#i feel the need to be presentable on here when i make original posts because of the above and also people follow me on here?

[giratina-plushie]

what this is teaching me is that im funnier and more correct and i should make more posts

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[pathologicalreid]

prisoner | s.r.

in which you and Spencer conduct a custodial interview with a serial killer - Spencer's first since he was released

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: post prison reid, fwb but also mutual pining, serial killers, prison, panic attack, chiromancy word count: 3.66k a/n: i originally came up with this idea in 2023 😭 😭 it's about time i finished it lol. definitely suffers from exposition overload but i don't caaaaare.

Fourteen times.

You had asked him fourteen times if he thought he was going to be okay doing the custodial interview. No one else was available to do it, but you still had your reservations. Sending Spencer to a prison felt wrong, even if he wasn’t on the inside of the bars anymore.

Without telling him the reason, Emily elected to send you with him to the facility, she said it was because you had never done one before, but you knew it was deeper than that. “How many victims?” You asked, not taking your eyes off the road as you drove to the destination.

“Eight,” Spencer answered, looking through the case file. The killer had asked for the interview, hoping to be transferred to a minimum-security facility. The odds weren’t good, but you needed to oblige the request even if it wouldn’t prove successful.

You hummed, turning down the road, you pulled up to the security station. Presenting your credentials to the guard, he lifted the gate for you, and you found your reserved parking. “Do you want to take the lead?” You asked him, trying to gauge how he was doing.

Nodding, Spencer got out of the SUV. You shut off the engine and followed suit. “Unless it doesn’t seem like he’s responding to me, I’d rather not present him with someone who fits in with his victim pool.”

“And they say chivalry is dead,” you said sardonically, grabbing your bag from the backseat before locking the car and following Spencer inside.

The two of you went through security, locking up your weapons and going through metal detectors. It wasn’t until you went inside the first gate that you noticed it; Spencer was fiddling with the belt loop of his slacks. “I can feel you staring,” he whispered so only you could hear. You watched his posture relax when the gate buzzed and opened in front of him.

You smiled softly, “I can see you fidgeting,” you responded. At work, the two of you were merely coworkers who knew each other really well, so you couldn’t just reach out and take his hand. Not that you’d want to, in a prison full of serial killers.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, implying that he wasn’t right now. The smile fell off your face as the two of you followed the guard into the warden’s office.

At the sight of you, the warden stood and smiled, “You must be Agents Y/L/N and Reid, thank you for making the trip down here.”

Raising your eyebrows, you reach out your hand for the warden to shake, “He’s Dr. Reid, actually.” You corrected, seeing as Spencer didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Ah, my apologies, Dr. Reid,” he responded kindly, gesturing for the two of you to follow him.

Spencer gently brushed your hand as you followed the warden. It was so subtle that someone else could’ve brushed it off as an accident, but Spencer Reid never did anything without purpose.

“Marshal Lukins is the most prolific killer we’ve had in my time here, we aren’t expecting anything to come of this, but you know as well as I do that we have to humor the psychos,” Warden McCall told you, stopping in front of a gate and calling out for it to be opened.

You raised your eyebrows, deciding against telling the warden that Lukins profiled as a sociopath, not a psychopath. “How’s his behavior been here?”

The warden shrugged, “He won’t be winning any merit badges any time soon, that’s for sure. Spends most of his time in solitary, really.”

“His file said he had gotten into an altercation with another prisoner, what was that about?” Spencer asked.

McCall cleared his throat, “turf war. You know, prison gangs can get rowdy. Especially when they find out the feds are coming.”

You raised your eyebrows, grateful you couldn’t see Spencer’s expression. “Oh, yeah,” he said quietly.

Then you were in front of a serial killer, someone who had been put away years ago, but the way he looked at you sent shivers down your spine. “Marshal Lukins?” You confirmed.

“Why hello, pretty lady,” Lukins responded, rising from the chair. His legs were chained to the ground, but his hands were free.

Behind you, Spencer cleared his throat, “Sit down,” he ordered. Taking a tone of authority that you weren’t sure you’d ever heard from him.

Taking your seat across from Lukins, you looked him in the eyes, “You may call me Agent Y/L/N.” 

Your interviewee shrugged, “I’ll call you whatever I want in my mind later.”

Ignoring the hairs that stood up on the back of your neck, you rolled your eyes at the skeevy pervert. “If you want to be transferred, you’re not making a very good first impression,” Spencer intervened, likely aware of your discomfort.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first criminal to make a pass at you, and in your line of work, it likely wouldn’t be the last.

“I’m not much worried about first impressions, people usually have a first opinion about me before they even hear my voice,” he responded, leaning back in the chair.

You had to bite your tongue to stop yourself from responding, yeah, that happens when you murder eight women. “What would you rather our opinion of you be? That you’re misunderstood? Did you find god in prison, Marshal?” You asked him.

He leaned over the table ever so slightly, yellowed teeth flashing beneath the fluorescent light that hung above the interrogation table, “Would you like me to show him to you?”

Raising your eyebrows, you maintained a bored disposition while flipping open your files, “No.”

With custodials like this, you weren’t allowed to have photos in your files. Lukins was a sexual sadist, and the profile that Aaron Hotchner had put together was damning, describing the man in front of you to a T. He even got the age correct, right down to the receding hairline. Even though Lukins was in prison, you’d never provide him with visual aids to relive his crimes.

“Why did you request this interview if you weren’t interested in playing nice?” Spencer asked, setting his own files on the table in front of him, but he refrained from opening them. He managed to memorize their contents on the drive from Quantico, enabling him to weaponize his memory.

Lukins put his hands up in mock surrender, “I was hoping they’d send me someone nice to look at, make a good conversation with, and boy am I glad I took that chance.”

Spencer clasped his hands together and set them on the steel table, “Thank you,” he responded, keeping himself stone-faced in the presence of the killer.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” the criminal in front of you snapped, jutting his chin in your direction.

Bored, your partner spoke up again, “Yes, you are,” he corrected. You were unable to communicate with Spencer without tipping off Lukins, so you let him continue, trusting that he knew where he was going with this. “In your trial, you said all of your victims were your sheep,” Spencer recalled from the file, “Is that why you shaved their heads before gutting them?”

Lukins scoffed, bored easily within the confines of the interview, “My sheep were my friends, but every sheep needs a wolf. Isn’t that right, Bo Peep?” He asked you, meeting your gaze despite the fact that Spencer all but told him not to engage with you.

You narrowed your gaze at him, tilting your head innocently, “Would you have let me be one of your sheep?”

He gave you a look that made you feel like you needed a shower, “You would’ve been a nice addition, could’ve rounded out my numbers.”

He reached out a hand, trying to take a piece of your hair between his grimy fingers, but you stood up quickly, stepping back from the table and almost tripping over your chair in response.

A few prison guards came in at the sudden movement, and Spencer had a vice-like grip on Lukins’ wrist, keeping him away from you. Tossing his arm back at him, Spencer glared at the killer, “No touching,” he instructed, looking back at you to check-in. He opened the door to the room, ushering you out before looking at the guards, “I want him in cuffs.”

With a hand on the small of your back, Spencer herded you to the private space that the two of you were expected to inhabit for the day. “Hey,” you spoke to him once the door was shut behind you.

Spencer was filled to the brim with nervous energy, shaking out his hands in an attempt to expel his nerves, “We should just go back to Quantico.” He shook his head, brown curls fanning out around his face, “There’s no way he can tell us anything that will get us to endorse his transfer.”

Watching him like this made your chest ache, and you had no idea what to do with that emotion. Your relationship with Spencer was strictly horizontal—usually—and you found yourself floundering when it came to how to act outside of bed. You wanted to take his hand, desperate to run your fingers over his knuckles and find the familiar callus from where his pencil rests on his finger, but you just couldn’t get yourself to reach out.

You hadn’t known Spencer before he was arrested in Mexico, but you made your mark on him without ever letting him lay his eyes on you. You sent letters to him along with the rest of the team, refraining from talking about cases and instead choosing to use your letters as a personal diary, chronicling your first three months with the Behavioral Analysis Unit with your prison pen pal. Periodically, you put money in his commissary account, despite the rest of the team telling you that you shouldn’t feel inclined to.

Pressing your lips into a thin line, your eyes tracked his pacing in the conference room before you started to voice your concern, “We have to go back in, Reid.” You grabbed a water bottle from the counter and twisted the cap off before handing it to him.

He took the water begrudgingly, glaring at you as he did so, “Why do we have to go back in, exactly?” After taking a sip of the water, he handed it to you so you could have some. You could’ve grabbed your own, but surely this was quicker.

“Lukins said I would’ve rounded out his numbers,” you told him, nervously fiddling with the cap of the water bottle as you waited for him to get it.

Spencer adjusted his tie, pulling the silk fabric further from his neck, “Yeah, I heard him.” It bothered him, the slightest implication that you were endangered in that interview room put him on edge, but all you could do was sit down and watch him.

You sighed, “We only have a record of eight victims. We don’t know what he’s rounding to, but that’s at least two more bodies that we don’t know about.” Lukins could be rounding up to ten, which would be the closest option, or you were looking at the possibility of a considerably higher body count. Your fear was that he would use those additional kills as a bartering tool to get a transfer.

He stopped in his tracks while he processed what you were telling him. Spencer turned to you, lips parted before he nodded, eventually agreeing with you even if it pained him to do so. “We should call Emily and let her know what’s going on,” he told you, taking a seat across from you and placing his head in his hands. “I’m gonna step outside for a second,” he said, getting up just as quickly as he took a seat and swinging the door open, leaving you alone in the conference room.

Holding your tongue, you stopped yourself from voicing your approval, even though you did think some fresh air would be good for him. Instead, you watched the door click shut before fishing your phone out of your pocket, tapping on Emily’s contact before bringing the phone to your ear.

“How’s it going?” Emily asked you as soon as she answered, and you couldn’t help but picture your unit chief waiting by her phone, hoping to hear from you or Spencer.

You sighed, inadvertently cluing her into how the custodial interview was going, “We might have a problem,” you told her. Continuing on to explain what had happened between you and Marshal Lukins, all the way up through your discovery that he might have a higher victim count.

Prentiss clicked her tongue on the other end of the line, “What does Spencer think?”

The question didn’t come as a surprise to you, neither did the fact that her inflection told you that she was sneakily trying to ask you how Spencer was. Wiping your free palm along the fabric of your pants, you leaned against the table, “Reid thinks Lukins is out for blood.” You opened your mouth to continue but were interrupted by an alarm being tripped, your head snapped up as lights started to flash on the walls.

“What’s going on?” Emily questioned you over the phone, but you could barely hear her over the blare of the alarm, a low-pitched buzzing sound that made your brain feel like it was vibrating within your skull.

Clambering to your feet, you grabbed your water bottle and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind you as you looked aimlessly around the prison for someone who could offer you an explanation. “I’ve gotta go,” you blurted into the receiver, stuffing your phone in your pocket and making your way to the front of the prison, ignoring the men who shouted at you from behind bars.

You looked down the walkway, watching as the failsafe on the doors was triggered and they slowly started to shut, triggering you to try and make a run for it. “Y/N,” Spencer called out your name, picking up his own pace from the opposite direction.

It didn’t take you long to realize that you weren’t going to make it, skidding to a halt as the bars clicked shut in front of you. You weren’t scared until you watched Spencer pull at the door, frantically trying to slide it open, “Reid,” you said his name, trying to get his attention. “Reid,” you shouted that time, trying to make sure he heard you over the alarm.

He didn’t pause to look at you, he simply continued to pull at the bars.

“Spence,” you said desperately, and that time his eyes snapped to yours. Wide brown eyes bore into yours as you placed one of your hands on his, both of them encircling the bar. “It’s not going to open,” you reminded him. A fact he was well aware of but didn’t want to acknowledge.

Silently, he leaned back into the wall, sliding down the side of it and looking up at the ceiling, pulling at his tie again, this time taking it all the way off. “It’s a lockdown,” he panted helplessly, “They’re in a lockdown.”

You nodded softly, having drawn that conclusion on your own, “It’s okay,” you told him softly, reaching through the bars and taking one of his hands in yours. “You’re alright, Spence,” you continued, your tone bordering on a coo.

He pulled his knees to his chest and slung his free arm over his legs, hugging himself.

It broke your heart to watch him like this. You pointed in the direction he came from, “Look. Hey, you could be free to leave, I’m the one who’s locked in,” you told him, highlighting the fact that the bars were blocking you, but Spencer could make his way back to the entryway.

“Not helping,” he told you, his voice almost a gasp as he tried to regulate his breathing.

Your shoulder’s slumped forward slightly, “I’m sorry. What can I do?”

Spencer just shook his head, squeezing your hand in response when you started sweeping your thumb over his knuckles. You ignored the buzzing of your phone in your pocket as you watched him, completely focused on making sure he was okay before you did anything else.

With your free hand, you grabbed the water bottle that you took from the conference room and slipped it through the bars. “Here, take this,” you murmured, setting it on the ground next to him when he didn’t take the bottle from you.

He visibly relaxed when the alarm stopped going off, but the lights were still flashing, which offered somewhat of an explanation as to why the door hadn’t opened yet.

You fiddled with his hand, opening up his palm and tracing the lines on his hand with your index finger, “Have you ever had your palm read?” You asked him, twisting your head to get a better look at it.

He looked at you, the panicked look in his eyes had subsided, promptly replaced with incredulity, “When have I ever struck you as the kind of person who would get my palm read?”

Shrugging, you slowly traced his love line, “You like Halloween, I thought maybe you’d let your curiosity get the best of you.” Although you supposed if Spencer really wanted to have his palm read, he’d just do it yourself. “When I was in college, my summer job was reading palms in a booth at an amusement park,” you informed him.

Spencer chuckled at your revelation, and the sound made your heart sing, “That is… oddly endearing.”

Nodding, you looked at his hand again, “Chiromancy says men were born with their left hand, and their right is what they accumulate throughout life,” you told him softly, sliding your other hand through the bar.

“Actually, I was born with both of my hands,” Spencer responded, a teasing lilt in his voice.

You rolled your eyes, studying his left hand intently, “You have water hands,” you said, showing him his own palm as if he’d never seen it before.

Spencer raised his eyebrows at you, “Well, now you’re just making things up,” he openly teased you that time, but he didn’t pull his hand away.

Humming, you furrowed your brows and pointed at his hand, “This is your head line,” you explained. “See how it’s long and straight? It sort of tapers off before the end of your palm—that means you tend to think realistically.”

“I could’ve told you that,” he challenged, but his eyes were following along as you pointed at his palm.

You shook your head and sighed, “Here’s your life line,” you said, pointing to a different line and tracing it with your fingertip. “It’s straight and goes down to the edge of your palm, which means you’re cautious about relationships,” you continued softly, leaning your head against one of the bars of the door.

He was silent after that one, briefly taking his bottom lip between his teeth and looking down at his hand. You could tell that even though he didn’t quite believe what you were saying, he was perfectly fine with humoring you.

“This is your fate line,” you told him, entirely expecting to lose him the moment you began discussing fate. “It’s broken down the middle and curved in different directions, and that means you’re prone to a lot of changes in life. Changes influenced by external forces.”

Gently, Spencer pulled his hand away from yours, flexing his hand before looking down at it, “You’ve officially lost me.”

The corner of your mouth quirked up, “I’m surprised you lasted this long.” Just long enough apparently, the doors buzzed soon after, and you withdrew your hands from the slots as the bars slid into a hole in the wall.

Spencer got up first, dusting off his hands before he extended a hand to help you up. Your hand lingered in his for just a moment too long, the exchange oddly intimate for the two of you before his arms dropped to his side, “Thank you,” he murmured, a shy smile on his face.

Shrugging, you crossed your arms in front of your stomach, “There’s nothing to thank, Reid.”

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that it was disappointment that flashed across his face at your reply.

The warden had rather unceremoniously asked the two of you to leave, citing security concerns and letting you know that he’d be in contact with Emily to reschedule. Emily had called you six times during the lockdown, but you’d texted her once everything was clear.

Which left you heading back to the SUV with Spencer, there were prisoners out in the yard, so he walked on the inside, blocking your body from the view of the inmates. “Are you alright?” You asked him, feeling more free to inquire now that you were in the open air.

He nodded, “I’m fine, I just really wasn’t expecting something like that to happen when I asked Emily to send me on this custodial.”

Your footsteps faltered at his words, “You asked to go on this custodial?”

Spencer frowned, “I was on this case originally ten years ago, so I asked Emily to let me go.”

“And she said yes?” You asked incredulously.

Spencer opened the back door for you to place your bag in, “Not initially, but eventually she realized that I’d be her only option if she wanted to get it done today.” He shut the door and shoved his hands in his pockets, “It’s a lot earlier than I thought we’d be getting back, do you want to stop and get lunch on the way back to Quantico?”

Your eyes went wide and you were grateful that he couldn’t see your expression, “Uh, sure. Why not?”

“Perfect,” he said, “Maybe I can get you to tell me why you avoided reading my love line.”

[incorrect-ironwidow]

LETS TALK ABOUT THE AO3 TAGS

Note: this post contains a small spoiler, without context or detail, from Heavenly Tyrant.

So, it came to my attention (and I know many of you have already noticed too), that Iron Widow has several incorrect tags on AO3. I will leave some of the main examples in a print below for those who haven't seen it yet, but in short, the tags in the drop-down menu and those suggested as "official" when you are going to post a new fic appear giving titles to the characters or relating their names in the books to the real names of Chinese historical figures.

@xiranjayzhao, more than once (and even in the Heavenly Tyrant acknowledgments), talked about how the characters, despite having similar names, are not made as a historical reinterpretation, their characters do not seek to be a new, realistic or faithful version of their historical names. Rather, they are inspired by that historical essence, being completely original to the books in which they appear. In other words, it is not right to give them historical titles or relate them to real historical names (as happens with the tags for Qin Zheng and Sima Yi) as if they were new faithful versions of those people.

I opened a ticket with AO3 support to explain the situation. Because, despite knowing that the tags are written by the fandom, just the fact that they are in the drop-down menu and are suggested when posting a new work already makes people feel influenced to use them (it shows that they have more views/are commonly searched/used). I am not sure how long it will take or if they can solve the situation (in fact, please, if there is any volunteer who works with AO3 I would be extremely grateful to hear from you about how we can solve the issue and what the site can do), but I know that avoiding the continued use of these tags can help.

And, that is why I am writing this long post, to talk to you; creators in our fandom!

To ensure that your work has the correct tags and so that our creations do not reinforce a misconception about the books, which the author has said many times was not their intention when writing the characters, we need to change (and start to not use) the tags in the drop-down menu and in the suggestions when the characters have titles and names that were never presented in the books. In other words, for the Iron Triangle tag that reads "Gao Yizhi/Emperor Taizong of Tang | Li Shimin/Empress Tianhou of Zhou | Wu Zetian" change it to "Gao Yizhi|Zhang Yizhi / Li Shimin / Wu Zetian", for the tag that reads "Empress Tianhou of Zhou | Wu Zetian/First Emperor of Qin | Qin Shihuang | Ying Zheng" change it to "Wu Zetian / Qin Zheng", and so on. The same goes for individual tags with character names, choose to write only the name of the character that appears in the book or, if you feel it needs more context, add "(Iron Widow)" after the name (like write "Sima Yi (Iron Widow)" if Sima Yi is a character at your work).

With time and use, I believe this may even influence the correct tags to be suggested and appear in the drop-down menu, making it easier to search for works from our fandom on AO3.

Anyway, if you have any questions about the issue or how to correctly tag your work, don't hesitate to ask, I'm here to help. And, if you want to add more to this discussion, please feel free to use the comments or reblogs!

That's it for now, I can't wait to see all the future content you'll create for Iron Widow/Heavenly Tyrant (especially with our little Valentine's event starting tomorrow)… <3

[starboundsingularities]

the jurist system seems really cool i hope they keep using it :-)

27 notes

🌈 lawsbian Follow

hey girl. am i a suspect. because you can "court" me any time

🧊 just--ice Follow

try.

🌈 lawsbian Follow

hey girl. am i a suspect. because you can "try" me any time

🌈 lawsbian Follow

hey girl. are you a lawyer. because you can "try" to "court" me any time

🌈 lawsbian Follow

hey girl. am i on trial.

🌈 lawsbian Follow

i'm determined to make this work btw

🌈 lawsbian Follow

hey girl. law

🔪 violencekilling Follow

hey girl. are you a murderer. because ow ough ouch agh stop stabbing me

732,390 notes

🌟 rockliker270 Follow

guys watch out hes gonna shelly de kill you

293,485 notes

🎀 copiicat Follow

they called me to the witness stand and the defense attorney just shouted "BOOOOOO WE HATE YOUR PUSSY"

43,618 notes

🧇 edible-evidence Follow

look if i was on trial and the guy prosecuting me started advertising his music i'd just plead guilty. avoid the embarrassment of getting put in prison by a guy who basically used the trial to say "this blew up btw here's my soundcloud"

97,384 notes

⚖️ courtofpublicopinions Follow

💞 lawveyourself Follow

didnt miles edgeworth defend someone in a case once

⛲ fountainoftruth Follow

do you know the difference between a prosecutor and a defense attorney

270,934 notes

💟 longingforyou Follow

being rivals isn't enough i need to kiss you

💟 longingforyou Follow

who the fuck is evil magistrate

💟 longingforyou Follow

STOP TAGGING THIS WITH LAWYERS?????

584,769 notes

🐈 nyattorney Follow

they hired a guy to stand in court and shout "GET A ROOM YOU TWO" whenever the lawyers start getting a little too homoerotic

976 notes

💥 courtroomchaos Follow

your honor i know all the evidence points to my client being guilty. but come on you have to admit he kinda ate right

💼 courtofwaw Follow

mia fey when they had phoenix wright on trial

20,475 notes

🔍 thuthseeker Follow

ok hot take but i feel like these lawyers should maybe not be allowed to drag literal children to court with them?? how many people have gotten genuinely actually fucking SHOT in court and they're just ok bringing fucking 8 year olds in?

12,475 notes

💼 courtofwaw Follow

happy almost christmas to all who celebrate

💫 dizzydreamers124 Follow

it's march

🎄 holidazed Follow

happy almost christmas :)

😈 knownjaywalker Follow

WHO is putting this on my dash

👁️ cymorgue Follow

STOP POSTING THIS. IT IS JUNE.

🐼 pandastar91 Follow

ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

1,589,589 notes

💽 platinumcourtrecord Follow

evil gavinners be like. innocent hate. this is a nothing post

19,384 notes

🥚 eggvidenced Follow

STOP asking me about the dl-6 post idc idc look even phoenix wright forged evidence once shut up

📕 lexculpatory Follow

he didn't forge the evidence, though. it was kristoph gavin who ordered the forgery. this was covered in the trial of vera misham. if you're going to try to compare yourself to well known figures, you could at least check the veracity of your claims.

🥚 eggvidenced Follow

yeah well. he might have. on a different case or something.

73 notes

🃏 thecourtjester Follow

i tried to take the bar exam but they didnt let me because i wasnt cunty and traumatized enough

57,384 notes

😇 innosense Follow

683,876 notes

🦀 mad_libz_87 Follow

when will global studios realize that i do not WANT another shitty steel samurai spinoff i just want the original show back

7,094 notes

⚖️ courtofpublicopinions Follow

she present on my evidence til i reach a verdict

⚖️ courtofpublicopinions Follow

WRONG BLOLG. DON'T REBLOG THIS. DELETE POST DELETE POST DELETE POST I SWEAR WE'RE PROFESSIONALS HERE

17,283 notes

👑 courtroyals Follow

"we need more great prosecutors" you guys couldn't even handle manfred von karma

🧊 just--ice Follow

didn't he kill someone?

👑 courtroyals Follow

irrelevant. you guys couldn't handle him.

587 notes

📋 lawandwhoreder Follow

law: i'm so law

lawyer, who needs to one up everyone no matter what: i'm more law than you

🏛️ lawyest Follow

hi

📋 lawandwhoreder Follow

you've got to be fucking kidding me

183,834 notes

🧊 just--ice Follow

why is it always murders with lawblr. why don't we ever talk about divorce or something

[beloved-calypso]

・ ° ʚɞ ゜𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖞𝖊𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘 ~ ♡ ・ ゜ ʚɞ ゜ ゜‎♡‧₊˚✧ ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა ✧˚₊‧♡

♡𝒮𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓇𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝒽𝑒𝓈 𝓊𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝒶𝓁𝓂𝑜𝓈𝓉 𝒸𝓊𝒹𝒹𝓁𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝒸𝒽𝑒𝑒𝓀𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝓁𝑜𝓌𝓁𝓎 𝓇𝒶𝒾𝓈𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓂 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃, 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓉𝓇𝑒 𝒸𝓊𝓇𝓉𝒶𝒾𝓃. 𝐼 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓉𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓉𝓇𝒾𝒸𝓀. 𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓈𝓊𝓅𝓅𝑜𝓈𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝓇𝑜𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝓃 𝓂𝓎 𝒷𝒶𝒸𝓀 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝒻𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓅𝒶𝓌𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒶𝒾𝓇.” – 𝑅𝒶𝓎𝓂𝑜𝓃𝒹 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓁𝑒𝓇♡

All pictures and gifs are not mine but belong to their original artists. ♡

I. -> II. -> III. -> IIII.

[Note: Hello, everyone! If you didn't guess it, this pac is about how you are viewed by your past, present, and future lovers. This pick a card was originally about 'how' you are as a lover but turned out to be about girl power theme so I went with the flow ~ I have another pick a card coming out soon this week so stay tuned!

Edit 8/18: People of pile 4 please check over your reading again. I added some stuff. Also pile 3 although it wasn't significant. I couldn't help but to keep editing mistakes here and there so apologies if you keep getting notifications of changes for this post 😂.]

~ XOXO 💋🎀

౿૮꒰ྀི The Lyre ๑◞꒱ა

[The Moon, 3 of Cups, The Star]

You are a mystical and overwhelming lover pile 1 😘. You feed people the energy and will they need to feel alive. You're like an aphrodisiac and your lovers like to get high purely off of you. You make people feel like they NEED you. CRAVE you. It's almost like your partner's ache to breathe the air you do, envelope themselves around you, and stay around you all the time because they want to make sure you weren't a figment of their imagination. Some people have thought you walked straight out of their daydreams. They are addicted to your energy and presence and desire so much from you. Don't think of it as people stealing your energy though; your feeding off of theirs too. This is a proverbial yin and yang, a give and take with you holding the scales of power like the effigy of Lady Justice. You're consuming at the same time you're giving. It could claim to be vampiric, but it comes off as dreamy and mysterious. You're moreso like a fairy or sprite enticing someone to follow them in the woods with a beckoning finger and a mischievous smile. Fairy's in early storybooks are mostly tricksters and little devils, but they are so beautiful and enchanting at the same time. There's a reason they cannot escape the human consciousness. You give off the air of springtime, of misty nights at waterfalls and flower strewn glens dappled with dawning sunlight. ���

You're a comfort as well as seductress, playing the Madonna when you need to set a lure and revealing the whore once you've sinked your claws into your prey. You're wholesome yet strange, animated yet withdrawn, spontaneous yet quite, the constant swing of a pendulum that pushes and pulls, push and pull, push and pull. You're the exact type who can have anyone and everyone wrapped around their fingers. When you're outside you're a nymph in her natural habitat. When you're indoors you're an enchantress in her home brewing potions and scribbling spells. Both paint a pretty and sensuous picture. You can play the whimsical and silly girl, but you're anything but dumb. While sniffing at that flower you picked up in the meadows you're locked onto your target with discerning eyes, sizing them up like a hawk ready to pluck a mouse from the fields. You're someone who can lure in their target with an innocent face and a flower crown on their hair, speaking honeyed words with opened palms, and when your lover finally settles down next to you, you can embrace and look down upon them with a loving gaze all the while knowing they are hopelessly trapped by you, and they couldn't be more unaware of it. You give them the notion of having power over you, a false sense of comfort you can utilize to take everything you want from of them. It's a perfectly painless process and that's why it works. This is a siren evolved out of water, a woman with the crime of passion trailing behind her like a cape and the undeceptive eyes of a doe. It's giving me Persephone and Hades, a gentle and lively woman able to tame even the darkest and stony of hearts, meaning you can seduce just about anyone!

You're a lover that is exciting and addicting to be around, a drug without the side effects. I think you can be the caring mother men need to be vulnerable, and when they need the heat to turn up, out comes the sultry woman of their dreams. I feel you could be into baking, maybe catering for home events and shoving food in people's mouths as a sign of love (it's also a tactic predators use in the wild to make their target immobilized). I think you like to do anything that relaxes and distresses you, keep in the quiet and just let your mind go into the silence. You are wonderfully sublime, an aromatic mix of shadow and light. You look like you stepped out of a Renaissance painting. I think you like creature comforts, the feel of a soft leathery couch and the low noise of a tv. Other days it's the grass at your back and the wind sweeping over your body that delights you. There's a number of things you want to try and have already done that feeds your spirit of whimsiness. Keep being silly and adventurous. Don't stumble trying to appear as someone you're not. You're open and free and that's what's so enticing about you. It doesn't ward people off as much as you think, rather it just intimidates people that don't have the same confidence as you do to exercise their self-expression. Many people struggle with their identity but you embrace it and the changes that life brings and so you're actually above those that you think you're beneath. You're constantly evolving and constantly at the whim of fate. I would say you're a breath of fresh air to anyone you meet. Never deny your power. This piles energy is very airy, light, and aligned with the sense of smell, which can be just as seductive as touch. Follow the direction of the wind and you'll always be on course for everything you desire. You're meant to wander and ponder. Don't think you're not meeting goal-posts as fast as everyone else. You're just enjoying what lies along the journey rather then the end, and that's a beautiful thing more fulfilling than crossing the finish line. ~

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

౿૮꒰ྀི The Tiger ๑◞꒱ა

[Ace of Cups, 6 of Swords, Wheel of Fortune]

Hello pile 2, aren't you the busy body. You are so energetic and strong. You have the strength and will of a lioness, a woman mature, self-sufficient, and unstoppable. I see you working yourself to the bone trying to keep a whole house together and not breaking a sweat while doing so. I doubt many work as hard as you do. They may not even measure to your strength of will. I'm getting a vision of Princess Tiana from Princess and the Frog, a Capricorn who was intelligent, diligent, and fearless. You are just like her I'm hearing. You're the glue that holds things together, that makes something new out of two separate things, the source of support that keeps someone afloat and moving. Without you your lovers would sink into the mires of lament and stupidity.

You're a trophy wife that doesn't just sit in the house all day but keeps upgrading the house, from a one-story, to a manor, to a whole estate. You're lovers are forced to match your speed and make something of themselves. You envigorate them with the promises of success. You're like a lucky lady in poker; your lovers can't win without you. You're their real success, the one trophy in their case made out of real gold. They grow with you, build a life with you, take their crudy dreams and turn it into a reality. You have the golden Midas touch. ✨ You're like magic, a Djinn that grants wishes and turns dreams to truth. Sure, in the real world these things take time and work, but they happen. Anything and everything can happen for you, and in extension, to your lovers. Your lovers need you in order to survive, to reach their goals and dreams and feel on top of the world. You're like the blood rushing through their veins in adrenaline on a morning run, the caffeine in their coffee, the motor of their car that never fails, and the bed they come home to and sink in. These things seems mundane but they are all a necessity of life. They signify movement, comfort, and stability. Excitement is fun every now and then but in real life it's not an everyday thing nor is it practical. You're a reminder of what's real and of what reward is past the finish line. You're the mast on a ship, the strings that hold everything together. You have the backbone of metal but you still hold the delicacy of something precious and nurturing. You have a very motherly aura. I feel you can't help but to take care of people. It's in your nature to help and nurture things into growing. You're a catalyst for change, sometimes the broom that swats someone's hiny into action. I see you guzzling coffee and turning into a tornado of movement. I'm also seeing big cats in the wild. Jaguars, panthers, leopards, and tigers, all fierce and spirited animals reflective of the ferocity of women and the power we all hold within. You know, lionesses and other female big cats do most of the work in keeping their species alive. They're protectors, hunters, warriors, and mothers. They do more than their mates and they do it all looking exquisite and beautiful. Everything about them is ingrained into you. Believe that.

Your strength is unparalleled and there's something that's so wild about you, something begging to be free, a intensity and ferociousness that can knock any man down and force them underneath you. I'm seeing leopard prints, blood, and fangs. You need to let that animal in you out every once in a while, take her out for a walk on the town and dom that red lipstick and little black dress you were saving for a special occasion. She's what's been clawing your insides and she will not rest until you let her breathe. I wouldn't be surprised if your partners like riling you up. Your anger is absolutely sexy. When tempers fly they feel a primal rush going on, a need to let your animals meet *wink, wink*. I feel you display both civility and the inner animal brain all of us humans have. It's astonishing how much we suppress ourselves and call our primal natures uncivilized and obsolete. They are not something to do away with, and anyone that says otherwise is lying to themselves. Suppressing our animal instincts teaches suppression and breeds inner deviancy. Releasing our instincts allows our bodies to give you their full capabilities. That's what your lovers see in you: a powerful woman that doesn't lie to herself and embraces her very nature and channels it into creation. That's why you succeed in everything. You're not afraid to get messy and tear a few muscles. You're a wild cat in heels welding a knife with a little blood on her apron. You're a little crazy but that's what makes people equally wild about you. It's sometimes better to be feared than loved, but in your case the things go hand in hand. Fear releases adrenaline and sometimes triggers the horny parts of our brains. Men are scared of you and piss their pants a little, but they kind of like it. Just know that it's ok to be vulnerable and soft once in a while. Just like Tiana, you will have to learn to relax and know it's ok to have days where you do nothing. You're not an incomplete person, and you are far from undesirable, but you're busy-bee nature makes your lovers want to take you by the shoulders and hog-tie you down to a chair. Deep down beneath that impenetrable armor is a woman desiring tenderness and affection, and you need to water her regularly to keep her from wilting. It's not a show of weakness to be vulnerable. I received another perfect metaphor for you, a diamond, strong and beautiful and the King of gems. Remember how diamonds are made; they come from the common material of carbon undergoing extreme pressures and heat to become something priceless and wanted by all. Perfectly descriptive of you. Remember that you are a diamond among gemstones, rare and desirable above all else. ~

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

౿૮꒰ྀི The Shells and the Vase ๑◞꒱ა

[Ace of Swords, King of Swords, 7 of Pentacles]

With you pile 3, it's do or die. You don't wait for no one nor are you adept at wasting your time with just anyone. You carry yourself as a woman with high value and as though you have a lot to offer, which you most definitely do. You're sexy, but there's also something inside you that adds to this appeal; your intelligence. Your appearance is beautiful too, but we will get into that later. You're sharp witted and unbelievably smart. Your highly praised for your genius and some can see that that is what gives you your unshakeable confidence. I feel you know the nature of people very well and you could be a fantastic conversationalist. People would pay to hear you talk for hours on hours. It's the way you talk, the way your tongue rolls and twitches between your lips that keeps them hanging onto every word you utter. Even the sounds you make are lip-bitingly arousing. Your lovers love the talks you have and they feel they can tell you everything and anything, but they'd rather just cuddle and hear you speak. There's never a dull moment with you and you open their eyes to the Universe. You're a point of discovery and through you people gain invaluable information. You're brilliant, knowledgeable and a master of words, but you're very selective with who you speak too. Not everyone is deserving of your words and sometimes people are so easy you can't help but to play a few mind games with them just to ease the edge of boredom you feel around normies. You may have an intriguing accent, even if it sounds normal to you, there's something about it so refined and soothing. Any of you bilinguals by chance? There's a neat little library in your head full of information that you can pull out when the time is perfect. You know when to turn on the crowd-pleaser and the show-stopper and even the dim-wit when you feel like effing with people. You're immune to caring what others think of you (a superpower if you ask me) and when you're slighted you may think it's funny. A good verbal joust is healthy from time to time, and a fight with words is much more interesting than with fists. I sense a little mean streak within this pile hehehe. Intelligence is so sensual. Ever heard of the phrase intelligence is the ultimate aphrodisiac? It truly is. You have the key to unlock peoples minds and you can do with them as you wish. Physical attraction is great and all but it's temporary and prone to fizzling. Even the most beautiful woman in the world get cheated on and tossed away. It's inward attraction thats the most important.

Once you've grabbed someone's attention then they've figured you must be different from all the ones they've met before and this establishes a want and need to know this person in and out, what makes them tick and chirp all nice and pretty. You know how to keep your lover on you. It's your sexy little mind that has the breath taken out of them. It's a surprising but welcome thing. You're like a present under a Christmas tree, the gift you didn't expect but came out to be better than the one you wanted. No one can one up you and your a bloodhound when it comes to figuring out people. A detective in the streets and a Playboy bunny in the sheets, I heard. You're like a knife that scrapes against skin oh-so deliciously, a selective taste but one you never go back from after savoring. People are a little afraid of you. Your words can cut like you have a tongue with barbed wire at the end of it. It's almost masochistic the way some men try to square up against you. They fall like a tree and you get to bask in the victory without so much as a wood chip clinging on to your dress. Lovers have to chase after you to get piece of you. You're a rich and exquisite prize to many. There's something about you that conjures images of class and poshness. You give me rich girl vibes. It's the way you carry yourself. You're so sure and confident it scares people sometimes. Even if you aren't rich, you look it. You treat yourself like an exclusive, like a corner of a club that won't let just anyone hang there until they've undergone an extensive background check and pass an itemized list. You're beautiful and you act like it. You're like a model walking in the streets of New York with her legs exposed, marching like she's on a mission. Everyone around her can't help but to stop and stare and feel wistful of what they can't have. You're enchanting, intensely desirable, the fruit that Tantalus desires and futilely reaches for every time the branch comes close to his mouth. It's part of a game you play with them. I can see that you laugh at them and their hound dog ways. It pumps your ego and keeps you feeling high. I can see you're the same way in your relationships. You never overvalue a lover over yourself, and you don't change yourself for them either. You're independent and require for your persons to be the same way, or else they get cut quick and loose. It's not that people think you're hard to pin down, but they feel you are so effervescent, easy to lose. Your partners think you're sensational, a whirlwind of passion wrapped up in a ribbon of classiness, similar to the feelings evoked when lapping at champagne, swimming in an infinity pool on top of a sky-rise, or sinking into the buttery leathers of a luxury sofa with a fireplace at your feet.

You feel naughty too, like eating bon bons on a cheat day. Your free spirited and live life so fast it's like men need to chase you with their cars. I can see you have a streak for danger, a love to live life on the edge. Die hard and die fast, but with no regrets. I think you're kooky too, so extra and out there, the type to walk ontop of the raised edges of sidewalks, skinny dip into a strangers pool, and dance on Street lamps like they are a strippers pole, haha. You live life in the moment. You're dangerous yet sophisticated, the type that likes to watch plays and carry theatrical masks 🎭 to be funny, one happy and the other one devilish (not sad). I feel you're insatiable for what the world has to offer. You feel the depth and width of the planet and wish it was yours. You want to learn everything there is to know, experience everything there is to feel, record the world through all of your five senses. You're worldly, a person of many dreams in one. Your lovers feel like they have to walk a tight rope with you, risk hovering over a den of tigers to get to you, but it's all worth it with you on the other side, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. You give them a rush of youth and adrenaline they can't get from ordinary life. You're not peace, your chaos, and so unique and individual that within you lays a multiverse of once in a lifetime experiences. Keep being unapologetically you. ~

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

౿૮꒰ྀི The Woman and the Beasts ๑◞꒱ა

[The Fool, Strength, 6 of Cups]

My, my so much yellow came out of this pile. Welcome my little balls of sunshines! You all are as cute as cute can be and absolute cinnamon rolls. At least on first meetings that is. This pile is full of high spirited energy! I feel you glowing with vitality. You seem young and have a childish streak about you, one that propels you high up in the sky on the wings of positive vibrations. Your lovers are addicted to these vibrations. You live in a little bubble of joy and positivity and I have to say I wish I could look at the world this way. Nothing really gets you down, and if it does your quick to pick yourself back up. I feel this is my pile of nature lovers, woman connected to the earth and in high spirits because of it. You like to follow the ebb and flow of life, ride the wavelength so to speak. You may feel out of control over your own destiny, but in a freeing way, like your life is truly yours and no one is in the background pulling your strings. You're like an oasis in a desert, a little spot in the forest to rest in and feel aware of all the other things that live life around you: the birds, the bees, the critters, and the little insects crawling in the ground and over you. Some here may experiment with weed and psychedelics which accounts for your chill, go-lucky attitude and higher spiritual connectivity. I feel this pile is very connected to animals too. You may have adopted a lot of animals or just seem to be a magnet for little forest creatures. You're like a Disney Princess. You radiate kindness and angelic grace and are a woman loved by all creatures that see and know her. Your love for the earth and all its inhabitants pours out of you and creates this beautiful Madonna image. I'm seeing a picture of Mother Mary, serene, beautiful, and otherworldly. It's almost like you are not part of this world. You come off as so delicate and precious, a rarity among a world lost to cynicism and mundanity. Your lovers imagine wrapping themselves up in you like a soft, feathery blanket. You're a source of security to them, a warm balm on their wounds when they fall and get hurt and the ice cream they enjoy afterwards. I feel you love taking care of people. You may play nurse and physically take care of your partners like children, missing their pains and keeping them giggling. You are soft, open and delicious, like a jelly-filled pastries in a bakery!

Everything about you is so refreshing, light and fun. There's an air of innocence that makes you unique, a babydoll made human like like in the Disney movie Life-Size. It's hard to find a light that shines as bright as yours and everyone around you wonders that if they stay near you maybe that light can rub off on them and if not, they are simply satisfied in basking in your glow. You're like a sunflower soaking in sunlight. You connect lovers to their inner child and they cannot get enough of that. With you they can be free and playful, they can release all their worries and learn to enjoy the moment, be a kid again and see life in the pure eyes of a child. You serve as a snapshot to life's most heart-melting moments and once your lovers see things through your eyes, it's like being bathed under a warm, ever-flowing spring. They feel renewed, enlightened, as if they never truly knew sunlight until they met you.

I feel this pile is more spiritually attuned, women that are close to the divine feminine and harness the power of feminity. Your effect is very healing. It kind of reminds me of Fluttershy from My Little Pony. She's warm, kind, and a nature lover, and she uses her powers for the good of others. I feel this pile are participants and donors of good causes, or you wish to be but have yet to take the initiative, but it is only a matter of when. You're an Angel in your own right, a being from high coming to visit the little people down below. There's something about you that's so welcoming and gooey. You're like sunny days spent out on the beach, a twilight where the stars and clouds mingle, and the feeling of being wrapped up in cozy sweaters in Autumn. You remind people that there are things worth saving in this world, that what they can do tomorrow is what they can do today. You're a wellspring of hope, the dream one has in a single night that changes everything. 🌷 Despite all this talk of innocence and rarity, there's a strength to you too, an unyielding stubbornness that only serves to accentuate your womanly wiles. You're always there to help a loved one, and it may go unappreciated because it seems that nothing phases you, when in actuality, you shoulder a lot; you just have an incredible way of keeping yourself untainted. It's almost as if you mop up people's troubles for them. Like a wet sponge to a person's skin, you're cleaning it off and getting their dirt onto you, then emptying the emotional bucket, taking a shower, and going on about your day. Kind of like a sin eater. Ever heard of one of those? Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia so you don't have to search for it: "A sin-eater is a person who consumes a ritual meal in order to spiritually take on the sins of a deceased person. The food was believed to absorb the sins of a recently dead person, thus absolving the soul of the person." Powerful stuff, but I'd be wary of people taking advantage of this. It's easy for people to become codependent on you, and easier for you to become emotionally attached to them. Like cleansing the bad, you sometimes have to cleanse the good too. It's better to take a neutral stance for the health of yourself and others, be the mothering figure but allow for others to make mistakes. You can't walk a person's journey for them, but the support you do give is immeasurable in impact. ~

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

ᴀɴʏ ᴄʀɪᴛɪᴄɪꜱᴍꜱ ᴏʀ ꜰᴇᴇᴅʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀʀᴇ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇᴅ. ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴʏ ᴏᴘɪɴɪᴏɴꜱ ᴀꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ɪᴍᴘʀᴏᴠᴇ ɪᴛ. ♡

ᴅɪꜱᴄʟᴀɪᴍᴇʀ

© lolita-bonita — Please do not plagiarize, translate, or repost any of my work on other social media platforms without my permission. This is the only platform that I post this type of content. If you see my work being posted anywhere else, please kindly report them to me. ♡

⊱┈─ ✧

✨️ ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: Tarot is not an exact science, nor can it produce factually true information. All things posted are alleged and for entertainment purposes only. The future is fluid, and what may happen is based on your choices and actions, not what I and a deck of cards say. You are still the creator of your future. ✨️

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

[duchess-of-mandalore]

"The Lawless" and its Darker Implications

This is a dark and heavy post, so most of it will be hidden beneath the read-more link. I'll also note that what I say is not canon, so you're under no obligation to hold to this interpretation I'm presenting.

This subject came up on Twitter because of the attempted sexual assault scene in Andor 2.03. A certain well-known fanboy with 3 million YouTube followers put out a post saying that "SA has no place in Star Wars."

While there are legitimate reasons to want such triggering content in Star Wars, I was annoyed by this person's ignorance and failure to recognize that SA and its effects have been in Star Wars for a very long time. I made a post detailing the many instances in which sexual assault has been present in Star Wars. In response to the original statement, "SA has no place in Star Wars," I captioned my post thread, "Maybe it was just easier for you to ignore before."

I included examples you'd expect, like Leia and Oola in RotJ, Arla Fett, Twi'lek women in general who are often trafficked as sex slaves...

... but another example I included (knowing I'd get some confusion and pushback) is Satine in "The Lawless."

If you're still here, you consent to listening to my detailed reasoning for why I hold this interpretation. Got it? Okay, good.

At the start of the episode, Satine has been in prison for quite some time (multiple weeks, according to the Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy novelization). Her outfit is slightly different from what it looked like in the episode before: she's lost her long skirt, her collar's double ruff, her belt, her mantle necklace, and her diadem.

My guess is that during her time in prison, Death Watch stole those items off of her, but the point is, a month into her captivity, she still looks put together. Her remaining clothes look fine, and she keeps her hair in a neat bun.

Bo-Katan and Korkie break her out of prison, they race out of the city, Satine gets a message off to Obi-Wan, and then she's recaptured. By the time Obi-Wan gets to her (hours or days later, who can tell?), she looks considerably worse for wear. And the changes are concerning.

Her hair is not just down but disheveled.

Her tunic and trousers are ripped in numerous places.

Most disturbingly, when a lone male Mandalorian commando enters her cell without notice or permission, Satine greets him by saying, "Here to do more of your master's bidding?" There's a lot to unpack about what exactly Maul's "bidding" is, but Satine's words clearly imply that she has already endured a man coming to her cell at least once before, and it seems like if Maul had previously been restraining Death Watch from treating Satine poorly, he removed that protection after her escape attempt.

There's a reason the episode is called "The Lawless."

As I said before, I'm not saying that Satine being sexually assaulted is canon ... though her being at least physically assaulted by Death Watch after she's recaptured essentially is.

But when those puzzle pieces are assembled, I do think that the implication is darker, especially when you consider the episode "A Friend in Need," in which Death Watch is explicitly shown engaging in ongoing kidnapping, slavery, and sexual objectification of the local Ming Po women with the implication of SA for the purposes of terror, intimidation, and their own comfort ...

... and the fact that Death Watch has a very particular vendetta against Satine, the heretic pacifist who has left them feeling marginalized in what was previously a warrior society.

It's dark, I know. But I think it's the only end that really makes sense.

There's a reason why Satine clings so desperately to Obi-Wan when he finally comes to rescue her: she's grateful he's there to take her away, and she's grateful that he's not who she originally thought he was.

[theglassesgirl]

The Ithaca Saga: What IS a Monster, how it’s presented, and when fictional S.A is integral to the plot.

So -

This was originally a response to @ / anniflamma which you can still find on my page unedited. But with the new discourse surrounding the suitors, I figured I could retool it as a standalone essay to express a topic I’ve been trying to pin down for a while now; What exactly does the mean when they call a character a monster? What do they do, do the reasons matter, and how does the subject of rape affect how the fandom consider some monsters more unforgivable than others? When IS rape in fiction “necessary” and why such questions defeat the purpose of exploratory creative works.

In this post we will discuss all the major antagonists of the Epic Musical, Penelope’s agency, the label of Monster and the types of moralizing one might do when faced with uncomfortable subjects in fiction and how to prevent these feelings from blinding is about what a story is trying to say.

For those who read my original response; there’s new content to read here and posts that will be referred to, if you’d like to give it another gander!

Thank you,

Let’s begin;

I think making the threat of rape explicit was very much needed, actually.

It’s come to my attention that there are people here and on tiktok who are so uncomfortable with the subject matter in this CENTURIES old tale that they’re both refusing to accept that it plays an important part in the original poem and musical, AND are bizarrely insisting that Jorge should have magically done away with it to make more palatable.

This is beyond juvenile - it’s a clear sign of media illiteracy.

What, if I may ask, do you think it means when you say that the suitors are going to force Penelope to choose one of them to marry.

You may respond that they want to take over Ithaca. That they want to be king. But take a moment to consider what forcing a woman to marry one of them will entail. I wonder if you think that one can divorce the idea of sexual violence in this plot.

It would be…unfathomably difficult to do so. Because you CANT. There is an implicit threat of Penelope’s will breaking and having to have unwilling and reluctant sex with any one of them in the event she just gave up and picked one.

This isn’t a storyline that depicts Penelope of being willing to marry any of the suitors. She is WAITING for her husband’s return. Even if he doesn’t, she doesn’t WANT to marry someone else. Her consent is being violated by the very merit of them being in her palace, eating her food, and threatening her son.

They’re doing ALL OF THIS in order to bend her will in the HOPES of raping her as a bonus to becoming king of Ithaca.

My contention is the use of “unnecessary” when it comes to this trope in media - though themes of rape can be uncomfortable, to call them unnecessary HAVE to meet certain criteria. Which this specific instance doesn’t.

By observing various responses, it’s clear that the threat of rape went completely over many’s head in this instance of the story. So I very must appreciate Jorge making it SO clear that it’s upsetting.

This part of the odyssey, and the musical, is very much about Penelope suffering under the threat of assault for YEARS. In the same way Odysseus was (a thing I touched upon in my calypso essay, in terms of his ambiguous situation in the musical) - it’s a parallel that works as both Antinous and Calypso were introduced (regardless on your personal interpretation of what Calypso did or did not do, but that’s neither here nor there).

It has taken an emotional and psychological toll of either spouse. And the kicker is that neither of them are freed of this situation on their own - they are both rescued by outside forces. Athena/Hermes helps free Odysseus; Athena/Odysseus will help free Penelope.

The looming threat of rape is SO necessary that it helps the catharsis factor we feel toward PENELOPE’s story - it’s nothing to do w Odysseus who by now is a force of nature as big as Poseidon, his actions happen TO her, and it’s up to her to decide (per “would you love me” ) what she feels about that. She can very well reject him! She’s suffered under male violence for YEARS. Odysseus’s violence and those of the suitors toward her are basis enough for the comparison.

Do all men, including her husband, become violent? Does she want to put up with that? We know from her song snippets that she is NOT a woman that simply succumbs to the Rape Rescue trope as suggested by ignorant consumers of media - and I call it ignorance and consumerism because there’s a clear lack of engaging with the material in an intuitive way. It’s just blind consumption - as if one bites into a burger and find a pickle, which you personally don’t like, and having it removed - you can’t treat ART that way .

Penelope is a very intuitive and emotionally intelligent queen. Stop infantilizing her. Her own husband suggests that like the suitors, his actions make him just as bad as they are and presents his hope as being understanding if she rejects him on those grounds. But those ARENT her grounds. She has full autonomy and can make a distinction FOR HERSELF whether she considers her husband equal to the monsters who have harmed her.

So let’s talk about the “Monster” label as it is presented on the entire musical.

Some have erroneously suggested that Odysseus has been given an out to commit cruel and ruthless deeds with out “good justification” - he does it for his family,, after all!

Which is a misunderstanding of everything every antagonist of each saga has done.

Let’s start with the Troy Saga: Odysseus has killed a BABY. He made the choice to put his family over this child. Everything he has done and lost would be for literally NOTHING if he hadn’t, as even if he had killed the suitors and regained everything - the GODS themselves would make sure that child would come to an aged Odysseus and slaughter him, Penelope, Telemachus and his entire kingdom when he came of age.

Odysseus STARTS as a monster. We have been rooting for the man who laid Troy and its children asunder. As such, the label of a monster is NOT so much a morally subjective label - it simply a thing that IS. Or rather. It is what ALL the antagonists ARE, but it’s hardly a condemnation of any of them.

(Peep that one of the first lines Ody says refers back to in the Vengeance Saga is what he did to Troy - he STILL views his actions over there as unforgivable, so not even HE will ever see himself otherwise, the problem was that he felt so guilty over it that he became a detriment (a different kind of monster) to his friends and family when they were all guilty of the same thing and trying to get home.)

ALL of the antagonists have a “good reason” to kill ALL the soldiers (who again, have looted and slaughtered the Trojans) Odysseus and his close friends included. Whether your AGREE is almost irrelevant…because the story itself proposes that it’s irrelevant.

The next saga introduces the cyclops: his motivation is primarily that his FRIENDS the sheep have been slaughtered. You can argue in the scope of things, you can’t empathize with this but it’s his good reason. He’s the son of a god, and these sheep are all he has. His friends, who matter to him as much as Polites does to Ody, are being taken and slain, he is being drugged, attacked and maimed. VERY much was Ody goes through in the final saga. And even so.

The Cyclops is antagonistic to the party, he’s a monster who feels justified killing to avenge his killed sheep. A monster is a thing he IS.

As Poseidon’s son, he asks his father to kill the 600 men who have ransacked his home and beat on him. He doesn’t view his father as being wrong for this. In the same ways Ody and Telemachus don’t waste any time addressing the slain suitors later on. Poseidon is a monster of a god - it’s just a thing he is. Not even being stabbed 100 times is enough to repay the harm he’s done - to most everyone, not just Ody, but we are not asked to quantify that. Just live with it.

Circe has killed NUMEROUS men over the years. HER “good reason” is that something bad happened to her nymphs when she let a stranger in her islands. She doesn’t even promise that she WONT kill in the future - her song ends w the suggestion that the world may continue to need her to puppeteer! Because she does not exist to be “redeemed” - she is somewhat more reasonable and capable of empathy than even the likes Athena, who being a greater and more powerful god, does not have the one on one affection to her follows as Circe does. She’s a monster! It’s a label, a thing she IS.

So here we begin to ask; is it LOVE that gives people the capacity to do monstrous things? Because the cyclops loved his sheep friends, Poseidon loves his son, Circe loves her nymphs.

And by now you’re saying now wait a minute didn’t the Underworld Saga go over this? Why yes it did! And Odysseus decides to “become the monster” - he already IS one by the standards of the cyclops, Poseidon, Troy - they all see him as a monstrous being. But he accepts that, after being one in Troy, he held back and ruined the lives of his men, making him a monster to THEM. His “good reason” for being so!

He attempts very hard to be the General he was in Troy and prioritize them going home, sparing no sympathy towards his enemies - but in the Thunder Saga we see the gods further push him to be completely self-serving like they are. The sun gods cows are harmed, he sends Zeus in relation - his “good reason” being his friend were personally harmed.

Odysseus’s “good reason” is ultimately decided to be the same good reason he had to slaughter the Trojans - to get back home to his wife and son.

Like with the Cyclops sheep, Circe’s nymphs, The Sun gods cows, and Poseidons son, WE are shocked and made to feel some type of way about Odyseuss’s reasoning. Surely HIS personal suffering shouldn’t cost the lives of “innocent” men…but it does! It surely does.

He is a monster. It’s just a thing he IS.

Now, Odysseus spends the next seven years under the thumb of ANOTHER monster. And through calypso own reasoning, despite her tragic backstory, her “good reason” she IS a monster. She’s incapable of understanding why she wasn’t reciprocated. Incapable of empathizing with a human because as a god who has spent eternity alone, it stands to reason she, like all the other monsters mentioned before, prioritizes HER personal suffering over everyone else’s. In some versions she either kills herself or does spend the rest of eternity alone. She’s a monster. This is a thing she IS.

Now what the HELL does all this have to do with the suitors?

Odysseus started the musical a MONSTER. He’s worn different hats, but it is what he IS. It’s a label, not a moral critique.

ALL of the antagonists of every saga have a “good reason” NONE of them are ruthless for ruthlessness sake! It’s immaterial whether you agree with them or not, but to understand them for what they are.

Odysseus is the antagonist of the ithica saga, md while the suitors are the antagonist to him and his family, we see their fate form THEIR POV

The suitors could not have been depicted as “rude youthful men” like Telemachus. That Odysseus killing them should be shocking - a frightening condemnation of everything he’s done and became. But I ask once again - in what world are the suitors not implicitly set up as monsters?

Because again. They aren’t being rude for rudeness’s sake! They aren’t JUST eating Penelope’s food and sleeping in HER house. Them threatening Telemachus, as you propose, isn’t “enough” of a reason because they didn’t wake up one day beefing w this boy. Everything they do is for the express purpose of sexual violence towards the Queen of Ithaca, who upon assaulting, will make it so any one of them will be King.

You can’t separate the one from the other. You get a nonsense scenario. The whole REASON they’re there in the first place.

Even if you create a fanfic where 108 men wake up one day and raid the palace to slaughter the royal family with no intent of sexually assaulting either (because remember Telemachus is also the subject of Hold Em Down) and then fight amongst themselves to be the next king, but then isn’t that STILL a “good reason” for Odysseus to slaughter them?

Now I hear what you may be asking: but if all the monsters of the sagas, Odysseus included, have a “good reason” even though we might not agree with it, what kind of monsters does that make the suitors? Surely and clearly THEY aren’t doing what they’re doing for noble reasons.

I consider them akin to the 600 men who died under their captains command.

Because, as stated before. Odysseus views his actions in a Troy as his start of monstrosity. He did all that to finish the war and do back home. He ruined the lives of all Trojans.

So did his soldiers.

The only moment in time (even in the deleted songs) that the bulk of them repent about the war is in terms that it left them without food.

But glasses! They were just following orders!

Which is what one of the suitors suggest in song 38. Their serpents head is dead, THEY were just going with Antinous’ flow, they are innocent.

Like the 600 soldiers, the 108 suitors sacked a home that wasn’t theirs and harmed a wife and child - does them being the queen and prince pale in comparison to the hundreds of wives and children slain in Troy? Homer is a genius to ask us to see these parallels for what it is.

The suitors ARE monsters. That is simply what all 108 of them are. In the context of the story itself, their intent is to break Penelope’s will, commit martial rape, and become king of Ithaca. They aren’t there for kicks, they aren’t ignorant boys, they’re socially accepted adults abusing the hospitality rule with an express purpose.

So a GROUP of monsters are slaughtered by ANOTHER monster, and though in this instance we can argue it’s morally justifiable, it doesn’t take away from Odysseus’s fear of being rejected by his family. He has ruined the lives of the Trojans, his men, AND multiple gods! To get to this point. He IS a monster. And the story asks US, through Penelope, if he is still worth loving.

Seeing Penelope as merely his reward is so backwards and bizarre. It’s very clear that bad faith interpretations of her are based on objectifying her erroneously, when the narrative presents her as a fully developed character.

In the story both in the poem and the musical that the suitors ARE NOT her guests. She is being sequestered against her will.

In what world could the suitors be “just” murderers and not….very clearly rapists? It’s BUILT into their motivation. You would have to change the very FOUNDATION of the Ithaca plot line and Penelope herself??? To say nothing of Telemachus’s role!

What’s the proposal here? That Penelope invited these suitors? That’s she’s actively looking for a replacement husband? Okay, again, that changes literally SO MUCH of the story, but wouldn’t that put Telemachus in a position where he too has to change? Does he resent his mother for doing this? Is he helping his dad out of spite or because he wants him back? How are we meant to view Penelope in this radically new and hip Epic the Musical? Is she savvy and in her right to choose a new boo? Okay…okay, so then….you want Odysseus to be the only one unchanged and go axe crazy because….hes jealous? He kills these upstanding men….curtain call. That’s all folks!

Absurdity at its finest. You throw Penelope’s agency out the window. Her weaving and unweaving her loom is meaningless or simply doesn’t happen. Or maybe it’s that she wakes up one day and goes hey yknow what I WILL consider marrying one of these guys with no sense of dread and fear. Oh wait Oddy has killed then all! Never mind me feeling unsafe a week ago, he’s done a Bad.

Crazy.

It’s just…not going to end up making Penelope look like a well written female character if Jorge has done what you wanted! THAT would make her a mindless prop. You seem to think she is one, and that’s not the case. Historically, in fact!

She is a whole person in the poem and musical whether you understand it or not. You would have to argue so thoroughly why she sucks and let me assure you - there are entire DISSERTATIONs on why you’d be incorrect.

So, no.

No, you CANT take away the rape in Penelope’s storyline. It matters ALOT. It’s the ROOT of the matter! Could old school vegetales make something up that’s more to your sensibilities? Maybe at its peak but god, I couldn’t possibly come up with a draft that could reflect that. I won’t even try.

The rape aspect of the Ithica Saga isn’t unnecessary - it’s INTEGRAL to the plot. It can make you uncomfortable, but it’s BUILT into the royal family’s suffering whether it’s explicit or not! And it SHOULD be explicit! Because you seem to think because it usually isn’t, that the rape aspect isn’t there!

I cannot imagine coming to this kind of conclusion.

They are not random men going on a siege of the palace one day - you cannot “sanitize” the SUITORS because by the very merit of them calling each other THE SUITORS there is an implicit threat of sexual violence. Because Penelope doesn’t WANT suitors. She rejects them. They’re already violating her consent.

How the FUCK to do you censor the rape when it’s in every action they take? And I know what you’re saying: but didn’t Jorge censor the rape aspect that both Circe and Calypso commit towards him?

Further reading: suggests that ALLUDING to it is not the same as censoring, that it still FITS the PURPOSE of these characters in regards to Odysseus’s suffering under them. That after ambiguity, it is NECESSARY to make the rape aspect CLEAR in order to create both catharsis and MEANING at the end of the narrative. The THEME is still respected and present, it is not REMOVED. Please consider reading the linked follow up that answers this question.

In short.

It’s truly a matter of using one’s goddamn head when it comes to view fictional depictions of rape as “necessary” - because though some depictions can be presented BADLY, to suggest they should not EXISTS lends itself to rape culture. It silences the voices of victims. Its representation denied. Don’t talk about it, don’t even suggest it, because rape is bad.

It’s an action that happens to people. It’s a crime in civilized society. It’s a physical and psychological trauma that has always been. It happens daily, in fact. Though epic the musical is a source of entertainment for you, it doesnt exist solely for that purpose.

When Homer included it within his original oral story, he did so as a storyteller trying to get his audience to philosophize, not simply have fun.

I think we’ve come to some abysmal conclusion that men can’t write about these topics when we have historical evidence of at least one man knowing what the hell he’s talking about. And Jorge has done a phenomenal job even when he hadn’t depicted blatantly.

If you’re uncomfortable to the point of not wanting to see it at all, that is entirely on you, art and creative works allow us to explore these topics safely. Whether it’s from the POV of the assailant or one of the victims commenting on it, fiction is one of the only places we can talk about it and learn about ourselves in a way it doesn’t harm real people.

I don’t even want to BEGIN discussing all the losers who are still harassing Antinous fans or people who genuinely enjoy his song despite/BECAUSE of the subject matter. Its purpose in the story matters more than you policing how it’s presented and how it’s consumed. No amount of people enjoying themselves will take away the foundational POINT of the character and song. It’s perfect the way it is.

Like with the chaos that calypso discourse wrought, you cannot control how people treat a NOT REAL CHARACTER or the songs they sing - if it bothers you that one type of fictional villian is treated one way or another, it is on you to find likeminded people instead of going into others faces and pretending to be a self-righteous prick. You can throw whatever buzzwords you want, the CONTEXT these characters live in has nothing to do with how others want to play with them. If you don’t understand the difference between the two instances, fandom is certainly not for you and will not be changed to suit your sensibilities.

To end this post, I want to thank those who further asked me questions and bounced ideas off with me, and wow, what a phenomenal ending to a grandiose musical. I hope I can see it live, animated, streamed, developed into a game etc whatever form it takes now that the concept albums are published

Thank you all for engaging w my work💖

[casscainmainly]

Cass, Names, and the Black Bat Era

With a Black Bat mention in 2025 (read Batgirl (2024) #4!!), it seems as good a time as any to look back on one of Cass' most fleeting identities. We all know why Cass took up Batgirl and Orphan, but we don't get to see the thought process behind Black Bat. I'm going to consider why Cass might have chosen Black Bat as her name, and what it means for her relationship to Bruce and the Bat symbol.

This analysis will purely consider events from the characters' perspectives, ignoring authorial intent. There is like a negative percent chance any of the connections I make here were intended, and Black Bat probably was just a name they randomly picked. This is essentially me trying to make sense of the little Cass bits we get during the Batman Reborn era.

Background: Batgirl and Orphan

Growing up nameless, Cass associates names with personhood and autonomy. Batgirl was the first (and the most important), and a large part of Batgirl (2000) showed how Cass only thinks of herself as Batgirl.

Batgirl (2000) #7

"You need to relax, Cass--sorry--Batgirl." Barbara's 'sorry' indicates that Cass' identity is purely Batgirl, disliking any other name. (For a more in-depth exploration of this moment, see renaroo's meta!). This shows how it's not just the mantle, but the name - the actual word - that matters to Cass.

A very similar thing happens in Batman & Robin Eternal #26:

Once again, Cass is extremely particular about what people call her. And once again she rejects one identity in favour of another - she struggles with being more than one thing. Whatever identity she adopts, it contains her whole self.

Which is why when she loses herself, she becomes nameless:

Batgirl (2000) #73 / Red Robin #17

In the first panel, Cass has just 'killed' Shiva and forsaken Batgirl. "She thought she was a bat. But she came to find she wasn't that either." Without the bat, she becomes a girl "named Cain." While not technically nameless, Cain is just her father's last name - she has no first name of her own. This namelessness occurs again in Red Robin. After Bruce tells Cass to give Steph Batgirl, Cass is left without the bat again - and, again, she becomes nameless. Tim gives her a bat costume, asks her what she needs, and she says "to... just... be...".

If she takes up another name, she will become something - a name is not only identification, but transformation. When she has no idea who she is or who she wants to be (as seen in the end of Batgirl (2000) and Red Robin), she chooses namelessness.

The Gift

Cass remaining nameless not only shows her lack of identity, but her rejection of Bruce and the Batfamily.

Red Robin #17

Here, Tim says it doesn't matter what Cass calls herself, they'll always be family. Cass' answer is cryptic: "But family is not always home..." If we look at Cass' history, the only times she leaves her family is when their relationship becomes unbearable. She runs from David Cain because he makes her kill; she leaves Babs because she calls her stupid; she leaves Gotham the first time because of Steph's death; she goes to Hong Kong because Bruce makes her give away Batgirl. Family isn't home for Cass only when something awful happens.

For Cass, family and names have always been linked. In my gift post, I talked about how Batgirl was presented as a gift, and how Babs says gifts are things that make you "feel[...] not alone" (Azrael: Agent of the Bat #61). Batgirl, a gift, makes Cass feel "not alone." The mantle represents her connection to the Batfamily.

In fact, Red Robin parallels the original gifting of the Batgirl suit:

Legends of the Dark Knight #120 / Red Robin #17

Tim explicitly links the gift of the Bat symbol to family: "the...family... has settled down. I thought maybe... it was time to make it all official." (This also somewhat parallels Bruce's adoption of Cass, which Tim was also there for). But Cass doesn't accept the gift this time, telling Tim that Steph is already Batgirl, and that 'family isn't always home'. She keeps the suit, but the ambivalence in her response shows her ambivalence to her family.

Batgirl and Orphan are both familial names, one linked to the Bats, one linked to David Cain. Names to Cass represent both her own identity and her relationship to other people. When Batman took Batgirl away, he was essentially revoking her place in the family (Batman R.I.P happens right after her adoption too). Though we never explicitly get Cass' feelings, her hesitance at Tim's gift says a lot.

What Was Tim's Gift Anyway?

When Tim first sees Cass, he thinks to himself:

Red Robin #17

This is a great insight into what Tim was actually offering. The first thought reveals that Tim wasn't suggesting Cass be Batgirl again, which Cass assumed. He knows Cass doesn't want to be "who she was" - he thinks she's being true to what "she wanted to become."

What does he think Cass wants to become?

Batgirl (2000) #59

In Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood, Cass tells Tim the "the only thing" she's ever wanted was to be Batman. This is the only thing she wants - when Tim says she's being 'true to what she wanted to become', it's likely he's thinking of this conversation. So when Tim offers the batsuit, he's offering the bat mantle. He's offering what she always wanted to be: Batman.

But Cass' conception of Batman is clearly tied to Bruce ("take over for him when he's... done"), which in turn ties the concept of Batman to Gotham. Cass does become the Bat of Hong Kong, but she doesn't take the Batman name (which she totally could, since Bruce and Dick are sharing the name; or she could be 'the bat' or whatever).

Instead, she chooses Black Bat. Both Batgirl and Orphan are taken from other people, so this is strikingly the only name Cass invented (even Kasumi was probably not her invention? It was a disguise anyway). But was Black Bat actually Cass' invention?

Tai'Darshan All Along

Batgirl (2000) #40

Black Bat is also taken from someone - from Cass' first canon love interest, the one and only Tai'Darshan. I seriously don't think DC knew they were taking the name from him, but they did and that means Tai is extremely important to understanding Cass' Black Bat era.

Because Tai doesn't just represent teenage hormones. Like Lady Shiva, Tai'Darshan was a foil to Batman, someone who opposed him in almost every aspect. He is Cass' first proper rebellion, kickstarting the downfall of Cass and Bruce's relationship in Horrocks' run; he also died because of Bruce's interference, something that Bruce himself thinks is the reason Cass doesn't trust him anymore.

Batgirl (2000) #47

Though Bruce and Cass make up in #50, there is something permanently secretive about Black Wind and Cass' relationship. Bruce says "she won't tell me what" happened, and Tai's last conversation with Cass is about secrets:

Batgirl (2000) #44

Tai'Darshan represents Cass' secret side, a side "buried" from everyone (particularly Bruce). Tai's reference to Cass' "real name" is poignant - in a way, he was the first person who liked Cass for Cass, who asked her to take off her mask and admired her face underneath. He never knew who she really was, but he loved her anyway. The 'bat' in Black Bat doesn't refer to Bruce, but to Cass. It makes sense that at a time of complete identity loss - after giving up Batgirl at Bruce's orders - Cass would turn to a nickname from someone who caused her falling out with Bruce, who represents secrets, rebellion, and a self defined outside of Batman.

Black Bat

Gates of Gotham #4

I wrote elsewhere about how Gates of Gotham, and this conversation with Dick in particular, is Cass rebelling against Bruce's (and DC's) decision to boot her from Gotham. In GoG #5, she tells Tim she's staying. Black Bat as a mantle is not really Cass becoming 'the Bat' of any place - it's something different, something new. It's a reconfiguration of the Bat symbol as something that's hers.

I think Tim bookending this Black Bat experience is important, too. He gives her the Bat symbol in Hong Kong - she comes back to Gotham to tell him she's returning permanently. Black Bat and Red Robin are syntactically similar, and Black Bat is very similar to one of Tim's name suggestions ("Black Robin"). For Tim, Red Robin was punishment made into redemption; he took the name from Jason and made it his own. Black Bat, in its own way, is Cass doing the same. By taking a nickname from Tai'Darshan, she is using the bat name/symbol without attaching it to Bruce; in fact, the memory of Tai is against Bruce. She's taking back the symbol that means so much to her and making it her own.

Conclusion

This was honestly a big excuse to remind people that Black Bat comes from Tai'Darshan. As one of 4 Tai fans on this website, I just think his role in Cass' life is really interesting and underappreciated! His storyline may be awful in every way, but I'll always have a soft spot for him as a character.

Also I was writing this before Batgirl (2024) #4 came out and it does somewhat complicate this reading. Shiva is implying that Black Bat, like Orphan (and Kasumi) are identities that Cass affects, that she's "aspiring to be somebody else". I don't think Shiva is being quite fair - Orphan, for instance, is as much in defiance of David Cain as it is an homage to him. But it's interesting that even when Cass is constructing her own identity, she consistently defaults to using other people's names. In that way Shiva is right - for Cass, names are gifts, so she never tries to name herself. She also, even in this reading, clings to the image of the bat. I'm highly interested where Brombal's investigation into Cass' identity will take her, especially in regards to superhero and legacy mantles.

[hotvintagepoll]

Do you have any opinions on modern (post-1970s) movies that you feel capture the essence (in a good way) of Old Movies?

No, unfortunately. That doesn't mean I don't like modern movies or that modern movies aren't good, but modern movies—and here I'm really using modern to mean post-2010, so contemporary movies—have different standards for pacing, characterization, budget, and production that make it harder (or impossible) to capture some of the magic of old movies. Even when modern movies clearly try to emulate that old-movie feeling—I'm thinking of La La Land, The Artist, The Shape of Water, In the Heights—they play the homage too broadly, or they ignore crucial components that make the original films work.

There's kind of too much to go into here without writing a full essay, but essentially, the Old Hollywood system—ugly, failed beast as she was—made some movies simply more accessible to make, due to the ongoing storage of props, sets, master craftsmen, crew, and onscreen talent that could move from one movie to the next without pause. If you needed a dancer, he was already on staff. If you needed a fancy bed, it was already in the warehouse. That kind of longterm storage is invaluable if you want to crank out movies quickly and cheaply because it saves so much time on individual negotiation and sourcing. Modern production companies have to work out individual contracts for every actor on every film; crew members have to negotiate rental contracts and source pieces from scratch; if you need someone with specialist skills, you have to contract them specially at a high rate, which a lot of small companies can't (or won't) budget to do. There's sand in the wheels where there needn't be any. It's wasteful, and costly, but that's the system modern movies are made with.

Which all means that even if the modern movie system wanted to make a classic movie musical just like the old ones, they couldn't, because the talent isn't already there—it hasn't been trained up enough, and there's not that breadth of knowledge you can only get from people who have been allowed to work in the same department in the same place for decades. Movies like La La Land fail, for me, because they present themselves as descendants of Fred Astaire or Busby Berkley movies, while missing the bit where Fred Astaire was a master of his craft. When you watch Fred Astaire dance—or Moira Shearer, or the Nicholas Brothers, or Ann Miller—you are watching a true artist at work, purposely showcased by the studios because they already have them on contract. Modern movies, on the other hand, tend to take people who already have star talent (as actors) and try to convert them into dancers/singers—or they pull dancers/singers off of Broadway, but then they don't have the star power built in. You end up with lackluster musicals where no one truly knows what they're doing, or they do but they're not built up enough by the studios to sell. And that's me discussing just on-screen talent for musicals—there is a huge loss behind the scenes, as well, for all kinds of movies, where roles that would have been filled by union crew who moved continuously from one job to the next have been swapped for freelance labor who live with immense turnover, financial insecurity, and knowledge loss. You could hand me the budget and I could try to make an old movie, but the industry itself has changed so much it's impossible to recapture that charm of steady, niche talent, the amazing possibilities of bonkers set design, and the ability to take a risk on a smaller movie because the other films being produced by the same studio can help balance the budget.

I've talked way, way too much about all of this! Sorry, I just have a lot of thoughts—and the one above is just one of them; the talent loss and storage issues are only facets of a much bigger problem that extends to how we watch movies today, how we market them, what we expect of them, and what's allowed in them. It's a crying shame because the talent is still there, but times change and so does the industry, for better or for worse. (And, just again to clarify, I don't think modern movies are bad—they're just missing a lot of the juice old movies got to play with, even if there's more talent available than ever before.)

[leeny-leens]

Scents and Warmth

Pairing: Theodore Nott x fem!Reader

Summary: There was nothing that could melt his heart quite the way her scent and warmth did, especially after a long day.

Content: fluff, glasses wearing reader, history nerd reader, established relationship

Warnings: tiny mentions of a negative self image from Theo, nothing too strong

WC: 2.63k

A/N: originally wrote this for myself but I decided to change it up and post it, lmk your thoughts 🫶✨

Theodore's eyes scanned the room, irritation gnawing at the edges of his mind. He had a feeling she was here, yet save for a few first years spread across the common room, his beloved was nowhere to be seen. Just as he was about to give up and make his way to her room to look for her, he spied the colour of her hair at the corner of his vision, prompting him to turn around.

He stepped closer, rounding a corner hidden behind bookshelves and there she was; tucked away behind the recluse of the shelves, seated by a table near the glass wall.

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes taking in the appearance of his girlfriend who was evidently, deep in thought. She had that ghastly, pale yellow zip up on, the one he swore he'd throw away one of those days because it was just that ugly, a few splotches already present on the fabric. He wouldn't be caught dead admitting that, but he actually loved that sweater on her; it was just loose enough to pool beautifully around her upper hips and the colour brought a pretty contrast to her hair that had her looking like a mesmerising painting. And god that hair, that he adored so much was all shiny and put up, a few strands loosely escaping the metal claw clip. By the looks of her hair, she'd probably taken a shower today, and Theo stepped closer once more to observe her with furrowed eyebrows. It was a Monday, and she rarely ever took showers on Mondays. Something about her routine and how she needed to shower on Sunday night so she could feel clean for a new week. It didn't make sense to him, partly because he showered every other day, but as long as she was happy, he really didn't care. His mind returned to Saturday night, where she'd detailed how busy her Sunday would be, filled with homework, revisions and a much needed deep clean of her dorm room. Theodore concluded that his idiot had overexerted herself, leaving her with no energy to shower at the end of the day and thus she'd probably woken up two hours earlier than needed to do that this morning.

He was close enough to see her expression now; eyebrows furrowed slightly and her jaw tense as her quill scratched rhythmically against parchment. There were various books splayed open around her and occasionally, the scratching stopped in favour of turning pages in one of the books and low murmurs as she spoke to herself. Her glasses sat askew atop her nose bridge, a soft smile tugged at Theo's mouth when he realized she was so focused she didn't even bother fixing them after they'd slid down her nose.

After years of friendship, and almost two years of dating the girl he loved so much, he knew better than to startle her out of her deep focus, opting to slowly step into her space instead. Standing behind her, he tapped her shoulder softly, coughing to catch her attention and leaned down into her field of vision. “Hey bella," he whispered softly, his voice smooth and low in her ear. Her focus had been broken the moment he tapped her, and she turned to look at him with a dazed expression, as if trying to remember where she was and what was going on. That expression however, quickly morphed into a bright grin, her eyes twinkled up at him with adoration and fondness that could melt even the most frigid of hearts. “Hey Theo,” she whispered back and Theo noted the slight hoarseness of her voice with amusement, an indicator that she’d been mostly silent in her endeavours.

So close to her now, her scent hit Theo’s senses hard and he found his brain quickly melting at that. He'd never thought of himself as a guy who'd succumb to something as primal as scent, yet he couldn't help it whenever she was near, especially on the days where he knew she'd taken meticulous care to smell good. Strawberry notes mingled together with floral wisps and her beloved perfume. Gods, the smell of her perfume had his head spinning in a haze. Driven by instinct, he buried his head in the crook of her neck, not caring that her hair tickled his face as he inhaled her scent. Merlin, he wanted to drown in it, never smell anything else but her and have that be what he last sensed as he took his dying breathe.

“Theo?” her voice echoed, the confusion quickly morphing into breathy gasps as he began to press light kisses into her neck. “Yes, tesoro?” his focus was on the feel of her skin against his lips, the smooth curve of her neck and the lightly trembles as he continued to ambush her with kisses and affection.

Theodore almost let out a whine when he felt her push his face away, her eyes narrowed playfully as she stared up at him. “What are you doing?”

“Loving you?” he hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question, mainly because Theodore Nott was never unsure of things. He was poised, calm and calculated, meticulous attention to details, from the way he walked down to the way the strands atop his head layed. Yet with her, in that secluded corner of the common room, her smell enveloping him after a long day, he found himself reduced into that soft and domestic version of himself only she could bring out.

He looked at her, blue seas clashed against a galaxy full of love and her face softened visibly at his expression. “Oh, my sweet boy,” her hands tugged on his arms, guiding him around to sit beside her on the plush seat, “Love me all you want darling, I'm yours to love anyway”. It was a tight fit, much to Theodore's glee, and he shamelessly took the opportunity to lift her up and manoeuvre her into his lap.

Any sounds of protest died in her throat as one of his arms wrapped around her waist and the other became entangled in her hair, gently scratching and massaging her scalp with soft yet guided movements. He once more buried his head in the crook of her neck, occasionally pressing kisses to her skin as he smiled against her. “Whatcha working on, amore?” his eyes wandered between the books, trying to make out their subject, searching for any clues in what his beloved might be up to. He hadn't seen her much today or yesterday, regrettably, and he was itching to spend some time with her, just soaking up her presence to feel alive and breathe after facing the suffocating weight of existing as himself.

It was practiced routine by now, she didn't think when her left hand tangled into his, the one around her waist, to play with his fingers as her right one picked up the quill again. “History of magic” she pointed to the book closest to her notes and Theo finally recognized it as the textbook for that ever so dreaded subject. He raised his eyebrows, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Really? We don't even get homework in that class,” that had never stopped his overachiever of writing essays for said class, but he chose to forgo that piece of information now. “It's not an essay or homework,” she said, huffing as she pulled her notes closer for him to inspect. “I'm making notes so I can tutor our idiot friends,” after a beat of silence, Theodore found himself shaking with suppressed laughter at the absurdity of the situation. Their 'idiot' friends were mainly brilliant students, within the top of their grade and he wondered what on earth she'd be tutoring them for. Of course, History of Magic was a bit of a sore subject for everyone at Hogwarts considering Professor Binns was gods awful at teaching, but he didn't think it was dire enough for his friends to get tutored. Someone like Draco, or god forbid Mattheo, would rather die before getting any sort of tutoring.

He didn't to say any of that, voice any of his questions or thoughts because somehow she just knew it all without him saying a word. She always had known, always seen through him like it was the most natural thing. It had been that way since the day they first met, all the way back on the boats that led to Hogwarts in their first year, she'd seen through him with ease and no amount of walls or masks could deter her from seeking out the true Theodore Nott, the one she knew to be hiding underneath the charades. Once upon a time it had scared him to death, having someone see him for who he was, with all the darkness and broken, sharp edges and all that ugliness he kept under wraps. But she wasn't scared of him, she looked straight at his madness and called it her home, nestled herself into the crevices of those sharp edges and taught him to look at himself and not run away. She looked at him as if he were the sun, the moon, the stars all at the same time and held him with such tenderness as if he'd break under her touch any second. And sometimes, he did break into shambles, reduced into nothing but dust. And every single time she was there to hold him, let him break in peace before helping him gather it all up once he was ready.

She didn't let him ask, she simply answered the questions that swirled in his mind without hesitation. “Other subjects require more work at the moment,” she explained “and what kind of friend, no, what kind of history nerd would I be if I didn't help them tackle the workload?”

He hasn't forgotten of course, that his little minx was an absolute sucker for history. It didn't matter what kind, Magic or Muggle history, she would devour it all the same. He still remembered one of their first interactions, both seated together at the back of the room in History of Magic, bored to death by Binns’ lecture before she turned to him and began to explain random historical facts about the subject. He’d listened intently, taking in every word like she was a preacher reading scripture and that had pretty much determined the course of their relationship for the years to come. Theo would sit and listen to her talk for hours, no exaggeration. She had that scatterbrained way of talking about everything and nothing, about writing ideas or books she'd been into, history or psychology or art or whatever other interest had captured her attention, revisiting memories or plans for the future for hours and hours on end. And Theo would sit right there, undivided attention as he listened to every word that spilled from lips.

So of course, it made sense she wouldn't pass up an opportunity to nerd out about her interest, especially if she got to help her friends with one fell swoop. Though the likes of Draco might whine and complain, all of them knew to appreciate her offers of help and support with any and all subjects. She made something as boring as History of Magic sound like the most interesting topic ever, so who would pass up a chance to let her help with coursework?

“Wanna explain it to me then, bella?” his face was nuzzled impossibly close into her neck, almost melting into it as he let her scent surround and calm him. He wouldn't usually be caught dead with such a blatant display of vulnerable affection, yet the day has rendered him weary and in need of her safety. Plus, it wasn't like those pesky first years would come over and disturb them, much less spare a glance into their general direction. It was an unspoken rule to never bother Theodore Nott or his girl if they were sitting in some secluded corner, even outside of the common room, lest you wanted to get in trouble that you'd never see the end of.

And so, Theo allowed himself to sink into her, melt away and leave behind all of his worries, all the weight he'd carried throughout the day and listen to her voice as she rambled on and on about history and her teaching endeavours. Occasionally, he'd throw in a question or a remark about something she'd said, causing her to fall silent in contemplation or to scribble away in her notes with that brilliant smile etched across her face, the one that rivaled every light source in the universe with it's brilliance and beauty.

He could feel his muscles relax, tension seeping out of his body as both his arms come to wrap around her waist, holding her closer until they were basically melting into eachother. Her rambling came to an abrupt stop and Theo grumbled as he looked up from her neck, silently questioning why she'd stopped talking. “Wanna go nap, darling?” the question caught him off guard, yet a quick glance to his watch indicated that they had about two and a half hours before dinner, perfect for a nap in his dorm. And really, what sort of madman would he be if he declined her request to spend time with him, away from preying eyes in the comfort of his bed?

He nodded in response, nudging her gently off his lap as he began to help her pack up her things before dragging her up the stairs to his dorm. The entire way, his hand never once left the small of her back and he felt that familiar haze return as his senses became clouded with her scent. Gods, he thanked everything that had caused her to delay her usual showering plans. Holding her in his arms when she smelled that divine after a long and exhausting day was a blessing in and out of itself. And when he felt her halt her steps, tugging his face down to meet hers, their lips connecting in a soft and tender kiss? Yeah, he could've melted right there and then.

With one hell of a love sick smile, he ushered her into his thankfully empty dorm room, her bag immediately discarded on the floor as he pushed her onto the bed. It was a short tangle of limbs and clothing before they both settled into the plush comfort. Theo laid atop her her chest, his arms wrapped around her midriff as her hands traced patterns and shapes across his neck and scalp. He wouldn't say it loud, never needed to do that with her anyway, but he enjoyed laying on her chest like that. Listening to her calming heartbeat, feeling the rise and fall of her chest, and above all the sensation of her warm breathe fanning across his face? It turned him into a blissful mess every time, grateful that she was alive and real and that he got to hold and love her like that.

As if reading his thoughts once more, she gave his soft locks a gentle tug before leaning down to place a kiss on the top of his head

“I love you.”

“I love you too, cara mia.”

The sound of their breathe evened out as both of them slipped into blissful sleep, safe and comforted with the scent and warmth of one another.

[misc-obeyme]

cc. your tags on the boudoir post. MAMMON recieving an album of those photos. i'd love to hear your thoughts on his reaction (and everyone else's, if you're feeling particularly inspired?)

Ah, Daisy, my dear, thank you for asking!

I apologize for this late response, but I knew I was gonna be getting wordy with this one. Because I looove the boudoir photos idea in general and OH MAN just thinking about all their reactions is making me crazy lol. I was going to just do my regular sort of response, but this turned into full on headcanons oops.

So just in case anyone missed it, here is the original post!

My thoughts change a little bit depending on whether MC is present when the characters receive the pictures, so I included both! I only did the bros but I might be willing to do the rest upon request!

the brothers react to MC giving them an album of boudoir photos

NSFW MDNI

Warnings: suggestive but that's about it, nothing explicit

Lucifer

When you're with him, Lucifer is calm and courteous, but with a flare of arrogance. Of course you would give him such a special gift. It's only natural that you would trust such intimacies to him.

He asks you if you're trying to tell him something. Has he perhaps been neglecting you, MC? Did you give him this so that he wouldn't be able to help himself? He's onto you.

No matter your reason, he can't look through too many of the pictures before wanting the real thing that's sitting right next to him. Tell him you still have some of that lingerie in your possession. Especially if you happen to have some in his colors.

If you aren't with him, he's going to be a lot less arrogant in general. He will find you later, make no mistake. But he's honestly so touched by your gift that he spends a lot of time looking through the album, simply admiring you.

Mammon

Mammon is freaking out no matter where you are the time. If you're with him, it's definitely a lot worse. Blushing profusely. Opens the album then slams it shut because he can't handle looking at it for very long.

You can't help but giggle at his reaction and then it's all stop laughin' at him MC!! You'll need to take his hands or maybe kiss his cheek, let him know that you genuinely just wanted to give him a nice gift, you aren't trying to tease him or anything.

Ask him if he likes it. You'll get a serious response. Calms down enough to say 'course he likes it. Likes it so much, he suddenly can't keep his hands off you.

If you aren't with him at the time, he buries it under his pillow or otherwise hides it because this is now one of his treasures and nobody gets to see it but him!

Leviathan

Levi is another one who'd be a blushing mess no matter what, but if you're there at the time, he might retreat to his room and not let you in. He needs that barrier between you because if he sees you right now, his heart will explode.

He'll let you back in eventually, but it might be a minute. He needs to calm down. Are you trying to kill him, MC?! Even when he does let you in, he can't look at you directly. He's probably covering his face with his hands.

Reassure him that you gave these photos to him because you trust him with them. They're personal, intimate, and you want him to be close to you. He's going to calm down the more you talk to him. Pull his hands away from his face and when he sees the sincerity in your eyes, it flips a switch. Might even slip into demon form just to wrap his tail around you possessively.

If you're not with him at the time, he's going to need to take care of that raging boner of his right away. He won't be able to focus on anything else until he does. He's so embarrassed, he has to watch several episodes of Ruri Hana to recalibrate.

Satan

He will try to keep his expression unreadable. He's not having any over the top reactions, but as he flips through the photos, he keeps getting redder and redder. You're sitting right next to him, how can he not react? At some point, he has to close the album because he feels like he's looking at something he shouldn't.

Satan is quiet about how flustered he is, but he's having a hard time looking at you. He tries to say something and incomprehensible lines about how beautiful you are fall from his lips. He sounds like a broken record of spoken word poetry or perhaps a very drunk beat poet.

Recovers himself after a minute. As soon as he's composed, you're in his arms. You knew what this would do to him, didn't you, MC? You'll find yourself pressed up against the nearest wall in moments.

If you're not with him, Satan will tuck your album into a stack of his other books. He thinks it's well hidden there - in plain sight. But he's hyper aware of it. Keeps coming back to look at it. Ends up having to put it on the bottom of a stack behind a different stack to make it more difficult to get to.

Asmodeus

Thrilled. Absolutely thrilled in every way. Oh, wow, MC, you look amazing. He's breathless. He's entranced. He's even blushing because he knows what it means that you've given these to him. He's so in love with you, he can't stand it.

Asks you about everything you may be wearing. Comments on the skill of the photographer. Tells you that next time, you should do one together. He has so many ideas. He wants to do one where all you're wearing is jewelry - bright and sparkling, just like your soul.

Covers you in kisses. He's not shy about how this is making him feel, how much he wants you. He just wants to see your beautiful figure here and now in real life, MC! Won't you let him worship you?

If you're not with him, he will find you immediately so he can say all of the things he needs to say in that moment. You can't leave him alone with all these feelings, both physical and emotional. He brings them all to you without hesitating.

Beelzebub

It might take him a minute to understand exactly what he's looking at, mostly because he's never even heard of this. He doesn't know what a boudoir photo shoot is, so you might have to explain it to him. Once he understands, he starts lightly blushing as he looks through them. His expression is serious because he's beginning to see just how special this is.

Honestly surprised that you would give him something so intimate. He's touched. He's going to hug it to himself and look at you with tears in his eyes because he can't believe how lucky he is.

Give him another couple minutes to look through them and then he's having different feelings. He's not sure if he can hold back, MC. Tell him it's okay, that you don't want him to, and you'll find yourself on your back on his bed in zero seconds flat. You're quickly reminded why he's the Avatar of Gluttony.

If you're not with him at the time, he will figure things out on his own, though he'll have a plethora of questions for you later. He keeps it close to him at all times until you answer them because he knows one thing for sure - he doesn't want anyone else seeing these.

Belphegor

Oh, he sees what you're playing at. Trying to fluster him, are you, MC? Trying to rile him up? Are you sure you can handle him when you do that? He's so wound up by the gift he can't act normal about it. He's actually very touched by it, but he's not sure how to deal with the feelings, so he comes on too strong.

You laugh because to you, this is expected. You understand that this is Belphie's way of dealing with his own shyness. You respond by meeting him with just as much intensity. It's all kisses and touching and fumbling in the dark.

It's only later, when both of you are calm, when you're nestled in his arms, that he admits to you how much it means to him. That he tells you how he'll cherish the album you gave him. That he says he's stunned by how gorgeous you are, even more brilliant that the stars in the sky.

If you aren't with him at the time, you'll be dealing with a petulant but horny demon later on. He's going to be annoyed at you for leaving it for him and then not being there when it inevitably turns him on. Just as possessive as his brothers, he hides it in the attic where no one is likely to find it.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[jinx-xxed]

Too Late (Almost)

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

A/N; Edited through this older piece since I still enjoy it :) also cuz I haven’t posted in forever hey guys

Part of Written in the Stars

Summary; When presented with the choice of winning the battle or saving the one he loves, which path will Kylo Ren take?

Content; Angst, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Commander reader, original characters, Kylo POV and reader POV, Rey vs. Kylo, redoing that TFA fight basically, but now in the TROS timeline yay!, Force bonded to Kylo, Force visions, blood and injury, reader almost dies whoops, battle, Kylo saves you, murder, Kylo chooses you, whole bunch of conflicting emotions, longing, possible down bad behavior

Wc; 2.4k

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

Rey grunts against the force of his swing, her heels digging into and slipping against the snow covered ground beneath them. Red sparks against blue, creating a sort of purple mix of light that reflects off her face and his mask. It’s so reminiscent of their first conflict, of the fight in those snowy woods outside of Starkiller Base, where he had lost. Kylo won’t lose this time. He’s stronger, he’s better, he won’t be bested by his outlandish and fleeting desires to have someone who understood because he thought he had no one, to have someone to teach to prove to himself that this wasn’t for nothing.

It’s just them in this clearing, sparse, dying trees surrounding them, snow flying up around their legs and soaking into their clothing. Their hair is plastered to the edges of their cheeks, determination and fury burning in both of their eyes. Determination not to lose, determination to get out of this in one piece. Rey slashes at him, a downward swing that he blocks and jerks his lightsaber upwards, taking hers with it. She steps away to just narrowly avoid the middle swing he aims at her abdomen, going into the defensive again. She slips against the ground, her lightsaber unable to come up and protect her when he prepares another attack, leading her to resort to the strength of the Force. He feels an invisible power blocking his lightsaber, creating a weird effect with the plasma where it’s stuck in the air mid-swing, quivering beneath the Force. With her next breath, Rey rears up and tries an underhand slash, one which he dodges by darting backwards.

The dance is familiar, one Kylo’s practiced time and time again with different partners. It doesn’t scare him, doesn’t illicit the type of fear it does in Rey. She’s scared of losing, of what could happen to her if she does. She knows she’s at a natural disadvantage with him beating her out in almost every aspect, and yet it’s her courage that keeps her going. It’s something intangible that keeps her from bowing to his power—her defiance and spirit. He recognizes the spark in her eyes, because he’s seen it so many times in someone else’s. In someone who is so unbreakable it infuriated him, in someone who is his equal in every way, in someone who has been with him through just about everything.

Lightsabers burn gashes into trees, the wood smoking and burning orange, snow melts from the heat, only to be replaced by a flurry disturbed by the two of them. In the distance, there’s more fighting, more smoke, more blaster fire, more ship engines screaming. But here, it’s like they’re in their own isolated world away from it all. Rey misses a swing, her form falters, and he takes his chance. He uses the Force like the surge of a wave, overwhelming his opponent before she can react, slamming it against her body and sending her off balance. She yells, her back connecting violently with a tree, bringing her to her hands and knees in the white coldness of the snow. He advances with the easy, ruthless power of a predator as she struggles to get back to her feet. The opportunity is open before him, feeling like the sight of a clear sky after days of endless clouds, he only needs to-

Help.

The voice echoes through his mind, it makes his entire body freeze, like he’s unable to move even if he wanted to. It comes from far off in the trees, in a blood soaked clearing, where there’s only pain and anger and a desperate reach outwards. He heard her, her single word ringing louder than any other thought that may occupy his attention. His head turns ever so slightly, just a small tilt to the left, towards that direction. Rey is beginning to get up, she’s readying her saber, she’s prepared to fight again—but she’s studying him as well, curiosity sparking from the sudden change of his demeanor. She recognizes the way something has called him, something she couldn’t hear but could feel like a ripple across a still lake.

She’s alone, his Commander is alone, fighting to keep herself upright in a battle that’s quickly tipping in a direction that is not in her favor. He sees it in flashes across their bond, the imagery so vivid it’s like he’s there, living it through herself. There’s so many of them, all coming from between the trees with weapons brandished and with a determination to make this her resting ground. It was all planned out; get one of them alone, funnel them away from their soldiers and comrades so they can be overwhelmed and overrun, brought down by those they’d spent so long crushing beneath their heel. They knew he’d be too focused on Rey, blinded by his rage, so that left only one remaining. Her Fleet is nowhere to be found, instead fighting their own battles, working together in the skies with the methods they’d been taught. Her breath is forced from her lungs as she’s brought to the ground. He feels it, the way his chest is threatening to cave in on itself, the burning, phantom pain within his right arm and left side.

The scene disappears suddenly and is instead replaced by something else, something formed and created by the otherworldly powers of the Force. He recognizes the hazy look of a vision, a glimpse into one of many possible futures. He watches, powerless, as she’s pinned, grappling hopelessly against a woman with a blaster aimed right at her head. Kylo’s torn from the vision just as the blaster goes off, the sound of it echoing in his skull.

A sudden despair washes over him, a type he’s never felt before and isn’t sure what to do with. It has no weight behind it, being simply the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come depending on what decision he may make. But it’s enough to make him want to fall to his knees. He’s thrown back into his body, his feet feeling unsteady beneath him, the crackling of his lightsaber filling his ears instead of the screech of a blaster. His eyes lift to Rey, his mind reaches for the forest. Two choices, two paths, two outcomes. That’s what it always is, isn’t it? One or the other, he can’t have both.

His fists clench, the ridges of his lightsaber hilt bite into his palm, Rey’s expression hardens, her legs separating into a battle stance. There’s a voice in his head that hisses at him angrily, demanding he not make this choice, demanding that he do what he’s supposed to, what he’s meant to. Weak, useless, too much of your father in you. He listens to it for a moment, listens to its whispers that have plagued him for years.

But then that despair from before pierces him like a stake, yelling at him, grabbing onto him, begging him to listen just this once. There’s a dam that breaks, a cage that opens and frees the bird trapped inside, flying in a way it always dreamed of. He takes a stumbling step back, a final moment of hesitation, like giving himself a chance to reconsider. It’s futile; he made up his mind a long time ago.

And then Kylo runs. He runs in the opposite direction, he runs from Rey, he runs from his victory, he runs from every lesson beat into him, and he instead runs towards something else entirely. Towards his hope, his respite, his safety, his partner, his everything. He feels deep down in the most core parts of himself that he just crossed a line he’ll never be able to uncross—and he finds that he doesn’t want to. Snow tries to suck him down, decaying plants grab at the edges of his robes, that hissing voice inside his head screams, but he ignores it all. Nothing can stop him now. His breath burns in his lungs, icy and angry and desperate. He feels her so acutely, feels her pain and every emotion and thought within her head, and it’s this that makes him realize he doesn’t know what to do were that to suddenly disappear, snuffed out like a flame, leaving him feeling like he’s missing the second half of himself. He’s been too late for a lot of things; too late to make up for what he’s done, too late to make things different, too late to make the right choice.

Please don’t let him be too late for this.

» ☆ «

“I thought you were the good guys.”

The blaster readjusts in the hands holding it, the barrel shifting upwards like it wants to give you a better view of where your demise is going to come from. The woman behind it keeps one eye shut, the other glaring at you as she snarls at your words. “We are the good guys.”

The face of this girl you used to know is now foreign to you, aged by the terrors of war and the fight for survival just like yours is. You can’t even remember her name. Your hand shakes desperately against her wrist, as if it’ll do anything to keep back the inevitable. Blood drips down into your left eye, your breathing rasps past your lips. Your other hand lays limp in the snow, a blaster shot cutting clean through your forearm and rendering it useless. Your lightsaber is somewhere nearby, knocked from your grasp at the same moment an elbow had connected with your jaw.

“You say that, but you all stoop to the same levels you criticize us for.” You spit at her, bloody teeth bared. “What do you think this is? A game to see who can come out on top with more innocence? Don’t kid yourselves.”

The girl’s eyes flare with anger so acute you can see the sparks. She brings her heavy-booted foot down on the blaster wound in your arm, putting as much pressure as possible. You choke out a scream as pain eats you alive, nausea blooming in your stomach. Blood spurts beneath the sole of her shoe, trickling down your charred skin and onto the snow below. “Quit talking like you fucking know anything. You’re vile. You get off on killing us. You deserve whatever fate waits for you in hell.” She jerks your hand off her wrist, gripping it and twisting sharply. Bones crack, more agony. Your mouth merely hangs open, sound unable to come out as your vision flashes white.

You feel as though your body is not yours, your pain cutting the ropes that kept the second part of you inside, allowing it to linger nearby as if this is all happening to someone else. Maybe it’s because you’re empty of your abilities, your muscles and blood no longer able to harbor the power of the Force. You’d used it all up a while ago when you were fighting a different group of rebels. Now you’re left so depleted you can’t even call your lightsaber to you, nor can you seem to keep your soul inside your own body. You look again at the blaster in her hands, you look into the black pit of the barrel. Is that what it’ll feel like? Black nothingness? You think so.

There’s nobody nearby to hear you, to come help—save—you. The Fleet is off fighting their battles in the skies, Kylo is occupied with Rey, you can’t call for backup. This was the rebels plan, after all. They wanted you to separate so you weren’t as strong, so that you could be taken down easier. You’ll admit that they were smart in taking the risk, it clearly worked in their favor. You should’ve been smarter, you should’ve noticed the signs and known not to follow the bait. You should’ve kept your head clear rather than letting the idea of this victory cloud your thoughts. You should’ve known to check your surroundings through the Force so you didn’t get overwhelmed by the rebels. You were stupid in the heat of the moment and you’re going to pay for it. You deserve it. You left BB-12 back in your ship so he didn’t get injured—even if he is a droid. You hope he’ll be okay.

You can’t keep your eyes open anymore, the action using too much strength that you don’t have. The cold of the snow is setting in, making your body numb. Your pain seems so far away when it’s like that. There’s a shift, the blaster clicking, and you know what’s going to happen. That’s fine. You couldn’t escape it forever.

You expect it to happen, for that shot of hot plasma to pierce through your heart and for all of this to come to an end. Your limbs relax in preparation—but it doesn’t come. Instead, there’s an explosion of noises all at once. Your ears feel like they’re submerged in water but you can still hear the screams in fear and anger and confusion, the stomping of feet as people try to run, and the screech of an unstable lightsaber as it swings through the air and through human flesh. The weight of that girl on your chest is lifted so rapidly that breath finds its way back into your lungs in a heaving gasp that has your entire body burning in agony.

It takes less than a minute before silence settles over the clearing. The smell of fresh death hits your nose. You can barely manage to open your eyes again, merely squinting up at Kylo standing over you. His black uniform makes him cut such an intimidating shape against the white backdrop of the snow and watery sky, the silver lining on his helmet reflecting it. His breathing is coming out as ragged static through his modifier, chest heaving. His lightsaber clicks off and he attaches it to his belt, calling yours to him as he does and putting it right next to his own.

It feels like a dream that he’s actually here, that he picks you up and cradles you so carefully so he doesn’t irritate your wounds. When he lifts you, you see the carnage he left. Every rebel lays dead on the ground, their bodies getting buried under the snow that’s begun to fall. Kylo’s warmth under your cheek almost doesn’t feel real… you should be dead. You deserve to be dead. When you sent out that final plea through the Force, you never expected him to answer.

“I’m sorry.” You croak. “I messed it up. You lost them because of me. You should’ve left me-“

“Don’t.” Kylo snaps. Your body jostles with his movements as he walks. “Don’t say that.“

Even with your fading strength, you can still feel him through the bond you share. He was terrified, he was terrified of the possibility of losing you. He was terrified of how willing you were to give up; he could sense those final moments. He’s so angry at himself for nearly letting it happen, for letting the rebels get the upper hand like this.

“We will find them again,” he promises you. He pauses, the silence filled with the crunch of snow beneath his boots. “The same could not be said if I lost you.”

[rallamajoop]

That time Heisenberg stabbed Ethan with a rusty fencepost

Thanks to this one fic project that needed a pornographically detailed list of Ethan’s most memorable injuries, I've spent some time trying to figure out exactly what Heisenberg stabs him with when they first met. Working mostly from a free-camera version from youtube, I settled on calling a metal pipe with a square profile.

Tumblr: I was wrong. The reality is so much worse.

Having cracked the game files and installed my own free-camera mod, I tracked down the original asset for this thing, and, well...

No, really, this is it! Check out those matching cross-bars if you doubt me.

FWIW, it isn’t actually a spear. Those semi-mangled crossbars flag it instead as a spear-headed fence-post. (This may not be a distinction that Ethan would find very comforting after being stabbed with the thing, but there it is, regardless.)

In fact, if you poke around the cemetery area just outside the castle gate, you can even find the fence it presumably came from.

Look in on the cemetery near the church from the lane leading up to the Duke's shop beside it, and this is what you'll see.

It's not a perfect match (in fact, it's even worse viewed from the opposite side, because someone has clearly stuffed up the textures on different sides of the same asset). I'll also note that if you go back to this fence again after meeting Heisenberg, you won’t find any suspicious gaps in it where a post was recently ripped out. So I’m going to just go ahead and assume this particular piece was lying in a pile of surplus scrap in the cellar somewhere, and Heisenberg did not, in fact, drag the thing all the way there from well outside the whole damn building. I mean, at that point, you’re just showing off.

The fence post is, admittedly, pretty hard to get a good look at in the actual game. Unlike all the other crap Heisenberg already has levitating around him in this scene, the fencepost doesn’t appear at all until Heisenberg stabs Ethan with it. It actually seems to emerge at speed from between a couple of barrels at the back. But if you’re enough of a lunatic to play around with the various slow motion/rewind settings that came with the free camera mod, you can get a decent shot of it in flight, cleaning up any remaining doubt that this is the same asset that was used in game.

It even freaking spins in the air as it moves. FTR, yes, it does go in pointy-end first. And the whole fucking spearhead ends up buried in poor Ethan. (Please feel free to insert your own dick-joke here.) Those paying really close attention might even note that the blood on Ethan's shirt is present even before the spear hits him, but that's just going to be virtual-stunt-coordination having a normal one.

I can offer you no similarly definitive insight into why Heisenberg would think stabbing Ethan with this thing was a good idea. I can’t even tell you if he knew for sure that it was Ethan Winters he was talking to at this point (maybe he's just playing dumb, pretending not to recognise him. Or maybe he legit didn't know that Ethan himself had made an appearance until Miranda told him. Sure, he's already got that whole conspiracy board, but finding real pictures of this Ethan-guy is surprisingly hard.) But whether Heis was already testing out Ethan’s ‘interesting body’, or whether he’d just generally assumed that anyone who could survive a full lycan assault on the village wouldn’t be too seriously inconvenienced by a little stabbing, hoo boy was this one way to make a first impression.

I’m not even sure which of these losers is the bigger idiot here: the one who imagined Ethan might still agree to work with him even after inserting a very convincing imitation-spearhead into his intestines, or the one who never thought to seriously question how he keeps shrugging off injuries just as exciting as this one.

They probably deserve each other.

[episims]

⚙️ Various Mod Edits

These are some edits that I've made for my own use. I'm sharing because they might be useful for someone, but here's the deal:

⚠️ I won't make other versions/offer conflict support for these mods.

If you experience problems with them and HCDU+ doesn't report a conflict, please let me know. I've tested these mods and I use them in my own game.

If you find a mod conflict or feel like these edits aren't quite what you're looking for, please don't message me about it. The easy solution is to opt out of using these.

Thanks for understanding!

Visitor Controller Edit

An edit of the visitor controller version by @midgethetree.

Incorporates this trait mod by @hexagonal-bipyramid, so Loners show up on community lots and as walkbys less often.

There's a new a blocker object found under general/misc. Put this object into the inventory of any sim, and they won't show up on community lots or as walkbys at all.

Enables children and teens to visit community lots even when there aren't playable children/teens present.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

Requires: the trait_MAIN from 3t2 traits project (as the blocker object uses its mesh). Doesn't require using any of the traits.

Towel Mod by Color Traits with Inappropriate Behavior

A further 3t2 trait edit of my color trait towels mod.

Makes inappropriate sims change into naked instead of the towel after a shower/bath.

As a side effect, inappropriate sims might stay naked in some other situations where the game usually pushes the sim to put the clothes on asap.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

Requires: meshes & recolors from the original mod, the easy inventory check, and sauna towels by color traits mod.

Update (31.3.2024): Sims are more considerate about changing out of the towel/bathrobe when they go to sleep.

Higher Relationship Requirement for Dining Groups

Not really an edit, but there's only a point in using this with simler90's dining group mod, even though this is a separate mod.

Raises the short-time relationship needed for visiting sims to dine together from 5 to 40.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

Requires: the dining group mod.

Committed Polyamorous Relationships Without Engagement Requires Steady

An edit of the committed polyamorous relationships mod by @palominocorn.

Proposing doesn't require sims to be going steady first.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

Unconventional relationships hurray

Polyamory Friendly Go Steady Wants/Fears

An edit of the go steady want/fear restrictions by @lamare-sims.

Adults who are engaged/married to someone can still roll the want to go steady with another sim.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

Requires: A mod that allows adults to go steady (look at the previous mod in this post) and the go steady wants being enabled for adults from want trees.

Greeting/Goodbye Kisses Restrictions With Kissing Enabled For Committed Only

An edit of the greeting goodbye kisses restrictions that is a part of Romantic Standards edits by @midgethetree.

Only sims who are in a committed relationship with each other kiss upon greeting or saying goodbye.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

[unsolicited-opinions]

this is a genuine question: why do you think the queer community is so bad when it comes to the antisemitism and even the overt Hamas support? I can’t figure it out at all. Jews have always been a huge part of and even pioneers in the community. now we’re banned and harassed and unsafe. I see a pride flag online these days and feel terror because I expect a watermelon or red triangle to be right next to it, it’s happened so often. I’d feel safer in a church than at a pride event. why do they hate us so much now? even those of us who are also part of that community?

I've been trying to figure that out, too.

I was pretty sure that the origin was in postmodern academia, but I didn't know much more.

I have never formally engaged with Queer Studies, nor with Gender and Sexuality Studies,so I had no idea where to start.

Someone on #jumblr (I regret that I don't recall who) pointed out this collection of essays, Poisoning the Wells: Antisemitism in Contemporary America.

Chapter 2 is "Pinkwashing Antisemitism: The Origins of Queer Anti-Israeli Discourse by Dr. R. Amy Elman.

I'm way outside my wheelhouse here, despite holding a degree in one of the social sciences.[1]

I'm going to try to summarize this in a way which is shorter and more digestible than reading the whole thing, but there's a link to the whole thing at the bottom of this Very Long Post.

Disclaimers:

1. Acknowledging the depth of my ignorance:

I don't have the contextual knowledge to know with confidence if this is an intellectually honest argument, or even if the history is fairly presented. If anyone on Jumblr has more experience studying this topic, I'd sure welcome their thoughts.

2. A note to LGBTQ+ readers on "queer":

I understand that some in the LGBTQ+ community don't care for the term "queer," and some regard it as a slur. I have tried, for this reason, to cease using this word in my daily life. Below, I'm going to use the word "queer" a lot here, however, because Elman does and the scholars she discusses do. If you're among those who dislike this term or find it hurtful, I hope that you will not see my doing so as a slur or an insult

3. My editorial comments are in blue.

4. This is long. Not as long as the article itself, but long for Tumblr. You are forewarned.

Got a coffee or an energy drink?

Continue below the break:

Elman says the increasing appeal of queer politics was for specifically millennials, and the BDS movement actively pursued a "queer" plank to broaden its appeal.

This tracks.

She says that Leaders from both movements saw a potential for synergy, with some suggesting queers could transform BDS from a "vanguard movement" to a "popular" movement.

Elman gives a history of the "Queer Movement" in which she argues its adherents are particularly susceptible to BDS's "pinkwashing" accusations.

She says:

- "Queer" is an intentionally broad, deliberately ambiguous term encompassing various sexual and gender minorities who reject traditional LGBT politics as conservative.

- The queer movement emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in opposition to both neo-liberalism and feminists who critiqued sadomasochism (S/M) and the sex industry.

- This opposition to feminist critiques of the eroticization of inequality, says Elman, is a crucial factor in understanding queer politics' susceptibility to antisemitism.

- Elman says early queer activists prioritized passion over reason, making them potentially vulnerable to harmful ideologies.

The Feminist Sex Wars

- There was conflict, says Elman, between lesbian feminists and proponents of S/M, arguing that the increasing acceptance of S/M within the lesbian community weakened its ability to resist fascist values.

I don't see the need to politicize whatever one enjoys in private as long as it is safe, sane, and consensual, but okay.

- Elman draws a parallel between the eroticization of fascism in the past (referencing Susan Sontag and Sheila Jeffreys' concerns about Nazi aesthetics in queer subcultures) and the current uncritical embrace of certain radical ideologies.

- Elman says the embrace of "outlaw" identities and the downplaying of the harmful implications of S/M practices (including the use of fascist symbols for parodic purposes) are problematic trends within queer politics.

Which made me think of seeing Queers for Palestine protestors calling Jews "Nazis" and combining the swastika with the mogen David.

- Elman argues that the rise of queer politics led to the silencing and marginalization of lesbian feminists who focused on women's rights and opposed the industrialization of sexuality and S/M.

Like Andrea Dworkin?

- Elman says Queer Theorists have dismissive attitudes towards lesbian feminist concerns and that the once-flourishing spaces and intellectual contributions of lesbian feminists were diminished within the broader "queer" coalition.

As a cishet man, I had thought the broadening of the movement, the addition of each letter in LGBTQ+, gave all parts of it more strength, but it seems obvious to me now that lesbian concerns aren't always the same (and may not be aligned with) gay men's concerns, enby concerns, trans concerns, etc.

I can see how being subsumed by a larger movement could dampen the voices of its different component populations and diminish the perceivability of the points on which they don't agree.

Judith Butler features prominently here.

- Elman seems to say Butler's nuanced stance on her lesbian identity is rather different from her non-nuanced Jewish identity, and it is "as a Jew" that she declares her anti-Zionism.

...in 1989, [Butler] was asked to provide a lesbian lecture and responded that she would rather describe herself as "being" homosexual because identifying as lesbian felt "neither true nor false." Yet, she demonstrates no similar reluctance to claim a Jewish identity years later. To the contrary, it is "as a Jew" that she condemns Israel and vows to develop a Jewish opposition to Zionism.

A decade after Butler vacillated over being lesbian, she similarly described her nearly two-decade-long relationship to S/M discourse as "active and complicated," a position in keeping with the tenor of her fourth book, The Psychic Life of Power. In it, Butler speaks of her "paradoxical" embrace of "injurious" names because they "constitute" her "socially."

Huh. Jewish identity without nuance? I'm not sure I've ever seen that...?

- Elman says Butler's engagement with S/M discourse and her concept of erotically embracing oppressive power structures are linked to the potential eroticization of antisemitism and the demonization of Israel.

As Martha Nussbaum explains, the central thesis of The Psychic Life of Power is that “we all eroticize the power structures that oppress us, and can thus find sexual pleasure only within their confines.”

If Nussbaum is correct, there may be no better explanation for the ongoing eroticization of antisemitism and the demonization of Israel.

So concerned was Nussbaum by Butler’s influence on American women’s studies programs in the 1990s that she concluded,

"There is despair at the heart of the cheerful Butlerian enterprise. The big hope, the hope for a world of real justice, where laws and institutions protect the equality and the dignity of all citizens, has been banished, even perhaps mocked as sexually tedious. Judith Butler’s hip quietism is a comprehensible response to the difficulty of realizing justice in America. But it is a bad response. It collaborates with evil. Feminism demands more and women deserve better."

"Hip quietism" makes me want to read more Nussbaum.

Butler was chair of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (later renamed Outright First)...which was a UN recognized organzation. While the name might cause the casual observer to to think it would focus on gays and lesbians, it has seemed to focus on Israel.

Outright First claims it advances LGBT rights through awards consistent with its agenda, yet the first of these was not made until 2005, fifteen years after its founding and the same year that BDS was ostensibly established.

That year, the organization honored Mary Robinson, who decriminalized homosexuality as Ireland’s first woman president (from 1990-1997).

Robinson also served as the UN’s first woman High Commissioner for Human Rights and, in this capacity, Robinson oversaw the 2001 UN World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa.

Despite the conference’s noble rhetoric, the antisemitism that it manifest led Robinson to resign in disgrace.

It was in Durban that “anti-racist” organizers revived the scurrilous Soviet charge from decades earlier that Zionism is a form of racism and Israel is an apartheid state. Although Robinson called these allegations inappropriate and unacceptable, she did not reject the conference’s final declaration that contained them.

Ach. The feckin' Irish again.

...in 2008, Desmond Tutu became the second recipient of the organization’s “Outspoken” Award. Tutu, a Nobel prize winning anti-apartheid activist, is also an outspoken critic of Israel for “practicing apartheid” in its policies against the Palestinians. While he too condemned bigotry against gay men and lesbians, like Robinson, Tutu may be better known for his opposition to Israel than for any long-standing and deep defense of LGBT rights. Thus, one wonders whether the “critical partnerships” Outright First fostered were less those that promoted the world’s LGBT communities than those that helped legitimize anti-Israel activism.

This example, it seems to me, is a more appropriate illustration of “pinkwashing”:

that is, pinkwashing may be less about bolstering Israel’s reputation than providing Israel’s sworn enemies a seemingly progressive mask behind which to conceal their animus.

Pinkwashing, Triangles, and Softcore Holocaust Denial

The term "pinkwashing" initially referred to corporate profiteering from pink-themed breast cancer awareness campaigns.

Elman contrasts this with the reclamation of the pink triangle by gay activists as a symbol of defiance after the Stonewall riots, noting that this is a "disturbing" appropriation of a Nazi symbol.

Years before American corporate executives bolstered sales through gender-conforming pink promotionals to women, American gay male activists openly embraced pink to signify their gendered defiance after the Stonewall riots of 1969.

This political reclamation manifested itself in their adoption of the pink triangle Nazis used to denote and facilitate the destruction of those men they identified as homosexual. That this exclusively male Nazi symbol came to signify LGBT rights is disturbing and reveals a movement that, whether through ignorance or choice, embraced a fascist aesthetic

Is that fair? The idea of reclaiming is to take the symbol away from the oppressor and redefine it, right?

ACT UP's use of the pink triangle and its analogies between the AIDS crisis and the Holocaust are presented as examples of "softcore" Holocaust denial that paved the way for later strained comparisons.

By 1987, the Nazi pink symbol gained American prominence when the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) used it for its logo, which also read “Silence Equals Death.”

Founded by Larry Kramer, ACT UP’s mission involved combating the public’s indifference to “the AIDS Holocaust.” Equating the epidemic with Jewish genocide, ACT UP’s gay pride float that year depicted a concentration camp within which activists posed behind barbed wire. Kramer’s book, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist, further popularized this agitprop and the pink triangle marked its cover. As the HIV death toll mounted across the globe, ACT UP’s rhetoric and the Nazi triangle became internationally ubiquitous

So Elman believes this was softcore Holocaust denial through universalization/appropriation by the queer movement.

Holocaust images...absent the Jews. We see a lot of that on social media from the LGBTQ+ community right now.

BDS and "pinkwashing"

Sarah Schulman, an ACT UP alum, was as a key figure in popularizing the "pinkwashing" accusation against Israel. Here's an inside look at how that happened:

And here's Schulman's 2011 NYT piece:

If you need to get past the paywall, use this link.

Schulman's argument is that Israel's promotion of its LGBTQ+ rights is a cynical tactic to conceal human rights violations against Palestinians.

It couldn't be a natural outcome of an electorate with a majority which is socially liberal enough to not want to persecute their LGBTQ+ family members? Why not?

Oh, it's because Jews are sneaky and devious /s

Elman critiques Schulman's anti-racist pretense, arguing it invisibilizes Israel's diverse population and misrepresents the motivations behind Israel's LGBTQ+ initiatives.

The investment in Tel Aviv as a gay vacation destination is acknowledged, but its negative framing by BDS as "pinkwashing," says Elman, creates not just an entry point for antisemitism, but also a permission structure.

Soon "pinkwashing" took on a different meaning from the one intended by the women who originally coined it.

When applied by "pinkwatchers" whose sights are trained exclusively on Israel, the accusation became an entry point for antisemitism.

According to Wikipedia, it now describes "a variety of marketing and political strategies aimed at promoting products, countries, people or entities through an appeal to gay-friendliness in order to be perceived as progressive, modern and tolerant."

As Cary Nelson observed, "the pinkwashing accusation gives license" to condemn Israel, while discounting all of its achievements (e.g. legal protection against sexual orientation discrimination, recognition of same sex marriages, joint adoption, and open military service) without any reservation.

Want to know the first thing Sarah Schulman posted to Twitter on 10/7/23?

Here's Canary Mission's page about Schulman.

Elman continues:

There may be no better way to simultaneously encourage antisemitism and dismiss Israel’s LGBT initiatives (whatever their shortcomings) than to insist those efforts undermine the rights of Palestinians.

Were it not for BDS double-speak, Schulman could not maintain that she “never” betrayed queer people, despite her having acted in “solidarity” with “presumably straight Palestinians” to oppose Israel’s LGBT community.

Like countless other “queers” who take “pride” in being “ashamed” Jews, she received political “guidance” from “presumably straight” folks like Omar Barghouti, the purported founder of BDS.

Known for his explicit desire to “euthanize” the “Zionist project” and his vocal opposition to the two-state solution, Barghouti insists that not even “the end of occupation” will end his struggle.

Elman wraps up:

Like “Islamophobia,” “pinkwashing” and its corollary “homonationalism” are accusations often employed to silence critics while simultaneously providing those who issue them the appearance of being concerned about LGBT people and other minorities. Yet, this posturing offers little in return.

In fact, these denunciations are in keeping with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s longstanding assault on homosexual conduct, gender equality, and universal human rights at myriad UN fora under the insidious cover of anti-racism and anti-imperialism.

That BDS similarly promotes itself through the cynical appropriation of social movements and ostensibly progressive claims that vilify the Jewish state represents a consummate act of public diplomacy in which anti-semitism itself has been pinkwashed.

You can grab a PDF of the whole chapter here.

You can grab a PDF of the whole book here.

You read the whole thing!

Have a cookie: 🍪

_________

[1] I agree with Neil Postman that the social sciences would more accurately be called moral theologies...and are not sciences.

You can read more about Postman's point here if you want to know what I mean by that..