#kind of villain's promise related

[villains-promise]

shaking off the rustiness from barely writing these past few months is harder than i thought 😐

[futuristichedge]

Sonic and the Black Knight save me. Save me SATBK

[yieldtotemptation]

REPUTATION ft. Minji

minji x male reader smut

9k words

“So, you’re the one,” Minji says, an accusation to make you look up from your drink. “The one they warned us about.”

Firstly, you didn’t plan for this (you never do).

The night began, as always, with the best intentions. You promised your manager that you would follow his instructions to the letter: show face, smile for the cameras, and then slip out before the real party kicks in and you find yourself knee deep in scandal. Again.

And (if you were extra good) you would end the night by scrolling through the greatest hits on your contacts list, looking for a fellow insomniac needing to past the time, needing a bed to share.

A normal, everyday kind of night.

But yet, here you are now: cornered by the girl on everyone’s playlist, all fierce determination and pouty lips wrapped up in a tight black dress.

She doesn’t bother with an introduction—no, that would be silly—instead she just stands there, looking pretty, expecting your full attention.

You quirk an eyebrow. “I require a warning?”

There’s a smile there, just a hint, playing at the edges of Minji’s mouth, like she’s in on a secret that you’re not privy to. “Beware of male seniors. Specifically,” she adds, tilting her head to the side, raising her hand, peeling one finger off the drink she’s holding so she can point a single glossy nail at “you.”

“Hm,” is all you have to say, playing coy, like this is all news to you. Like you’re not aware of your own reputation, of the things you’ve been accused of, the things your company has scrambled to cover-up, the things you’ve actually done.

“So,” she says, so carefree, so easily charming. It’s all an act, of course, a meticulously curated ‘cool girl’ image, something well-rehearsed and played a thousand times before on a thousand lesser men, a tightrope walk between relatable and unattainable. “Should I be worried?”

You know what she’s really asking for: an assessment. Do you find me attractive? Do I tempt you? Am I the type of girl worth risking your career over?

And so, you take her invitation and do the one thing that always gets you in trouble. You look. Look at her legs, long and toned and smooth, begging to be wrapped around your waist. Look at her thighs, creamy-white and barely covered by the hem of her dress. Look at her chest, the soft swell rising and falling with every breath, her collarbone glittering with the sweat of excitement.

Look higher—at how effortlessly perfect she looks, as if she wakes up every day looking like the ideal type of every man and woman in Korea. Oh, there’s make-up, it’s subtle but it’s there, playing up her best features: the height of her cheekbones, the almond curve of her eyes, the fullness of her lips.

She’s so undeniably, obviously gorgeous: a bombshell wrapped in the guise of a girl-next-door.

It’s no wonder she’s so fucking popular.

You give her a non-answer, “Depends what they’ve been saying about me.”

Minji takes a sip of her drink, her eyes never leaving yours, her full pink lips curling around the straw as she sucks in the sugary liquid. It’s a deliberate move, so casually erotic—borderline pornographic, in fact—designed to make you want to grab her and kiss her and prove everything they’ve been saying about you right.

But she’s busy assessing you, you can tell, trying to reconcile the rumours with the reality—Can you really make a girl like her lose control? Make her beg? Make her forget about her image, her obligations, her entire life outside of your cock?

“Word gets around HYBE quick.” Minji’s eyes narrow just a smidge, she’s biting down into her bottom lip, and it has you imagining all sorts of things you’d rather she was doing with her mouth. “The girls at SM can’t stop talking about you. The guys at JYP hate your guts, so that says a lot.”  She smiles at that last point, before listing off, “fuckboy, heartbreaker, group-wrecker, industry villain.”

It’s funny, hearing your dirty laundry aired out like that, and you can only shrug, give a casual smile as if to say ‘who, me?’. It’s admittedly a practiced move, one you’ve used to get out of sticky situations before (you may have even used it as an ending pose once). “Is that what they told you?” You ask, nodding in the direction behind her.

Minji follows your gaze, glancing over her shoulder, the wall of noise and flashing lights of the club framing her face, painting her skin with a rainbow of neon shadows.

There’s her bandmates, doing a terrible job of spying, a trio of worry and concern and gossip: they’ve found their little bunny, and she’s been caught speaking to the big, bad wolf.

She muses, “we’ve all heard the same rumours…”

“And so you came to… what?”

Minji takes a step closer, close enough for you to get a whiff of her drink; one of those sugary mixes, deceptively sweet, but just as strong as the one in your own hand. “To find out for myself,” she answers, “to see if you’re really as bad as everyone says, to see if it's all hype, or if there’s actually some truth to the legend.”

“Legend,” you repeat, trying the word out on your own tongue (it sounds sweeter on hers). “That sounds a bit much, don't you think?” you ask, trying to ignore the way she’s leaning forward now, letting the top of her dress dip, revealing just enough cleavage to stimulate your imagination. A simple gesture, so perfectly choreographed that you'd think it was incidental if you didn't know better, if it didn't have you picturing what it would be like to rip that dress off her, to expose her bare tits, to grab, lick, kiss, and—

She’s giggling out loud now, like she can hear every single filthy thought racing through your mind. “I think I'd like to be the judge of that.”

There’s an alarm bell going off in your pocket, the vibration of your phone buzzing with messages—who else but your manager, demanding to know why you haven't gone home like a good little idol yet, begging you to please, please not make another mess.

But you ignore it and take another sip of your drink, savouring the burn of the cold liquor down your throat, giving you a moment to consider. You’ve got Minji figured out, you think. It's nothing you haven't seen before (nothing you haven't dealt with before). The dream girl, the ‘ideal type’ who’s growing tired of maintaining a perfect image, looking to see how far she can push, how much she can get away with (how much you’ll let her get away with).

Because she’s probably never been told no in her life. Because she's used to getting what she wants with a bat of those lashes or a pout of those lips.

In a way, coming to you is safe, because if the worst were to happen—if you were to get caught—no one for a second would believe that one of the nation's precious daughters was the instigator.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, cutting through the din of the club like a knife, making you believe that she just might be telepathic. “You're thinking: she’s just another innocent idol playing at being naughty for just the night, but the second things get too wild, she’ll be out of here faster than you can say ‘Dispatch’.”

“Because you’re not like other girls.”

“Please,” she scoffs, dismissing the idea entirely. “I always see things to the end.”

“Alright then,” you say. She’s thrown down the gauntlet, and you’re going to pick it up, if for nothing else than to see just how far she’ll go. "Shall we do this here? I'll rip off your clothes, nail you in the middle of the dancefloor in front of all our friends and peers?"

She’s grinning now, not backing down, in fact she’s moving closer, like yes, that’s exactly what I was hoping for. “From what I’ve heard that would be tame for you. Is it true, what you got up to at Inkigayo?”

“That was in a parking lot.”

“And at M Coundown.”

"Under the stage.”

“Music Bank?”

“The staircase, of course.”

“See,” Minji’s whispering now, close enough that you can hear her over the thumping bass of the music, her breath warm against your ear, “you are a man-whore.”

“I have a name,” you reply, dryly.

“That’s nice.” She’s touching you now, her hand sliding up your chest, fingers playing with the buttons of your shirt. “Wanna hear me scream it?”

Your phone is still buzzing, and you know that you should be walking away. It would be the right thing to do: it’s far too public, she’s far too popular, and getting caught leaving hand in hand with her would be nothing short of an announcement that will hit the top of every social media platform by sunrise.

But it’s too late—it was over the second you locked eyes with her from across the dancefloor, when she caught you staring, blatant and unabashed, lingering on the way her ass bounced, mesmerised by how her hips swayed to the beat. 

You just had to let her know she was wanted.

"Look," Minji says, her hands sliding higher now, fingers idly adjusting the collar of your shirt. "There's no angle here, no game. I'm not looking to get caught or land in a scandal, and I'm definitely not looking for love or a boyfriend or whatever fairy tale shit you sing about. I just want what all the other pretty idols are getting."

She's forward, no shame in saying exactly what she wants, daring you to dispute it, but all you can do is cock your head to the side, and flash a smirk of your own. "And what makes you think you're my type?"

Minji laughs, her teeth glinting in the neon lights—you both know it's a very, very idiotic question. "Please," she says, rolling her eyes, "I'm everyone's type."

Another glance over her shoulder, where her bandmates have been pretending not to hover, and now there’s a new face in the mix: Yunjin. Her eyes narrowed to slits, her arms folded, and her jaw is clenched so tight you can almost hear her teeth grinding from here. Unlike the other three, she’s not playing the concerned friend card; she’s the pissed off mother bear, ready to pull Minji away from the walking, talking red flag.

And so adds to your stellar reputation.

Minji notices your eyes flicker in that direction, and looking back at the group with amusement, she takes it as the cue she's been waiting for. "We better get out of here before they take your head off."

It's inevitable, really, this is how it always ends up: the sweet, innocent idol lured into the jaws of the industry monster. But you can’t help it, not when she’s looking at you like that, like she wants to be eaten alive.

You know the score, you’ve danced this dance before, and you’ve got a role to play. The only thing left to do is to take her hand and lead her out of the chaos—through the throngs of familiar faces, not giving them a chance to register what you're doing, or who you're with, or what's about to occur, again.

Not like anyone could stop it now, anyway.

"So, this is how it happens," you hear Minji murmur as you lead her out of the club, through a hidden metal door, and into the cold, night air.

-

Minji tastes like gin and lime cordial, her lips sticky and sweet against yours, her arms around your neck, her back pressed up against the back-alley wall. There’s something in the way she’s kissing you—giggling between breaths—like she can’t believe this is happening, like she’s getting away with the crime of the century.

Her hands are in your hair now, tugging gently, the cool metal of her rings pressing into your scalp, begging you to kiss her harder, to burn the memory of your lips onto hers. Your tongues meet in a dance that’s more battle than ballet, and she’s matching you move for move, her teeth nipping at your bottom lip, her nails scraping down your neck.

She’s eager, she’s pressing her chest against yours, making you feel just how hot she is. But yet, there’s still that annoying voice in your head, the last shreds of your conscience, telling you to give her that final out, to let her walk away with her dignity intact, go back to her members and tell them she just had to get some fresh air.

So, you pull back, tearing your mouth away from hers, giving her room to gasp for air, to let the world come back into focus, and you ask her, loud and clear, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Minji’s panting, breaths coming in short gasps, little puffs of steam out into the winter air, and she smiles. It’s a wicked little grin, equal parts surprised and thrilled, like you’ve just passed some kind of test she didn’t think you knew existed. “Are you asking for my consent?”

You balk at that. Your reputation can't be that bad. “Is it so unbelievable that I'd ask?” Even though you already know, deep down, she’s not going anywhere, there’s a power in hearing her say it. Saying that she wants you, specifically, to ruin her.

“No, it’s just…” Minji starts, looking up with those big, dark eyes, and you can almost see the gears turning in her head, trying to figure out how to play this, before ultimately landing on the word, “nice.”

She pulls you back towards her, kissing you again, those soft, pillowy lips of hers meeting your mouth in a kiss that’s so inappropriately sweet, like she’s sealing a deal with sugar rather than ink.

“Yeah,” she whispers, her voice steady, sure. “I want to do this. More than anything.” Minji tilts her head back, exposing the column of her throat, inviting you to kiss it, to suck, to bite. “I want you."

You don’t need any more convincing than that. Your hands are on her body, running over the curves of her hips, the dip of her waist, the swell of her chest. And she’s leaning into your touch, needing to feel more of you, wanting you to explore her. And you do, greedily, feeling her breath hitch when you graze her nipples through the fabric, feel her hips jerk when you trace the line of her panties.

“Are we going to—gah—go back to your place?” Minji tries to ask, her question punctuated by a moan as your fingertips dance over the smooth skin of her inner thigh, the hem of her dress whispering against your skin.

You’ve already made your decision—you're not taking her home, you're not taking her anywhere with a bed, or even a chair. You're going to have her right here, right now. There’s no need to answer her, you just let her work it out for herself when you push her back against the wall, when your thumb finds the slick, wet heat between her legs.

“Here?” She gasps, turning to look down the darkened end of the alleyway, at the distant streetlights, at the crowds of people oblivious to what’s about to happen beneath the shadows.

“It’s not the dancefloor, but it’ll have to do,” you murmur, leaning into her, pressing your lips against her cheek, her jaw, her earlobe.

“B-but, what if—” Minji stammers, but you’re busy toying with the lace of her panties, nothing more than a mere formality at this point, only existing to get wetter, to be unavoidably ruined by you.

“What if someone finds us?” You finish her question, nibbling at her ear. “Then we’ll just have to make sure we leave them something to talk about, won’t we?”

She’s shivering at the thought of it—the headlines, the think pieces, the whispered scandals that will follow you both for weeks, maybe months, maybe forever. But you can feel her resolve hardening, her spine straightening, her body arching towards yours, and she replies, “Then don’t hold back.”

The challenge is clear: she’s embracing the thrill of the forbidden, the rush of potential disaster, the heady feeling of need overshadowing the fear of getting caught.

You don’t disappoint. Your fingers slip under the soaked lace, and she’s sensitive, so, so sensitive. She’s staining your fingers, needing only the smallest amount of pressure to garner a reaction. You tease her, drag your finger across her tender folds, dare to skim over her clit, torture her with anticipation.

Whatever concerns she has evaporates as you kiss down to her collarbone—you’re going to leave a mark—and she’s already asking for more, “Please.”

She’s whining, parting her legs, desperate for you to do more than just touch her, needing you to rip through her panties and take her.

“You're right—I don’t care,” she sighs into the wind, handing her fate over to you. “I need you. Now.”

That's all you need to hear, everything you've ever wanted to hear someone as seemingly untouchable as Minji say to you. You pull down her panties, needing an extra tug as her slickness sticks them to her thighs—she’s so fucking wet for you—and you draw a circle around her entrance with your finger.

“Right there,” she cries. She’s much more honest when she’s desperate—gone is the posturing, the taunting, the act—she’s just a girl who needs to feel something real. So, you give it to her—push your finger inside, gliding in smoothly, a perfect fit around your digit.

Only knuckle deep but she’s already got you like a vice, squeezing around your finger like she’s trying to keep it captive—so wet, so tight, so fucking good. Her nails dig into your shoulders as you push in another finger, stretching her just enough to make her gasp, just enough to make her fulfill her promise to cry out your name, “Fuck—!”

Her pulse is racing like a runaway train, hammering against your lips—you’re pushing both fingers all the way inside her now, sawing them in and out of her, making her groan, making her repeat your name over and over again.

You’re in her ear, “you’ve got to be quiet, Minji.”

But she’s not having it. “Make me,” she laughs, daring you, another challenge she’s putting down.

You kiss her hard, replacing the laughter in her mouth with your tongue, muffling her cries as you fuck her with your hand, you’re going to ruin her now. You curl your fingers up to hit that spot that makes her toes curl in her sky-high heels, making her gasp, her head thunking back against the wall.

She’s trying, she really is, to keep it in, but she still needs you to keep her standing, to hold her up as your fingers delve deeper; to keep her from melting into a puddle all over your hand.

Still, you’re relentless, feeling her out, learning her rhythm, her reactions, the spots that make her sigh and fall apart. You know you’ve found it when her breaths turn harsh and ragged, and she’s rolling her hips against your hand, and there’s that noise—the sweet, slick sound of her pussy swallowing your fingers whole—and she’s whining into your mouth, “This feels so—”

“Hot,” you finish for her, watching as her cheeks flush a delicious shade of pink, her pupils blown wide, those angelic features of hers contorting with every thrust of your fingers. “You’re so fucking hot, Minji.”

And she is, she’s hot, she’s so hot around you, against you, her hips bucking at the praise, and she whimpers, your name a staccato prayer on her lips. “More,” she demands, but she’s tripping over her words—“more—please—how does it feel so—”

“I’m going to make you cum now, Minji,” you state, your voice low and sure, your fingers continuing their persistent rhythm inside her. She nods, panting against your neck. “And after that, I’m going to fuck you and make you cum all over again. Until you can’t walk straight. Until you forget every other name but mine. Do you understand?”

Her eyes flutter closed, and she nods again, a whine escaping her throat, and she’s biting her lip so hard it’s going to bruise—another mark she won’t be able to explain tomorrow.

You lean in closer, whispering, “Good girl.”

You’re finger-fucking her in earnest now, her body moving in sync with your hand, the alleyway walls echoing with the slap of skin and the wet sounds of your digits plunging into her, your knuckles smacking against her clit. She’s trying to keep it together, trying not to scream out loud, her eyes squeezed shut tight as if that could hold back the orgasm that’s barrelling down on her.

Her breaths are coming out in little pants, and you know she’s close, so close, she’s nearly crying. “Just your fingers—fuck—it’s just your fingers,” she’s repeating it in disbelief, like it shouldn’t feel this good, not yet, like she needs the mantra to keep herself grounded as your hand lights up every nerve in her body.

She’s there, right on the edge, only needing that extra push, that pressure in just the right place, just waiting for your word to send her spiralling over. “Cum for me now, Minji.”

And that’s all it takes.

You hold her steady, fuck her hard with your fingers, rub at her clit, and she’s clenching down, all tiny shakes and choked gasps, her eyes snapping open and then squeezing shut as she reaches the precipice.

"God—fuck—I can't—"

It hits her hard and fast and all at once—her whole body seizing around your hand, her cunt tightening, her hips thrusting forward, needing more friction. Her mouth opens wide, but you trap her lips before she can make a sound, kissing her fiercely, tasting the sweetness of her release on her tongue, feeling the tremors of her orgasm travel from her core to the tips of your fingers.

Her hands are all over you, her nails digging into your shoulders, leaving little half-moons in your skin as she clutches you closer, her tongue dancing with yours as if her life depends on it. You keep going, not letting up until she’s fully ridden the wave, and it’s a sight to behold—Minji coming apart against a dirty alley wall, her legs trembling like they might give out at any second.

When she does finally go still, when her breathing starts to even out, you break the kiss, pulling away to look into her eyes, searching for the usual signs of regret or embarrassment that often follow these kinds of moments. But she’s looking at you with something else entirely: a mix of awe and excitement, like she’s just experienced something she never knew existed.

“You okay?” You murmur, the question more of a formality than anything, because she looks absolutely anything but okay. She looks fucking amazing, a breathless, boneless mess against the wall, her chest rising and falling rapidly with every inhale.

Her eyes are still glazed over, wide and dark, her mouth slack and swollen from your kisses. You can see her trying to process what just happened, the reality of it all, but she’s still too lost in the aftermath of her orgasm to form coherent thoughts.

“Yeah,” she breathes out finally, nodding shakily. “I’m—yeah, I’m good.”

You withdraw your hand, giving her pussy one last gentle squeeze before pulling away, and she whines, a high-pitched noise that makes you twitch.

She’s flushed, her hair a mess from your hands, her lipstick smudged, her dress hiked up around her waist, panties around her ankles. The way she’s looking at you now, it's worship, like you're a secret that she’s just discovered and is desperate to keep to herself. “I fucking knew it,” she says. “The rumours were true.”

You smirk, wiping your hand on the side of your pants, watching her struggle to stand straight. “Ready for round two?”

Her gaze flicks downwards, to the bulge in your pants, and she nods, swallows hard. “Yeah, I—fuck yes.”

There’s no hesitation now, no pretending she doesn’t know what she’s signed up for. She’s all in, and you want her, here, now, because that’s what you do—you take what you want.

You kiss her again, deep and greedy, one hand on the wall behind her head, the other gripping her tight, keeping her in place as you grind against her, letting her feel the hardness of your cock, everything she’s been waiting for.

“Please, don’t stop,” she pleads, and you don’t—you can’t.

Not now, when she’s letting you tug down on her dress, letting it pool around her ankles like a discarded secret. She’s a vision, standing in the cold, stark alley in just her heels and her underwear—and there’s her tits, perky and perfect, begging to be touched.

You don’t even bother with the bra, you just yank it down, the straps snapping and the fabric falling away to reveal her nipples—pink and stiff and so fucking tempting. You can’t help yourself, they’re practically calling for you to taste them, so you draw one into your mouth, feeling her gasp against your ear, her hand sliding into your hair, holding you against her chest.

Her skin is hot against your tongue, and you suck, and bite, and lick until she’s whimpering, until she’s pushing herself into your lips. Your hand is exploring the rest of her naked body—running down her stomach, tracing the lines of her abs, feeling her stomach muscles clench with every breath she takes. She’s so tight, so toned—it’s like you’re touching a sculpture, or a personal playground made just for you.

“Oh my God,” she whimpers, “so good, so, so good, how does it feel—?”

Her words cut off as your teeth graze her nipple—she’s so reactive to every touch, and it has you wondering—has she ever been touched like this before? Has her body every truly been explored like this, pushed to these heights?

“You want more?” You murmur into her chest, your fingers returning to her wet folds, your thumb reintroducing itself to her clit.

“Your cock,” she says, sucking a harsh breath through her teeth. “I want it, I need it—please—I’m ready for it.” It’s that word—please—how it rolls off her tongue, the desperation in it, how it makes her sound so needy and vulnerable.

“Then take it,” you command, breaking away from her chest, stepping backwards to give her room to do exactly what she's been begging for.

Minji doesn’t miss a beat, hands gentle but determined, her fingers at your belt, fumbling with the buckle, loosening the zipper. She’s hungry for it, for this moment of truth, to verify for herself—what’s been talked about in whispers and rumours, what’s been taunting her all evening.

Your pants hit the ground, and she’s staring at your cock with wide eyes, and for a second you can almost see the doubt creeping in. But she swallows it down, and with a soft grip, wraps her small hand around you, stroking you from base to tip.

“So this is it,” she says, taking the full measure of your length, her thumb smearing the pre-cum over your head. “This is the cock that ruins idols. They said it splits women in half.”

You chuckle, but she’s completely ignoring you, well, ignoring all parts of you that isn’t your cock. Her hand is tentative at first, working its way up and down, feeling you grow harder by the second in her palm. You can feel her wonder, her excitement, a hunger matched only by the ache in your cock.

It's the way she’s not saying anything, just touching, feeling. Not that you mind the quiet—it's intimate, just the two of you, the sound of her breaths, your heart beating in your ears, and the distant thump of the world you left behind.

She’s gaining confidence now, her strokes more deliberate, a smug smile gracing her lips as she watches how you react to her touch. You bite back a groan, not wanting to give away how much she’s getting to you, but fuck, she’s getting good at this. She’s clearly learning on the job, eyes keen to see just how you like it—how fast, how tight—how to make you fall apart in her hands.

It’s time to reign her in, you’re heading into deeper waters now. You grasp her wrist, stopping her, ignoring her pouts and whines. “Not yet,” you say, “I’m going to split you in half with my cock now.”

That makes her grin. She does this thing, this cute little twirl, spinning around on her heels to face the wall, and posting herself up against it. Her legs spread wide, giving you a perfect view of her splayed pussy, glistening under the dim neon light. She’s got her hands above her head—she’s putting herself on display for you, like your own private Mona Lisa.

A look back at you and she catches you gawking—eyes glued to her ass, her pussy—and she winks. “Are you just going to stare, or do I have to make you fuck me?” She says it so casually, like she’s back at the bar ordering another drink. “Hurry up, please. I need it. Inside me. Now."

No more waiting, no further invitations needed—there’s teasing, and then there’s both of you craving it, dying for this.

You’re behind her in an instant, pressing her into the wall, her cheek against the cold brick, her juicy ass up in the air. You guide your cock to her entrance, the head nudging against her—she’s soaked, pussy drooling on your tip—and she gasps, looking back at you with those doe eyes, all wide and innocent—like she hasn’t been begging for this since the moment she looked in your direction.

“Fuck Minji, you're so fucking wet for me,” you say, running your cock down her slit, coating it in her juices, “so needy for me, aren’t you?

“Yes,” she whispers, her voice strained, like every moment without your cock inside her is torture. “I want it all. Every fucking inch.”

The first push is a slide into heaven—she’s tight, so fucking tight, so, so wet, like she’s never had anyone else—like she’s been waiting just for you. She’s teary, gasping, and you feel her body tense, but she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t dare ask you to stop. Instead, she arches her back, pushing herself back onto you, urging you deeper.

“God,” she’s chanting now, feeling inch after inch sliding into her, “it’s so—it’s already making me so—”

It’s slow, deep, fucking, stretching seconds into an eternity, stretching her pussy out with your girth, stretching her to fit you, to keep you, to never let you leave. It’s careful, almost tender at first—let her set the pace, let her show you how much she can take.

She’s moaning, low and guttural, and you wrap one hand around her waist to hold her steady as you thrust into her, let her get comfortable with your size, make her tits bounce with every pump, make her legs shake beneath her. And then there’s that lip bite again—she’s trying to keep quiet, but little moans are escaping her, getting lost in the night.

You ease out, then push back in, setting a steady rhythm that’s got her rocking back onto you. Minji seems like a delicate little thing, but there's a strength to her, a suppleness—she’s meeting you thrust for thrust, her pussy like pure velvet around your cock, gripping you tight, trying to milk you.

Hand finds her chin, tilting her head back so you can kiss her again—long, deep, tongue-filled kisses that make her whine and buck against you. She’s slowly, but surely adjusting to you now, her body learning the rhythm of your cock, getting used to being so completely filled.

It's in the way she's moaning into your mouth, like she's never been fucked like this before, never had someone so big, never had a cock so demanding of her tight little cunt. But she's so eager for it, her pussy so warm and welcoming, swallowing you up with every thrust.

It’s not normally like this—you’re not normally like this—but something has you asking between kisses, “You okay?”

She laughs, pushing herself back against you, pushing her cunt down on you, taking you deeper, burying your cock to the hilt. “I’m not going to break, I promise,” she says, looking over her shoulder, needing this. “I need you to fuck me—no holding back—I can take it all—everything you’ve ever given anyone else, all those other girls. I can handle it.”

“Show me.”

It’s throwing gasoline on a fire—she's asking for it, burning for it. You fuck her like you mean it—pull out all the way, force it all the way back in, hard, deep, rough. A shriek and she's wailing now, true to her word she’s taking it, taking it all, utterly lost in each perfect push into her cunt. She’s so beautiful like this, so open and raw—gone is the perfect idol, she’s just another girl getting fucked in an alley by some guy she just met.

Both hands are gripping into her hips, holding her in place, holding her upright, feeling her walls clench and release around you. Marks are going to be left there too, your fingerprints on her skin, bruises that she’ll have to hide with makeup tomorrow.

“So good—so fucking good—just—“ Minji can barely make out full sentences, let alone words as you fuck her, as you own her. “Harder! Fuck! Rougher!"

It’s like a drug, this power, watching her come apart for you, knowing you’re the one making her feel this way, knowing she’ll let you do whatever you want, whatever you need as long as it makes her come apart. And you’re feeding off of it, her words pushing you closer to the edge, letting her need for you drive you, unlock that primal part of your brain. Fucking her like this, so filthy and wrong and everything you love about this life.

You pick up the pace, driving your hips forward—"harder—fuck—harder"—until she’s shaking, her legs giving out, and the only thing keeping her on her feet is your cock and your arms.

“Fuck—I know what they said but—fuck! Is this what they all felt?” She gasps out, “is this how it always feels?”

Your lips on her neck, her hair sticking to your face, the scent of her perfume, of her, intoxicating. “It doesn’t always feel like this,” you answer, you grunt. “But you do. You feel so fucking good, Minji. So fucking perfect for me.”

“You're so big,” she says, her voice trembling, “I feel so—fuck—full.”

It’s not just the way she’s clenching around you, how she’s now able to take every inch of you like she’s been fucking you her whole life—it’s how she says your name, like you’re the only one that could ever make you feel this way, like you’re the one who ever will.

You grab her tits, squeezing them, seizing them, pinching and twisting her nipples between your fingers. All it does is make her beg, “fuck—I love it—how rough you are—” needing more of everything you have, “your hands—your cock—please don’t stop, don’t ever stop—I can take it please—rougher please—fuck!”

Something cracks inside you, and your hand comes down on her ass, the sound bouncing off the walls like a gunshot. Minji jolts, yelps, but the noise is quickly swallowed by a moan, a squeezing of her cunt around you.

“Fuck that felt—”

You do it again, and again, each slap a little harder, a little more punishing, the sting making her flesh jiggle deliciously with every impact. She doesn’t retreat, she’s slamming her ass back down on you, slapping her cheeks against your waist, needing to feel more.

“Gah—fuck—harder!”

She can’t help herself, minutes ago she could barely handle your size, now she can’t hold back from crying out for more pain, more excruciating pleasure.

Each smack, each groan, each breath that’s ripped from her lungs is a declaration of your power, of her need. And you revel in it, your hand coming down on her ass, leaving a trail of red marks against her creamy-white skin.

“More, please, more,” she calls for it, calls for the sting, the heat, her pussy clamping down on you, walls pulsing with every hit, her body needing the release that’s building up, inevitable and intense.

Her ass is nothing but a canvas painted by the strokes of your hand and the relentless pounding of your cock, and you can’t help but admire your handiwork, you're struggling to suppress the urge to lean down and kiss each spot you’ve marked.

“You’re going to be so sore tomorrow,” you say, your teeth grazing the shell of her ear.

“I know,” she answers, her voice a whine, a plea, a moan. “But this is what I wanted—to feel—to remember this—this moment—getting fucked like you own me—because you do—so don’t hold back—don’t ever hold back.”

You’re both sweaty, panting—you can feel her orgasm building, like a storm in the distance, thunder rumbling closer and closer until it's right above you, ready to break. And there’s your own, too, that delicious pressure at the base of your spine, the promise of release, coming at you just as quick.

But you’re not going to let her get there—not yet—not when you’ve got her like this, pliant and open and so in need. You lean forward, your chest pressing against her back, and slide your hand down, reaching around to find her clit.

It’s slick and stiff and wanting, and Minji screams—a high, keening sound that you want to hear again and again. You’re playing with it, swiping it with your thumb in tight circles, feeling her clench around you with every pass.

“I’m almost—God that feels so good—I’m almost!”

But you stop, pull out of her, abruptly, making her cry out, making her turn around, a mess of emotions on her face—desire, confusion, awe.

“What are you—” Minji tries to ask, but you’re spinning her around and pressing her back against the wall. Her leg comes up, wrapping around your waist, but you take it and lift it higher, testing the extent of her flexibility, throwing it over your shoulder.

She’s right on that edge, you can see it—her pupils dilate, her mouth opens in a silent scream, her body tenses, her cunt melting around you. But you weren't going to let her cum like that, not without watching her face, not without seeing the moment she cracks and shatters.

Now you’re face to face, chest to chest, her eyes needing yours to anchor herself to, needing to know what you’re going to do to her. No time for breaks—in one, deep thrust you're all the way back inside her, making her scream with the suddenness of it, the shock, the bliss of being so perfectly filled.

She groans, weeps with each pump into her, and she’s smiling through it all. “So—” she asks, struggling to form intelligible sentences. “How do I—fuck—how do I—mmmph—compare to the others?”

You grunt, barely registering the question, your mind clouded by the spasms of her cunt around you. “What others?”

“The other girls—God—the other idols,” she says, strained. “The ones you’ve fucked before—the ones you’ve ruined—how do I—aah—compare?”

You kiss her again, a bruising, punishing kiss that steals the question from her lips. You don’t need to answer that. You’re showing her. You’re fucking showing her how she compares, how she’s the best, the tightest, the wettest, the most eager. You’re showing her how she’s going to be the one they whisper about in the halls of HYBE and beyond, she'll become the story that will be told as a warning, about the sweet, innocent idol ruined in a dirty alleyway.

Your world is spinning around you now—there’s your hand on her throat, a gentle squeeze, just enough to make her eyes water, to make her breath catch. But she’s not scared, not with the way she’s grinning, not with how she’s grinding her hips to meet yours.

“Fuck—make me scream—” It’s a plea, a demand, she’s so stunning, so tortured in her need for it, “do whatever you want to me, whatever you need—just—make me cum harder—God please—harder than any of them ever did.”

Any care you had for getting caught, about the consequences of what you're doing—where you're doing it—dissipates into the ether. Nothing exists outside of the race to her orgasm, outside of your hips recklessly pounding into her, reducing her to moans and shakes and trembles.

“Cum for me,” you growl, “right here, right now, Minji—cum for me again—show me that you’re mine.”

“I was made for you,” she says, and it’s not just the heat of the moment talking, it’s something else, something deeper. She’s not just saying it to get off, she’s saying it like it’s a revelation, like she’s been waiting for you, for this exact moment.

“Prove it.”

It hits her like a fucking truck, and Minji’s screaming, filth belted from her mouth and into the night, her pussy quaking around your cock, her whole body entering into seizure. You keep going, riding out her orgasm, feeling her cum on your cock, feeling her body go rigid, her muscles tense, it’s those abs, so tight, it’s those absurdly strong contractions that have you falling after her.

“God—fuck, I—can’t believe—can’t believe—”

You’re fucking her through it, not giving her a moment’s reprieve, not letting her come down from that high, because you’re not ready for this to end, not when she’s so helpless. You hold her tight through it, let her shake, rattle against you, let her nails dig into your arms, let her cum drench you.

“Fuuuuuuck!”

It’s too much for her to take, and once the storm has finally subsided, Minji is just a ragdoll in your arms. Her legs are limp, held up by your grip alone, still trembling from the aftershocks of her orgasm. Her makeup is ruined, a mix of sweat and your kisses, leaving dark streaks on her cheeks. Her hair, plastered to her forehead, her eyes half-closed, and there’s her body—marks of your teeth on her chest, her breasts, the bruises of your fingers around her hips, the mottled red of her ass, a map of your dominance painted on her perfect skin.

It’s not just the physical marks you’ve left on her; it’s the way she’s looking at you now, awe, desperation, realisation that it’s all true, every rumour, everything they’ve said about you—and she’s the latest filthy chapter in your story.

But you’re not done yet, you haven’t finished. You’re pulling out, and she’s whining, making your cock throb with her pleas. You guide her to the floor, to her knees, her dress puddled around her, the cold concrete biting into her skin.

You’re standing over her, looking down at her like she’s a prize, your prize. “Open your mouth,” you tell her, and she does, without hesitation, without question.

You grab your cock, still slick with her juices, and stroke yourself, watching her tongue dart out to lick her lips, watching the anticipation build in her eyes.

It’s the sweetest, most erotic sight you’ve ever seen—Minji, the girl that's everyone's type, the girl who could have anything she wants, anyone, on her knees for you—tongue out, mouth wide open, waiting eagerly for your cum.

And then you do it—you let go, shooting ropes of hot cum, painting her face, letting it dribble down onto her chin, onto her chest, onto her toned stomach, covering her until she’s a sticky mess of lust and desire. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away—she loves the feeling of it, shivering as your hot cum hits her skin.

She holds position through it all—knees on the ground, eyes closed, a serene smile as if she’s just been blessed. And when you're done, when your cock is finally spent, she looks up at you with a grin that's pure sin.

Minji takes a finger, dips it into the mess on her chin, and tastes you. It's a bold move, it’s messy, it’s wrong, it’s perfect. There’s the glimmer of triumph in her eyes, the knowledge that she's made you do something so raw, that she made you lose all control.

For a second there’s nothing but the sound of your ragged breathing, the come down from your euphoric high. Minji speaks, still shaky from the orgasm that ripped through her. “That was—” she pauses, searching for the right word. “—incredible. Fuck!”

There’s a rush of arrogance, a smug smile of satisfaction at her confession. “So, do I live up to the legend?”

Minji wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing your cum across her cheek. There’s a glint in her eye, like she’s got a secret that she’s dying to share. “More than I could have ever imagined. You’re not just a man-whore, you’re a fucking artist.”

You laugh at that, as you tuck yourself back in, smoothing down your shirt, trying to compose yourself, pretending like her words don’t mean anything to you, like you don’t take pride in the validation of every girl you fuck.

“How do I rank?” she asks, the question coming out of nowhere, and you blink down at her, your brain trying to catch up. “I mean, out of all the idols you’ve fucked?”

“Rank?” you repeat. "I don't keep a list, that would be..." You trail off, realizing what you're about to say, and now it’s her turn to laugh.

“Crass?” she supplies. “I know, but I’m just curious.”

“You’re fucking fantastic, that’s for sure,” you reassure her, making her giggle, the laughter bubbling up from her chest like it’s the best compliment she’s ever heard. “Why—do you keep a list?”

Her smile falters for a moment, but then she’s grinning again, looking even more wicked with the cum pasted across her face, and it makes you want to bend her over and fuck her all over again. “Of course I do. And you’ll be happy to know that you’re number one.”

“That’s good to know.”

But then she says, “Of one.”

And you freeze. The air around you turns to ice, and she’s looking up at you with those big, dark eyes, and you realise what she’s saying, what she’s just admitted to you. You’ve taken her virginity, and she’s looking at you like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

“You were…” you start, but she cuts you off.

“Don’t,” she says, her voice firm. “Don’t make this something it’s not. I wanted this, and I wanted it to be with you. I told you: I can handle it all.”

But that doesn’t stop your mind from racing, trying to process what she’s saying. You had your suspicions—she was so tight, so new, so untouched—and now she’s yours, in a way that no one else can claim. You wiped away her innocence, and she’s not running, not crying, not regretful.

The weight of it settles in your stomach, a strange cocktail of pride and guilt. You’ve ruined her, in the best way possible. You’ve claimed something precious and pure, and she’s given it to you willingly, eagerly.

“Fuck, Minji,” you start, trying to find the words. “If you had told me, I would’ve—”

“You would’ve what? I lost my virginity by having filthy, mind-blowing sex in a dark alley with the best cock in all of Korea,” she says, pridefully, with her entire chest, fully believing every word she's saying. “Can you really tell me your story was any better? I bet whoever it was with didn’t scream like I did. Or cum so hard she couldn’t see straight.”

You cast your mind back to the past, and you have to concede the point. “I see what you mean. But still—” You feel like you should say something, but what? It’s not like you can apologize, not when she’s looking at you like that, like she’s just won the fucking lottery. “How does it feel?”

“A-ma-zing,” she draws out, rising to her feet. “Everything I’ve ever heard about, multiplied by a million. You might’ve ruined sex for me completely.”

You watch as she puts herself back together, sliding her panties back on, tugging her dress over her head and down her hips. She’s smoothing her hair back, trying to fix the mess you’ve made of her; wiping at the cum on her chin, her cheek, trying to erase the evidence of your encounter, trying to put the mask of the sweet, innocent idol back on.

But you know better. You know what’s hiding beneath that polished exterior.

“Come home with me,” you find yourself saying before you can think better of it.

Minji turns to you, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and there's that hint of challenge again. “Why?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. “You want to cuddle and fall asleep together? Wake up, have breakfast in bed?”

“Yeah,” you nod, honestly. “After I’ve fucked you senseless again, of course. But yeah, come home with me.”

“That would be nice,” Minji says, a soft smile on her face. It's surreal, this moment, so at odds with the grimy alleyway and the smell of sex sticking to her skin. She looks so pure now, in complete contrast to how roughly you were fucking her just moments ago. Her innocence wasn’t lost, it was just painted with a fresh coat of your sin.  “But—you know I can’t. They’re waiting.”

“Worth a shot,” you shrug, not bothering to hide your disappointment.

And then she produces your phone, holding it out to you. “You need to be more careful with your things.”

“When did you—”

“Now you’ve got my number,” she says. “You’re welcome to do whatever it is you want with it. But I’m hoping you use it.”

You take it out of her hands, swiping away the string of missed calls and messages, the digital proof of how much trouble you’re going to be in come morning. But for now, it’s irrelevant. For now, there’s only Minji, and the way she’s standing there, looking up at you, smiling like she’s just stepped off the stage.

“You’re going to go back to them?” you ask, gesturing towards the club entrance, to where the rest of her group are probably still gossiping, plotting your downfall.

“Of course,” Minji says. “They’re my friends. They care about me. They’ll want to make sure I’m okay.”

“And when they find out what we just did?”

“Oh, they’re going to want to kill you,” she answers, with a giggle. You’ve had enough of these types of conversations to know she’s not joking. “Except Dani, maybe. She’ll probably want a shot at you too. If I let her.”

"Noted," you say, trying to keep the image of Danielle, splayed against the wall like Minji before her, out of your head. "What exactly are you going to tell them?"

Minji pauses, thinking, before landing on a succinct summary. "I’ll just tell them that you fucked my brains out and then ditched me in an alley.”

You sigh, “sounds brutal.”

“Well, it is what it is,” Minji says, and she’s pressing a kiss to your cheek, her lips still sticky with the residue of your cum, the last traces of what's just happened.

You watch her go, watch as she turns away, walking back towards the club, a little stumble, a little trouble keeping steady. You should be feeling guilty, you should be regretting this, but all you can think is how good it felt, how right it felt. And you know you’ll do it again—you know it deep in your bones.

Minji turns back to you, catching your eye, catching you staring again, and she smiles. “You better go now. You do have a reputation to maintain, after all.”

[therainscene]

I've described myself in the past as "overly-queerbaited" as a way of explaining why it took me so long to come around to Byler endgame as a legitimate possibility... but that's kind of a misleading way of putting it.

Truth is, I've always been too much of a cynical fuck to fall for queerbait... or any other story that promises positive queer rep.

[Sherlock couldn't touch me; I saw this cringe homophobia coming from a mile away. Fans mistaking straight anxiety jokes for meaningful gay subtext was clearly doomed to end in mockery. Nobody deserved to be treated like that... but god, it was easy to predict.]

I think it's a symptom of having grown up under Section 28 -- feeling like I'm being unreasonable for wanting to see queerness normalized is such an ingrained habit that even today I instinctively recoil like a vampire touching sunlight whenever an optimistic queer story falls unrequested into my lap.

But I'm hardly alone in feeling this way -- many queer Millennial and Gen-X fans of Stranger Things are against the idea of Byler because it would ruin the catharsis of watching the gay boy growing up in the same era as we did slowly succumb to the same despair that we did.

[For those who haven't played the VR game: Vecna is speaking in this screenshot.]

There's genuine comfort to be found in painful stories -- this type of catharsis is practically the cornerstone of horror as a genre -- so I can't really fault myself or anyone else for wanting it, despite the obnoxious oversaturation of disappointing queer endings in media.

This is the nostalgia show, after all -- and like it or not, for many middle-aged queers in the target audience, nostalgia is shot through with the pain of homophobia and loneliness.

But do you know who else is a hurt queer(-coded) adult who resents happy endings? This cynical fuck:

Henry personifies despair and loneliness and the dark urge to take our pain out on others -- and when Will is in the picture, I would argue that he also represents internalized homophobia.

Will might represent who we were -- but Henry represents who we've let ourselves turn into.

And I don't think many of us want to admit to that, because that would involve questioning why we have so much in common with the literal villain of the show; why we're still so consumed with self-pity after 20+ years that we're obsessing over the fate of some kid.

I'm not suggesting that wanting a less-than-fairytale ending for a fictional gay boy is equivalent to being a child killer lol. It's perfectly valid to want to see your pain acknowledged, and stories which appeal to that desire deserve to exist.

But between Henry's connection to Will and the cycle of abuse themes of the show, it's clear that this particular story simply isn't about wallowing in the bleakness of growing up gay in the 80s, but about self-actualizing in spite of it all.

So I just can't bring myself to want a "relatable" ending for Will.

As much as I struggle to enjoy positive queer rep, I don't want to be so cynical. I'd thrown up so many walls to protect myself as a teenager that I forgot how desperately I wanted to see just one of those painful queer stories end on the same uplifting note that straight stories were always entitled to: with true love overcoming the odds, saving the day, and living happily ever after.

[But I'm A Cheerleader, a surprisingly fun movie about conversion therapy, is proof that stories like this did exist when I was a teen... but finding them in the pre- and early-internet days amidst so much censorship was a tall order.]

What makes Stranger Things different from most queer stories -- and what allowed it to pierce through my defenses and stab me in the gut -- is that it perfectly mimics those bleak, acceptable-to-the-censors stories from my youth -- only this time, the secret uplifting gay plot twist is real.

Not for the sake of shock value or of grabbing some empty woke points at the last second, but because the plan all along was to slap the audience in the face for believing homophobic lies about the existence of queer happiness.

That's some gourmet catharsis, if you ask me.

Just the possibility that my inner child might finally be vindicated has allowed me to truly let myself want the things I want for the first time in 20 years -- and that's the first step towards finally crawling back out into the sunlight.

Happy Pride Month, everyone. 🌈

[sepublic]

People -and this did include myself at one point- really don't want to engage with the fact that Belos is modeled after white supremacy by trying to bury this under the lens of "Oh he's actually a lonely weirdo like Luz!!!" when Belos' superiority complex is the most important part of him and it's where all analyses inevitably must stem from. I think the problem is that people are too attached to their speculative fanon version of Belos and instead of letting go of that to rebuild their understanding of him from the ground up (since he's a mysterious character who is only gradually revealed bit by bit), they keep clinging to this sympathetic tragic villain as the core behind their interpretation of him. 

Everything about Belos makes so much more sense when you explore him as someone akin to a lot of right-wing 4channers; A lonely young boy who was radicalized because white supremacy promised to rescue him from his isolation, and after buying into it wholesale, he very much chose to cling onto the need to be superior to the "NPCs" even when someone close to him actually unlearns and deconstructs for him why this is harmful. He sees firsthand how someone just like him is happier for leaving this mindset, and then kills them to eliminate that contradiction threatening his world belief; At which point it’s inaccurate to infantilize him as just a lonely and misguided kid, because he’s no longer a kid and he made a very cognizant and informed choice to double down and commit actual violence.

And everyone knows that by this point, such people are not actually being sincere; They’re not secretly misguided, you can’t simply attribute their harm to not knowing better because this is what their religion says or whatever. These people know they’re committing harm, but rather than help on “lesser” people’s terms, they ‘help’ the way THEY see fit, in the way that strokes their ego. That’s what separates Philip from someone like Gwen, who humbled herself to focus on what Eda was saying she really needed. So the Titan’s summarization of Belos as someone who only cares about being the hero in his own delusion, and fears what he can’t control is… hardly an oversimplification, it really gets to the core of Belos as a character, and the narrative he embodies. It captures the difference between wanting to help and having a savior complex, and is what ends up delineating the two at the crucial crossroads. 

And I find it a little concerning to joke about how this type of character is “just a silly guy” when people exactly like him are on the rise and committing very real violence right now. It’s also why I don’t buy the justification behind a lot of salt about how villains need to be humanized in order to show kids how THEY can become villains, because the show is fairly outright about how Belos rationalizes atrocities under the guise of the ‘greater good’ and refuses to self-reflect, and it’s not as if we don’t have Luz learning to understand characters like Amity or Lilith, the Collector and even Kikimora (whom she DID relate to personally, yet Kiki still doubled down with or without Belos), while still having the show emphasize that they need to get their act together and can’t just depend on people to save them. 

There’s also the very obvious theme of Luz realizing she doesn’t owe her oppressor anything, especially not when he won’t ever meet her or anyone else on their terms, but idk some people just seem to hate Luz for having boundaries I guess, even though she already put in the effort to be kind and understanding to Belos and she got hurt for it. Hell the Collector made that effort after being inspired by Luz, and Luz was murdered protecting them from that mistake!!! There are some very obvious stories and lessons being told here with the actual protagonists being the heart of those narratives, but the problem I’ve noticed is that a lot of the people complaining on Belos’ behalf are those who hyperfixated almost exclusively on the Wittebane aspect of the lore, going over it with a fine tooth comb and microscope to extrapolate an entire fanon from the littlest of details… only to just ignore the actual show and narrative and themes happening on-screen. 

And that leads to many not understanding various narrative decisions because they weren’t really paying attention to the actual point they’re in service to, and then they blame the writers for their own chosen ignorance, and how the story wasn’t about their part specifically so everything else doesn’t count and the whole show is wasted potential, really. The way so many of said fans immediately turned on Luz after the finale and tried to drag her down to Belos’ level by acting like she wasn’t any better for also wanting things and 'demonizing enemies', claiming Luz had unaddressed ‘flaws’ while Belos deserved more sympathy, and framing Belos as a ‘better’ character who ‘worked harder’ while claiming Luz was retconned into an arrogant chosen one who never grew, is actually baffling.

A lot of them are just upset that Belos didn’t play the role in Luz’s arc that they wanted him to play, so they’ve opted to dismiss Luz’s overall storyline as badly written and even a reflection of Dana's 'Catholic complex' (which is a tasteless jab to make) because they neglected the nuance behind every other aspect of Luz that wasn’t directly tied to Belos, that didn’t set her up as the one person who understands him or whatever because that’s more important to them than addressing the sheer trauma and pain that Belos willingly inflicted upon Luz. Because god forbid this brown girl be angry against her white abuser, huh? God forbid the white guy be used to set up the brown main character, rather than the other way around right????? It’s really just a jealous complaint about the show’s choice of priorities and celebration, hidden under the false guise of ever caring about Luz’s arc for Luz’s sake.

And that’s how you get insincere arguments about how Belos should’ve been able to survive, that’s how you get AUs that undermine the lessons of canon to egregiously relegate Luz to being Belos’ sidekick, or even present her as an obstacle to him getting his much-needed redemption, as if that last part hinges on all of Belos’ victims getting over their pain to help him, because obviously he needs it more than they do! Because we gotta spare Belos’ feelings by giving him friends instead of consequences!!! Unbelievable. He is not Amity, not Lilith, and definitely not Hunter, and the people who forgave them had actual reason to do so. And even Lilith had to move in with her mother so she could be given reparations by someone who actually owed it to her, rather than her younger sister and two kids.

And there’s definitely a major difference between Lilith and Gwen’s dynamic and Philip and Caleb’s, especially since Caleb was also a child when he moved into Gravesfield. Even if you think Belos' bigotry was radicalized due to 'grief' over losing his brother to witches, that's just entitlement and control because it's not as if Caleb can't have more than one positive relationship in his life; Philip is no better than people who blame minorities for some incident in their life and use that as justification to become white supremacists, and there's nothing sympathetic or 'tragic' about that.

But the point is that Caleb ultimately wasn’t THAT important to Belos because he’d always be secondary to witch-hunting, Belos clearly chose his white supremacy over his brother, and any ‘takebacks’ that come in the form of the Grimwalkers are insincere given Belos does nothing to actually repent or regret his violence committed on the people of the isles; It’d have been one thing if he DID try to undo his mistake by choosing differently, by cloning Caleb and giving up witch hunting, but he still doesn’t (Note that Belos does not hallucinate the ghosts of the witches he killed; He still feels no remorse over them, because his fear of being wrong comes from a selfish place). And unlike Luz, Belos can’t have it both ways because one option explicitly calls for the extermination of the other; It’s the Paradox of Tolerance that Luz struggled with, except contrary to what Belos claims, humanity’s existence does not require the eradication of others.

Because yes there IS a meaningful moral distinction between Luz and Belos -don’t forget they’re not just parallels but explicit opposites- that occurs even before you get into the genocide, not that you should neglect that other part either because it’s incredibly important, being the starting point for this entire rant. Society already has a bias towards devil’s advocating bigotry as some big misunderstanding, and prioritizing the angst of white dudes who commit it over the victims of color; Can we avoid applying that to fiction?!??!? I literally saw someone complain that the show didn’t portray Belos’ grief from murdering Luz, and that Luz’s “glory moment” took away from a Wittebane backstory!!! At this point, people are just being racist.

[mochiajclayne]

Hi there,

I hope you're doing well.

i read your post regarding SasuSaku and Sarada as a family and you stole the words right off my mouth.

I'd like to know your thoughts and opinions on Sasuke Retsiden because from what I can see, its only Jun Esaka (a mere light novel writer that writes non canon stuff) all over the internet being equally all over about her Sasuke Retsuden. I haven't seen any other light novel writer being more active about something non canon. Even kishimoto himself doesnt behave like this regarding his own work.

I'd like to also know about your opinions regarding Jun Esaka ATTEMPTING to remove or metaphorically kill Karin Uzumaki by making the main villain a Karin look alike and giving her sensory abilities to Sakura, which again, makes no sense. Does that woman hate Karin and SK so much? Is that woman so threatened by the very thought of SK as a couple that she had to incorporate a villain that looks like Karin Uzumaki down to a tee?

These are just my thoughts and speculations but I'm also really interested in knowing your side of the story.

Thanks for reading my long comment and i wish you a wonder day/afternoon/evening/night

Hi, @theuntamedangel! I appreciate the long comment! I hope you have a wonderful day/afternoon/evening/night, too!

Before I share my thoughts about Sasuke Retsuden, let me share that I did, unfortunately, have a sasusaku phase. I know. Shocker. The entire lore is here in case you're interested (promise it's relevant to my explanation).

I did hear about Sasuke Retsuden when I was still in college. Bits of information, specifically, about the chakra ring and from a perspective of someone who used to ship sasusaku casually, my initial reaction was okay good for them and I went on with my day. Note that I wasn't as heavily engaged in the Naruto fandom like I do now so for me to isn't active back then, hearing about Sasuke Retsuden, speaks volume on how it is over the internet that it even reached me.

I hate Sasuke Retsuden. It's badly written, it's OOC especially for OG Naruto characters, and the canon inaccuracies are more than enough to drive me into aneurysm.

Below this cut is my detailed thoughts about Sasuke Retsuden.

The villain looking like the male version of Karin caught me off guard. I don't know what the intentions behind the character design but I think they aimed for association as Jiji, one of the characters from this godforsaken novel, reminded me of Juugo.

I am not a sasukarin shipper but I do understand where the shippers are speaking from. I think they'll make a cool couple because Karin actually freaking cares about Sasuke when shit gets serious and outside of her "gag", she respects Sasuke's boundaries. Might be speaking out of the box but this novel in its existence was meant to be sasusaku-centric so the possibility of being threatened by all Sasuke-related ships, especially those making far more sense than SS, is high. I don't think Jun Esaka hates Karin. I would dare say that she picked a random character that could work as a direct contender to Sakura and unfortunately, she decided to scapegoat Karin. Moreover, the entire sensory ability shtick added to Sakura was uncalled for. I would go even further and say that Esaka's version of Sakura is what her stans hailed her to be--a superior version of [insert any Naruto's female character]. Even their pink haired kunoichi is incredibly OOC here and you expect me to take her seriously?

The funniest thing about Sasuke Retsuden is the way that they had to use SNS at first, specifically, Sasuke's mission is to find a cure for that chakra illness that Naruto alone suffers. Sure, this is SS centric but it all comes down to Sasuke and Sakura working together to find a cure for Naruto. Now, she could just write a novel about SS without using Naruto's "sickness" as some kind of a plot device, right? But no, she had to convince us somehow and an effective way to do that is literally Naruto and Sasuke.

The dinosaur. Don't even get me started. Even tailed beasts cannot fight against Sharingan to the point that canon graciously provided us evidence of both Madara and Obito controlling the Nine Tailed Beast. The very same Sharingan that made the higher ups of Konoha suspect the Uchiha clan as mastermind for that same incident. We're talking about the same dojutsu that manipulated the Fourth Mizukage. The canon inaccuracy throws me off the loop.

More inaccuracies. Suddenly Sasuke is an Earth and Ice Style user. Wow. Conveniently forgetting about Kakashi mentioning in Part 1 how Ice Style is a Kekkei Genkai that even Sharingan can't copy. As far as Naruto canon goes, Sasuke is a Fire and Lightning Style user. I don't consider Boruto as canon but even that animanga doesn't show any moment of Sasuke using Earth Style. It's insane that people claimed this as canon.

THIS DISTURBING INTERACTION. I did say that the OG Naruto characters are OOC in this shitshow novel and yes, unfortunately that includes Sakura. We've seen the way she react around Naruto's sexy ninjutsu antics. Unless objectification of women or the mere implication of it doesn't perturb her, then it says more about how Esaka portrayed her. I'd personally file a restraining order when a guy says he'd settle for my old, half smoked cigarette butts. I'm surprised that she didn't throw any snide remarks here.

WHO IS THIS SASUKE AND WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM. This panel made me laugh so hard because I feel like Esaka straight up ignored that Sasuke canonically spent years with his family before the Uchiha downfall happened. I don't think he'd be this clueless about how a married couple acts. Even in flashbacks, Sasuke was shown around his parents or Itachi, literally with his family. I think he knows well enough about married couples.

The ring part as well makes me cackle because Kurenai literally wears a ring in Shippuden. Trust me, Juugo-look-a-like, rings are used in Konoha by couples.

The Uchiha clan symbol takes me out because AREN'T YOU GOING UNDERCOVER IN THIS PRISON? WHY ARE YOU SHOWING THAT OFF?

The Chakra ring in question. Finding out the lore behind this further upset me and I am thankful that I no longer ship sasusaku. Show these panels out of context to someone with little to no exposure to canon and it would be romantic but if you know Narutoverse like the back of your hand, this novel served nothing. Seriously, the fact that Sasuke is incredibly OOC on this novel speak volumes. Imagine annihilating Sasuke's character to make SS work? Insanity.

Writing Edo Tensei with rose tinted glasses disgust me. That jutsu is straight up manipulating a dead body at your bidding. Tobirama shouldn't have invented that jutsu. Hinting that jutsu to be used to revive a loved one that passed away is vile and disgusting. The lack of attention to canon isn't a new thing for Esaka at this point.

Even this novel can't cover up the fact that Sakura doesn't know Sasuke well. If there's one thing that's consistent in the prequel, it was Naruto that gets into trouble. Sasuke doesn't use honorifics and he got away with it. His bluntness doesn't get him and everyone around him in trouble. Sasuke only began resorted to extremes when he was batshit blind and sinking into the unhinged depths of his hatred. Probably the only things that Sakura got correctly was Sasuke's kindness and his nonchalance about his looks but that's it. So the claim of knowing Sasuke inside and out is preposterous. The one who can say that is, guess who? Naruto.

Ending this long analysis with this panel because honestly, Ino is asking the questions for me. Unfortunately, despite being "married", their dynamic stayed the same. Sakura is still that same girl that has a crush on Sasuke, except she's in her 30s and Sasuke is still the same boy that rejected her date offers and the idea of being together with her, even reaching the point that he's away from her a lot.

I do apologize for going off to the point that I decided to pull a meta post about this. I do hope you're doing well and I appreciate the ask!

[theofaluvsviolet]

Miquella’s Character arc

There is a fuss going on after the dlc release about Miquella so I am here to say my own thoughts and opinions on this. YES, Miquella ended up being manipulative and he didn’t do the best things to achieve his goals no matter his good intentions. But that was not always the case…

Miquella’s beginning, as we see in the Haligtree, gave hopes and possibilities for a better world. He did care for his sister and did care for the unwanted. After he abandoned the golden order fundamentalism he still worked hard to cure his sister. Thinking he could achieve his goals by remaining an incomplete god and essentially a child though, didn’t work.

If you think about it, every Demigod that ever ascended to godhood or anything related to gaining power (Rykard, Godrick, Malenia etc) drove them all out of their last parts of sanity, their sense of justice and compassion. A common thing we see is that, the demigods begun as rebellions against the golden order and then to make their goals reality they ascended into gods, in a maddening state. This is what happens to Miquella in the dlc and you, save him from this fate…

By leaving behind his body parts and especially St. Trina, Miquella left behind everything that was keeping him a good person and a person willing to truly change the world. He even abandoned the Haligtree and his sister in order to ascend. He moved to horrific deeds and decisions in order to succeed his ascension to godhood, and if you think about some other demigods, or Marika herself, it’s a non escaping end.

If in the beginning, wished for a better world he wouldn’t even think of his “non free will age” he then realized that to fix this world it’s going to be needed more than mere compassion. And by realizing that he abandons every doubt, every kindness, every unconditional love to his ascension. His ability to gain love from others and to aspire a world of it turned into manipulation.

When you, the tarnished follow his footsteps you essentially follow his broken parts, all parts of his fears to follow this path. And then St. Trina, all that’s left from his kindness, tells you to kill him in order to protect him and save him from this fate of corruption that his mother too had.

St. Trina tells you to kill Miquella and not let the poor thing become a god. This is what she meant. She meant to save him from this fate of becoming a god. He left behind his pieces of all unconditional kindness. By killing him, you save him from this fate. Maybe you, even save his kindness alive in any way you wish.

• Were his actions in the DLC wrong? YES

• Were his intentions good? YES

• Did he manipulate? YES in the end

• Did he truly have care for others? YES, in the beginning

Would I choose his age of compassion? No it still doesn’t add up to me but, in my eyes Miquella is not that evil master villain that others portray. His character development is much more complex than the definition of “good” or “evil”. Essentially he begun as a promising and carrying character and ended up as a naive tragic manipulator.

Now shoutout to the other topic today.

Miquella and Mohg

• Did Mohg kidnap Miquella on his own will? YES

• Was he enchanted by Miquella? YES

• Did Miquella have any plans with him? YES, but NOT before he took him.

So, even if in the dlc we know that Miquella charmed Mohg, we are also clued that, Mohg actually had his own plans and ambitions with him. Miquella would never think to involve Mohg in his plans, not after he realises that he turned useful. It just doesn’t make any sense. But that doesn’t mean that Mohg was not charmed, LATER

The first plan of Miquella, was to wait inside his cocoon inside the Haligtree and be born again as a new god. But we know that Mohg, while Malenia was against Radahn, still abducted Miquella from inside his cocoon.

“ Wishing to raise Miquella to full godhood, Mohg wished to become his consort, taking the role of monarch. But no matter how much of his bloody bedchamber he tried to share, he received no response from the young Empyrean “

“Render up your offerings of blood to your Lord. Drench my consort's chamber. Slake his cocoon's thirst. His awakening shall herald the dawn of our dynasty”

This concludes to the fact that indeed, Mohg tried to share his bedchamber with Miquella and indeed wished to build a new dynasty with him as his consort.

And while we know that Miquella charmed him in order to achieve his entrance to the Land of Shadow, there is no explanation on why would he charm him to take him out of his cocoon which he was trying to succeed something in. He still had faith in the Haligtree and he decided to abandon it later.

But I am pretty sure that Miquella departed his spirit from body, so he probably wanted Mohg to stop his blood rituals on him. This is probably why he charmed him. He wanted him to stop and used his power to make him act on his own plans. I believe that the charm came after the abduction when he realised this ritual will not grant him his wishes.

What Ansbach said about him trying to undo Miquella’s charm, Mohg must’ve been already charmed at this point. Ansbach would not like his lord to be enchanted in any way, no matter what Miquella made him do.

Miquella decided to take Mohg’s body way after he was killed. He lost all of his kindness and compassion at this point.

[dreamdemonden]

going to start moving Gravity Falls things from @redhallow to my GF plush blog

I can’t help but think how terrifying it must’ve been for Bill to find out he was slowly going blind. Not only that he was going blind, but that the people who promised time and time that they’d always love him, “sharp angles and all” were the people responsible for it, and not even because they thought it would improve his physical quality of life.

I could see it as a narrative around the way bodily differences get treated, and a tiny part of me really relates to it as someone with pretty severe strabismus who was terrified of surgery for most of my life. I see it paralleled in the sense that people reassured me they wouldn’t see me any different for the way I looked, but when it finally came to time to undergo surgery for corrective purposes, the biggest reasons my parents gave for wanting me to go through with it all had to do with social impact, such as being unable to look people in the eyes. It really hurt to find out how much they hated it after they spent a lifetime reassuring me otherwise. I’ve heard of other visually impaired people with similar stories as well, of family members wanting them to undergo invasive surgery or other major medical procedures for the sake of “fixing” how they present themselves, without any kind of medical benefit.

So yeah I could see why our intrepid villain would be a little hurt, especially when all the love he has ever received has been in spite of existing as he is

[david-talks-sw]

Okay so I watched Inside Man on Netflix. It's interesting. More importantly, it's a masterclass in crafting likeable characters and how the POV we follow in a scene affects the way we see a character. Also, this somehow relates to the Star Wars Prequels, I promise! 😆

The moral of the series is that "everyone is a murderer, all it takes is a good reason and a bad day." The main characters are:

A vicar who - through a huge misunderstanding - has now locked his son's tutor in his basement and doesn't know how to get out of this situation, played by David Tennant.

A convicted murderer and ex-criminal psychology professor who solves crimes from his cell, as he waits for his execution, played by Stanley Tucci.

So a man who locked a woman in his cellar and a guy who murdered his wife. In any other movie, these guys are the villains. Yet, both of these characters are extremely likeable!

This is achieved through how relatably they behave in their relationships (kind, humble, humorous)...

... and through the emotion and/or charisma brought by the actors playing them (it's THE DOCTOR/CROWLEY and Stanley Friggin' Tucci)... but also through the amount of screen time they get.

We're with them for most of the show. There's other characters (the journalist, the trapped tutor and the vicar's wife) and subplots, of course, but they're our two anchors.

So when I'm watching David Tennant lock his son's tutor in his cellar and consider if he should free her - only to see him and his wife make things worse - I'm not thinking "you monster" like I do when I see Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs for example.

No, I'm thinking "goddammit vicar you're making things worse, it'll come back to haunt you, there's still a chance to turn back, please!" I'm rooting for him to make the right choice because I'm seeing him struggle and despair and hesitate throughout many scenes.

When I'm watching Stanley Tucci guiltily say he deserves death, after being so darn charming, humble and in clear possession of a moral compass, my instinct as a viewer isn't to go "he's right".

It's to go "aaaw, no it's fine, everyone makes mistakes."

And these characters remain likeable and/or relatable for a huge chunk of time... until, every once in a while, the show reminds you that, "remember, these guys are criminals."

"One of them's killed his wife then decapitated her, and the other one is contemplating murder, so they did/are doing evil stuff, they're the villains and you shouldn't grow fond of them."

Then it goes back to making you empathize with them again.

It's quite the emotional roller-coaster, very intriguing yet frustrating, which I have to guess is exactly what the show is going for.

But the point is: the amount of time we spend with these characters is partially what elicits this emotional reaction out of us.

If we consider the tutor's character:

For all intents and purposes, we should feel sorry for her, or full-on fucking love her. Objectively-speaking, she's:

smart but obviously scared,

we establish early on that she has a brave heart and stands up for oppressed women,

she thinks she's trapped by a pedophile or a man defending a pedophile, figures he'll inevitably try to murder her, yet manages to stay resourceful, determined and cool-headed despite it all.

She's an absolute superhero.

But that's not how the narrative frames her.

She's framed as an antagonistic force, in the vicar's subplot.

She may be the one tied up in a basement, but she's in control and the vicar is not. She's almost framed as being in a position of power (when she's really not), which leads the audience to view Tenant's vicar as an underdog.

When the vicar is trying to look for alternatives to end this situation so that he doesn't have to kill her, she's unhelpful,

and even starts pitting the vicar and his wife against each other.

Again, in-universe, she's scared shitless and in "fight-or-flight" mode. She's putting up a front because she's just trying to get outta this alive. She's the victim, here, not the vicar who captured her.

But as a viewer, you don't feel that, despite objectively knowing that. Why and how?

Because we barely see this character, compared to Tenant's vicar. So we have more time to grow to feel for him. There's "why".

Also 90% of what we do see of the tutor is her being aggressive, manipulative, sometimes downright merciless and we're seeing her from the POV of the vicar or the vicar's wife. There's "how".

Result: the viewer feels sorry for the captor and frustrated towards the captive.

This isn't a rational reaction, it's an emotional one (the goal of any visual artform being to get an emotional reaction out of the viewer).

Which means the series and Stephen Moffat effectively did their job.

How does this relate to the Prequels?

Well, a lot of people see the Jedi in a negative light in the Prequels, and Anakin in a more sympathetic one.

Even though the Prequels are about how a good man becomes bad, and even though the Jedi embody one of the major Star Wars themes (selflesness) as opposed to Anakin who clearly displays the anti-theme (selfish)... a majority of fans feels more for the latter than the former. Why?

Because the Prequels unintentionally do what Inside Man does purposefully. You react to Anakin like you react to the vicar. You react to the Jedi like you react to the tutor.

Simply put: Anakin has more screen time than the Jedi. And we don't just see him more, we see him struggle, we see him about what he knows to be morally right vs what he really wants, we see him be overtaken by his own fear...

... and just by contrast, that makes him more relatable than the Jedi, who have already overcome their character arcs and mostly all learned to keep their flaws in check.

The narrative doesn't intend to frame them as antagonistic. We do see them talk about how worried they are, we do see them emote.

And if you think about it, it's easy to see why:

their entire way of life is going to crap,

their values are being corrupted as they're forced to fight and die, alongside their clone brothers, in a war they wanted no part of,

they sense that the Force is close to the breaking point and that the galaxy's inhabitants are suffering on the daily.

But, for example, when Mace or Ki-Adi Mundi are shown expressing concern in the Prequels... as worried as they are, in-universe... out-of-universe, their measured reactions doesn't emotionally impact a viewer as much as Anakin's intense ones do.

So a big chunk of the audience will sympathize more with him than them. But like the tutor in Inside Man, the Jedi are objectively the victims and Anakin is objectively an unstable space-nazi who betrayed and destroyed them.

Just because we're not shown these characters be worried beyond just monotonously saying "I'm worried" doesn't mean they're not actually worried as Anakin is in Revenge of the Sith (if not more).

However we don't see it.

Because these three films aren't about the Jedi Order, they're about the Republic and about Anakin and about how each of these two beautiful things were corrupted (by Palpatine and by themselves) into becoming the very thing they stood against.

The Jedi aren't a factor in either of those two themes set up by George Lucas.

They became a factor when fans - who despite not liking the Prequels, still admirably chose to engage with the material - made the Jedi be more important to the narrative of the Prequels by re-framing these films as "The Failure of the Jedi".

Now, should Lucas have recognized that most fans wouldn't give two shits about why a Republic falls or the "matinee serial" format, and would've rather he focused on the Jedi, and developed them accordingly? Probably.

But good luck telling an indie filmmaker with a bunch of money how to tell the story he wants to tell.

Could Lucas have done more with the Prequels to highlight the fact that the Jedi are the underdogs of the story, not Anakin's oppressors? Yes.

But, firstly, he probably didn't think that was a point that needed explaining. And secondly, as he explained at Cannes, in 2002, feature films are a very limiting format to tell a story, especially one of the Prequels' scale. If it doesn't directly contribute to the story you're telling... it's gotta go.

A limited show would've been better to cover every aspect of the Prequels more in detail and avoid confusing the audience re: who they should be rooting for.

Which is why it's interesting, to me, that Stephen Moffat used his limited show to INTENTIONALLY confuse the audience! 😃

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Empathy. Motivation. Progress.

The secret to making your readers care about a character lies in these 3 sliding scales, according to Brandon Sanderson.

Show throughout the story the answers to the following bullets:

Empathy (likability)

How relatable are they?

Are they kind or sympathetic to others?

How do other characters treat them?

Motivation (proactivity)

Are the character’s motivations interesting?

Can the character have what they desire? Do they initially avoid what motivates them?

How do a character’s motivations conflict with their flaws, and/or tie to the plot?

What steps is the character taking to get what they want?

People have many things that motivate them. Sometimes they can never have something they desire, sometimes they don’t want the thing they actually need at first. Motivations can conflict with each other, the plot, and a character’s morality.

Progress (competence)

What flaws does the character need to face in order to progress?

Does the character overcome their flaws, fail, step around them, etc.?

Will the character fulfill their promise(s)?

Motivation and progress often go hand-in-hand. Progression should be hard, to keep characters in check.

These sliding scales work just as well for protagonists as they do for villains, and everyone else in between.

Remember, the scales shouldn’t be maxed out. A character perfect at all three sliding scales is difficult to care about, and your characters are your story’s lifeblood.

Brandon Sanderson’s free 2020 lectures on YT

[villains-promise]

friendly reminder since ive been so inactive and a lot of new people came around while i was gone:

to filter out:

-spoilers: villain's spoiler

-unrelated posts: not villain's promise related

-posts like this*: kind of villain's promise related

*posts that are more about the blog or related to ifs in general

[theladyofrosewater]

So I was browsing the MCD wiki (which sidenote thank you @/lggy for maintaining the wiki you are a godsend) and I noticed that because of the sepia or whatever filter they used, Zianna and Aaron's wife Lilly look really similar so I thought "what if I made them sisters"

THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND. If I make it so that Lilly and Aaron get married early that would effectively make Zianna the sister of the Lord of Falconclaw and a pretty valuable person to marry in terms of alliances so Zianna would make the decision to marry Garte and therefore O'Khasis would never move on Falconclaw and hey if Garte died early (most descendants of Esmund have a habit of dying young in my rewrite) that would effectively let Zianna rule O'Khasis as long as she had an heir that could wield Esmund's relic.

It also would make Aaron more involved in the plot because I will be honest, while I do not hate Aaron because I can separate him from Jason enough. Aaron feels like a character who would have been a one-off character or at least one who was a side character to the level of say Lucinda. I know the Divine Warriors and Irene are supposed to be the kinda main story but I will be honest with you the Ro'Meaves and their absolute chaos are way more interesting to me. Zane was the season one's villain, Garroth and Vylad were mysteries that we got to upwrap with both Ru'aun as a whole and some stuff about the Shadow Knights. In making Aaron Zianna's brother-in-law and the uncle of Garroth, Zane and Vylad to me, besides just making him more connected to the main plot, does two main things.

Aaron in current MCD canon is really only connected to two characters Aphmau and Zane. I'm changing his relationship to Aph to be more of a mentorship one because I think he sees the young daughter he and his wife wanted to have but never got too because of Zane. to me it makes the massacre at Falconclaw be that much more personal because instead of this random priest just killing your wife, child, and entire village for no real reason imagine this. You're a lord of a village and relatively recently two of your nephews have died and one of them quite gruesomely, you've got one nephew left and he requests a family visit and you accept because hey the kid has always been a bit weird but he just lost both of his brothers and he probably needs support right now so you extend an invitation for him to visit. He gets there and he somehow got to be the head of the major religion in your area and the kid's not even 19 yet and looks like he hasn't slept in days so you rush the tour and send him to your home, maybe your wife can get him to eat something, or your son might cheer him up for at least a little while. You think nothing of it and keep doing your job until you hear screaming and see so many dead. Your wife is dead, your son is dead everyone is dead and the only one alive is your nephew and when he looks at you he fucking smiles and says it "it was necessary but don't worry I'm sure you'll join them soon enough" before walking off leaving you to bury bodies for years. Making Aaron be related to the Ro'meaves in my opinion changes his story from just a fridging backstory to a classic tragedy because it becomes a betrayal bathed and forged from blood.

I think it would give him a better motivation to risk his life to get Garroth back and it would make him interact with the other characters because he wants to know what kind of man his non-evil nephew turned into. That causes him to be more and more social with everyone. Maybe he spars and trains with Katelyn, He teaches Dante and his kids how to fish because Aaron never got to teach Jacob how, but still wants to pass on that skill. Maybe he knows things about shadow knights that most people don't, and he promises to teach Laurance in case he might help him. Maybe he takes Travis hunting because Travis never got to go on hunting trips with a parent. And then he sacrifices himself. Katelyn ignores the painful feeling she gets when she looks at the spare chalk and wrappings she has for spars. The fishing poles in Dante's house get covered with dust and cobwebs, the strings rotting away and snapping. Laurance and maybe Vylad struggling with being shadow knights as the call gets stronger and wondering if Aaron would have known how to deal with it. Travis out of anger snaps his bow in half before realizing what he did and breaking down. I want Garroth to be horrified when he finally is home and realizes just who they lost to get him back. I want them to care about him and I want his sacrifice to be more than love triangle fodder

[utilitycaster]

I don't know how you feel about it, but I was extremely frustrated last night when I found out that break was called after around 3 hours. I just felt that at that point they should have just made it a Crown Keepers episode instead of promising that BH would be back and then them barely being in the episode. I don't know, I'm usually really go with the flow with CRs creative choices, but this was just a real big swing and a miss for me. I wish this had all just been its own episode

So here's my feelings:

My thoughts on EXU Prime, and later Kymal, were that I love the player characters and their relationships and much of the worldbuilding (notably all of Niirdal-Poc and the Qoniira Tetrarchy) and I liked many of Aabria's NPCs but there were some pretty big gaps left in "what the fuck is going on" that left me feeling as though I wouldn't mind seeing the characters again but I didn't feel strongly about continuing the story in-world, if that makes sense. The Aevilux reveal, for example, was sort of what the main plot of EXU Prime hinged upon (ie, that was Myr'atta Niselor's motivation; that was what the deal with Ted was) and so the fact that didn't come out for over 2.5 years irl after it ended meant I'd just kind of said "well, some weirdo from Syngorn really wanted to do shit to Opal for some reason related to her sister, who is also her patron, and we don't know why either of these things is the case, and I guess that's what happened" and made my peace with it. Similarly, I don't know what the Nameless Ones want, and never have (other than, at one point, the circlet of barbed vision, and I don't know why they want it). I made a joke that Myr'atta, Poska, and Otohan are all kind of the same and honestly that is the thing: if you don't know why a villain is doing something - even if the reason is "because I love to be evil and terrible!" it's hard to care, and if those are only villains, it's hard to be invested in the story about the heroes either, even if you like the heroes as characters.

When I say I like how this ended, I mean it - I think it could have gone only a few ways, but I like that Morrighan and Opal have both become divine champions, Morrighan willingly and Opal less so (this is yet another case of "the gods don't do take-backsies on oaths", but also, I do feel for Opal despite it all because of Aimee's excellent work throughout). I mentioned how I felt about the exact details of Cyrus's death but I don't mind that he's dead. Fy'ra was a highlight throughout, as she frequently is, and I think she was faced with two extremely unpleasant choices and made a fascinating decision. But I'd have preferred to see this as a flashback (see next paragraph) or like. Just decide what happened. If I'm being extremely honest a lot of my issues with the Crown Keepers portion is that it felt like there was a very specific desired ending (Opal's complete corruption and Cyrus's death); I also said at some point well before that you can only do so much with the Crown Keepers while Dariax is there because Matt does, even if he's turning his brain off to play our Charisma-only kinda short king, know all the cheat codes for the main campaign. It's kind of like why how, even if the DM will control an absent player during RP, they usually have another player control in combat.

I don't mind that the Bells Hells portion was short. I think the choice to break where they did makes sense given everything else that went on. But I think that, criticism of the actual Crown Keepers portion aside, while you might have lost some of your audience for a Crown Keepers-only episode on the main feed, you would have preserved the drama of FCG's death better and gotten people more excited for the Crown Keepers if you had essentially run things exactly as done here but then just cut the two episodes together, which, as a pre-taped medium, they can now do! Hindsight is again 20-20 but: Run the first half of 92 as is. Break and tape a full Crown Keepers episode. Return to Bells Hells and narrate the message back from Dorian saying he'll be there, play out the rest of Bells Hells in the camp dealing with FCG's death, and then have Dorian arrive at the very end of that episode and end the episode when the party asks him what's been going on with him, then reveal there will be a Crown Keepers episode. Air your full Crown Keepers episode as episode 93, and then return to the main campaign with 94. It would have been better balanced in terms of time, people who wanted the Crown Keepers to return would have gotten hyped up, and people who dislike them or are neutral would have at least known what to expect and frankly if they skip the episode that's their choice to make. Hell, since there were 2 weeks? Could have even been like "hey, we'll do a Crown Keepers Marathon on Twitch and Youtube on some random weekday" to build up some hype!

So overall my answer is that I agree this wasn't a great creative choice. I don't think this means they shouldn't take big swings! But some will be misses and this was, while not an entire miss for me, at best a walk.

[skaruresonic]

I also forgot that one of the very first things we saw Flynnified Lanolin do was express her gratitude to Sonic. I think the idea was that he had inspired her to actually take action... but her approach is far more proactive than Sonic, who simply reacts to Eggman's wrongdoings.

If contained, this isn't a bad idea for a conflict. It fits with the general idea that she's high-strung and inexperienced, and doesn't want anyone to suffer like she did, while Sonic has been in the game (lol) for far longer and he's more relaxed.

But Lanolin has degenerated so much that it looks like she has legit spiralled into a breakdown. Now she is so rigid that she has become abusive, creating a climate of fear and control with her own companions - she has gaslighted Whisper in the real sense of the word! Her empathy for newbies makes her blind to Duo's obvious lies, while she holds veterans like Silver to such a high standard that any perceived failure deserves a verbal lashing out - but without the willingness to listen, to accept that maybe her assumptions were wrong, because she doesn't want to show any sign of vulnerability. And it feels like she holds so much resentment in her heart that she snaps at anyone vaguely irritating her, from Tangle playing to Sonic not moving out of the road fast enough (who cares about the possibility of them being hurt? Certainly not her! Everything has to flow smoothly and wounded people are simply a hindrance!)

And now we have ABT giving us a Lanolin who has been consumed so much by her own bitterness that she has gone from seeing Sonic as a hero to an irresponsible force of nature who simply doesn't care enough about anything. A danger. Something she cannot hold on a leash. Something to fear and look with suspicion. (and may have attempted to attack him, ABT's sketches are very confusing)

I would almost be impressed by this tragic villain arc, if I wasn't sure nothing I said is intentional.

I think the idea was that he had inspired her to actually take action... but her approach is far more proactive than Sonic, who simply reacts to Eggman's wrongdoings.

You know, I kind of think maybe we're even shortchanging Sonic by calling him "reactive." I know what you mean, but most people tend to exaggerate the whole "Sonic isn't proactive" thing to mean "Sonic isn't a perfect hero because he isn't surveilling Eggman 24/7."

We've seen this before with Flynn's "Eggman stormed Prison Island without knowing what Project Shadow was" argument. As if Eggman needs to be psychic and know what a classified top-secret military experiment is before he breaches the place and finds out for himself.

While it's true that Sonic doesn't take preemptive measures against Eggman, he also can't be expected to keep tabs on the guy all the time. (How ironic, then, that the one time he promises to check up on Tinker in issue 6, he actively neglects his duty.)

He does what he can with the knowledge he possesses. It's not like he can magically intuit that Eggman's going to go steal Ancient Document #3,487 and wake up another beast.

Plus, it doesn't mesh well with his freespirited nature. Superheroes are morally burdened by their self-imposed duties and obligations. Sonic just has awesome adventures because why not.

---

If contained, this isn't a bad idea for a conflict. It fits with the general idea that she's high-strung and inexperienced, and doesn't want anyone to suffer like she did, while Sonic has been in the game (lol) for far longer and he's more relaxed.

Not sure I agree. We've seen the "no one should suffer the way I have" thing from Shadow and the whole high-strung schtick from Blaze.

I don't really see what else Lanolin is bringing to the table other than that she's a normie. And frankly, her personality is too underwhelming to rely on relatability. We don't even know if the girl has any hobbies aside from ordering people around.

---

But Lanolin has degenerated so much that it looks like she has legit spiralled into a breakdown. Now she is so rigid that she has become abusive, creating a climate of fear and control with her own companions - she has gaslighted Whisper in the real sense of the word!

Nah man, she's peak because she's nasty and unpleasant. Let stronk women be bitches. Something something.

Kind of raises the brow how quick she is to resort to violence when she feels "threatened" by Whisper. You'd think she'd be more of a flighter instead of a fighter.

---

Her empathy for newbies makes her blind to Duo's obvious lies, while she holds veterans like Silver to such a high standard that any perceived failure deserves a verbal lashing out - but without the willingness to listen, to accept that maybe her assumptions were wrong, because she doesn't want to show any sign of vulnerability. And it feels like she holds so much resentment in her heart that she snaps at anyone vaguely irritating her, from Tangle playing to Sonic not moving out of the road fast enough (who cares about the possibility of them being hurt? Certainly not her! Everything has to flow smoothly and wounded people are simply a hindrance!)

Yep.

Control freak.

---

And now we have ABT giving us a Lanolin who has been consumed so much by her own bitterness that she has gone from seeing Sonic as a hero to an irresponsible force of nature who simply doesn't care enough about anything.

Which is dehumanizing towards Sonic, as well as belittling. Sonic does care. He demonstrates his care through his actions and the kindness he gives people.

Also, didn't Archie characterize Sonic as a living force of chaos? Hmm.

---

A danger.

Ironic, considering he bothered to save people from the mess she made.

---

Something she cannot hold on a leash.

The Sally Sheeples arguments are starting to look more and more convincing by the minute.

---

Something to fear and look with suspicion.

Again, though, why? She thanked him for saving her town in issue 57. Now all of a sudden she's afraid of Sonic?

And if that's the case, why is she sticking around? Why can't she do the sensible thing and ask Jewel to relocate her to go work somewhere else where she won't have to be around people she perceives as ticking time bombs? If she views Sonic and co. as a threat, then why doesn't SHE take any measures to protect herself? Clearly she can't feel that unsafe around them, otherwise she wouldn't even think to scold them.

That's the frustrating thing about Lanolin. She's supposed to be this no-nonsense drill sergeant, yet continuously expects the world to bend to her expectations rather than assume any agency herself. God forbid our stronk women make decisions! Heavens no.

The only logical explanation is that Lanolin is such a huge fucking control freak that even Sonic the Hedgehog must abide by her strict standards, his previous heroism be damned.

---

(and may have attempted to attack him, ABT's sketches are very confusing)

She reached into her cowbell to withdraw her Wisp. Doing that crossed the threshold from mere fantasy to premeditation, imo. It's one thing to fantasize about someone you hate dying - quite another to essentially reach for a knife hidden in your pocket while their back is turned.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Sato Ryuga in Kamen Rider Geats - an overview for non-toku folks

Now that Living with Him (Kare no Iru Seikatsu) has premiered has a couple of episodes out and is getting a good response from a lot of the folks I know on here, I thought it might be a good time to do one of those posts I do sometimes. I should probably have a name for this. Like, a tokusatsu actor overview post? My imagined audience for posts like this is made up of BL fans who haven't watched toku but would like to know more about their favorite actors' pasts in that genre. But I hope they're interesting for others as well.

The tokusatsu-to-BL pipeline has been getting shorter lately, with a lot of recent toku alums getting into BLs within the first year or so after their toku series has ended. Sato Ryuga falls into this category. He was on Kamen Rider Geats, which stopped airing last August. His costar Kan Hideyoshi, who played the lead rider in that series (Ukiyo Ace, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Geats), made the leap so quickly that the BL he was in, Although I Love You, and You? a.k.a. Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka, finished airing a while ago. That show had its moments but was a bit on the lackluster side (through no fault of Kan's--I thought he was charming, funny, and showed an admirable commitment to the role). I'm a lot more hopeful about Living with Him. In addition to its promising start, it was written by the screenwriter of Old Fashion Cupcake and directed by the director of My Personal Weatherman.

But even if it weren't for these positive indicators, I would have been excited to see Sato in a BL, or just about anything. He was really impressive in Geats. He showed a lot of range on that series, handling action, high drama, and occasional comedy really well. And it doesn't hurt that he's cute as hell.

By the way, I'm going to keep the spoilers vague in this post, but I can't really avoid them entirely while doing this type of overview. If relatively mild/general spoilers don't bother you, you should be OK to continue. And of course, if you don't think you'll ever watch Geats, you don't have to worry either way.

Sato and Kan together during Keiwa's villain era.

Sato's Geats character was named Sakurai Keiwa. Keiwa starts out as a sort of proxy for the audience. The premise of Geats involves a high-stakes competition called the Desire Grand Prix where the winner gets to magically change the world. Most of the time, most people don't know this competition is going on. It's already in progress when Keiwa encounters the players for the first time and he has zero context. As he learns about the game, and ends up joining in as Kamen Rider Tycoon (a pun on the fact that his suit form is modeled after a tanuki), the audience learns about it alongside him. Keiwa comes into the story as an idealistic sweetheart so it's easy to root for him right away. (This is less true of the other characters. Geats's biggest weakness, to my mind, is that it starts out conspicuously lacking in any sort of bonds between characters or truly relatable characters other than Keiwa. This gets a lot better by the latter part of the series, but I found it somewhat rough going to get to that point, and it took longer than it needed to.)

One interesting thing about Keiwa is that you can tell a lot about what's going on with him by his hair. You'll see what I mean. I didn't notice this until I was doing screenshots for this post and then it really stood out to me.

So, here's Keiwa as a naïve newcomer. Check out the cute mop.

It doesn't take long for him to get kind of intense when he's in a fight and about to henshin (transform into his armored suit form).

Speaking of which, for the first part of the series, his pre-transformation move involves a sort of determined fist gesture, which will be important later.

This is a later example of the henshin fist, but it gets the point across.

Intense henshin face notwithstanding, he's still Mr. Nice Guy for a lot of the series. He might get a bit of a hair part but he's basically a floppy-haired cinnamon roll.

And then something bad happens.

This thing is really hard on Keiwa, and he has a dark night of the soul. He gets estranged from the other lead characters.

The hair is already going a little haywire here.

He does some creepy shit.

Then he gets into an even darker place.

Keiwa switches up his henshin move. He starts snapping his fingers, which is part of Ace's signature move. Ace is a total badass who has won the Desire Grand Prix repeatedly. He's a perpetual contender, the guy everyone else is always gunning for because he's the most likely to come out on top. I mean, his name is Ace. Adopting the snapping part of his henshin move has significant symbolism. It's like Keiwa is saying he's the new badass in town. He also has a new, stronger suit form to go along with this change.

There's a difference in the way Keiwa does the snap that's worth noting. Ace's snap move starts as a fox head hand gesture (think the rock'n'roll devil horns gesture but with a pointed snout) because Geats takes the form of a kitsune when he goes into suit mode. Keiwa's snap starts with his hand upraised, fingers up, the back of his hand facing outward. It's reminiscent of an American-style beckoning motion (the "c'mere" finger thing and its multi-finger equivalent), which I gather is considered extremely rude in Japan. This calls back to the henshin move of a favorite toku character of mine, Sawatari Kazumin/Kamen Rider Grease, who Takeda Kouhei played on Kamen Rider Build. Sawatari just straight up does the rude beckoning motion before transforming. It's a very antagonistic, cocky thing to do.

As you can see, Keiwa's hair is really going haywire at this point.

Keiwa ends up facing off with Ace more and more, including in some scenes like the one below. It doesn't really come off this way to me when I'm watching the scenes, but when I look at these screenshots, these two look about as likely to smooch as they do to come to blows.

Keiwa's hair starts to get a little less poofy at this point but the cute mop hasn't returned. Instead, his hair is almost ready to go into bad guy mode!

Finally, Keiwa tips over into full-on villain territory. This is signaled by his hair getting a defined part. He also starts wearing an earring, just for extra bad boy hotness points.

(I’ve seen this earring thing happen in Japanese media quite a few times and it always seems funny to me, because an actor will have had a very visible hole in his earlobe for a whole series and then when he puts something in it we’re supposed to be all surprised Pikachu about it. It’s an interesting commentary on the cultural significance of earrings on dudes, I guess. Now I’m trying to think of nice boys in toku who get to wear earrings in their highly visible ear holes. Kaito from Zenkaiger is one, at least. I assume there are others?)

He keeps snapping/beckoning.

The beckoning thing is clearer here, and it has that flipping off the audience energy.

He adopts some pretty cold-blooded expressions.

In some scenes, like the one seen above, he seems to have subtle makeup on. I don't know if this is because villains are supposed to be hotter or because they're supposed to be more gender non-conforming. Or both? Well, it suits him.

As you would probably guess, Keiwa doesn't stay bad. The stuff that sent him off the deep end gets resolved and his relationships with other characters get repaired. He also gets his mop back (it's only intermittently messy) and loses the earring. He goes back to his original henshin move.

There you have it! Hopefully this gets across a good bit about Sato's Geats character and some of the shifts he goes through. Of course, I've left out plenty of stuff as well. Anyone who's really curious should definitely check out the series.

[unsanctioned-if]

On a dark winter’s night, a child signs a contract with a man dead to the world.

Promised an upbringing filled with forbidden knowledge, the two enter a strange and isolated existence together.

After nineteen years, the sanctuary and prison you have come to know as your home is discovered, and the land finally learns that the villain they believed to have perished a century prior has merely been in hiding…and that he isn’t alone.

Separated and forced to flee, you’re once again released into the world without your master’s hand to guide you. Only now, he is no longer the only one adept at the unsanctioned arcane arts.

“Unsanctioned” is an upcoming 18+ interactive Twine game where you play as the apprentice of an ostracized sorcerer. It’s set in a dark fantasy world where magic is simultaneously a symbol of status and strictly supervised.

Progress Status:

Total Wordcount: Around 137k (as of September 2024)

Words Edited/Coded in Twine: Around 100k (as of end of September 2024)

Written Chapters: Prologue + Chapter 1 + Start of Chapter 2.

Edited Chapters: Prologue (3 backgrounds), start of Chapter 1.

Demo: TBA. Will include Prologue + Chapter 1 and start of Chapter 2.

Estimated Demo Release: December 2024.

Currently 10 chapters in total are planned.

Features

✢ Three backgrounds to choose from which will shape your MC and their relationship with the world, impact their pool of knowledge, their countenance, and how others might react to them.

✢ Three races to choose from: elf, human or the shunned cryn.

✢ A complicated parental relationship at the heart of the narrative.

✢ A cast of potential – and not entirely lawful – companions who you can forge various relations with.

✢ Around five “full” romances, along with casual flings you may try to pursue along the way.

✢ Choices that shape your MC’s personality as well as the world around them to a lesser or bigger degree and narrative branching based on certain choices.

✢ A game of truth and deceit with you as one of the main players. You've been taught to keep your identity and abilities a secret from others, but is secrecy what you truly want?

✢ A magic system of both legal and illegal spells at your disposal. Use wisely, or you might attract unwanted attention...

Characters

✢ Elven, He/Him

If the stories are to be trusted, he is the last surviving member of the group of sorcerers unceremoniously named the “Unsanctioned”. He is your master and your caretaker, your mentor and your jailor.

Knowledgeable and lonesome, he often seems to be pondering the world which he has now become a reclused observer of.

Whether you consider him family or a brute who took you away from the life you were meant to live, it can’t be argued that the nineteen years the two of you have spent together has shaped you into the person you are today.

How your presence has affected him, you cannot confidently say. His mind remains as closed off to you now as it did on that snowy winter’s night so long ago.

Perhaps leaving his side is what will finally allow you to learn the truth about him.

✢ ?, He/Him

As a being born from the very essence of sorcery, Muir’s existence threads a thin line between mortality and something wholly other. All mages rely on the energy of their Magiramús to cast their spells; you rely on this hoary eyed young man to do the same. Aside from his direct and stubborn disposition, he possesses both a palpable kindness and a sense of unmotivated ruthlessness.

You don’t know what he is, yet you know him better than anyone. You left your home together; now you must learn to navigate the world together.

Something that’s much easier said than done when your very existence marks you as outlaws.

✢ Elven, They/Them

One need only look at Wren to know that they’re one of the Institute’s agents. If the robes didn’t give it away, their demeanour certainly would.

Arrogance lies deeply embedded in their eyes, and they seem convinced that anyone who looks their way does so with envy.

When you encounter them in the troubled village of Kelmerth during their Practice of Passing, you get to witness firsthand what a student of the most distinguished academy on the continent can do, and what being a product of its teachings really means.

✢ Human, She/Her

Hailing from the southern land of Ciralor, Azora is less attuned to the laws of the arcane than a native of Aíos would be. Instead, she tends to rely on the inventions her homeland is both renowned and feared for.

Eloquent and straight-forward, her occasionally tactless phrasing might give the impression that she’s somewhat spoiled.

Spoiled though she may be, she can't as easily be described as naive. Blood stains the crown that was once destined to sit upon her head, and she is set on securing any means necessary to one day return home and claim what’s rightfully hers.

✢ Vampiric, She/Her

Astra's gaze always appears to wander, searching for something in the crowds she often surrounds herself with, occasionally locking on to someone who just so happens to catch her interest.

Although her muscular stature points to a life of strife, the poise she displays is more befitting of a high born than that of a common thug.

As a vampire, she has little choice but to shun the light of day and seek the comfort that lies in the shadows. Representing the part of her people that refuse to conform to the rules set in place by the less potent, she operates outside of the law, following instead the self-made rules of her Coven.

✢ Cryn, He/Him

The order of The Aelesh is enveloped in mystery. Worshipping the world of the unknown, they have chosen to cast aside the Faith in favour of the Truth – and in their eyes, the truth lies beyond that which mortals can comprehend and perceive with their senses.

With the simple mask he insists on wearing, your only clue as to Kirin’s true character lies in his voice and body language. Each sparse movement has a purpose, every phrase a veiled meaning.

He’s vowed to express his beliefs by following in the footsteps of the “Unsanctioned” and to serve them in any way he can.

In his opinion, this is currently best done by aiding you.

Magic System

You will be able to access a “book of spells” (codex) from the game's menu whenever you wish. The spells that your MC has learned, or learned about, will be displayed there along with some information regarding what each spell does.

There are key points during the story where using magic might attract attention or be more risky than other times. Know that there are no bad endings in this game, but that choices do have consequences, and that includes your use of magic.

There are spells which are considered “lawful” and spells which are labelled as “forbidden”. You will have access to both, though due to the nature of the MC's upbringing, they will have a wide range of forbidden spells at their disposal.

Even when using a “lawful” spell, this is still considered a crime unless you have a permit to do so.

There are moments in the game where you will be able to go to the spell menu and select the spell you want to cast (if any). Not all spells will always be available at all times simply because of branching reasons, but I’m striving to make it as free-choice as possible and add flavour-text in most cases at the very least.

Character portrait credit: @holyantenna (upper portraits + Cirern portrait) and @mooreaux (lower portraits + Kirin and Azora portraits)

Logo art credit: Khoai Designs (@khoaisama)