#i think it's very interesting how different he is compared to everyone else

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

So for new year cards...

Jack SSR is actually so cool; I like it. Malleus SSR is beautiful and all, but he really reminds me of a bride in forced marriage tropes. 😭

[Referencing the Twst JP Jan 2025 schedule!]

Finally, some good fucking food for Jack stans 😭 Port Fest feels like so long ago… fbjssbdjjs I feel like I can’t appreciate his design as much as others can. I’m not into the skintight undershirt on a character as buff as Jack is, and I'm confused as to why his gloves are... like that??? But!! I do like his fluffly little boa thing and how enthusiastic his pose is. You can tell he’s really putting his all into the New Year Sale~!

Malleus got another new hairstyle (any hairstyle that's different than his default one is a win in my book www)!! I think it's a well-liked look among his fans; I already saw so many people commenting that he looks like a love interest in a reborn as a villainess isekai or something to that effect.

I also saw some chatter around the thin fabric that Malleus seems to have over himself. A common joke is that it's a "wedding veil", but given the traditional Japanese clothes everyone is wearing for the new year, it's more likely also a Japanese article of clothing. A friend theorized that it's a 被衣 (kazuki/katsugi), a garment worn over the head that fully covers the body. These are mostly donned by noblewomen to cover their faces when they go out--and that sort of makes sense, given that Malleus himself is a noble. How demure and mindful... I thought the veil could also be a frost blanket (you know, to protect the budding flowers from the cold)?? But I'm not entirely sure right now; maybe the vignettes will give us more context!

A friend and I were speculating as to what flowers might be featured in the initial card art and the conclusion we came to was ume (plum) blossoms. The color and shape are similar, and they're a classic flower in winter anime. Something else I noticed was that the same flowers seem to appear in Sebek's New Year Attire from two years ago! If you compare Malleus and Sebek, you'll notice that the lighting is much warmer in Sebek's too. In fact, all previous SSR cards are pretty much like that, save for maybe Trey but at least Trey is shown to be in front of the shop. It really makes Malleus's card "stick out", since he's the only one that appears to be in a lonely and isolated location, just him and the plum blossoms.

On the subject of clothing worn by Japanese women! The same friend and I talked about Jamil's New Year Attire too. (Figured I'd throw this in here since I'm already talking about the other three 2025 New Year boys. Don't wanna leave him out, y'know??)

You can see that he has his hood up in the initial card artwork; my friend joked that Jamil's a newlywed. Why? Brides that choose to dress traditionally for their wedding days wear a wide white headdress/hood called a 角隠し (tsunokakushi), which covers an elaborate hairstyle like Jamils'/j. The "tsuno" (horns, as I'm sure you're all familiar with) in the name refers to the "horns of jealousy"; the tsunokakushi is meant to blanket the jealousy so she can enter her new married life at peace.

Of course, the shape, color, and context of the tsunokakushi is very different than what Jamil's got going on and the Twst team most likely did not intend for this comparison to be drawn, but I thought that this was interesting to share ^^ (*feeds Jamuil yumes this delulu cultural trivia*)

Aaaand let's close out with Floyd! The answer to his question is simple, actually. To put one's arm inside the kimono is just a very casual or relaxed way to pose. It suits Floyd and his attitude, doesn't it?

[kayetra-spade-queen]

Can we talk about the fact that Bheem wore a skirt-looking dhoti unlike all the males in the series?

Look at them, all of the males wore pants-like, Bheem is by far the ONLY male here to wore it like a skirt.

If he wore it like everyone else, he probably won't be able to do this Marilyn Monroe pose (I still giggle at this-).

But the fact he did all kinds of activities from running to actually fighting wearing that, like bro??

[ambrosiagourmet]

I've been thinking about Laios' succubus lately. Mulling it over a bit.

Because I've seen these pages brought up a fair bit, but almost entirely in the context of shipping (on all sides, really). And I really want to understand what they are doing for the story beyond that.

When I went back to reread the scene and section, a few things caught my interest: the way Laios responds to both forms of his succubus, the themes of the volume the chapter is found in, and the other events of the chapter itself.

So let's dive into those three things, and what I think they say about the succubus scene's purpose.

Laios is never fully frozen by the succubus

So. If you compare Marcille and Chilchuck's reactions...

to Laios':

-

There is a difference. Sure, the basics may look the same once it turns into Scylla Marcille, but even then, it functions differently.

Chilchuck and Marcille are completely frozen once they catch sight of their succubus. Izutsumi, as well, isn't able to look away, and completely freezes up once her 'mom' starts talking to her. As Chilchuck describes, "just looking at them makes you unable to move."

And yet, Scylla Marcille has to actively convince Laios to comply. He even looks away from her at one point!

Laios accepts this succubus, but he is never actually helpless to it in the same way. Taken in? Convinced? Sure, at least enough to let things happen that he probably should question more than he does. But magically compelled? Not really. Not the same way as everyone else is. So that's interesting. But let's move on for now.

2. Volume 9 is all about drive and desire

I don't often look at chapters within the context of the volume they are included in, but I think there's some really fun things to be found with that perspective in mind.

For one, volume 9 starts with an exploration of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

And ends with a question of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

It's also very concerned in general with questions of why people do what they do. Why they are in the dungeon, why they are with the people they are with, why they stay, what they fight for.

In addition to Laios, we see it with Marcille...

Izutsumi

Kabru

and Mithrun

Hell, we even get it for the demon!

It's certainly not the only volume concerned with desires and motives, but it is particularly focused on these ideas.

The succubus scene fits quite well into the ongoing question about desires, especially Laios' desires. It is even placed at an interesting spot within the volume. The volume is six chapters long, and the scene takes place at the start of the 4th chapter. It's almost smack-dab in the middle.

With all this in mind, it is interesting that, with both versions of the succubus Marcille, it's not totally clear which parts of her Laios is rejecting.

The first version of Marcille looks human, but Laios attacks when he identifies her as a monster. The second Marcille looks like a monster, but he seems to believe that she is the real (human)(ish) person that he knows. So is he rejecting the monster at first, and then accepting the person? Or is he rejecting humanity and only interested in the monstrous?

Something to consider as we look at the next point...

3. the rest of the chapter is a seduction, too

This is one of those things that might not be apparent on a first reading, but is crystal clear on a revisit. We see the succubus try and charm Laios over 7 pages, and then see the Winged Lion do the same thing for the next 19.

Much like the succubus, it offers the mingling of monsters and humans. Much like the succubus, it offers belonging.

(and this is the point where I absolutely must also link this post by fumifooms on the succubus, which has some great ideas on how the scene is informed by Laios' trauma and desire for acceptance!!!)

But, back to the point. The Winged Lion wants to feed on Laios just as much as the succubus did, and it uses similar strategies to try and make that happen. Though this chapter isn't really the turning point for the next Lord of the Dungeon (it is Marcille who will, eventually, become the Lion's next victim), it certainly behaves like it is.

Laios is convinced. The succubus gets its meal. By the end of the volume, the reader begins to understand how concerning his desires are. Together, it is all very good at building up that sense of dread and pending disaster, as we see exactly how and why Laios might just fall into the Lion's open arms and bring about the end of the world.

-

So that's the three things I noticed. But there's still something I want to touch on by looking at the way these observations overlap, and what they reveal, together.

As I said, by the end of the volume, you can feel the tension growing. Just as Kabru and Mithrun do, you look back for an answer to the questions that have been built, chapter by chapter: why is Laios here? Where will his loyalties fall? This chapter, and scene, seem to prove the inevitable truth: he will choose the monster, of course. He will choose the seductive, easy power of the Winged Lion.

But the details of what actually happens tell different story: one in which the Lion is wrong.

First, as a reminder - even in Scylla Marcille mode, the succubus never fully entrances Laios. It convinces him, but it doesn't have him completely under its thrall.

Similarly, in the dream, the Lion does convince Laios to embrace the world he is offering. But even within that dream, Laios continues to ask questions that will be vital to him later. It is because of those questions that Laios comes to a new understanding about Thistle.

And it's this realization that he cites later as part of his reason for refusing the Lion's offer.

He is thinking through things the entire time, just like he continues to question the succubus even after it turns into Scylla Marcille.

Laios also expresses an interesting reason for why he wants to see the future of this world. He's not just invested because it would mean people liking what he likes, or him getting to spend time with monsters. The thought that comes immediately before his acceptance is about what he wants for monsters and people.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this statement - "we're living beings that share the same world, but all we can do is keep killing each other" - can apply to the various humans races just as much as it does to humans and monsters. The thing he is thinking about here isn't just a matter of his personal daydreams. It's an idea that underpins every conflict in the story.

Laios caring about how people as well as monsters in this manner is something that the Lion gets wrong every time. Even at the end, he still frames Laios' desires entirely around hating people and loving monsters.

The Lion has heard him express an opinion about the future of the world! It happened right there in the dream, right in front of him! He just didn't take it seriously, and didn't view it through any lens other than "Laios likes monsters more".

He's convinced that he understands how to get to Laios. Maybe the Lion can't truly see everything, or maybe his vision into everyone's deepest desires has made it hard for him to realize how much choice still matters. That people can, and do, choose which desires to act on, and how to act on them.

Whatever the case, he's wrong about Laios, and the story shows us this over and over again.

After all, look at how the succubus interaction plays out:

A monster uses Marcille to appeal to Laios...

He realizes that something about the situation is wrong, and rejects her.

It changes strategies, and makes new offer: to turn him into a monster.

It also assures him that his friends are, or will be, taken care of.

He accepts. Or rather, allows the monster to have its way with him.

But Laios is not as helpless as he initially appears, and what the Lion thinks is a successful seduction also contains the seed of an idea that will allow Laios to later resist him.

We even get to see Izutsumi playing a similar role in both instances, as the one person fully able to take action in the face to the illusion.

The story lays out what is going happen, and then explicitly tells us that the demon and the succubus are thematically related.

The chapter performs a great sleight of hand here - everything about it seems to indicate that Laios is doomed give in to the option to have his deepest desires realized. But if you look closer, it also contains the evidence that he won't. There's a lot more going on for him.

Yes, he still falls for obvious tricks. He is still extremely into monsters, and he still doesn't feel like he fits in with other people. He may, deep down, crave to surrender to the monstrous - to let it absorb him. But he questions more than he seems to. He considers more than people realize. He cares so much more than anyone gives him credit for.

And I think this is part of why we see the succubus called back to so many times, especially with the wolf head addition to his Monster Form, which he specifically added due to his encounter with the Scylla Marcille.

This all stays with Laios. It doesn't just foreshadow the path of the story, it is fundamental to how and why he walks that path. It's not about him choosing monsters, and it's not about him choosing people. It's about how he considers both, and cares about both.

And it's about the forces that think they already know his answer. Mithrun and Kabru. The Winged Lion. The succubus.

It's about how they are wrong.

[qqueenofhades]

Obviously the main contrasting narrative of the Harris campaign is (rightfully, the ads almost write themselves!) prosecutor vs convict. But I keep thinking about how, in one of her first campaign speeches, she had Biden on the phone and he said something like "I'm here, I love you Kid" and she said "I love you too" and just... That compared to the Jan 6th Mike Pence situation. Like this election is about democracy over fascism but it's also about love and kindness and sincerity on the level of person-to-person relationships.

Well... yeah. As Minnesota governor Tim Walz put it when he was doing the TV rounds for Kamala the other day, the Republicans are just weird people. They are mean, petty, reactionary, focused on revenge and retribution and making people suffer, their rhetoric is about shame and violence and punishment, they are all about Who Your Enemy Is, and their drift into ever more extreme fascist positions is a reflection of that. And strongman/fascist authoritarianism is often popular during moments of chaos and upheaval in the rest of the world, because the unknown feels so scary and people keep falling for the lie that a helpful dictator strongman will turn up and make it all better. It never happens, but it is a powerful lie and it can work for several years at a time, as we have (unfortunately) seen. (And Tim Walz is definitely climbing the list of Old White Guys I Like; supposedly he is on Harris' initial VP shortlist, and while I certainly have favorites of my own, she could very much do worse.)

However, and this is why fascist movements always plant the seeds of their own destruction, this constant garbage spew of hate and vitriol never ever works forever, and usually not even all that long. Because once you spend your time destroying everyone else on your mean stupid crusade of mindless bigotry, you lose friends, you alienate the ordinary people who are more interested in having something to be FOR rather than just constantly against, and eventually you eat your own. And while it will shore up your ever-dwindling cult base, it will not be able to expand beyond the people who are already fully indoctrinated, and it will lose more people than it attracts. As I have said before, one of the key tenets of fascist movements is presenting themselves as powerful, inevitable, and almighty: just surrender to them now before We Crush You (tm) later! But they are not! They are goofy, stupid, mean, and just plain (thanks Gov. Walz) WEIRD! Nobody wants to be those guys!

So yes. With the whole fact of a party where one guy tried to get his first VP killed and now has picked another reactionary loser who is the least popular VP pick in 50 years, and the other is joyfully supporting his VP, a woman of color (after serving loyally to the first Black president, Biden has set the way for the -- knock on wood -- second, and that is also amazing), it's really easy to see the difference, and very clearly, people do. Kamala offers something to rally FOR, and that is always, always more powerful than mindless hate. Sucks to be the GOP. (As usual.)

[veilkeeper]

there's something interesting about emmrich's hangout being so... structured and composed. everyone else's hangout is under the guise of some sort of errand, yes, but they're very casual and free-form. whereas with emmrich, he's taking you on this tour of the memorial gardens in the necropolis. and it is a tour—when he shows you the undead tableaux, it feels like he's reading off a script with the way he describes it to rook, tour guide style. and later, when he opens up to rook, it is always him initiating with the distinct feeling of something being said on purpose, like he had prepared to discuss it.

the flirt at the end gives a romance-flavoured explanation: that he was specifically trying to impress rook, that this is an attempt to endear himself to them. and in a lot of ways, it does look like that: he takes rook to one of the most beautiful, peaceful places he knows, opens up to them about his past, and then he has tea set up at the end of it, like a good host. (he is also rather caught off guard when you flirt with him here, and it could be interpreted as him being embarrassed at being caught out, or trying to walk it back so he doesn't offend).

however.... i don't really think that was his intention? this is probably coloured by the fact that i feel like, comparatively, emmrich has had very few one on one interactions with rook to this point and he breezes by the only flirt before this, but i don't think he walked into the memorial gardens with any intention to charm or otherwise woo rook, here. i think his intention was to get them alone and get an honest read on how they felt about him. specifically, about his work as a necromancer.

if you've rotated different people through the party with him, and if you've paid attention to the conversations he's had with others in the lighthouse, it becomes abundantly clear basically immediately that everyone has opinions on necromancy, and they largely fall into the territory of distrusting, put off, or even outright disgusted by it. a lot of emmrich's early banter with several party members is him going about the pretty exhausting ordeal of defending his magic, the mourn watch, his fields of study, manfred's existence, etc. and because of the lack of one on one time with rook, i'd be surprised if he felt like he'd really had an opportunity to get a read on what his new colleague actually thinks about it all.

so i think he is trying to impress rook, just... not like that. i think he's trying to prove that the necropolis is beautiful, that it's laden in history and rituals that mean something. that the mourn watch is good (the sort of order that would take in an orphan, and give him purpose and structure), and that even necromancers can fear death. i think he's trying to prove that he's a person, under all the misconceptions about his work that seem to go around the lighthouse when he isn't looking.

and i think that's why he looks so taken aback and genuinely surprised when rook flirts with him at the end—because it really wasn't his intention, but he recovers fast enough to pivot with grace. i don't think he's uninterested, i just think he wasn't sure rook could be.

[theemporium]

number 13 💚 for landoscar!! thank you 🫶🏻

thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

13. “Oh, so they are just a friend, right? That’s what you’re telling me?”

.

You and Lando were doing your best to keep your thoughts to yourself, but it was hard to do when both of you wore your hearts on your sleeves.

And your emotions very clearly across your face. 

Being a little bit younger meant that Oscar was amongst a different group of drivers and colleagues in his younger years, in Formula Two and Formula Three. He had previous teammates he still kept in contact with, old friends from Australia that he made an effort to always catch up with. Oscar had a whole life outside of you both, and you knew that. 

It was different compared to you and Lando, whose lives are so intertwined and connected that there were rarely strangers in each other’s lives.

But that is exactly what it was like with Oscar. 

And it was never a problem, not really. You and Lando loved meeting people that played such big parts in Oscar’s life, people that were important to him, people that he wanted to share with you two. It was a pivotal part of the relationship between the three of you and it was hard not to find it endearing. 

Except, you were pretty fucking sure this old friend of Oscar’s was in love with him and it felt like  a bitter slap in the face to watch him shamelessly flirt away with your boyfriend in front of you both. 

“He’s not even trying to hide it,” Lando grumbled as the two of you stuck to his side of the garage, watching Oscar and his old friend chat away on the other side. “He’s acting like Osc is fucking single and free reign from him.”

“Maybe we are overthinking it,” you supplied, but it sounded weak even to your own ears.

Lando shot you a look. “If Oscar gave him the green light, they’d be shagging in front of everyone.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Now that is a bit dramatic.” 

“Still,” Lando huffed, his lips turning downwards. “I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I,” you murmured, leaning against your boyfriend’s arm and squishing your cheek against his shoulder. “At least he is only here for the weekend.” 

Lando’s nose scrunched up. “Still too long.” 

“Too long for what?” Oscar asked, suddenly appearing beside you both with a soft smile on his face. 

Your cheeks burned but you didn’t glance at Lando as you replied. “Nothing, just some game he’s excited to play with Max.” 

Oscar’s brows raised in interest. “Yeah? What game?”

“One you’ve never heard of,” Lando quickly scrambled out before changing the subject. “So, where’s Harry?” 

“Uh,” Oscar gave you both a weird look but replied nonetheless. “He went to the bathroom. What do you two think of him?”

“He’s nice,” you replied vaguely. 

Oscar frowned a little. “You don’t like him?” 

“No, no,” you quickly reassured the boy. “He does seem really nice.” 

“Would be much nicer if he wasn’t trying to shag you though,” Lando grumbled under his breath, but Oscar heard him well enough.

Oscar snorted, looking a little confused. “Harry? With me? Not a chance, he’s my friend.”

“Oh, so they are just a friend, right? That’s what you’re telling me?” Lando bit out, the jealousy loud and clear to your boyfriend now. “So the blatant staring and giggling and constantly touching you means nothing?” 

And if it were anyone else, they would have gotten defensive. Or angry. Or just as snappy back. But this was Oscar and that wasn’t how he was. And that was not how he dealt with Lando either. 

Instead, the boy stepped forward and took Lando’s face in his hands, watching as the boy sunk into the touch. “He’s just a friend,” Oscar murmured. “And even if Harry did feel that way about me, I wouldn’t care. Because I have you two and that’s more than enough for me.” 

Lando sniffled a little. “Promise?”

“Promise, baby,” Oscar grinend, leaning in to kiss him and doing the same with you before he pulled away. “I’m your boyfriend, not his.” 

Lando puffed his chest out a little. “Damn right you are, Osc.”

.

[maoam]

Naruto most likely sees how the world around him works, and it affects his behaviour, especially since he craves for acceptance.

Notice the difference in his reaction when another guy says he likes him in part 1 vs part 2.

(Sorry for a bit poor quality, it was difficult to find an accurate translation, most were viz translations which didn't convey this convo very well). In part 1 he's just annoyed, because he doesn't like Kankurou as a person. He didn't even think about that "I like you" could have certain other implications. But in part 2 he's straight up creeped out by Kakashi saying the same thing, eventhough the meaning and intention is the same in both.

Naruto's reaction to Kurama mentioning his kiss with Sasuke was also way too over the top. Like really comical. Naruto was putting on a show in front of everyone. But whenever he's with Sasuke, he forgets all about this, he is fine with waxing poetry to Sasuke, or Sasuke being close to him...

My guess is since he went through puberty he also learned things about himself and thus started to become more sensitive to such things. Thus internalized homophobia.

Take this scene for example. He seems a bit uncomfortable being there. Sai was probably made to be like this (inappropriate, talking about p*nis all the time, being compared to Sasuke, challenging Naruto about his fixation on Sasuke) so Kishi could introduce more such themes into the manga. He's rather clever about this.

Another guess (it could be both combined) would be that since Jiraiya is so aggressively straight man (to the point he has to introduce himself by saying he's not into men lol) living with him for those years during the timeskip could have affected Naruto's mindset even more. But it's funny how Kishi keeps stressing over and over how Naruto finds Jiraiya's er*tic books boring. Also unlike Jiraiya who peeps on women for p*rverted reasons, Naruto does it as a prank, and in order to practice his oiroke no jutsu. Kishi is trying to show how they are different. I remember on one discussion forum one guy actually brought up he noticed Naruto's changed behaviour after he came back with Jiraiya! Like that he was even more gay and more sensitive to gay things. See, other people notice too.

Then he calls Konohamaru's boy-on-boy jutsu "nasty". Naturally, it's a shonen, Naruto can't have a comically interested reaction like Sakura to something like that, it wouldn't fly. Thus the internalized homophobia. But I also think he didn't want to see Sasuke who he's possessive over being with Sai like that lol. And Naruto really isn't one to talk considering what he came up with later.

Look how proud he looks. Little hypocrite. He's been working on those twink bods more than rasengan lol. Kishi wasn't very subtle with that comment. Also Kishi fought for this moment with his editors for YEARS because he just really needed to write this down. It was just that important to him...

Of course Naruto's repression comes up when it comes to Sasuke as well. Here he admits Sasuke is attractive, but then immediately backpedals on it. His real feelings just slipped.

Later, he was thinking about Sasuke, his mind consumed by Sasuke, but when Sakura and Sai appear his whole body language changes and he immediately claims he was thinking about a date with Sakura. He didn't want to be vulnerable nor let anyone know about his real feelings at the moment. He is hiding behind a heterosexual facade.

But sometimes Naruto doesn't even think of backpedaling on it. He is with his supposed "crush" yet unlike anyone else who would try to get closer or maybe flirt, he is just thinking about Sasuke. This is actually a moment that made many people raise their eyebrows. Including people who didn't like narusasu, or people who didn't ship anything. Specifically because it's written like a clickbait, as in Naruto says "he is happy" and Sakura going "huh?" and because she's his supposed crush who is taking care of him as I said most readers would expect next page have Naruto say something that would emphasize his crush on Sakura. But no, he goes on about Sasuke. No matter how much ss/nh insist we see gay everywhere, many other people picked up on Kishi's writing at many points during the story. But anyway, even with the internalized homophobia, Naruto's love for Sasuke is so strong he can say crazy things about Sasuke to other people and to Sasuke himself that things like "I'm starting to like you" (a completely average thing to say to another person) can't compare to, and still be unbothered by it.

Finally there is the interaction with Minato. Naruto wants to look good in front of his dad so he hesitantly agrees Sakura is his girlfriend, despite how in the previous arc we were shown that Naruto knew Sakura still likes Sasuke, and was angry at her when she tried to confess to him. So he is obviously not serious about Sakura being his girlfriend, but he is saying it to Minato hesitantly. Yet when his dad is leaving he doesn't want to lie anymore.... but he's also hesitant about admitting he hasn't found a girl like his mom wanted.

About the last part, I think it's referring to the armadillo scene? I think it was Kishi's typical humour, like how Naruto saw Haku in makeup and feminine clothing, and assumed Haku was a girl, but then was told Haku is a boy and went "oh okay, I didn't know that kind of thing existed". Here there was instead an armadillo that somehow looked like it was wearing makeup (??? idek or at least looked feminine) and since Naruto needed to write down whether the animals were boys or girls (a ridiculous cover up mission they made up to hide the war was going on from Naruto lol) but then it was flipped over with everyone else and Naruto saw its p*nis and went "even if heaven and earth switched places, a male is still a male". I guess Kishi likes this kind of thing lol... his d*ck jokes...

I know it says "the world might flip over" here but I know it's actually that proverb "even if heaven and earth switched places" that's often used in Japanese.

EDIT: this got flagggged by tumblr so I had to edit sus words.

[yan-lorkai]

Hi!! I loved your hcs of the Octotrio with a yuu that seems to only have a talent in art. I related to it a lot because sometimes I feel like I’m not good at anything else other than drawing.

I was wondering if you could do the same prompt with Riddle, Ace, Deuce, Cater, Leona, Malleus & the Scarabia boys please? If that’s too many you can just do Leona, Malleus, & Scarabia. Thank you 😊

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: I guess everyone has one of those episodes, huh? I've been writing for more than 8 years now and sometimes I get hit by the "aa but I'm only good at writing, I should totally try something" and then I try something new and hate it bcs I really love to write and nothing can compare lmao. Anyway, I hope you like this darling, I did all the characters requested too btw ~

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Ace would be playful and encouraging, but his competitive nature would lead him to manipulate situations to keep you close. He’d play little tricks to make sure you stay dependent on him, offering "helpful" critiques that subtly undermine your confidence in anything but your art. His lighthearted facade would hide a deeper need to be the center of your attention, he is your muse, the one you use to practice, the who inspires you, making sure that you see him as the only one who truly understands and supports you, all while ensuring you don't realize how he’s subtly sabotaging any other talents you might want to try to explore, for he fears you will not want to spend more time with him anymore if that was the case.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Cater would use his social media prowess to make you art the talk of the school, ensuring your work — and by extension, his support — is always in the spotlight. However, his validation would come with a price, as he subtly isolates you from others, creating an environment where you feel your art is only appreciated by him and his curated audience. Cater’s charming persona would hide his darker intentions, as he manipulates your into believing that your worth is tied to the art you create under his influence, all while keeping you emotionally dependent on his constant praise. You're already good at other things, so surely you don't need to have another hobby, right?

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Deuce, unlike Ace, would be fiercely protective of your artistic talent. He’d encourage your art with an almost desperate intensity, pushing you to try different brushes and pens, different scenarios and things, but he'd also pressure you to stay focused on what your good at, ensuring you don’t waste time on things you never tried before. His possessiveness would manifest in his need to be your protector, to the point where he'd become intimidating towards anyone who tries to steer you away from your art, that does not apply to yourself, while he think your drawings / paintings are very beautiful, he would not force you to make it more if you're having an episode where you doubt your skills and think you are good only on the art field. If you want to explore new things, Deuce will be by your side the entire time.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Riddle would be intensely supportive yet controlling, pushing you to perfect your craft while ensuring you don't stray too far from his strict rules, even more if you are already his lover. His obsession with your success would become borderline suffocating, as he constantly monitors your progress and enforces discipline to keep you on the right path, nurturing your already beautiful talent. To Riddle, your art is flawless, it's personal and have a touch of you in every drawing, be it digital or traditional. When you come to tell him about your doubts, about how you're only good at art, Riddle promptly sooth you with gentle words, albeit he is a little awkward while talking. He offer to teach you about whatever you want to learn but be prepared because he is somewhat a strict teacher.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Leona would admire your dedication to your art, and he would ask questions about it too, learning as much as your interest as possible. However, his possessiveness would be almost primal, keeping you close under the guise of protection, ensuring you don’t waste time on anything — or anyone — else. Leona would be dismissive of your attempts to explore other talents, reinforcing that your art is the only thing that matters. His control would be subtle yet overpowering, as he ensures your world revolves around him and your art, leaving you with little room for anything else.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Malleus would shower you with endless admiration, captivated by your artistic talent, even more if you were influenced by an artistic movement. He'll notice all the little details, the subtle way the traces converge, how the color scheme is perfect, the way the shadows and the light reflect. He is your number 1 fan, so supportive of you. However, his intense fascination would drag you into his lonely world, where your art becomes your only outlet and he is your audience - though he has your drawings framed and hung on the walls of the castles, so everyone can look at it and admire. Malleus may not understand your struggles and why would you want to pursue another hobby, but he can arrange anything you may want to try at least once, from singing and dancing to sewing and knitting, even the art of potion making, archery or fencing. He just know you're going to find something you like as much as your art, and if you are happy so is he.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Jamil would secretly nurture your talent, subtly guiding your creativity while undermining any attempts you make to excel elsewhere, he sees your art as something free and with many meanings - it makes him relaxed in some sort of way and Jamil wants to be a little greedy here, he wants you to continue creating more pieces, always keeping you under his watchful eye as you started drawing / painting. There's just something so intimate, so calming about it he can't wrap his head around. He loves watching you creating your art, feeling is guard lowering just a little. If you ever approach him with your doubts, Jamil take you to the kitchen so he can teach you a few things about cooking. It's a different kind of art but when all is said and done, it's just as good as when you're creating and make you feeling accomplished.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Kalim would be so overwhelmingly supportive and enthusiastic about it, showering you with gifts and opportunities to nurture your artistic talent, buying everything you may need to create your art, a new software? Sure, no problem, he brought the most expensive one too. A few new pencils and pens? Right away. You need more frames and paints? It will be here in a couple of hours. However, his naivety mixed with possessiveness would lead to unintentional control over your life, as he tries to keep you happy and close by his side. Kalim’s well-meaning gestures would create a gilded cage, where your art flourishes but your freedom is slowly stripped away. He would be oblivious to the suffocating effect of his love, believing that as long as you're happy creating art with him, nothing else matters, leaving you feeling trapped and not knowing how to communicate with him. He have done so much for you already!

[merp-blerp]

Random things about Cinderella (1950) I noticed/want to say after doing a psych project on it

I love the foreshadowing they do with the clock striking midnight when Cinderella is startled by the morning clock and she says "Even he orders me around." I never noticed it that way before.

The reason why no one recognizes Cinderella at the ball is because A) she seemingly wasn't allowed off her stepmother's property, so no one in town had ever seen her before or since she was a child, and B) when she gets there the prince immediately introduces himself and dances her away from everyone. The duke even pulls a curtain to separate her and him from the guests so they can dance alone. Almost no one gets a good up-close look at her except the prince.

I've said before on here that I think the prince in this movie was meant to be more of a symbolic personification of Cinderella's freedom rather than a literal character, and I still think that. However, I find it interesting that everything we know about the prince is told through others, not him. He doesn't get to be known. The only person he ever even gets to speak to is Cinderella. He also has a bit of character (relayed by others). His father laments that the prince is growing farther away from him the older he gets, he avoids responsibilities, and suggests that he's a hopeless romantic. It's also worth noting that the prince has no idea the ball is for the purpose of setting him up with a wife. He supposedly was led by the king to believe it was a welcome home ball, as he was away from home before (the ball invitees don't seem aware either until the night after the ball when they do the slipper fittings). [EDIT: I forgot to mention that I sappily like to interpret this as Cinderella, his eventual wife, being the only one who ever truly knows him, as he assumedly isn't close to the king or anyone else, so this is reflected in the fact that even us, the audience, don't get to know him like Cinderella must. Probably not the intention, but it's cute.] He also doesn't have severe facial blindness, he probably would've recognized Cinderella without the slipper but A) it was the king who thought of the whole slipper-fitting idea; all the prince supposedly said was that he'd marry the girl who wore the glass slipper, and B) He is explicitly not the one to do the slipper-fitting. The grand duke does it. But even the grand duke seems to recognize her before she gets the slipper on (he saw her up close briefly while she ran away and chased after her).

Also, as Cinderella runs from the prince, the other maidens there crowd him, so he can't get to her to stop her, but they only stop him to converse with him about how "lovely" she is, not because they want him, which is kinda wholesome. Again, no one was there to try and marry the prince because no one knew that's what the ball was for to begin with except the king and duke.

Cinderella is definitely very kind, but she knows the treatment she gets from her family is not right. She speaks somewhat passive-aggressively about them when they're not around. I like that touch.

When her stepfamily teases her over her excitement that she could go to the ball because she's eligible, she asserts that she's still a part of the family. Even though she's being abused, it's a type of abuse where she thinks her family must value her in some way. I think when her sisters ripped her dress apart was the moment she realized she wasn't a part of the family after all and that she wasn't loved/valued.

Lady Tremaine was so different from other Disney princess villains at the time. Allow me to go on for a bit. Compare her to the evil queen or Maleficent (who are also great). They have a very booming presences and everyone knows they are monsters, it's just that no one can stop them until the end of their stories. But Lady Tremaine knows how to fool people by having a motherly disposition. Not in a nurturing way, but in a stern, tough “love”, almost “calm” way. She never yells at anyone (just raises her voice) or acts traditionally evil in the way the evil queen or Maleficent do. More bite than bark I guess. For example, when she lets the step-sisters rip Cinderella’s dress, she simply tells them to come along afterwards and tells Cinderella goodnight like a mother might, but without affection with it, like a covert dig; she doesn't visibly get cross with Cinderella, but what she’s doing is still abuse. Even Cinderella seems to see her as a mother in one way or another before the dress ripping (I don't think Cinderella ever calls her "Step-Mother" again after the dress-ripping she allowed her sisters to do). She's very covert in her villainy. A very good depiction of an abuser. The only other Disney villain I can think to compare her to off the top of my head is Scar from the og Lion King when he was around anyone who wasn't the hyenas, but even then he dropped the act eventually after becoming king. Lady Tremaine never really does.

I also like the detail that after the ball when trying to tell the step-sisters about the shoe-fitting, she asks Cinderella, “Where are my daughters?” excluding Cinderella from being her daughter even though she should be. She really only sees her as a maid.

Cinderella's pink dress has a lot of bows, and at the beginning of the film, we see her when she was younger and the dress she wore as a child also had bows and was in a somewhat similar style. Her childhood dresses were probably taken away by Lady Tremaine when her dad died. Makes me wonder if Cinderella redesigned her mom's dress with her dress from youth in mind, as she certainly hadn't worn a nice dress since she was a kid. And if so, what would that mean? Was she just feeling nostalgic? Or had her sense of style not matured since childhood because she had been made to wear nothing but rags for who knows how long? Is her only frame of reference to what her own personal style is based from her childhood dresses? I just think it's kinda intriguing. The pink dress always felt explicitly young for Cinderella.

Cinderella's voice is so cute. Not just her singing, but her voice in general. Ilene Woods, love of my life apparently.

People often complain about Cinderella marrying the prince the day after the shoe fit, but Disney's version never specifically states that the wedding is the day after the slipper scene, it just comes right after it. Who's to say how much time there was in between scenes. There are versions that do say that it was the next day, so I guess people conflate different versions together in their heads. This is why it's important to watch films with your brain on before criticizing them for things they didn't do.

I never thought too deeply of it, but when Cinderella sings the words "So this is love" she really is (re)learning what love is. It's a realization. She likely hasn't felt love from another human being since her father died. Or rather she thought she was loved in some way, but then realized she wasn't when her dress was ripped. So now, with the prince, she has a better understanding of what it's like to be properly loved. Imagine hating this girl. 🩵

[stringsbasement]

Your art of peri and your Villain AU of him? perfection. I read your twt thread and I'm greedy for more, im so serious like If there was a 100k word fanfic of your au I would read it in a heartbeat!! THATS how much im obsessed with the concept

thank you so much! i didn't expect there to be so much interest in my thoughtless doodles and rambles. luckily, i already have a draft for a rant i formulated about this version of peri's possible motivations, and now i have an excuse to share it!!

also, as a bonus, have this silly doodle :)

[his hairstyle is his attempt to separate himself from his parents, but no matter what he does with it, he can never get it to sit without that stray tuft and curl at the very end.

also, his bowtie is in reference to chloe and my initial art of irep before his design was revealed. the latter almost makes it seem like they "swapped roles."]

the thing is, it's hard to imagine peri as someone purposefully wanting to harm others for his own pleasure. for a "bad" au of peri to occur, he'd have to take after timmy, and seek chaos the same way he did

now, timmy is a good person at heart. his fairies love him, and he loved them in turn. that's undeniable. however, timmy was so stressful he affected cosmo and wandas marriage, and they had to retire right after him to rekindle their love and stop being so awful towards each other. timmy was simultaneously one of the best and worst things to ever happen to them

so it's not that much of a stretch to think he'd affected peri during his development, to the point he unknowingly influenced peri's core beliefs, which he'll carry over later in life

timmy used his fairies to escape from his regular life. he was incredibly reckless, and shirked responsibilities till the consequences got him back tenfold. a dangerous, but fulfilling way of living. he might've mellowed out in the later years, but considering he chose to keep vicky around to purposefully make himself miserable and keep his fairies instead of facing reality, maturity wouldn't be a straight or easy path

peri, adopting this way of thinking, believes the best way to live life is taking risks. ignoring your present problems in favor of escapism. he would insist this upon his godchild, and be blind to the complex nuance of dev's situation

dev's parental neglect differs from timmy's, and thus requires different treatment. but peri doesn't realize that, and dev is a child who cannot comprehend how awful he really has it, let alone communicate it in a way that isn't just lashing out and throwing tantrums

for classic peri, this is an annoyance. for this peri though? he'll enable it, because he thinks dev needs to get it out of his system. like timmy. which is in some way correct, but it's a flawed, only temporary solution

and it's in this way a path of deeper exploration opens up about characters similar to cookie, highlighting how flawed the godparent system can be when a child is assigned a godparent who cannot fulfill what they truly need

starting a ghost apocalypse is nothing compared to the wishes that has been granted before. and, honestly, dev taking viozalia's staff to use against her is a clever move. this peri wouldn't be downtrodden like he was in the original scene, but impressed. he would say as such, and dev, being the emotionally starved 10 year old he is, will soak those words up like a dry sponge

(slightly off topic: i like to think a little quirk this peri would have is, instead of looking to da book of rules for guidance, (cosmo, wanda, and his classic self do this multiple times in the show when in unique situations,) he'd be searching for anything that states what can't he do. "what to do when your god kid tries to start a ghost apocalypse... nothing? sweet!")

this would naturally allow him and dev to bond a little more. even if it's just shit talking other people and how they're totally better than everyone else

it doesn't mean they get along splendidly. dev is still pissed that he can't make the wishes he wants, and peri overcompensates by allowing him to throw himself into situations that just narrowly avoids sanction. because, oh yeah, peri would not appreciate being forced to follow the rules which includes wiping the godchild's memories after the godparent's term has passed

(if anything, he'll find a loophole out of it. he learned from the best, after all)

this is also where peri's spoiled nature would shine through. being offered everything just because he was a baby would make anyone entitled

he and dev are too similar for their own good. they have have access to anything they could ask for, but are unable to get love from one person they want it from. it's almost pitiful

to keep those thoughts out of dev's (and his own) mind, peri resorts to pushing dev out of his comfort zone, which would ordinarily be a good thing, only, he goes way too far to the point of regression

you know, it really doesn't help that dev looks a lot like timmy. i mean, look at them...

that's timmy with slicked back hair and a white jacket. c'mon

but even with all of this, peri doesn't really become a villain. he's antagonistic at most, with his strained relationship with his parents and his help in making things harder for hazel. luckily, the latest episode has given me a few ideas

when peri inevitably comes to care for dev, he'll obviously has to do something about his constant unhappiness. dev has a point in complaining about the fact hazel has two godparents and he only has one, even when his life is "worse" (another unhealthy way of thinking,)

hmmmm. so how can dev have two fairy godparents, and how can peri break da rules without putting himself at risk?

who other than a mirror of peri's own self?

a shift inevitably took place, one where peri became more intense and irep more soft. it's so subtle it goes unnoticed until thousands of years have passed

irep has become timid, soft, and well-meaning. if peri either quits his position or gives way for another slot and puts dev under a sort of split-custody, dev will be able to use anti-fairy magic, which can completely bypass any of the rules regular fairy magic is withholden to

irep will get what he wants as well. in this post, i answered an ask in which i speculate that irep genuinely does want a godchild, and the love and appreciation that comes with it. that much would stay the same for this au

and, well, unlike irep, peri has always been willing to share

this would make way for a bunch of whacky hijinks, potential plots, and new threats. consequences piling up until they become too huge to ignore. not to mention the full implications of a fairy and anti-fairy switching roles. of course, this is just a fun idea i came up with on the spot, and i haven't thought it out too much, so pointing out any plot holes that would come from this is appreciated!

i have more to say, mainly about peri and his parents' initial separation, as well as the parallels that can be found with this version of peri and hazel, but i feel it would be best to end it here :)

thank you for making me write all of this!

[egg-emperor]

Why I love how Eggman talks about Maria in the Shadow 101 + the connection that can be made to his feelings on Shadow:

I love this part so much and I wanna go into way too much detail and depth to explain why lol

The things this could imply are things I've thought about for a long time and to keep getting new official things that align with my theories on how he feels about Maria lately with Frontiers and now this is awesome!

First of all, I wouldn't say him taking Maria's death personally is an example of him having good standards or implying genuine moral goodness above G.U.N, considering he was cool with pointing a gun at Amy's head, who is around the same age as his cousin was who died via bullet, aboard the very place she died on.

He really didn't care about how he would've been no better than the soldier that killed his similarly aged cousin, with the same weapon, in the same place!

With the harshness of his threats and how he gets increasingly pissed during Crazy Gadget like "Sonic, if you don't come here, she WILL die!" and how he already tried to kill Tails and tried to kill Sonic and Tails again after this, his threats weren't empty.

So I'm seeing it as him taking it personally on the basis that she's a member of the family, the Robotnik family name, so an attack on a family member makes them a threat and enemy to him too.

Think about it, there's a conflict you're not a part of at all, you're just an observer but then two members of your family/your people/community etc become a target- that's when you go "oh this just got personal" because they're related to you, of your blood, and it means you're now a part of it too with your connection to them.

It's like that, except with Eggman's selfish nature, he's looking at it for how it poses as a threat to himself personally for his connection. They killed his grandfather and cousin in their slimy shady operations and they don't want to stop at them, that's when it became personal and a threat to him too and they have tried to directly take him out since multiple times in SA2 and Shadow 05.

Plus he's making Maria's tragedy all about himself with that in true Eggman fashion too, which we'll also get into.

And I want to note the very interesting difference in how Eggman acts on the subject of Maria when in private all alone to himself with his private memos, where he seemed to express absolutely no care about her tragedy and only expressed jealousy and resentment for how he feels he should've got all the attention instead.

He didn't expect anyone to ever hear these memos, he said many private things he'd never say to anyone else in them, a real intimate glimpse into his thoughts and feelings and that's what makes them so cool. He can express his bitterness and jealousy and resentment towards Maria to his heart's content.

Then compare that to how he talks about her in the Shadow 101- which isn't a private memo, it's a data log that he can present to someone else, us, the viewers. Which is why he talks like he's actually talking to someone else (Ex: The "treat him as extremely dangerous" part)

It's certainly very interesting difference to how he talks about her when people aren't supposed to hear at all in the memos huh 👀 After how much he heard "everyone" talking about her like she was so special, he knows what others want to hear.

And what comes right after this? Eggman's rant about how he was the one that released Shadow and he had to go ahead and be such an ingrate. This is very important to note because it works as him attempting to convince the viewer that Shadow not being on his side is this horrible disservice to him “after all he did for Shadow” and how he “cared so much about Shadow's only friend, my cousin” and he clearly actually finds the former amusing and scoffs at, by the way!

Two key things here, he's establishing Maria's importance to Shadow with her being his "only friend" and he's stating his own connection to Maria in being related to her as his cousin.

While he literally couldn't help but scoff at Shadow just wanting to live in peace with his only friend Maria, he still recognizes how he can use that in his attempted manipulation and argument for why Shadow should be on his side- and use the way that she's his cousin.

I'm related to his only friend Maria, I recognize how tragic her death was (because he heard everyone talk about her like she was special instead of giving him the attention he wants! He's putting it to use, eh 👀), I found and released him- these are all reasons he can feel and argue that he's entitled to owning Shadow

I'm also reminded of how Flynn said Eggman can be an unreliable narrator, which he specifically said when asked about implications to his past with the Egg Memo about Maria.

He's extremely biased and unreliable in his intended to be kept private memos, of course he's not going to be entirely truthful in his data logs and presentations too!

And his usual manipulative streak is very important to consider, especially on the subject of Shadow with his entitlement to him. It's his whole deal in the story of Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 which I've done extensive analysis of.

This 101 history video gave us yet another example of his "I'm entitled to him as a member of the family, I did so much for him, he's so ungrateful" attitude that he's always had towards Shadow. Behold, the entitlement compilation lol:

The first few examples are when he's saying how dare Shadow disobey him because he "made him" in lies and gaslighting. But in the route where Shadow knows the truth, even then he pulls the "it was MY grandfather who created you" card to express his entitlement. Literal emphasis on the MY:

He has always felt entitlement based on family connection, he can use both Gerald and Maria for this.

So he's still using a combination of that and now the way he was the one who found and released him as the reasons why he's still entitled to him now, creator or not.

And man the ME? ME! being the only word on his screen at the end of both sentences is perfect, really emphasizes how it's all me me me in his mind. Of course he's going to make everything about him, that's his whole mindset as the most egotistical self-centred narcissist of all time.

Of course he's gonna take it personally if something bad happens to a family member and he's gonna take even the smallest opportunity to make something about him. How can I make this thing about me, how does this affect me, how can this either benefit or harm me, etc. And whenever he can use it to his advantage, he will.

So yeah, I believe his words on the subject are very carefully chosen in this 101. He knows how to set up his case for why Shadow should be on his side, his weapon, his puppet, his property that he tried to trick and manipulate him into in Shadow 05 too. When lying about the origin of his creation with attempted gaslighting of him being an android doesn't work, he starts taking advantage of the truths.

I always theorized that Eggman would also try to use Maria's tragedy as a way to do so as well, if he were to actually mention her, many years prior to Frontiers. The way the only times he's cared to mention her was her name being the password in SA2, on the topic of his bitterness and jealousy in Frontiers, and as a precursor to his rant about Shadow- those are all under very interesting circumstances that are important to note. And boy do I like the implications hehe 💜

[boiohboii]

The people's sweethearts

Ch II

(Verstappen!reader x tom holland x zendaya)

Soulmate au

YN Verstappen had been through hell, by her own father, for something she didn't even ask for. She grew up learning that she should hate what was given to her, after all it was the reason her father was always angry with her. So what should she do when the one thing she learned to hate is the one thing that brings her love, safe and comfort that not even her older brother can compare.

WARNING: not proof read, Jos Verstappen (worsned like 10 times for this fic) poly relationship, derogatory terms by father, abusive father. If I missed anything else please let me know

Masterlist

ch.I

Faceclaim: kiki hertz

Tom prided himself in never exposing his soulmark, he let a lot of things out that shouldn't be and his soulmark not being one of those is such an achievement. Mostly because from a very young age, when he started acting, his mother would make sure he covered it up with makeup so that no one, not even those behind the scenes would see it.

"So, you're invited to watch cars drive in circles?"

Meeting Zendaya had been a dream, they both felt the need to be closer to each other whenever possible even before they discovered their identical soulmarks. Both of them working and hanging around each other made it so much difficult to conceal their newfound relationship and eventually the whole world knew that both of them were soulmates, and not just that, everyone was now aware that Tom Holland and Zendaya Coleman were fated to have a third lover, a third soul with them to keep them sane from all the chaos their lives bring in the form of fans and crazy paparazzi.

"How can you say that?" Tom looked back at his girlfriend as he poured himself some tea "you literally met Lewis Hamilton not that long ago!"

Tom was painfully aware of the fact that Zendaya isn't that interested in either of the sports he enjoys: formula 1 and golf.

"Oh yeah, at a fashion show," Zendaya recalls as she moves over to hug tom from behind, resting her chin on his head. "He was nice."

"Do you think we'll meet our darling soon?" Zendaya asked, making Tom leave his drink to hold her hand in reassurance.

"I think so," turning around he let go of one of zendaya's hands to let his palm rest on her cheek "I know that I met you when I kept thinking about my soulmate, so I have a feeling that we'll meet darling soon."

The couple had taken to calling their third soulmate Darling, a nickname that they both agreed to reserve for their missing soul.

"Yeah, I feel so too."

Liked by maxverstappen1, F1wags&faves, verstappentruther and 683,519 others

Kellypiquet: a weekend with her was truly missed.

maxverstappen1: ♥️♥️

username: God, yn verstappen is so pretty

username: I wanna be her soulmate so bad

username: LOOK AT HER CHEEKS! I WANNA BITE THEM!

With his work schedule Tom wasn't able to attend much f1 races, but when he could he did, and most of them were the infamous English track, Silverstone.

But here in Monaco, the races were something else, Tom can feel how the people in this country were raised watching these cars from their homes, cheering for their favorite driver and the preparations for the race throughout the entire country are just mind blowing (he promised himself that he would bring Zendaya here for a vacation, this place is amazing).

"Is something wrong?" The voice of Christian Horner stopped Tom dead in his tracks, the team principle of the red bull formula 1 team making him feel like a little child caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

"Oh, um, yeah, yes-" clearing his throat Tom couldn't help still looking around, wanting to see the reason of the all too familiar tugging his heart "just looking around, the race is very different from Silverstone, the atmosphere is just so..."

And there it was, the reason his heart is pulling, the person he hoped he would meet as soon as he felt their presence in this specific garage, his darling; their darling.

"Well, Monaco is the heart of motorsport, especially formula 1, you can't live here without being a fan really."

Christian wasn't an idiot, he had eyes and his observational skills were too good. It wouldn't be the first time he witnessed a celebrity looking at yn verstappen, the girl hooking everyone in with her innocent face and charming smile. It would, however, be the first time he saw someone loose their breath over her and he knew what that meant, he knew that expression; he had went through it when he met his wife, he saw it on Max when he met Kelly and now he is going to see it on yn.

He thought he met an angel when he saw Zendaya, he thought that the feeling he would get when meeting their darling wouldn't be as strong, as intense, but seeing her there, standing next to Adrian Newey with a notebook and a pen in her hands, discussing something that seemed so important, made him unaware of anything else. She was all he could see, hear and feel. She was who they had been missing, and god did she make him want to scream at the top of his lungs.

He felt his chest swell up with emotions as he quickly reached for his phone, calling the one person he knew would calm him down.

"Hey baby, how's the race going?"

"Z, she's here," Tom rushed out as he maneuvered between the never ending sea of people to a quite place- well as quite as it can get in Monaco during a formula 1 race.

"What? Who's here?"

"Darling! She's here!"

"Darling is a she?"

Gathering her thoughts Zendaya left the lounge area of her hotel suite, dismissing the makeup artists and stylists with a smile and wave of her hand before entering the bedroom within the suite.

"Okay, okay, calm down baby," Zendaya spoke as she ran her hand through her hair "how about you go talk to her, yeah?"

"I can't, oh my god, what if she doesn't even feel the same pull- it's a stupid way to describe it but you know that's how I felt when I met you and it's the same but so much worse cause you're not here with me and I can't do this-"

"Honey, calm down, it's okay, let's take it step by step, did you check her wrist?" Being met with silence worried the tall girl, she knew how it might come off to him when she was basically asking him to check actual evidence and not take his feelings too seriously "I know your feelings, I get that, I felt the same with you, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Yeah, yeah," shuffling was heard before Tom apologies for, what zendaya assumed, pumping into someone "no, yeah, you're right, stay with me on the line, I'm going to try and see. She's wearing a sleeveless dress so that will make it easier."

Even though she didn't want to spoil it for herself, she wanted to get 100% of the awe and the fondness for herself, Zendaya couldn't help but ask "what does she look like?"

"So beautiful, Z" the way Tom spoke, the breathlessness and amazement in his voice made her want to cry, she wanted to be there, she wanted to be with him when they first saw her, that's how they always envisioned it.

"Okay, so I checked, and oh my god it's there, it's the same Z, what am I supposed to do, oh my god"

"Here's what you're going to do, you're going to tell her right now!"

"There are like 100 people around, how am I supposed to do that!"

"I don't know tom, tell her you wanna speak to her or something, make it up!"

"I can't do this, I can't, I am freaking out!"

"Oh my god, you're an actor, pretend it's a scene"

"Will you be able to pretend?"

"Well no, but I'm not the one that can see her, am I!"

"Okay, okay, deep breaths, I am going to tell her with you on the phone, alright?" Tom said as he started moving towards the blonde, his confidence building up with his taller soulmate cheering him on through the phone

"Holy shit" and there goes the little confidence he had

"What? Tom! Answer me! Is she dating someone, I swear to god if she is-"

"No, no, she's not," looking back at his soulmate "at least I don't think she is. God, there's no way I am telling her shit now."

"Why not?"

"Her brother can literally run me over with his small rocketship of a car! I am not doing anything when he is literally two centimetres away from her!"

What Tom failed to realise was how Christian Horner had joined the pair of siblings, telling Max and Yn of his earlier observations, which made all three of them look at the young brit in sync.

"Um, Z, I think we won't have to worry about me telling her."

CH.III

{taglist: @celesteblack08 @minkyungseokie @woozarts @keii134 @celesteblack08 @sainzluvrr @fangirl125reader}

[sohya]

sweat it out

-> f!reader x aoi todo

-> 3.7k words

-> gym workout talk. spit play. impact play. oral. big dick. size difference. possibly ooc todo. creampie.

-> last attempt. if fuckass tumblr hides it again im gonna p** myself and not in a good way

tagging: @suyacho

“oh, hey, lil cub. what’s on for today?”

there’s only one person in the entire world who calls you ‘lil cub’, and it isn’t even in a demeaning way. everyone is little compared to a giant brute like aoi, but for some reason, he’d adopted you with ‘cub’ after the title.

you look up from your spot by your pigeonhole to see aoi walking over to you. built torso, thick thighs and hair tied up into a bun like it’s his signature look. while the exposed skin on his chest is tantalizing to look at, the real treat comes from the gymshark shorts he wears that does nothing to hide the bulge in between his legs. 

“just arms for today,” you look away lest you get caught staring at the most vulnerable part of your gym partner. “something short and quick.”

so you can get you and your ovulating self out of his presence sooner. 

“great. i’ll spot you.” he grins as he rests a heavy hand down on your shoulder. like the rest of him, it’s huge and you engage your core to right yourself when his palm tilts you to the side.

you let out a chuckle as you shrug his hand off to slip your hoodie off before stuffing it into your designated box. you’ve stopped feeling bad about taking him away from his workouts, given he’s always been insistent on helping you and to be honest, a man like him doesn’t need to be lifting weights every second of his life anyways. that and you actually appreciate the tips he gives you, at least that’s what you tell yourself. 

as you follow after him, his longer legs making him advance in front of you, your eyes fall to his bubble ass that doesn't hide just how he really takes the workouts for every part of his body seriously. you look up to the ceiling, your fingers fumbling with the handle of your water bottle as your womanly instincts kick in. 

“actually, aoi,” he looks back at you, a curious eyebrow raised, “i might work on my glutes today. it’s been a while.” 

you could’ve sworn his eyes flicked down to your thighs at that very moment but anyone else would probably tell you it was just a blink. “i think that’s a great idea, lil cub.” 

you’re stern in telling aoi that you won’t be here for long so he curates a shorter workout for you to do. hip thrusts are first and you attempt to put on a show for your personal spectator, grunting as you exert your strength to push the barbell up into the air, then sighing softly as you lower your hips again. there’s brazen interest in his eyes when you look up at him in between your second and third set but he doesn’t entertain you with anything, taking his role as a personal trainer seriously.

but like it’s some sort of punishment for you, he increases the weights by 10kg in the last set, causing you to struggle with the last rep with clenched teeth and a sound that sounds like too much of a moan than a sound of struggle. as soon as he helps you off the machine he gives you a high five and the image of his hand dwarfing yours has your dizzy mind straightening up immediately.

“good girl.” he completely skips over the unnecessary praise. “that’s the hardest one done. three more to go.” 

having aoi as your unofficial personal trainer is truly beneficial, you have to admit. having someone like him encouraging you to increase your weights and praising you has your mentality going haywire, because it feeds into your act of making sounds that should have his resolve cracking by now. 

aoi comes back holding two 10kg dumbbells. “you’re doing great, lil cub,” he praises as he hands places the weights down by your feet for you to pick up yourself, following gym safety regulations. “rdls for the last set, 12 reps but i want you to hold the last one for 10 seconds.”

his nose crinkles when he laughs at your glare. “you wanna go a weight lower then?”

you wipe the sweat off the bridge of your nose if only to hide your face from him for a short second before you shake your head, “no, i think i can do it.” you bend down to pick the weights up before standing into the correct posture. shoulders tight, core engaged and your feet shoulder width apart. 

a quick scan through the mirror at the rest of the gym makes you realize you two are the only ones left in the premises. which is the only reason you’re confident enough to say what you’re about to say. “it has been a while though. do you mind helping with my form?” you indulge him with a sultry gaze through your lashes.

as if he recognises what you’re doing, aoi steps closer and rests a hand on the small of your back. “‘course, lil cub. that’s what i’m here for, no?”

you barely even finish the second set.

exactly twenty two minutes later, you’re stumbling down the hallway of aoi’s apartment, the faux promise of him giving you your last workout at his place in the back of your mind as your lips clash together in a hungry duel for each other’s taste.

“i have to warn you, though, lil cub.” he says in between desperate kisses before he bursts into his bedroom. “i’m big. like really big.” you pull back to see nothing but pure honesty in his eyes. none of the smugness that would usually come from a guy warning their potential partner about the gigantic size of their dick. “so, if you want to tap out, no hard feelings.”

the warning doesn’t serve as one to you, if anything it only makes you more excited and inclines you to press your stomach up against his crotch. if the weight of it is anything to go by, you can already feel your walls lubricating itself up with your arousal. “that’s not very pt of you,” you taunt, hands grazing down to the hem of his matching gymshark t-shirt. you pull it over his head to rid him of the clothing, “i thought i was here for my last set.”

eager to stump your confidence, aoi picks you up with a strong arm wrapped around your waist. your feet hang in the air as the top of your head hits the ceiling, only possible given his height. “then take these off.” he pinches at your loose t-shirt and you fumble to pull it off your head. 

the second the first sliver of your skin is exposed, aoi’s mouth descends onto it, pressing kisses along your skin and warming your entire body through it. his tongue darts out to lick your skin, still salty from your workout, before it travels up to your chest once you remove your sports bra. he groans into you before he closes his lips on your soft stomach, sucking your skin and licking what hasn’t been cleaned off with his spit. 

aoi’s eyes, which had been previously closed as he cleaned off the ambrosia left on your skin, flutters open to see you staring down at him, clear desperation in your eyes, your brows furrowed and mouth opened to breathe heavy pants into the air. he groans. “fuck no, i can’t wait anymore.”

you’re quickly dropped down, yelping and grabbing onto whatever body part of his on your way down before your knees land on the floor without the pain and his hands supporting you under your arms. you look up at him, his monstrous height making him feel like he’s triple your size. 

but that’s not what you’re focused on. what grabs your attention is his hand disappearing into his shorts, shuffling inside before he grunts out a sound of annoyance and his other fist yanks his shorts down. like a cinematic piece, you watch as his hand draws out his cock, which had been tucked into the right side of his boxers, out of the restriction of his shorts that falls down to pool around his feet. 

half-hard, as thick as the circumference of your clenched fist and a generous 10 inches, you almost tear up at the sight. dripping pre-cum from the slit glistens like a crystal chandelier under the light. heavy balls that you want to smother your face into. nothing could compare to this. you’re struck with awe like you’re witnessing the 8th wonder of the world. 

you let out a sigh and aoi grins, runs his large thumb down the length of his cock, which droops down due its weight, before it runs off the tip of his head and springs up to slap your chin. “close your mouth before you start to drool.” he says with a loud laugh. “actually, no. keep it open.” he prods the tip of his cock against your slightly parted lips, urging him to slip his cock into your hot mouth. 

“it’ll fit,” he promises as if he can see the panic in your eyes, “just let me get the angle right.”

your lips burn as they stretch to accommodate the thick girth of him at the halfway point. at this point is when your eyes start tearing up, another inch and those tears are slipping down your cheeks as your head tilts back for him to descend his hips onto your face. another inch and he’s three quarters of the way while you gag violently around him. a deep inhale through your nose has you recollecting yourself before your source of air is cut off when he hilts himself into your mouth and your nostrils fill up with the soft curls on his pelvis. 

your eyes blink open before snapping shut when they catch a glimpse of his pursed lips and the feeling of his warm spit landing at your eyes warms your face.

“ah- just missed it.” aoi tsks before pulling his cock halfway out before thrusting it back in. his head tips back at the glorious sound of you gagging and choking around his intrusion and subjects you to a few minutes of some brutal and honest face fucking. by the time he pulls out, your shorts and thighs are stained with spit and precum, tits dripping with the same mixture and the lower part of your face dampened in filth. 

“you always make me so proud, lil cub.” he praises but demeans you at the same time with harsh taps to the side of your face, which probably wasn’t his intention but inevitable given the heaviness of his hands. “so pretty.” he compliments as he examines your state.

you whine as you fidget in your spot, hands moving to spread the wetness all over yourself. “a-aoi. c’mon.”

“you wanna get played with, huh, cub?” he hums, his hands cupping the side of your head and tilting your skull around, marveling at how your eyes follow him no matter which way he turns your head. “need something to sweat out, hm?”

he grunts as he bends down, slots an arm between your thighs and hooks you up from your crotch. you yelp when he spins you around so your head is dangling along with his dick. your tongue peaks out to grace it with a kitten lick before your mouth falls open when aoi’s face smothers itself into your wet shorts. 

“you smell so nice, cub.” he huffs. if his dick struggling to fit in your mouth hadn’t made you aware of the drastic size difference between the two of you, then having his face pressed right into your cunt would do it for you. tightening your legs around his head doesn’t sway him from sucking a wet spot into the fabric where your hole would be, instead it just holds him there and doesn’t deter him from your pussy. 

with careful hands, because he knows you’re still sane enough to scold him at one wrong move, he places you down on the bed and pulls your shorts and thin panties off. he flings the latter off to the side, making sure it slips between his bedside drawer and the wall so you’ll give up looking for it when you inevitably leave. 

with your entire body now bare, he buries himself in between your thighs, your sore muscles granted reprieve by relaxing against his warm shoulders as opposed to floating in the air.

“beautiful fucking pussy,” he groans into your folds, “i could drink you up.” 

the words you would have replied with die in your mouth when aoi dips his tongue into your hole, making a show of closing his lips around your opening and slurping the juices that coat his tongue. he’s relentless in the way his entire mouth covers pussy, the heat emanating from him making your toes curl all while your hands fly to the loose bun on his head to hold him still. he’s purposely avoiding your clit and you can tell because his head’s at an awkward position where he’s close enough for his mouth to encompass your heat but the tip of his nose avoids rubbing against your clit, making the warm breaths he’s exhaling into your bud warm your body up even further. 

his tongue works in lapping everything you have to offer, dark eyes zoning in on your expression that you don’t hide away from. your head is tilted up to look at him but every flick of his tongue inside you has your eyes rolling back and your mouth opening in a silent scream. 

but aoi’s patience only runs for so long and as much as he’d love to die and suffocate himself in your pussy, the ache of his rock hard cock chafing against the fabric of his mattress has him going insane. without a word to disrupt his momentum, he pulls his tongue out and closes his mouth around your clit, sucking on it hard enough for your back to arch and your heels to kick at his back. he holds you down with a heavy hand while the other sinks two fingers into your dripping heat. “ah… wait, aoi, nnh! i c-can’t–” you gasp, words falling out of your mind when your stomach begins to warm up as a hint of your impending orgasm.

he ignores your sounds in favor of each thrust that he drags out, focusing on curling his fingers upwards and running against the roof of your walls. you full on go lightheaded when he pulls his fingers out halfway before ramming it back inside, the tips of his fingers rubbing against your walls in a come hither motion on repeat causing your orgasm to wash over you. your mind blanks in what you can only describe as the best climax from getting head you’ve ever had. only thing you can hear and feel is aoi groaning into you as your juices flood into his mouth. 

the loud suckling noises don’t cease your orgasm in any way, if anything it makes it last what feels like an eternity before you come down, twitching and whining into the air. your lungs work in overdrive trying to gather air back into it but you’re not given the chance to properly recover when aoi’s face hovers above yours. only then do you realize the tingling in your pussy was from the aftershocks of your orgasm and not the feeling of his mouth overstimulating you. something in your mind feels disappointed about the fact.

satisfied with how quickly relaxed you become, aoi eases three fingers inside you, watching with a smug grin when you wince at the stretch of the third finger’s addition. “gotta stretch you out some more, cub. as much as it’d be nice to see you cry even more for me,” he pauses to lick the embarrassing streak of tears down your cheeka, “it’s not gonna be good for you in the long run.”

“ahh– i can- i can take it.” you push on, grinding your hips against his knuckles to ease another finger inside. 

“i’m sure you can. my little cub knows how to push herself.” he says as he pulls his fingers out. aoi’s eyes grow dark as they encourage your gaze to stay on his, entire attention focused on him that you only realize what he’s distracting you from when the blunt head of his cock pushes into your hole and makes no move in slowing to accommodate you. “but it’s more for my sake, so your tight pussy doesn’t cut my dick off before i even get myself inside.”

and just like that, you’re forced to take it. him pushing his hips further and further down while his huge cock positively splits you open. the silence is disturbed with your pants and moans of his name that flood out in a series of babbles that would’ve been incoherent if aoi wasn’t slipping into the same state of fucked out bliss like you were. 

“there we go,” he says after another agonizing few seconds, you can just make out the press of his balls against your ass when he looks down at you. his hands are cupped on the juncture between your neck and shoulders and you don’t get the time to wonder why when he uses his hold on you as leverage to pull his hips back and slam back into you, quickly building a rapid pace that has you screaming with nothing to ground you but the thin bed sheets that are threatening to rip apart in your fists. 

“a-aoi. i- n’ver been fuc-fugged this good,” you wail, being forced to take his brutal thrusts with how his hold on you doesn’t allow you to fidget up the mattress.

the compliment doesn’t fly over aoi’s head as he grins and leans down to lick at your open mouth, your tongue immediately flicking out for him to crudely lap at before he purses his lips and hacks a glob of spit onto your awaiting tongue. “yeah i can tell, cub. and you’ll never get anyone to fuck you this good again.” he says like it’s a promise.

like some cringy monologue, he gives a deranged speech with the sound of his hips slapping against yours as background music. “been wanting to fuck you since the very first day.” he releases one hand from your shoulder to decorate your thigh with a hard slap, “wanted to break you since then. didn’t think i’d get there because of how head plap fucking plap strong plap you are, but look at you now.” he sneers in a menacing look but he purses his lips and lands another serving of spit onto your barely open eyes. he chuckles breathlessly when your tongue makes a useless attempt to lick at the added warm puddle on your face. “my broken little fucktoy.” he praises demeaningly.

“aoi.” you breathe his name out like it’s the only sound you can make on top of the pathetic “nnh- don’t stop, please don’t stop. it’s too much… pl-please gimme more–”

in his mind, aoi promises to give you nothing if not more.

“you wan’ more, huh, cub? you think i have more to give you?” he returns his hand by your hip to your face, smothering you and mixing the mess of spit and sweat into your skin, “i’m over here wrecking your precious little cunt and you’re still asking for more? what more could you possibly want?”

“you– your cum… please aoi.” your mind has some semblance to come up with a logical answer quickly which doesn’t satify aoi as much as it should. without warning he pulls out and flips you around and rams his cock back inside you before you even get the chance to whine.

“let this be the arm workout you would’ve done today.” he bites into your earlobe as he speaks, hunching over you and pressing his sweaty chest against your just as sweaty back. “keep yourself up and then i’ll flood your stomach with my cum.” he promises before standing up on his knees, his hands tightly gripping your hips, he leans back and uses that momentum to thrust his hips upwards, cock slamming into you with no reprieve for you whatsoever. 

keeping his words in mind, you mindlessly babble your gratefulness to him as your arms wobble but stubbornly force yourself to stay up. it isn’t long until the head of his cock meeting your sensitive spot overwhelms you, your body tightening up and your arms feeling like jelly as you squeeze around his cock in an orgasm that you can’t hold back no matter how hard you try. “cumming, aoi. ‘mgumming!” you groan as your eyes flutter shut, body pretty much going lax at the powerful orgasm.

“keep your head up.” he takes a hand to cup your neck from the front, forcing your head upwards in a dangerous bend. “got so much fucking tighter, fucking sshh-it.” he grunts, granting you one two three more thrusts before his hips ram into you, cock expanding and deflating while warm cum fills up your inside. you almost swear you can feel it filling your womb up, a special place in your stomach that desperately drinks his cum like it has a mind of it’s own.

the room is filled with tired sounds of disbelief as you come down from your high. aoi is stock still, palming your ass as he throbs minutely inside you. he lands a harsh spank on your ass, causing you to yelp and fall to your face when your arms give out underneath you.

grunting his displeasure, he presses a hand down the small of your back as his hips rear back, ready to subject you to another round of his cock damaging your insides. “aoi… gimme a… sec…hah… i can’t–” you hide your face in your hands with a small wail, sanity crumbling with every slap from aoi’s hard hips to your softer in comparison ass cheeks.

his hand cups your throat again, squeezing it as a warning as he pulls you up to your hands again. “no, cub. i told you to keep yourself up. we’re not done for today until we do three more sets of this.” he grins at your whine as his hips pick up even more momentum. “what kind of gym buddy would i be if i didn’t push you to your limits, hm?”

[daman19942]

TSR CC Recommendations: TS2 Lot Builders

Nobody asked for this but I have a little time on my hands and I said I might do it, so here is a list of some TSR lot builders who I recommend checking out. A few notes under the cut before we get started (all details under the cut, as well, in case you aren't interested in my preamble):

This is not meant to be paid promotion for TSR. I believe TSR asking users to pay for their CC is ridiculous, especially for a 19 year old game they haven't supported in 7 years. But I spent many years uploading there during the peak-TS2 / pre-TS3 era and know there is great CC in their archives that newer players may not know about. And unlike TheSims2.com, which has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil, TSR's content is still available to freely download (assuming you can stomach the pop-ups and wait times)

This post will only be about lot builders because that was what I was primarily uploading and downloading in this era. I was friendly with some of the creators I am about to list, but none of them are still active members of the TS2 community.

The preview pics might be a little rough and the architecture styles will likely feel very dated compared to the most popular styles these days, which are more colorful, cluttered, and use 3t2 and 4t2 conversions. Re: the previews: too many of us were using free trials of PaintShopPro back then, and TSR limited us to 2 previews, so we did our best. Re: the styles: unlike pre-2010's CAS CC, which was full of hand painted and "realistic" textures (LOL), these are the same objects you can find in the game today, just being used in different ways! Sometimes for the first time! And, yes, while some of these creators used CC, it was mostly Homecrafter walls and floors, as you'll see below.

This was also the hey-day of CFE lot building, which has certainly fallen out of favor to more traditional builds (in part because graphics cards have improved and these types of builds don't look as good in 2024, and also because the great CFE experimenters, builders, and tutorial writers are no longer part of the community and their original discoveries are gone as well - I am happy to go down a massive rabbit hole on this piece of TS2 history if anyone else cares, but trust me, you don't have to care).

Alright that is enough caveating, here are some recs! (Links are in the creator's names and they take you to their Lots, though many of them have other creations, too).

Lord Tiko Speaking of great CFE builders! Lord Tiko built spaceships, boats, pagodas, domes, windmills and bridges, oh so many bridges before retiring mid-TS2 because of health issues. He was one of the first builders to take Daihtnaoz7's single and double bridge tutorials and apply them to really big lots. I'm still not sure how he built the Venice Rialto Bridge, or his other European water lots. Overall, a massive inspiration to me when I was prioritizing CFE builds.

Hatshepsut My favorite "traditional" home builder, and someone I considered a friend. She specialized in English and American builds, and I had many of Hat's houses in my old saves and was impressed by her range and decorating style which was (for the time) more varied than many of her peers. Knew how to take great preview pics of her houses, too.

Tigerblue Another builder I corresponded with, Tigerblue was probably the least prolific uploader on this list for sheer number of uploads, but she also crossed a range of styles. Her builds leaned way into specific styles (see the previews, these were all part of consistent sets of 3,4, or even 10 lots), but this was also what happened when a new EP dropped and everyone raced to uploaded builds using as many of the new objects and styles as possible. Tigerblue just happened to be better at it than most of us.

Cyclonesue Do current TS2 players know Cyclonesue? Because it's hard to think of someone who had a bigger impact on building and decorating of the era, first with her English and Tudor builds and later with her extremely distinct grunge creations. Seriously, check out her Urban Renewal series and the corresponding objects. Iconic stuff that surely now feels frozen in time. I probably only played 20% of her lots that I downloaded, but they still make for great hood decor. Like Tiko, someone who happily experimented with CFE.

Illiana The creator who inspired me to make this list is, ironically, the one on it who I know the least about (she is a Featured Artist but not in the Hall of Fame, whatever that means). I just started playing her Tri-Annyas fraternity house and have a few other lots floating around my game. She built in a range of styles, from classical to modern to Twikki Island to grunge. Revisiting some of them in-game, the TSR previews do not do them justice.

*EXHALES* If you made it to this point, kudos to you. I'm sure there are creators I've forgotten, and houses I haven't linked to, but this is a good starting point for digging into some of the eclectic builds the TSR(chives) have to offer (I just coined that, is it clever? It is not). Maybe I'll do a Part 2 if people like this.

If you have any favorites of your own, let me know what I missed! And as I do with my old Exchange re-uploads, I am tagging @sims2packrat and @oldasscustomcontent for general TS2 history awareness!

[freenos]

Ok maybe I do have more thoughts on the Medea interactions and how they reflect on Melinoe:

I’ve noticed that the discussion around Melinoe’s morality tends to focus on her proximity to the Olympians but I think there’s also something to be said about the moral grey area that witches fall under. She didn’t grow up in the House of Hades or Olympus, she grew up in the Crossroads and her perspective is influenced by the guidance of witches. And while Circe and Hecate are a little coy about their misdeeds, Medea stands out as the one who really owns the darker aspects of her craft and talks about the suffering she inflicts with pride. In contrast, Melinoe is…not pure but very invested in the idea of doing the right thing and being in the right. So there’s this contrast between them, Melinoe clings to moral justification for her task while Medea isn’t held back by moral dilemmas.

And I think part of that is because Medea pursues her craft to satisfy her own vengeful desires while Melinoe hasn’t gotten to fully explore her identity as a witch yet: They both use their craft in vengeful ways but Melinoe always has this degree of separation from the root conflict. (Nemesis gets at this idea quite a lot actually.) The titans are retaliating for things her family did long before she was born, yet Melinoe is tasked with cleaning up the mess. And when she does take time to herself, she often feels guilty about it. In contrast, Medea gets the satisfaction of personal revenge and is content to use her curses on anyone who gets on her bad side.

It’s that intent that differentiates Medea from Melinoe, I think. No matter how impressive her feats, Melinoe is ultimately a weapon wielded by someone else and lacks pure intent of her own so she often hints at feeling…morally conflicted when talking to Medea. While Medea draws her power from the “blackest of intent” , it seems like Melinoe is forcing a tough exterior, filling a role that doesn’t always come naturally to her. And she wants to know how Medea manages to pull it off so seamlessly. Medea’s “with practice!” line is funny but also, if Melinoe is going to eventually become the goddess of nightmares, maybe she will get there with practice…

I have a suspicion that her arc won’t be about “becoming the nicest person and making everyone proud” but instead, channeling her craft to achieve her own goals without seeking the approval of a higher authority or abiding by someone else's vision of the future. Not perfectly restoring the Age of Gods or the Golden Age of mortals but instead bringing about a different future. She may end up letting her compassion guide her but Prometheus doesn't call her an agent of good or evil, he calls her an agent of change. And it seems like witches in this game are portrayed as catalysts for transformation.

As her understanding of the world grows and shifts, I think it’s interesting that Medea is one of the people Melinoe looks up to and confides in. She asks Medea these very earnest questions about mortals and gods and Medea grants her a joyfully bleak perspective every time:

Medea also has this consistent tendency to disregard mortal suffering, to compare them to livestock and talk about them in terms of how poison-susceptible they are. I get the sense that Melinoe's perception of mortal weakness is influenced by these kinds of conversations:

Melinoe's understanding of the world is shaped by an interesting range of perspectives and is somewhat...shaky and incomplete for now. I think she isn't quite sure how to reconcile her more compassionate impulses and the responsibility that she's dedicated her life to:

Although she adheres to a very black-and-white set of beliefs for the sake of completing her task, there's also hints of uncertainty in her conversations, especially with Medea, a more experienced and self-assured witch. I think Melinoe's character development has the potential to go in a lot of interesting directions!

[maxwell-grant]

Since he’s probably Oswald’s closest Marvel equivalent, being a relatively-unpowered crime-boss who semi-frequently becomes Mayor… any thoughts on Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime?

It's a comparison that's frequently made by Big Two fans and it's easy to see where it comes from, certainly they're the most iconic gangster/mafioso villains in their respective companies, but I don't think Kingpin is the closest Marvel has to Oswald because A: If anyone has a prior claim on Comic Book Gangster, it's definitely him, and B: They simply don't work in comparable or equivalent fashion. You can even boil down a key difference to the fact that The Penguin is inherently a small man trying to be bigger, and The Kingpin is the biggest man who ever lived. That's not a joke about their sizes, that's how they operate as characters and villains: Oswald is underestimated, ridiculed, diminished, and driven in large part because of it. He is the underdog, he slips under the radar, he slips through the cracks, he is a cockroach who lives to thumb his nose and pull the rug under the bigger bastards who think they can step on him. Wilson Fisk IS the bigger bastard who steps on people, he is the biggest bastard in the world.

He is an unsurmountable force of crime at the top of every possible advantage that a criminal can possibly weaponize, he is a titan of wealth and privilege as willing and capable of crushing your skull with his bare hands as he is of murdering your entire social circle with a phone call. He is "the ill intent", the biggest and strongest gangster of all time, and even if there are bigger and stronger bastards than him, they certainly aren't gangsters like him, they certainly aren't meeting him in his playing field of choice. There isn't really a DC equivalent to Wilson Fisk - there were certainly attempts to make Luthor and Cobblepot more like him, there's no shortage of imitators or knock-offs like Blockbuster and Tobias Whale, but the Kingpin is a league of it's own among comic book gangsters. Like Luthor and Joker and Doom, like the top dogs of the genre, he's become an Archetype in his own right.

I talked about his Spiderverse version a little while back in regards to how much I liked him in that movie and what his design represented about him, Fisk as this black hole obelisk who drains the color of every room he's in and suffocates the world visually as well as metaphorically, far from the most interesting character in the movie but one that you can pin all these other more interesting things on, and I think that's also applicable to a lot of what he does as a Spider-Man villain. Now, he's a GREAT Spider-Man villain, easily one of the best, his arcs in Ultimate Spider-Man alone should be more than enough proof of concept for that, but even if he's not necessarily the most colorful or intimate or dangerous villain to hang a Spider-Man story on, he is maybe the most villain to hang a story on - the entirety of Marvel's street level vigilantes and organized crime exists under his shadow, and you can blow up his scope to the moon and back as a way to build up all the other characters you can squeeze more dramatic stuff out of. Whether it's in TAS, where he is so undisputably atop the pecking order that everyone else is bouncing off his fixed presence, or in the Insomniac games, where he stood tall as Peter's main villain for 7 years until the game begins with his downfall as a way to kick off all the strange new threats he'll be up against, Wilson Fisk is The Crime Man to rule all Crime Men, as entrenched and emblematic and secure in his kingdom of Manhattan as Dracula is to Transylvania and Dr.Doom is to Latveria.

Unlike the vast majority of Spider-Man villains who regularly enjoy redesigns and rewrites and do-overs, official and fan-made alike, Wilson Fisk is practically the same character in every iteration, there's very little need to seriously rethink or readjust who he is and how he does things because he is perfectly simple and perfectly timeless - we have now two Ultimate Spider-Man comic runs that have brought significant overhauls and revisions and new spins to established Spider-Man characters, and in both of them, Wilson Fisk is a major character, and he is completely and utterly unchanged from how he already works in the mainline universe. Even if you don't want to use Wilson Fisk, you can't neglect Wilson Fisk, you have to show how he fits into things, you have to show what he's up to or how he allows or makes way for what's happening without him, you have to give him his cut. This imutability of his is another thing I'd say is a major difference between him and Penguin - Oswald demands change, he demands growth and adaptability, he demands different surroundings more suited to him, he wants to grow and grow and make a nest that's suitable for him, he can't fit into existing systems so he breaks them to remake them as his own. That is simply not the case with Wilson Fisk.

Unlike The Penguin, unlike some of the other great comic book supervillains, Fisk has no intention whatsoever to change anything about how the world works - as far as he's concerned, it worked just fine up until these costumed irritants arrived, and even they just became another part of his conglomerate in time. Fisk really doesn't have or need any kind of big philosophy to justify himself, rather, he takes it as fact that he's operating under the way the world works and under a merit he's achieved by being the man he is. He is content within society's morality, because he is at the top of society and therefore that morality will always bow to him. The legions of costumed enemies orbiting his life are merely dissidents going against the order of things that places him at the top, tools to be used and bugs to be squashed and little more.

And this is true even of those whose power and scope stands above his own - they are not players in his game, and if they are, they are distractions, diversions, things that he can deal with. When he loses to billionaires like the Stromms in Zdarsky's run, when he has to playy ball with bigger villains, when he is ousted in a power play, it is humiliating, and he doesn't deal well with humiliations - but he can take humiliations, he knows he can give back, he can ultimately rebuild his pride as he rebuilds his empire time and time again. Spider-Man is annoying and powerful and infantile and annoying and an enemy and really really annoying, but he is no existential threat. He is not terribly concerned about Spider-Man, which is part of what makes him such a fun Spider-Man villain, that he never sees it coming when Spidey gets serious and just brings him down (peak example of this being Back in Black), that he is this larger-than-life bully/shitty grown-up who actually can and must be defeated. And if a lot of what makes him a fun and great Spider-Man villain is contingent in the ways that he doesn't lose sleep over Spider-Man, part of what makes him a stronger Daredevil villain is the precise opposite: he desperately wishes he could be this dismissive towards Daredevil, who is for all intents and purposes weaker than Spider-Man. It's his relationship with Daredevil that brings out the best of him as a villain and the worst of him as a person alike.

Against Spider-Man, the Kingpin is a very strong enemy, the figurehead of the kind of crime that is Spidey's daily routine, a powerful and oppressive force ruling over NYC who is nevertheless a step down from the Green Goblin or Dr Octopus or the Symbiotes and all those other genetic nightmares and obsessed masterminds that plague his life. No matter how clever or vile his schemes are, Spider-Man can still beat them, and Spider-Man can ultimately always triumph over him in a fight, and Fisk can always rebuild because Fisk builds empires as easily as most people breathe, and things rarely if ever get personal between him and Peter. Against Daredevil? There IS no bigger threat than Kingpin (well, The Hand I guess, but they're boring as shit), Kingpin is the mountain that Matt always crashes against in due time, and it is always personal. The Kingpin is his biggest and strongest enemy, able to run mental laps around Matt and someone that Matt cannot in fact beat in a fight, their battles are drawn out miserable slugfests where Fisk usually thrashes him around like a ragdoll with few conclusive victories and whatever victory Matt has is hard-won and usually via cheap shot.

Matt has an infinitely harder time dealing with Fisk than Spider-Man does, which is part of why it is Kingpin's appearences in Daredevil comics that made him comic book villain royalty: Matt has no real advantage against him other than his senses. He has no intellectual advantage, no physical advantage, and he can't even claim to be more determined or driven, Fisk is fueled by an equally horrendously powerful will and protectiveness towards what belongs to him, This City. There is nobody and nothing in the world that Matt hates more than Fisk, and there is nobody and nothing in the world that Fisk hates more than Matt. They've taken turns shattering each other to the point that those slugfests are the least of each other's offenses against each other.

Even besides the sheer accumulated history they have against each other, it's in the way they unforgivably violate each other's vision of the world. If the Kingpin was the invincible man of vision who loves the city and must steer it even if smaller people disagree with him, if he was truly so secure and untouchable at the top of the world, he wouldn't be having such a colossal hard time dealing with this one guy and he wouldn't be reduced to a base animal thug every time he shows up, let alone lose and be humiliated. If Wilson Fisk was as correct as he needs to be, if the strength of his love for Vanessa/the city/what belongs to him was as powerful as he wants it to be, Daredevil would never get the upperhand on him.

And if Daredevil is a man who dedicates himself 100% all the time to protecting the city and it's people, if Daredevil commits unlawful deeds to preserve human life and fight for justice, if Daredevil struggles with the innate contradictions and hypocrisies and nature of what he is and does but can nevertheless push past them all to do the right thing for others, every second the Kingpin lives, every second Fisk lives because he lets him, chips away at the assurance that he's doing the right thing, that he isn't just wasting time. If Daredevil's vision of the city was correct, if Daredevil was right about his beliefs and worldview, there wouldn't be a Wilson Fisk out there getting away with the things he does. They hate each other for that same fundamental reason: If the world was ruled by the principles I need it to be, in order for me to be who I am and do what I do, you wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't be in my way again and again.

As a Spider-Man villain, he is one of the greats, a core component of his world, a highly versatile and even necessary figure to have and an excellent villain to dictate proceedings. As a Marvel Universe villain, he is an indispensable facet of any criminal element, the Mt.Fuji that the streets of Marvel rest upon, someone who can be added to any storyline and be grafted into many characters to oppose or assist them, or even create and kill them. As a Daredevil villain, he is undeniable as one of the top supervillains, bordering on main character a lot of the time. An implacable unstoppable force of nature as well as a villain of history and brutality and drama and a character who brings intrigue and tragedy and even complexity, even as it all ultimately comes down to that raw hatred between them, the splinter in each other's eye, an infection in their world that just keeps taking and taking and taking without stopping.

It is an unforgivable offense to Wilson Fisk that there is a man out there so beneath him that he cannot break, cannot bend, cannot stop, and who makes such a mockery of everything he's built himself to be by existing, just as it is unforgivably offensive to Matt Murdock that there is a man out there named Wilson Fisk who thinks he has the right to be who he is, and do what he does. To be a man who not only cannot care about human life in any capacity other than what he thinks belongs to him, but whose continued existence attests to a world that validates him, that doesn't care about those lives either, where there is no accountability and no justice and no salvation that cannot be bought and sold. Fisk isn't just an embodiment of cruel, bottomless indifference, he stands for a world that agrees with him.

It would take too much work to defeat him, he just walks unscathed if you do, and even if you defeat him there will just be someone else to step in temporarily. And so it is with a heavy heart that the people of New York accept that the blood of countless runs through the streets, so long as the big man gets to give them their cookie at the end of the day for their hard work and agreeability. He is too big, too clever, too strong, and too invincible - and that's why Peter needs to stop him, that'd why Matt can never stop trying, that's why they can never let him be, otherwise Marvel New York would just be regular New York.

They'd have to accept a world where Wilson Fisk gets away with everything, and who could live with that?