#it is unfinished i never got to the climax

[january-glooms]

ok so on request of op, here's the beast. the monster that haunts my dreams and thoughts. i am frankenstein and this is my half baked creation (an unfinished thought essay on avengers endgame):

There are 6 Infinity Stones, 6 original Avengers and 6 children of Thanos. That’s one too many for it to be a coincidence. Not only that, but there is also the fact each of the original Avengers represent an Infinity Stone so purely it’s uncanny.

They named the movie Avengers Endgame, so let’s make it an actual endgame. In the chess strategy, you sacrifice your important pieces so the king can make the final blow and end the game.

Meaning that I probably won’t have a way to implement something similar to the final battle in the movie, no matter how cool it was. It just isn’t logical, especially when I set out to fix the time travel mess. And I understand the need for actual character deaths in such a big movie/story, but the death of Tony Stark made absolutely zero sense in correlation to the movie. We just saw him happy after like 15 years of struggling, he had a four-year-old daughter. Had he stayed alive it would’ve been the ultimate fuck you parallel to Thanos, he would’ve gone and done exactly what Thanos wanted to do himself “Restore balance to the universe,” whilst also being a father himself and actually raising the child.

Unlike Thanos who kidnapped his so-called children, whilst killing the rest of their planet making them the last survivors of their race in the process. Made them fight each other and when one lost, he removed a part of her body with a machine. Yeah, that sounds like great parenting, but I digress.

So, the plot of Avengers Endgame is set in motion by a RAT hitting a button, yeah no, not in my world. I’m sorry Scott, but you’ll be stuck in the quantum realm for the entirety of this. Then again you'll get out of it a lot quicker than in the movie, so you win some you lose some.

Instead my plot is moved forward by the fact that Tony simply doesn’t accept a world where Morgan doesn’t know her older brothers Harley and Peter. Oh, before I forget Helen Cho and Darcy Lewis survived the Snap, but Jane Foster and Erik Selvig didn’t.

1. Space —> Thor & Ebony Maw

2. Time —> Steve & Corvus Glaive

3. Soul —> Natasha & Gamora

4. Mind —> Tony & Nebula

5. Power —> Bruce/Hulk & Cull Obsidian

6. Reality —> Clint & Proxima Midnight

Thanos’ plan does not make sense, cutting all of life in half so the other remaining half can thrive. The last time there were half as many people on our planet as there are now was back in 1970.

In the past 50 years our population has doubled itself, so assuming that we would keep reproducing at the same rate if not faster, because everytime after a big tragedy on Earth without fail there will be a population boom.

Look at ww2 or the bubonic plague. So, when Dr. Strange asked Thanos what he was gonna do after he was done, he shouldn’t have said, “I finally rest... and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe”. Because in 50 years tops he’d have to use the Stones again and that’s only talking about Earth, not even the rest of the Galaxy. So it doesn’t make any sense why he destroyed his only means of accomplishing his goals.

What I think that his plan instead should’ve been was that he’d give 1 Stone to each of his children, who would take them to the ends of the galaxy to guard until the time came to use them again. Of course he didn’t account for Gamora and Nebula betraying him.

However, during the course of Infinity War all of Thanos’ children except for Nebula die. Gamora, bless that wonderful woman, died for the Soul Stone. Ebony Maw was killed by Iron Man and Spider-Man to save Dr. Strange. Cull Obsidian was killed by Bruce Banner in the Hulkbuster armour. Proxima Midnight was killed by the Scarlet Witch to save the Black Widow and General Okoye. Corvus Glaive was killed by Vision when he tried to take the Mind Stone in princess Shuri’s lab.

But honestly we could just ignore that fact, because in the end Thanos succeeded. So, their deaths are inconsequential and could be reversed for the purposes of better storytelling.

Now, there are a few more plot holes I’d like to point out whilst I’ve got your attention:

Don’t you think that it’s weird that Thor doesn’t know the Guardians of the Galaxy or at the very least Gamora, you know, daughter of Thanos (albeit kidnapped).

In Avengers: Age of Ultron he literally says, “I have no choice. The Mind Stone is the fourth of the Infinity Stones to show up in the last few years. That’s no coincidence. Someone has been playing an intricate game and has made pawns of us. But once all these pieces are in position...”.

Proving to us that he knows of what has happened in Xandar. Because at that point in time Dr. Strange wouldn’t have happened yet, as that happened in 2016 and Age of Ultron in 2015. So, the Time Stone is still safe in the Kamar Taj with the Ancient One. And the Soul Stone is on Vormir and Gamora is literally the only being in the entire Galaxy that has that information.

Like I mentioned Age of Ultron happens in 2015, that means that Thor has personally been involved with three of the sightings of the Stones, so the fourth one has to be the Power Stone. So, Thor mentions four Stones but both Steve and Tony don’t realize they only know of three? I call bs, sure maybe Steve wouldn’t realize it, but you’d think that Tony does.

The man is a literal genius, who built a miniaturized arc reactor in a cave with a bunch of scraps, he’s created multiple functional AI, he created a new element on an off Tuesday like it was nothing, whilst suffering from heavy metal poisoning.

The villains in Spider-Man: far from home are literally a bunch of people who felt personally slighted by the man, because he is more academically accomplished. Oh and did I mention that he was dead in the movie?

Then again all of the Iron Man movies have that exact same type of villain, except for Ivan Vanko his father felt personally slighted by Howard Stark. So, he thought, “I gotta continue the only thing our family is known for. Attack a Stark,” because yeah that’s a great idea.

Anyway, new plothole, did anyone ever think to ask Loki where got the scepter? Or what happened during his time in the void?

We could easily retcon it and say his eyes are blue when he comes through the portal. The same kind of blue as Clint Barton’s and Dr. Erik Selvig’s eyes. This would insinuate that Loki was mind controlled as well. His eyes would, in fact, stay blue throughout the entirety of the movie up until the Hulk smashed Loki in the Stark Tower penthouse. Afterwards his eyes return to their normal green colour.

But besides that, his whole plan sucked, for someone who’s made out to be this incredibly sly and cunning trickster, he sure don’t got the skills to pull off a surprise attack. Honestly what were these people, especially Thor who grew up with the man, thinking when they were fighting him?

Then again, no one questioned why the scepter stayed on Earth, but the tesseract had to go to Asgard. Like trading in one extremely dangerous alien artefact housing an Infinity Stone for another extremely dangerous alien artefact housing an Infinity Stone? Maybe, a not so great move on Thor’s part. Seems kind of counterintuitive, because why would he make such a big fuss about the tesseract coming to Asgard, but then completely disregard the scepter.

Speaking of the scepter, onto plothole number three, why did the scepter not work on Tony? Was it just coincidence because Loki hits the arc reactor? Or was it more?

Because you see, the element powering the arc reactor is based on the tesseract, which houses the Space Stone an Infinity Stone. And the scepter houses the Mind Stone, another one of the Infinity Stones.

Does one or at least something with the same properties as one cancel one of the other Stones out?

Because later in Age of Ultron, when Wanda uses her powers on him they do work and she got her powers from the Mind Stone. This is after he removed the arc reactor in 2013 at the end of Iron Man 3. And as if that isn’t enough, Tony himself writes it off as the scepter giving him the vision.

So, with that being said, Starkium is an element based on the tesseract, which houses the Space stone. It is also capable of throwing off the working of the scepter, which houses another Infinity Stone, the Mind Stone to be precise. What if, for each of the stones there is an element based on one of the other stones that cancels one another out.

• Space over Mind

• Mind over Soul

• Soul over Power

• Power over Reality

• Reality over Time

• Time over Space

(Is this of any value towards the plot? No. Then why would it matter? Well my brain wouldn’t let it go, so deal with it)

After the Snap, maybe before I don’t know yet, the remaining Avengers realize this. And with the remaining Avengers I mean Tony Stark. Tony Stark figures it out as per usual, once he’s back from his impromptu space vacation of course.

Because exhaustion or not, he’s got shit to do. And seeing as he’s the only one with working brain cells and occasionally, when given incentive uses them. Because, I flat out refuse to believe that Tony gave up after his kid just died in his arms.

So, he and Nebula come up with a plan, he sure as hell isn’t gonna let a genocidal grape with a bunch of colourful rocks win without so much as a rematch.

Remember earlier when I said, “So, their deaths are inconsequential and could be reversed for the purposes of better storytelling.”?

Yes? Great, so here the Black Order doesn’t die, except for Gamora who does die for the Soul Stone, but that can be reversed. If the person who snaps thinks of just the right thing. So, everything does go according to plan, for Thanos.

Sort of, he sends all of his children to guard their Stones. But he has two left over, the Soul Stone and the Mind Stone for Gamora and Nebula respectively. But seeing as Gamora died and Nebula betrayed him, he is coming a few hands short.

That’s where Nebula comes in, she goes to the Garden alone, to realign herself with Thanos. Saying she was making sure her sister didn’t do anything to stupid during her time with the Guardians and when she learned of her death she wasn’t thinking clearly. Struck with grief she attacks him on Titan. (I don’t know, okay, I haven’t worked out all of the kinks yet.) Delighted by this revelation Thanos trusts her with the Mind Stone and he’ll just guard the Soul Stone himself.

Unbeknownst to him though, Nebula leads the Avengers to him and after she’s gotten the Mind Stone, she sends in the Avengers. Thor goes for the head and they get the Soul Stone.

Once they arrive back on Earth, Tony starts working on the elements as well as using the readings of the Stones to find the other stones. Once he finds the Stones, they divide into tag teams of two and go hunting for the remaining Stones.

During the three weeks that Tony was stuck in space, the remaining Asgardians arrived on Earth. Thor leaves Valkyrie in charge of New Asgard, who settled in Norway, with the help of Pepper. As he goes to retrieve the Space Stone (he is getting that one because he’s the only original Avenger from space) which is guarded by Ebony Maw.

Maw because he can use magic and is the most skilled of the Black Order, so Thor has the biggest chance of surviving. He goes on his own, seeing as all of the other people who know their way around space are paired with a human. The other pairs are:

• Steve & Carol for the Time Stone; Because there both soldiers out of time; I don’t have a particular reason for this except for maybe Steve needing some self reflection on his past actions and Carol being an actual Captain, not just an honorary one, can help (yes, im salty);

• Bruce/Hulk & Nebula for the Power Stone; Because the Hulk, but, also, also, actually, actually Bruce Banner is the strongest Avenger. And they need to realize that they need to work together (These two got some serious self worth issues) and Nebula can help with that because she too was turned into something she didn’t want to be; Plus Cull Obsidian is the strongest of the Black Order;

• Clint & Rocket for the Reality Stone; Because they both lost their reality when they lost their children (Here Clint didn’t go whole psycho emo assassin, not to mention melodramatic Mr. Don’t, don’t give me hope, on the world and Natasha went to get him like ten seconds after the snap, because oh I don’t know she’s supposedly his best friend and the godmother to his children with one being named after her.); So did Tony (Harley & Peter you can fight me on this) but they don’t know that and also Pepper is pregnant;

Natasha stays on Earth as she is needed for relief efforts as well as new contingencies to ensure no other civilians die, for their cause. So, together with Pepper, Valkyrie, Darcy, Nakia and Okoye, who temporarily took over Wakanda seeing as the entire royal family was dusted, they plan with world leaders to stop traffic on the day the second snap happens.

So, people who dusted on the road won't come back to die anyways, because they were hit by a car, bus, train or even a subway. Whilst Tony and Rhodey play in the lab aka rebuild the Iron Legion to rescue any people who dusted on a plane, boat or submarine and are in danger of dying due those circumstances, whilst they diligently await the return of the other Avengers.

As for people who dusted in hospitals, there will be no surgeries that day and all personnel are on stand-by for any patient that dusted on the table. There should be records of all people who dusted, so it shouldn’t be too hard, just long and tedious. And that is without taking into account this is only for Earth and they need to rinse and repeat this process as quickly as possible for as many planets as possible.

That’s why Valkyrie stayed on Earth, so that once the plan in fully thought out, she and the Asgardians who want to can go and work this out with other worlds, with space ships made by Tony, Rhodey, Helen Cho (who was very sad to hear that Peter died, cuz she was his trusted doctor, it’s hard finding a doctor for him with his mutated blood and all that jazz) and Wakanda.

As for relief efforts, the Maria Stark Foundation is on top of things. Wong and the rest of the Kamer Taj also help with finding missing persons and as soon as the Iron Legion is back up they help too until they are needed for the second snap, with FRIDAY at the helm of course.

Once they have the element based on the Mind Stone, Tony with the help of Wakandan scientists awakens? Rebuilds? Reboots? Rebirths? I don’t know, okay? Vision is confusing, anyways he brings Vision and Jarvis back. Yes, Jarvis too, because I miss him and FRI deserves to meet her big bro.

Back to the Avengers in space. Thor, thanks to Stormbreaker, can call the Bifrost and therefore is also the one arrives the fastest at his destination. (Don’t ask me where okay. Just somewhere in the depths of the Galaxy.) He finds ? a castle? a cave? Ebony Maw seems too sophisticated for a cave, so a castle it is.

Moving on, he wanders around the castle trying to find Maw, but moreover the Stone. Finally he does find him, he’s just sitting there on a throne holding the Stone and almost playing with it in a sort of knowing way. He looks up and smirks as Thor’s grip on Stormbreaker tightens and he starts crackling with lightning, much like he did in the final battle of Asgard on the Bifrost against Hela. And then he says, “I did tell you the sun would shine on us again,” before transforming into Loki.

Cue cute and wholesome reunion, because these two sad bois™ deserve it. (Also after they get back to earth Thor is the one who handles the most of the delegation with other planets together with Loki, cuz you know Loki seems more competent)

Moving on to our dynamic duo of Captains (lmao I think I’m funnier than I actually am). Carol has a suit that lets her breathe in space as well as powers that she can use to fly. Steve can use the thing that Quill uses to breathe in space and I’m sure that either Tony or Wakandan scientists can whip up a space suit. I’m not even sure he needs it, cuz Quill’s clothes look pretty normal, but ya can never be too sure. Anyway, because Carol has the ability to fly really fast they just move through space like that to cut back on time.

Next up are Bruce and Nebula, they take the Milano together with Clint and Rocket who later take a pod once they need to separate.

In Infinity War Bruce is seen to be having trouble with hulking out, that is because Thanos scared the Hulk into hiding. At some point during the movie Bruce says, “Hulk, we got a lot to figure out, pal.”. So, if we follow this line of thought we can safely assume that they talk and start the process of healing. Neither trying to take over permanently, but rather work together to find a long term solution without killing either Hulk or Bruce. On the ship Bruce tries to talk to Hulk but the moment Thanos is mentioned he panics and refuses to talk about it.

Nebula notices and asks if she can try to talk with him, notice the distinction between ‘talking with’ and ‘talking to’. She talks with him as though he were an equal, which he is mind you, not an object. Nebula is able to reassure the Hulk and gets him to agree to try and reconcile with Banner to find a balance.

Ah yes, the dads amongst superheroes Clint Barton aka Hawkeye and Rocket Raccoon. Those who lost their reality with the Snap, their children. When a child loses their parent they are an orphan, but there is no name for a parent who loses their child (yes i am using that cliche quote, leave me alone). They are both skilled long distance fighters, so I was thinking we could take advantage of that. Rocket creates a diversion and Clint takes Proxima Midnight out, because the rage of a grieving father is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy.

the mcu would've been so much better today if they had hired parkner tumblr and ao3 to write for them.

[bodyelectr1c]

plaything

austin doesn’t let the reader finish until he wants her to

literally no plot, just smut

warnings: orgasm denial, teasing, oral (f receiving), degradation, edging, a little overstim, implied age gap, possessive austin, daddy kink

this is my first time writing, it’s so nasty but kind of hot. i’m a sucker for an older guy, so i picture a sexy age gap. anyways, enjoy!

austin hadn’t let you off easily, forbidding you from touching yourself while simultaneously leaving you unfinished and begging, writhing; a string of desperate whines and pleas leaving your throat. it was clear to you he didn’t care for your pleasure, he just wanted to get himself off. you were nothing more than a fuckdoll to him. he’d no shame in pulling you by your hair- no matter when; no matter where, dragging you to the nearest bathroom, shed, closet, whatever- and fucking you senseless

“fuck- you’re such a slut baby,”

“your cunt is so fucking tight, just for me”

“you’re-fuck, gonna be the death of me..”

he cooed ‘affectionate’ remarks at you in between progressively sloppier thrusts- if they could even be labelled affectionate. you regarded it as love on his part, you both know you enjoyed being degraded, and he knew you’d do anything to make daddy cum.

sometimes, whilst jackhammering into your pussy, he’d lazily reach down and thumb at your untouched clit in circular motions, occasionally dipping his hand down to where you both connected, attempting to fit one of his thick fingers in alongside. he did this just to hear you scream his name, and he’d stop as soon as he felt his climax nearing.

it was habitual, his hips would begin to stutter, his moans would get more desperate- louder and lower, his degrading remarks would descend into a string of pet names, his eyes fluttering closed as he groaned. “babybabybaby”

and then it was over, he’d pull out with a desperately hot groan, his cum painting every part of your body as he’d collapse onto the bed, his larger frame dipping the mattress next to you. you’d scream his name to no avail, trying to chase the high that he brought you near, but never cared to complete. your own hand darted down to your throbbing clit, rubbing desperate and fast circles around the sensitive nerves before they were met with a sharp slap on austin’s behalf, and then an absence of any sensation. he’d pull your hands away from your clit, puffy and leaking.

“you cum, when i make you cum, i don’t fuck college whores who get off on anyone’s fingers but mine.” he’d growl, pulling your thighs apart after you’d began rubbing them together in an attempt at any friction, his words turning you on impossibly more; you felt like you could cum untouched, coaxed by more of his dirty, perverted requests. you let him know, too, babbling incoherent sentences and grabbing onto his toned arms, repeating over and over again to just “let me cum daddy, i’ll be good i promise, fuck- pleasepleaseplease austin”

to your dismay, he’d almost always get up off the bed, watching you writhing and twitching from your previous proximity to your orgasm, and spit out:

“you’re so desperate it’s pathetic,”

before walking away to take a scathing hot shower, leaving you sensitive, but obedient enough to never touch yourself in the hopes that he’d come back and please you to completion.

in those blissful moments where he’d come back from the bathroom after an excruciatingly long time, finding pleasure in the confidence that you’d wait for him to make you cum, he’d hover his tall frame over you, watching attentively, towel loosely hanging on his hips, v line completely visible above the thin cloth, hair still wet as an aftermath of his shower. he’d let out a gruff and low laugh at how much of you whore you were being, fucked out without being allowed to cum. he found it comical, and a fucking sexy sight to see. his girl, spread out just for him, obedient and desperate to please him in any way you could. he got hard again just thinking about it.

he’d lower himself between your thighs, much to your relief as you let out a pleasured sigh, letting your head fall back against the bed as his stubble brushed your clit alongside his nose, teasing you one last time, evoking a sharp twitch in your abdomen, before he brought his tongue out to swirl around your sensitive cunt. your desperation to get off overcame you, you couldn’t help but lose your fingers in his damp hair whilst pulling his head down to force him onto your clit. he didn’t stop you, instead alternating between sucking your clit- hard, as if to signal that he was still in charge, and swirling his tongue around your pleasure soaked pussy, focusing his attention on one sensitive spot that made you whine louder and higher.

hearing you express your immense pleasure was a profession of devotion for him, and it turned him on profusely, causing him to moan around your cunt, sending vibrations around you that fluttered around your walls. his sucking and teasing was becoming too much for you, and he didn’t give you a second to rest, pulling you back toward him with a tight grip on your hips every time you tried to lift yourself in an attempt to catch your breath. he knew you could take it.

you felt your climax nearing you as you began to convulse, closing your thighs around his head, his still damp hair tickling your legs as he sucked harder and harder, also aware of how close you were due to the incessant chant of unholy curses and moans left your body. it was sinful, truly, his chin already soaked with the anticipation of your climax, mixed with the noises you made as he lost himself in between your legs.

“daddy, i’m so close, please let me cum, please let me cum, fuck!” you begged as he looked up from his task at hand, mouth never leaving your swollen clit, icy blue eyes focused on the pornographic sight before him, basking in it.

your climax washed over you as you let out a last scream of his name, pushing his head back down as you bucked your hips sloppily against his face, allowing yourself to release, the warm knot in your stomach untying itself as your eyes rolled back into your head.

as you lay there, panting, coming down from your intense high, austin outlined your clit in slow circular motions with his fingers to coax you through your comedown, making you twitch under the aftermath of the stimulation, bucking your hips up again slightly before letting go of all the tension in your muscles and collapsing farther back into the mattress, hands still intertwined in his now messy hair as he moved to lie next to you, using the white sheets to clean the remainder of your juices off his face before turning to face you where you lay, breathless

“fuck baby, that- was hot.”

[eriexplosion]

Yesterday everyone was posting their feelings on TBB. I'm glad I waited, because there's a lot swirling around. Cut for negativity again.

I was introduced to The Bad Batch in August 2022 and fell instantly in love. The characters, the story, the complex family dynamics, they all spoke to me. I wasn't even a Star Wars fan but I went through and devoured The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, all of it. I threw myself into this world and adored every second of it. I must have rewatched season one over five times before season two even came out.

When season two premiered I loved it. Every Tuesday night I stayed up until the episode drop and devoured it immediately. I looked ahead at the schedule and took days off work for the double episodes, for the big Crosshair episodes - he was my favorite early on and season two only made that grow. But season two also really brought Tech into my radar even more. I had always liked him, but here he was shining. The Crossing really solidified it, as an autistic person. I'd never heard someone describe the difference in processing so succinctly before, so clearly, and it spoke to me like very little had. Here was a character that was like me. Here was a character that I needed when I was an undiagnosed child, someone that would have made me feel like I had at least some way of describing my differences.

Then, well. He died. It was an affecting scene, but it felt out of nowhere, it felt unfinished. Tech didn't even get the climax of the episode. He just fell into the clouds, the Batch grieved for a few minutes, and then the plot steamrolled right along.

I didn't believe it, not after the mad scientist presented his goggles and claimed not to salvage anything else. It seemed like such an obvious fake out. The longer I sat with it the less satisfying it felt. It felt so brushed over, so pointless, all for a mission that they accomplished nothing on. Then came the social media circus. Again and again his fall was shoved in our faces on Twitter, demanding we stream it. TikToks were made that were so out of touch they felt like parodies, the wound ripped open again and again, and I thought surely there had to be a purpose to it.

So I waited for season 3 as interviews were done that seemed to almost intentionally avoid calling him dead. As tweets were made promising we'd be so fulfilled if we could only see who was onscreen in the mid-season! (A tweet that immediately garnered dozens of people hoping it referred to Tech, all without a single comment to try and quell the speculation.) It felt already like we were being toyed with, but I thought it had to be for a reason or a purpose. More weirdly vague discussions went up about his Sacrifice, his Fall, his Anything But Death, even as everyone insists that it was so meaningful, the way he died on a mission that accomplished nothing. Jokes were made around Valentines Day.

He Fell For You, get it?

The first official use of killed went up on the databank right after the trailer, on Hunter's page of all places. The first time the interviews used dead was the Friday before the premier. It all felt too late, theories had already grown for months by that point.

Season 3 finally came and I waited up for every episode drop just like I did for season 2, hoping for him to come back or at least for him to be properly grieved, since we had barely a couple of minutes in Plan 99 before it was swept away for the next plot point. Surely Tech's impact deserved an episode of focus, if he were really gone.

The previously on plays his last words twice. But then we skip months into the future. We don't see Crosshair find out the news - even though Tech died on a mission to retrieve him. We don't watch Omega grieve. She barely seems to notice she's missing a brother. We got a brief allusion in episode two. It took three episodes to even mention his name in passing. Five episodes in everyone got their chance to look sad about him, but only for a few seconds and only when his skills were relevant. Compared to the gorgeous callback to Mayday in the same episode, it felt shallow. He had to have been more important than this didn't he?

Episodes 6 & 7 felt like maybe there was a reason. We see a new masked assassin that gets extra focus, who got put through a series of Tech-adjacent situations, whose beef with Crosshair was just a little too personal, who survived longer than all the rest but stayed masked. Rex talks about losing brothers, but Hunter says nothing about the brother they lost. I hoped it all meant something, that this was the reason that he felt so much like he was thrown away, so that he could come back in.

More one off mentions that only really come up when it's about how useful Tech would have been. More poking at the wound that still felt open and raw because we'd never gotten any closure. The closest we get is a single scene in episode eleven, so late in the season and so brief that I thought that couldn't possibly be it.

CX-2 comes back, and he talks like Tech. He's still not unmasked. I really need him to be something because otherwise what was it all for?

The most emotion comes in Juggernaut, from Phee. Its a highlight because it actually feels like it was about him, like he mattered as a person. It's episode twelve and we finally talk about him like a person. We never saw her get the news either.

Episodes thirteen and fourteen pass without any mentions at all. We're running out of time. Episode 15 hits and we get one raw one from Crosshair that Clone Force 99 died with Tech. It's the first time they directly say he's dead in so many words. It's the season finale. CX-2 is a nobody it turns out, and he dies faceless. Everyone gets a happy ending and after over a year of wondering if we'd ever get closure, it turns out Tech's just dead. But look how happy everyone else is!

Everyone gets to grow old. Except the autistic one of course. He's just dead and it hardly feels like it mattered at all. Did you know Wrecker and Hunter don't use his name once in season three? Omega and Echo mention him once each. Crosshair twice, only once with any emotion behind it. Phee tops the charts at three mentions, two by name and one by nickname. We see his goggles four times. I kept count.

There was never a bigger plan, this was just all he was worth. We spent two seasons on Crosshair's absence. We spent a whole episode dealing with it when Echo decided to go with Rex. Tech dies though and all his life amounted to was a handful of mentions when his skills would have been useful, some shots of his broken goggles, and endless cooing out of the text over how meaningful his sacrifice was. Too meaningful to take back, of course, even as Ventress is brought back from her own sacrifice.

I had really, really thought that this time autistic life would be worth more than autistic death. That a character that felt so carefully handled couldn't have just been thrown away for shock value, barely to even be mentioned again, his memory used to string us along to keep us watching. If you added up every mention and shot through season 3 it might actually clock in at less time than was spent on Mayday's send off.

I'm an adult. I'll survive, though the sting of seeing yet another character like me used as a stepping stone for everyone else's happy ending will take a while to fade. But I think about the child I used to be who needed a character like Tech. And I think about how it would have felt to actually get that only to watch him die a handful of episodes later as a side note to his family's story, barely even mentioned again. How badly it would have hurt, how deep it would have scarred.

I'm not that child anymore. But there are a lot of autistic kids out there that are the same as I used to be, and they're learning for the first time that people like us don't get happy endings. Instead they die so that everyone around them can rise up, and they might even get mentioned a few times. But don't worry. Everyone will tell you how meaningful and special it is and how delusional you were to ever hope for anything else.

The Bad Batch still means a lot to me. I think it always will. I love the characters. I love the family, and all the potential they had. But the sting of not belonging in this happy ending is there, and it's deep. It's been a long time since I trusted a show. It'll be a long time before I risk trusting another. And I hope that the autistic kids trying to learn how to close their hearts off behind new walls are doing okay.

[tenebriskukris]

An Exhumation Of Hikaru Kamiki's Character Epilogue: Why Did I Spend So Much Time On This?

Spoilers for the entirety of Oshi No Ko below.

Oshi No Ko is not a good manga. I’ve made my sentiments clear on this claim on many, many occasions. There are better media that display the horrors of the idol industry, that detail both satisfying and unsatisfying revenge plots, that even perform the reincarnation angle to a degree more competent than this manga by magnitudes. The dogshit direction the manga took in regards to the ending was just the nail in the coffin that solidified it for me. The fact that this manga became so popular is an insult to all the heaps of better written manga out there that don’t even have a tenth of the popularity this glorified soap opera of a series has. It simply does not deserve the acclaim it gathered throughout this runtime, in my opinion.

If you were to hold me at gunpoint and ask why this manga has garnered the undue popularity that it has, I’d simply point to the fact that the anime has been exceptionally animated. I had recently watched the second season of the anime and as much as people harp on about how good the Stage Play arc is, that arc too holds more than enough questionable narrative decisions and writing pitfalls for me to even say that the entire arc was written competently. While the adaptation was, objectively, quite good, no matter how well an anime performs in adapting the source material, if the foundation of the anime is rotten, then the finished product will always fall apart under closer inspection. 

Now, this isn’t the time or the place for me to selectively dissect just Where the series has gone wrong. The authors don’t pay me for media analysis and truthfully I think I’d take my payment in fists to their faces since I’m never going to get any of the time back I spent on this pile of shit. It simply isn’t a media that respects its readers' time and thus not one I’m going to commit any of my time to dealing with again. It’s a shame, too. I’ve got over 40k words worth of unfinished analysis on this godforsaken series, about half of which detail Why Kana Arima Is The Worst Character In Oshi No Ko. That’d be a hit with the girlies, I’m sure. 

Kamiki Hikaru, I think, is emblematic of this lack of quality. He and the manga at large started off objectively fine but nothing particularly special and then spiraled out of control and found themselves lying in a dumpster fire the moment they were put under pressure.

I wrote this entire essay to chronicle my thoughts on Hikaru throughout his appearances in the series and simply felt a supreme set of disappointment with how much he fails in a majority of aspects.

Hikaru fails as an antagonist because the narrative could not craft a sufficiently satisfying payoff to his character. All the setup that was used to develop intrigue, all the effort that was done to make him interesting faded away into dust the moment his true face was exposed and the reader could see him under the spotlight for the first time. A more competent author could make his high concept and general character work but there was nothing done to forward the themes he represented and develop his character in a palpable manner.

Hikaru fails as a character because the narrative was so predisposed to using him as an antagonistic force that he simply does not even feel like a character in the story. Yes, he performs antagonistic roles—killing Yura and attempting to manipulate Nino to kill Ruby—but we never get any sort of internality or thought process from him until so close to the final climax of the series and by then any attempt to pursue his character to its logical conclusions were hamstrung by the bad writing of the series. We see his backstory and such from the movie arc but I’ve mentioned before that we have to view those portrayals as suspect due to the fact that he didn’t have any input towards the movie in the first place. He is only really seen at the end of the series and by then the execution of his character left too much to be desired.

Hikaru fails because his thematics fail. What he represents as both a character and as an antagonist simply does not clash against Aqua beyond a mere surface level sequence of events. Hikaru kills stars because that is his way to get closer to Ai. Aqua wants to kill Hikaru to take revenge on him for killing Ai and later to protect Ruby. They do not conflict with each other thematically on any sort of level that fuels the fact that Aqua is the protagonist and Hikaru as the antagonist. 

None of the reasons for them butting heads like this is in any way related to their respective themes that aren’t related to revenge and who they are as people—and even if one could argue in vain that they are, the series does not take time to contrast or hell even compare them during Aqua and Hikaru’s conflict nor at any point throughout the series in a palpable manner.

Hikaru fails in general because he feels like an antagonist first and a character second, and while that sort of approach is fine in a vacuum, for a grounded series that has its roots in the real world that sort of approach simply does not work well with Hikaru—a character that has had so much setup to to develop his character and yet he simply became little more than a deluded murderer—and an uninteresting one at that—that cannot stand on his own merits after the narrative had painstakingly set up his depth and then unceremoniously toppled all that work to the floor in the final arcs of the series.

Hikaru fails because the narrative fails. It cannot be reasonably argued that the quality of the series has not fallen off a cliff ever since the movie arc started and arguably at least an arc or two before then. While the series had flaws before this point—enough so that I wouldn’t even consider it decent at its very best—those flaws were overpowered by the shiny plot points and narrative progression and the characters that lifted up the series on their backs. There were enough good qualities left in the manga to drown out its flaws. That simply isn’t present in many of the later arcs of the series. The horrible pacing saw to that. The butchery of these characters saw to that. The mean spirited conclusion saw to that.

I don’t know who failed Hikaru more. The industry, which enabled Airi to warp a young boy far enough to become a heartless monster; or the authors, who butchered what was an intriguing character concept into little more than a middling antagonist whose very existence becomes just another footnote in the leagues of mediocre villains within all of media.

>INTERMISSION II ==>

[writtenbywings]

Battle Scars

Pairing: Hermione Granger x Draco Malfoy

Summary: Returning to Hogwarts as a professor, Hermione bitterly encounters Draco Malfoy as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, throwing everything into chaos.

Hatred and lust slowly begins to burn between them, though only as they recall their final, secret year at Hogwarts.

Chapter word count: 2.8k

AO3 Link: Click Here

Fanfiction Link: Click Here

Type: Lemony, lemon, lemon---ade. Smutty lemonade. 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Year 7 Flashback

Excuses are what we need to get through life. Tiny little pockets of gold that free us from the tormenting thoughts that keep us up at night. I wouldn't know where I'd be without excuses, without the ability to rectify my decisions, my actions, with lying reason.

And I had lied all week, keeping my experience with Draco Malfoy in Slytherin Tower a secret, even to my two truest friends. Perhaps because it felt good to keep something just for myself, or maybe because they would look at me with a different set of eyes if they knew I had allowed him in… penetrating my protective bubble.

Draco had redeemed himself to somewhat of a degree in Harry's eyes, especially after he had fought with us, opposed to against us, when we battled Voldemort. Though Ron was unshaken. His brother had been killed. His family had been torn apart. And blood was harder to wash off of a conscience than a few bad memories.

Harry would have understood with less hatred.

Ron would have just hated, and hated… and hated some more.

Alas, Ginny could tell something was different. She noticed me flushing in the face whenever a seventh year came passed, dressed in emerald robes. Though I hadn't said much, other than that I felt a little sick and shaky, and maybe the nerves of my unfinished homework was weighing too close to home.

As Thursday came around, six days after our secret meeting, I saw Malfoy standing in the courtyard, talking to Isobel Wretching. She was a pretty girl with blonde hair and fluttery, doe-eyes. A student who would have been better suited for Hufflepuff, opposed to Slytherin. Though it was her fathers affiliation with the dark arts that caused the sorting hat to take an unexpected turn, and one that saw a brief relationship with Draco, in question.

I saw him smirk, the bruising on his face now alleviated entirely. He wore his shirt sleeves down during the day, not wanting to show off that Death Eater mark. Though Isobel was reaching over, playing with his hand.

The image I'd been keeping of him in my head burned to nothing, and I walked past with a vigor that rustled a small wind, alerting him as I went.

Really, what was I expecting? I didn't want us to be friends outside of our arrangement, though I didn't expected to be toyed with. I was Hermione Granger, not some common room slut. If his… areas… were touching other… areas… I didn't want them near mine!

I thought of myself as a virgin, if not for the few times with Ronald.

Though I doubt they could be considered as sex, as they included no passion, no romance, no touching of the explicit kind. It was just a romp on his bed after quidditch practice, and then another time at The Burrow, when I'd been wearing a little dress and we'd let the mood take us. But still, I'd never… orgasmed. He did. But I had just rocked about on the bed for the best part of ten minutes.

If I ever had experienced a climax in life – not involving the happiness I got from a new book – it would have been in private, with one of those vibrating wands from Va-Va-Broom. And I'd never expect Draco Malfoy to be able to deliver anything other than selfishness, so what was I expecting? A bit of loyalty… from the man who nearly killed Dumbledore?

My thoughts continued to hiss like a hot kettle, and continued well into even the night.

Friday morning came, and Draco didn't so much as glance my way in The Great Hall. I shamefully tried to steal a glance, one that would confirm I hadn't made up everything in my head, though as Isobel Wretching flaunted herself over his lap, feeding him a grape from the bouquet on the table, I stood and marched across the room.

I'd been played. A fool.

It was the one day I performed poorly in Potions class, and messed up an entire batch of Sickleweed Milk. A little elixir meant to cure Fizzlebumps. The cauldron exploded and one of the Ravenclaw girls had to go to the hospital wing, riddled with pimples.

I'd been given another free pass, and sent to Hagrid's for the afternoon, to help tend to a few of the magical creatures kept near his hut. I said nothing, letting him prattle on about his dealings in Scotland, and picked the feathers of a pheasant to feed to three untamed creatures. The professors were essentially letting me off every bad mistake I came to make, and for what… because I helped save the school? Or because they knew I was traumatized?

I was beginning to feel like a victim, and not the girl who could cast without a wand.

"I'm going to bed early." I told Hagrid, just as the sky began to darken. He bid me farewell, and watched as I climbed the steps to the castle, not even bothering to have dinner in the Great Hall. In my dormitory, I had a few leftover boxes of chicken pastries, quickly heating one with a spell that cooked it well, tucking into it between a soapy shower and getting my bag ready for the weekend.

I was meant to be visiting mum and dad in London, after the ministry reversed my memory spell on them. It would take a few more sessions to regain their full memory of me, though they were getting better with every visit.

Dad remembered my birthday a few weeks ago, and mum had managed to cook my favorite dinner. Small steps, though big with this kind of magic.

I paced the length of my room, searching for my dress robes, when I remembered I had left my witch's hat and cape in the common room, by the fireplace.

Lord have mercy.

I glanced at the clock and saw it was just after seven o'clock, and that most of the students would be having dessert by now. The girl's dormitory was empty, and I would have a chance to sneak and grab it, after my shower.

Still, I wanted to be careful.

I exchanged that fluffy, white towel for my pleated skirt and white button up shirt, not bothering with tights or a bralette. Though I did take a minute to slip into my knickers.

I crept downstairs, snatched up the bundle of black fabric strewn over the armchair, and ran back up within the matter of sixty seconds.

Clearly, it wasn't enough time.

As I bolted the door, wanting to change before the girls had chance to return, I saw the window ajar– the light breeze rustling the papers on Ikera's writing desk. Her owl fluttered in its cage, and made the wet ends of my hair brush icily against my breasts. I ran over and went to clasp it shut, though as I did, I saw a figure lounging on one of the beds.

It was Draco.

"What the hell are you doing in here? These are forbidden quarters to a Slytherin, let alone a boy!" I yelled, reaching for that towel to cover my chest. I was suddenly aware of how hard my nipples were.

Draco had an arm tucked casually behind his head, dressed in a white shirt similar to mine, the buttons loosely fastened. His emerald tie amiss.

"I knew you would back out of our arrangement, and I wanted to come remind you of what we agreed on." He said, playing with a smirk the way he had played with me last Friday.

"You're right." I spat. "I wasn't going to meet you, after I'd seen it was nothing but a cruel joke to you. I couldn't be bothered with your games."

At this, he sat up, bridging toward the edge of Ashley Wellings bed. Her teddy bear looking skeptical beside his hand as it tightened into the mattress.

"This isn't a game to me, Hermione."

Again, the use of my name felt like a slap, and I'd almost prefer him to use the insult. Mudblood. At least I could expect it.

"Friday night. I'm your distraction. We keep to the plan as follows."

"I don't want you to be my anything if you're going to be sleeping around. I don't know what diseases you'll be collecting."

He almost grinned, almost– if it wasn't for the seriousness he read in my glare.

"I'm not shagging Isobel Wretching. I'm not shagging anyone."

My breathing stilled, and I didn't know whether to believe him. What good would he have in lying? I would find out eventually… women always found out. Though with the way he now stood from the bed, sauntering over, narrowing the space between us, I allowed myself to believe him. If not to keep him right here, standing in front of me, but because I did, truly – honestly, really – feel distracted for the first time.

"The door is locked." I managed to say, just a whisper.

It was my way of saying I agreed, I consented.

His eyes didn't leave mine, but he nodded very slowly.

"My hair is too wet… to go to the tower." I followed on, as his eyes dragged down my tendrils of wet curls, my chest as it was still disguised beneath that towel.

"And… although me and Ron have partaken in things in the past, I really don't—"

"Drop the towel." He said, cutting me off.

I swallowed loudly, unable to move my gaze from his very serious, blue one. My fingers unlocked from their hold, and the towel fell as a bundle of white to the floor, revealing my crinkled white skirt, and the alert pinch of my pink nipples, visible now as the damp from my hair made the material transparent. He reached down and unclasped the first few buttons, my breasts – that had gotten so much more fuller in the past year – falling out, making me gasp as a wind tousled through the open window.

He had climbed the wisteria on the outskirts of the building, all to come up and here and see me. He wasn't playing any games. Not when his pride was so obviously dropped.

The Malfoy name coincided with pride.

He circled back to Ashley Wellings bed, and sat himself back on its edge, crooking a finger and beckoning me forward. A bright and immediate blush rose to my cheeks as I sauntered forward, my breasts bouncing as I did.

He held up a hand and I stopped.

No better than a dog.

An owl.

"Are you wearing anything under that skirt?"

"Yes."

"Good."

In a sudden twist of movement, he clambered his hands around my back and pulled me into his lap, causing me to gasp. I resisted the urge to squeal– I was not that girl. Though I could only swallow the saliva as it pooled in my mouth, watching as he laid himself onto the mattress, staring at me and my perky, upright breasts, in my school uniform.

With two, great hands he planted them on my rear and pushed me with such force, I slid up his body and stopped with my wet, slick underwear rubbing along his face. I jerked forward as his nose rubbed into my clit, and grabbed the bannister of the bed, lifting myself from his face with apology.

Though no, this is what he wanted.

"Sit back down." He ordered, in a voice that was as wilful as magic.

I felt obliged, if not under a spell, to do as he commanded.

With a tear, I felt his hands pull the cotton of my panties free, throwing the shredded material to a discarded corner of the room. Then, he perched me willingly onto his mouth, and with the most pained cry I'd ever released, I shivered dramatically as he began licking my folds.

The pleasure shocked me so much, I lifted up again, though Draco wasn't having any of that. He forced me back down with his hands, now holding my waist and hips like a seatbelt, making my tits thrust upwards as I bucked and grinded, unable to stand it.

"Oh my god… oh my god… Oh, god… Oh my… Oh." I whispered feverishly, biting my fingers, then grabbing the bed, then grabbing at his white wisps of hair between my thighs, then back again to my mouth to chew. I felt it deep within my stomach as tension built, his tongue slithering from my pussy hole, up my clit, and back again. Wagging like a dog's tail, flicking that bundle of nerves that hadn't been teased by anything other than my small hand, or that vibrating wand.

Though this wasn't a wand… this wasn't skin… this was wet, slithering skill. This was an ice cream in the boiling heat, a puddle on dry pavement– a forbidden lust, making it only tastier. The noise he released made me wonder if he could breathe, as I'd gotten so slick so quickly, it must now be soaking his face, his nose, his jaw. Though I didn't care– selfishly, all I could see, feel, hear and breathe was the aching, unconventional desire to cum.

I needed it so much, I began sliding my cunt against his face, grinding against his nose as if it were a bump in the road– feeling the breeze as it came from the window and ruffled the end of my skirt, exposing my rear. As if he knew, he let go of my waist entirely, and planted his hands like two dinner plates against my ass, squeezing and slapping, knowing I wouldn't leave now even if I had the capability.

I'd never leave.

I never wanted this feeling to leave.

And then, suddenly, there was pain.

Pain that cut through the pain, but somehow, only intensified it. Brought it to a new level that brought tears to my eyes, causing me to open them and stare ahead, shocked.

His thumb had made its way into that sacred little hole between my ass cheeks, degrading what I thought I knew myself to be. I wasn't as pure and white as the others had made me out to be, I wouldn't be the wife to endure one sex position in bed for the rest of my life.

I was a creature who enjoyed every morsel of humiliation when it came from the hands of my enemy. I was a mudblood. I was whatever he wanted to be, so long as he didn't stop.

I found myself backing my rear into his hand, hissing as his thumb twisted, corrupting what was left of Little Miss Granger.

The downstairs door clicked to the common room, and I could hear the girls giggling from dinner. Talking, though not quite coming up yet.

Please, I would kill them if they so much as came near this door. I needed to finish. I needed to climax. I needed to release the tension building so quickly, so fast.

"I'm close." I whimpered, which didn't change his rhythm.

I didn't want him to. His tongue was moving so perfectly already. It didn't need to accelerate or so down.

One of his hands slipped from my pert buttocks, though not the one penetrating my hole, and it pushed the skirt down from his face, revealing his blue eyes. I couldn't look at him! No, I couldn't… I couldn't come to terms with the fact it was Draco Malfoy about to get me so far, and it was Draco Malfoy with his tongue buried deep into my cunt.

I threw my head back, feeling that hand now on my breast, pulling my nipple so hard I thought it might pinch off. He devoured me like a machine, with a bit of him– other than his cock– everywhere. And he watched with the lowest, predatory growl, as I overcame the hurdle and came.

I reached forward and grabbed Ashley's teddy bear, stuffing it into my mouth and biting down hard, knowing whatever scream left my mouth would alert everyone downstairs. My stomach clenched in as I shook and trembled, tightening my asshole around his thumb, releasing my juices in hot, sweaty relief.

I couldn't remember saying his name, though the long, whiny, drawn out word 'fuck' came as a mewl, softer than any kitten. Like a doll, I collapsed senselessly to his side, quivering only slightly.

I could see his cock was rock hard within his trousers, and his face was a shiny mess.

The scent of my arousal was everywhere.

I could hardly breathe.

"Unforgivable." He said, swallowing what I could only imagine was more of me.

"Hmm?" I barely mumbled, still panting.

"The word we're using whenever we need this. No questions asked."

"Unforgivable." I said, a little drunk on ecstasy.

"Good girl." 

[vladdyissues]

I'm not asking for details, spoilers, or anything of the sort, but do you already know how Familiar is going to end? In your head, have you established or pictured the finale?

I know things can change before you even get there. I myself often have no clue how things will end when I start up a fic. (Actually, idk what's more difficult—how to start or how to finish? 😆) But I've been curious about this... particularly with your fic. There's so many wonderful and interesting things that go on as the story unravels; I can't imagine a conclusion to it all.

I don't want it to end! 😭 All good things...

I know things can change before you even get there. I myself often have no clue how things will end when I start up a fic.

Same, Puff. I only intended Familiar to be three chapters at first. Then five. Then ten... oops. I never meant for/expected it to turn into this big thing, but here we are 🥴

But to answer your question: yes, I do have an ending firmly in mind. The climax is still a bit nebulous, but I expect it'll start to solidify once I get closer to it. I've got the whole rest of the story mapped out; timeline, notes, some rough scenes, lots of emoji bullet lists. I'm even saving a bunch of scraps that are basically "deleted/alternate scenes" because I can't bear to throw old ideas away lol.

I don't want it to end!

I feel that. For me, finishing is always the biggest challenge. When I write purely for the vibes instead of plot, or to serve as some kind of emotional outlet, it can lead to a lot of unfinished WIPs—or at least "unfinished" in the sense that they accomplished their purpose for me but leave my readers hanging on the edge of a figurative cliff. (I'm sure that says something about me psychologically haha.) Vibefic is best saved for oneshots and ficlets, at least in my case. But Familiar has turned out to be the most ambitious and plot-intense story I've yet written, and I'm determined to see all the mysteries revealed and puzzles solved!

I must confess though, I'm pacing myself since I'm enjoying writing this story so much 🥹 I'm sure some of you want to kill me for taking this slow burn to the extreme, but I promise/hope it'll be worth it.

[tameimpala222]

Do you think Satellite is about Taylor ??

Definitely!

“You got a new life / Am I bothering you? / Do you wanna talk?”

I interpret this as him saying that she’s currently occupied in another relationship but he senses something is wrong and he wants to prompt her to talk.

“We share the last line / Then we drink the wall / 'Til we wanna talk”

So it seems like they hang out occasionally and they both need to get intoxicated before they can actually say what’s on their mind.

Both Taylor and Harry have mentioned that both of them struggle with communication issues in a lot of other songs about each other, so this is totally on brand for them to only speak their mind after getting drunk/high.

“I go 'round and 'round / Satellite”

So he’s either saying he’s beating around the bush to ask her something, or that he’s hovering around her concerned like a satellite to their world/planet.

Fun fact! The ‘Round and round’ line was also used in Taylor’s Style - “but I watch us go round and round each time”. And this song is definitely about Harry. So it’s possible that he’s referencing that line in Style.

“Spinning out, waiting for ya to pull me in / I can see you're lonely down there / Don't you know that I am right here?”

He’s saying that he’s waiting on the ‘outside’ hoping that she’ll finally lower her walls/boundaries and let him in. He’s also saying that he knows she’s lonely and that he can be someone to take away the loneliness.

“I'm in an L.A. mood / I don't wanna talk to you / She said, "Give me a day or two"

I read this as them still having communication issues, but this time it hints that she is willing to work on their friendship(?) by saying she needs some time off first before contacting him again (meaning their bond is progressing — there is hope after all).

“Right here, right here / Spinning out, waiting for ya / I'm here, right here / Wishing I could be there for ya”

This is the climax of the song, with the drop beat. This is him quite literally emphasizing that he “really wishes to be there for her!”

————

So anyway, what I got from this song that is it about a past relationship because he mentions a ‘she’ in the lyrics, and they still talk sometimes and see/hang out with each other but she still keeps him at a distance (that he’s wishing to get closer).

I can’t think of another public relationship that he has had that fits the bill for this song (not Olivia, not Kendall, not Camille). It’s possible that it *could* be about a private relationship but knowing Harry’s fans, he’d never be able to hide a relationship that long without people finding out. One night stands or hookups doesn’t count because the communication issues seems to be of a proper ‘relationship’ problem and not a fling (who needs to communicate in a fling anyway? Lol)

Also, he has written songs about Taylor even during the Fine Line era (see “Him”), so it’s not a stretch to say that he has songs about her in Harry’s House. And Taylor definitely still writes about him. In her latest song “Question…?”, she hints that they still have unfinished business.

The dots, I have connected it!

[oldendaysmedia]

One great Frozen fanfic I loved as a kid was "Wait, What?" by Fanfiction.net user RedApple435.

This story was about Elsa and Anna traveling back in time to when they were kids.

It was published on Jun 10, 2014, and last updated on Dec 24, 2014.

It only got 10 chapters far before the author abandoned it and never updated it again. It has been left unfinished.

This was such a great story, and it wasn't overly long either. It was short and to the point, and I really liked that.

The story seemed near the climax when the author abandoned it. Maybe they got bored of it or didn't think of an ending ahead of time and couldn't come up with one.

[pinkandgoldensoul]

emotional rollercoaster at 5 a.m. watching the race > getting study done before 9 a.m. > 2.2k words of the new fic written in a couple of hours > some more reading for uni (actually enjoyable) > coming back to tumblr to see Max and Penelope being the cutest thing ever, incredible f1 fanarts and Mario Renzi's breathtaking shots = i need a new brain a new heart to bear life from now on 'cause mine are washed out P.S: the fic is past 11.k words! Happy that I've got so much writing done today in the last few days! Only problem is I've written until the climax of the story, which is still an unfinished scene, and there's a lot to cover yet. My gosh. It'll never end. It's been three months. So many things happened... Anyway, I don't want to get your hopes up, I don't know how long it'll take. Just for info, the fic is a pierre gasly x reader + two other characters heavily involved... and the trope isn't another friends to lovers! Out of my comfort zone! Thanks to @gaslysainz for the request! ♥

﹒⪩⪨﹒Have a nice one ﹒⪩⪨﹒

[get-back-homeward]

Ram Revisited

Paul and Linda record their album Ram from October 1970 to March 1971, and it is released May 17, 1971. By May 26, John already had his infamous response, recording How Do You Sleep. This song gets a lot of attention for how cruel it seemed. One of John’s defenses by the album’s launch was that Paul had written special messages to him on Ram, only Paul didn’t print the lyrics so you couldn’t hear them. He mentions it a couple times, in print...

and at St Regis hotel press conference for the album release:

JOHN: But... I was laughing at [Ram] later, but first, I was saying, “Oh! Hmm. Oh, I see. Oh, that’s what he thinks,” huffing and puffing. That’s the first thing I heard on his album, was all this – this message, you see. [x]

JOHN: It’s just a moment of anger. But I just put it down on paper. And also, I’m answering Paul’s last album, which mostly because he didn’t hand out a lyric sheet, [people] don’t know what he was saying [on it]. [x]

JOHN: You mightn’t hear ‘em, but I can hear ‘em, and I know Paul. [x] 

and during live interviews, where he gets cut off from finishing his point every time. But he seems particularly bothered by the lack of printed lyrics.

JOHN: Little messages that Paul sent to me on Ram. Which, funny, I publish my lyrics you see. He doesn’t, so you have to listen. [x]

It’s tempting to laugh at this, if you think it’d just an excuse for HDYS, or call him kookoo, if you think he’s just obsessed with Paul and reading things that aren’t there. But I find the comments rather curious in light of idea that the Beatles, particularly John and Paul, had a shared language that dates back to when they were kids in Liverpool and was used as late as 1969 as seen in Get Back. By design, the language is used to protect and exclude, so any analysis by outsiders will probably be utterly meaningless. But I thought I’d take it on face value that John was hearing something the average listener couldn’t without printed lyrics to try to understand the root of the anger that drives HDYS.

As a thought experiment, I decided to relisten to Ram for the first time while reading the lyrics, with an eye for words I couldn’t hear (or misheard before) along with album themes. Full disclosure, I’ve always listened to this album while working on something else, so while I may be have seen looked up lyrics for a song or two independently (Too Many People, Back Seat), I didn’t read them while listening to the song or consider them in the context of the full album, all of which create a different experience. I used Spotify’s lyrics function while listening to the 2012 remastered album, so any lyric variations may be Spotify’s fault.

Starting from the top. The album begins with Too Many People, which opens with an indiscernible line that’s a play on words.

Piss off cake-->piece of cake. I had no idea that’s what he was singing at the start. For 20 years, I heard this line as “this I got to say-ay-ay”. That said, “piss off cake” still doesn’t tell us much. I’m with this guess that this phrase is an in-joke turned nasty, like a firing shot John heard right at the start.

Two “mistakes” are mentioned here. The first mistake gets a lot of attention (”going underground”, “took your lucky break and broke it in two”) and is generally attributed to John asking for a divorce/leaving the band, though I question it (see below). But the last mistake is the hidden dagger I never heard without looking up the lyrics:

“I find my love awake and waiting to be...” followed by the stinger chord is an unfinished sentence. The verb ‘be’ is doing all the work, suggesting a missing past participle left unsaid. John is no stranger to using simple verbs to stand in for prohibited ones, as Norwegian Wood and Don’t Let Me Down show. Paul stops just short of making it vulgar, but the implication is there. By making the arena in bed, the suggestion is inherently sexual--not only in the unfinished sentence but also in the 1-minute guitar solo climax that follows, complete with dog howling. This makes the dagger a sexual taunt, and I keep trying to hear other interpretations, but I only hear one: Literally this could have been you in my bed but you blew it and now I have her. Not ever but never again. It’s a closed door. Slammed in your face. Now what can be done for you? as the guitar goes wild. Suggestive of bedroom fun you’re shut off from.

Okay, I can see how that could ignite someone’s anger, especially one prone to jealousy.

The trouble I have with this is timing. If “first mistake” is the divorce meeting (Sept 20) then what is the “last mistake” that deserves this sexual taunt? Paul always talks about the divorce meeting as if John declaring he’s leaving the band and wanting a divorce (from him) as the same moment. Maybe the “first mistake” is mislabeled, as John’s “going underground” wish begins in 1968 with Yoko and his controversial public actions from nude album covers to bagism events (not to mention private actions like covering personal debt and bringing outsiders into the recording studio) that caused a schism at Apple at its crucial first few months. Paul talks about summer 1968 as a difficult time for him, where he felt like everything was falling apart. Dick James their publisher is watching all of this and making business calculations. By March 1969, in the middle of their honeymoons with their wives, he decides to sell Northern Songs.

Would John pinpoint his "first mistake” as Yoko? IDK. He’d know when his relationship with Paul got rocky, at least professionally. They seem to be arguing about this underground direction as early as May 1968 (NYC), perhaps even earlier. In interviews, Yoko seems to focus on this part, which may indicate her feeling it was about her.

But if the “first mistake” is May 1968 and in the realm of music/business/professional, then the “last mistake” is the final straw and it’s personal.

Don’t let them tell you what you want to be

Paul recounts September 20 as if John betrayed him, getting him to sign the EMI contract before telling him he wanted the divorce. Paul felt tricked, like the rug was pulled out from under him. The hidden dagger in the song works the same way.

The second track, 3 Legs, begins innocently enough (When I walk on my horse upon the hill). It seems like empty nonsense until this accusation:

It’s a explicitly John-directed lyric: Paul’s emotional state is caused by John’s actions. I still hear “you let me down” (recalling Don’t Let Me Down) even though the original lyrics sheet says “left” and these printed ones say “laid.” So it’s worth taking a closer look at the rest.

This is a weird lyric taken literally. Paul’s doodling a three-legged thing and a three-legged dog on the lyrics sheet for this song. The dog doesn’t look like any of the dogs they had at the time to my knowledge. Dog could be a stand-in for another word John understood.

I enjoy @jobey-wan-kenobi’s​ idea of “three leg” as surrealist imagery that suggests an off-kiltered scene and reflects the writer’s state of mind. Both John and Paul spoke about being inspired by surrealist art and using it in lyrics to mask.

Didn’t John talk about having a reoccurring dream of flying above the clouds as a kid? I believe he used it to justify his whole egocentric interpretation of Strawberry Fields. But this flying seems the opposite of an ego trip:

He’s so unstable, the listener could knock him down from his flight with a feather.

But you know it’s not allowed

Ram On is the nearest to the title track but only a wisp of a thing, so it gets lost in the attention to Too Many People. I swear every time I hear it, I hear it another way.

Is it about needing love quickly? You’ll take anyone who appears next around the bend? Or is it about the unpredictability or impermanence of love? The someone round the bend coming to take the somebody you just gave your heart to? It shapeshifts, depending on how you approach it. But the second one reminds me of what John says later about love slipping away as soon as you look at it directly, as soon as you try to possess it completely. And hey what was that in 3 Legs?

When I thought, when I thought you was my friend... But you laid me down Put my heart round the bend

That lyrical link suggests the latter option. The earlier question in 3 Legs also fits with this theme of the unpredictability of love.

When I walk, when I walk On my horse upon the hill... Will my lover love me still?

But it may also suggest freedom. To do your own thing outside and then return home with a lover waiting. Like Too Many People. She’s waiting for me...

Big Barn Bed (not released til 1973) is first recorded with other 1970 Ram home recordings. It starts as a coda for Ram On and later becomes its own song. It has a similar “round the bend” line: Who’s that coming round the corner? Will it be my friend?

Which suggests more anticipation than worry but gives the same feeling of unpredictability toward the listener who is also the friend who let him down.

Bug lore is that John thought Dear Boy was for him, though I’m having trouble finding a source on that. I always found it pretty hilarious, as I do think it fits best with Paul’s story that it’s Linda’s ex-husband. The “When I stepped in” part makes sense with that interpretation. But it’s funny to think about John thinking it’s about him:

What’s John hearing Paul say here? I loved you and you didn’t even see it! And you know what, maybe Paul knew John would hear it like that and it was half the fun. It’s not hard to see that Paul identified with Linda’s feeling of being unappreciated in her prior marriage. And it’s common for Paul to start a song about one person or idea and then it becomes transformed into being about something else. Layers are possible in all their songs. John talks about the layers he hears in their old songs in Jan 1969, layers that he didn’t hear when they wrote them. So it’s possible John heard this connection. It may have just made him angry because John suggests elsewhere that he was the one who felt unappreciated and neglected.

However, even with Paul’s interpretation, John still shows up as the reason Paul’s heart was down and out and positions Linda as an antidote:

Oh what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive

I always filed away Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey as a simple character mashup. But looking at the words, I started to question that. Could Uncle Albert, a real uncle of Paul’s, also act as a stand-in character for someone else? The theme of no one left at home is echoed in Little Lamb Dragonfly, which is home recorded with RAM songs but held back until 1973 Red Rose Speedway.

But the line that follows is a peculiar one. I always thought I was hearing it wrong, surely it is it’s gonna rain. But the lyrics tell me it’s I’m gonna rain:

So could it be a metaphor or stand-in for an emotion like sadness or a visible reaction like crying? Or is it like 3 Leg? More surrealist projection of instability when charting new waters.

The second section, Admiral Halsey, has nautical themes that suggest more than meets the eye. Remember both John and Paul talked about the Beatles as a boat, with John talking about leaving the Beatles as jumping off Paul’s boat and onto Yoko’s boat.

Paul’s delivery of “berth” sounds like “bath” to me, so I can’t see how anyone could pick up this line in full before, except maybe if you knew that’s how Paul pronounces -er- sounds. But it certainly is a suggestive of a metaphor for a significant event. Perhaps about the day that Ringo as the messenger notified Paul about the McCartney release date change (to make room for his own album)? Or more personally, about Paul having to back away from John to make room for Yoko?

But what on earth is butter pie? Wiki tells me it’s a Lancashire-based savory pie of onions and potatoes (so meatless). But my mind goes straight to Penny Lane (finger pies), so I’m just gonna assume it’s something dirty.

Hands across the water, hands across the sky

Linda’s harmonies and backing vocals are just so cool. It had to have gotten to John that she so easily fits into this vocal role next to Paul, especially in the more silly moments featured here. Especially considering humor was such a large component of John and Paul’s relationship.

There’s limitations to printing lyrics though and I get Paul’s right to not print them earlier because sometimes it take away from all the wordplay and double meanings inherent in the sounds of the words. For example, I always heard some of these “smile away”s in Smile Away as “it’s my way,” and so I’m surprised that phrase is never printed in the lyrics:

However, given the double meanings elsewhere, I think it’s worth still considering because "it’s my way” fits into the album theme of not blindly following along and finding your own path.

Don’t let them tell you what you want to be

A lot of focus is on Too Many People as the trigger for How Do You Sleep. But it’s a question directed a line from Heart Of The Country.

I’m gonna get me a good night sleep

It’s the one respite on the whole album and I can see how the image of smug Paul could send John in a writing fury.

Monkberry Moon Delight plays with “ketchup” and “catch up” and both of these appear in the lyrics. But is it beretta the gun or biretta the hat? Or something else? Ram sessions include Oh Woman Oh Why with gun sounds that gets left off the album, and photos from the session show Paul holding a prop gun. There’s also a gun-like object drawn on the Ram back cover. So maybe he did mean the gun. Inclusion of that song would have turned the tone of entire album, from jaunty taunts to serious violence, so it’s the right choice to keep it off. John would only hear the beretta line here with “banana” and the gun on the back cover:

and i don’t get the gist of your letter

Considering John and Paul are sending letters back and forth across 1970, this line sounds like a taunt for John alone. Along with what follows:

don’t get left behind

which makes this...

...another sexual taunt like Too Many People. Haha, look at what you’re missing!

If you’re doubting that, the track order clears it up fast because it’s followed immediately by....

Eat At Home. No explanation required.

It is an outright banger. No way John wasn’t a tad impressed by it. Even if it exudes those aggressive “I am having so much fun with my wife right now and not even thinking of you” vibes that left John shook.

Am I the only one that thought some of these “little lady”s were “lad”s? Paul stresses the -d so the -y sounds silent except for Linda’s backing. The result is pretty...ambiguous at times.

So I’m left thinking it’s a bit odd how this song ends on the negative: don’t do that. If the sexual connotation starts it, it ends with something that sounds unwanted, like it goes too far. A revoking of consent. But is it the lad(y) going too far? Or someone else?

Don’t let them tell you what you want to be

Long Haired Lady is an ode to Linda that starts with a jokey call and response between Paul and Linda and builds into a section that channels The Mamas & The Papas with lush, blissfully layered harmonies:

I’m good up til “win or lose it” but I don’t know if anyone could have heard “into the soul”. I’m not so sure it matters much, but the suggestion seems to be that love continues whether or not you “win or lose” love. That no matter if you are wrong, love is stable, constant. Wait, where have I heard that before?

Generally, I find Back Seat of My Car to be the strangest one for John to think was directed at him (and Yoko?). It’s just so big and sweeping and wasn’t Paul and Linda the one who did the joyriding? But that whole we believe that we can’t be wrong really got to him. He mentions it a lot, sometimes attributing the line to him and Yoko and other times to Paul and Linda about them (”well I believe that you could possibly be wrong!“). It’s a real hangup for John around this time, the idea that Paul is always right and he is wrong. Seeing Paul’s predictive powers, I can see how infuriating it would be after a while, and how comforting it would be to have people around you who counter that, to tell you “no, you are right and he’s wrong.” How it’d make you dig your heels in and work hard to get people off the McCartney bandwagon.

There’s a whole gibberish sounding section not picked up in the printed lyrics that sounds like “everyone’s tried to love her” or “i’m gonna try to love her” sung at an auctioneer’s pacing. You could possibly read something into that depending on what you hear.

Here’s another mention of “my way” after “highway”, suggestive of the idiom “my way or the highway”. The second half of the “looking for a ride” lines I can’t hear even with the lyrics:

“and all I found” would have been my guess.

But if you’re taking everything else as a sexual taunt, looking for a ride could hold a double meaning.

The climatic ending of the song and album is the height of choosing your own way and building your own world:

We believe that we can’t be wrong

A brash assertion of confidence in your own choices? A mocking condemnation of someone else’s choices? Or aggressive positivity to vanquish agonizing about whether you’re right or wrong? Like others on the album, it depends on how you look at it. But the first option fits with the overall album theme, with the third behind it as another layer.

There’s a snowglobe imagery to the feeling of this ending. Swirling and wondrous and heady but also contained and protective and isolated by design, living in this world you’ve built for yourself. You control it to a point while fearing what’s outside, the unpredictability of the future and the unknown of what’s waiting for you around the bend. 

Wrapup

Overall, there’s a story in the album themes. Starting with a declaration of independence and naming mistakes and ending with the denial of wrongness, suggesting your own. From John’s comments, we know he got that part. In between a conditional: if you choose wrong, love is long. Throughout, the main theme is strong, finding your own way and building a new life to push forward, which makes the cover less of a joke and more of an apt metaphor for a precisely crafted album. The pronouns look fairly consistent too, which is a big surprise to me: you are sending hearts around the bend, but she waits for me. There’s double meanings galore with possible sexual taunts as hidden daggers. But, above all, there is the repeated need for love that’s in alignment amidst confusion and miscommunication.

Will my lover love me still? (3 Legs)

Bring the love that you feel for me in line with the love I see (Eat At Home)

Do you love me like you know you ought to do? (Long-Haired Woman)

The trouble with any shared language is what may get lost from the communicator to the listener. If you get 9 out of 10 things but the 10th thing was important for understanding the other 9, the risk of misunderstanding is still huge. So I’m left wondering whether John listened to the album enough in those first 9 days to hear these lines before recording HDYS. He may have regretted venting his anger in more obvious public daggers than Paul’s more hidden ones the more he listened. By September, he knows the album well enough to sing an exact match on the spot.

Undoubtedly, John knew just where to hit because he knew Paul’s weaknesses. He shows that by dragging it into the public sphere. If Paul’s messages are directed at John but subtle or hidden, John’s messages are blatant as neon lights about Paul to the world. There’s an unevenness there that makes us uneasy.

By focusing on John brandishing the dagger so obviously in one song, it’s easy to miss the hidden daggers in Ram along the gems. A concealed dagger can do the same damage. But the overall theme of needing a constant unwavering love is one they ultimately shared, signalling a place where they could find common ground once the anger cleared.

[finalvortex]

Ok, let's talk about Marcy. Dear, sweet, precious Marcy. *sigh*

[EDIT: Future Maltor here. This is a draft of a post I began making two years ago, after True Colors aired. It is unfinished. I have realized that I am never going to finish it properly, so I am posting it as is.]

I want to start with the aspect this time. So, obviously, Marcy's immediately obvious strength is that she is very, very smart. There are two aspects that primarily deal with intelligence, and those are Light and Mind.

Let's consider Light first. Light players are heavily focused on information - they are driven to study and understand new things, as much as possible. A Light player believes that there's nothing in the universe that can't, or shouldn't, be categorised and organised, studied and understood.

In my Sasha post, I talked briefly about how Light players are highly focused on constructing reality as a narrative with themselves at the center. Aranea literally tries to insert herself into the story, Rose defines her entire existence by a rejection of any narrative (ironically, her assertion that people don't have character arcs is the climax of her character arc), and Vriska... is Vriska. Marcy... has this trait too, kind of? But in kind of an unusual way.

To start with, we have to mention the way she treats Amphibia as a whole, as an escapist fantasy. There are people who have said that Marcy treats Amphibia as a game, but, I don't think that's quite accurate. (I was one of them, but that was a theory post that I made before we fully understood her). As a statement, that implies that Marcy sees the inhabitants of the world as characters and not as people. Multiple episodes (The First Temple, Maddie and Marcy, even Scavenger Hunt) clearly demonstrate that's not the case - she shows a lot of empathy, actually!

But there is something to the idea that Marcy sees herself, specifically, as a character in a narrative. That she's, well, roleplaying. When we first meet Marcy, it seems that her time in Amphibia has allowed her to thrive, and to some extent that's true, but in actuality there's something a lot more insidious going on with her desire to help everyone and improve everything. The Chief Ranger, the smart girl, the puzzle solver, the witch... Marcy takes up these roles and identities because she feels that they make her useful, that they make her needed. She's so desperate for the approval of others that she allows herself to be defined by their wants and expectations. Marcy's particular narrative of self is one where she allows other people to define her identity based on their expectations of her. An obsession with fitting herself into other people's narratives, if you will.

So, the fixation on stories, kind of check. Intelligence, check. An association with luck or fortune... it's debatable, but you could argue that Marcy's clumsiness is a kind of misfortune. Ok, Light's looking like a pretty viable contender.

However, there's another element to what makes up Light - and that's truth.

It's become apparent that Marcy has some kind of... well, I'm not a psychologist, so this isn't going to be a diagnosis, but... let's call it separation anxiety. She struggles with making new friends, making connections, to the point where she feels like she's incapable of doing so. So she's utterly desperate to hold on to the friends she does have. Which is why she sends the girls to Amphibia.

[Future Maltor again: Aaaand that's as far as I got with this analysis.

So, my original intention when writing this post was to dismiss Light and Mind and argue that Marcy was actually a Doom player, but in the process of looking through all the evidence, I convinced myself that Light really was her aspect.

As for the class, well... I mean, do I really need to explain why it has to be Rogue? The class that's all about fading into the background?]

[aeshnalacrymosa]

This fic was originally written from 2015 to 2018, but I never posted it anywhere because I left it unfinished when I got close to the climax. I no longer intend to finish it.

When Katniss and Peeta succeed in their suicide at the Hunger Games, Prim becomes the Mockingjay of District 13.

[thatguyoversea]

felt like doing a little bit of writing so I am going to do it here :) it's under the split

this is my first time properly writing so I do hope it turns out good!

mentions: self harm, description of hallucination

(THIS ISN'T A VENT BTW!!!)

i leave the cabin, searching. it has been ages. most certainly not an eternity, but a long time. i wave goodbye to the old man who gave me shelter. he does not know what i search for. i don't know what I search for. but I search for those who cannot.

hours pass. or days. i could stop and find out, but I must search. i do not know why i search, but it was meant to be, presumably. through my search, i encounter many things. goats. others searching. bodies. snow. many did not survive their search, but many more do not know they must search. that's who i like to think i search for.

the unknowing. those who believe they don't need to search for their unknown. those left to sit and rot in their existence, unaware and prevented from becoming aware of their search. that's who I like to think i search for. the unknowing.

i come across a pile of ended searches. a pile of unfinished endings. yet another pile of stories cut short. it's sad, really. the amount of carefully planned tales which never reach their promised resolution. i like to think that since they got here, they at least reached their climax of their story. the 'pièce de résistance' of their play. i like to think things a lot. and sometimes i am right. but thinking doesn't help the search. my story doesn't require a lot of thinking. just doing. so i do.

i reach a summit. then, another. to any other, they could be their resolution. their final point. at this point, they're free. from it all. no more for them. their summits are gone. their stories told. their writers finished with them. i am not so lucky.

for every summit i conquer, my only gain is the knowledge of others endings. i truly wish I did not. i get to know what i could have if i gave in. a happy life. content. indulgent, at some points. but i do not search for my ending. i search for others endings, for the unknowing cannot do it themself.

i catch a glance of an object. an unfamiliar piece in a new, untold story. perhaps it is somebody elses macguffin. or their own victory in itself. but it calls. it yearns to be taken. it calls that its destiny is already broken. do not take it, and it will stay there forever, it calls. do not trust it. it's lying. to pull you away from your purpose. to free others, unknowing, and unaware, from their story. you'll call final curtains on their play, and they'll be truly happy. their audience applauds. your audience applauds. they want an encore. something to mix up the story.

i walk over to the object. it is shiny under the white-filled sky. i could describe it better, but my story is not for thinking. it is for doing. the item is in my hand. i have hands. the item fills them both at once. it is heavy. it calls me to give my audience an encore. it is sharp. and long. it calls for me. an encore for my audience. to finish my story with a twist. i have no choice but to oblige. why would I find this if it was not put in my story for me?

i drive the sword into myself. my intentions are not for an end, or so I hope. i am uncertain. i am unknowing of my own fate in this moment. as i fall onto the white ground, filled with other drafted characters of interest, i like to tell myself that im not going to end up like them. they're different than me. and that i am correct.

i like to think things a lot. and sometimes i am right.

my vision shifts from a newly bloodied white covered summit to a bright shifting of colors. a vivid dream of hue. i attempt to change my viewpoint, but it does not shift. i am staring now at a spiral of blues and reds. there are colors i do not know, and colors i do know.

after i stare at this for a potential eternity (although it is not likely), i come to a conclusion. a piece of truth beneath the ever-spiralling rainbow. it has taken me an unknown amount of time to get used to these bright, shifting shades. they do not repeat on themselves. i am unlike the hues. i repeat thoughts many times. i end on a conclusion that leaves me content, for the potential (but unlikely) eternity being.

this is a great place for a final curtain.

[soongtypehuman]

I am glad my little copywriting exercise didn't come off as too weird lol because it was actually really educational for me, and fun to dive into the words of one of my favorite fics of yours!! i literally send that chapter to people who don't even watch star trek because its just so poetic. it is ART. the tholian silk simile is my undoing

also now that i have a tumblr, i'm super curious to hear how your headcanons on data's ability to feel pleasure have evolved over the years! 👀 because canonically, he can't feel pain or pleasure. i also went back through your non-explicit collection of ficlets and saw you wrote that data couldn't experience climax... fast forward to your latest fic where obviously that is no longer the case (lucky for us!)

I write android-holodeck-bukkake-gangbang-human-pet-reader-inserts. Nothing is too weird for me. You’re safe here lol

So, about that Data climax headcanon. There’s two parts to it…

Earlier in the ficlet collections, the Positronic Rivalry series wasn’t much of a thing yet. If memory serves (and it rarely does), the collections began even before the original PosiRi story. At some point in the collections I made the decision that from that point on they would be part of the series, because that became my focus. So some of those earlier ficlets in the collections don’t line up with PosiRi.

I didn’t even know it was going to be a series until the third installment, because the second story, Unfinished Business, I wrote in a mad frenzy an hour before posting the the original PosiRi finale so that the loose ends with Lore could be tied up.

Now, the second part…

Data’s emotions developed slowly over the original 7 seasons of TNG, proving that he wasn’t emotionless at all, which was later confirmed in Picard. If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that Noonien Soong was dead set on installing and honing those sexual components in his androids, and given that he loved his sons, it’s more likely than not that he would have instilled in them the ability to be pleasured in some way, instead of depriving them of that.

Data had no sexual contact with anyone between Tasha Yar and the Borg queen, so we never got to see how his physical reactions to sensual stimuli would have played out in tandem with his emotional reactions. Data had almost no chances to explore these aspects of himself, and so they would have remained undeveloped.

That’s what I’ve tried to do with PosiRi, having Data experience something analogous to physical pleasure as his emotions develop as well.

And thank you once again for your kind, life-giving comments. I've stopped consuming human food so that I may be fed on these comments alone.

[gayleviticus]

fma 03 TV ending thoughts

finished rewatching FMA 03 for the first time in about 8 years today

FMA 03 was the first anime I ever properly got into, all the way back in 2015, so it’s one I have a ton of feelings about. Unfortunately for various reasons at the time my only way of watching the show was DVDs from the library, which meant I never got a chance to watch Conqueror of Shamballa. Instead I pieced together whatever desperate fragments of plot summaries I could find, but there was always this lingering, unsatisfying sense of unfinished business and heartbreak that i never got to see the elrics reunite

Eventually I got interested in other stuff and forgot about FMA, so I still haven’t seen Shamballa to this day (I will though. Soon). I read the manga and watched Brotherhood intermittently, and I enjoyed it, but it didn’t scratch the itch 03 left. Something about it’s more straightforwardly happy ending rang hollow to me.

Anyway, when I rewatched 03 recently I found my love for it largely vindicated, and even deepened. Arcs that felt meandering gained a little bit more clarity knowing the big picture, and I really loved the shows emphasis on character and its melancholy tone instead of epic shounen battles.

There are aspects I think are awkwardly handled – I don’t feel like the writers knew entirely what to do with the Greed arc – but for the most part I really enjoyed it. It’s messy, but in the way that anything dealing with really interesting ideas that can’t be confined to a 51-episode anime has to be – the Homunculi alone have so much potential.

However, there was one thing that sticks unsatisfyingly in my mind – the ending. Now, to be fair, it’s clear to me now that you can’t really judge 03s ending independent of Shamballa. Not having seen 03 for 8 years, not having actually seen Shamballa ever, and also not being able to cope with ambiguity well at that age had drawn a vastly sharper line between the two than I ever remembered.

03’s TV ending is so obviously, optimistically gesturing towards a continuation. At the time I overly-literally misread this open-endedness, even knowing full well that Shamballa existed. I had this weird mindset of ‘If I don’t see them reunite, it doesn’t happen’. But watching it now, it’s very clear the intent of the ending is to establish that Ed and Al will meet again – even if Shamballa had never seen the light of day.

But it leaves me with weird feelings about the TV ending nonetheless. It has its flaws – not giving enough space to key emotional beats, a final episode that feels like it speeds directly past the climax to an epilogue without a strong sense of denouement.

All the plot beats themselves are fine imo. I think the reveals about the alternate world or the souls of the dead as fuel for alchemy are really thematically rich, the small-scale confrontation between Ed and Dante and its accompanying battle of ideals is great, and there’s a kindve sense of melancholy and dread as we descend towards our finale in the ruins of a dead city. But I think there’s something a bit off about the pacing of these beats and the framing.

A better version of the 03 ending for me would look basically identical on a Wikipedia plot summary. But I think it would emphasise what to me feel like the core strengths of 03s interpretation of Fullmetal Alchemist – the character drama, the emotion, the existential melancholy, the deep brotherly love Ed and Al have for each other but also the weight of all the horrors they’ve endured, the bitter truth of a world where equivalent exchange is not absolute versus these boys’ ideals.

This feels like where 03 was heading. And of course, it’s really not that far off. But I dunno, I feel like the emotion of Al resurrecting Ed, and then Ed sacrificing himself in turn isn’t given the space it so desperately needs. And this too would be fine if 03 was willing to sit with the ambiguity, I think, but after quickly dispensing with the necessary sacrifices it then proceeds to a pretty optimistic ending that basically flat-out assures us everything will be OK.

It’s funny, because I found it so unbearably sad when I first watched it (granted, amplified by the IRL sadness of not being able to watch Shamballa), but now I think it’s not angsty enough? these children should never know happiness (kidding. a little)

BUT with all that said – obviously I am missing out on the actual proper ending not watching Shamballa so!!! We will see how that final piece of the puzzle slots in. tldr is that fma 03 is not really a complete ending in itself anyway but i underestimated how much so

[yeets-ix]

Part 2, an unfinished highlight reel that I’m posting in its partial state just to post it.

MINOR CHARACTER CHANGE: Belle is now Tiffany. We’ll explain she got a job after Eggman’s downfall. Lanolin, Whisper and Tangle are now collectively Chief Luggins, with Restoration soldiers being the giant armadas of cops.

Sonic does have a charity - thinking of calling it The Aleena Foundation, after Sonic’s mother who, alas, tragically passed away in his youth of causes completely beyond his control or involvement and left her bountiful fortune to him. Tragic!

The Cat is a Dark Chao.

Diane’s briefcase-motorcycle is adapted into Amy’s hammer, which is now both a bag and a rocket scooter. Alas, neither is my own original idea.

The meteorite can stay the same - it’s just another magic rock, plus the skunkbros still have to say it looks like a butt. Sonic’s (and I guess Metal’s) hat that uses it to control the Wisps is a bootleg Dynamo Cage.

For a bit, when Sonic was more Scourge-inspired, I considered near the end having the McGuffin turn his fur green, with him even remarking “he’s never liked the color blue” and making it super symbolic and everything. But owing to Sonic now being based more on bad IDW takes, I’ve decided against that, it’s not canon.

The guinea pig farm sequence is instead a compound containing a crap ton of Wisps. Instead of eating them like a snake, Metal shoves them all into her engine, glows a retina-burning rainbow, and acts like she’s really, really high before being made to release them as a Color Blaster from her chest after being zapped by Surge. The Wisps also come back during Sonic’s heist as his minions (using Badniks would be too suspicious, and blaming the Bad Guys will only work so many times.)

We brainrotted this together: the scene where Marmalade reveals his true colors is a horrific inversion of the climax of issue 56, as the Restoration van door swings open and people crowd over to protect and save Sonic when you know him to be this ultra-hateable bitch now. He’s wheeled away to an ambulance with the same shocked expression on his face… before switching it to a smug grin that only the Bad Guys see as the Diamond Cutters slam the door on them.

Metal is the one who realizes that if Sonic goes to the slammer, she, Surge and Kit will be genuinely free. That’s the true motivation for her stabbing Sonic in the back, not just getting the tingle again. (Plus, she knows Sonic will be blinded by the victorious thought of “finally getting through to her” and not suspect her loyalty to the Bad Guys.)

The Bad Guys’ real arc is seeing that the whole world believes they can change, not just a select few people like Amy and Sonic (who doesn’t even believe his own preaching.) The public are not the blindly-good NPCs Surge makes them out to be, and can sympathize with and respect “bad guys” if they simply see who they are on the inside.

We can talk about so much more relating to how locking up Sonic affects the Bad Guys, especially Surge, Kit and Metal, in their moral standpoint. We already did in DMs, we need a dedicated public thread somehow.

Sonic Bad Guys AU Infodumping

@thefakehedgehogaroundhere pitched the AU and its roles, I went too far and fleshed it out a LOT.

Here's the first round, the basics of the characters:

The Bad Guys go by “Ms. Surge,” Ms. Metal, Mr. Rough, Mr. Tumble, Mr. Duo and Mr. Kitsunami (for fun.)

Backstory: While the AU is mostly just the self-contained plot of the movie, Eggman and Starline did exist in the AU… emphasis on DID. In a very very deliberately loose interpretation of Sonic canon setting up this AU, they created Surge, Kit and Metal, but were ultimately defeated for good, with their former creations and minions being left to form various random organizations including the Bad Guys, none of whom are nearly as much of a threat anymore. Sonic took all the credit for “beating” Eggman, though it probably wasn’t actually him in this AU considering this version of him is also a villain and has just been using his hero image for personal gain (hell, considering his Marmalade-assigned wealth, he probably bought out Eggman Industries after the Doctor was gone.)

Ms. Surge, instead of the “big bad wolf,” boasts about being an “evil twin.” A twisted and evil counterpart to a hero. Of course, she turns out to actually be the good one between herself and Sonic in this AU, but that’s beside the point. She still doesn’t remember her original life and has only experienced being compared to Sonic and seen as a monstrous, evil version of him, never being given any other chance. When Sonic gets exposed as the criminal he is and arrested, Surge, Kit and Metal recognize they’re fully free and able to go good, what with him being put away for good.

Ms. Metal was also originally designed after Sonic (that’s why she and Surge are best friends,) but being “the safe-cracker,” has modified herself with some help from Kit into a heist-focused robot with stealth tech, safe-cracking tools, and the ability to turn into a hyper-boost engine for the getaway car. She’s the “most evil” because she’s still programmed to defeat Sonic, even if she’s currently spending almost all of her time pulling heists with the Bad Guys. She comes around in the end and rejoins Surge and the gang, and stays with her as a good guy after finally taking down Sonic. She’s also kind of addicted to absorbing Wisps.

Mr. Mimic actually goes by Mr. Duo most of the time - he’s made the happy-go-lucky but still evil cat his public identity they think of when they hear the term “Bad Guys.” After genuinely befriending the others, he wants to move on from and forget the even worse crimes he committed as an octopus (even though not necessarily those of his canon self.) That being said, he’s still a shapeshifter and “the distraction.” Instead of Mr. Shark swallowing Mr. Snake when he annoys him, Duo can mess with Metal’s circuits since he’s “good with computers.”

Mr. Rough and Mr. Tumble are the flattest ones, but then again, they always are. They beat the shit out of people, make immature jokes, and Rough uncontrollably sprays when he’s nervous. Mr. Piranha is perfect for both of them (and also for Surge - she’d release catastrophic EMPs - if she wasn’t Mr. Wolf here.)

Mr. Kit is “Drippy” the same way Ms. Tarantula is “Webs.” His laptop has extra monitors and keyboards for his Hydro-Coils the same way as Webs’ does for her eight legs. He’s also still Surge’s younger brother for the feels.

Governor Rose’s backstory as the Crimson Paw Rascal is changed a bit. She, too, gave up just as she was about to steal the Awardy Award (the Golden Dolphin equivalent,) but it was because she realized she’d built her criminal career upon being a “sweet widdle hoggo” who nobody would suspect or believe could be a criminal mastermind, instead blaming more scary or ugly animals. Realizing that not only would some undeserving creature take the fall for the Rascal’s ultimate heist, but she fully knew and wanted to exploit this, just made Amy feel like shit, and she immediately hung up her cowl. Note that this same reason also leads to her despising Sonic for working under the same ideals, and makes her very happy when he’s the one who takes the fall for her crimes in the end.

“A wolf and a fox are not so different” becomes “A tenrec is just a false hedgehog.” Sonic later reuses this line to mock Surge, before Surge and Amy finally wreck him with it in the end.

Sonic as Marmalade? Take every bad take on IDW Sonic in the entire hatedom, make them completely true, and then sprinkle the resulting abomination of a Sonic with Scourge dust. He’s supposedly the same hero as his canon self, but in truth all he cares about is his own entertainment and his own reputation. Lying and manipulating people are what give him “the tingle.” He’s gonna scream “LET’S DO IT TO IT! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!” like in that one satire comic as he’s dragged off to S.U.C.M., utterly determined to the end to convince everyone he’s never done anything wrong in his life. Fuck him. He deserves nothing, he is the scum of the earth, I want to punch him in the face, and maybe call in a few other AU Sonics to punch him in the face too.

Heck, I have an OC named Shine who is basically “Sonic but Marmalade” already, and I’d be willing to donate her for this role if I didn’t want Sonic himself to get to chew some scenery.

We’ve agreed Whisper is Chief Luggins due to her power to be incredibly biased against these people, especially Surge with a good helping of Mimic on the side. Lanolin would work too, but I think Whisper being really angry a lot fits better. You poor wolf, you poor meow meow, you poor thing, how did you end up becoming a cop?... or she's just the face of what's left of the Restoration in this universe. Lanolin can probably be Tiffany the reporter, IDK.

To be continued.