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cup-o-stars · 3 months ago

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Relativity Falls Lore Concept- The Oracle and Bill

The Oracle:

I was initially inspired by the Twitter user @SUwu159's depiction of the Oracle in their take on Relativity Falls, and made my own adaptation as I learned about her in canon.

(Assume she can change colors because I couldn't pick what I liked most)

This version of The Oracle isn't malicious per se, and does not desire the same conquest or chaos sought out by Bill. But she likes universes to be organized and quaint (or answers to another high power that demands it), and finds fulfillment in achieving these goals through any means necessary.

The Oracle and Dipper:

(Sorry if this dialogue tastes like a corndog in your mouth. I just needed to write a semi-resolution to Dipper's side of the relationship, ha.)

Getting into the real struggle with the Pines family. Dipper and Mabel don't fight and hold grudges like the Stans (that we've seen of), so my opinion is that they drifted apart in their late teens and twenties, both feeling pressured to be less attached at the hip. My current belief (though I'm very willing to rewrite this section) is that Mabel and Dipper both poured a lot of energy into pretty niche fields, and being very busy meant very short and rare windows to reach out. Both assumed the other was doing bigger and better things and felt self conscious / childish for wanting eachother's company.

I'm still considering Mabel's backstory, since I think she probably hit lower points than Dipper. You know. Starving artist, lol. But Dipper entered into paranormal investigation, pest control, etc. before his ghost + monster catching went far enough for his name to gain some notoriety. Hell, maybe Pacifica's family reached out to him to take care of "rats" that were actually ghosts, cementing his interest in Gravity Falls and giving him a window inter supernatural work.

Dipper was taken on as something of an apprentice to the Oracle 30ish years before canon as word of his good and dangerous deeds spread. However, what was at first a personal dream come true (saving lives with nerd magic) soon became a personal hell as the Oracle began to overwhelm Dipper with knowledge of various futures and universes where everything he cared about could be destroyed. He's always been over prepared and incredibly paranoid, and became obsessed with protecting the world by acting as a partner to the Oracle.

He ends up doing- or not doing- a lot of morally ambiguous things and gaining a lot of enemies. He is too ashamed to face his family- especially Mabel- with what he's done and burden them, giving the Oracle more to use against him to keep him working for her. Basically "you've already done all this and risked it all, there's nowhere to go if you stop now." Eventually this ends in her seeing him fit for her work and convincing him to hide out in and save other universes, which he gets trapped doing for the next three decades.

Little throw away idea: Pacifica could have been an investor or partner, but left as they uncovered secrets about the Northwest family. Maybe she wanted to undo something (debating making any of the Oracle's powers time related just because I hate time travel) or stop a current show of corruption, but Dipper had to stop her for the "greater good."

In the main universe, Mabel goes to Gravity Falls upon news of her brother's disappearance, searching for any loose end to trace back to him.

I love that in canon, Dipper is willing to do anything for Mabel, and Mabel gives it back. Dipper here spends all of his life keeping as many versions of her as safe as he can, and she spends all her life trying go seek him out- maybe even dropping a larger opportunity outside of Gravity Falls for her art and settling on business at the shack. Dipper wants Mabel alive, Mabel wants them both happy. I like the idea that it's Dipper and Mable vs. The Future but the future is a demon, alien thing.

Which leads me to...

Bill Cipher:

I'm actually gonna cover a couple versions of Bill I think are fitting for this AU, because I initially wasn't sure if I wanted him here at all.

Child Bill:

Pretty straight forward. Bill as a baby, child thing is tempting and this is the au where he'd exist. Personally though, I think Ford's friendship with Fidds would be more enriching to his growth, and Bill's personality is so close to Stan's they would likely be competing to fill very similiar roles. (If Bill behaves differenty as kid, I don't know about it.) Honestly, Bill is super similiar to Ford and Stan, and works better as a kind of foil or antagonist because of that (imo). I do find the mental image of Ford carrying Bill around funny. I do not enjoy human bill like, conceptually, so I'm probably never gonna design one as an adult or child, lol.

It would be cool to see a world where Bill didn't accidentally kill his parents though.

Bill - Reincarnated Original

Technically I guess they could all be reincarneted (especially baby Bill), but this version of Bill experienced and holds memories of the original canon events in GF. Beings like Bill and the Oracle can remember recent/soon approaching lives, and catch glimpses of more distant cycles as well.

What I like about Bill's recent role as an antagonist to Ford and Stan is that he constantly describes them in the terms of their worst traits, and sees them through the lens of the roles the world placed on them. In this AU, Bill is the epitome of the past (in this case a past life) coming back to bite the twins. He rattles their progress in communication as well as their sense of inner peace by bringing old Glass Shard Beach issues into Gravity Falls.

(Depicted here-> moments after Ford summons Bill using the same ritual as Gideon.)

The drawback to this is that it feels a lot like covering old ground.

Simply Bill:

This is pretty much just regular old Bill with the same fresh perspective as everyone else, and also the one I'm going with. He tried and failed to get Dipper's trust in the past and had to lay low at the arrival of the Oracle. Once they left, Bill targeted Mabel. I think it could be very interesting for Mabel and Bill to either have a fresh relationship wherein Bill is actively taking advantage of her desperation to find Dipper, or for Bill to be an old betrayal (not romantic, but not dissimilar to the opportunistic exes Stan and Ford have to be wary of and beat back under the rug regardless).

Either he shows himself to Mable early on, or decides that Gravity Falls is both Oracle-free and worth the time after either Ford or Mable summon him. Afterall, 30 years isn't much to him.

Maybe he exists in the background like he's always done, or the kids (being snoopy and disrespectful of Mabel's secrets) discover what Mabel's doing and run into him on their own.

Whether Bill is aware of the original series or not, I think he could be neat to stick in between Stan and Ford again for conflict. My favorite aspect about Relativity Falls is the prospects of the Stans having a larger support system and better tools to help themselves with. Beating Bill faster and better would be the ultimate testament to Mabel and Dipper's skills as functioning role models, even if Mabel is currently blinded by her focus on Dipper.

Stan and Ford will fight and they will make up, but this time maybe they can overcome it on their own.

I also think a good idea is having Ford and Stan's issues be completely Bill free (outside of like an episode or two's worth of relevance, unless he put them into a particularly stinging situation). It would feel fresher and also streamline the plot, lol.

Overview:

- Dipper is stuck travelling the multiverse with the Oracle and keeps himself sane by thinking of Mabel and protecting various versions of her.

- Mabel is investigating his disappearance in Gravity Falls and is working on a portal/portal equivalent with Bill to bring him back.

- The kids may or may not be aware of this.

Looking at the main series of events, I think it'd be neat go back to the apprenticeship conflict, where Ford could be approached by the Oracle (or something else that makes sense) with the promise of being a "hero," but knows better now because of Dipper and his experiences with Bill. It's kind of a more convoluted version of Ford's proposal to Dipper in canon, and they basically learn the same thing, lol. You can hang out with ghosts if you want, but demons are gonna get you. Maybe being a child with siblings is all you need.

(Stan could also be offered this, given the Oracle already knew he- or at least someone with his face- would beat Bill, but I think it's well established he isn't very interested in doing anything without family.)

All in all, things might be a bit crowded with two antagonists. But I do like the concept of Bill's arrival and subsequent chaos triggering Dipper and the Oracle's return to Mabel's dimension. I also love the idea of Bill, the Oracle, and some secret third thing all trying to pull the Pines family apart, and it's like a Man vs. God turned into a Family vs. Destiny thing, idk. Just trying to make it feel bigger.

Thank you for reading all this. It was a lot to draw. Next time I do anything for Relativity Falls, I'm gonna go back to the smaller things like Mabel bonding with the kids and stuff like that.

#fanart #drawing #gravity falls #relativity falls #relativity au #bill cipher #the oracle #oracle #dipper pines #mabel pines #stanford pines #stanley pines #i'm tired #long post #you don't have to read it #but pretty please look at the shitty drawings #they took my a long time collectively

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notherpuppet · 11 months ago

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I know they’re probably not going to go into this (which i understand, there’s only so much time in an episode and they’re telling a different story) but I think about Al’s background a LOT. Get ready if ur in the mood for a read.

To be a mixed Black person in America is a…bizarre experience. You come to realize that due to the coincidence of your genetic makeup, white folks may divulge information that they keep so closely guarded from the ears of “more obvious-looking” black folks. Im gonna bring it back to Alastor, but lemme give some personal context. I’m mixed with Filipino, so I’m pretty obviously not white, yet my ambiguous ethnic makeup in a predominantly white suburbia seemed to make white peers and people feel much more at ease in relaying their criticisms or prejudices of black people to me. I would hear someone feel comfy enough to spew vitriolic racist shit with me, then toe the line like a circus acrobat when around someone a few shades darker in skin tone and a few coils curlier in hair texture. It was constantly infuriating and holding my tongue was a practice to both investigate someone’s true nature and preserve my own safety. I did abandon that method of navigating life in America, and experienced the switch-up white folks made when I started ‘broadcasting’ my blackness. (E.G. beyonce pre vs. post Lemonade). The criticisms and prejudice confessions just came less often, til I saw them being caged up completely after white peers experienced backlash from me. After they realized “OH this bitch is a n*****!?”

Now this is from someone who is brown, but i also wanna talk about my white-passing cousin with a similar racial makeup as Al, who is from the south and oh BOY. (Let’s call him J for this post’s purposes). J’s navigation though simple daily life is such a constant contradictory experience, of which he is still working through in therapy. I think of one moment when he was manager at retail gig and his boss told him that whenever a Black customer enters, it’s policy to give them “exceptionally attentive customer service”. Essentially, ��follow that n***** around”. This is just one modern incident of when J would hear the quiet part out loud, despite his Blackness, because his appearance was white enough to make white folks drop their guard. Eventually, my cousin and I took to the same direction where we used our advantage of disarming white folks against them when the time came. We would keep note and record of racism and unlock a sort of “this you?” when the opportunity to expose that person’s true nature came. It’s pretty vengeful thinking ngl, but it is really REALLY hard to resist exposing an asshole rather than attempting to teach an asshole to change their ways. Especially given that such an attempt is an ARDUOUS uphill battle. The experience of KNOWING the truth about what someone thinks of your people, and being opened to opportunities and information that you would not have access to if the chance of your genetics was only slightly different is bIZARRE, horrific, and fuel for constant inner turmoil. (It sucks y’all)

Now back to Alastor; to have been a mixed person in the Deep South in 1930s America—it’s not too difficult for me to imagine how traumatic and convoluted that experience must have been. Especially when legally and socially, things were so much more Black and White. And when you’re on the line in between that, when society does not prepare a place for your existence, it can be SO isolating. You may consider the absurdity of such an arbitrary method of determining class, status, and/or caste much earlier in life than peers, which only further isolates you. You hold a resentment of society now that you know exactly how the other side is operating to ensure your oppression.

And then I think of Al’s weird ass moral code. How he arrived in Hell and (according to Mimzy) began killing overlords with reckless abandon. This is someone who likely had to develop the cunning to navigate 1930s Deep South America as a mixed, murdering, psychopath without getting caught by authorities who are already gunning for you. And now he is in Hell where the rules of society have gone up in smoke and he can fully embrace his rage, resentment, and vengeance. A desire to burn down the powerful people of the world can be accommodated and ANY previous inhibitions can finally be released. The morality of rising above someone by cutting them down (instead of developing emotional/spiritual healing) has become the easier and satisfying option. Finally the opportunity to show the power-secure villains of the world how easily you can tear them down when nothing is holding you back any longer.

TLDR; The trauma of racism in America is pretty sufficient cannon fodder for a severe psychotic break, the development of socially debilitating behaviors and isolation, and a quest for profound vengeance. So maybe that can explain some of the enigma that is Alastor.

And this is just ONE facet of Al. I didn’t even get to bring up the isolation that comes with being an aroace nonbeliever in the 1930s Deep South. Like FUCK. I’m a mixed, aroace nonbeliever from a modern day conservative town and yall….what a weird experience for sure lol but anyway lemme get back to my life. Whole point of this was—-WHAT AN INTERESTING FUCKEN CHARACTER TO THINK ABOUT

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin hotel spoilers #it’s an alastor analysis yalllll #character analysis gives my media and art engagement brain the wiggles #also I hate racism!!!! :)

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inbarfink · 1 year ago

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Any analysis of how Undertale deals with Pacifism and how it tries to guide the Player towards it has to take a deep look at Papyrus. Because Papyrus is the one character in the game who will never kill, the one actual ‘True Pacifist’ in the game’s main cast.

I mean, the Player can be an even bigger Pacifist. Papyrus does still FIGHT, and the Player can get through an entire run without draining a single sliver of HP. But… they can also be the world’s biggest murderbastard and literally stab reality to death.

Toriel would very much like to not kill, but she is also fully capable of doing so.

Same with Asgore, but he has a lot more actual blood on his hands. Undyne and Mettaton are both fully 100% willing to kill to accomplish their goals. Sans is non-violent in most runs because he’s too lazy and depressed to do anything, and when he is motivated into actions - it is in the form of a FIGHT to the death. Alphys… the timeline is a bit fuzzy cause both she and Mettaton love lying so much, but it seems like she did sincerely add deadly weapons to Mettaton cause killing humans would make him more 'useful' and then had second thoughts once she developed a parasocial relationship with the Human Child and THEN she and Mettaton started hatching their little play-acting plan. I think??

With Papyrus there is NONE of this ambiguity, we know for sure - no matter what timeline or what may come - The Great Papyrus will always choose MERCY.

And the interesting thing about that is on a Meta-Sense, Papyrus is a very rare example of the game giving MERCY towards the Player.

Because the game starts out being really obtuse with the Sparing mechanic and how it works. If you want to be a Pacifist in Undertale from the get-go, you’re gonna have to work for it. You're gonna have to figure it out on your own and commit to it and believe that it's possible. It's basically a test of your own belief in non-violence and your moral integrity. Then, the RUINS end with the Toriel boss battle - in a way, that’s probably the hardest Sparing puzzle in the whole game. And it’s very very easy to accidentally kill her. (I’d almost say that’s the intention of the battle, to try to goad the Player into Resetting so they can see how the game remembers across RESETs)

And then we have Papyrus, and it’s not just that his ‘Sparing Puzzle’ is something as simple as outlasting him and letting him run out of dialogue - and it’s not just that he’s the only boss that will just give up and let you continue if you lose to him enough times. it’s also that, just as Papyrus is the only boss incapable of accidentally killing the Player - he’s also the only boss that the player is incapable of accidentally killing.

(Okay, fine, to be pedantic, there’s also Asgore)

I mean, the Player can certainly kill him if they want to - but draining Papyrus’s HP just makes him skip through his battle dialogue right to the end of it. It’s designed in such a way that, no matter what Route you're on and no matter what approach you take with Papyrus - you will always end up on this screen.

Unlike basically any other Monster in this game, including the major boss battle just before him - you can’t kill Papyrus accidently. You can't kill him without also having Sparing him as an option. The game kinda treats killing Papyrus as one of the Worst Things You Can Do because killing Papyrus will always be a deliberate, considered action done to a person who will not kill you and who has stopped wanting to FIGHT and has extended a hand of Mercy. With the game clearly communicating what you need to do to Spare him at that moment.

And that means that - even if you killed before, even if you don’t have the patience of a True Pacifist, even if you spent all this time in the game without even trying to engage with the Sparing mechanic… as long as you don’t want to be a Huge Rat Bastard, the game is basically gifting you with the very very easy option to not be. Being a Pacifist in Undertale is usually a challenge - a puzzle to be solved, a test to pass. But as long as you aren’t intentionally trying to be the Worst Person - the game is basically giving you Papyrus.

If you accept his Mercy, you are accepting the game’s Mercy. That sort of benefit-of-the-doubt assumption that maybe all of the LOVE you might have accumulated so far was all due to honest mistakes or panic or an attempt in self-defense. That you still deserve this one chance to prove that you are not intentionally, maliciously cruel - or at least not like the Worst Person in the World. Even if you did kill before, you still deserve at least one friend.

And Sparing Papyrus leads you to his wonderful Hangout/Dating Sequence and to his Phone Calls and they all add so much wholesome charm to the Undertale experience and no matter what happens Papyrus will always think the best of the Player and he will always trust them and it also makes Sans also kinda your buddy by default. And more than just adding a little bit of wholesome charm into even the more LOVE-filled Playthroughs, I think this is meant to try and incentivize these players into trying out the Mercy mechanic a bit more.

Whatever it’s, like, for future playthroughs or Resetting the game right there to try a True Pacifist Run right there and then or just trying to be a little kinder for the rest of this current playthrough - especially since there’s an emphasis about the close friendship Papyrus has with the upcoming boss Undyne, and to a lesser extent with his idol and next-next boss battle Mettaton. It’s like “well, if you didn’t figure out how to spare before, this is how you do it? And isn’t it nice to have a friend? Isn’t it nice to not have to kill this lovable skeleton man? You should do this more often wink wink nudge nudge!”

And it’s like… all of Papyrus’ loved ones care about him so much but they also look down on his pacifism. They see his inability to kill and desire to make friends as simple naivete and that’s why all tend to hide the truth from him all the time. About what will happen to the Human he will capture, about what his new Human friend might’ve done, about the fact that they view him as so naïve.

They admire it on some level, that’s why they want to protect it, but they also see it as a weakness which is why they want to protect it by lying to him all the time. But, you know, Undyne says that if Papyrus goes into battle he’ll be ‘ripped into little smiling shreds’ and that is certainly what happens every time a Player chooses to refuse Papyrus’ Mercy and the game’s Mercy and press that FIGHT button…

But have you thought about all the times that doesn’t happen? All the careless or violent players who were offered that skeletal hand of friendship, accepted it and then carried that offered kindness forward for the rest of the game? All the players motivated to do good for the sake of their buddy Papyrus? All the Murder Routes stopped because the player just didn’t have it in them to kill someone who believes in them so earnestly?

Like, no, it’s not a surefire thing - especially since Papyrus has so much less narrative power than the Actual Unkillable Time God that is the Player. But it happened, and it happened many many times to many players. Papyrus offered Mercy, the game offered Mercy. And much like Frisk’s Pacifism, it comes from a place of seeing the honest goodness in your ‘enemy’ and can inspire them to become a better person - this little sparkle of goodness being passed forwards.

And I think that’s beautiful, even if it didn’t happen in every timeline. Any potential future where Papyrus’ kindness can have such an effect on the Player and thus the entire trajectory of the Underground validates his kindness and pacifism on some level - even if there are also always the potential worlds that it backfires completely.

And there’s also one other way in which the Great Papyrus Proves Pacifism Pays. One that is a bit more practical, perhaps. And one that Papyrus himself is not even aware of.

Papyrus’ boss battle can be a surprisingly challenging one specifically because he is the only one who doesn’t kill the Player.

Like there is a reason why Papyrus will just offer you to skip his Fight after you lose to him three times, because if he didn’t do that - there’s an honest risk that the Player can get stuck in a much stuckier way than anywhere else in the game.

Because, like, for basically any other character in the game, being killed is the Worst Thing that could ever happen to them. For everyone except the actual Player Character because we are an Actual Unkillable Time God and dying is nothing more than a minor annoyance that sets you back to your last SAVE Point. So, leaving aside Papyrus’ admirably kind intentions - there is not much material difference from the Player’s perspective between getting Captured and getting a more traditional GAME OVER. Except…

Except getting Captured does not undo everything that happened in your inventory during the battle. In every other Undertale battle, if you use all of your items but still lose - the GAME OVER at least means you get your stuff back. But because Papyrus doesn’t kill you, any healing item you’ve used during the battle is still used. I have watched so many Undertale Let’s Players waste all of their valuable items on their first Papyrus battle and then have to face him again without them and thus do even worse in their second go… and then their third go... and thankfully then Papyrus offers them to skip the fight.

And while that technically can be circumvented by just manually closing the game and opening it back again on their pre-battle SAVE Point, a lot of players are gonna reflexively Save over it if they pop over to the Shop or the Snowed Inn before their second attempt at the battle. If Papyrus didn’t offer that chance to skip his battle, it could’ve easily become a softlock situation for a huge chunk of players - because he doesn’t kill the Player.

Most of Undertale deals with the value of non-violence from a standpoint of morality and kindness and personal connections. Since most people do die when they get killed. But when dealing with an Unkillable Time God like the Player, Papyrus proves that not-killing might actually be the most practical solution.

Of course, it doesn’t seem like Papyrus is aware of any of this. From his perspective, he is just offering genuine mercy to a being just as ephemeral as he is. But it accidentally turned into one of the most effective methods of blocking the Player’s way… at least he didn’t offer us an opt out so soon after that.

And it’s interesting when comparing him to how his brother Sans - one of the few people actually aware of the existence of SAVEs and RESETs - deals with the Player. Because the Sans boss battle at the end of the Murder Route is entirely based on the concept that death is nothing but an annoyance to the Player. Sans is less trying to kill the Player (the way Undyne the Undying did), he is simply trying to annoy the Player into a ragequit. But he is still killing the Player.

Now imagine a Sans battle where he has all of his usual annoying tricks, but also instead of killing you - he captures you just like his brother would’ve in a happier timeline. And while it’s not a fool-proof plan to stop the Player in their tracks - he could very easily stick them in that sort of softlock situation where they have to battle him again and again without any Healing Items. Forcing them to either abandon the game or RESET the whole world back the way it was - just like Sans wants them too.

But instead, by killing the Player, he is just allowing that perfect second-third-fourth-fifth-sixth-try where they get all of their Stuff back. And he does actually knows that. And why doesn’t he do that? (Speaking here from an in-universe character study perspective. Obviously the Doylist answer is that the game doesn’t want to Softlock you even in the most deliberately-frustrating part of the game).

Maybe, even though he intellectually knows that killing the Player will be of no help - he still does it because he wants to. Because he just wants to get back at the evil murderous monster that took his brother from him and destroyed his entire world even if he knows it’s actually ineffective. And this thirst for bloodshed is, ironically, blinding him from a new exciting way to actually practically stop that murderous bastard who is themself motivated entirely by bloodshed.

Maybe he just can’t do something like that. Reducing an enemy to exactly one HP and then stopping is not a feat anyone else in the game is capable of pulling off - even the ones who would obviously use such a thing (like Toriel or a Player with a Pacifist intentions). Maybe it’s something that requires a lot of hard practice and discipline and carefulness, that Sans never thought to put in because he didn’t see it as a useful skill the way Papyrus did.

Maybe that wouldn’t have worked anyways. After all, and that’s something I kinda touched on in a previous Overly Long Rambly Hot Take - Sans’ War of Attrition against the Player is greatly helped by the fact he can’t remember every single previous try and so he can’t get exhausted the way the Player can get. Obviously, without a GAME OVER induced RESET that will not apply. Which is especially notable because… Sans’ laziness is literally what brings him down at the end of that Boss Battle.

So maybe, while Papyrus, as long as you decline his offer to skip the battle, is capable of offering just the same Battle as before over and over and over again.... It’s possible that Sans just won’t be able to pull off two or three or more battles of the same intensity and difficulty in a row without a RESET to undo his own exhaustion.

But I think it’s at least worth considering the option, y’know? That after all this time of viewing Papyrus’ kindness as sweet-and-yet-kinda-foolish-naïveté - that exact viewpoint made Sans overlook the perfect solution to dealing with his little Murderous Time God problem. Cause he just never considered that while killing might be fully morally justifiable in this situation and very very satisfying, that does not necessarily mean it is actually the most practical solution. And that maybe, in a weirdly twisted way, Pacifism WAS the answer.

#undertale #ut #utdr #under tale #papyrus #the great papyrus #papyrus undertale #papyrus ut #sans #sans undertale #sans ut #sans the skeleton #papyrus the skeleton #undertale analysis #undertale meta #genocide route #genocide run

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paradiseprincesss · 5 months ago

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forever, not maybe | jonathan crane

hello hello! sorry i haven't been posting as much i've been busyyy and a little burnt out if i'm being honestttt but enough about me. when i say "catwoman mask" in this fic - i was thinking of the lace one ariana grande wore for tbim music video lol anyway...i had "off to the races" on repeat while writing this <3

summary: you have a secret life as catwoman that you've been keeping away from your boyfriend, jonathan crane. however, it seems he has a secret life of his own, too...

warnings: smut, p in v, fingering, choking, kissing, swearing, MDNI 18+ ONLY

word count: 3.6k

masterlist

“i’m working late tonight,” jonathan said over the phone with a sigh.

“again?” you asked your boyfriend, trying to feign the sadness in your voice.

jonathan had been working late night shifts at the asylum for the last few months; so often that you swore he saw his patients more than he did you. naturally, you missed him. all you wanted was to be in his arms again, laid up in bed as he held you and told you how much he loved you.

but the extra time away from him gave you more time for your…hobbies.

of course you felt guilty lying to your boyfriend about your whereabouts or what you were doing — but you couldn’t risk him finding out about you being catwoman.

every time you told him you were going to sleep, you’d really be getting ready to commit a heist, or worse, find batman and reign chaos in the city just to spite him. you’d always tell jonathan the reason you were so tired all the time was because you were having trouble sleeping when he wasn’t there — but alas, it was because you were out on crime sprees until five in the morning.

“i’m sorry, darling. i wish i could be at home with you right now,” jonathan said softly, his voice tinged with guilt.

“i know, jon. it’s okay — i think i'm gonna go to bed now. it’s late,” you replied, trying to sound exhausted as you yawned. “see you in the morning, baby.”

“see you then, darling,” jonathan said softly, “i love you.”

“i love you too,” you sighed, hanging up the phone.

as soon as you hung up the phone, you jumped out of bed and rushed to put on your catsuit. after you threw on your fitted outfit along with the matching mask, you were sneaking out your window in mere seconds, creeping off into the dark, crime-filled city that was gotham.

tonight, you were on the prowl for a certain villain though — the scarecrow.

the two of you had had a mutual distaste for each other. he’d once told you that you were “too morally ambiguous,” as sometimes you’d be robbing banks and committing heists, whereas other times you’d aid batman in the saving of gotham city. you thought he was full of shit, and you made sure to remind him that his plan to poison the entirety of gotham city with his fear toxin would never work every chance you got.

the two of you had a strange dynamic — always messing with one another's plans and such, but last week, things seemed to have changed between you and him.

it all started when he came to pay you a visit after you’d robbed two men at gunpoint, stealing their cards and some cash out of pure boredom. you heard footsteps behind you as you were counting stacks of cash, and once you glanced back, you saw the scarecrow himself approaching you in the quiet parkade you stood in.

the two of you never stopped to talk very much, as usually each interaction lasted no more than a few minutes, but tonight, neither of you were in a rush to leave. the scarecrow looked at you through the eye holes of his burlap mask, and for a moment, you felt oddly comforted by his presence.

“catwoman,” he said, looking down at the cash in your hands, “we meet again.”

“we meet all the time,” you retaliated, hearing his distorted voice through his mask.

“we do, yes,” he replied casually, “but i’ve never gotten the chance to speak to you alone like this.”

“that’s because you’re always interrupting me when i'm busy,” you teased, looking up at him with a small smile.

you noticed he stopped talking to look closely at you, almost as if he was analyzing you. picking you apart detail by detail, his blue eyes trailing over every single inch of you. his eyes darted over the lace covering your eyes before he narrowed them, inhaling sharply.

“...has anyone told you that you have a pretty smile?” he asked quietly, and you almost had to get him to repeat himself out of disbelief.

“did i hear you correctly?” you asked, attempting to clarify what exactly he was trying to get at. “did you just compliment me?”

“it would appear that way,” he said with amusement.

you stood there staring at him for a few seconds, unsure of what to say before you scoffed, waving his compliment off.

“i have a boyfriend,” you huffed.

“a boyfriend?” he teased, his blue eyes widening under his mask. “is that so?”

you hummed in agreement, flipping through the dollar bills in your hands. “i love him. a lot.”

“i see,” he said once more, “i forgot to mention that i saw you last week, by the way.”

“did you?” you asked nonchalantly.

“sneaking out of your apartment window at midnight — i wonder if your boyfriend knows what you do when he’s not home.” he teased, causing you to stop what you were doing as your heart raced.

“you know where i live?” you tilted your head to the side to emphasize your confusion, causing him to chuckle softly.

“that i do,” he shrugged, “and dare i say, you really are quite the beauty when you don’t have this lacy little mask covering your face.”

he gestured to your mask, causing you to roll your eyes which were partially hidden by the lace. “i told you i have a boyfriend,” you said harshly.

“i can’t help but wonder what he would think if he saw you like this — stealing from the innocent people of gotham city.” you could almost hear him smirking through his mask by the way he talked. “hm?”

“well — i don’t plan on telling him,” you sneered, causing the scarecrow to chuckle.

“so feisty,” he purred. “tell me about this ‘boyfriend’ of yours.”

you crossed your arms, still holding the cash in your hand as you let out an annoyed sigh. “he’s a doctor,” you said, not-so-subtly bragging, “and…as much as i wish i could tell him about what i do, i don’t think he’d approve.”

he nodded, taking in everything you were saying.

“but you don’t need to know the intimate details of my love life — quit asking.” you said, shaking your head as you shook the thought of jonathan out of your mind for the time being.

the scarecrow looked at you with intrigue, taking a step closer to you. as you took in all the details of his suit, you couldn’t help but notice how oddly familiar it looked — you’d sworn that you had seen this exact suit before.

“you must really love him, don’t you?” he asked casually with a shrug. “well, maybe he knows more than he’s letting on.”

“i highly doubt that,” you sighed, realizing it was time to head home since jonathan would be back soon. “i have to go.”

he nodded, looking at you with those strikingly blue eyes before turning around and disappearing into the shadows. you stood there for a few moments quietly, struggling to understand why he felt so familiar yet so distant to you at the same time — it almost felt like you’d known him for ages.

once you got home, you quietly reached for your front door before realizing it was locked. you’d made your way out tonight through the window, but when you looked up at it, you realized that there was no way you would be able to climb that high and get through it from the outside.

“need some assistance?” a familiar voice called from the bottom of your porch stairs. once you quickly turned around in a panic, you saw a certain scarecrow peering up at you.

“what are you doing here?” you asked in a hushed whisper. “my boyfriend is going to see you. he’s supposed to be home from work any second!”

“relax,” he commented, making his way up the porch stairs. reaching into his suit pocket, he pulls out a shiny piece of metal — a key. “i just want to help you, is that so wrong?”

as he unlocked the front door and swung it open, you harshly grabbed his wrist, pulling him closer to you.

“and why do you have a key to my boyfriend's house?” you asked with irritation.

“because,” he said, his voice no longer distorted, “i live here.”

your grip remained on his wrist as he spoke softly to you, and your eyes met with his brilliantly blue ones — you only knew one person who had eyes that striking. you almost felt silly for not realizing sooner, but to be fair, he’d only come to realize who you really were just last week.

it all made sense now — the “late” shifts at arkham, the way he’d sometimes come home bruised and bloodied (which he said was because of his “violent” patients), and the way he’d always avoided talking about work with you every time you’d asked.

he shut the door behind the both of you as you gently let go of his wrist, looking at him in awe as he turned back around to face you. you still had your catwoman mask on, and he was still wearing his scarecrow one. you stared at him in silence, almost at a loss for words before you finally spoke up quietly, your eyes still locked with his blue ones.

“you’re…” you trailed off, reaching up to tug at his mask, wanting nothing more than to take it off. “you’re the scarecrow…”

“and you’re catwoman,” he teased as your fingers ghosted the edge of his mask.

“shut up,” you blushed, “and take this off.”

you gestured to his mask, but he shook his head as he stared at you through the eye holes. “i have an idea,” he suggested, “why don’t you make your way to the bedroom and wait for me, if you’re not too tired.“

“you cannot possibly be suggesting what i think you’re suggesting—”

“i am,” he said lowly. “...if you want to.”

without another word, you bit your lip and nodded, making your way to your shared bedroom excitedly. it was almost thrilling, the way he was commanding you and telling you to behave. it’s not that jonathan wasn’t bossy during sex (or in general if we’re really being honest here), but the added excitement of knowing your smart, calm, doctor boyfriend had a not-so-innocent side made it so much better.

you sat obediently on the edge of the bed waiting for him. he eventually joined you, still in his scarecrow mask and suit, eyeing you down.

“i’m sorry i didn’t make it clear,” he stated, “but i wanted you waiting with nothing on.”

“but you’re—“ you tried to protest, as he was still fully clothed.

“be quiet,” he growled, grabbing you by the throat, “unless you want a taste of my fear toxin, hm?”

you swallowed, nodding as the grip around your neck made you dizzy, and you did as you were told to do. he watched you closely, looking at you through those eerie eye holes of his mask as you undressed hastily.

“slower,” he said, “give me a little show, won’t you sweetheart?”

you almost choked on your words when he spoke — you were enjoying it, though. something about your usually calm, collected, gentle boyfriend acting like this was triggering something primal in you.

as you stripped down into nothing but your bra and underwear — which were matching, by the way — his pupils went wide at the sight. you sat back on the bed in your lacy undergarments, and he took a few steps closer, not yet getting on the bed with you.

“you really are perfect, you know?” he spoke softly, even though he looked rather intimidating, but it had you rubbing your thighs together.

“light of my life,” you breathed. “that’s what you are.”

“is that right, my darling?” he asked, his voice giving away that although he was acting tough and composed — he was crumbling because of you. “are you forever mine?”

“forever yours,” you replied with no hesitation.

jonathan made his way over to you, grabbing your face gently as he stood at the edge of the bed.

“i love you,” you whispered, and his grip on your face softened.

“darling,” he rasped, “lay back on the bed for me.”

you do as you’re told, laying back on the bed as he joins you, his hands immediately snaking behind your back to unclasp your lacy bra.

“angelic,” he breathed, speaking softly. “how are you real?”

his last words were so quiet, you barely heard him through the burlap mask covering his head. you were sprawled out on the bed, back resting on the pillows as his hands reached to tweak your nipples softly, causing you to moan quietly. he was hovering above you, propped up on his arms and studying your every reaction as he took in the way your body responded to his touch.

suddenly, his hand brushed up against the lace of your panties, teasingly dragging his fingers across your skin. you let out a soft whine, shifting your hips slightly out of habit. “please,” you whispered, “touch me — scarecrow.”

as the words left your mouth, he was tearing your underwear clean off of you, causing you to get incredibly turned on — as if you weren’t soaking through your panties already.

jonathan brushed his fingers against your sticky folds before slowly inserting one of his fingers into your tight hole, causing you to let out a vulgar moan as he toyed with your cunt.

he continued to stare down at you as your back was pressed into the pillows, giving him a perfect view of your face as he watched from above. you let out a mewl as he started to pump a single digit in and out of your dripping cunt, your cheeks flushed a pretty pink shade.

“m-mm, oh my god—!” you moaned, feeling him curl his finger in a way that made your back arch. he let out a low hum before inserting a second digit, causing you to gasp.

“jon,” you breathed, “f-fuck, yes—“

“i know, darling,” he cooed, watching you as he pumped two digits in and out of your tight, warm hole. “it’s a lot for your tight little cunt to take. i know, but don’t worry — i'll get you nice and stretched out before i bury my cock inside of you.”

his filthy words caused you to tighten up around his fingers, making him let out a low chuckle from behind his burlap mask. “someone likes it dirty, hm?” he teased, and you let out a breathless moan.

“c-close,” you managed to choke out.

“who owns you?” he asked, fucking you with his fingers as he rubbed that spongy spot inside of you.

“you!” you whimpered, “fuck, you do—“

your release hit you, hard and fast, as you clenched around his fingers. your vision was clouded with stars, pure ecstasy running through your veins. jonathan watched you like a predator watches its prey, his eyes running all over your body as he studied you through the eyeholes of his mask.

you lay on the bed breathless, your cheeks flushed still, as he looked down at you sprawled out against the soft pillows. you could hear him breathing heavily from behind his mask — it almost gave him a power trip to see you like this; fucked out and submissive to him as he was dressed up as scarecrow.

you let out a huff, closing your eyes for just one moment before they shot open again to the sound of his belt being unbuckled. you rubbed your thighs together and whined softly, causing jonathan to let out a low groan as his cock sprung free against his stomach, hitting the white button down shirt he wore.

he gave himself a few strokes before lining himself up with your dripping entrance.

“how badly do you want it, baby?” he teased, rubbing his cock up against your slit slowly.

“so bad,” you whined desperately, “please, jonathan—”

“try again.”

“fuck, please! please, scarecrow…” you begged, hoping you’d get what you were wanting after fixing your mistake.

it seemed to work because before you could whine anymore, you were letting out a filthy moan as he rammed himself into you, breaching your tight hole. even though you’d just taken his fingers, you hadn’t been able to fuck him for a few weeks, due to work and all — so you were taking a little longer than usual to adjust to his size.

“m-my god, s-slow down—” you breathlessly gasped, feeling his cock pounding your cunt mercilessly as he set a fast pace.

“you can take it,” he assured you, still fucking you harshly as his hands come to grip at your throat. “keep squeezing my cock. fuck — like that.”

you could feel him stretch out your drooling hole as you mewled, unable to form any proper sentences or get any real words out from the way he was fucking you. jonathan kept a firm vice around your neck, causing you to struggle for air slightly as his normally bright blue eyes turned about fifty shades darker.

you didn’t know what was turning you on more — the fact that he was still dressed as scarecrow, mask and all, or how roughly he was drilling into your sopping cunt right now.

“o-oh my god—” you whined, looking up at him breathlessly as he continued to squeeze the sides of your neck. “i-i can’t…”

jonathan was for sure having an ego trip right now — the way you were completely at his mercy as his cock pounded against your cervix, creating the perfect mix of pleasure and pain. the way you looked at him like he was your entire world — because he was — even while he was fucking you stupid. just everything about you had jonathan tripping out on ecstasy, pleasure, and dare i say love?

“what is it, my darling?” he cooed mockingly, cutting off your air supply once more with a harsh squeeze to your neck while he was balls deep in your cunt. “use your words, darling — you can do it.”

“c-can’t breathe,” you managed to rasp, your hands clawing at his, “let— go—”

satisfied with your begging, jonathan let go of your throat and placed his hands harshly onto your hips. his fingers dug into your sides as he continued to plow your pussy with no intention of stopping until you were ruined.

he could see the fear in your eyes — even if it was mixed with arousal — and it brought him closer and closer to the edge with every thrust. you, along with jonathan, were close to coming undone as well, your eyes rolling into the back of your head as pleasure consumed you.

“come,” he growled, “show me who owns this tight fucking cunt.”

you let out a choked moan as he rammed his cock into you so deeply that you stopped breathing momentarily, before letting yourself tip over the edge. your release winded you, causing you to scream his name so loud that your neighbours would definitely know who was fucking you right.

“jonathan! f-fuck!” you squeaked out, creaming on his thick cock.

“scream my fucking name,” he said lowly, “that’s right — god, you feel so good.”

he let out a low groan as he felt your walls tighten up around him, and he watched your every move as your orgasm washed over you. you looked so beautifully fucked out and mindless with every fleeting moment — it was perfection.

it didn’t take long for jonathan to come after seeing you like this for him, and he let out a low groan, giving you a few more harsh, deep thrusts before filling you up completely with his sticky cum. he looked down at you quietly as he propped himself up above you on his arms one more, taking off his burlap mask and tossing it to the side.

you gave your boyfriend a soft smile, letting out a huff of air as you rested your head on the satin pillows behind you.

“wow…” you said, trailing off into a soft chuckle.

“i love seeing you all ruined for me,” he told you, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. “you’re something else, you know that?”

he helped you get cleaned up afterwards, making sure to be extremely gentle and caring towards you despite almost breaking you in two just minutes prior. after he had you tucked into bed, he placed a kiss on the top of your head as you snuggled into the covers.

“i’m going to go shower,” he said casually, “go to bed, sweetheart. you’ve had a long night.”

“mm,” you mumbled sleepily, “come to bed afterwards.”

“i will,” he assured you, placing one more kiss on your head, and another softly on your lips. “...i love you.”

“i love you too,” you said softly, yawning as you found comfort in the sheets. “goodnight, scarecrow.”

your sleepy words caused him to let out a quiet chuckle as he admired you. the light from the moon illuminated your face dimly as it casted down on you through the bedroom window.

jonathan sighed to himself happily.

you may have been catwoman to the outside world — sneaky and conniving — but to jonathan, you were just…you. those so-called claws of yours were nowhere to be seen as you slept peacefully in your shared bed, dozing off under the moonlight as you waited for him to come back to bed with you.

“goodnight, sweetheart,” he said softly.

but you were already fast asleep — dreaming of him like always.

taglist: @girlinterrupted505 @ciriceimpera @jordyn-yeager @thevelvetvampyre @galactict3a

@xanaxiii @nocturnest @psylrd @bloodandglitter207 @humbuginmybones

@oceanstem @futurefamousdeadmusician @jonathancraneslittlepet @esotericdoe

@kpopgirlbtssvt

@ll4n4 @ilovetoxicfictionalmen @the-buddy-things @ellebelleshelby @wiseyouthinfluencer

@abprill @minedofmoria @strangeobsessed @5tud10-54r4h @franzine-xii

@stsrfujid @psylrd @eyraaaaaae @nyxxie-pooh @momoewn

@fauxcongenialite @ceruleanrainblues @o0laura

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imaginelegends · 1 month ago

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ITS HIM

ITS LA PIETA

but seriously, I feel like this one screenshot encapsulates my... hesitations about season 2. because honestly... it's shaping up to be Mid, and I mean that in the traditional meaning of the word.

1. It's good, nothing to complain

2. No overly glaring problems - story hits all the plotpointa

3. It's not flawless - or the level of quality has not superceded its flaws

And its that third point that kinda really... Hammers it in

*insert picture of Jayce*

Look at the Viktor screenshot - look at the quote

"The reason for our failures in the commune"

WHAT FAILURES?!? WE SAW NO SUCH FAILURES!!!

What are you talking about failures??? Bc from where we stood, your commune is fucking excelling - happy content people everywhere. Its clean. It gets fucking sunlight. Its nice as hell. What FAILURES???

and thats the problem you see - bc Viktor went from reluctant jesus to full on Messiah to apparently The Bad Guy All Along - AND THERES VERY LITTLE CARRY THE CHARACTER FROM ONE PHASE TO THE NEXT

same with cait - oh we see the prison, we see the fictitious arrests, the way enforcers wage war on its own people who BTW still aint independent of piltover, who BTW remain under piltover's rule, who BTW for the most part are innocent people who have done nothing wrong aside from being born in the undercity

the gangs are gone bc they all hate topside - and thats the only thing

BUT HERES THE THING, we dont see Cait doing any of this... its her soldiers, the enforcers, but aside from her magnificent leap to the bottom in s1, shes actually back to the usual cait - when Jinx stopped sexually frustrating her, she regained her moral code

(and we're gonna have to talk about the missed opportunities between ambessa, jinx, and cait. let me tell you. ive been cocked the block)

suddenly s2 act2 cait seems more or less similar to beginning of s2 act1 cait - with her misgivings about martial law. WE DIDNT EVEN GET TO LUXURIATE IN CAIT BEING DRUNK OFF HER TYRANNICAL POWERS!! WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT!!!

give me MOTHER goddamn, where the fuck was that??? where is goddamn horny seduction of power? where is ambessa getting pussy enchanted bc cait would tap that at least once and ambessa is trying to be professional and as cait starts pulling away, the lesbian break up would have been AMAZING - caits betrayal bc she went back to Vi?!? hello????? DO YOU NOT SEE HOW FUCKING SIZZLING THIS COULD HAVE BEEN???????

dont fuck the warlord - dont sexualize the warlord - ONLY IF YOU WERE A COWARD

give me the seething, writhing pit of moral ambiguity thats hot as hell

bc otherwise it comes out perfunctory.

LIKE BACK TO VICKY

if vicky was supposed to be the bad guy, his little commune needed to be A LITTLE MORE creepy. SHOW US THE FAILURES. show us how the healing turns people WRONG. What does it mean if vicky gets his hands on you? SHOW US THE HORRIFIED LOVED ONES WHO UPON SURRENDERING THEIR DISABLED BELOVED FIND THEIR BELOVED IRREVOCABLY CHANGED IN A WAY THAT CAN NEVER BEEN UNDONE

SHOW US THE EXISTENTIAL LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR YOU FUCKS!!! This whole commune could have been fifteen hundred percent weirder and uncanny, make us feel like we're in a fishing boat in the middle of the lake and something massive just brushed under our boat. make us feel small and uncomprehending cucks.

I FELT NOTHING!!! I FELT LIKE WE WERE HITTING EACH STORY BEAT FOR THE SAKE OF THE PLOT POINT

it was all perfunctory as fuck. there was no lingering, stewing tension that just gnaws at your bones until you remember with each aching movement. there was NOTHING like that.

i couldnt bliss out on the jayvik messy breakup. i couldnt savor cait having a pussy rebound with a worse partner (we couldve gone from Lestat to Armand levels of bad decisions here)

we get Nothing

So Arcane gets ONE more act 3 to finish this off but honestly... it feels like each act is almost self contained in and of itself. and the buildup of viktor and the arcane feels thin - papery - wishy washy. Im not entirely confident that theyre gonna wrap up everything nicely.

ive already had ONE MASSIVE DISAPPOINTMENT THIS YEAR, please i cant have another so close to the last (iykyk)

#arcane spoilers #arcane #viktor #viktor arcane #caitlyn kiramman #caitlyn arcane #ambessa #ambessa medarda

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eternalera · 13 days ago

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we need to talk about mel because out of pretty much everyone in arcane ive been seeing the most drama with her and just... god is it all so fucking stupid. so for the next few paragraphs im gonna be talking about haters of mel, 'defenders' of mel, jayvik, meljayce, and just... everything going on with that because god is it a lot and god is so much of it bullshit and just plain old toxicity. so yeah...

dang still here? alright lets begin.

so first off we're starting with with the haters and defenders of mel and honestly this is some of that dumbest fandom shit ive seen in a while? why? alright let's bring up some argument stuff that ive (and youve most likely) seen before. one of which being that her haters define her as 'problematic' and a villain which is not true well at least not more true than jinx being a villain. jinx is a worse character than mel but people hate on her because 'oh shes supposed to be portrayed as good!' when this was never the case.

in s1 mel was portrayed to be a politician and from what ive gathered she was meant to represent the upper class of piltover and the council members in general (with the exception being heimindinger). she was supposed to be a corrupt and morally ambiguous character just like what? politics, politics are not black or white all of the time. mel strived for her own goals and used people to get there. do you have to like her for this? no. you dont. in fact when i first watched s1 i hated this about her and her relationship with jayce gave me the ick (i did not ship jayvik at all during this time). but we'll get more into that later

now the 'defenders' of mel. where to begin? well first off if you dont like her you get called misogynistic, if you ship jayvik well then youre writing her out and therefore are misogynistic, if you criticize mel for any of her actions guess what you are? yeah misogynistic. they really like throwing that term around for no other reason than mel being a woman. what if she was a guy? would there be a problem with it? and what if people are still doing what they are with mel being a guy? is it still problematic? the answer is most likely no. also the problem with calling people misogynistic is that youre not attacking their argument but them as a person.

thats like if you said '1+1=2' and i went 'no youre stupid' or if i said 'the earth is round' and you told me that i was a conspiracy theorist. youre not attacking the argument but the person themselves. youve done nothing to disprove their argument, sure you called them a mean name but whats that going to do? people hardly ever even argue why thats the case and why its wrong, but they throw around the world mindlessly. i would be fine if people were saying that their argument was misogynistic and therefore they would be misogynistic for supporting it but even then just leave it.

not to mention that mel was written to be morally ambiguous in a sense (in s1 and in s2 she gets better but still is... eh on morals imo) and if you bring this up these 'defenders' will go rabid over you. calling you names and saying how youre 'part of the problem' and that you cant handle a strong female character and this is just by you criticizing them keep in mind. maybe you dont agree with their actions but that doesnt matter to them and its horrendous.

now moving onto jayvik and... yeah it has its issues, i will NOT lie and say that there isnt an unreasonable dislike for mel in certain parts of the community because believe me there is and its almost always uncalled for and their reason is lacking to say the least, once again mel is a complicated character and to put her in a box and say that she's the big bad is entirely and fully unreasonable. ive seen large parts of the fandom also hating on mel just because she 'gets in the way' of jayvik and i guess that this is true but also people do forget something really important

THIS IS ALL FANDOM

SHIP WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT CANON OR NOT ITS NOT MEANT FOR THE CREATORS BUT THE CONSUMERS AKA FANS

whether or not she 'gets in the way' of jayvik in canon (which she really does not as she encourages jayce to spend more time with viktor and viktor and jayce still have a bunch of meaningful scenes together DESPITE her) doesn't matter one bit. your fanon does not need to be canon in order for you to enjoy it. and tons of people tend to gloss past that because they just have to have things their way and then they throw a pissy fit over it. HOWEVER this is not the only drama with jayvik, once again if you ship this rabid mel enjoyers will say how youre misogynistic which... yeah it fucking sucks.

tbh everything with mel has got to be some of the most toxic shit ive ever seen in my life (not worse than mha and ochako but hopefully as a fandom we never get there). because mel enjoyers if they dont ship jayvik tend to ship meljay or jaymel or- whatever its called and since its canon to some extent (they did kinda break up) they will use that as a way to discourage jayvik shippers and once again call them names that do not make any sense to the argument that they are giving as they are just spewing out random ass insults to people who disagree with them

good job internet. proud of ya

NOW MELJAY AND OH BOY DO I HAVE SOME WORDS-

... yeah it was meant to be a morally grey thing. sorry to everyone who looked at it and was like 'omg they care for each other so cute!!!' mel manipulating jayce into a relationship to take advantage of him and get what she wanted is meant to be a bad thing and you wanna know why? CAUSE SHES A COMPLICATED CHARACTER. if i had to place her on the alignment chart id say that shes most likely lawful neutral and on a good day lawful good.

now if you still cant see the problem with mel and jayces relationship lemme do smth called the good 'ol gender swap

theres a smart girl inventing stuff and trying to change the world, a man comes along and supports her endeavor fully, throughout the way makes heavy advances towards her in order to trap her and get her to do what he wants. this happens and in order to trap her even further puts her in a position of power which she knows nothing about and therefore relying more and more on him and his knowledge. advances are made and they fuck but to him she is just an investment. of course as the relationship carries on he might start caring more and more about her but the manipulation never truly leaves

see what makes it so bad? me and my friends talked about this for hours thinking about it and finding out what made us not like the ship in s1 (keep in mind we did NOT ship jayvik only started after their divorce). we loved mel's characters, she's a strong woman a strong character with flaws and she's compelling. but she was never written to do morally good decisions 100% of the time and thats what makes arcane so good ignoring all of this is not understanding mels character or her actions

anyways thats all i have to say. if you disagree or have any other news feel free to share lol and thanks for listening to my rambles <3

#mel merdada #mel discourse #discourse #arcane #jayvik #meljay #meljayce #i love her character but like every had got to start acknowledging that she has flaws too because this is getting ridiculous #like the amount is glazing and ignorance is actually impressive

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nn-ee-zz · 9 months ago

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What are your other OC's like? I'm interested in hearing about the stories you came up with for them.

UH OH youre gonna get me talking!

My OCs are NPCs by origin. I was (still am) the DM of my friend group and to get their characters moving along I had to create my own.

Unexpectedly, my friends loved them.

ILYA - unwell henchman

i know its a boys name,

An aiding hand to an ambiguous villain, Ilya was introduced as sneaky, smiling, and untrustworthy. The facade collapsed once she vomited inside a cup after accidentally touching the liquified remains of (unbeknown to her) her younger sibling. The villain is a wizard of great power and transported all the liquid from their body to put out a fire, mummifying and killing the person in the process in an attempt to save several.

She seeks her sibling amongst the city. The tingling awareness of their demise at the hands of the guild she encouraged them to join and growing panic and grief led her to start a fight with someone who is spiraling as well.

She ends up at the local clinic, heavily injured and minus one eye, and spirals further from her injuries, her guilt, and the knowledge her family was correct about her being too mentally fragile to be in the city. Until....

(For now. The overall arc for this character is of recovery and improvement instead of pain and self-destruction. Forgive your past and find value within you that goes beyond self-sacrifice. With the help of others, of course.)

Despite her questionable moral position, a lot of characters feel the need to protect her.

Art - Her wearing another characters shirt and her getting a widdle kiss from said character, because even I (the monster freak artist) have my lovely ships

ED - emo organ trafficker

''Nez, I want my oc to be kidnapped and rescued by another oc'' ''Hm, I'll make up a guy to kidnap them then''

Originally meant to be a minor antagonist that would kidnap a character to harvest their organs and be easily defeated. Villain of the week type.

However, his snarky behavior, violent temperament, fancy victorian-boy-esque looks captured a lot of attention. He is a little freak but his direct words seem to bring out a lot of honesty in other characters.

Fun facts; His name is inspired by Edward Hyde. He is roomates and best friend/adopted sibling to Ilya. He makes an effort to be fancier than he is because he was born a bastard child and forced to be his fathers servant before he murdered his siblings and father and joined the army to escape (where he met ilya and ultimately got adopted into her family <333)

Art - Him, and him as a chibi fighting the guy who rescued the person he kidnapped. They also fall in love

REDD - funny bully

I recently made an oc just to mess around with the players while they were in jail! Well, now one of them drank his blood and is forever connected to him. The other one got her finger broken cuz she poked him. He also had the prision keys the entire time but pretended to be a prisioner as well. What a menace! I love making horrible pests. His name is red cuz thats how the others refered to him, because I described him as having red hair and red eyes.

Isnt it funny how despite being a DM I never use my monster designs?! I find it a lot more interesting to make characters specifically meant to alter the course of the character development of my players. I love to change deeply and irrevocably! : D

#ask #ocs #long post

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keiirauuu · 1 month ago

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The demise of Au Inflorence

Inflorence, was created 25 September 2023. Originally it was called Deflowered(Hanafell), the name was changed due to what it meant.

The right most was the first concept art for it, the middle one was when it remade, then leftmost was the current.

Inflorence was inspired by aus like underfell, flowerfell, underswap. I really liked swap aus, due to Chara being my favorite character. I wanted a world where gets to have a life.

Inflorence was a Chasriel au, I liked what I like. I really loved both Chara and Asriel in original their tragedy was something alot amazing. Asriels obsession with chara. Charas martyr behavior. But these ship posed the downfall of my au.

Inforence, specifically deflowered was supposed to be a undefell au take, following the canon one, where Chara teaches asriel, all mosnters sometimes love and kindness is enough. But Asgore poisons chara, with flower curse. Where all of charas body would be covered with golden flowers till they die. Later asriel would absorb charas soul to cross barreir but they return. Chara dies Asriel surives and banishes his dad to ruins. While, he declaires war on humanity. Charas reincarnation Frisk, comes to knock senses in their king boyfriend. Both survive........ But welp that was all scrapped as another au was taking my brain

These nameless swap au. Mostly I really likes these au, which resulted in mashing these up with deflowered which created Inflorence. The designs in these are canon for inforenece except for asriel, Chara. yes deltarune was also here alot specifically.

As you might have guessed Frisk took Asriels place here, while Noelle took Charas. Noelle was supposed to be the narrator of these au, Frisk the first human was at first gonna be temmie, but later became a voice which you can only hear through echo flowers and mirrors.

As you also guessed Frisk and charas dead lead to events here, many people may have noticed Flowers on Chara and frisk.

Well These flowers are like flowerfell they grow on humans body killing them. But the reason is different, Humans souls here were quite fragile while monsters had stronger souls. Monsters ability to love was overwheming to humans soul as they cant handle monsters compasion resulting in the determination and love given by monsters to humans to pour out. In the flowers, these flowers were the result of humans loving monsters, romantic, platonic, family all type. All humans here died due to loving too much.

They loved too much, the more you love the more flowers you get till killing you. Despite that these humans never tried to harm others and died sacrificing their souls to free monsters.

There were some desgin changes I tried but then they were scrapped I prefered the old stripped sweaters better.

As its canon chara is a teenage here, while frisk was a child.

The end of the au

Sadly these au, will be abounded. why?

The fandom is too toxic, I had gotten repeated backlashes, death threats, art stolen, and hate commets.

for the following reasons:

Chara:

Greatly the reason lies because of the view of chara, their morality is ambiguous. There are versions debates, that their evil, pure good, traumitzed child, are narrator, your partner.

My portrayal of Chara was on the good side, because of that many commets came like, "Chara cant love", "Chara is evil", "Chara cant be that kind", "Is frisk evil?", "Noelle is manipulative then", "Chara was abusive to Asriel" etc.

I know I know, There are many versions and all. But I really created these au for personal reasons Chara is meant to be Hope, the savior who gave up their soul here to just to free monsters, they loved too much hence the flowers they loved became the reason for their own death in Asriels arms.

I do know Chara in canon undertale, may have different reason but these is AU ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.

Chasriel

Here we are the final reason, Chasriel, the most hated ship, claimed incest. Got in in canon they might have been siblings. so what? Asriel and Chara always refer to each other as best friend, they are two different race, Asriel is literally obsessed with chara, the only one who can understand him, the only one who he cares about the most, the only one who he idolizes unhealthily, which he only realizes at the end of pacifist.

But these things do point towards at least a childish crush, or idolization.

But I respect people who don't ship them, not everything thinks the same, there are some who are with sibling side, I'm totally alright with it, if you don't like my ship that's FINE just don't fucking for the sake send me death threats, long messages explaining why they aren't siblings, I drew incest and all. I myself don't like incest, but if I don't even see it as incest cause its left ambiguous, and in the au their not even met till chara the eight human falls underground.

Asriel was here a cold, introverted Ice prince as he lost his two siblings Frisk, and noelle. He knows the effect of love how if he loves a human they will just die. But Chara broke through his walls, and taught him to love again. But despite that he lost chara to the flowers.

That was his whole character arc.

He had a happy childhood with frisk, noelle till they both died, and he grew up alone partially till ralsei was born. He had first hand saw humans after frisk who all died. He knows loving humans will just hurt him, yet he ended up falling for chara anyway. Chara had alot love to give which killed them. They wanted to be the kindess which they never received.

Yet, the people here ended up demotivating me. These au was left uncontinued.

No I wont be continuing it.

What happends to the characters?

The Characters have become my personal oc, their designs are pretty different to begin with

Chara, now is 'Anzu'. Frisk is 'Fuu'.

Further characters, which have been turned to personal characters are

Asriel -> Arin (rei)

Ralsei -> Razzy

Sans who takes alphys place -> Benny (Ben)

Papyrus who takes monster kids place -> Ivan

Asgore taking toriels place -> Alfen

Toriel taking Asgores place -> Roferria

Alphys taking papyrus place -> Daphan

Undyne taking Sans place -> Ulys

Mettaton taking napstablook place -> Magus

Napstablook taking mettatosn place -> Cyrus

Noelle taking Charas place -> Evelle

Further more the fallen humans,

Kris (justice soul) -> Chris

Clover (kindess soul) -> Meadow

rest humans name will remain same as they already were oc (cole, jasmin, alice, kelsey)

While these were turned to personal characters as I dont want them to be associated with undertale anymore.. So I hope you respect that.

THESE is ment to be archive post, and a bit rant post. All the art belongs to me do not repost

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yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy · 1 month ago

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What scratches my brain wrong the most, THE MOST, is the all-but-confirmation that Mythal was Andraste and Solas was the Maker. It’s giving “the Force is actually midochlorians”. It’s an explanation that immediately renders itself stupid and lame because the power was in the unknown ambiguity of “maybe, maybe not? Could just be fans being silly.” Stemming from that, most of the revelations of how much shit in Thedas is because of the ancient elves is also far too much for me to swallow in satisfaction because again, the explanation is not satisfying. It renders everything stupid, banal, unambiguous, and then doesn’t even allow you to properly engage with these revelations in any meaningful way because there’s no time, you gotta stop the Evanuris and Solas. Might as well not have revealed anything if that’s how you were gonna go about it. It’s all dropped on you with the brevity of an @everyone discord message in a locked channel with rescinded chat privileges.

But yeah, “Solas as the Maker” just doesn’t jive with me. I prefer the monotheistic god of my Christian adjacent fantasy faiths to in fact be mass hallucinated by people whose primitive brains attribute forces of nature, morality, and fortune as the works of an omnipotent omniscient deity when there is actually being no higher power that governs anything, we’re alone and the universe does not listen or answer. Solas being the Maker is like… ok, yet another thing that’s because of the ancient elves. Can’t attribute anything to human chauvinism forming a faith of their own monkey minds desiring idols and creation myths to worship, no sir.

It would’ve been far more satisfying to hold off on fulfilling every single damn theory fans have been crafting for the past 10 years. In this rare case I would’ve preferred if this had been an idea that they had in the wind-up but ultimately scrapped because people guessed right.

Why do I dislike it? I dislike it because it’s too neat. I dislike it because Solas doesn’t need yet another title or name attached to him. I dislike it because this piling on of “everything is because of the ancient elves” is so much explanation and leaves absolutely no room for wonder or theorycrafting because everything is now conveniently answered. I dislike it because the idea of an elf inspiring a human-majority faith that went on to persecute elves feels gross. I dislike it because, again, it removes independent cultural development from other races. I understand that ancient history goes on to make waves in cultures throughout subsequent millennia and centuries, but couldn’t they have let humans be dumb and dogmatic purely of their own accord and the similarities of Solas and Mythal, Maker and Andraste be thematic rather than indicative? Because that’s how myths actually function in real life. Again, you can argue certain myths exist in some form across many cultures that indicate perhaps a primordial or Ur culture that branched off, but that is because we’re humans. Elves and humans are different races, born and coming into existence in different ways, so you could easily just make it so that the similarities are just similarities, not actually directly descendent from the other.

Is there literally anything anyone has done that isn’t because of them, or is this the ‘easy way out’ answer that was clearly recycled from Mass Effect 3 with the Protheans? I see you, Bioware. Don’t think I can’t catch on to your increasingly predictable storytelling patterns.

This is me purelyyyyy bitching and my personal preference.

#datv critical #bioware critical

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transformerswoc · 1 year ago

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The TFP "Airachnid" Problem

Like I said, I'm gonna make essays and discussions regarding women in transformers <3. The first person is tfp Airachnid.

TFP Airachhid is honestly, the litmus test for how I feel that Transformers fans can handle “mean” evil, women. Because the hate train that she received and the hate she still receives is massive, and it rounding up to “she killed cliffjumper” or “she’s mean to arcee and starscream” “she killed breakdown” just shows that this fandom wouldn’t really be ready for a female villain that was worse than her, or that just did not give a fuck.

And honestly, that is soo unforutante because we see male characters, like Starscream and even like Megatron, who are basically like Airachnid, if not worse, getting love and support for their actions.

She’s not supposed to be nice…she is a villain a straight up, in your face, villain and that is interesting. Yes, other Airachnids/Black Arachnias get love, but a lot of them are morally grey or complex.

A lot of them either turn good or ambiguous in the end, or aren't who we think they are, giving them a very empathetic past to almost excuse their actions.

Yet, when we have villainous, no morals Airachnid, which I find made her character far more intriguing, it seems that people just hated her, and would hate her for the things they loved with the male villains. She was the perfect mixture of Starscream and Knockout, with Megatron’s brutality, and she was just…hated for it.

And it made me realize that in terms of female villains, we haven’t ever had one like her. One that says ‘fuck you’ to morality and shit, because I just do not think the fandom could handle her. And I’m talking about in the TV Shows.

There are female villains in the live action, but that is another topic for another time.

Lastly, to me as a Black Woman, I cannot help but feel a lot of hatred toward Airachnid is people not checking their own racism and antiblackness. I think it’s easy for people to, not even realize it, but hold black women to higher moral standards than others. The point is that, Airachnid is voiced by a Black Woman and fandoms tend to be very critical toward Black women whether they be live action, voicing characters, etc. black women are either too much, or not enough.

Funnily enough, we are seeing this with ROTB with tons of people who aren’t black women, bashing the representation of Black women in ROTB and saying they aren’t doing enough or they’re pointless.

And this brings me back to Airachnid and how fandoms tend to, unknowingly be very heavy and critical toward black characters, but especially, Black women characters as well who are mean, or who do not fit to their standards. That is just my perspective from a black woman.

I’m not going to sit here and say that everyone who dislikes Airachnid is racist, but I will say separately that I think a lot of reasons for disliking Airachid are rooted in misogyny.

There has been no good reason for disliking Airachnid that I haven’t seen laced in some form of misogyny, because every reason she is hated, you can trace back to a male villain doing the same thing, if not worse.

Given fandom’s negative reaction toward Airachid, I wonder if we’ll actually ever see such a cold, heartless female villain like we did her. I think that only thing that makes things ‘acceptable’ is if a female villain has complexity, or has depth or will eventually be a ‘good’ guy again, or at most, morally ambiguous. That is what makes a female villain acceptable and frankly, that’s not fair but unfortunately I just feel…that’s how it is.

Another thing I noticed, which I will make in another essay, is how TFP tends to shame any form of ‘feminity’ especially in its women but also, in queer outwardly femme charaters, like Starscream.

The ‘tom boy’ or ‘one of the boys’ perosna is something that we tend to see with Arcee and Miko. And forms of femininity such as motherhood, or being outwardly femme like Airachnid or Starscream are seen as ‘bad’ by the narrative.

What I mean by this is that, June is shamed for being motherly toward Jack, by Arcee and by Miko and it is something that she is made to feel bad for, for wanting to care for Jack. Arcee and Miko are portrayed as I said, as being ‘one of the boys’ Arcee herself made a negative comment toward the idea of being PINK…which is ridiclous.

Airachnid and Starscream are both heavily femme and queer coded, but they are shamed by the narrative and the fandom. Starscream is brutalized on the daily, and Airachnid, who is outwardly femme tends to be seen as irredeemable by the fandom and also inexplcitly evil by the narrative.

TFP’s issue with femininity is something is something I certainly want to talk about later on, but given this essay is just about Airachnid, I will stop here.

The last thing I'm also going to say is that I don't think that the writers knew, or understand how to write a female villain for a notoriously misogynstic fanbase. There are reasons why the other female characters are 'acceptable' and it's because they are for the most part, written in a way that is okay for a male audience. That doesn't mean they don't face their fair share of misogyny...they do. Especially Miko.

But an outwardly evil femme fatale who doesn't give a fuck about it...the fandom is just not ready for such a character. And while I don't think the writers needed to pacify her, i do 100% believe that when operating in a misogynstic fandom, you should learn how to write a female character in a way that will not get her dragged the way Airachnid has been dragged.

If you enjoyed my essay, please share and consider following?

Please follow my twitter, where I'll also talk more about women's topics in TF.

#airachnid #transformers #tfp #elita 1

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mybreadsmybutters · 2 months ago

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top 10 men?

LONG long list with extensive explanations under cut. you are forewarned.

1. aidan gallagher. continually charmed and enchanted by whatever is deeply wrong with him and the weird fucked up shit he has going on with his clinically insane dad. he wrote rpf about HIMSELF. who is doing it like him. who COULD do it like him. he needs to come out as gay immediately. at least bisexual. to improve his image. he even makes BAD terrible music. incredible guy all around. i watch his content the way people watch isis beheading videos.

2. my real life actual grandpap. he is so definitely in hell one of the worst people ever. his number one political philosophy was being a hater and fighting anyone who looked at him wrong. i miss him everyday. perhaps the most insane person i will ever meet in my entire life.

3. idk if you wanted real men but the rest of this list is probably gonna be fictional characters due to the fact that i know about ten people. anyways number three is my beloved best friend seasons 1-3 five hargreeves of the umbrella academy. WHAT a character. what if you were a cis guy who could time travel and definitely liked killing people but also were obsessive and crazy and also had a fucked up weird thing with the woman who dragged you out of the apocalypse after you spent 50 years alone and also your body wasn’t your own because your dna got swapped with that of the most prolific murderers of all time and also you were stuck in the body of a child that might’ve been You at some point and everyone is patronizing and doesn’t believe you AND you watch your family die over and over again across every timeline as you constantly fail the ones you love. what a guy. five hargreeves you will never be replicated. also homewrecked his brother with the woman whose parents he murdered like 4 timelines back and then immediately convinced everyone to kill themselves but he did that in season 4 so i dont Really count it but it was still awesome. he’s experiencing types of body dysphoria that i cannot ever fathom i projected onto this guy so hard as a little in denial 13 year old. also when i was 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 and 21 he just kind of lives in the back of my mind perpetually.

4. JOE GOLDBERG FROM HIT FRANCHISE YOU. oh man i love that fucking freak and his mommy issues and the fake woke feminist facade and nightmares in the suburbs and the Knight in Shining Armor carried out to its most horrific prolific potential UGH. i want to pin him on my wall and frame him in glass like a butterfly. he means everything to me. EVERYTHING. so many neurotic tendencies and problematic behaviors spawned from exposure to his character at a critical age. wow i love that guy forever.

5. stefan salvatore vampire diaries. first ever vampire with a binge eating disorder (kills people pathologically) THAT is intentionally narratively framed as an addiction. ALSO in some weird fucked up forced-fated-cursed love triangle forever when his soulmate is clearly just his brother. my number one favorite vampire forever. did i mention he has no sense of humor. oh MAN i love that guy.

6. FICTIONAL ANIME BOY LIGHT YAGAMI. I LOVE SERIAL KILLERS WITH AN ABSOLUTELY FUCKED MORAL COMPASS WHO HAVE A WEIRD THING WITH THE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATING THEM. also see the entire death note musical. where is the justice when the guilty all go free… what would it be if i saw the world like him like a synonym… he is ensouled in the same way JD heathers is

7. fictional anime boy kusuke saiki… man where do i even begin. he’s blonde. he’s a sadomasochist. started world war 3 in an alternate timeline. weird fucked up thing with his brother that is ambiguously sexual. holds a gun at one point. wears a labcoat. wears his hair in a PONYTAIL at one point. foundational to my adolescent sexual awakening. also the entirely fanonical dynamic he has with fellow anime boy makoto teruhashi is world changing to me.

8. mildly famous comedian gianmarco soresi who i am parasocial with. i hope to be as mentally weird about things and be an attention whore and obsessive weirdo when i am 35 too. also first ever visibly gay straight man i think which is just endlessly fascinating to watch.

9. CHARLIE DAY

10. perhaps my most controversial and vaguely revealing choice for this list but one i stand by… porn star and tik tok influencer noahwaybabes. voice of a generation. also i think he’s so stupid hot like in a way that pisses me off. also i find him vaguely annoying but i think that’s because he’s funny and hot which is a REALLY unfair combination. also because he just is annoying due to being a tik tok influencer. probably steals off twitter but i dont use twitter so i dont care.

HONORABLE MENTIONS!!!

youtuber pyrocynical who was not included in this list due to the fact that i hate him and he sucks.

jd heathers who JUST barely did not make it on. im sorry that annoying tik tok influencer who i jerk off to sometimes won out but when it comes down to brass tacks i thought including even more fictional characters would make me seem like a huger massiver loser than the other option

#ask

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fumifooms · 11 months ago

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Hello! Anon Asker again here. Recently got through the latest volume on Kindle with the Dungeon Master arc.

(Spoilers ahead for others...?) Now that we got most of the characters' backstories, I feel the earlier black magic ritual they did for Falin makes a lot more sense.

Marcille is desperate to keep the people she loves alive given her sense of loss and persisting dread about outliving everyone she knows.

Laios (apart from loving his sister) has lingering guilt from having left Falin behind before, exacerbated by her sacrifice and the way she always puts him first.

Then there's Senshi and Chilchuck who have on more than one occasion shown a distaste for magic.

Yet Senshi didn't fight it much and stood by them, because he himself is not a stranger to loss, especially when it comes to loved ones who have sacrificed for others so that one might survive.

But Chilchuck I'm not so sure. He was the most vocal in how against black/ancient magic he was, but also didn't really stop it. Maybe we can attribute it to his own abandonment issues by his wife, or just that he could imagine what it might be like if it was one of his daughters (as we saw in a small chapter art where he had a nightmare of his daughters dead). But I wanted to hear your take on this if in case you do.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this ask! It’s a layered topic so I procrastinated on polishing my answer.

I think this is super interesting! Especially because we’re coming at this from totally different angles, since reading the manga I never thought that using dark magic didn’t make sense considering the situation or was weird. You’re coming at this at an angle of what personal reasons would make a character do this, while I looked at it in an angle of what social reasons would make a character let it happen. Post gonna be a lil long so I put it under cut! Tldr with your angle though, I think you’ve pretty much got it spot on and I don’t have much to add, I think your take it’s very interesting, and true.

So, why not do dark magic?

Throughout the whole manga, very early on too, we see our characters testing their society’s perception on morality in ways that we see that the moral wall was pretty baseless in the first place, mainly the disgust towards eating monsters for instance. Or sometimes, the morality of characters is lacking to our standards, having a perception we’d see as twisted, like in the kobold extra. Like Marcille talks about in the barometz/direwolves chapter, eating something "filthy" will make you filthy too and that’s why Marcille was innately so opposed to eating monsters. We also see it with the orcs’ chapter for example, Kui tackles a lot of difficult themes with nuance like racism, both the orcs and the elves have their perspective and their big faults in their part in their conflict, but in the end who’s right and who’s wrong isn’t spelled out for the readers. The point is that morality in the manga isn’t set in stone, it’s something that as the reader you draw the line on yourself, and we see that our characters aren’t infallible moral compasses either. The use of magic, too, is left up in the air on how good and moral it is to use, "unnatural" vs efficent vs cheap cop-out vs harmless or harmful.

So for me, when Marcille explained dark magic, how it works and why it’s forbidden, ‘yeah there’s probably a hidden catch in there’ I thought but I was super on board with it. To me, not using dark magic because it’s different and less known would be like not wanting to eat monsters for the same reason: more born out of fear and ignorance than reasonable and rational.

So we’re coming at this from different angles like I said, while you focused on character motivations for being fine with such an unholy act of magic I thought of it in an ambiguous morality and consequences way. So instead of "why should/would they do it?" to me it’s "why not?". And to me it’s a bit like "Well, no one should steal! But if the person really needs to for food, well I could let it go" for the characters’ thought process, though of course the instinctive revulsion and the stakes are much higher. They have all worked really hard to get there, and if there’s a chance it’ll go well then they would try it. Senshi and Chilchuck are much more reticent than the others like you said, but they’re able in the end to either rationalize doing it enough, or just prefer to listen to the directives and see how it goes by taking a more passive role. Not unlike how peer pressure can get you to participate in something you don’t want to do. But to me it’s a lot about growing accustomed to the unknown, hearing about it from Marcille who researches dark magic instead of the half-foot anecdotes about "dark elves" and "dark magic" used to nefarious ends. Which, presumably dark elves don’t even exist, we don’t know exactly what the half-foot definition of dark elves is, it’s a misconception and it’s a boogeyman, which is part of my point.

Where does Chilchuck’s distaste of magic come from? Elves. But by then Marcille, by being an elf herself and being trustworthy and friendly thus far, has started to chip away at these preconceived notions. Maybe what he heard wasn’t foolproof, after all. Under pressure and stakes like they were, people with even an usually very rigid morality may bend a little, steal, etc. To me, even if Chilchuck brought it up later, still very uneasy with it, it didn’t mean that him doing it was unrealistic or weird. People do things half-heartedly or unsure on if it’s the right thing to do sometimes, especially under pressure. Their will wavered while Laios and Marcille’s didn’t, and ultimately that’s what decided what they would do. What’s the other option? Marcille and Laios weren’t going to back down, so what, fight them so they don’t do it? Otherwise they’ll do it anyways with or without you, and then is there even a point to putting up a fight about it or even leaving? You can see the raationalization being done in real time, if you reverse engineer it.

Ironically enough I think this scene set after they do it depicts it perfectly: Chil lays out why he doesn’t like the thought of it, she responds on why dark magic being bad is up for debate, and he goes to argue but ultimately chooses not to and goes along with the group.

But yes it’s an interesting topic! Marcille researches positive uses for ancient magic so of course she’d be ready to use it to revive Falin, Laios has normalized reviving and magic a lot and overly relies on it, and Senshi doesn’t want to do it, but it’s because of his ideal- because of his instinctive recoil at anything that is magical or "unnatural"… Except for the golems. Because of how he sees himself as part of a larger ecosystem and cycle of life that humans shouldn’t have control over, that should know how to sustainably live with nature without getting greedy or cocky… Except for when he idealized Anne the kelpie as his best friend that even though is a monster would never hurt him. He tends to pull away from others socially needlessly, not letting himself grow too close to people or a community, too. Point is, Senshi has his pitfalls and isn’t as inflexible as we might think, and not everything he does is rational or even consistent with his own beliefs under his normal circumstances, though I do think he’s the one who was/should be the most opposed to the reviving character wise.

And I said that Chilchuck’s reason for not liking dark magic is rooted in superstitions and elves and history- and that’s certainly true but it isn’t the full story either. While Senshi’s preoccupied about morals and his world view, Chilchuck is SCARED of it, he thinks of the CONSEQUENCES, not the act itself (though it also def doesn’t charm him either). And not just the direct consequences of what a dark magic resurrection means either, it comes up a lot that Chilchuck is worried for others and for himself, about careers or the law and generally the future, and tends to micromanage them or be on their case because of it. Made a lil compilation below, notice the trend, he’s very focused on what others will do if they learn that they did dark magic, he’s focused on hiding that they did, not grappling with the morality of it as much. He’s very worried about the legality of it. He sees it as a crime but not something that shatters his worldview y’know. And even after Marcille did it and uncovered that she researched dark magic, he still trusts her and her judgement, is only wary of her a but for a bit before going right back to being thick as thieves together.

I was gonna talk about racism as a plot point and through arcs in the series here but I think I made my point without it, so that’ll be a topic for another day. But yeah… Spoilers for the last volume stop here and skip to the last paragraph if you still haven’t read ut all (bless your Kindle reader soul, good luck waiting for the next chapters). Is the winged lion bad? He’s harmful, certainly, but he’s not evil, and at its base it’s an entity without a sense of morality. Dunmeshi tackles morality in a really interesting, typical of seinens way, and unity is another big theme, as much as racism is a narrative tool and plot point the lesson is that putting efforts into befriending people you don’t understand is good. And with some, like the winged lion, that’s not gonna pay off, but everyone deserves to be understood regardless. Narratively that’s why Laios is the character he is, and why we get to learn about Kabru, the orcs, the canaries, Thistle, even the demon, and see it under new lights. Kui is big on critical race theory and sociopolitical issues used in/for storytelling, and it shows. During canon Chilchuck is growing closer to an elf coworker and tentatively giving her his trust, which pays off, and that is enough to make him reconsider wether dark magic is that bad, and think of how much risk he’s willing to get into for the party. Whew got sidetracked by the narrative genius of Dunmeshi and Kui but, the point is that in the story, characters changing their mind on issues and having their viewpoints challenged is very much common and important.

Sooo yeah! As I said I do enjoy your perspective as well, I’d never thought of it that way so it was interesting. Hopefully this is an insightful post and not just a load of nothing that wasn’t relevant to your question haha. But yeah, while reading I truly approached it from a "why not" angle, instead of a "why yes". They don’t like the method but they do want Falin to live, which makes it easier to dirty their hands for. Wash your hands of it and don’t think about it too much afterwards. (Top 10 reasons why it’ll backfire! none of them will surprise you 🌟)

#Ask #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #meta #analysis #i don’t think i’ll tag specific characters for this one #🫶 Ty for the ask srry for not being normal #Spoilers #dungeon meshi manga spoilers

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semper-legens · 18 days ago

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124. Of the Flesh

Owned: No, library Page count: 276 My summary: A woman scorns another on a flight and finds herself gaining weight no matter how little she eats. A child labourer in a mine prays to an ancient deity. A woman flees the ghost of her lover's wife. An immigrant attempts to escape his tormentor. Horror and reality mesh together in this collection of creepy short stories. My rating: 3/5

I'm a sucker for a horror short story collection. I love horror stories, and the short story format is one that perfectly lends itself to horror - a creepy concept, a quick twist in the tale, in and out quickly but in a way that leaves a lasting impression, particularly if it is a tale well-told. So this one, with a creepy flower eyeball on the front, looked very much like the kind of thing I could find myself liking. In practice, it was a bit more of a mixed bag. I haven't exactly been subtle in the past about my feelings on litfic, that particularly pretentious genre of literary fiction where we don't use speech marks for some fucking stupid reason and everything's just kind of wanky and nonsense. Well, this fell into that more often than I would have liked, and I have to mark it down for that. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot to like here, but…it was just sort of less than I would have liked. Worth a read, but I'm not really gonna be looking to track it down again, you know?

Overall, this collection was very much a mixed bag. We had some stories that were just kind of there to be stories, just there to be creepy, and there's nothing wrong with that! There were also the stories that were there to deliver a moral or that had a message, and that was interesting…in some cases. The beauty and the peril of the short story is that you don't have a lot of time to get your ideas across, and some of these stories fell prey to that pitfall. Some of the stories in this collection don't really seem to have much of a point, or are trying to create an ambiguous atmosphere but just end up being too vague, or something like that. There's a lot of misses here, though some of the hits really hit! The tone of them was creepy over outright horror, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. A real variety here, but unfortunately the variety was between things that worked and things that didn't.

I'll talk about two of the stories that I had a particularly strong reaction to here, as an example of what I mean. The first is Going Large, a story I very much didn't like. The premise of it is that this woman, who is obsessed with being skinny, sees a larger woman on a plane and treats her very unkindly. She then finds herself gaining weight, no matter how little she eats, and sees the world treat her far worse because of it. She works out that if she eats a lot, she actually loses weight, so ends up eating lots and returning to her previous appearance, but with a bit more of understanding and solidarity with larger women. The moral thrust of this story was flawed. As someone who is overweight myself, I really didn't like that the protagonist is 'punished' for being an asshole by being fat. The way she's described at the larger weight frames it as disgusting - she's huge, she's fat, she's greasy, she's wearing unflattering clothes, all of this - which I don't think promotes the anti-discrimination message that I think the author was going for. Yes, society treats fat people abysmally, in particular fat women, but if the narrative frames being fat as a disgusting punishment (even from the clearly-not-nice protagonist's point of view) it isn't going to make fat women feel any better about being fat. The fact that she's skinny in the end doesn't mitigate it any. Oh, she's a skinny woman who has to eat hamburgers. Skinny women who eat a lot in the real world are treated as quirky - fat women are demonised for eating anything. The story also makes weight discrimination seem like more of a personal thing, when really it's a societal issue. If every individual became nicer, that wouldn't stop systemic discrimination against fat people. The story just doesn't tackle its themes well, and that's really disappointing in this kind of morality horror.

The second, which I considered to be the best of the collection, was Shade. In this story, a Bolivian child works in a silver mine, and becomes close to the local folk deity of the mine, El Tío. The supernatural horror angle is in El Tío's adoption of the boy, and how El Tío protects him from kidnappers when they come for him later, but the more interesting angle is that of colonial violence and how the protagonist and his community have been affected by the ongoing mark of colonialism. The story isn't exactly subtle about it - the protagonist talks about how his people have had Pachamama forcibly replaced with El Tío, for example - but the brutality of life under colonialism is in everything. The fact that this child is mining and can't go to school. The fact that this is the best he can get, that this industry will kill him one way or another, the way that the mountain eats men in a metaphorical and all too literal way. The fact that they are mining for the benefit of other people, that they will never see the bounty of their efforts and that the silver they mine is worth more than they will see in a lifetime. It's a very real problem affecting many places in the real world, and its portrayal here is both brutal and necessary. This is an issue that more people should be aware of, should be angry about, and the story is very clear where it stands. And it's also a creepy horror story!

Next up, ancient Rome, and this time we're checking out what women are up to!

#Of The Flesh #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #book blogging #3

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calciseptinefic · 2 years ago

Text

a luxury few can afford

Marvel || Wade Wilson/Peter Parker || Part 1 notes: i cannot believe this is what gets me back on tumblr. jfc. this fic is also available on ao3 warnings: discussion of blowjobs?

Peter has exhausted his resources.

Correction: he has exhausted most of his resources. Which are... limited to begin with, as he is a broke college student slash vigilante slash part-time photographer running on little more than fumes and cheap pizza slices. He could maybe find another solution to his problem given more time, energy, and money, but he has none of those things. Zero. Zippo. Nada. And the man he's been tracking—some mid-level goon working for Kingpin—is going to leave the country in less than three days. If Peter doesn't want to waste several months of stake-outs and information gathering, then he needs to resort to his last resort:

Asking a favor of Wade 'Merc with a Mouth' Wilson.

"Sounds like I'm gonna get shot at," Wade says contemplatively around a mouthful of masticated Mexican mush. As is usual, they're sitting on the ledge of a building, feet dangling a dozen stories above a dimly lit alley. "And I charge extra for being shot at. I mean, it's not like being shot at is gonna do anything except temporarily make me look even more like swiss cheese, but..." He takes another massive bite of his food, finishing it. "It's the principle of the thing."

"And what's the going rate for swiss cheese?" Peter asks as casually as possible.

Wade names a price with a few more zeroes on it than Peter can afford.

"Ah," Peter says.

"But for you, baby boy, I can give a discount!"

Peter has a feeling that even a discount would still be wildly outside his budget.

"Let's pretend I don't have any money," Peter says instead of asking, picking at the tinfoil keeping his burrito warm. His late dinner (early breakfast?) is starting to look a little sad, the congealed cheese greasy and the shredded lettuce limp. "Let's pretend the food truck took the last of my already meager paycheck, and that the only thing I have to offer is a favor."

"Ah, the favor," says Wade wisely. "Ye ol' tit for tat. The mutual scratching of mutual backs. The amorphous, ambiguous assumption that sometime in the unknown future, I will need you to do something for me that I am unable to do for myself, for whatever contrived reason the author thinks of."

"Umm, yes?"

"Umm, let me think about this." Wade bunches up the leftover mess of tinfoil and parchment paper from his own meal and tosses it over the side of the building. Amazingly, a few seconds later, there's a soft plink as the ball makes it into an open dumpster. "And my answer is... no."

"Why not?" asks Peter, voice rising.

"Because there's not a whole lot you can do that I can't." Wade shrugs.

"That's not true!" Peter protests.

"It isn't?" The smile Wade gives him is wry, an unexpected flash of straight white teeth against angry, pockmarked skin. "I can't think of much that would require your superhero spidery-ness that I cannot accomplish with a) my distinct lack of morality and b) my god-tier ninja skills. Oh, and c) this pesky inability to die. That's super duper helpful, in the right contexts."

Peter exhales slowly. Usually, he and Wade get along annoyingly well, but sometimes, Wade just annoys. So he tries again, attempting to keep his tone level as he says, reasonably, "Well, maybe there isn't anything you can think of now, at this particular moment—"

Wade interrupts him with a shake of his head. "I'm going to stop you right there, baby boy. This fic is only five k and it ain't tagged for fake dating shenanigans, so... No. I don't think that temporality is the name of the game here."

"It will be two hours of your time," Peter says.

"Ooo, a new angle!" Wade crows. "Still temporal, but okay. Lay it on me."

"Two hours, Deadpool. I need to put this guy away. Now. He's leaving for Germany soon to arrange another shipment, and the new drugs they're flooding our community with have already killed 17 people."

"Firstly, 'our community'? Really? Going for the empathetic, inclusionist vibe?" Then, without pause, Wade points out, "Fisk's men aren't the only bastards dealing. Not exactly going to solve the problem."

"No, it won't," Peter admits. "But I can't keep webbing up random dealers, because it doesn't do anything, because someone else from Kingpin's gang just replaces him. And Kingpin's operation is the biggest provider. If I can get this last bit of proof, then I can hand it over to Matt and get the actual operation shut down. Legally. The supply will be choked. Sure, some random dealers will get the trickle down from the outside, but those guys I can web up."

Wade is quiet. Peter hopes, for a moment, that Wade will sigh, say 'fuck it', and do what Peter wants in exchange for that favor he mocked. Instead, Wade says,

"Still a no, baby boy."

Peter's low-simmering irritation flares into real anger. He knows Wade isn't altruistic and that there are plenty of good reasons he has a darker view of the world. Most of the time, it doesn't bother Peter; in the years he's been Spiderman, he's grown more pragmatic, and he understands the worlds in deeper shades of gray than some of his other superhero counterparts. It's one of the reasons why he gets along with Wade when most people don't.

Right now, however, Wade's apathy for something Peter's struggling with feels like a betrayal. It stings. Deeply. Peter had been trepid about asking Wade because Wade is a wild card with a fondness for explosions and mayhem, but he had been so sure that Wade would say yes. He thought that their friendship—as odd as it was—was beginning to feel like... like... like something else. Like something more. Something that would make Wade sling an arm around Peter's shoulders and say, Okay, baby boy. Anything for you.

But Wade said no. Such sharp, sudden hurt—this needling reminder that Wade comes with a price, even for Peter—makes Peter mean, and he snarls, "Fine, then. If you won't do it because it's the right thing to do, and you won't do it in exchange for a favor, then what do you want? A blowjob?"

Peter knows he's crossed a line the moment it leaves his mouth. The whites of Wade's mask go round in shock and his mouth goes slack. Soft. A moment later, his tongue slides, searching, across his bottom lip. Peter feels a lightning strike of awareness race down his spine and pool in his gut.

"Peter."

"Wade." Peter bristles. "I told you not to use my name when we're—"

"Peter," Wade says again. Lower. Unyielding. "Shut the fuck up for two seconds. Now."

Peter closes his mouth so quickly his teeth click together. The line of Wade's shoulders is so rigid that it looks brittle, as though one quick movement would make him physically snap apart. Peter rarely sees such seriousness from Wade and, truthfully, it worries him, quietly bleeding the last of his irritation from him as two seconds becomes two minutes, becomes two more.

Together, they sit in silence stretched thick and tense, Peter still clutching his half-eaten burrito, Wade with his fists balled atop his thighs. Wade's eyes are open but unseeing, and the rise and fall of his chest is deep and rhythmic. Peter's seen him do it before, a few times, when the voices in Wade's head start screaming so loud he can't think past them; it's an attempt to put himself back into his brain's driver's seat.

A small amount of guilt wriggles beneath Peter's worry. He folds the excess tinfoil over his food and sets it aside. He isn't hungry anymore.

"I am going to give you the opportunity to take that back," Wade says, after a time. His words fall down into his lap; he hasn't looked up since he told Peter to shut up. "Because if you're fucking with me, you tell me, right now. Tell me it's a joke, and we'll laugh about it. Because if you're not serious—"

"I am." Peter interrupts. "Wade, look at me."

Because the thing is.

The thing is.

Peter's thought about it.

About Wade's mouth, his hands, his cock.

Everything about Wade is big. And Peter—who is shorter than the national average and leaner than most—cannot help but be keenly aware of the difference in their sizes. He's thought about it for years, imagining how Wade could completely box him in, how heavy Wade's weight would be atop him, how full Wade's dick would stuff him. Sure, Peter could lift Wade above him with one hand, but it's less about being overpowered and more about being engulfed, cradled or grounded by nothing more than Wade's bulk.

Peter's well aware of the obsession. He's pretty sure it's mutual, considering Wade's preoccupation with his ass and the insane amount of flirting that normally occurs between them, but he's never been sure enough. He hates that it came out like this: something meant to hurt instead of something meant to heal.

"I shouldn't have said it like that," Peter says when Wade tilts his head to the side. Not looking at him directly, no, but enough so Peter can see how carefully blank his expression is. "It wasn't a joke, but I was angry. I mean, I am angry. This means a lot to me and I do need your help, but I shouldn't've... put that out there, like that."

"Well, why not?" Wade says. His voice is still heartbreakingly even. "A little blowie for a little job. Better than a bar of gold to me, baby boy. You know I'm fucking gagging for it."

"In this case I think I'm the one who would be gagging for it," Peter jokes. Then, "Wade. Please. Look at me."

Wade does.

Peter leans towards him and places a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. Wade's textured skin is warm beneath Peter's lips. It isn't how he imagined their first kiss, but it's as dangerous as he knew it would be. Such a small movement, lasting less than a heartbeat, sending a disproportionate wave of heat through Peter's entire body. He begins to pull away and—

One of Wade's hands reaches out and—

Grabs the nape of Peter's neck and—

Hauls him back and—

Wade's mouth is unforgiving on his, closed, pressing so hard that Peter's lips are crushed against his teeth. It's a graceless kiss, bruising. A thin whine rises in Peter's throat as he turns the rest of his body into it, grabbing the straps of Wade's shoulder holsters, fingers desperate to find something to hold onto, to keep him grounded. Just a few, frantic seconds, and Peter already feels undone. Hungry. He shifts his hips, slipping his leans thighs over Wade's legs to crawl into the other man's lap, to bring their bodies close—

Wade yanks himself away, breathing hard.

"No," Wade says, hoarsely. "No no no, not now. Not when you're mad at me though—Jesus fucking Christ, don't think I'm not like, half-chubbed up in my fucking cup thinking about you glaring at me while you blow me. Holy shit, that's like, at least twenty percent of my credit line at the spank bank."

"Wade," Peter begs, his head spinning.

"I know, baby boy, I know," Wade croons. He pushes a thumb to the indent beneath Peter's swollen lip, other fingers curled under Peter's chin. "But if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it later, after the job, when we can get a pillow under your knees and I can see your pretty eyes. You understand?"

"You want me to take my mask off," Peter elaborates.

"I want you naked," Wade clarifies, his voice going low again. "Wanna see how cute you are, how far those freckles go down. Wanna see how red your cheeks get and how you cry when you choke on my cock. Those are my terms. Capice?"

Peter inhales shakily at the mental image, eyes fluttering shut. Him, on his knees, between Wade's massive thighs, struggling to take Wade's cock while Wade's scarred fingers fist in his hair. It will be the first time Wade will see him completely; not just the lower half of his face, mask pulled over his nose, or his bare hand when he takes off his glove to fine tune his web-shooter, but all of him. It's a daunting prospect. Of course it is. Only a handful of people know that Peter Parker and Spiderman are the same person. Can he trust Wade Wilson to be one of those people?

The answer comes quickly.

Yes.

He can.

In truth, over the past five years, Peter has been giving Wade small pieces of himself. Pieces of Spiderman and pieces of Peter. He finds that he's not actually scared of letting Wade see the whole of him. He might still be wary of owing Deadpool a favor—sensibility is not the mercenary's most well-known character trait—but he knows, to his bones, that he can trust Wade, the man, with this. With him.

This is not how I expected tonight to go, Peter thinks mirthfully. Aloud, he says, "When I get what I need, and I get it to Matt, I'll text you my address."

"Fuck me, baby boy," Wade hisses. His big hands, still on Peter's body, tighten briefly, then relax. "Are you absolutely, red-100-underline-underline emoji sure?"

"Been thinking about it, for awhile. Haven't you?"

"Since the day you swung into my life."

"Then you have your answer." Bravely, Peter leans in to bump his nose against Wade's. "I'll text you the details."

Wade rubs their noses together before pulling away. Peter unhooks his fingers from Wade's shoulder holsters and climbs out of Wade's lap, standing on the ledge and taking a step back. The places where they had been touching are unexpectedly cold. Peter quickly tugs his mask back down over his mouth and throat before he's tempted to do something foolish, like climb right back into Wade's arms.

"Tomorrow night," Peter says.

"Tomorrow," Wade answers.

Peter salutes as he lets himself fall off the rooftop. Gravity tugs him down and—fleetingly—he experiences the exhilarating weightlessness of free fall. Then he fires his web-shooter and swings away, the rush of air around him unable to disguise Wade's loud whoop of triumph.

Behind his mask, Peter smiles.

Part 2

#spideypool #spiderman #deadpool #peter parker #wade wilson #rating: e #pairing: wade wilson/peter parker

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