieces so …yeah! READ IT.

4. Superwomen in Love! Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit by sometime

Well, at least there are no blondes

So imma just abbreviate to SiL btw

Alright, let’s get started. The premise is that a villainess falls for the super hero girl and then that plotline is dropped in about 16 pages. I’m not even joking, the villainess falls for the hero, loses her job as a villain and then joins the hero all in one chapter. The REAL plot is actually about a council of evil alien-humans who want to destroy humanity because of generic super villain reason #434: the leader of the aliens is sad and misunderstood :( I’m not even going to lie, I had 0 interest in “X” (the generic ass name of the main villain) and her band of useless lesbians. They did literally nothing in the story except be a nuisance and contribute to X’s incel breakdown at the end. Their inclusion actively made SiL worse because the story has this weird tonal problem where in one breath the villains are portrayed as complete jokes and then you turn the page and now they’re shooting children like girl what💀 And these useless lesbians hog sooooo much of SiL that desperately needed to be given to Honey trap and Hayate to develop their relationship.

When the story DOES actually focus on Honey Trap and Hayate, it’s pretty good, even cute at times, there just wasn’t enough time given to them to flesh their relationship out. As it stands, Honey Trap and Hayate don’t have much of a dynamic, or personality for that matter. Honey Trap’s main gimmick is that she’s extremely horny for Hayate and delulu:

Aside from that, she’s a great value version of Heath, but even a watered down character is better than, like, nothing. All I really know about Hayate is that she’s nice, heroic, likes wearing tacky clothes and ….that’s it. She loves Honey Trap because…………they fought together a few times so why not🤷‍♀️ I’d say at least that’s better than Tamen De Gushi, but actually it’s not because these grown ass women don’t even kiss , all we get is a love confession and their gremlin love child and that’s supposed to be satisfying I guess.

And the worst part is that SiL has the audacity to pretend the romance was something that it clearly wasn’t:

Girl…yall were “””enemies””” for 10 panels.

Now, it’s stated they have been rivals for a while, but I guess Honey Trap forgot all of that because the moment she sees Hayate’s face, my good sis is pussy whipped for life. And that’s in spite of apparently being the evilest one out of the evil group because Honey Trap has no grudge or baggage toward Hayate. She immediately turns good with no issues and Hayate is only distrustful of Honey Trap for 1 or 2 speech bubbles and then she’s not. Anything else that happened was off screen, which means it didn’t happen. Ironically, the very next entry on this list will do a MUCH better job at an ex-villain love story, but for SiL, there’s just not much going on.

Another reading of this story is to call it a “parody” but…no, it isn’t. SiL isn’t a comedy, yes there are comedic moments that poke fun of the genre, but the rest of the story genuinely wants you to take it seriously. Except it can’t. X and her league of dimwits are boring as piss and they oscillate between Saturday morning cartoon villains and child murderers seemingly on a whim. So I can neither be endeared to them nor take them as a serious threat. Honey Trap and Hayate are there, but I lament on all the potential lost from what could’ve been an amazing relationship.

5. Yamujiburo/Kianamaiart’s Hanamusa webcomic

This one is kind of cheating, but I also don’t care let me talk about hot MILFs💀

So the final entry on this list is a webcomic series by one of my fave artist: kianamaiart! And it’s right here on tumblr so check it out!

I stumbled upon this webcomic a few weeks ago, fell in love and now I want to talk about it. This yuri pair thankfully has no blonde femme in sight and instead features two popular Pokémon characters: Jessie from Team Rocket and Delia Ketchum, Ash Ketchum’s mom. What I love about this ship and the world Kiana creates around them is that it’s a very unconventional pairing. There’s just not many romances where a single mom falls in love with an ex gang member and the best part is, Delia being a mom is a big part of her character and she doesn’t ignore Ash in favor of her new relationship with Jessie. She has time for both and doesn’t prioritize one over the other, which many ppl fail to do even irl so good on you Delia!

Now, as for the romance it self, Jessie and Delia are a unique pair. Jessie’s overconfident, brash, drama queen personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “dominant” role and Delia’s sweet, motherly personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “submissive” role. Their dynamic in the webcomic actually plays out in the reverse, Jessie is the one who gets easily flustered and Delia’s…intense, to say the least:

(But Tbf if Delia looked at me like that I’d be at her beck and call too💀)

This subversion of these tropes creates a fun dynamic for the couple and it’s super adorable to see how their energies bounce off each other in each new situation Kiana puts them in. I also love how both Jessie and Delia inspire each other to live out their dreams and they become better versions of themselves by being together.

And one last thing, I don’t have any smart commentary to go along with this, I just really like this drawing of Jessie:

no thoughts, head empty

Final Thoughts

Soooo yeah, that’s the end of my dissertation on yuri comics. I know I ended up dragging a lot of popular yuri, but it wasn’t my intention to make you guys hate any of things I talked about. These were just my thoughts as an avid yuri fan, so let me know your thoughts as well, especially if you read any of the yuri I talked about. And even though I’m super picky about the type of yuri I read, I’d still love to hear any recommendations. Who knows, it might dethrone the undefeated champ that is Beauty and the Beast Girl.

[thisfanisgonesorry]

keep talking — könig

got into cod because someone told me he was 6’9 and so i told them i wanna 69

tags: light angst, bros injured, smut, dubcon kinda, phone sex except its a walkie talkie. rushed ending lowkey, ambiguous relationship. ambiguous ending ooo. light blackmail, soldier!reader, y/n is watching better call saul (dont @ me), povs might be weird idk

⚠️

“König, how copy?”

Nothing. Literal radio silence.

“König, I’m talking to you. How copy?”

“I’m here.” He grunted after a long period of silence. “Bad copy.”

“I say again. Did you get caught in the crossfire?” 

The battlefield surrounding König had bullet shells everywhere, he laid carefully in the ground, trying to hide his large body from any further incoming fire.

“I did.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“What are your injuries?”

“I’m fine.” He growled.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Too much dust.”

“König, are you in a safe place? I’m gonna need you to stay there until it’s safe enough for someone to get you.” 

“Affirmative.” He panted. 

“I need you to say something, König.”

“Minimal damage, only flesh wounds. A few hits in the right leg.” He grunted in frustration. “I got my vest, I’m fine.”

He laid in the ditch, looking around the empty battlefield, only being able to make out clouds of smoke and dust as gunfire continued from the distance, the fight being gradually dragged away from him. He winced as the blood kept pouring out of his thigh.

He dug his fingers into one of the bullet holes in the pants, using it as a weak point to rip the fabric. His hands were too dirty to try and tend the wound himself, so he turned the leg of his pants into makeshift shorts; pulling the fabric down his leg and using the length of it to make a tourniquet for the wound.

“Come in, König.”

“Scheiße.. What?” He barked into the receiver. “I’m not dying, fräulein.”

There was a silence as he tried to shuffle his large body into the ditch, giving his leg room while trying to stay undetected. 

“We can’t risk that.” I finally said from the other end.

“Then talk to me. I’m not dying. Don’t treat me like it.” He spoke sternly.

“What do you expect me to talk about?”

“Anything. Just don’t mention that I’m bleeding out.”

“The mission—”

“Not the mission.” He snapped again. “Your day or something.”

“Sorry, um..” I paused, lost on conversation.

There was a moment of silence and he groaned at the hesitance before the receiver burst to life again. He felt a pang of guilt as he palmed himself through his cargo pants. He’d been shot at enough times to learn that the fastest way to get rid of pain is to replace it with something better, and in situations where first aid was out of the question for the foreseeable future, this was all he had unless he decided to just put up with it.

“Okay.” I started. “I started watching a lawyer show. It’s really good.” I started rambling slightly about the show until I ran out of information that König would care for.

I tried to jump from topic to topic seamlessly but a one-sided conversation wasn’t easy to keep going.

“I don’t really have a lot of spare time, so I’m running out of things to talk about.” I commented, noticing a lack of response. “König?”

“I’m alive.” He spoke through shaking breaths.

“Are you okay?”

“Mhm..” He nodded, despite me being unable to see him.

“I say again. Are you okay?”

“Gut. Ich bin prima.” He spoke. “Tut höllisch weh.” While I couldn’t make out what he was saying, his sarcasm and frustration was detectable from a mile away.

“English, König.”

“Hurts like hell.” He groaned out.

All of his actions could be explained one way or another, his ambiguous silence, his heavy breathing and grunting. From one end it seemed like a man in pain. On the other end of things, he had his head thrown back in the dirt, stroking himself slowly as the words filled his ears.

His breathing was ragged, hissing and panting as he tried to distract himself. He would manage to build his composure when he needed to talk through the comms, but besides that, he was a mess. Whining and grunting as he tried to focus on the sweet voice on the receiver instead of the stinging metal that was sinking into his skin.

He desperately jerked himself off, stroking his dick tenderly. “Keep talking.” He groaned. “Bitte, I’m bleeding everywhere. Hurts.”

“König..?” I began to feel suspicious at his pleas, it was so unlike him to be like this, he’d been shot before without acting this strange, he was swaying between aggressive and gentleness. “Are you..?”

“No.” He answered quickly, to the point where it raised more suspicion. He cringed at his own reaction, realising he sold himself out, and admitting it with his chest bare.

“König.” I said more sternly.

“Ich musste es tun, es tut so weh und deine stimme fühlt sich so gut an.” He groaned, using the wrong head to think, barely comprehensive as he rambled in a language I couldn’t even speak.

I took a deep inhale, his ramblings proving my point. “Say again in english please.”

“Yes.” He managed to get out.

“Yes, you’re jerking off?”

“Musste, kleine.” He panted, and while I still couldn’t make out his words, I understood that he was admitting to it, and by the sounds eliciting from his throat, it was clear that he wasn’t stopping. “Zu sagen dass es mir leid tut wäre eine lüge.”

“König.”

“Please.” He finally spoke out in english. “Please, keep talking.”

“What do you expect me to say?”

“Anything.” He groaned, and there was a moment of silence as we both sat in thought. His harsh demeanour melted quickly, he had no right of way to be a snappy colonel here as the need consumed him wholly.

“Do you expect me to talk dirty to you? Tell you that I bet you’re so hard and aching? That you’re probably leaking everywhere?”

“Scheiße, ja.” He nodded to the blankness of the battlefield, knowing that I couldn’t see his enthusiasm but wanting to express it anyway.

“And that’s all for me?”

“Ja, ja.” He panted out with need. “Need you.. Please?”

I sigh into the receiver and his breath catches in his throat, he gently massages his tip, enough to keep him going but not enough to build any pleasure. Guilt slowly began to consume him but he refused to let that be the other option. He didn’t want to sit in the dirt, bleeding out and crying out in pain instead of ecstasy.

“What do you want me to say?”

“What.. Do you want to say?” He responded carefully, keeping himself calm enough for this conversation to go smoothly. “Please, I’m.. Uh, werde abspritzen.. Orgasm.” He struggled out, his mind going blank.

“You have a lot of explaining to do later.”

“I know.” He groaned. “Tell me.”

I sucked my teeth. “I don’t know what to say to you, König. You want me to tell you how I want you buried deep in me?”

He let out a moan. “That.” He gritted.

“You’re fantasising about how good my pussy feels, right?”

“Ja, gute muschi.” He moaned, and soft slapping sounds began to be audible through the radio. I felt glad that no one else could listen into this line. He muttered incoherencies in English and German, it was hard to keep track of what he was trying to say.

The shame kept threatening to lay heavy on his conscience, though he managed to push it away every time it tried, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t come back later.

“You sound close.”

“Am.” He swallowed thickly. “So sexy. So beautiful.”

“Mhm? Want me to say something about how I fuck myself in my quarters? Gotta keep myself quiet so the others don’t hear me through the shitty paper-thin walls?” I started. “Or how I’m tight because I haven’t got a boyfriend? My Colonel doesn't give me enough time off, y’know?”

The passive aggressiveness was something he made a mental note of, something to save for later to make up for his actions. Right now, he was focused on the orgasm threatening to rip through his body. 

“Mhm, like that.” He whined, covering his mouth and his sounds becoming more muffled. “Scheiße—” The embarrassment in his voice lingered in the line for longer than his words did but it didn’t dissuade him. “Can explain this.. Later. Ah, please, right there.” He managed to curse out.

He panted and groaned, a mix of ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ filled the air, surrounded by something or other in german. It was hard to tell what was happening through the walkie talkie, though before I could respond, his dick twitched in his hand, spilling cum from the tip, leaking over his hand and down onto his pants.

He threw his head back into the dirt, trying to regain himself, his afterglow of bliss successfully distracting him, but not enough to not worry about the growing guilt. “Sorry.” He mumbled.

“So.. You can explain why you were out of position or why you were jacking off?”

“Both.” He breathed. “I can do both. I’m sorry.”

“Evac van is on its way, it might take a bit to find you.” I tried to bite back a smile. “You should clean up.”

“I know.” He swallowed. “Thanks, uh.. I’m..”

He sighed, knowing better than to keep apologising, mindlessly wiping his hand on his pants, not caring too much of the stain and trying to reorganise himself. He crawled around the ditch, trying to make his position more obvious to the humvee, he could vaguely see it in the distance.

“Tell me you’re not mad, right?” He spoke through the radio, trying to walk towards a more visible vantage point where the enemy wouldn’t see him if there were any lingerers despite the fact that the fight was most certainly further down the open field at this point.

I laughed through the radio, and the cackle of life it brought to the abandoned field was uneasy as he slowly tried to move towards the van.

“No, not mad, but I definitely plan to use this against you in the near future.” 

[marilynthornhilllover]

Anyway, don't be a stranger.

Mortica Addams x fem reader

Warning: fluff, smoking, past breakups, ex girlfriend talks, cheating, brutal dialog, memories, reader has a daughter, slight depression, talk about moving on, one kiss, a few flash backs, ending on good terms, getting closure.

It was a relaxing rainy Friday evening, as gentle rain drops spilled against the rooftops of countless homes across the neighborhood. You picked up your glass of wine taking a sip as you listened to your exotic teenage daughter ramble about her P.T.A meeting tomorrow. She went on about how much she couldn't wait to show you around her dorm room, or to show you her plant science projects she made with Ms.Thornhill.

But most of all, she just couldn't wait to introduce you to her new very best friend Wednesday adams. Although the name sounded weird enough for a teenager you were still fascinated by the cute stories your daughter mariam would tell you every afternoon after school. You really wanted to know who was this Wednesday mariam would always talk about.

Maybe meet her parents and thank them for giving life to someone mariam could call a true friend. You smiled as she took up her fork to finally eat her food thats been sitting infront of her for hours.

" all that talking and now your dinner is cold mari" you chuckled as you got up from your seat shaking your head, the chair gently scratching the ground. At that she sighed before giving her food one look before refocusing on her conversation.

" and I want you to see what Wednesday and I made for our cooking competition i—" you rolled your eyes as you took away her plate and placed it in the sink.

" That's enough Missy, I've heard quite a lot in one night and for the past two weeks" it's true, every afternoon the only conversation topic was P.T.A meeting and Wednesday Addams. You honestly didn't mind but sometimes a little " so mom how was your day?" Or " today the lunch you gaved me was amazing thanks for making it" would be nice, but only on rare occasions were those phrases ever mentioned.

You quickly fixed her another plate of some chicken pasta before washing the remaining dishes that had been in the sink. You sneeked a glanced at mariam to see her giggling with her phone in her hand as her fingers typed swiftly across the keyboard, her food once again becoming cold.

You quickly turned around and with your soapy hands you snatched her phone away from her. She gasped turning her full body around to look at you with quite a perplexed expression.

" hey! I was texting Wednesday!" You shook your head and pointed at her food.

" eat, now. You'll need the energy to introduce me to this Wednesday" she smiled, doing as was instructed she began to stuff her mouth and not another word was mentioned until the plate that laid before her was cleared. When she was finished you took the plate and discarded the left overs.

" goodnight kiddo, please do get some sleep we have a very long day tomorrow and you won't wanna be dozing off at random points" you kissed her forehead before turning off the lights but leaving the dim ones on for her incase she maybe wanted to finish reading her book.

You threw on your robe around your pajamas then got into the comfort of your bed. You cuddled up in your duvet and not long after you weren't even aware when you had fell asleep.

The next morning went surprisingly smooth, you didn't have to rush mariam because she was already up two hours before you and she didn't speak a word about Wednesday. You both gathered all the necessary things and left the house.

You didn't really have a heavy breakfast because the school would be having a little parent and child meet and greet where parents and students can get to chat with food. Literally the part that mariam couldn't wait for, she was dying for you to breathe the same air as Wednesday.

When you both arrived at the school mariam practically flew out of the car.

" Come on mom! Your walking too slow Wednesday is probably wondering where I'm at" you held onto her hand as you both walked briskly through the crowded room. You were separated from your daughter when a young usher stopped you and gaved you small piece of pink paper with your seat number and seating section on it.

You were given only a small moment to catch your breath before mariam continued to drag you along to your seats. You placed your handbag down on your seat and pushed the small piece of paper into your pocket as you fixed your hair and lip gloss.

You scanned the room and your eyes were immediately hooked to the scene of mariam hugging this short pale girl. Her jet black hair was styled in two pigtails and her face frowned and eyebrows furrowed. Her uniform was not it's customary blue and black, no, it was grey and black. Her ankle high boots quite literally matched the aesthetic especially with her impressive mewing.

Maybe it was her smile, maybe it was was her choice of dressing or maybe it was the way she played off a very familiar serious face all to well. You were quickly snapped out of your trance when you heard mariam calling you from across the hall. Your eyes met hers as a small smile made an appearance on your face. Wednesday did a small gesture as mariam waved aggressively urging you to come.

The two looked every uncomfortable. If you had looked at them for the first time you'd think they were the cousins at the family reunion that were being forced to get to know eachother.

But Wednesday rather looked kind, she did hug mariam back regardless of her dark and gloomy appearance, with her hand on the lower part of mariam's back and a small smirk of her face. Something about her reminded you of someone... you just couldn't quite place your finger on it.

You chuckled before proceeding to walk over towards her.

" mommy this is Wednesday!" Mariam shrieked, doing a cute tiny jump before clasping her hands tightly together. The girl extended her hand and did a small bow. Before you could react, you noticed her necklace. It was a Obsidian Talisman with her initial engraved on it and you knew it well because you were also wearing one with your name initial on it.

Yours was a gift from your ex lover....

These necklaces are rare and hold a strong meaning, you weren't quite sure if others could get them that easily. Suddenly a wave of pure betrayal and utter regret shook you to your core, a shiver took over your body as a heartache you knew far too well struck you in the deepest depths of your heart. The touch of mortica's unsettling love burned your veins.

Your stomach did flips as your head slightly pounded. The feeling of the heartbreak still lingered within you, matter of fact it never left. You hadn't realized that you left Wednesdays hand hanging mid air. You reached beneath your shirt to touch your necklace — for comfort.

" mom? You ok?" Mariams voice brought life back to your body and just there you realize why you forced yourself to move on from mortica, so that you could love yourself and be the best mother possible to your daughter mariam. You couldn't allow yourself to fall, to return to that state of pure emptiness and guilt again.

You couldnt allow Mariam to see that side of you, what would she say? What kind of example would you be setting for her as a young teenager who hasn't even experienced love yet?. Mariam was the better version of you, the brighter, happier, less stressed, more energetic version of you. And you are so happy that you gaved birth to such a good person like mariam.

You nodded and looked towards Wednesday, who was standing there with a blank face as if nothing had happened. Before you could speak up and sincerely apologize to the young girl a voice asserted from behind you.

" Wednesday, there you are darling! I've been looking all over for you" a voice far to familiar to not recognize, and again that aching pain took over your body and you completely froze as you felt time stopped. Your throat felt as if something was cutting off your oxygen supply and your eyes slowly began to burn as they swelled up with tears. Your ears started ringing and you could have sworn that your vision got blurred.

You started hyperventilating as flash backs of you and mortica paced like rapid hot flashes across your eyes. The soft hand of your daughter gently wrapped around your waist pulling you closer to them.

" mom, seriously are you ok?" Mariam removed your bag and made space for you to sit.

" I'm fine mari , just a little headache" you laughed it off but you can tell that mariam was still worried. You both held an Intense eye contact for a while and again just as you were about to reassure her, Principal Weems spoke up.

" Greetings to all parents and to all of my extraordinary students, it's a pleasure to have you all with me this afternoon, I do hope you enjoy yourselves, also just letting you know you all have approximately fifteen minutes before we begin which we will start with our student honor ceremony" and with a twinkling of a honey coated smile and swayed hips larissa disappeared off the stage and into the distanceto greet more parents who were arriving.

You excused yourself leaving Wednesday and mariam to chat, you sped pass mortica faster than lightning not giving sparing her a glance.

You sighed as you stopped and leaned against the stone cold wall of the secluded bathroom hall way. The area was silent and well blocked out from any pass byers. You reached into your purse and took out your cigarette, lightning it you placed it between your lips and laid your head back against the wall. You closed your eyes and granted your mind permission to escape reality.

After a while you opened your eyes and gasped loudly as your hand quickly covered your chest, you can swear that your soul almost left your body. Standing on the other side of the wall was mortica. Black dress that almost showed her cleavage— as always and jet black hair straighten to it's thinnest layers. Her eyes gleamed as they bored into yours.

You scoffed before removing the cigarette from your mouth and throwing it into the nearest trash bin. She just stood there staring at you as if she wanted to you feel sorry for her, or maybe the other way around.

" didn't mean to scare you darling" she whispered under her breath so quietly that you almost couldn't hear, almost as if someone was listening. You rolled your eyes and kept avoiding eye contact with her.

" I'm not scared of you mortica" you said bitterly. She slowly took a step towards you. She analyzed you as if you were the world's most dangerous creature before taking another step.

" no one said you were darling, but i mean you did avoid me for almost two decades" she spoke, her tone was some what sorrowful but it sounded beyond sarcastic. With that your eyes snapped up towards hers.

" and who's fault was that?" You both stood still, no one moved, no one blinked, none of you breathed. The air temperature seemed to rise as the tension slowly became unbearably thick.

" look y/n don't say that as if I did something so horrendously terrible, it's been 17 years I mean I deserve atleast a bit of air—" you immediately walked up to mortica and pushed her.

" you made me question every possible reason as to why I couldn't be good enough for you! Question what larissa had that I didn't!" It was at this moment you felt all the lungs be pushed out of your lungs as a feeling of stored up pressure can be felt being released. You could feel the stinging sensation of your eyes as tears overflowed from them.

" you broke my fucking heart mortica! That's what you did, I tore myself apart for years because you walked out of my life when I needed you the most and you stand there and talk about air when i was the one who was suffocated!" You hadn't even realized that streams of tears were flowing down your face as your lips quivered.

And the look of pure hurt could been seen on morticas face, as if your words had stabbed her thousand times.

" i- I," taking a deep breath, then sighing she found the courage speak up. " y/n, I taught that I wasn't good enough for you, I was the kid with that bad grades, always getting in trouble, the bad influence, while you were always on all the scholarship list, joining after school clubs, getting honor awards, I felt like a burden to you."

" so that's your sad womp story as to why you cheated on me one week before our two year anniversary date? Oh mortica you are more pathetic than I thought—" she was going to cut you off but you spoke over her. Your chest rising and falling as you slowly started to hyperventilate again. The memories came back like hot flashes.

You froze.... is she being for real?.... that's her excuse....

" you are so unfair, mortica you knew that I loved you with every bone, every cell within me, and you knew I didn't care about the odds that stood between us! you are utter unbelievable!"

You did want a second chance with mortica.... so bad... to give her a chance to be who she didn't get to be, to do what she wished to do. But it was too late, and you've already been hurt enough. There was no second chances for a heart that hasn't even healed yet.

You both just stood there in dead silence.You both stared at eachother, the pain too much to bare with one's soul. You could hear your heart breaking like pieces of tiny glass shards.

You both had too many emotions for words to express. The weight of it all was too heavy, it was weighing you down, it has weighed you down all theses years and it's exhausting.

You knew if you let mortica back in there will be consequences and wounds will be reopened.... wounds that you fought so hard to close, just so that your daughter wouldn't grow up with a sadistic, numb mother that was dying from her heartbreak.

Mortica on the other hand wished she loved you sooner, better.... wished she had took other roads to fix how she felt about herself in the relationship. Instead of taking matters into her own hands and breaking the heart that she loved the most, the heart that she fell so desperately in love with. Because now you won't let her back in the mend it.

And she understood......

It would be selfish of her to ask for a second chance.....

And it would be foolish of you to give it to her....

You did love the small moments you got to spend with mortica. And you did cherish the memories you both made.

The days when you'd both buy ice cream just to lick it off eachothers nose.

The days you'd skip class, just so she could pretend to be your Romeo at the park for her theater practice.

The days when you both slept in and savored the cuddles while the rain sprinkled love and harmony outside the window.

The days you'd kiss til both your lips went sore.

You swallowed before sighing. You slowly walked closer to her, instantly feeling the body warmth you loved on the winter days. Her bitter sweet perfume that would burn your nose everytime she sat next to you in lab class.

She took a step closer to you, pressing all her body weight on you. You both locked eyes with one another. Your pupils deliate as your eyes glanced down to her lips and back up to her eyes. She got the message. She leaned in, with one hand wrapped around your waist and the other around your neck both your lips met in the dance of love for one last time.

Her lips were just as soft as you remembered them to be. She swiped her tongue across your bottom lip requesting entry and to which you granted. Your tongues gently and slowly twisted and interlocked with eachothers. And for the first time in a long time you remembered what love felt like, what her love felt like.

You remembered how safe and protected you felt in her arms, how cared for and loved you felt when she kissed you. You melted in her arms before pulling away. You both stayed like that for a minute, hugging eachother. Her skin against yours in the warm embrace.

" dont be a stranger darling, I don't wanna be a stranger in your life, if you need me for anything, I'm just a touch of an necklace away" she whispered before pulling away. You kissed her cheek and nodded.

You both returned to you seats to be there for your children and enjoy the afternoon. The food was great, the conversations were amazing, especially with mortica's silly jokes that never failed to make you laugh. Wednesday and mariam said their goodbyes and so did you and mortica. No longer holding on to any guilt or regrets you both went your separate ways.

It was like a fresh start, the one where your heart wasn't aching everytime you had memories of what you and her used to be.

Sometimes people come into your life to show you what love feels like, not to stay and in this is the hardest form of the word goodbye.

[seniaasaysstuff]

BRAT; Ryomen Sukuna x fem!Itadori Reader. (Soulmate au)

This is a sukuna x fem itadori reader wip. I thought a soulmate au with sukuna possessing you would be an interesting idea haha. It has some cracky undertones.

Yuji is your twin brother but you ate the cursed finger instead.

Would you like to read more of it? Let me know!

Sukuna had been waiting his entire life for you, his soulmate. From the time he learned about soulmates, he was obsessed with the idea of meeting you.

He didn’t quite understand what the words on his wrist meant but he adored him. “Holy fuck you’re hot.” were illuminated on his wrist. He reasoned that maybe it was some other language. He always ran his fingers on the words, tracing them gently whenever he felt sad or angry. It was his only solace in this cruel world.

He didn’t care about the abuse he received from his parents nor did he care about how the villagers treated him.

You were the only thing on his mind. His mind was always wandering around thinking of you. He wondered about what you looked like, how you were doing, if you thought about him as much as he did.

He wished you would just come and save him from the hellish life he was living. He was at a point in his life where he was weak and he wasn’t able to do anything to protect himself.

He trained everyday on his techniques, worked on building muscles and just becoming strong. He got strong and eventually became the strongest sorcerer alive so that he could protect you.

He waited and waited and waited for you to show up one day. But you never showed up. Sukuna felt gutted. He was so filled with grief and sadness that he went mad.

He slaughtered numerous people. It didn’t matter who it was, men or women he killed them all. He didn’t care about the consequences of his actions. He just wanted to meet you.

A time came when he had to be killed. His only regret was that he never got to meet you. His fingers became a cursed object and were sealed away.

In the 21 century, there you were. Itadori y/n, Yuji Itadori’s twin sister.

You were a bubbly child, always happy and just rambling all the time. It didn’t matter who it was, the moment someone talked to you? You went off on tangents about anything and everything. You had never-ending topics and facts and the urge to never shut up.

Your twin, Yuji, was constantly annoyed with your incessant talking but it was also one of the things that he loved about you.

When you found out about soulmates you were amazed by the notion of it. Someone that was going to love you no matter what.

The words written on your wrist were embarrassing and in some ways endearing to you.

The words “I finally found you huh? My brat.” adorned on your wrist. You figured your soulmate was quite a grumpy person that was like an old soul.

You daydreamed about your soulmate all the time. You wondered about what he was like. You eagerly wished to meet him.

————————————————————————

You and Yuji were on your way to the hospital. You both had brought a beautiful bouquet for your Grandpa Saitou. To others he may seem like a rude old man, he literally was but he was so much more than that. He was like your father. He had single-handedly raised you and yuji and loved you both immensely.

You walked inside the hospital room and rushed up to your grandpa Saitou and hugged him. “Grandpa! I missed you.”

Now Grandpa had a soft spot for you. You reminded him of his son, Itadori Jin. Over the years he had fondly spoken about the similarities between you.

“I joined a club with Yuji today!” “Oh really? Tell me all about it.” your grandpa replied with a glint of amusement in his eyes. He was the only one alongside Yuji who loved hearing you talk.

“Yuji? Why am I hearing just now that you joined the occult club?” Grandpa now turned towards Yuji who was placing the flowers in the vase.

“Uh, you know how she is. I am not going to leave her alone.” Yuji shrugged. “This is why I love you yuji!” you fake cried. “Shut up.” He blushed. Grandpa cleared his throat.

“Yuji, you're a strong kid, take care of others, especially her.” Grandpa now turned over and looked at you. “You're the sweetest child and I am proud that I raised you both.”

“Grandpa-why are you saying this?” you stuttered.

“Both of you protect each other no matter what.” Grandpa Saitou spoke and turned over. That was the moment you knew he was dead.

“Grandpa? Grandpa?” Yuji called out.

“Yuji? Is- he de-ad?” your lip quivered. Yuji did not respond, it made you sob. Your legs felt weak and you dropped to the floor. Hot tears were streaming down your face.

Yuji scooped you in his arms and led you out of the hospital room. He sat you down on one of the chairs and let you cry on his shoulder. Yuji also had tears in his eyes, he didn't expect this. Neither of you did.

You were approached by an emo-looking boy with spiky hair. "Yuji Itadori, correct?" The person asked. “You're my soulmate?” Yuji asked, looking dumbfounded.

“This is crazy,” You mumbled. “I’m Fushiguro Megumi. It's nice to finally meet you. I’m from Jujutsu high school. Sorry, but there's no time." He said.

"The cursed object you have is extremely dangerous. Hand it over right away." Megumi spoke. “I don't want you to get hurt,” he added.

"Cursed object?" Itadori asked, confused. You moved to a more secluded area. "This, you have it right?" He asked as he pulled out his phone with a picture of the cursed object.

“Hm?" Itadori looked closer. “Yuji, isn't that the ugly-looking finger?” you questioned.

"Oh yeah! I found it. I don't mind giving it back, but my fellow club members have taken a liking to it." He spoke. "I’d at least like an explanation."

"The majority are the result of negative energy that flows out of people..." Megumi started. “And it's a very dangerous object. I can't risk you getting hurt or other people getting killed.'' Megumi spoke.

“I said that I don't mind it, you can have it.” Yuji handed him the box.“It’s empty? I was just following the taint clinging to the box?” Megumi mumbled.

“Yuji? Where is the finger?” He asked. “It's with our senpais. Actually, they were thinking of removing the talisman tonight.'' Megumi backed away.

“What? Is it bad?” You asked. “Bad? It's worse than bad, they're going to get killed.”

~time skip~

"I just need some cursed energy, right?" you rustled through your pocket and pulled out the finger, and ate it.

“You dumbass. Are you trying to kill yourself?” Yuji yelled at you. “Well if it saves you then i’ll do everything in my power.” you smiled at yuji.

Your entire body convulsed and your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You could faintly hear yuji and his soulmate scream for you as you collapsed on the cold floor.

You woke up in a weird dark place that awfully looked like a shrine? And someone was sitting on the throne made up of bones.

You squinted your eyes, “Holy fuck you're hot.” You blurted out then squeaked.

The man chuckled, his voice sounded deep and velvety. “I finally found you huh? My brat.”

“YOU?!!” you shouted.

And just like that, you found your soulmate.

He snapped his fingers and you landed on his lap. “Wow, today is like a trainwreck,” you mumbled.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, propping his chin on your shoulder. “Well first my grandpa died then my brother found his soulmate and then we heard that our senpais could die because of the old crusty finger so then I ate it and well then I passed out and then I found you?” you animatedly spoke. “Well where did you come from tho?” you asked.

He chuckled again. “I quote ‘The old crusty finger’ That was my finger from my old body that got sealed away.”

“Wait- does that mean you're inside of me?” You asked, feeling confused about the whole situation.

“That sounded so bad.” Sukuna groaned. “But yes I’m quite literally inside your body.”

“How does that even work? And how haven’t you shriveled up like a prune yet? Like you’re so old?” You were very confused.

“I have a good skincare routine.” Sukuna sniffed. You laughed.

“You know I imagined my soulmate to be a grumpy man with an old soul but you turned out to be a grumpy old man with an even older soul.” You giggled.

“I'm not that old, okay?” He grumbled. “How old are you again?” You questioned.

“I stopped counting after 300.” You burst into a fit of giggles.

“Does that mean you're a gilf? Like you're so old.” “Well, I tried to keep myself alive for you and what does gilf mean?” He inquired in confusion.

“Grandpa I’d like to fuck.” You snorted.

He groaned, “That is the dumbest thing I’ve heard. I’ve never had children so how can I be a grandpa?”

“Well, you have that aura.” You spoke, trying to muffle your laugh. “You cheeky brat.” Sukuna huffed.

[it-lives-within-the-dark]

I really do love SBCL and I really feel like when you read the manga it SO blatantly in your face…but when I read Yana’s old blog it seems like she’s so dead set against Sebastian and Ciel caring for each other at all…that it’s like does she even see what she writers or and I just delulu… or are antis just cherry picking what they translate 😭😭

Hey Nonny!

Short answer:

I'm not familiar enough with Yana's old blog to make any judgements on what her intentions/feelings are for her story and characters based on her posts (not to mention, it's old - people can change their minds).

Long answer:

I go back and forth when it comes to authorial intent and death of the author. I've literally been on both sides of the issue. As a fan, it's easy to say that what the author intended doesn't matter and that my interpretation of their work is 100% valid, even if it's the complete opposite of what the author intended. On the other hand, I've been in the author's shoes. I took a creative writing class in college where one of our assignments was to write a short story and then the class would discuss it. Simple, right? Easy. Except I wasn't allowed to speak the entire time my work was being discussed. I had to bite my tongue for forty minutes while my classmates completely butchered my story, listen to them miss the main theme completely, focus on a random detail that meant nothing, and walk away at the end of class not understanding anything I tried to convey in my work. I never got to explain what it actually meant; all the little clues and details that they missed - nothing. And it sucked. A lot. But at the end of the day there was nothing I could do about it.

All that to say, I think it's up to you to determine what holds more importance: what Yana says in her old posts (keeping in mind the context in which those remarks were made - what year did she make those comments, and where does that line up in the publishing of the manga? - are you taking into consideration that she is a public figure and that she might need to watch her words so that she doesn't jeopardize her job? etc.), or how you personally interpret the work.

I also think it's important to keep in mind that there can be (and is) a difference in what you, the fan, want to see happen, and what you want to actually happen in canon. There's a tumblr post floating around that discusses this topic but I don't have it handy.

Sorry this was all a bit rambly!

[kindlespark]

this is gonna be SO long and rambly sorry anyway i saw a post abt how babel does queer characters and it got me thinking abt why the tropes it uses would usually turn me off other stories but didn’t here

MAJOR BABEL SPOILERS //

i feel like i’d be more mad abt how robinramy ended up in babel if it marketed itself as queer lit at all or if its fans were going “WOW AMAZING QUEER REP” abt it. but no one told me any of that, so finding out they were gay was just a fun little bonus surprise to me. i get why ppl are eh abt robinramy not getting together/technically still being subtext (which i dont think is really true btw like the book literally says “robin was falling in love” but idk i guess if you were stupid you might’ve assumed that it was falling in love with oxford given how romantic some of the other language is (WHICH IS ALSO THE POINT bc i think robin’s friendship with ramy blurring into romance is why he romanticised like all his friendships/experiences in oxford BUT IM GETTING OFF-TOPIC)). i just think robin’s repression abt being gay was intrinsically tied to his attitudes on imperialism (wrt refusing to acknowledge anything that complicated his life until it was too late) and i don’t consider it a cop out or queerbait. like i genuinely don’t think robinramy could ever have gotten together without drastic alterations being made in terms of plot and character. plus i think it’s clear that kuang didn’t want to write a story with any kind of focus on romance at all, because it’s not that kind of book. there’s no successful het romance either, so it grates a lot less. the only reason romance is included at all is to show the ways in which white entitlement manifests. so the tragic way robinramy played out just made sense to me.

and i speak as someone who accidentally spoiled myself on You Know What in the middle of reading and i was like ugghh boooo dreading it the whole time expecting to roll my eyes when it happened but then when it did i was like. wow im actually not that mad LMFAO 😭😭😭 actually thematically the book sets it up so well that i believed that this was unfortunately the only way it could’ve gone. babel is about the loss and tragedy and grief that colonised people experience. it’s about the lengths people will go to to uphold empire and the lengths ppl will go to to tear it down like idk 😭 i guess it is bury your gays but it didnt bother me this time because i thought it fit thematically ❤️ i enjoy tragedy as a genre a lot and i would’ve made it gay anyway you know. thanks rf kuang for doing it for me so i didnt have to.

WHICH IS ALL TO SAY that i guess if you’re going into babel for the queer rep without appreciating that the story is fundamentally a tragedy it would feel like it’s just reusing tired tropes….. but i think the choices kuang made were rly deliberate and not in a way that feels like trauma porn or shock value. the book is fundamentally about the struggles of poc so the layer of queerness that was introduced felt like a subtle extension of the experiences of characters of colour in the book, and i enjoyed and related to it as a queer chinese person who kind of realised they had to prioritise their fight for the liberation of poc over queerness mainly because the idea of western queer liberation cannot be dissociated from imperialism and many aspects of homophobia as we know it was an export of christian european empire into our colonised countries in the first place and FUCK THIS IS A WHOLE OTHER TANGENT ABOUT HOW I THINK RAMY AS A CHARACTER IS EMBLEMATIC OF THE TENSION AND STRUGGLE THAT QUEER POC DIASPORA HAVE BETWEEN OUR IDENTITIES GODDAMNIT OK FORGET IT POST CANCELLED i just rly think babel’s handling of queer characters is fine and makes sense and i like it personally and maybe i will make a coherent analysis about it one day but that day is not today byeeeeeee

[mdhwrites]

how do you feel about disability rep in the owl house? Anyway it could've been done better? Cause as someone who is neurodivergent (autism) I felt like Luz's arc had unfortunate implications ('shes literally neurodivergent and a Minor' type vibes and mixed in with the whole fantasy vs reality themes and it came off as telling neurodivergent people to reject reality or like we wouldn't be hindered in the slightest by our disabilities in xyz worlds- which feels gross) but I could be reading into this too much. I also don't like how Hunter lost his 'disability' yeah you can compare it to getting a pacemaker or a mobility aid with his problem not being fixed but made better but that 'pacemaker' came at the cost of his best friend and his whole possession situation felt gratuitous to me. I'm really interested in seeing how Hunter could've been done better if you have any ideas

So I am going to try to be as calm and kind on this subject as I can. I feel like I've let a lot of heat come into my blogs lately that I try not to because I've been in distress. I am actually, legally disabled after all. It is the vast majority of my income, not helped by how randomly my brain will just break and I will have no way to get it to work again. I'm on the brink of another who knows how long run of my brain no longer functioning and am clawing to try and keep it together so I can do SOMETHING besides just ramble in these blogs. So I can keep writing or streaming rather than vanish. So this topic is important to me to put it extremely mildly.

To talk about this with The Owl House we kind of have to talk about each angle it takes on this subject one at a time. Eda and Hunter are two sides of the coin for this representation after all. I know you bring up Luz and yes, nuerodivergence can be disabling but if we want to talk about disability, I don't think Luz is actually a part of the conversation. If she is, it's for the theoretical representation of depression in S3 when she is at her worst as a character. People like to claim trauma and depression for why it's okay that she's constantly lying, or why she tries to abandon an entire world despite admitting it's her fault it's in trouble. She is her absolute worse self in that time and... If that is the rep we get for mental illness, I'll wait another five years. I don't want someone who is entirely apathetic to others and makes excuses for their actions to be the one who represents me, not when I hear that shit from assholes on the news too much already.

We'll start positive and head down from there. Eda actually starts out great. With regular medication and self care, she is able to live a fairly normal life. I have admittedly criticized in the past that there is no cure for the curse, that Eda is a slowly ticking time bomb who only through death will not end up harming all of those around her eventually, but I actually want to rescind that. As a dramatization of the anxiety that especially mental disability brings about of that day when everything breaks, even if it never comes, it works. It's within the confines of the fantasy genre and isn't demonized but sympathized that she has to work so hard to hold this back. But she can and she stands strong despite it, stronger than most in her situation in a way that is inspirational.

Then we get our first slip up with her at the end of S1. In order to find reprieve, to come back from the edge... She shares her disability. Her peace of mind, her ability to be a human being, comes at the cost of another person. I say slip up though because one could argue it's dramatization of the communal help that many disabled people need. I worked as a Home Care Aid at one point for someone in a wheelchair. My own family helps me because I am a complete mess of a person. I do my best to be able to function entirely on my own but when you are literally incapable of being a functional human being... Yeah, help is good. Do I like how high of a cost it comes for Lilith? Not really, nor the fact that she becomes disabled in the same way because some people do think disability and mental illness is contagious but I'm willing to let it slide for the sake of dramatization.

Affearances genuinely course corrects to show the small ways in which Eda deals with her illness not just with medication but also understanding of it. Her need to stay calm, the ways she tries to center herself, all so the medication is more of a stabilizer and last resort. That is genuinely good.

Then... A point I'm torn on. In the episode itself, I do not mind the formation of Harpy Eda. The process of coming to not just deal with but accept your disability is big and hard and you can come out the other side feeling like a new person. One could even see the Harpy form like that and even the deals we make with our disability to let ourselves do more like in Eclipse Lake. I'll even retract old heat I gave this for implying your disability can be a superpower because it fits within the genres of fantasy. I will even admit part of this kindness comes from writing this myself and realizing that it's just more fun and exciting to let the disability have upsides to it rather than treat it as purely debilitating.

No, my bigger issue comes from the fact that it is the end of it as a disability. Eda is essentially cured besides some lip service and if they were going to go that route, they should have just said it. In the finale, she loses to the curse in a deeper way than we have EVER seen before... And then freed from it like it's just a snap of her fingers. Harpy Eda is literally just a super form, not her having to genuinely deal with the illness, especially as it just becomes the way she fights. I do approve of the idea of showing that you CAN get better from this stuff, some people do, but it makes me wish they'd just said that. Just admitted that her coming to accept it was the final step. Would that have been realistic? No but I've showcased how many times already how much this rep relies on dramatization? Give us the feel good ending of Eda having mastered it, explicitly, instead of just letting it be up in the air and used for cheap drama in the finale. That makes the whole thing feel almost exploitative because if I lose it like Eda lost it in the finale... I can't just turn that off. I get to be terrified and shaken and have that day firmly implanted into my mind for the rest of my life. For the show, it was shock value instead and I'm not okay with that.

Speaking of things I'm not okay with, let's talk about the other side of this coin: Hunter. Now remember that I was willing to give grace to some elements... Except now they're reinforced by a second character sometimes and that makes it a lot harder to shrug off. We'll get there when we get to Flapjack though.

No, where I actually want to start with for him isn't even that he has a disability, it's actually with Willow. She tries to make it out like being a late bloomer is the same as NEVER being able to do this. Like telling a paraplegic person you understand their pain because you had a cast once. I've had someone go "Yeah, it's hard for me to get out of bed too but I always manage it," while trying to motivate me to just power through anxiety that was LITERALLY CHOKING ME and I wanted to punch them in the face. And this is the start of your ROMANCE PLOT. The core thing that tells the audience that these two are going to get close and get together.

In one scene, it becomes SUPER clear that there is no one on this writing team that actually understands what the fuck it means to be disabled. The nice portion of the blog is over.

Okay, let's actually pull back. I will give Hunter this: In his early scenes, he genuinely comes across as someone who has adapted to his physical disability and the limitations of it. His staff is his aid device and he makes up for lack of magic with increased athleticism. He is by all means, the most dextrous person we see in the entire show and genuinely, the show never takes that away from him. It's also just really easy to forget because the show doesn't exactly give a lot of chances for it to shine, not while it's mostly shitting on him or having the trained soldier lose to others, if he even seems much more physically capable than those around him at all.

But hey, how about first that aid device! We do recognize Luz takes his crutch, right? Like his staff is what takes away his handicap versus the rest of the Isles. That helps him overcome the limitations of his physical disability and an entire episode has the main character steal it from him and blackmail him with it. He is mildly annoyed about this for the entire episode, almost like not having the way that helps him feel normal doesn't mean much to him. It'd be like if in Affearances, Eda didn't get mad at her mom for taking her elixir because her elixir is the equivalent to Hunter's staff. Gwyndolen is demonized for this action while we're supposed to be on Luz's side because Hunter is a bad man who will do bad things if allowed his staff back. That... That isn't okay to me.

Btw, this isn't even the only time this happens in the show. Belos asks Luz to call him Philip. She calls him Belos. The show is really all for just being entirely disrespectful to someone's identity and personhood so long as you are morally better than them. What the fuck?

For the rest of S2, there's a really, REALLY bad flaw with having Huntlow be his ship. EVERY single one of Willow's episodes to some extent features how being a late bloomer, having struggled/struggling with magic, makes her feel like an outcast. That despite the fact that really she just wasn't great at this skill, she gets a lot of dramatic weight to this. Hunter... Doesn't. His disability is almost entirely ignored to prioritize the fact that he's a Grimmwalker or his relationship with Belos. It is just not a part of his character despite the girl he is blushing at explicitly making it clear that this society ABSOLUTELY looks down on Hunter. That not having magic makes you be less than anyone else. Hell, we get more of this from EDA AND LILITH in the first episode of S2 than we ever get from Hunter. The prejudice they are treated with and their struggles to deal with it while Hunter is at best all subtext.

This admittedly starts getting into how this show fucking hates men and how they are almost all at some point a joke, villain or both in their time. So... Yeah, Hunter not being given respect for his disability while the women are is hardly surprising.

The big thing that shatters EVERYTHING is of course Flapjack's sacrifice. You remember how I had to kind of work around how to make Eda making someone else disabled okay? Well now we have a second time where a disabled character is 'cured' to some extent of their disability... By the suffering of someone close to them. This time with literal death.

One of the worst prejudices that disabled people, of any sort but especially mentally disabled/ill people, have to face is that we are burdens and menaces to society. That we are more prone to hurting people than regularly abled people. That there is a price to having us around that everyone would not have to pay otherwise. If there is one thing you CANNOT do with your disability allegory, it is to make the disability cost someone else their life, figuratively or literally, unless you REALLY plan to examine what the fuck that means. TOH does both, once with Flapjack and once with Lilith respectively.

In order to be 'normal', it literally costs Hunter the life of his best friend. In order to be saved from the extremes of her illness, Eda cripples her sister. What the fuck are you supposed to take away from that? And there is no way to square this with it just being a fantastical representation of something. It's not just making the consequences of disability more extreme or reflecting the shared burden that can sometimes be our existence and our need for support. Being cured should be joyous. Instead, it's melancholic, not for the grief of your existence inherently changing, Hunter is meant to purely celebrate that he now has magic, but because it came at extreme cost to other people.

In that one moment, paired with Lilith, I can't approve of TOH as disabled representation. There is no way for me to ever square it, just like how Luz using depression as an excuse to be the worst version of herself makes me not okay with her as nuerodivergent representation. Not when it doesn't explore this stuff and even tries to celebrate and say this is correct, since Luz is never criticized for her awful behavior during her angst arc and Hunter is made out to be better without his disability, no matter the cost.

I am fine if you don't want to show clean or nice representation of these things. Not all disabled people are nice. Not all nuerodivergent people are functional. There is a wide spectrum to our experiences but to take the worst elements of your representation and give them the most narrative weight is BAD. Even Eda suffers from this. Her taking care of herself is mostly in passing. Way more weight is given to Eda not being able to take care of herself. To how missing her medication by even an hour makes her a danger to everyone around her, or even susceptible to manipulation like when King uses her transforming 80% into the Owl Beast. Suddenly, the fact that she manages her condition like many disabled people do feels really overshadowed by the constant reminders, and literal showings, of the danger she poses to those she cares about most. The cost of allowing us to continue to participate in society, the damage we do to others, the harm that comes from a bad day from us, is so much harder to ignore when those are the elements that your work decides to focus on. It especially sucks because it hardly focuses on the pain and incapability of the condition, just the danger. It's all about what it will do to others and not the agony it inflicts on the person who has it.

TOH is bad with almost all of its themes and attempts to be progressive and this is no different. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I am going to assume that it's the same person who sent me essentially a variation of this ask like five times. If you are that worried about me responding, the Discord is where you will get a MUCH faster response, especially since I am kind of trying to pull back from TOH criticism. It has been genuinely kind of nice to talk about other things recently.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[hanafubukki]

I love thinking of the black + silver + blonde combo with the diasomnia fam because night sky + moon/stars + the sun

also the red on lilia's hair adding to a blood moon (???) <-making this one up for fun only

Hello Anonie 🌺🩵🌷

*internally vibrating* YEEESSS ME TOOOOO

Anonie you have no idea how hard I’m holding back from writing a whole essay about this very topic. Because if you know me, you know I love celestial and flower themes and book 7? Has been giving us all that and more.

Where do I begiiinnnn, okay I’ll keep it succinct:

Night Sky/Black - represents the fae, yes, but can we also talk about the comfort of this color? For Diasomnia especially, this symbolizes rebirth and recovery. Safety. It’s home. But also the night sky is when Malleus and Silver were hatched/awoken. A new beginning. Change. It personifies Lilia a lot.

The moon/stars - represents Malleus and Silver. Both of them who are loved by Lilia. It also represents the stars that Lilia looked upon while he traveled. The stars he always wished upon. The dance and wishes event that hinted at what was to come in book 7. Literally, the brightness of the moon and stars have always guided Lilia and brought him comfort. (A bit of random yume lore, but this just hits so much because my yume is of the stars). The stars also represent those that pass away in the fae culture. Look at Lilia’s dorm groovy. It features the night, moon, and stars. Malleus’ dorm groovy looking up at Lilia with the wisterias.

The Sun - you won’t be surprised with me saying Knight of Dawn. The sun/dawn/light can be a sign of death in twst. Meleanor’s death. And after everyone wakes up, it will most likely be dawn. In my culture and many others, light/white clothing is a symbolism of death and purity so it’s interesting to see it in twst. I also want to say it’s a form of comfort too to Lilia and Malleus. Lilia because he could be in that comforting brightness and for Malleus, he could visit that cottage when he ran from the castle. Silver’s dorm groovy with the sun setting.

Red/blood moon - blood moon is such an Interesting take. Because depending on the religion/culture, it can be either a time of reflection, renewal, and the cleansing of negative emotions or basically judgment day. For Lilia? It can be both. He lost his loved one and Malleus was taken away. To him, that was the end of his world. But also, it was a beginning. He came back not as General Lilia Vanrouge but just Lilia Vanrouge. He cleansed his negative emotions and through reflection and renewal, he became a new person. He loved. He softened and he hatched Malleus and awoke Silver. Red -> Pink is also a nice transition of his grumpy, stubborn self into his soft fatherly and still stubborn self.

…I tried to keep it short 😂💞 I hope you enjoyed my rambling Anonie ☺️🌺💞

[rabbitbonesandsheabutter]

Thinking about aftercare with dale.. I feel like he probably hasn’t been with anyone that would put that much thought into it. He would feel so special and cared for. And then get hard again thinking about it and ruin it.

Me too anon, me too

I feel like he avoids letting either of you move for as long as possible, convinced that you’ll want to leave no matter how many times you show him otherwise. A little more pliant post-sex, he’d be less forceful than usual about keeping you in place. Mostly because you’re either at your own home, or he’ll just hide your clothes to stop you from leaving if you’re at his (Ruth’s). Once he lets you go to clean up, he’s shuffling along always within arms reach, staring at you longingly as if he wasn’t just literally inside you. If you get him water and a snack he’s speechless, he definitely feels like it’s something he should be doing for you, even when he’s been more of a sub and so very likely bleeding if you’ve really indulged him. Even just the thought of someone looking after him is so foreign, something he gave up on years ago.

The excitement he’d have when you come back to cuddle properly never dwindles. Whatever position you end up in, he wants at least one of your hands in his hair and a full view of you. When you get comfortable he’s muttering out praises and thankyous. From “you’re so perfect, so good to me” to more creepy shit like “angel, I wish I could climb inside you and live there forever” while he runs his hand down the length of your torso. Both said with the same sweet smile on his face. On a lil bit of a tangent, I think sometimes he just says stuff like that to scare you because he finds it funny, but a lot of the time he really means it and kind of doesn’t get if you find it weird. Like he’d let you live in his ribcage, come on (there’s a joke here somewhere with the LET ME IN NOWWW but i’m too tired to make it). Anywayz, I think he’d still be pretty talkative post-sex, but the topic is more likely to be you or himself. Compared to his usual almost stream of consciousness rambling, it’s much more persona and a little less animated.

He’s going to cry. There’s no avoiding it. For a very long time, any softness and real intimacy you show him will have him in tears. It might only be a few trailing down his face that he wants to ignore and carry on with the moment. Or it all gets too much and he’ll bury his face into you and the tiny tear tracks turn into great big sobs. It all depends on how he feels that day, the kind of sex you had, and just how soft you’re being with him. The nicer you are to him the more likely he is to start balling his eyes out spontaneously, honestly.

After all that, he either falls asleep or stays awake long enough to get hard again from the soft touches and caring attention. More sex as aftercare is for sure something he loves. It’s probably the closest he will ever get to being gentle, and also too blissed out to be a brat. He’s not letting you get up this time because oops! he’s fallen asleep splayed out on top of you, how terrible!

[monstersinthecosmos]

Hi, completely agree with what you said here but it makes me very sad to think about it. As someone who imprinted on Armand at 12, Marius/Armand was my first ship in VC but I find it hard to ship them post Venice era, even though Blood Communion seems to suggest some positive developments in their relationship (Marius standing behind Armand during his argument with Benedict supporting Armand being his own person iirc?). Idk I want them to work their shit out but it’s still hard to imagine them putting their differences aside sans an apocalyptic scenario like in QotD.

And sometimes idk if Marius loves Armand enough to work on it. I know that the corner of tumblr that loves Marius (And I certainly understand the appeal of a complicated and polarizing character like him. Kudos to Anne for creating Marius!) likes to push the idea that the turning of Benji and Sybelle was mostly out of love (and to a varying extent depending on the person’s pov, due to Marius’ mental health issues) but how much was that love and how much was it ‘my pet needs to have pets so that he stays alive for ME’. Not saying these 2 motivations are mutually exclusive but I’m genuinely curious about your views.

I’m rambling but guess what I’m trying to say is, how much do you think Marius’ love for Armand is unselfish, whether in Venice, at the end of TVA or after Blood Communion?

Asdghjakl yeah I have really similar feelings about them as a ship! Like the Venice era is my favorite time period in the VC but modern/present-day Marius/Armand doesn’t really hit the same way for me because it’s just such a motherfuckin mess lol.

What I do want to say, though, is that we’re kind of dancing around a topic here that involves the inhumanity and inherent monstrosity of Marius, and while I tend to think “THEY’RE VAMPIRES” is a lazy approach to analysis, there’s a deeper version of it that’s relevant here.

What I mean is that Marius can love Armand truthfully, sincerely, unselfishly and STILL cause harm, and still love him imperfectly, and still cause problems. I think when we really wanna start dissecting Marius/Armand as a ship, and the Venice era as a whole, and whatever trauma it left on Armand vs Marius’s motivations/intentions/character morals, it’s important to remember that Marius was not human. 

I think a lot about like, when we say that Armand is a “pet”, or that Denis, Daniel, Benji, and Sybelle are Armand’s pets, there’s sort of a connotation or shorthand to TLDR that it’s their cute little human. But I think about like, for example!, my fucking cats! Like, when I think about ACTUAL pets IRL, um, I would fuckin die for my cats? They’re my lil babies? I love them so fully and with my entire fucking soul but they’re dumb little animals that live in my house and I take care of them and I don’t think they have a single thought in their fucking skulls. 

So when you think about like, a 1500 year old immortal night creature adopting a little human, he can love Armand with his ENTIRE being, and I believe he really really did, and it’s still “aww the cute lil human that I feed”. And Marius is unique amongst the vampires for how hard he tries to stay connected to the human world, and it’s still never enough, he’s still never quite there, so I have always believed he had the right intentions even if he fumbled it or did things that could cause harm. It’s not like, he’s a ~MONSTER~ in a scary way, but literally, he’s so removed from humanity that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. 

(Don’t let me get into a side essay here but it reminds me so much of like, imperfect boomer parenting, like looking at different generations’ parenting styles and realizing how much harm they caused, but most people aren’t intending to harm their children and just don’t know any better. Every generation will likely experience a form of this as we learn and grow and try to be better, but I find this really interesting for Marius specifically because of the age of the author!)

He was fifteen hundred years old when he met Armand. I think in a lot of ways he acted with good intentions that wound up causing a lot of harm. But it does a disservice to the story and to him as a character to only look at the outcome, without considering the universe he’s operating in. 

And idk like, where is the line between selfish and selfless love? Like, Marius is clearly a fucking mess at the beginning of TVA and didn’t take the news of Armand’s suicide very well. Is it selfish to do something drastic because he’s worried that Armand is still suicidal? Where does one end and the other begin? Especially with immortals like, is your own death a gift? Is it an act of kindness to save someone’s life instead of allowing them to check out? Idk idk! Grief is fucking messy, it can be both, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize it as purely for himself. He even immediately fucks off to Norway in shame afterwards. I think I prefer to think he just wanted Armand to be happy and safe. By the end of the book they're still struggling to communicate with each other about religion, and in some ways I think Marius doesn't think Armand truly wanted to die, vs seeing a religious fit for what it is. So I'm not sure he sees Armand's suicide attempt as sincere, either, and maybe doesn't feel the need to respect his wish for death.  

I think a lot about the conversation Marius has with Armand after he turns Benji & Sybelle and realizes how bad he fucked up. 

"You loved them selflessly," he whispered. "For all their strange faults, and wild evil, they were not compromised for you. You loved them perhaps more respectfully than I... than I ever loved you." He seemed so amazed. I could only nod. I wasn't so sure he was right. My need for them had never been tested, but I didn't want to tell him so.

Even at 500 years old, Marius still doesn’t entirely understand Armand as a complete person. He doesn’t completely understand Armand’s needs, or the person he wants to be, or what his human companions were to him. I think it even starts when Armand is still alive, how Marius treats him like a silly little pet, like, Armand’s piety is a cute little quirk that Marius humors without ever truly respecting. It doesn’t occur to him that Benji & Sybelle aren’t just pets. And I think Marius being stuck in his trauma means he’s just perpetually trying to believe in himself and control everything around him, while Armand stuck in trauma means he’s constantly trying on different roles and figuring out who he is. 

(But FUCK ME, christ, “I wasn't so sure he was right. My need for them had never been tested, but I didn't want to tell him so.” this really fucks me up so bad, we have to keep talking about this another time because like, these two can NOT communicate with each other! They are useless with the barrier between them maybe they need to drink from each other more often and iron this out.)

Someone can do their best, and mean well, and still cause harm. Humans do this, too. I’m sure we’ve all been there. And Marius is a great example of vampires being stuck in the trauma of their turning—it doesn’t matter how wise he tries to be, he always comes back to the same trauma, over and over. Even the way he treats Armand in Venice is a direct result of Marius trying to fix his own trauma. And like, would therapy even work on a vampire, or are their brains stuck forever where they were? How much of their “changing” is just learning behavior, and learning to mask?

Because I think Marius 100% could do that for Armand. He loves Armand. Armand is his child. He was the first fledgling Marius ever made of his own will, after 1500 years! But I think canon left us off in a place where neither of them are quite there yet. Marius is in decent shape at the end of the series, I think—it feels like he’s made some huge strides in accepting himself and his nature, so I think there’s some potential! Armand also has to learn how to use his fuckin words a little bit better, which he’s never been good at, but I think the way he goes off on Lestat after keeping that inside for 200 years is a really great sign! 

I go back and forth about “does therapy even work on vampires” all the time, like, do they have neuroplasticity, are they capable of change, have we uncovered something in the PL Trilogy that could be a key to them functioning better and learning to change. I don’t really have an answer because canon doesn’t, it’s just a fun thing to think about, but it’s the best way that I can reconcile Marius’s intentions vs his actions, and how he somehow continues to make the same mistakes and never learns! 

Basically, I think it’s not helpful to ask if Marius loves him enough. He does! But loving someone doesn’t mean we magically know how to behave, and the qualities in Marius that cause him to behave selfishly are so deeply tied to his trauma, his control issues, his use of ego as a defense mechanism. And even in real life we can have boundaries and hold people accountable when they hurt us, even if it’s because of mental illness. We can have empathy and still have boundaries, and we can be hurt and still know when something wasn't personal. That feels kinda IRL and serious to frame vampire meta but like, Marius can love people and still fuck up, because he can’t help it, and I don’t think it’s a fair reading of the text to insist he’s a diabolical abuser because it just doesn’t really match his characterization otherwise. 

I hope he gets better! 

[average-jedtavius-enjoyer]

One year ago today I finished the most amazing story of my life. As a tribute, I redrew my piece from August last year.

Old ver: here.

song: Dream, by Priscilla Ahn

This is going to be a long rant so be prepared.

I, in all honesty, cannot with any fibre of my being or in any space of my mind believe that it has been a full year since I finished Red dead redemption 2. The effect this stupid game had on me seems to have never lessened, even with the time that has passed since I completely finished it, and for a whole year it has found a very special, cosy little space in my heart which I find it hard to think it will ever leave. Everything about it came to near perfection: The characters, the story telling, the emotions it made me feel, hell even the graphics (which you would think would have lost some of their shine considering I played in 2023, 5 years after the games release) - and yet all at the same time in every person and life it presented to me it was so imperfect and broken that it seemed so real. Everything about it was so real.

Nothing on this earth could have ever prepared me for what was to come when I started playing. In fact, I remember my mindset going into it quite vividly: I remember I was bored one day, and decided to sit down and play 'a silly little cowboy game.' I knew how it would end since I started, but I never knew (and it never quite clicked through the months I spent working through the game) that I would become so attached to each and every individual that I would break down for weeks after finishing the whole endeavour. I didn't know that I would devote so many hours of my life to this game, all for it to end up in shambles - so much so that I haven't been able to pick up all the pieces 12 months later. I was completely unprepared.

I can still remember the visceral emotions I felt at certain points; The time that Dutch left Arthur to die, how Arthur after the fact had to present Rain Falls with his dead son. His last son. Watching Dutch lie to Arthur about the death of his own damn brother.

Seeing Hosea get shot, and Sean, and Lenny - and dear god watching Kieran walk beheaded into camp. Each and every one of these deaths broke me and I can still feel it.

I can still feel the fear I felt in the very last mission, worrying my pretty little head that Sadie and Charles would die - That John (and I) would lose the very last connection to the gang that he had.

I can still feel it all.

I don't know if this makes any sense at all, or if I'm just rehashing the points and feelings of everyone who has played before me - I'm simply rambling, spilling my thoughts out onto the table in the hopes they'll arrange themselves and I'll have some coherent (maybe even fond) thought process related to the completion of this game, instead of just sitting in silence whenever the topic is brought up without quite knowing how to order or process all the emotions that still rage.

Maybe next year I'll come back with something more important to say about the effects this game had on me, but until then just know that this piece of art quite literally touched my soul. It brought out feelings in me I never thought a piece of fiction could.

I miss it.

I miss them.

I miss Arthur.

[puckpocketed]

27/10/2024 - ANA @ NJD

yoink!

gif description and some rambling commentary under the cut.

[ID: Gifset of Anaheim Ducks player Trevor Zegras (#11) vs the New Jersey Devils; the sequence is a takeaway beginning in the Ducks' d-zone. Devils forward Jack Hughes (#86) cuts across the points to receive a pass from teammate Johnathan Kovacevic (#8).

Simultaneously, Zegras steps up to challenge him. As Hughes attempts to escape the pressure Zegras pokes the puck out from under his stick. The puck, now loose, jumps up. Zegras uses the heel of his trailing leg to kick it up to his awaiting stick.

Zegras then handles the puck as teammates Leo Carlsson (#91) and Olen Zellweger (#51, behind Leo) fall in to begin the transition through the neutral zone. Carlsson crosses over and comes up behind Zegras. Hughes, having had the puck stolen, circles back to attack Zegras as he crosses the blue line out to the neutral zone. Zegras sees the pressure and he drops the puck between his skates to Carlsson. /. End ID.]

loved this one. i love all takeaways of course, no matter how they're executed, whether it's via poke check or stick lift, an intercepted pass or even a well placed body check. but this one found the nuclear codes in my hindbrain: the kick. the kick. fun !! :3 i love to see players kick the puck with their skates, that's still so novel to me <33 also, the slowed down gifs are for viewing purposes but you gotta know that the entire sequence played out over 4 seconds of real time. it happened FAST and that makes it so much cooler.

do you ever think about the amazing feats of coordination these guys are pulling off. idk. sometimes i get complacent about it because it's so normal at this level of play. but then i see something like this and i'm reminded that, oh, right, they're doing sicknasty shit constantly!!!!!

speaking as someone who can barely skate in a straight line: the idea that people can be so at ease on the ice, in control of their body and stick, and furthermore so aware of where everyone else is - it absolutely blows me away. when i say i love ice hockey it's these little details. i mean it quite literally: the beautiful game!!!!

hey. hey. did you know takeaways are some kinda phantom stat? <3 well if you didn't, now you do! here's a fun little reddit thread about it. which is responding to this jfresh tweet about the subjectivity of takeaway stat tracking:

if you ever want to bring your peripheral awareness about the subjectivity of stat tracking RIGHT to the forefront of your mind, think about ice hockey i guess? also do you ever think about how other data is tracked? data that's used to inform medicine and algorithms and policy making!! EYE do! i got a friend working for my government's stats gathering arm. by their reports: it's bleak as hell. (numbers are so beautiful and real and true until you realise the people using them are imperfect humans </3 BUT THATS NOT THE POINT HERE. sorry. sorry.)

anyway! i wonder who has inflated stats because of human error/bias? probably everyone in limited capacities... but if i could ask the hockey gods to answer one question: is there a guy who is simply such an outlier because the stats people either liked him so much they credited him with too many takeaways, or they hated him so bad they simply didn't credit him with a bunch he had? curious. SO curious.

and of course, we'll never know because we can't go back in time and crack the stat tracking teams' brains open for every game day to peer inside -> check if they were being biased or not . we'd first have to decide on some final, prescriptive definition of "takeaway" to compare it to - and then where would the takeaways dialectic be?? </3

waaaahhh okay. okay. we skidded dangerously close to completely off-topic. time to steer into the skid!! yay <3 would you like a peek behind the curtain? :3

this sequence i've gifed doesn't even end in a successful zone entry (my gifed sequences rarely end in anything <3). I didn't end up gifing it but here's what happens: Leo cuts diagonally with Z instead of taking another route, and they both end up a little tightly packed near the boards as they try to cross into the o-zone. Leo holds onto the puck right up until he's at the blue line instead of taking up the passing option earlier. He passes to Z with very little space left between them, and then Kovacevic intercepts the pass to poke it out to neutral ice.

i realise this is making it sound like i think its Leo's fault the play didn't amount to some sicknasty extended o-zone time. truthfully, i don't think it was. it may have looked like he could've done something different, but that's easy to say from the comfort of my office chair. plus. i dislike results-based conclusions... just because something failed doesn't mean it wasn't a good choice to make under those circumstances.

what then are the components of a successful zone entry? speed? fakes? agility? your teammates giving you puck support? good passing? how does this differ going by each type? <- not actually asking for any answer here, i expect to do some digging myself <3 (though. if anyone has helpful papers on hand please see me in my office??) unfortunately im tired and i have gone into the relevancy DITCH with this skid (tokyo drifted into it, even!!!!) so i'll wrap it up here.

if you made it this far, expect some kind of research dump after i'm done churning through the backlogs of my favourite substack writers and podcasts and other reference materials. have you ever tried to understand something you only have the vaguest tangential irl experience with. im doing the equivalent of trying to understand the taste of black tea and the effects of caffeine, whilst having only ever had decaff vanilla lattes.

[cupidjyu]

Not sure if you're taking requests now but can you make a reaction for the boyz members reacting to their s/o talking lovingly about them

caught in the loving act?!

(hyung line) when he hears you talking about them fondly !

genre: back hugs, a lot of hugging, younghoon crying, kissing, very soft fluff! notes: LOL this was so fun to write!! and i love making younghoon the resident crier because he literally is... word count: 1.2k

sangyeon

sangyeon yawned. he had just woken up from a deep slumber. he reached his arm out to your side of the bed to pull you closer but he opened his eyes widely when he noticed that it was empty. he rubbed his eyes, tiredly as he sat up and walked out of the room to look for you.

he stopped when he saw you standing in the middle of the living room, your back turned to him. you seemed to be on your phone, talking to someone. he silently listened, leaning against the wall.

“yeah mom,” you spoke quietly. “i’m telling you, he’s just so perfect. almost like… husband material. he’s so caring and takes care of me. and he’s really handsome, exactly my type!”

he felt his heart warm as he listened to you ramble on and on. after a while, your conversation with your mother finally ended.

“okay… yes- yes, i’ll eat well,” you whined. “and sangyeon will visit soon, mhm? bye!” you hung up. you stood there, probably doing your morning routine of looking through your social media. it was quiet.

but suddenly, you were startled, your body instinctively freezing. you felt firm and warm arms snake around your waist, pulling you into a back hug. you immediately knew who it was as you relaxed into his body, his chest pressed against your back.

“morning?” you said, slightly confused. usually, he started mornings with a kiss, not a back hug. he only hummed in response, nuzzling his cheek into the top of your head. you giggled. “why’re you so cuddly?”

“mmm,” he thought for a moment, tightening his arms. “i don’t know, maybe because i heard you talking about me to your mom all lovey dovey?”

you squeaked, feeling your cheeks heat up as you turned around, “y-you heard that?”

he nodded, smiling fondly, “it means a lot to me truly.”

“oh,” you breathed out before smiling. “then i’m glad. i love you a lot.”

he grinned even wider as he picked you up so your legs wrapped around his hips, “i love you too.” 

jacob

that day was the day you decided to invite your friend over to show her the new clothes that you had bought. the two of you were cooped up in your room as jacob was in the kitchen, preparing drinks. when he walked to the door since the walls weren’t soundproof, he could hear a lot of giggling and he paused.

“by the way, your boyfriend…” he heard your friend’s voice. “does he treat you well?”

“oh yes,” you immediately replied. “he does. before, he even took care of me when i was tired from class. he cooked and everything! he’s just so sweet, like an angel fallen from heaven. i cannot deal with how special he is sometimes.”

his eyes widened and his heart beat faster as he listened to you go on and on. he could imagine your lovesick smile as he felt his own grow on his lips. after a while, the topic changed.

he took a deep breath, opening the door. he went and handed the drinks over.

“oh! cobie!” you smiled. “thank you so much.”

but he couldn’t look you in the eye, feeling himself blush. you eyed him, confused as you watched him walk away. you turned to your friend, “hold on a minute.”

you went after him, following him out the door.

“cobie,” you grabbed his arm, turning him around. “you okay?”

“no,” he garbled out, blushing even more.

“why?”

“i heard you talking about me…” he shyly whispered.

“oh-”

“thank you so much,” he pulled you into a tight hug. he laughed, “i didn’t know you felt that way.”

“of course i do,” you hugged him back. your friend appeared outside the door, watching. she wiped a fake tear from her eyes.

“that’s the sappiest thing i’ve ever seen…” 

younghoon

younghoon was supposed to pick you up after you went shopping with your friends. he was waiting outside the cafe. for some reason though, he could hear you and your friends’ voices from inside.

“how’s younghoon? is he being good to you?”

“of course,” you enthusiastically replied. “he’s wonderful. he gives great hugs too. he’s also so handsome. i especially love hugging him because he’s so tall. i love tall guys-”

he heard your friends laughing teasingly, making you whine embarrassed. he clutched the bag in his hand as he listened, feeling his eyes already start to water.

you got up, grabbed your things, and put your jacket on.

“i have to go now,” you waved them bye. you giggled excitedly. “younghoon’s on his way, i think.”

you walked out of the door, grinning. but when you turned, you rammed right into younghoon’s chest. you gasped, “younghoon! you’re earl-” you abruptly stopped. “are you okay?” you panicked when you looked up. his eyes were full to the brim with tears, threatening to fall. 

“you-” you tilted your head, pouting. “why are you crying?”

he sobbed even more so that people passing by started to stare. he pulled you into a tight hug, burying his face in your shoulder.

“you talk so nicely of me…” he mumbled. “i’m sorry i’m so emotional.” he pouted, lips wobbling and nose red as he pulled away. you giggled, using your sleeve to wipe away his tears.

“of course i would, you’re perfect to me,” you replied. “and it’s okay… my dear crybaby,” you teased. he whined hiding in your neck again. it looked odd with how tall he was but he didn’t seem to care.

“okay, okay, shh,” you cooed. “don’t cry, my love.”

he cried even more.

hyunjae

“ah, hold on,” you turned to leave the room. hyunjae sadly looked at you, reaching his hands to you. you giggled fondly. “i need to facetime my friend… i promised her i will.”

he nodded, defeated.

after a while though, he noticed that you were gone for a long while and he severely missed you. he thought he might go insane. so, he went to the room where you resided. he stopped in his tracks when he heard you talking and then heard his name.

hyunjae stood outside the slightly open door, listening.

“you saw the pictures of him? i know, hyunjae’s so charming and handsome…” you sighed dreamily. “he’s also super cute.” he could see in the corner of his eye, you kicking your legs.

“the real question is, is he a good kisser?” your friend on the other line asked. 

he saw your head bob with a frantic nod.

“he’s an amazing kisser,” you replied. “i’m being so serious. i just love him so much… he’s so gentle with it yet passionate and-”

your friend gagged, “okay that’s enough.”

you heard the door creak. your eyes widened when you saw hyunjae walking towards you with a quirked-up smile.

“h-hyunj-”

and without a word, he tilted your chin up, gazing at you fondly before leaning in to press a long kiss on your lips, stealing your breath away. he tilted his head slightly, deepening it before pulling away to press another one on your cheek. when you separated, you were speechless, stuttering with red ears.

hyunjae turned to where your friend was staring at the screen, mouth gaping.

“i can confirm i am a great kisser,” he smirked. you ended the call hurriedly.

“what the-”

he pulled you into a tight hug, “i love you.”

you slowly relaxed in his arms, kissing him again.