#i don’t know if i actually do ship them romantically but it’s a very fun idea to think about

[quirinah]

oomf was talking about this combi and I remembered the season 25 episode where they interact for like 30 seconds. and then i got progressively more invested

[stardustizuku]

Unfortunately I came across a very strange and misinformed video about Black Butler.

It’s not good. Don’t watch it. Unless you wanna ruin your day, in which case have fun.

Despite it all, I watched it. What left me wondering, however, was how off the mark the person who made the video was on, well, everything.

From their insistence that the Book of Circus Arc theme or point is non existent, to reading Ciel’s character so badly they genuinely thought the Green Witch Arc did nothing for his character development.

While baffled, it also made me think on how someone could read Black Butler so badly.

Sure, you can say that there’s no real way to read or interpret something “in the wrong way” but interpreting The Hunger Games as a pure battle-royale action story would make you believe it’s bad.

“Why are we focusing so much on how the capitol preps them?” Or “Why isn’t Katniss winning everything?” Or “I wanna know more about the rebellion” All questions that miss the actual point of the story - which is criticizing (not solving or ignoring) the way that media distracts us from violence via spectacle.

The same thing applies here. While there is no “right” way to consume media, there’s things that the author makes clear they wanna focus when creating a story. Things that, if you understand, make the story you’re reading actually make sense.

And in Black Butler there’s three things that you have to understand to properly get what Yana is saying.

Sebastian is the protagonist

Ciel and Sebastian’s relationship IS the story.

And that relationship is, fundamentally, a positive one.

A quicker version of it would be:

Black Butler is a love story from the POV of Sebastian, and you have to ship it to get it

- but that’s not entirely true.

You can still look at it as a complex but ultimately positive rship and get in broad strokes of what it’s conveying. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Although, it helps much more than a platonic framing.

(That said, interpreting their rship as father and son, still isn’t the best way to go about it. Mostly because by its very nature of “soul consuming” their relationship is extremely sexually charged. And hey, if you’re into that I don’t judge. However, if you’re desperately trying to interpret their rship as NOT romantic to the point you fall back on heteronormative patriarchal ideals of nuclear familiar as framing device, I don’t think this interpretation bodes with you)

Now, having all that ground work:

Why do I say these are the key components to understand BB?

Okay so, first,

1. Sebastian is the Main Character. The protagonist.

There’s a lot of people who wanna argue against it, claiming he’s either the villain or the antagonist. Both wrong.

He does not function as an antagonist. Even if, and an emphasis on if, you consider Ciel to the protagonist, Sebastian isn’t a narrative antagonist.

If you wanna go back to Creative Writing 101, be my guest. An antagonist is directly defined by the protagonist. It’s the opposing force. If the protagonist wants A, the antagonist wants to stop them from getting A.

Sebastian’s catchphrase is “Yes, my Lord”. He never opposes Ciel, in fact quite the contrary. By the mere fact they’ve created contract, it means that they’ve both agreed in the inevitable outcome.

People want to frame Sebastian as the villain, because Ciel having his soul taken by a demon, would be a BAD END in the context of their moral compass. They see Ciel as a frail victim of abuse, who’s being tricked by Sebastian, who wants Ciel’s soul.

Which is an. Interpretation. A bad one. But still one.

The narrative (and whether the narrative fits your personal moral compass and lack of critical thinking is irrelevant) treats Ciel as an agent in his own destiny. The abuse he suffered was the moment in which he had no control. It’s only after he meets Sebastian that he can rid of both his guilt and his despair, and do what he wants.

In this case though, it’s revenge.

The famous “Asthma” scene shows this. If Ciel is taken back to his past, he becomes helpless. Swarmed with pain and memories that make it so that he can’t even react. Sebastian is his saving grace. If Ciel didn’t have him, and the power he wields to rebuilt what’s broken, he would crumble once more.

If Ciel has a panic attack, because of all the pain he has, Sebastian picks him up and says “you are not a helpless child anymore, you are not a victim anymore, you have the power to do anything. So, what do you wanna do?”

Ciel’s answer is to kill them.

A proper analogy would be to say that, if Sebastian offers a gun, Ciel pulls the trigger. They are both at fault. Sebastian, strictly speaking, is not here to directly cause Ciel’s downfall, but as a tool Ciel uses to plunge into the abyss.

If, again if, you were to frame Ciel as a protagonist, Sebastian falls closer to the “Voice of reason” character. Not a literal voice of reason, but a literary one. If you have a protagonist and an antagonist exchanging ideals, the Voice of Reason serves to engage with the protagonist on their own ideals.

That said, Ciel isn’t the protagonist. The story quickly falls apart if you interpret it as such.

Things such as Ciel’s character arc being…shall I say odd?

It’s not that his character arc isn’t there, but it’s never lineal. His goals stay the same, the only thing that happens is that we start to peel back the “why”s of his goals. Throughout the series it’s never about Ciel understanding himself better, he knows who he is, he knows what he wants, he knows why he wants it. He doesn’t ever need to uncover these, but simply remember them. Because it’s always about the audience understanding Ciel.

He knows he wants revenge.

In the Circus Arc: He knows that he needs Sebastian because without him, the pain of the abuse he suffered would be too much to bear. But WE are introduced to it.

In the Book of Atlantis: He knows that with this new lease he does not want happiness and peace, he wants revenge. The one being told this is the audience.

In Green Witch Arc: He knows that their revenge isn’t for his family, the real Ciel or guilt. It’s because he wants it. He’s angry, he’s upset, and this is entirely for him. The one being told this is the audience.

Except. Not really. The one either discovering or remembering these key moments - is always Sebastian.

Sebastian is the one who reassures him that he now holds the power of a demon to override the pain. Sebastian is the one who remembers that to override that pain, Ciel wants revenge. And Sebastian is the one who discovers that that revenge isn’t built out of grief or guilt, but for himself.

We are witnessing it all, through the eyes of Sebastian.

This is why we have an extremely vague idea of who Ciel is, Sebastian does not have the whole picture.

If you haven’t been reading this manga with your eyes closed, you’ll realize we have a better grasp at Sebastian’s character than that of Ciel. We get a lot of insight on how he thinks and what he values through light hearted dialogue he has with the servants. You even see the character development in these little interactions.

Think about how when he first arrived to the mansion he magically created food with no regards to taste, but when he meets Bard he states that food is created to see whoever will eat it, smile.

That is character development, more than you will be able to see from Ciel.

Because Ciel’s character, while not static, doesn’t go from point A to point B. Mostly, cause it doesn’t need to. He went through that when he lost the real Ciel and got Sebastian. Everything we are watching is the falling out.

Now, given the fact that I’ve told you that it makes more sense for Sebastian to be the protagonist/main character, and that he 100% isn’t either a villain or antagonist in ANY of the interpretations you can get:

Do you believe me?

If you don’t, you’ll probably believe Yana herself.

This is from the first Volume, where Yana herself describes the process of making Black Butler. The primary idea behind the creation of BB was a butler as a “hero”.

If you go back to the introductory chapter, you notice that Ciel is barely mentioned. He’s simply the one to give Sebastian impossible tasks and standards that Sebastian must find how to overcome.

Ciel is properly introduced until the NEXT chapter. The second chapter has this formula too, introducing Lizzie as a problem to overcome. Although, to Sebastian the best way to “get rid of the problem” is simply to indulge her.

The issue here being that the problem isn’t as simple as a business meeting but something directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s past. Each time that Sebastian has to solve a problem, it chips away at Ciel. While with Lizzie he shows a persona, once he’s alone with Sebastian he acknowledges the toll it took on him. It serves to build Ciel as Sebastian’s master, and how some problems aren’t as simple as discarding a tablecloth.

The third and the fourth, are a unified narrative, with a similar premise to the first chapter. Ciel gets kidnapped and Sebastian must find a way to retrieve him without raising suspicions.

If the first chapter is to set up what Sebastian must do as a butler, the third and the fourth serve to set up what he must do as a demon.

The entirety of the volume, and up to Book of Circus Arc, is about how Sebastian tries to follow the increasingly absurd orders that Ciel has - it is not about Ciel trying to solve them.

That’s how they work, we follow Sebastian for the most part, because he’s the one having to come up with the solutions.

If anything, in early Kuro, where the emphasis was more on a slice of life conflict, Ciel is the antagonist. He’s the one creating problems for Sebastian to solve.

What’s more, in the second volume, the very first chapter is one from Sebastian’s POV. So far, we hadn’t gotten an entire chapter from Ciel’s POV. In fact, I would find it hard to point to a single chapter where Ciel is the POV throughout. The reveal of real Ciel and the flashback is the closest contender.

But once we move past early Kuro, and into Book of Circus, this set up changes.

It’s fairly easy to assume that Ciel is the main character, because from this point on the conflict of the plot sorta surrounded him. We spend a lot of time with him and with his story. The enemies start being people directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s trauma. Rarely, if at all, we get to see Sebastian before he met Ciel.The framing device for the story, is Ciel.

This is where point 2 gets intertwined.

2.- Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship IS the story.

The story begins at the point where Sebastian and Ciel met. Who Ciel was before he met Sebastian, informs why he’s the way he is when he does. You have to know all he went through to understand why he’s a brat, why he lashes out. However Sebastian’s past doesn’t matter…because Sebastian himself doesn’t care much for who he was, before he was “Sebastian”. That’s also part of the narrative.

Unlike Ciel, he doesn’t seem opposed to revealing information from before the contract. He talks about how pets from where he is from are gross, he talks about how he knows how to dance because of other places he’s been to, and alludes to the life he's lived before.

Just that, to him, they're footnotes.

He makes allusions to a very bland, uninteresting life, up to the point he meets Ciel.

That’s why we don’t know more about his past.

As for why we focus on Ciel’s story…okay maybe we need Creative Writing lessons 102

I studied Dramaturgy for about 3 to 4 years. And something you notice is how play-writing is the quintessential story telling. It’s making it work with the bare bones of a story.

Some other mediums have more finesse, more depth, or more spectacle - all amazing things that work for whatever they’re created for. But understanding a play, how and why it works, helps understand the fundamentals of any derivative story telling medium.

Particularly, conflict.

Conflict is dialogue and dialogue can take many forms. A story, in its essence, is a dialogue between two opposing ideas.

Take Batman, for example, who embodies the ideas of justice and order. On his own, he’s not a well rounded character.

If you ONLY present him, in a vaccum with nothing else, you don’t have a character. You have a list of characteristics that you’re supposed to know.

You only know who he is when you have dialogue with another character.

I say Dialogue, but it doesn’t necessarily mean spoken language at one another. Dialogue can mean fist fighting, playing tabletop games, talking to other people about the other, or even just a competition. The idea is to simply to compare and contrast both ideas.

If you want an example on how tabletop games serve as dialogue, watch the video “Well, Someone Had to Explain the Liar’s Dice Scene” by Lord Ravecraft

Another example, were we to retake Batman, you have him fight Joker. Who’s the embodiment of chaos and randomness.

In the following picture, you get far more information than the one previously shown. While the Joke fights with daggers and fake guns, Batman only uses his fists. He doesn’t use the tricks that Joker does. His serious demeanor, contrasted with Joker’s glee at the dangerous situation. The fact that Batman has a deathly grip on Joker’s shirt, while the Joker doesn’t, which shows a desperation to catch him.

You are being shown, through a dialogue, who Batman is.

It’s so much easier and much more effective to explore a character through another character.

This is the reason why Shonen has a tendency to make incredibly good gay ships. If you want to explore Naruto’s personality, and his feelings of inferiority, you HAVE to have him interact with Sasuke.

If you wanna understand Hinata’s passion for volleyball, you have him enjoy himself the most with the only other crazy motherfucker who’s as obsessed with volleyball - Kageyama.

And I think that originally, Yana had this problem.

Sebastian was the protagonist, but she had little room to develop him as a character in the confines of the manor, dealing with random enemies.

She likely tried to create Grell as someone of the same stature as Sebastian. Someone who could be this other person to engage dialogue with and show or allude to his past a bit more.

The problem being that Sebastian didn’t care for his past. Or really, engaging with anyone. He sees everyone as below him, but when confronted with Grell who isn’t below him, he doesn’t wanna talk to her.

So you’re stuck in conundrum.

How do you have dialogue with a character, that as a character trait, doesn’t really wanna have dialogue?

Well, Grell also solves the problem. Because only the moment she gets him to start any semblance of a dialogue - is questioning why he’s serving Ciel.

And this is the moment when it’s perfectly cemented that the focus of the story is their relationship.

Why is Sebastian here? Why does he stay? What did he see in Ciel that made him want this extremely convoluted contract?

THATS the dialogue.

THATS the conversation we’re having in Black Butler.

We need to know Ciel because understanding who he is, let’s us know WHY /Sebastian/ is here.

Then slowly, with the introduction with the Undertaker, we find out Sebastian’s conflict.

Which is…

He’s scared of losing Ciel. It becomes apparent with the constant imagery of the Undertaker taking away Ciel and at some point even obtaining r!Ciel’s body, that he’s worried it might happen.

But he can only be worried that Ciel might be taken away if he wants to stay near Ciel.

And that’s his character arc.

Realizing that he actually likes Ciel, cares for him and the role he plays a butler that he doesn’t want this to end.

In the first chapters, he doesn’t feel a need to protect Ciel anymore than what’s strictly necessary. Just don’t die, that’s about as deep as his involvement in chapter 4 gets.

But by the Green Witch Arc, he feels a need to protect Ciel from ANY harm.

This is why I also said

3.- Their relationship is fundamentally a positive one.

In broad strokes, Sebastian to Ciel is the person who allows him to survive. He’s not worried about giving up his soul since he’s already dead. While Ciel to Sebastian, is someone who’s making him have fun. He’s slowly becoming more and more attached to Ciel and the life he has with Ciel.

Their relationship is not that of just a predator and prey, but also of master and pet.

In the terms that Black Butler itself would call: Sebastian is a wild wolf acting like a collared dog.

Ciel is aware that the wild beast will eat him at the end of the day, but if he clings hard to leash for now, he might just be able to have Sebastian maul his abusers.

Sebastian as a dog, currently finds that he enjoys being a chained dog.

(This is demonstrated in the Green Witch arc where he quite literally says, he doesn’t wanna be a wild beast and prefers to be a butler)

And much like the actual DOG Sebastian, Ciel constantly interprets his attempts to get close and protect him, as an act of aggression.

This push and pull of Ciel’s perception of Sebastian and Sebastian’s true motives is what feeds the story.

And the briefs interludes were that isn’t the case (what other people call the “plot”, but I would refer to as the connective tissue) such as Sullivan and Wolfram, the other servant’s past, the grim reapers and the like, serve as a parallel to Ciel and Sebastian relationship. Either to signify how they care for each other, highlight their weaknesses or fears, or explore how they feel.

It’s no surprise that Sullivan and Wolfram are parallels to Ciel and Sebastian. A sheltered sickly child who seeks the protection of a cold hearted machine that only knew how to kill, but who eventually found he cared for her genuinely.

Undertaker and Claudia’s relationship being heavily paralleled with them, even though we aren’t 109% sure what they had but heavily implied it was a romantic attraction from the undead supernatural creature and a Phantomhive.

Everything is a parallel.

That’s why, like the approach of the terrible original video, is flawed.

Trying to interpret Black Butler as action scene after action scene, with mystery after mystery with the only connective tissue being the mystery of who burned down the mansion - is missing the trees for the forest.

That’s not the point.

And if you’re too much of a prude to engage with gothic horror in its gothic horror game, I see little point as to why you even bother to engage with it at all.

A lot of people, including the person who create the video, simply refuse to acknowledge Black Butler IS the story of Sebastian and Ciel as a close and positive relationship, romantically and sexually charged. The reason for it being that they’re “put off” by it.

Part of me wonders how much that is genuinely true, and how much is just performative outrage. It’s like ignoring the fact that Cersei and Jami are in an incestous relationship and try to frame it as “platonic love”, because the idea of it is THAT off putting.

But regardless of that, if you don’t like the fact that it’s as canon as canon can get, I would reccomend you don’t engage with the story at all.

As I’ve explained, the entirety of the series is about them. If you refuse to see Sebastian and Ciel as, at the very least, a duo that cares deeply for the other - you aren’t reading Black Butler.

I have no idea what you’re reading.Perhaps your own biases and subconscious stigma with British aesthetic. At that point, watch the fucking British Royalty Gossip Magazine. You’d find more substance there.

Just don’t be like the person in the video, please? Don’t play dumb. Don’t ignore the fact that Yana is a Shotacon, don’t ignore the fact Sebastian is a hero, don’t ignore the fact that the entirety of the story is based on Sebastian and Ciel’s dynamic.

Because if you do, you are ashamed. You are ashamed of what this story is about. You don’t wanna engage with the text, you want to engage with yourself. You wanna project into Ciel whatever traumas and experiences you have, for the sake a vanity project, where you come out as the morally superior.

You don’t wanna talk about Black Butler, you wanna talk about how good YOU are. How you “don’t sin” by watching it “without all the gross unholy stuff”.

Which is the exact opposite of what BB is about.

So, if you don’t want to, save us all the humiliation fetish and leave.

[auras-moonstone]

hi i cant tell u how excited i am everytime i get your notifications 😭😭 also i know if i send a rec you'll do an amazing job so i'm requesting one rn i hope u like it!

barista y/n and ethan landry who are coworkers after class, they're always teasing eachother and there is some (light) flirting

y/n hasn't realized yet how attractive he is, until he passes behind her grabbing her waist to get on the other side of the counter to get an order.

it's not rlly a plot but GOD i'm imagining ethan in his tight little polo shirt and the apron around his waist, his front curls w a little bit of sweat onto them while he makes coffee..... i'm so weak 😭

thank you so much😭🥺 i was so excited to write this! love the concept so so much. hope you like it 🫶🏻

glitch — ethan landry

word count: 1,747

pairing: barista!ethan landry x barista!fem!reader

summary: ethan has a crush on his co-worker, and she doesn’t reciprocate that crush until one touch changes everything.

warnings: a bit suggestive, but no smut

TRUTH WAS, ETHAN HAD BEEN SIMPING HARD FOR Y/N SINCE HIS VERY FIRST DAY OF WORK. How could he not when she had that graceful smile on her face that made every customer weak in the knees? Ethan clearly wasn’t not the exception, he could work-ship the ground she walked on. But the attraction was very much one-sided.

It wasn’t that he was invisible to her, but she just didn’t see him the way he wanted to. They did flirt a bit, but while he did it with the intention of making her notice him in a romantic way, she only did it for fun, there weren’t any second intentions involved. Besides, Ethan had to watch every day the way boys would hit on her and asked for her number and how she wrote it in the palm of their hands. It broke his heart knowing she would never see him in another light.

“How many times did you have to write your number in someone’s hands today?” Ethan asked faking a laugh as they closed the cafe.

Y/N rolled her eyes playfully “Today was a chill one, so not much.”

“Have you ever gone on a date with any those guys?” he asked curiously. She never talked about going on dates, or never mentioned she was seeing or texting someone.

Y/N looked at him with surprise eyes. “Eth, please tell me you don’t believe I actually hand in my number that easily.”

“Wait what?”

The girl laughed, and punch him in the arm lightly. “You do think that! God, Ethan. I give them fake numbers. I don’t want random people texting me.”

“Can’t you just say no?” Ethan asked confused.

“I don’t want them to feel bad.” she shrugged.

“So you give them fake numbers and make some strangers let them know the pretty barista gave them a fake number?” Ethan asked incredulously.

Y/N grimaced “Okay, that sounds bad too, but I least I don’t have to see their rejected faces and they don’t get turned down in public.”

Ethan laughed, and the pressure on his chest evaporated. Was it crazy that he felt relieved by this new information? A bit. “So that means that I shouldn’t bother to ask for your number?” he acted disappointed.

Y/N chuckled. “Econ geniuses are my weakness, so I would never give you a fake number.”

Ethan blushed and shoved her “Shut up! I’m not an Econ genius.”

“Anyone who passes that dreadful class is a genius in my eyes” she said, shoving him back. “Let me give you my number, but don’t ghost me, okay?”

“I would never.”

“Good, cause you’d break my heart.” she joked, writing down her real number on his palm. Her hand felt so good on his, Ethan wished she would never let go. “There you go. Text me, we should hang out outside of work.”

“Really?” Ethan’s eyes shone and his heart started doing cartwheels.

“Of course, Eth. I actually like being around you” she smiled softly. Ethan would definitely mark that day as the best day of his life. “I can set you up with someone and we can go on a double date!” his face fell. So much for hoping. “Or, we can do something just the two of us. Now that I think about it, we don’t actually know much about the other. What a fake friendship we have.”

Friendship. That’s all he was ever going to have with her, and he needed to come in terms with it. Y/N was amazing, and he should be lucky to have her around, even if it was just as a friend.

Although, on a wednesday morning, the turning point happened. The university’s cafe was completely packed, and so they had to work ten times faster than usual. Stress filled the air of the small shop.

“Ugh, stupid machine! You had to choose this day to work like shit?” Y/N groaned, hitting the coffee machine. The coffee poured down slowly, and knowing it was going to take ages for the cup to be filled, she took one step backwards in frustration.

Ethan, who was trying to get to the other side to deliver a drink, bumped into her. Being in a rush, he almost made her lose her balance when they collided, but he grabbed her by the waist just in time to steady her. “Sorry! Are you okay?”

Y/N wanted to say yes, but she was not okay. Not because he had hurt her, but because the feeling of his big hand on her waist left her speechless. It produced a glitch on her body, a malfunction that caused her brain to not be able to utter a single syllable. She only managed to nod before setting her eyes on the coffee machine as if it were the most interesting thing on the planet.

For the rest of the stressful shift, Y/N found herself sneaking glances towards the tall boy every time she could. She couldn’t help it, her eyes diverted on their own and every time Ethan would pass by her, her whole body tensed and yearned for one more touch.

Ethan’s electric touch had been like a bug that altered her whole system. How in the world did she not notice him like that before? The way his cute polo shirt hung to him like a second skin—giving him the look of a hot nerd that Y/N was now a complete sucker for—, the way he adorably frowned in concentration as he prepared a drink, or the way his beautiful curls sticked to his forehead because of the sweat—honestly, she had no idea sweaty men could be that attractive. That’s what Ethan Landry was. He was so fucking attractive, and now that Y/N saw it, it took her lots of self-control not to push him against the counter and kiss the hell out of him.

“Tough shift, right?” Ethan said as they cleaned the now empty cafe.

Her gaze dropped down to his arms, his biceps flexed as he cleaned the counter. He was so hot. “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with you today? You seemed off the entire day.” he asked confused.

“Nothing, I’m just really tired.” she said casually, forcing herself to look away from him.

“God, yes. My body is about to collapse.” he groaned as he stretched his arms. The action cause his shirt to ride up, showing a bit of his lower stomach.

Y/N’s grip on the cloth tightened as she felt the heat growing between her legs. I get it, I’m an idiot for not noticing how hot he is! Stop torturing me, she said to her hormones. “Same.”

Ethan laughed. “Seriously, what’s going on? Do you feel sick? You’re flushed, your face is really red. Do you have a fever? I can finish cleaning, you can go home, or wait for me and I’ll drive you.”

And he was so fucking sweet too. She wanted to rip her heart out and give it to him. “No, I’m okay.”

But Ethan didn’t believe her, so he walked towards her and cup her cheeks, making her breath hitch. “You’re not. What are you not telling me?”

Y/N sighed, he was not going to let go. “Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

“I wanted to know, now I need to know. Tell me.”

“I’m horny, okay?” she blurted out in an exasperated tone. “And it’s your fault!”

“W-what?” he took one step back, eyes widened.

“Yes, you put your hand on me today and I can’t just stop thinking about your long fingers on the curve of my waist. And you won’t believe half the things I’ve seen inside my head since. You have been driving me crazy the whole day”

Ethan’s mouth was dry. At first, he thought she was messing with him, but her shiny glossy doe eyes were telling him a different story. She wanted him. “Try me. No, actually, show me.”

And it was then when the cafe’s temperature raised, when lust filled the air and their bodies turned warm with need. Five seconds later, Y/N fastened herself to him with a stitch—she grabbed Ethan by the collar of his polo, and tugged him down to met her lips in one ferocious kiss. She walked him backwards until his lower back hit the edge of the counter. He moaned both in pain and excitement.

The girl sneaked her hand down his shirt and felt his toned abs, groaning in delight against his lips. “So fucking hot. I need you.”

Ethan grabbed her by the forearms to change positions and then turned Y/N around so that her back was against his front and her stomach pressed against the marble counter.

He bit her earlobe and then started dragging his wet lips down the skin of her neck, sucking on her sweet spot. His veiny rough hands slipped inside her shirt, exploring the skin of her stomach and then they settled on her waist, giving them a squeeze. “You liked this, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” she replied breathlessly, resting the back of her head on his chest.

“Isn’t this better though?” he asked huskily on her ear as he trailed his fingers upwards, cupping her breasts. “No bra? Lucky me.”

“Eth…” she moaned, clenching her thighs, desperate have him inside her.

Noticing that, Ethan used his right leg to spread her thighs apart. “Bend over the counter, love.” he commanded, raising her skirt up to her hips and unbuckling his belt. “Be a good girl and moan my name.”

When they left the cafe, they were both still flushed by the dirty and hot encounter they had. Ethan still couldn’t comprehend how the day ended—he had walked inside the cafe that morning, the idea of fucking Y/N didn’t even cross his mind because he knew he had no chance. And now he was leaving with his hand intertwined in hers.

Y/N, on the other hand, didn’t even want to think about her life before that shift, when she wasn’t at Ethan’s mercy, when she didn’t know he kissed slowly and with passion, that he was a very dirty talker, that his touch felt like heaven, that he loved being praised as much as he loved praising, that he made the hottest sounds and that even though he had been attractively rough during sex, he was a fucking sweetheart after it, making sure she wasn’t in pain and had a good time. Now, Y/N was all about Ethan Landry.

[violetasteracademic]

Why do you think gwyn would be added as a love interest for azriel if they don’t end up as endgame? Why complicate the love triangle between elain/lucien/azriel?

Hello my lovely anon!

It can sometimes be hard to tell where the anonymous asks in my inbox are coming from. It is never my intention to argue or try to convince any other ships why they are wrong. I tag my work very carefully, ask my beloved rebloggers to do the same, and just want to stay in a cozy bubble. I think all ships are allowed, and the time I spend here breaking down the text and providing analysis is only for fun and comfort. I don't ever want or wish for my posts to end up in the wrong tags. Now that I've gotten that disclaimer out of the way, this is an ask where I can't *totally* tell what perspective it is coming from, but I am assuming it is being asked in good faith and I will answer how I typically do.

Point blank, I do not believe G/wyn was introduced as a love interest. Only Elain was.

I don't really know that I have anything else to add to that conversation, because people either think it was romantic or it wasn't. But I will say that I assume we can all agree on all sides that the bonus chapter is what led to the fervor of the G/wynriel ship as G/wyn quite literally replacing Elain as the romantic interest and not just a fun, enjoyable ship for those who don't jive with Elriel and want to carve out a space for themselves in the fandom. And as someone who has read all of SJM's bonus chapters and not just this one, I'm going to provide side by side comparisons using *only* bonus chapters that I can almost guarantee many people have not read- since most people don't read the bonus chapters. I still get comments on old tiktoks every day asking what the Azriel bonus chapter is and where to find it. And not once have I ever been asked about the myriad of other BC's out there.

Crescent City Spoilers ahead:

House of Sky and Breath has three bonus chapters. There is one in particular that is almost a carbon copy of G/wyn and Azriel's portion in his POV bonus, and it is the Tharion POV chapter with Hypaxia:

^^Both men head to a place where they assumed they would be alone, minds heavy and restless and needing to work off some tension before they could sleep- only to find their space already occupied.

^^They both flounder a bit with social niceties, awkwardness, being polite, the other person clearly wanting to be alone, and yet wind up falling into a conversation anyway.

^^ Both pairs experience surprise at being asked questions no one has ever asked them before. They also reveal information about themselves- and notably- both bonus chapters reveal heavy backstory or indications about unique or hidden powers.

^^ Both men experience some sort of lingering sensation that they could have sworn was happening after saying goodnight.

And last but not least:

Both Tharion and Azriel end on a particularly strong emotional note. Tharion is passing notes through Fitz back and forth with Hypaxia. He notes how he has never had such an instant, honest, and deep connection. He won't let anyone interfere with her birthright, and if she was in danger, he would risk everything he had to protect Hypaxia.

Azriel is secretly regifting a necklace to Gwyn, and feels truly happy at the thought that it might make her happy. He likes and respects her and is glad to think of being able to make her smile. (I of course think there is a reason for this, which I've broken down here but I also don't think it's necessary to minimize their friendship for this post.)

If you look at these two bonus chapters side by side, they are literally a copy and paste. Two people needing to be alone and winding up together, talking about things they have never talked about anyone with, and both men really powerfully feeling the strength and depth of a connection. And if you read Tharion's chapter in full, there are actually way more details of him talking about how beautiful and gorgeous she is, and how he has to stop himself from going down that road. But did this set up Hypaxia and Tharion as romantic love interests?

Nope. Hypaxia is queer as queer can be. Kitty only on her menu. But they develop a very genuine and close friendship. Because the thing is, SJM writes an incredible amount of deep and meaningful friendships between men and women. And they are always a blend of emotion, intimacy, a bit fun and flirty, full of banter, and true trust and connection. So as far as BC's, Azriel and G/wyn and Tharion and Hypaxia are the only comparable ones in her catalogue. And they are pretty damn comparable. It's also important to note that the Tharion and Hypaxia bonus chapter was included in the book where she is very much revealed as 100% queer and not even a little bi, so it's not like SJM was trying to create a red herring or a conversation. That's just how she writes her hetero platonic friendships. Take it up with her, man.

Meanwhile, the things that make it clear that a romantic interest is being introduced occurs in the Elain portion, and can be directly compared to the Nessian bonus chapter. Both men being willing to beg on their knees for a taste. Both men absolutely losing their minds over Elain and Nesta's scents. Both men knowing it was wrong, it was stupid, but being unable to stop themselves anyway. Both men having issues of what their family would think if they found out introduced (only Rhys DID find out and laid down that forbidden romance hard.)

Here's the thing- many people read Elain and Azriel as romantic for over four books and there were people out there like, nah, I don't see it, they are more like brother and sister. And then the bonus chapter confirmed, no, actually, they are wildly down bad and desperate for each other. Wanting to taste and touch and kiss each other- romantic interest confirmation. Fun and banter-y conversation occurring because two people needed to be alone but actually wound up in the same vicinity as someone else and had a deep conversation and talked about things they've never spoken about with anyone before-Platonic friendship. You can disagree. But it doesn't change the fact that right now, a group of fans are interpreting G/wyn and Azriel's interactions as romantic, and preferring it to Elain and Azriel's confirmed romantic interactions.

Sarah did not add G/wyn as a love interest and complicate things. The fandom did. Until Azriel is not sleeping, not thinking clearly, down bad desperate to get on his knees for G/wyn- and until G/wyn leans into his touch and says yes, they are actually currently friends. Could that change in the future? Totally. But Sarah literally has not written it yet.

I don't mind that the G/wyn ship exists. I love her. I have real life G/wynriel friends who are not online like we are. They are good people with good hearts who have different taste in Azriel's potential romance than me. They don't ride at dawn for Elain like I do, nor are they violently misogynistic against her or being toxic and hateful towards other women online. They just liked G/wyn's story and want more of her. That's okay. But it is important to pay attention to what has actually been written vs. what is being assumed by a group of people that openly dislike the only female character remaining with a confirmed book and who has been confirmed as a love interest.

Read Sarah's other bonus chapters! They are fun. Azriel's isn't the only one that has ever existed, but it seems like that sometimes (and I'll admit, it's amazing and I love it so fair). And nothing happened in the bonus chapter that is going to change the course or foreshadow to anything new. Not everyone has access to them, and bonus chapters do not create new plot. They are just an incentive to make money and secure pre-orders.

I think that's everything! You guys are awesome for reading these insanely long posts and vibing with me here. ily.

[theladyofthevarioussorrows]

Sunspots

Fandom: Sunshine (2007)

Pairing: Robert Capa x fem!reader

Word count: 6,400+

Characters: Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy), the rest of the cast is only mentioned.

Summary: Alternate universe (duh). Reader is the 9th crew member on the Icarus II as a second physicist assigned to assist Capa; she and Capa started dating at some point during the mission. But, in this story, the mission was successful, and everyone lived to make it back to Earth; the reader and Capa have been together ever since. The story takes place during a solar eclipse two or three years or so after they make it back to Earth, and as to be expected, Capa is excited about and fascinated by the eclipse, and so is the reader. He is set on making it a beautiful and romantic experience for her, especially since it was because of them that they can see it from Earth.

Warnings and additional tags: Fluff, smut (p in v), established relationship, mention of masturbation (m and f), the mission is successful in this (everyone makes it back to Earth in one piece), soft!dom Capa if you squint, Capa is slightly out of character in this (he's happy, he's deeply in love with the reader, and he's a little bit of a tease), mention of airsickness, reader-insert, reader-interactive, reader uses Capa's first name a few times, Capa calls the reader "sunshine" (I think it's fucking cute okay? Sue me. I'm just a girl.).

Notes: This is my first fic in literal years, and it is in two parts...both are in this post. I took a lot of liberties here. Necessary ones I think, but liberties nonetheless. I don’t know a lot about space and space travel. I know very little about it actually. However, I did do some research (if you could call it that) and tried to make it as accurate to the movie as I could. I had a ton of fun writing this! I miiiiiiiiight add to this later on, we'll see! I hope you guys like it!

--->Smut below the cut! NSFW, minors DO NOT INTERACT!<---

He had been planning this for months. Years, to be exact. Up until now, he was convinced that if he made it back in one piece, he would have been alone.

Capa had spent over a year cramped up on the Icarus II with eight other crew members. Kaneda, Searle, Trey, Corazon, and Cassie seemed to take him seriously a good chunk of the time, but stayed mostly neutral towards him. Harvey and Mace tended to direct a lot of their anger towards him. Whether it was out of jealousy, anxiety, or whatever else, it didn’t matter what their reasoning behind ganging up on the lead physicist was. Despite their unfounded animosities, it was Capa’s stellar bomb that would reignite the Sun and save humanity from extinction. Even though tensions were understandably high, Capa was the only person aboard the Icarus II who knew the gravity and the importance of the mission they were tasked with carrying out. In other words, he was the only one who knew how to operate the device to perform such a miracle. It was really no surprise to anyone that they put Capa in charge of the payload; he understood the mission better than anyone else on the ship, and it showed. Mace and Harvey began to back off once it finally began to sink in that their lives depended on Capa, and because of that, they should take it easy on him. Try to, at least.

Of all the other astronauts on the Icarus II, Capa felt the closest to Y/L/N, the second physicist, a young woman wise beyond her years who was assigned to work alongside Capa. She was a bit younger than him and the rest of the crew, but she proved to have a level-headed way of looking at things, while also presenting herself with an air of cautious optimism. Her grace and appreciation of everything each of the members were doing drew Capa to her, something that initially made him nervous. She captivated him in a mysterious but welcome way, and she was nowhere near immune to his unique allure and quiet charm.

She would watch him in awe as he spoke, completely entranced by his intelligence. Every word he said, every move he made…she felt it in her heart, and deep in her core. After watching her perform her duties effortlessly without ever faltering once, Capa began to feel at ease with her, and he caught himself quietly thanking the forces that be for pairing the two of them together.

It took a lot of effort on his part to keep his composure around her, and little did he know, it was just as difficult for her to behave herself around him. He knew he was falling for her, and he tried to keep it down as long as he possibly could, just in case his feelings for her weren’t reciprocated. Even though she did feel the same way about him, she made a valiant effort to stay focused on the tasks at hand, despite the ever-looming temptation.

She and Capa grew close after spending hours alone working out equations or going over calculations, and even just spending whatever free time they had talking about anything and everything, but nothing too wild or personal just yet. After one particularly restless night, she left her quarters and came out to the common area to find Capa at the table, his head in his hands. He noticed her and lifted his face to look at her, a faint smile escaping his lips.

“Oh, hey. I take it you couldn’t sleep either?” Capa asked her, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes as he shifted in his seat. She looked absolutely beautiful to him, still in her sleep clothes that fit her perfectly, the fabric slightly revealing but leaving just enough to the imagination, her hair down and slightly tousled. His gaze accidentally drifted to her thighs and hips, and he looked away suddenly, focusing back on her face. Capa was trying hard to keep his cool as she stood in front of him, fighting back thoughts of how much better those clothes would look on his bedroom floor. He struggled to push the thought away, and was internally failing miserably at it.

She also felt an all-too-familiar feeling between her legs seeing Capa sitting there in his gray tank top shirt, his hair falling on his shoulders in the sexiest way possible. She couldn’t help but notice his well-defined arms, and traced the path of his veins with her eyes. She tried not to stare at him, and swallowed before she answered. “Yeah, unfortunately. A lot to do, a lot to think about, you know?” she answered back as she walked over to the table to sit down next to him. “Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?”

He motioned for her to sit down, welcoming her. “Oh no, not at all, the company would be nice. And yes, you’re right, there’s tons to think about for sure.” He sat up straighter and turned to face her better as he cleared his throat quietly, still fighting with his wandering mind.

She let out a small breath of relief before she sat down. She turned toward him and continued to speak. “What’s on your mind?” she asked. Even though she was concerned and was aware he was under an insane amount of pressure, she knew Capa had everything under control, and she trusted his judgment completely. “We can talk about it if you’d like.”

He takes a deep breath before answering her. “I guess it’s just nerves. You and I have run the calculations countless times now, and we’re on the correct path with everything, the payload is operational and all that…but I’m still a bit anxious about it. It’s nothing crazy, but, you know…” his voice trails off before looking into her eyes. “I just hope everything goes to plan, that’s all. I don’t think we have any reason to think it won’t, but still.”

She looked back at Capa. “Oh believe me, I totally understand.” She moves closer to him in an attempt to reassure him as she rests her hand on his. “But hey, I have faith that we can get it done and all will be well with the universe.” She smiled. “You’re doing amazing, by the way.”

Capa began to blush as he smiled back, softly but warmly. “Aww, thanks. Just doing my job.” He turned his hand over under hers, holding it gently as their fingers tangled together. “You’re doing great, too. We’re so lucky to have you with us…with me.” His heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe he said that out loud, but he didn’t bother trying to go back on it either. “I know I am.” His ocean blue eyes looked at her face, searching for any sign of discomfort or apprehension. He was relieved to find neither in her expression, just her smiling and blushing back at him.

She felt his words deep inside her as if a bomb on a much smaller scale was going off within her chest, and his words almost didn’t register with her right away. She smiled and blushed deeply before continuing. “That’s very sweet of you to say…thank you,” she answered. Despite the fact that they have spent a lot of time alone together in recent weeks, the tension in the room was noticeably thicker…so thick that you could slice it in the air with a scalpel. “I try my best. It’s all I can do, really.” She held onto his hand a little tighter as they gazed into each other’s eyes.

Capa broke the brief silence. “Hey…” he began, speaking warily but keeping his smile. “There’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’ve been waiting for the right time, and I’m not quite sure when that would be or would have been…I hope you won’t take it the wrong way.”

She looked back at Capa, curious but cautious. “Sure, you can ask me anything. What’s up?” He returned the gentle squeeze of her hand and softly grazed his thumb over her knuckles.

Capa took a deep breath, and looked away from her for a split second before directing his focus right back on her. He could feel his face getting warmer, his fair-skinned face turning a faint pink. He hesitated for a beat before throwing caution to the wind to speak his mind.

“Well…you know how we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately? Not just on protocol and calculations and whatever else…but in general?” He continued to hold her gaze while he waited for her response.

“Yeah, of course. Why?” she asked as she looked at him, still smiling and holding his hand, butterflies forming in her stomach. “Is everything okay?” she asked, trying to gauge where the conversation is going without assuming anything or jumping to any conclusions.

“Oh yeah, everything is fine, all things considered. Amazing, actually…” He swallowed quietly before beginning again. “Um…I guess what I’m trying to say is…I feel closer to you than anyone else on the ship…” He paused and chuckled nervously before he continued to speak. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt such a connection to someone. You understand me in a way that everyone else doesn’t, and I really appreciate that. A lot.” He smiled and blushed deeper.

She smiled and blushed deeper as well. “I’m glad I can make you feel that way.” She moved closer to him. “I feel the same way about you.”

He reached his free hand up to gently brush some of her hair out of her face, softly caressing her cheek as he did it. “You’re just…I don’t know what the right word is. Exhilarating? Refreshing, maybe? I guess what I mean to say is…” he trailed off before cupping the side of her face with his hand while holding onto her hand with the other. “I’m falling for you. I mean…I have fallen for you. You’re on my mind constantly.” He gazed at her for a beat before continuing his thought. “I hope that doesn’t make anything weird or awkward.” He searched your face again for any opposition. Yet again, he didn’t find any of either.

Capa wasn’t one to divulge his deepest, darkest secrets to anyone, but it took every ounce of his being not to tell her that he’s seen her face behind his eyelids almost every night for the past two or so months, her name in his throat every time his need for her took over. He let it spill all over himself when he couldn’t sleep, which was unfortunately often. She wasn’t going to tell him that she touched herself to the thought of him any time the mood struck her either, soaking her fingers and her sheets beneath her. The two of them, separated only by a thin wall, had been breathing each other’s names as they reached completion for quite some time, and neither of them had shared any feelings for each other until today. As luck would have it, their feelings were mutual.

She leaned into his hand as she looked back at him. “It’s not weird, I promise…I’ve fallen for you too. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t.” She gazed at him, full of love and infatuation. “You’re all I think about.”

Capa looked back at her with the same intensity. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that,” he replied. He leaned in closer to her still, less than a foot of space between them. “What I really wanted to ask is…” he trailed off as he caressed her cheek and jawline. “I know this isn’t ideal, and I’m sorry about that…but I want this mission to continue with no regrets. I would hate myself forever if I never told you how I really feel about you. With that being said…would you be okay with us seeing where this goes?” His eyes never left hers as he confessed his love for her. “I want to be with you…if you’ll have me. Now, and, God willing, after the mission, too.”

Her heart pounded in her chest as she heard his words. “Of course I will. I want to be with you, too. I want nothing more than to be with you.”

Capa smiled and let out a sigh of relief before he spoke again. “Thank you…really. You mean everything to me, and I want you to know that…I’ll never let you forget it.” He closed any remaining distance between the two of them. He caressed her face tenderly once more. “May I…?”

She smiled at him with admiration and anticipation. “Yes, you may.”

Capa closed his eyes, leaned in, and kissed her gingerly at first, her eyes fluttering shut. She tilted her head as she kissed him back. Their kiss grew more and more passionate as seconds passed. He held her head gently and he ran his fingers through her hair as she wrapped her arms around his neck, their tongues dancing together softly. Capa slowly broke the kiss and opened his eyes. She opened hers as they pulled away, their pupils blown out with love and desire. He wrapped his arms around her as she pulled him into a tight hug, resting her head in the crook of his neck.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long…” he breathed into her hair as he rubbed his hands on her back, inhaling her sweet scent. “Thank you…I mean it.” Capa blushed some more as he took another deep breath. “God, you make me feel like I’m a teenager again.”

“Me too…you’re absolutely lovely,” she replied, hugging him tighter. “You’re the man I’ve always dreamed of.” She broke the hug before looking into his icy blue eyes again. “Does this mean we’re together?” she asked, blushing and smiling.

Capa smiled back at her. “It does…is that okay with you?” He brushed some of her hair over her shoulder before caressing her face again.

“That is more than okay with me,” she answered. “So, what now?”

Capa blushed deeper as he smiled. “Come here…” He stood up from the table and held his hand out for her to take. She accepted his hand and stood up as he put his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck as his plush lips met hers again, kissing her with more intensity and urgency than he had before. She matched his passion as she returned his kiss, tangling her fingers in his long, dark, soft hair.

Noticing her need for him in her movements, Capa moved his kisses from her lips to her chin and jawline, then down along her neck and collarbone, immediately appreciating her reaction as she moaned quietly, tugging on his gray sleeveless shirt. She mused to herself about how effortlessly gorgeous he looked in it again, biting her lip at the thought, instantly reminded of all those nights she fantasized about taking it off of him. Lost in lustful longing, she struggled to get the words out.

“How did you know that I…maybe…we should probably…go somewhere else…” she whispered in between heavy breaths and soft whimpers. “Someone might wonder…what if someone wakes up and…” This is the first time he’d ever kissed her, and he already figured out one of the things that drives her crazy, knocking the air out of her lungs without trying to.

Capa chuckled slyly as he softly shushed her before he agreed. “A wild guess? But yeah…good call.” He gently pulled her with him towards his small bedroom. “We’ll deal with everyone else later. You’re all that matters to me right now.” He opened his door and let her in before shutting it behind him and locking the two of them inside. He looked at her with concern. “Are you okay with this? We don’t have to…you know…if you don’t want to…” His voice was low and seductive as he moved his hands under her shirt, tracing the curve of her spine and her shoulder blades with his fingers.

She spoke as he trailed off. “Yes, I want to…I want you. I’m sure about this. Are you?” she answered, looking back at him lovingly.

“As sure as I’m alive,” Capa answered, smiling back at her with just as much love. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.” He kissed her some more before gently pushing her backwards onto his bed and positioned himself between her spread legs as he laid her down.

They spent the rest of the night making love to each other, over and over, drawing out every single moment to make it last as long as possible, and after at least a few hours, they wore each other out completely. Their first entanglement started out slow and sensual until their hunger for each other consumed them. They tried their absolute hardest to keep the noise to a minimum, but that became increasingly difficult for the both of them as their makeout heated up and clothes started to fall away.

Capa was gentle with her for their first time having sex, leaving no part of her untouched or unkissed, committing every inch of her skin to memory as if it was their last night alive. As far as he was aware, the woman underneath him was nothing short of a goddess. She gladly returned the favor, marveling at his incredible beauty. She was completely amazed at how he looked as if he was carved from stone, his whole body breathtakingly perfect to her. As far as they were concerned, it very well could have been their final night together. Neither of them were worried about that now, focusing solely on each other.

She was tight like a vice and sopping wet around him, and he stretched her so deliciously that he would whisper his praises in her ear, encouraging her. Capa made it a habit to cover her mouth as he took her, something she learned to absolutely lose her mind over. If he wasn’t covering her mouth as he brought her to climax, he would make sure to devour her with hot kisses as she contracted around him, bringing his orgasm forth soon after. As much as he would have loved for her to be as loud as she possibly could, Capa found it incredibly sexy and oddly endearing when she struggled to stay quiet under him, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as he poured himself into her.

She was able to rile Capa up in all the best ways possible as well, and he too had some difficulty trying to keep his voice down. One round turned into two, and then three…and on and on until both of them were sore and exhausted. Once they were able to catch their breath, Capa would make sure he didn’t wreck her too much, and if he did, he’d kiss it all away, and she would follow suit. “I love you” were three little words that neither of them could ever get sick of saying or hearing from the other.

After all of their daily tasks were taken care of for the day, every night on the Icarus II thereafter was spent in each other’s arms, whether in Capa’s bed or hers. On nights when they weren’t ravishing each other half to death with reckless abandon, she and Capa would lay in bed together and talk about whatever came to mind until they fell asleep tangled up in each other. She and Capa were able to keep their new relationship a secret for about a week maximum before the crew found out on their own. They were delighted to discover that none of the rest of the crew were surprised that they ended up together. There was initially some concern, but ultimately the crew accepted it and let it continue, because they knew that these moments the crew had together could be the last they have with anyone, so who cares if two of the crew members fell in love?

Mace ribbed Capa about his enthusiastic nightly activities with Y/L/N, and it was nice that he wasn’t fighting with him for once. It was hard for him to believe that Capa, the usually soft-spoken physicist, had that effect on Y/L/N. He even mentioned to Cassie that he has never seen Capa smile as much as he did now, and Cassie added that Y/L/N had a glow about her. For someone as quiet and reserved as Capa, Mace found it amusing that his new girlfriend could bring him out of his shell like that, and although he would never admit it, he was glad that it was Y/L/N.

Capa was bashful about discussing his relationship with Y/L/N to the others, shying away from the sexual aspect, but he had no issue praising her and giving her credit when it was due. It was obvious that he was absolutely head over heels for Y/L/N, and she blushed anytime the crew teased her or tried to get her to reveal any juicy details about their rendezvous behind closed cabin doors. They were in love, and it brought a new positive energy to the rest of the mission. Kaneda was thankful that everyone seemed to be getting along better and in good spirits, while Trey and Harvey were indifferent towards the two physicists becoming a couple, but thrilled for them nonetheless.

Searle, being a doctor, wasn’t really concerned with it, but was also excited for them. He pretended not to notice the love marks Capa bit into Y/L/N’s neck or the faint scratches she had left on Capa’s shoulders, and especially tried to ignore the way Y/L/N would squirm slightly when she sat down. Corazon, happily content that a relationship so strong could come from something so hellish, reminded everyone that they had a surplus of oxygen coming from the garden due to overgrowth. The crew would still have more than enough oxygen to go around, whether Capa and Y/L/N were “fucking like rabbits” or not, as Mace put it.

After a few weeks of calculations, trajectory adjustments, and protocols during the day and exploring each other and falling in love more and more at night, Capa led the rest of the crew to carry out the mission successfully. Capa made sure everything was done exactly to plan, and he didn’t do anything without his girl by his side, from the ignition of the bomb all the way through the terrifying trek back to Earth.

It didn’t matter how many times the crew had practiced and prepared for the descent back to solid ground, the airsickness still hit Y/L/N the hardest. It was the part of being an astronaut she hated the most, and she never quite got used to it. Capa was well aware of this having seen her go through it during their zero-gravity training, and he felt bad that it was hard on her. He was one of the lucky ones who could handle it well; the worst of it for him was a slight change in equilibrium that left him briefly lightheaded. But now he took care of her lovingly, holding her hair out of the way and rubbing her back as the nausea won the battle against her, never leaving her side until he knew she was okay.

She was embarrassed about it as it was happening, not wanting anyone to see her so violently ill, but was eventually able to joke about it once the sick, spinning feeling dissipated. All of that initial anxiety melted away knowing her boyfriend was right there beside her, making sure she felt well enough before taking care of any other necessary tasks. He reassured her that a lot of people are really sensitive to it, and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. In an attempt to make light of the situation, Capa reminded her that the reduced-gravity aircraft they used during their weightlessness training was called the “Vomit Comet” for a reason.

As the Icarus II landed, the crew was met with a massive crowd of people cheering them on, congratulating them on their historic achievement, while also mourning the deaths of the previous Icarus crew. Once everyone was back to their normal selves, or as close to it as possible, Cassie, Mace, Corazon, Trey, Searle, Harvey, and Kaneda all went back to their homes in various places around the world.

Meanwhile, Capa and Y/L/N settled down somewhere in the halfway point between their hometowns, close enough to Capa’s sister and her kids in one direction, and Y/L/N’s family in the other. They had found themselves a nice house outside of the city, and the two built their own small planetarium in their backyard together. Their two-story home was modest but just enough for them; not too small, but not too big either. It was there that they stayed happily for the next couple of years.

______________________________________________________________

It was a warm April day, but to Capa, it wasn’t just any typical day. Today was special.

The solar eclipse was happening today. He hadn’t seen an eclipse on Earth in many years. He has seen a few eclipses from the vantage point of the Icarus II in space, but it’s been a long time since he’s experienced one from the ground, and it just so happened that the path of totality was going right over his house he shared with his girlfriend, Y/L/N.

Of course, being a physicist and an astronaut, he knew the date and time of when the Moon was supposed to pass in front of the Sun ahead of time -- months, maybe years in advance -- and he knew he wanted to experience it with the love of his life. Even more than that, he wanted to make the experience as beautiful and as romantic as he possibly could. It was because of the couple and the rest of the Icarus II crew that they were able to view such a remarkable thing from Earth after all.

While Y/L/N was away for a few hours finishing a few last-minute errands, Capa was busy in their backyard in the midday spring air, setting up a massive telescope and a camera. Next to his setup, he spread out a large blanket on the grass, and on it he set a bottle of wine and two glasses. As he was getting the angle of the telescope just right and setting the time lapse to the correct adjustments on the camera, he thought he heard Y/L/N’s car pull into their driveway. As she got out of the car, she looked around for him, but didn’t see him right away.

“Sweetheart, I’m home!” she called out. She waited a second before calling out for him again. “Robert? Honey?”

“I’m in the backyard, baby,” he called back to her. “I’ll be right there.” Capa walked over to her to help her carry the bags into the house. He helped her put the groceries away in the kitchen, and once everything had been taken in and put away, he pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her deeply, leaving her breathless. She kissed him back, returning his intensity as she held onto his shoulders. She wobbled a little, but Capa held onto her tight, not letting her fall. He gently broke the kiss, his arms still around her.

“Welcome home, sunshine,” Capa said, his eyes full of love. “I was getting nervous for a second there.”

A little dizzy from his kiss, she giggled before answering. “I’m sorry, sweetheart…traffic was backed up, but I made it.” She kissed him again as she hugged him. “How much time do we have until everything goes dark?”

Capa returned the kiss, gently running his hands up and down her back. “We have about half an hour or so before we can see anything happen.” He smiled at her as he played with her hair lovingly. “Might as well head outside so we don’t miss anything cool…what do you think, angel?”

She blushed as she leaned into his touch. “Sure, hun. Let’s go.” She took his hand as he led her outside to their backyard. He helped her sit down on the blanket he put out for them before sitting down next to her. Her eyes widened at the romantic scene he had created for the two of them, the telescope and the camera, as well as the bottle of wine and glasses, and the string lights he attached to the sides of their little planetarium.

He opened the bottle and poured the wine into a glass and handed it to her, before doing the same for himself. “Here you go, my love,” he said as he handed the glass to her.

She gently took the glass from him and smiled. “Thank you, sweetheart.” They tapped their glasses together before they each took a sip. “God, baby, this is really beautiful,” she said, her voice wavering slightly as she rested her head on his shoulder.

He kissed her forehead tenderly. “Not nearly as beautiful as you are,” he said as he smiled back, wrapping his arm around her. “I love you so much. Forever and always.” he said as he planted another small kiss on the top of her head.

“I love you too. So much. With my whole heart.” she replied, nuzzling up closer to him.

Capa leaned over to kiss her on the lips one more time. “Shouldn’t be too much longer…it’s getting kinda dark, and it’s quiet all of a sudden.” He moved slightly to look through the telescope lens. “We’re really close now, I think.” He pulled away and moved the lens towards her. “Here, look at this…it reminds me of all those eclipses you and I used to watch together on the ship, just smaller and farther away.”

She looked through the lens and smiled. “I’ll never get tired of looking at things like this,” she said as the sky started to dim. “It’s always so breathtaking to see.”

While she was distracted by looking at the interstellar image in the eyepiece of the telescope, he stood up and reached into his pocket to pull out an engagement ring with a sunstone gem encrusted in the center, and hid it inside his hand. The sky was getting darker still, and the Moon was almost completely covering the Sun.

“Y/F/N?” he asked as he stood in front of her.

She pulled away from the telescope, and Capa helped her to her feet with his free hand. “Yes, Robert?” she asked as the Moon moved closer to blocking the Sun. “What is it?” The sky turned pitch black except for the light coming from the Sun beginning to hide behind the Moon.

He swallowed as he chose his words carefully. “You mean the world to me, Y/F/N. You are my world. Being with you has made me the happiest man on Earth.” He slowly dropped down to one knee in front of her, causing her to gasp as he took her left hand in both of his. “I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life right here with you. Will you marry me?” he asked gently and lovingly as tears started to form in his eyes.

She trembled and started to cry tears of joy. “Oh my God…yes! Of course I’ll marry you!”

Tears started to fall down his cheeks as he slipped the ring onto her finger. He stood back up and took her into his arms and kissed her deeply. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back, his tears mixing with hers. Overhead, the Sun appeared as a white circle in the sky, while the string lights glimmered behind them in the darkness caused by the eclipse.

“I love you, sunshine. More than anything else in the universe.” Capa said as he gently wiped away the tears from her face. He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. As they held each other, the sky began to brighten back up. He pulled away from the hug to kiss her deeply again. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart. So much. More than words can ever say.” she replied, kissing away his tears. “I can’t wait to be your wife.”

Capa blushed. “And I can’t wait to be your husband.” He kissed her back, holding her tightly in silence for a bit before speaking again. “So how was that? Pretty awesome, huh?”

She giggled and blushed. “Everything was amazing! Absolutely beautiful! I’m the luckiest woman on the planet to have you.” She kissed his cheek as she held him close.

Capa smiled and blushed as well. “Good, I’m glad. And I’m the luckiest man on the planet to have you, too.” He kissed her back with a little bit more passion than before. “I was thinking…”

She kissed him back, matching his intensity. “Oh? Thinking about what?” she asked, looking into his beautiful cobalt blue eyes.

“I was thinking that maybe we can go to bed early tonight…you know, to celebrate,” he said with an air of seduction in his voice. “And we don’t have anything going on tomorrow…” He kissed her again, this time biting her bottom lip softly and tugging on it with his teeth before letting it go, eliciting a small moan from her.

She kissed him back, feeling a wet warmth pool between her thighs as he ran his hands up and down her body. She moaned breathlessly before speaking. “Yeah? And how should we do that?”

Capa smiled wickedly as he began to kiss her jawline and collarbone before leaving a lingering kiss where her neck meets her shoulder. “Well, I could start there…”

She moaned a little louder. “My God…you know what happens when you do that…” she breathed as he continued to tease her.

Capa laughed slyly. “Believe me, I’m well aware of what happens, and I’ll never get sick of it. What do you say we go upstairs…” he trailed off before kissing her neck again, his teeth lightly scraping against her collarbone. “I’ve spent enough time exploring the sky when I’d much rather spend all night exploring my future wife,” he murmured, his lips against hers. “And every night after that.”

She swooned at his words, feeling weak at the knees in his arms. “Anything you say, baby,” she whispered. “I’m all yours. Forever.”

“Forever with you sounds pretty fantastic to me,” he said, full of desire for her. Wasting no time at all, Capa took her by the hand and led her into the house. “I’ll be right back, babe. I’ll meet you in the bedroom in a minute,” he said, his voice dripping with lustful need. She didn’t need him to tell her twice as she started up the stairs, but not before he playfully swatted her on the ass on her way up, making her giggle. He practically ran out to bring everything they had left outside into the house as fast as he could, shutting the door behind him with a soft slam when he came back in. He threw the blanket on a chair, leaned the telescope against the wall, set the camera down next to it, and brought the bottle of wine and the two glasses upstairs with him. He entered their bedroom and put everything in his hands on the nightstand.

Capa saw his now-fiancée sitting on the edge of their bed, eagerly waiting for him. “Took you long enough,” she teased him as she bit her lip looking at him. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come back.” Her voice was sultry as she shifted on their mattress.

Blushing, Capa rolled his eyes in mock annoyance as he smiled, and teased her right back. “I was gone maybe two seconds max…you want me that bad already, huh?” She nodded as he took her into his arms again, kissing her deeply as he pulled her closer. Kneeling on the mattress in front of him as he stood at the edge of the bed, she returned his kisses as she lifted his shirt up and over his head before tossing it to the floor. “Good, because I need to have you right now,” he said, his excitement becoming nearly painful. Capa then started to undo the buttons of her shirt, fumbling with them slightly before giving in. He ripped it clear off of her shoulders, sending buttons flying in all directions, causing her to gasp and giggle in delight. He dragged her ruined shirt off of her shoulders and threw it behind him as he pulled one of the straps of her bra down to kiss her collarbone.

“You asked for it, love…I told you, you know what happens when you kiss me and bite me like that.” She kissed him again as she started to unbuckle his belt. “I think you know by now I can’t behave when you torture me.” She shot him a sexy wink before kissing him again. His breath caught in his throat as she tore his belt from around his hips and threw it to the floor to join his shirt.

“Torture, huh? Are you sure? Because something tells me you enjoy it. Quite a lot.” His voice had a sensual danger about it, and it thrilled her. He held her chin with his forefinger and thumb before dropping his voice to a velvety whisper. “And yes, I know exactly what happens. I want to see how much you can take. I also happen to know each and every thing that drives you wild.” He unhooked her bra with his free hand and took it off of her so slowly that she trembled. “See? Just like that.”

Thank you for reading! I hope you guys liked it, and if you did, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and my requests are open! <3

[olympeline]

Feel a little introspective so have some of my thoughts on the dynamics of various England ships. Aside from FrUK because I post so much about them already:

EngPan: Lonely, isolated introvert meets lonely, isolated introvert. Together they are…still introverted and isolated but less lonely, hehe. Feels like Kiku would fall for Arthur first and Arthur would be clueless for a while then very flustered and in denial when he found out. Then a loooong courtship with a lot of pussyfooting around and “After you.” “No, no, after you.” “No, I insist.” “No, I insist.” dancing around. But they make it in the end. Quite a sweet love story all in all.

GerEng: Kuudere/Tsundere courtship farce! How does Arthur cope with meeting someone even more emotionally constipated than he is? Oh my god these two would be excruciating. Lol, I kinda love it. By the time they actually got together, the world might have ended already. But I think they’d rub along pretty well once they were actually established as a couple, you know? It would take so long that they would already have learnt how to deal with the other’s worst points

PortEng: Childhood sweethearts face down the world and make it together. The ship with the least amount of drama. A simple two puzzle pieces click together and everything is good. Not that they never argue or have spats, but it’s just normal couples stuff. Healthy disagreements and healthy making up from a healthy couple. “And they lived happily ever after.” Maybe they had an arranged marriage but it turned out to be perfectly arranged, luckily enough.

PrUK: I don’t know who you think you are but I know this much is true, I wanna do bad things with you ~ 🎵 Punk pair with a shared bloody history and plenty of fight, sex, and steel left in them. They egg each other on and bring out the other’s savage side. Very unstable until they both grow up and mature (if they ever do) but damn, so much fun along the way. They’d each enjoy facing someone who could match them.

RusEng: The eternal outsiders of Europe find each other. The biggest stumbling block would be how fricking terrified Arthur is of Ivan. Like it would take a long time before Ivan could convince Arthur he’s actually romantically interested in him and not there to make a cloak of his skin lmao. Feels like Arthur would be attracted to this sexy, feral Russian, built-like-a-fridge beast man and hate it. Then Ivan would cotton on, decide “oh, okay. Turns out I like him back. Let’s become one be together.” and that would be that. Ivan takes the lead and “no” isn’t really in his lexicon. But Arthur likes him back, so yay? Lol, live your best life with that sub kink you’ve just discovered you have, Arthur. They can work on the emotional stuff later

SpUK: Pure and simple rum-swilling, sword fighting, enemies-to-lovers with plenty of hate fucking along the way. Arthur looks up to Antonio as an inspiration before the Age of Sail. Gets himself a little crush on this sexy, sexy Spaniard who he’s meant to hate. Antonio doesn’t pay attention to Arthur at first. Until this upstart island nation starts shamelessly stepping (sailing?) all over his territory. Then he’s intrigued, then pissed, then amused when he notices Arthur’s crush, then simultaneously pissed and horrified when he realises he might actually be okay with a roll in the hay with the Protestant dog. It grows from there.

USUK: Do I even need to say anything? Sunny extrovert loves moody introvert pure goodness. Happy and clueless(?) meet gloomy and overthinks everything. Opposites attract. A painful past becomes a bright future. So much potential and good stuff with Alfred and Arthur it almost feels too obvious to post about it lol. This ship sails itself.

[meraki-yao]

Now I'm curious to know all the "candies" between Nick and Tay 👀 lol I don't ship them but I also find it interesting that some fans really ship real people together and gather evidence or proof of it. If its fine with you to share it pls do 🙏 but if not its also fine :)

Huh...

Actually, sure! I kinda wanted to share some of these at times but again I understand that rps is a complicated subject.

A couple of quick prefaces though:

1, If you’re uncomfortable with the subject, again, please don’t read under the post

2, I don’t have all the candies because I really just view them in passing, so I’m just gonna write/translate the ones I’ve seen, remember and find at least a logical speculation

3, I need to reiterate this in case my position in this gets misunderstood: Me writing about “candies” isn’t because these are MY opinion or things *I* found or *I* believe in them being evidence. I am just a translator and messenger.

4, (this one is gonna sound a little academic lol) Two things I realized when thinking about this “candy eating” culture is that Chinese people have a very difference understanding of platonic/romantic affection/relationships with the Western world, and that they look at the candies with rose-tinted glass. Chinese/Asian people are generally a lot less affectionate with their personal relationships, for example friends wouldn’t say “love you” to each other if they’re just friends, nor would they expand their friend group to the others easily or other stuff. And these people who look for candy go into their “investigation” already with the belief that “they are together”, everything remotely resembling a close relationship will automatically be interpreted as romantic. I thought about it a lot, and honestly among the “candies” I’ve seen, most of them are a matter of interpretation: yes those are things couples will do, but it wouldn’t be weird if friends did it too. So they’re not that seriously or up for further speculation. There is I think only one “candy” that I can’t quite say the same, which I will explain and elaborate on in this post. 

5, Please remember that the people who do this do it in good nature: something I didn’t make clear in my post yesterday, which is on me, is that the fans do want them to be together, but they’re not like… yandere level or something. If they’re just friends the fans won’t be upset or betrayed or anything, they just prefer to see them as romantic. They don’t mean any harm, and they don’t cause any harm because China is physically and digitally too far away for them to actually fuck shit up, and they understand the lines of parasocial relationships: those who met with Taylor during his China trip in December know to, and didn’t bring up this in front of him. They know where to draw the line, and whoever doesn’t and starts becoming a problem gets kicked out of the community. This is meant for fun.

6, Ok Future Meraki here, turns out, there’s a lot to translate, a lot more than I anticipated Jesus Christ and I do want to get this post how within today and make it a reasonable length, so I’m just gonna do two events and the one that I mentioned in 4. If yall want a part 2 let me know.

Ok with that being said, the main event under the cut:

In December they made a whole article about “candies” from December, and to quickly summarise (again noted that all of this is speculation, I didn’t and can’t fact check them, and I’m just a translator) (also this ended up way longer than I anticipated so for photo reference if you can please go to the link of the original article):

Academy Gala:

Nick and Taylor both attended the gala: Since the strike ended up to that point, the two times Nick attends a public event, Taylor’s there too (GQ men of the year and Academy Gala), and for both times he’s wearing Cartier’s Tank Must Watch (remember this watch, I’m gonna elaborate on it later because it is the only candy that even I can’t say it’s a matter of interpretation)

In various pictures of the night’s party that other people took, the boys can be seen together in the background

How the photography worked that night was magazine photographers wandered around the venue and randomly found people to take some relatively candid photos: so people who were walking/sitting/in any way sticking together would be photographed together. So best friends and married couples would be photographed together, which is what happened to Meryl Streep, Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, and Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy and their wives. With that logic, Taylor and Nick were caught by the photographer together TWICE, in clearly different places. Later Korean fans (with the same “candy-searching” mindset) read the time on Taylor’s watch in the photos: one was 8:30, one was 9:50. The implication is that they were together for at least that period of time (nearly 1.5 hours)

In both photos of the boys together, Nick’s elbow is…straight up leaning into Taylor's chest. In a photo with Kaia, Nick’s friend and co-star from Bottoms (Brittany), there’s visible space between Nick and Kaia but none between Nick and Taylor (… okay I’m gonna pop in with my own opinion on the latter one real quick: I really think that one is just Nick being a gentleman)  

During that night, Taylor re-posted an Instagram post from July onto Little Red Book: but the things is in the comment section of the original Instagram post, Taylor teasingly pretends to not know Nick; and according to the posting time and the time calculated in 3, Nick would have been watching him post that to Little Red Book.

Nick got a photo with Taylor’s friend Jay Ellis (Jay and Taylor follow each other on Instagram, and Taylor comments under Jay’s post), even though Nick and Jay don’t seem to have any direct connections. Kaia and Taylor started following each other on Instagram after the event.

While other people who got photos with Taylor posted them, in Taylor’s Instagram Post for the night: He only included his photo with Nick, the rest are all solo portraits of himself. Not only that: he edited the background of the photo so it’s just them, and proceeded to put the photo in the middle of the post.

a bunch of Taylor's good friends, including Taylor’s cousin went to like Nick’s post for the academy gala night. Taylor’s sister Ash shared Taylor’s post to her stories: 2 photos of Taylor himself, and the one photo of Taylor and Nick. Taylor mentioned in a past interview if he had any emotional or relationship (I don’t know which one is the right translation, the original wording is 感情) issues, he would talk to Ash. (please note that I didn’t not and don’t know how to fact-check any of the things mentioned above except for Ash’s Instagram)

Conclusion/ Speculation (okay the academy gala part alone took me 40 minutes what the fuck): I cannot reiterate this enough: THIS IS JUST SPECULATION DO NOT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY but under the assumption that Taylor and Nick are a thing, the serious of shenanigans that happened that night, especially with the family and friends stuff in 6,7,8, was interpreted as they announcing it to their personal social circle. AGAIN THIS IS SPECUALTION DON’T TAKE THIS SERIOSULY 

Taylor’s China Trip

On 7th December, Taylor had a photo shoot at the GQ gala venue, but spent the rest of the afternoon taking photos and signing things for fans. Among those, one was the photo of him and Nick from the academy gala just three days ago. He was visibly extra happy and showed off the photo to the crowd, unlike the other photos which he simply gets it, signs it, and then gives it back.

This day was also the start of “Taylor giving Nick/Henry a moustache”: throughout the trip, he drew on four photos of the two of them

(This one is a … really big stretch) among the four, one of them was the GQ magazine shoot, and he first drew the moustache on Nick’s face, giggling “I’ll sign on Nick’s face”, signed his own signature, then just when he was about to give the magazine back he suddenly changed his mind and said “wait wait I wanna do something on my face”, and then drew a crown on his head while muttering “crown prince”. And the thing is… historically, George Villers had a moustache. And then he drew a moustache on Nick and a crown on himself. Also, one of the most popular Chinese RWRB fic on AO3 is called “The King’s Palace”, and the premise is putting Henry in George place as the social climber and the Duke of Buckingham (it is literally George’s character with blonde hair and a different name), and Alex as the crown prince who ascended to the throne and is also utterly infatuated with Henry. So… yeah.

When he drew the fourth photo, which was the piano scene, the fan who asked said “Oh you’re so nice to Nick!” and according to their description (there’s no video), Taylor blushed a little and said “yeaahhhhh” with a big grin

While Taylor was in China people were stirring shit up on Twitter about him, and during the Twitter drama, Nick liked Taylor’s Academy Gala post.

The boys liked the same video on Instagram but from different accounts (a video about a pony in the snow)

During the trip, Taylor was seen wearing a white button-up with blue stripes. Nick has been seen wearing a shirt that looks identical before.

Cartier Watch (aka the one that makes me do a double take)

Taylor used to wear a lot of Cartier watches until he started wearing Tagheuer last July due to a commercial partnership

Nick likes wearing Omega watches. In fact, Henry’s watch in the movie is Nick’s own omega watch. He also has a commercial partnership with Omega.

But then starting last year, both of them were seen wearing matching Cartier’s Tank Must Watches (the silver on with a black surface and a sapphire crown): Taylor can be seen wearing it in the 5th photos of his September post, while Nick can be seen wearing it during the GQ gala, the Academy Gala, in Milan during fan interactions, and last weekend in his TIOY co-star’s Instagram story.

And the thing about this watch is (and here is where I need to reiterate that I’m just translating, I didn’t fact check this) 1, watch is a typical thing to give a lover, and you must be familiar with their wrist size 2, Cartier is a pretty romantic brand 3, the price of this watch is closer to what Taylor’s used to wearing but much cheaper than Omega 4, This specific watch is a popular watch to give a partner/lover, 5, David and Victoria Beckham’s relationship was discovered because paparazzi saw the Cartier watch he gave her and connected dots together

Jesus Christ at this point I should consider getting a part time job in translation

This was fun but this took me so much time, it’s ~2000 words long

Again, all of this was found and speculate for fun, and mean no ill will, and haven’t, and won’t harm the boys, please understand that and don’t take this took seriously. If you find this interesting and want a part two, let me know.

[xmoonlitxdreamx]

OW2 Junkrat & Roadhog Relationship (part 1)

Part 2: [click] Part 3: [click] Part 4: [click] Part 5: [click]

Hello! I’ve been curious to try to better understand what Junkrat and Roadhog’s relationship characterization is intended to be in OW2, so I’m gonna take the time to look at various voice lines and other media & try to provide various interpretations of these things.

I'll try to provide both positive and negative interpretations where I see fit, but be aware that I do ship roadrat so I have a bias for interpreting their relationship positively rather than negatively. Overwatch to me though is a franchise that is very loose with its characterization & allows for multiple interpretations of the same characters simultaneously, so I’ll try to be open-minded in the way that I interpret things. Some of these interpretations may also be based on stuff I’ve read in passing from other people here and on twitter, too, so if something looks familiar to what someone else said that’s why. (Apologies for the lack of citations;;)

This first post is looking at Junkrat's OW2 voice lines sourced from this wikia page. (These voice lines may not be up-to-date, and the page does not include many event-specific voice lines) Again, I’ll only be talking about lines that I think give insight into Junkrat and Roadhog’s relationship and how they think of each other.

Anyway! that's that. Interpretations/etc are under the cut!

“So, I was like, Roadhog, mate, just 'cause that's how you see it, doesn't mean that's how she sees it, right? But enough of my earbashing. Let's get out there.”

If taken as truthful: Roadhog goes to Junkrat for romantic advice

If taken as unreliable: Junkrat considers himself as someone who gives good romantic advice, and decided to use Roadhog in his made-up example

In either interpretation: Junkrat considers Roadhog a close enough friend that he talks about Roadhog to other people, and allegedly has personal conversations with Roadhog at some points. (Whether or not Junkrat and Roadhog actually had this conversation isn’t certain since imo Junkrat seems the type to talk out of his ass, but it shows that Junkrat thinks he and Roadhog are close enough that they could have this conversation.)

Unrelated to Junkrat and Roadhog's dynamic, but if taken as truthful this could suggest Roadhog has an interest in women; but if taken as unreliable, it doesn't suggest anything about Roadhog's sexuality

“I feel a sweet verse coming on. Roadhog, give me a beat. …Roadhog?”

Junkrat instinctively commands Roadhog to do things; suggestive of him perceiving himself as “leader” in their relationship.

Roadhog doesn’t listen to him here, so Roadhog likely doesn’t think of himself as subordinate to Junkrat.

This is also a very playful command, so to me it comes from a friendly/playful place that Junkrat wants to sing (rap?) with Roadhog. Could be taken further that Junkrat uses the guise of “I’m Roadhog’s boss and he’s my subordinate” as an excuse to do regular friend stuff with Roadhog.

“Things always go well when you’re working with Junkrat and Roadhog”

Junkrat thinks positively of his partnership with Roadhog, seems to trust him and have confidence when they’re together

“Such perfidy cannot go unanswered!” (respawn line when eliminated by Roadhog)

Perfidy definition from Google: deceitfulness, untrustworthiness

Basically he feels Roadhog is being disloyal to him, indicating that he thinks of Roadhog as someone who’s supposed to be his loyal partner in crime

Possibly suggests that he would seek revenge if Roadhog is disloyal to him, but as usual the delivery is kind of playful, so it might just be more indicative of him acting out this sort of “leader role” for fun

“Guess we know who’s really on top, don’t we?” (eliminating Roadhog)

Suggests that even Junkrat thinks that Roadhog is the one with the power in their partnership, but when push comes to shove Junkrat is the real leader between the two of them

this is innuendo, so this could also suggest that they have sex with each other

not an interpretation, but I actually thought they got rid of this voice line for OW2 so I was surprised to see it on this list lol

“Sorry, old friend..,” (eliminating Roadhog)

straightforward, Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as an old friend

“Bet you never thought you’d see pigs fly! *laughs*” (eliminating Roadhog with concussion mine)

uses pig-related nicknames/etc for Roadhog casually

“Another hogfight for the Cerulean Chancellor!” (eliminating Sigma using Gravitic Flux)

Thb I have no idea what’s going on here, I just thought it was weird he says hogfight. I googled hogfight to see if it’s a common idiom and nothing really came up. No idea if this actually has anything to do with Roadhog, feel free to enlighten me. (idk much abt Sigma)

“That’s what happens when you cross Junkrat and Roadhog!” (to ally Roadhog eliminating an enemy)

Again, suggests he thinks positive of their relationship, indicative that he sees the two of them as partners in crime

“Don’t die on me, you big lug!” (Roadhog downed in PVE)

Worries about Roadhog when he’s hurt; uses affectionate names for him

“They got Hoggie!” (Roadhog downed in PVE)

Same as above, though this nickname is specifically cutesy/endearing compared to the previous

“Who’s gonna revive the roadkill?” (Roadhog yet to be revived in PVE)

Along with affectionate nicknames, Junkrat also uses rude nicknames to refer to Roadhog

Taken in isolation I guess this could suggest that he thinks negatively of Roadhog, but given all the other voice lines where he seems to think positively of Roadhog this is more likely a teasing/playful way of referring to Roadhog

“At least I’m not a hog.” (along with “At least I’m not a rat.” from Roadhog)

Taken in isolation, could suggest that Junkrat doesn’t like Roadhog

Could suggest a sort of competitiveness between the two of them, or possibly that the two of them bicker a lot and don’t always see eye-to-eye

Junkrat: Me mate Roadhog says there's a fetching price on your noggin. Not as high as the one on ours, mind you...

Lifeweaver: He said all that?

Junkrat: It was more like, "Gonna turn that bloke in. Worth a heap, hurrrrrrr..."

Lifeweaver: Thank you for the warning. And the convincing impression.

Junkrat talks about Roadhog to other people

Junkrat hears Roadhog talk enough that he can do a pretty good impression of him—this is potentially indicative of how close they are considering Roadhog is known to not talk often.

Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as his friend (“My mate Roadhog”)

It’s kinda unclear if Roadhog said this stuff about Lifeweaver directly to Junkrat, or if it’s just something Roadhog was saying to himself. If it’s the latter, it’s possible to interpret that Roadhog mutters things to himself & Junkrat pays attention to it. This might suggest that Junkrat isn’t so self-centered when it comes to Roadhog and remembers things that Roadhog says. (kind of a stretch of an interpretation, but hey)

Unrelated but mysteriously, Roadhog seems to speak Australian English in Junkrat’s impression of him (he says “bloke,” which isn’t used in American English). This makes me think Roadhog is supposed to speaking Australian English (which makes sense given that he’s Australian) but in the game he just. Doesn’t. for some reason.

Lifeweaver: Are you and Roadhog together?

Junkrat: Do you ever see us apart?

Lifeweaver: No. I mean, are you a couple?

Junkrat: Yes! A couple of dashing rogues! Not sure what you're missing here...

From an outsider’s perspective (Lifeweaver), Junkrat and Roadhog seem like a couple.

Junkrat and Roadhog are always together (“Do you ever see us apart?” implies they’re never apart)

Tbh there’s a lot of ways to interpret Junkrat’s last line, but I think the most straightforward interpretation is just that he’s oblivious to what Lifeweaver is asking, possibly because of the phrasing. Other possible interpretations:

He doesn’t think of himself and Roadhog as a couple and likewise is oblivious to the fact that they seem like a couple to other people.

Junkrat doesn’t know what couples are (though I think this can be disproven by the fact that he’s “giving” Roadhog relationship advice in one of the voice lines I mentioned earlier)

Junkrat isn’t interested in Roadhog and is deliberately friend-zoning him here

Junkrat and Roadhog are a couple (since he answers “yes,”), but he backpedals because it’s supposed to be a secret

Junkrat’s just messing with Lifeweaver and being intentionally obtuse (unlikely imo, he seems earnest here)

Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as a “dashing rogue”

Roadhog: Say “bacon” one more time.

Junkrat: “Bacon, one more time.”

Junkrat likes to annoy Roadhog

Junkrat isn’t scared of annoying Roadhog

Reaper: You got a problem, Junker?

Roadhog: *chuckle*

Junkrat: I don’t do problems—just solutions!

Roadhog: *laughs* Yeah!

I can’t find the audio for this interaction on the wikia, so I’m not sure what the inflection is. Seems likely that Roadhog is sarcastically agreeing with Junkrat here, but I can’t tell.

Edit: I was told that Roadhog's "Yeah" sounds genuine in-game, so this could be an indication of Roadhog actually following along with Junkrat & engaging in their partners-in-crime dynamic

Edit 2: Roadhog's quotes page indicated that only one of the three dialogue options are triggered by Reaper's line, so Roadhog's "yeah" is most likely not in response to Junkrat's potential line

Summary of this section: It seems like Junkrat thinks positively of Roadhog, thinks of him as a friend, and considers the two of them to be partners in crime. He sometimes uses affectionate pet names for Roadhog, but also uses some crass nicknames with him. There may be a sense of competitiveness between the two of them, where Junkrat thinks of himself as leader while Roadhog thinks otherwise. Junkrat occasionally uses this imagined “superior/subordinate” status playfully as a way to engage in regular friendship activities with Roadhog.

The next section will be me looking at Roadhog's OW2 voicelines. iirc he doesn't mention Junkrat as much as Junkrat mentions him, so I anticipate it'll be shorter and probably less positive lol but anyway! Thanks for reading!

Part 2: [click] Part 3: [click] Part 4: [click] Part 5: [click]

[ryuichirou]

14 years of RyuKatsu????? What's your secret on a long lasting relationship 🎤

Also don't feel the need to answer this part,,,but who asked who? 👀

Hehe yes! This is what that anniversary art we posted on 10.10 was referring to, in case you missed it. Realising that it’s been 14 years feels kind of weird, it honestly doesn’t feel that way, but at the same time I don’t even remember the times when we weren’t together lol

It feels a bit weird giving any kind of relationship advice, and I really can only speak for our situation (and I know (guess?) your question is half-joking, but I’m going to reply to it seriously), but… Hmm, it might sound cheesy or obvious, but I really mean it: I think the most important things are mutual respect, empathy, and ability to have fun together. Different people have different things they find important in relationship, but I feel like these three things are always important. Everyone has differences and difficult moments, fights are also inevitable, and if you’re together all the time, there are going to be moments when you annoy each other. What’s important is that you remember that you love that person and be empathetic and compassionate, but also give them space when they need it. Both people should do that, of course, the point is meeting each other in the middle and being willing to compromise if you feel disconnected. It’s all about giving each other space, but also all about actively and genuinely enjoying your time together. Being together shouldn’t feel like a chore and instead should be your comfort place, where you can both feel safe and have fun.

You don’t have to always love the same thing, but there should be something both of you are passionate about together. Both in terms of projects or just hobbies, there should be something both of you can yell about together. Katsu and I both love anime, love horror, love our ships and love creating. My art is my self-expression, and Katsu’s stories are also personal to Katsu, and all of those things tie together in such a tight knot, in a good way. It’s all connected, and we are always preoccupied with those things. But also, I am very lucky because even if Katsu isn’t into something that I am into, I can still yap about it without Katsu getting annoyed, and that’s fair for the things that Katsu likes too.

So yeah, uhhh, watch movies together and ship incest together, it makes relationship stronger lol

I don’t mind answering your question! But the problem is, I am not even sure how to answer it. Just for the record: we aren’t married, and unfortunately we can’t get married here. So I’m talking about asking each other out…

Katsu was the first one to get a crush, and it took me a while to notice lol It’s always funny remembering this story because poor Katsu confessed to me pretty directly, and somehow it still flew completely over my head. I guess I just couldn’t believe Katsu could like me (such an independent and smart person…), or maybe I was just as oblivious as I was stubborn. Only after Katsu got frustrated with me during some other conversation weeks later and said something about me not understanding someone else’s feelings, I started thinking that maaaaaybe Katsu kind of likes me? I was genuinely so surprised. I was so bad at noticing all the flirting…

And if that wasn’t enough… After we got closer and became obviously romantic with each other, after a certain point Katsu had to gather courage and to actually ask me directly if this whole thing is mutual. I didn’t even notice that I hadn’t told Katsu a single “I love you”, I just assumed that we were already dating after a certain point, and that everything else was already implied.  😱😱😱 Katsu YOU POOR THING

In my defense, both of us were very young when this whole thing happened, and I gained a lot more emotional intelligence since then lol Thanks to Katsu.

So yeah, our anniversary day isn’t actually the day we started dating (it’s kind of difficult to pinpoint when that happened LOL there are a couple of dates…), but actually a day when I got tired of my ex-friend and ex-gf mistreating me (we were still dating) and decided that I would rather spend time with Katsu instead, and we had a wonderful time together and it was the first time I felt such a strong genuine emotional connection with someone. I made a choice that day, and I even though it took some time for my head to figure it out, now I feel like my heart decided everything on 10.10.10.

[turtleblogatlast]

Do you ship any of the turtles with anyone? or do you ship anything in rise at all?

(This ended up being a lot longer an answer than I intended hoo boy sorry about that)

Hmmm, I’m not too big a shipper tbh! Especially since I really enjoy canon interactions backing my ships, so it’s hard for me to actively like any that don’t really have that going for them. There’s plenty that I see around that I think are cute, but that’s usually the extent of my thought process for them.

For ships I more actively have, I guess I like AprilxSunita! They’re very very cute and I think they have some huge meet cute energy in their first episode together, and their chemistry is genuinely adorable (plus them being featured means more April screentime which is ALWAYS a good thing.)

I also think AprilxCasey (and when I say Casey I mean our OG girl) is really good, as I’m a sucker for enemies to lovers, and I think they have a lot in common and just bounce off each other very well (not to mention this ship in other iterations of TMNT has a loooooot going for it.)

Keeping the chain going, I think RaphxCasey (again, OG Casey) is also one with a tonnnnn of potential. They have a lot of common characteristics, and considering Raph’s whole thing with Franken-Foot, I really think there’s a lot of room there for a relationship to develop. Plus, like AprilxCasey, Raph and Casey tend to have a close relationship throughout the iterations of TMNT and it would be great to see that more with these two, even if not romantically.

Actually going back to enemies to lovers, I unironically think there’s a ton going for DonniexKendra. I know a lot of people hate this ship, but I don’t and I actually think it could very easily work whether in a love-hate way or a slow burn way. There’s a lot to like here and honestly they’re good together! Kendra is legit Donnie’s type too haha (cute, but mean.)

Lastly, SplinterxDraxum is good…when done right. I really like when people take it and don’t undermine the very real trauma that Splinter has gone through. As I’ve stated a lot, I love me some enemies to lovers, so I can see the potential here. Plus lbr Draxum was down BAD for Lou Jitsu when he first saw him haha.

I think that’s the extent to what I actively like? Everything else usually falls into “aw cute” or “ehhh not for me thanks”. And before you ask YES leosagi is cute and I’ll read fics with it if the premise is appealing, but I’m afraid I need some canon interactions to establish base character dynamics before I actively ship it alas.😔 Super cute though, no hate to it or any of the other CanonxCharacter-they’ve-never-met ships, I genuinely think people should just have fun! And for what it’s worth I really do wish we got a Usagi and Leo interaction in Rise like we have in other iterations.:(

So yeah. Overall, I have a few ships I enjoy, but I fall much more in the “prefer to keep everyone to themselves and make the focus family and friendship” category.

[the-laughing-lunatic]

Mediscout cute headcanons!!!

(Omg yea I love these guys so much, def one of my main ships. I also rlly like their dynamic in emesis blue but y’know, not very cute. I have a lot of thoughts about these guys so I accidentally made this really long— word count: 1714. Thx for requesting! :3)

Medic x Scout headcanons!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─── 

☆Platonic☆

Scout’s definitely scared of Medic at first 

I mean, when your coworker mentions plans about putting a baboon uterus inside you you’re gonna be a little on edge

Avoids checkups for so long Medic has to find him and drag Scout himself to the medbay

“Sheiße, you are acting like a little child right now, it is not such a big deal Herr Scout. I am simply going to check a few things.”

“Well I’m sorry if I ain’t too thrilled to have some psycho puttin’ needles or animal parts or whatever in me.”

Medic groaned. “I just need to check your temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure. Now can you please shut your mouth and let me work?”

While he took Scout’s heart rate, both annoyed, Archimedes flew to Scout’s shoulder and nuzzled into the man’s neck

After the checkup Medic sighed and ushered his dove over. “Him? Really Archimedes?” 

The dove cooed. “Well then, I trust your judgement, I suppose I’ll try to be nicer to him.”

After that he did try to be kinder to Scout, staying around him more, listening to what he’s saying at dinner, looking through his room to learn more about him—

That’s not how Scout interpreted it though, and one day when Medic was trailing a little too close to him again he just snapped “Will you fuckin’ cut it out!?”

“Cut what out?”

“This- this weird stalkerish thing you’re doing. What, you makin’ fun of me? You gonna take my organs in the middle of the night? What do you want?”

“Oh. I was trying to be nicer to you. I could stop if you want.”

“If you wanna be nice you could try talkin’ to me for once.”

And Medic did

Both of them are absolute yappers, and Scout quickly got more comfortable with Medic as they talked more

He’ll never forget the first time he saw Medic laugh

Like, genuinely laugh

He’d seen Medic laugh many times before, either on the operating table or during battle but it was always just…scary

When he actually laughed Scout couldn’t help but laugh as well, because Medic’s real laugh was so different of what he had thought of him

It was warm and nice, and suddenly Medic wasn’t just this psycho ex-doctor, he was also his friend

When they go out for drinks Medic often has to carry Scout back to the base because of his incredibly low alcohol tolerance (not that it’s hard though)

Medic would teach Scout how to take care of his birds in the case he was especially busy, Scout’s their godfather now

I feel like they’d also work well in a qpr, though Medic would have to help Scout a little since he’s been comfortable with his asexuality for longer and has probably been in one before

I headcanon them as both on the ace spectrum so I’m gonna delve into that a bit

I feel like Scout is graysexual while Medic is completely sex-repulsed

Scout honestly would’ve thought he was allosexual for the rest of his life until he heard Medic talking about how being ace felt for him

And he was like “huh, I relate to some of that”

Scout definitely has a lot of questions though

“So like- what’s romantic? Cus I don’t wanna take this too far, but you’re my cucumber, or squash— whatever the word is an’ I wanna show that I care about ya.”

“It’s zucchini, Jeremy. And the point of being in a queerplatonic relationship is that we get to make our own rules for what works for us. All you have to do is ask me if you want to try something.”

“Oh, um, well then. Is it okay if I kiss your cheek, doc?”

“Yes, Jeremy, it’s very okay.”

♡

Biggest dorks ever btw

Just so you know

☆Romantic☆

Medic would fall in love (or realize it at least) over something trivial

Accidentally brushing hands, a word of praise after a battle that made Medic especially appreciated, Scout falling asleep on his shoulder at movie night, etc.

It was weird, because Scout was almost the opposite of his type, he was loud, arrogant, and less than intelligent, but he accepted Scout as the outlier

Even though Medic fell first he didn’t initiate it

Though his moral compass was less than straight when it came to advancing the field of medicine, it felt weird to be the one starting anything with a guy nearly 20 years younger than him

He even performed a brain scan on Scout just to double-check his brain was fully developed (surprisingly, it was) so he could feel less weird about his crush

For a long time he just thought of it as an enjoyable distraction, not anything that could go anywhere

Scout liked Ms. Pauling, and Medic was fine with it. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to date Scout, he just liked the idea of a relationship, and Scout was an attractive man he could project those wants onto.

At least that’s how he reasoned it to himself

The giddy laugh Medic couldn’t help but let out every time he saw him, the way he always made sure to be gentler when he gave Scout his shots, how a Boston accent now equaled attractive in his mind (that didn’t come from Scout though, that’d be ridiculous)

With Scout though, his moment of realization was much less trivial

He was at four health a minute away from the end of the match, desperately trying to keep the blood from the bullet wound in so he wouldn’t have to go to respawn

Getting in respawn at the end of a match was miserable, because you might get stuck in there for hours after so everyone tried to avoid it at all costs

Scout’s eyes widened as he watched his health drop to three, no dispenser in sight

He closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself for sitting in the cold room for god know how long, until he saw a light above him

Holding his medigun, Medic stood above him, and the red glow surrounding him as he healed him made him almost look like an angel, his saviour

A psychotic angel, but an angel nonetheless

He felt Medic grab him by his collar (at what point did his knees go weak?) and say to him “Get up schweinhund, and fight.”

They won the match, at least that’s what Scout heard, he didn’t remember anything after Medic saved him

His entire body was on autopilot until the time he went to bed, when he had all night to think about how he was definitely attracted to guys

He definitely had a type though, regardless of gender

Glasses, dark hair, smarter and more mature than him (though that was a low bar), an itty bitty bit psychotic and have huge honkers— (jk jk jk) 

Scout starts coming to the medbay for the tiniest things now so he can see Medic more

“Medic, I got a splinter” “Medic, my elbow’s sore” “Medic, I have a major crush on you and don’t know what to do with it”

After a bit of this, Scout just gave up excuses, Medic didn’t seem to mind his company

It became routine, after dinner Scout’d follow him to the medbay and talk with him while  Medic filled out paperwork, occasionally giving a nod or short question to let Scout know he was still listening

One night though, Scout didn’t follow him back

Medic was disappointed, he had gotten rather fond of his chatter, but shrugged it off as Scout being tired

After a few minutes of paperwork, there was a knock at the door

He opened it to see a very nervous Scout holding a bouquet of roses

“H- hey doc! Um, y’know, we’ve been hangin’ out for a while, I really like you, and I hope you at least like me a little, so, uh, wanna go on a date sometime? Please?”

Medic just stands there for a solid bit before taking the flowers and smiling. “I’d love to.”

Scout takes him to a nice restaurant (that was definitely his idea and not Spy’s) and pays the bill for the both of them, which was substantial because Medic has a taste for the most expensive things on the menu

And Scout is a hella picky eater

“So like, can I have the steak, but - and stay with me here - you grind it up, grill it, cut one of the rolls in half and add the steak, along with fuckin’ ketchup, mustard, lettuce, pickles—”

“Sir, are you describing a burger to me?”

“...yeah?”

“It’s on the kids menu.”

“Oh. Sweet, then can I have that?”

After the date Medic lets Scout kiss him

They suck I hate them so much I don’t think about them all the time (lying)

Nicknames Scout calls Medic: Doc, Angel, Angelcakes, Babe

Nicknames Medic calls Scout: Hase, Schatz, Liebling, Dear

On the battlefield Scout’s constantly by Medic

“Hey Angelcakes, check this out!” “Didja see that? Didja see that?”

If they have to be separated any time Scout sees him he’ll give Medic a kiss

“Hase you’re at ten health, can you please stop trying to kiss me for a second so I can heal you?” 

“Ugh, fine.”

After he’s done Medic gives Scout a kiss. “Thank you, on your way.”

Clingy ass motherfuckers

Scout’s way more obvious with it than medic though

Medic hardly even has to do anything, they’ll just be talking and Scout’ll notice half-way in the conversation that he’s cuddled up in Medic’s arms

Scout often sits in Medic’s lap as he works, rambling on about some comic he read or whatever.

After a few months of dating Medic only sleeps in Scout’s room

It feels more homey than his, which he admittedly already slept in very little due to his unfortunate habit of passing out at his desk

Nights often consist of Scout cuddled into Medic’s chest while Medic reads aloud to the both of them

(real talk reading together is such an underrated couple activity can we talk about this—)

“ —alright, that’s the end of the chapter. Liebling, are you asleep?”

“Nah, just relaxed. Love you angel.”

“I love you too Jeremy, Goodnight.”

They are the biggest saps ever and I will stand by this until the day I die

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─── 

[tamelee]

i just saw a posts about novels that went like

sarada told sasuke he has lipstick stain, sasuke tries to wipes it off and she says he doesn't have one and sakura doesn't wear lipstick.

how do they defend this novels with their lives? it confirms sasuke never kisses sakura and doesn't know if she wears lipstick or not and kisses someone else who wears lipstick. it also confirms naruto likes to wear lipstick XD.

Please. These novels are ridiculous. Kishimoto already confirmed they’ve never kissed in Gaiden. Twice. 

(* something nicer = meant the forehead poke)

Though I wouldn't believe anyone if they said they actually like these novels, because the story (or lack thereof) is complete shit, but it’s fine if they do. A good story isn't the intention unfortunately. I genuinely wish that people understood what exactly it is they are defending. I’m writing a post for someone who asked something regarding canon, but I need to take brakes from it because it pisses me off that this happens constantly to franchises— not just Naruto. 

And in this case it’s even worse, or perhaps it’s just a prime example, because Jun Esaka (writer for some of these novels) made such a fool of herself on twt by making it all too obvious what her intentions were by writing them. (If it wasn’t already obvious.) First, when people pointed out the many flaws, she admitted that it’s “just her story” and “just her interpretation” (she had only read 'Naruto' for the first time a few months before that), but when other ss-shippers started to defend her and said she was a better writer than Kishimoto (as there’s 0 love between SS when he writes), she basked in that glory and went along with it. Even to the point that she completely disrespected Kishimoto, the story, the craft, openly made fun of other characters (mostly Hinata) and ships like NH and demanded her other novels to be animated as well. It’s unprofessional af. And then when fans asked her for a nsfw novel for SS she agreed and told them to harass the company about it. (She didn’t say ‘harass’ exactly, but come on you can’t be that dense given their reputation with staff.)

What are they defending? 

How can you defend anything when the motive is so obviously just personal bias/gain and/or financial profit to a company where both in this case don’t give a shit about the original story. It's not about shipping though, it happens all the damn time to all my favorite franchises and I'm genuinely sick of it. And it's not even about a writer writing about what they want either because I already expected that, but Esaka did her absolute best to try and disprove the bond between Naruto and Sasuke and change narratives completely even for individual cases for the sake of telling her "story". SNS-moments weren’t romantic to her and she quite literally made fun of it by copying them in her story to point out its "irrelevance", but give them to her het-ship and now all of a sudden it is romantic???? She basically calls Kishimoto a liar because ‘Sasuke Retsuden’ in particular is a direct response to ‘Gaiden’ (made by Kishimoto). She blatantly tried to disprove anything he said and indicated about her ship. She wrote about characters that, yes, have the same name as those in ‘Naruto’, but are so out of character it hurts. It took me months to recover my lost braincells. 

I don't think my post about it is still up, but to name a few things in that novel if you're interested: Sasuke resents Naruto and his test-tube daughter because he’d rather travel with Sakura, his wife whom he loves so much. But he has to do stuff just because Hokage Naruto said so and his daughter wants to stay in Konoha so he has no choice but to comply. Being apart from his wife-(did we mention he loves her so much? because he does. so much.)- makes him feel so very lonely and he misses her body so much because he knows it so well. He fails to do anything other than being jealous about the women-deprived prisoners going after the new hot doctor, Sakura, who is his wife btw. that he loves a lot in case you missed it. and he rather stares at trees that remind him of her than helping his friend Naruto who’s apparently dying from his own chakra or whatever kind of bs. Sasuke lets himself be bullied by prison-guards that aren’t even Shinobi, for having long hair and looking like a girl, though Esaka makes sure to mention how so very handsome he is and he looks like a cat. Sasuke loses a battle against an overgrown lizard and tries the same damn jutsu 4 times(!!!!) before realizing it may actually not work, I think because he forgot how to fight, but he can however create anything from ice like Elsa (Frozen), or from dirt like some Gaara-hybrid to make Sakura a ring because he loves her so much ofc… oh and he’s now a healer too. Sasuke sacrifices people’s lives even when it’s not necessary at all bc ig Esaka thinks he's a killer, and also he wouldn’t mind being brought back with Edo Tensei if it means he can stay with Sakura, because fuck everything they’ve been through in the original story, yeah? They also immediately forgive the bad guy cuz he's so relatable even though he just murdered I dunno how many people. SS kiss while an injured Naruto is squished in between them because SS-shippers have some sort of “Naruto has to watch our ship being in love to really make it legit because that’ll learn him for getting in between!”-kink (that's real actually) and according to Esaka, Sasuke is so worried about his daughter and in fact did meet up with them during those 10+ years because he loves them oh-so-much and fuck you Kishimoto that’s why. 

Be so fr right now. It’s such a joke. And these are just the few things on the top of my head that I remembered ;-; ...

Again, what are they defending exactly? It would be nice to just have a genuine fan of the story write an actual story. No other motive other than "I really like the story and would love to explore some options while respecting Kishimoto's work because it'd be fun!" Except, that's unfortunately not very marketable and ffs it's just sad. (I know there's a Kakashi version and I personally really want to know more about his role as Hokage and what he's done etc, but alas.)

[isitisitearlymichael]

I think there’s a mentality in the Stranger Things fandom, or certainly outside of Byler spaces, that Byler is just another m/m ship.

What do I mean by “just another” m/m ship?

We all know there’s a long history of shipping male characters together when the show they were in clearly had no intentional romantic subplot.

M/m shipping has existed since the days of Star Trek - and it’s existed for many different reasons. But over time, it’s developed a bad reputation because fans of those ships were reading into things way too much and had so much hope that something might happen to those characters, only for them to end up incredibly upset and frustrated by the end.

There has also been a lot of accusations of fetishisation.

Some of this is also because especially in the early 2000s/ 2010s, these shows used to play on those hopes and have a lot of fun exploring “bromances”, where the writing would be intentionally stirring the pot, but not crossing the line enough for there to be any real plan to take things further.

What’s really important here is that Byler are NOT that kind of ship.

There would never be this much animosity if Will was Mike’s female best friend from childhood.

Yes, there would be a Byler vs. Milkvan war. That would never change - but the excuses as to why Byler have no possible chance of being together would be entirely different. Because yes, their arguments can currently include that Mike’s in a long term relationship, or that the 1980s environment would make it difficult for them to be together, but that’s about as realistic as the arguments have been.

Compare the circumstances to other canonical unrequited love stories

Take away all of the analysis about why Mike might be gay or Bi or even interested in Will in the first place, and just look at the plot in its bare bones state.

Will is canonically in love with Will, and Mike is canonically unaware of this and in a relationship with El.

There are SO MANY examples of this sort of love triangle in fiction, and most importantly there are more scenarios than there aren’t of this love becoming requited. It’s so normal for an audience to see a scenario like this and wonder if this is going to be one of those stories.

What’s happening instead is a lot of heteronormativity.

And that’s either down to the environment that Stranger Things fans find themselves in (people still live very unexposed lives) or they are just generally ignorant about anything that isn’t really in their face or what they want to see.

So there’s a heck of a lot of fans who didn’t even recognise that Will is gay, or just disregarded their assumptions and played up the “slow to grow up” narrative because they were more comfortable with that kind of story, or could relate to it more.

And so from their point of view, because they didn’t see anything, it couldn’t possibly exist. Bylers were seeing things and making them up. Now, after the Duffers and Noah confirmed things, they’re finding a lot of comfort in instead taking some of this fandoms bigger reaches (don’t mean to offend here, sorry) and using them as ammunition instead, e.g. Finn glancing at Noah’s lips for a millisecond during a take.

But the main point I’m getting at is that people who are dismissing Byler are not recognising that this is a traditional love triangle premise.

Now compare the canonical story to previous m/m ships

So because there are some similar activities happening in this fandom to what has been seen in those previous famous m/m ship fandoms, many Stranger Things fans are dismissing Byler as an imagined ship.

But how many of those old ships were able to boast about actual confirmed feelings, albeit one sided, with time left to explore things further?

There is absolutely no reason why the Byler ship resembles any of those “bromances” or queer baiting storylines in previous franchises and fiction.

This isn’t me saying that Byler will 100% become a couple

What I’m saying is that if nothing happens between them in season 5, that doesn’t undo the fact that Byler are a legitimate ship. It doesn’t undo the fact that Will’s feelings for Mike are canonical and that their storyline follows the premise of a traditional love triangle story.

There are people out there who are already trying to make Bylers feel stupid or ashamed for even exploring the potential of the ship, and all they’re doing is showing us how incredibly ignorant they are.

But that’s not to say that lessons can’t be learned from those previous m/m ship disasters

The one thing you should take from them is that people did get really attached, and so being let down by the show really hurt. It’s fine to speculate about Byler, but please don’t set your heart on them and let it break.

If we start to get legit info or confirmation that the ship won’t be requited, please don’t let yourself fall down the rabbit hole of conspiracy and set yourself up for disappointment.

But we have no legitimate reason to rule out Byler right now

The set up is there, the filming looks positive and the Duffers haven’t said anything to dispute the ship’s potential. Speculation is more than allowed - it’s normal and an inevitable result of season 4. So let’s have as much fun as we can and know that we’re doing nothing “deluded” or wrong.

[epiphainie]

I completely agree with you in that there are many bad faith interpretations of tommy and buck and tommy’s relationship. I don’t know if this one I’m about to share would necessarily be a bad faith interpretation but I’d like your take on it. In the scene where buck comes out to eddie, eddie says to buck “this changes nothing between us” and buck responds with something along the lines of “uh good, that’s a relief”. I’ve seen a lot of people interpret buck’s facial expressions as not showing just relief but relief mixed disappointment because a part of buck wanted things to change between them, in the romantic sense, he just doesn’t realize it. I do agree that buck’s expression as he says the words is interesting but I don’t personally think it has anything to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for eddie. for me it felt like one of those moments where you dread the reaction for so long, that when you finally face the thing and open up, even if the other person’s reaction is positive, it takes a minute for you to really internalise it and let yourself believe it.

Another moment that people often talk about from this scene is reaction to buck saying he can’t stop thinking about tommy. People often say eddie’s facial expression shows some sort of disappointment but again, I don’t know if that’s it? again, it is an interesting expression so I get why people would pause and focus for a minute but to me, it reads as eddie searching for a moment to give his honest advice to buck in the scenario.

Anyway, I’d love your thoughts on those particular moments and how you see them. Again, I’m not saying that the interpretations people are making of that scene in relation to buddie are necessarily in bad faith. I know it’s fun to analyze and interpret scenes in ways that you enjoy and I’d never want people to stop doing that. I just feel like Oliver and Tim have been very clear in that they do not want to tell a story where a guy comes out and is in love with his best friend and if buck was truly disappointed in hearing eddie say nothing’s going to change between them post buck’s coming out, that would be a quite bold contradiction.

Hi anon!

I'm not sure if you actually meant to send this to me because I'm kind of the exact opposite of a person who engages in the practice of reverse-engineering actors' faces to find deep secret meanings that doesn't actually exist in the script. I think it's a slippery slop of a fan practice where if you go "haha he looks jealous here" and want to make it gay in your fantasy world and are capable of compartmentalizing that from the actual text, it's great! If you look at it like it's subtext that is meant to one day come to surface, as some sort of proof that this is not the actual story, you're either too deep in your world that you treat these characters like they have agencies and thoughts and feelings and are not, yknow, fictional - or that actors are making the conscious choice to layer their performances with breadcrumbs for a plot that doesn't exist at the time.

I've seen all these arguments with almost every scene this season. Eddie's face when Tommy enters the bachelor party. Buck's face when Bobby says Tommy is good for him. Bobby's face when he says Tommy is good for Buck. Eddie's smile when they enter the hospital room. Most of these are insignificant and the others have in-text explanation (Yeah, Bobby smiles weirdly in that scene. Guess what, he's kind of planning to kill himself). And like I said, if people want to read these in a pro-Buddie sense and go do fandom stuff with it, that's great. But we all know this fandom is taken over by the question of "will Buck and Eddie happen?" so everyone who's not even doing this in bad faith (I don't think all do) are looking at it in "does this support canon romantic Buddie?" lenses. So much of shipping Buddie is about speculating for the next episode, next season, next whatever that I think it's so easy to find yourself on that slippery slop where you fit every shot, face, editing choice to your interpretation. There's also the sunk cost fallacy at play here - once you do it for so long, it's hard to give up on the belief that it'll happen.

I think both Oliver and Ryan great actors - and that scene is one of my favorites in the season - but no, I don't think there's more to their faces than what they're given to play. Which is as all of them mentioned a billion times, a scene of a guy nervously coming out as queer to his best friend and receiving support. If I'm wrong and the rest of this fandom is right and the production/writers/showrunners are actually fully married to the idea of canon romantic Buddie but The Powers That Be are keeping gay Eddie in the closet as if he's a real person and they're the evil step-mother, and come S10 Buck realizes he's been in love with his bff all along, then yeah in-text, that would recontextualize all their performances. It still wouldn't change what the writers' intention has been with the text as it exists today or be proof that Oliver and Ryan are making acting choices for a hypothetical future SL.

[rey-jake-therapist]

We better get some real good Saurondriel content in the finale, because if the showrunners have been trolling and baiting us all this time and we’ll get Galadriel outright resisting Sauron and cast him away with Nenya or some Marvel-type sh*t, a huge chunk of their audience will be pissed.

I don’t understand what they are playing at here. Yeah, the kiss was strategic and not romantic, but wtf would they have that happening on-screen? No one will be happy about this scene, not the shippers (Elrond x Galadriel will), not the (actual) lorebros, and even the casuals might cringe. I would have picked a kiss between Galadriel and Adar any day, over this.

Ok, you may have seen my opinion on the kiss already : I don't mind it at all and I think it was very well done, in a way that there was no confusion possible about its nature. Now I can see many are confused anyway and it's understandable, but I found it the most platonic that a kiss on the mouth can be, and Galadriel's reaction said it all : "bro what?" was what her face said. She looked as stunned as if her own brother had kissed her. If you look closely it's very clear that he's gving her something, so she was also surprised by the subterfuge. And Elrond says, "forgive me," before doing it. Of course he's asking that because he regrets how he treated her, but I think it''s also a pre-apology for what he's going to do. To warn her that he's about to do something WEIRD and that she must play along.

It's quite confirmed by Morfydd Clark in the BTS interview : she said that Galadriel didn't think Elrond would be so bold (in the sense: bold enough to risk it all to allow her to escape, I think); when the interviewer expressed her surprise, Robert laughed goofily (he's so adorable, I can't). Then they were asked what he was doing, to which they answered: "he was giving her a pin!". End of story. There was no reason to talk about it more because it was all that it was.

So to be clear, I didn't intepret it at all as "Elrondriel baiting". Are there really many shippers, anyway? Everybody knows that Galadriel will become Elrond's mother-in-law, even the showrunners ackowledged that fact in an interview. Since the beginning their relationship is sibling-coded.

Why making it happening? Because otherwise the audience wouldn't understand how he gave her the pin in the first place. He couldn't put it in her hands because there was no way to do it discreetly. Kissing her was the only way, truly.

Personnally, I would have preferred it if it had been the Orc who discusses Adar's orders who would have released her, but well, they went for that instead... There was definitely a desire to surprise the audience and see their reaction. I must say my first reaction was a big "yikes!" because it really felt as watching two siblings kiss, and I'm pretty sure it was how most people reacted.

I keep seeing this kiss being accused of "breaking the lore", but it doesn't break anything. They didn't get married suddenly because Elrond kissed her to give her a pin... I must say that when I've read about the leak, I didn't believe it because in my view, it would make their relationship awkward and ambiguous. But I didn't imagine that it would happen in front of witnesses, because there was no other choice! For some reason, I thought that Elrond would sneak into Adar's camp and kiss her to give her the pin while he could give it to her in a completely different way. In this case, it would have felt awkward and would have inserted some unnecessary drama into a plot that doesn't need that.

An Adar/Galadriel wouldn't make any sense whatsoever, imho. Shipping them is very cool and fun, I found myself imagining scenarios where a romance between them could actually work, but it's not at all what the show is heading for.

No one can say how episode 8 will turn out, if it will be satisfying for the Haladriel shippers or not... We can now be quite certain that the kiss that Morfydd hinted at was this kiss, so there won't be a Saurondriel kiss. But is it really that surprising? We talked so much about the possibility that I caught myself hoping for it, but tbh I'll be content if their scene is emotional and isn't limited at "I hate you! I hate you more!" and useless fighting.

The only hope I have for Haladriel in episode 8 is that Galadriel realizes that Sauron didn't fake it all with her. I don't know how they'll manage that, but it's the most we can truly hope for, imho. The showrunners said episode 8 would be emotional... Now we just can wait and see!

[trashogram]

How would I improve Stolas & Stolitz?

For Stolas:

• Have him doing princely things and carrying out royal duties? Have him actually be busy with his job? Have other characters treat him with some esteem as a royal and powerful figure?!!

• Have him show sympathy and/or basic decency toward his staff of imps and hellhounds right off the bat OR as he becomes closer to Blitzø, have Stolas visibly treat them nicer

• Do not rely on mental health issues like depression to make Stolas sympathetic — I’m not saying Stolas can’t have depression, but depression is not an excuse for entitled, selfish behavior. Nor is any other mental condition.

• Don’t use the women in his life as tools to develop or regress his character

> Have him actually be respectful of Octavia’s feelings and input, have him contemplate his treatment of others because of her presence in his life — and give him a Come To Jesus Moment where he realizes he’s been misusing her inheritance and how awful that is

> Don’t make Stella out to be pure evil just so you can have her physically and sexually assault Stolas so that it further victimizes him. It’s disgusting and unnecessary

> You don’t need to make Stella evil to make Stolas sympathetic — have her and Stolas just not be in love anymore. Show that Stella has concubines but she and Stolas still get on relatively amiably. They both love their daughter and can co-parent. Stolas isn’t going to come across as the villain for falling in love with someone else this way. It’s cakey but not as offensive.

• Have there be clear consequences to his actions like giving the grimoire to I.M.P. — if Stolas’s deal with Blitzø is found out, who is he going to get in trouble with? I want to know and I want the threat to be clear and visible

For Stolitz:

�� Show positive interactions between Blitzø and Stolas ONSCREEN — not just in texts and dialogue implying what hasn’t been shown

• Have them talk about anything other than sex or romantic love (again, onscreen!)

> Potential bonding ideas: have Blitzø see or be aware of Stolas’s soap operas and make fun of them, only to later be emotionally affected by the show much to Stolas’s delight

> Have Stolas try to understand Blitzø’s love for horses. Show Stolas reading about equestrian matches or different horse breeds, or fuck it, have Stolas greet Blitzø during the Full Moon deal with a bunch of cowboy props and pitch role play ideas, just something! Anything!

• A very simple thing that could work to this pairing’s advantage — have Stolas acknowledge that Blitzø doesn’t like to be called ‘Blitzy’ and Stolas apologizes then stops. He never does it again, and therefore shows he can listen and change his behavior for someone he cares about

• Stolas treating M&M with enough courtesy to acknowledge when they fucking speak to him because they’re important in his love interest’s life AT THE VERY LEAST

• Have him ask about Loona or show an interest in how she’s doing. Stolas can offer to have a Father-Daughter day where he and Blitzø take their daughters to the mall or something

• No childhood friends to lovers plot line. It was pointless — the kids didn’t really bond or have a connection, human trafficking took place, the sequence didn’t even end properly, and the only real thing of note was that Stolas is apparently Paimon’s child in this universe

> If you’re gonna age down Stolas to make him and Blitzø more compatible and the ship less icky, fine. But use it better — show them having daddy issues side-by-side without forcing them to interact. Have Stolas visibly rely on and get along better with the imps on staff than his own dad, and the audience can see that he’s a disappointment child just like Blitzø

• No Bee/Vortex and keep Fizz/Asmodeus under wraps so it at least LOOKS like a demon prince and an imp is an unthinkable combination because of class distinction