#mostly i would want live action because i like good acting and i think those characters and scenes would really bring it out of the actors

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

The All For the Game series is a product of its time. If it did get an adaptation things would have to change (personally I'd hope they make Kevin Irish-Japanese). But I wouldn't want them to sanitize the Foxes much either because the point is that they're all rough, violent, imperfect victims and they still deserve second chances and understanding. I like how all this is through the feverish lens of a university sports anime plot that took a mafia turn because the absurdity helps you breathe through some of the heavier themes.

Too, I love how unreliable Neil is as a narrator. It's really well done and shows that Nora is a good writer. He's so viciously brutal, especially in the first book, but it's softened by the reader being inside his head and understanding his threads of logic. Andrew, as the only one to see through him from the start, must've felt like the single sensible person left in the world, "Why is nobody else seeing all these massive red flags!?!?" No wonder why he thought he hallucinated Neil.

[cum-aside]

Ok it’s not like I go here really, but I’ve been reading a bunch of DPxDC recently because it’s very good, and I had an idea that won’t go anywhere

The various gangs in Gotham have callsigns/uniforms or something right??? If not, they should, and imma say they do. Anyway. Redhood I think didn’t think too hard about what people in his gang on his turf should wear for identification purposes, but they sure did. And what they came up with was Red.

Wearing red in the vicinity of the ‘Bad Part’ of Gotham?? Part of the red hood gang. Generally head gear is the preferred method of wearing red. Red hats and beanies, red head scarfs and hijabs, red headbands, red masks. The idea has been communicated. To a certain point, wearing red even if you aren’t officially part of the gang is a great way to get an in with them, or be under protection if you’re the right age in the right area, as long as you’re willing to risk getting roped into low stakes gang activity, which can range from working the counter at money laundering sites to community service (guarding clinics and shelters and volunteering) to making deliveries to destroying certain hostile architecture. (Hood saves the real jobs with cops and shootings and turf disputes for actual members, that he knows the names faces and skills of, and who are at least above 18, but preferably over 20, and who wear real gear he supplies them with, not just whatever’s in their closet that’s red) (this does not entirely stop the smaller ‘members’ from getting into their own fights with the cops and turf wars, but Jason has found that giving them Something to do that feels like direct action helps curb those tendencies. And it’s not like those things aren’t things that don’t need doing, so it’s a win win. Mostly)

Danny, bless him, does not know any of this. But has been staying in the sketchier areas of Gotham because that’s where people don’t care how old you are or if your papers are real or not, and he absolutely does not want people looking into how old he is and wether his papers are real or not. He is also wearing an inadvisable and vaguely conspicuous amount of red. His converse are red, his signature baseball tee is white and red, and his hoodie is also red.

Clearly, this kid (he’s like 17) really wants in with the hood gang.

And eventually, they oblige him.

Random people will approach Danny and ask/tell him that them and a couple others are going somewhere to do (insert vaguely/definitely illegal job or act of community service here) and Danny, who is deeply directionless in life currently, and also pretty assured in his ability to eat danger for breakfast, and has never met an institutional authority he doesn’t disrespect at least a little bit, is totally down for some civil disobedience and chaotic good shenanigans.

And then it spirals from there. Like. A worrying amount.

It takes Danny actual months, almost a year, to realize that he’s been low key slow cooked into the criminal underbelly of Gotham, and like… he’s not really mad about it?? Honestly if he had a choice when he came to Gotham, he probably would have picked the redhood gang anyway. He just seems to vibe with them on a… Spiritual Level…

Hm

Anyway

Years go by, and while Danny doesn’t have the most going for him in terms of a normal person life, vis a vis higher education, official employment, health insurance, dating life, or any other benchmark one uses to measure the trajectory of their lives— Danny’s feeling pretty good! Jazz, Tucker, and Sam have all finagled their ways into Gotham, (Tucker has a WE internship, Jazz is working/doing work studies at Arkham, Sam does what she likes now that she is a legal adult and has her inheritance, and what she likes is environmental activism, and occasionally being spotted with fellow activist Damian Wayne, and someone who may or may not be poison ivy, sources differ) and Danny finds his obsession suspiciously well served as a hood goon. Hood hench? Redgoon? Hench hood?? Name pending, who cares.

Danny is also suspiciously good at, well, his job. One of the best runners, even when he gets caught and frisked they never seem to find the goods on him (they never do check IN him, but then why would they) very well liked at every volunteer spot they have, patient, kind, funny, good with old people, kids, bitter people, addicts and the homeless, the sick and injured. And yet also very competent in the field, when they finally let him do actually dangerous things. Act as protection detail to the working girls in the red light district, he’s very respectful, and very good at intimidation, de-escalation, and when push comes to shove, excellent in a fight. Knows when to keep pressing his advantage and when to make a retreat with whoever he’s guarding. Not afraid to fight scrappy, and presses through pain and fear like a true gothmite.

He gets so good at his not really a job job that he becomes essentially, Redhoods right hand man.

The rest of the bats are skeptical of this for several reasons. Because generally speaking, the people in Jason’s turf are not fans of the bats, but Jason does a lot of coordinating with them, and someone so close to him is going to pick that up eventually if they’re half as sharp and useful as Danny is. Other than that, secret identity issues, plus pit rage, plus the fact that Jason trusts pretty much nobody. But Jason has great feelings about this guy, he always feels more clear headed and even keeled when he’s around, and he helps Jason remember the community he’s trying to build, and the community he serves. Also he delegates and mother hens like nobody’s business, but Jason just really can’t seem to work up too much irritation about it.

It is around this time, however, that the past, and shady government organizations come knocking.

Perhaps the GIW has also noticed how ecto-contaminated and lawless Gotham is and decided that they could start doing research and experiments with its live and undead denizens instead of amity, where the portal has closed, and ghost activity is down since phantom disappeared. Or maybe the GIW has finally located phantom specifically and is interested in what they’re always interested in. Or maybe it’s various ghosts harassing Danny to take up the throne, which he’s been avoiding successfully, but having settled into a life routine that suites him his core has finally ‘settled’ (halfa cores fluctuate more than other cores due to the transient nature of being alive, but halfa people settle into lifelong patterns and relationships quicker than other people because of the static nature of being dead) he is mature enough by ghost standards to assume the throne, or at least begin preparing for it.

Regardless, danny is being tracked down for his childhood baggage’s extended warranty, and brings the entirety of the JL and almost all associated sidekicks, hero group spin-offs, and organizations into the thick of it.

Idk. I just got through Secretary Danny by DeathlySilent13 on ao3 and I thought man oh man wouldn’t it be neat if Danny got to be Jason’s second in command instead??? That could open up a lot of avenues I haven’t seen yet. I’m also just very curious about how the Jason’s runs his gang according to the fandom, and I think that with all the ACAB energy Danny has been assigned, he should have a little bit of community focused organized crime. As a treat. Like I said I don’t go here thou, I just needed to put this somewhere and see if it vibed with anybody besides me

[thyfleshc0nsumed]

how do you find public spaces to fuck (re:the rooftop + dyke)?

sincerely, horny lez

Good question, I will answer it in this response eventually, but first, you have to sit through me intellectually jerking myself off for a moment because I think it may provide some useful perspective.

Public sex has been part of my life for as long as I've been having physical sex at all. As an adolescent it was mostly out of necessity, but these days it's mostly out of convenience. The vast majority of the sex I've had in the last year or two has been public.

I think it's important to clarify that for me at least, public sex is not an act of exhibitionism. If there's any sort of philosophy behind it besides sheer utility, I'd say it's something like not allowing our society's mores and hangups around sex and privacy dictate the terms on how and where we (especially as gay people) engage with our sexuality.

I think there's this gut impulse many people have--including many gay people--around public sex, and I think it speaks to the reactionary view of human sexuality that is unfortunately the stock standard in these times. For many, the idea of people having sex in public gives them some sort of 'ick' that they can't seem to articulate.

Often discussions around public sex are framed like this: "if I walked in on people having sex, it would make me uncomfortable, I didn't consent to that, so people should not be having sex in public." It would be fairly reasonable to experience discomfort in this imagined scenario--in fact, I think most people probably would--and that discomfort isn't a problem. The problem is that the premise assumes a few crucial points, notably that 1. Walking in on public sex is a common occurrence and/or the desired outcome for those engaging in it 2. Discomfort is a form of harm 3. Exposure to (non-hegemonic) human sexuality is capable of causing some kind of nebulous psychic damage to the witness.

To the first point: in my decade or so of regular public sex, I can only think of one instance where I was actually walked in on. It was an alley off of a major road and probably only at around 1030p. I mention this because we absolutely would have chosen a different, more secluded location/time if we were doing anything other than fully clothed kink and maybe some kissing, because again, the goal for most is not exhibitionism; no one really wants to be walked in on, so we choose locations where it is less likely that we will be.

To the second point, I have little to say besides that it simply isn't. Discomfort is an everyday part of life and is something all people experience regularly without calls to stop every potential source of it. So what is it about this topic that makes people react this way?

This leads us to the third point: non-hegemonic modes of sexuality are treated as degenerative and caustic and therefore must be hidden (or eradicated) entirely from the public sphere. It is the classic double standard; think of things like the "Don't Say Gay" or "DADT" laws or more broadly the attempt to remove even the mention of the existence of gays from curriculum. Most of the people who fight for such measures likely don't take the same issue or action with a 48 foot billboard for the local strip club or with a heterosexual couple kissing on screen.

And while the spot that people place the line may differ greatly, this ire against public sex still draws from the same well of reaction against perceived degeneracy that the fascist draws from. If this is not self evidently a negative thing to you, I have little I can say to convince you.

Some may be thinking 'okay, even if it is not harmful or degenerate, why do public sex?' To me, it is just as strange that so many keep their sex lives confined to the home and I could posit the same question. Neither way of doing things is any more natural or unnatural than the other, one is just the societal default. If it would bring you joy, why not engage in public sex?

The world is large, and if you know where to look, there are countless spaces you can carve out and stake the pervert's claim to. Alleyways, parks, bathrooms, rooftops, and beaches are the first to come to mind for me. To answer your question directly, you find them by making them and taking them.

Time is a large factor here as well. A given spot in a park at 9p may not be suitable, but might be more so by 11p, and even more so by 1a. My experience is that the later it gets, more spots become viable with less heavy precautions.

Another factor is coverage. An open field is riskier than behind a tree. The middle of an alley is riskier than behind a dumpster. You want to limit the amount of vectors through which you could be exposing yourself. I value coverage from sight lines over seclusion.

Something else you want to think about is whether or not you are on private property. If you are, it's possible that there are security personnel sitting in a car somewhere nearby or a resident who notices you. At that point, the issue is not even the sex, it's the fact you're there at all.

Finally, you always have to be ready to dip. Be aware of your surroundings as best you can, listen for cars and people, don't get too caught up in the moment that you're blinded. You gotta be ready to pull your pants up and walk quickly away. I'd rather be safe than sorry. If something's not right, get outta there. If you can't, well, don't have your dick out at least.

Anyway, all that to say go out and have fun. Good luck and enjoy yourself. The world has room for you to fit yourself into.

[ddejavvu]

I would let Jango Fett (and any clone, to be honest) call me up when he's planet side, fuck me, then leave without saying goodbye and I'm tired of pretending I wouldn't

🧘‍♀️🧘‍♀️🧘‍♀️ mmmm i had to close my eyes and clench my thighs reading this. jango i think would be more callous and rough w it, whereas some of the clones might be more sincere. because i'm merely a series of holes for them to use I'll just talk about multiple. feel free to request others if i missed someone you'd like to hear about.

jango's rich and highly skilled at his job, notorious to those who know him and invisible to those who don't. it's not hard for him to get you in bed, nor is it hard for him to keep stringing you along, knocking roughly on your door, not because he couldn't get in by picking your lock, but because he wants you to hear that sound and know that it's a precursor to his own behavior: rough, fast, demanding. jango uses you for pleasure and not company, kissing at your mouth instead of letting you talk, smothering you with his broad shoulders and considerable muscle until all you're doing is wrapping your arms and legs around him, your actions solely reliant on his own. he loves pulling back to look at your flushed, sweaty face, your heaving chest as your lips perpetually part just to suck in air that he'd stolen from you with the heft of his body, your limbs weak and limp as he watches you. he's proud of the way he affects you, he's respected and feared in all endeavors he undertakes. he tortures you by never letting you know when he'll be on coruscant, and it means you wait eagerly in your apartment each night, longing for his gloved fist to pound on you door. you let him in every time, and you always will. he lets himself out every time, and he always will.

rex keeps in mostly good spirits with his team and his men, so when he shows up outside your door it's for companionship. He wants connection, he's mollified with claps on the shoulder from general skywalker but camaraderie can't replace intimacy. he nudges his face into yours, his nose bumping the space between yours and your cheek. he breathes your air, he presses himself to you like the space between you might kill him. he's proud to be in your bed, with you, kissing your skin and committing it to memory for late nights out in the cold vacuum of space. he holds you tenderly, his palms always pressed to your flesh to drink you in, and he lets you act as an outlet for his longing. being with you rejuvenates him, but watch out because if he's too happy the day after, his men are gonna know he got laid. general skywalker is all too proud to cover ahsoka's ears when he congratulates him for being in such good spirits

wolffe is so fucking stressed. truly he has to put up with so much bullshit and he's infinitely grateful for his general because if he had skywalker like rex he'd shoot himself. he knocks on your door to pin you to the bed and slam the headboard into the wall, he uses your cunt as a punching bag and he bites vivid, stinging marks into your neck and chest. He kisses them afterwards, letting his post-orgasm tenderness through, but he tires himself out before he ever croons at you. maybe it'd be different if you lived with him, but he's not on coruscant all the time, so frantic rough sex and an empty bed in the morning is what you'll get.

hunter bad batch finds it hard to get time away from his team because of their status as, uh, well, runaways. it's rare that he can let his guard down enough to spend a night in your bed, but that's why he leaves without saying goodbye. he slips out as soon as you're asleep, and departs coruscant before you even wake. you're his, 'be back in a few hours, i've got one last thing to do'. you're left wondering if he has go-tos on every planet, or if you're lucky. you're lucky, but he won't tell you that. he will, however, leave something to hold on to until the next time he sees you. probably a bandana, pardon the cliche, but it's the one he tied your wrists to the headboard with last night, so you keep it with you.

wrecker would genuinely feel terrible not saying goodbye i'm sorry. he might rock your shit and leave you numb but he'll always get all mushy when he's gotta go. he definitely tends to be one of the more romantic ones, he's a big softie and probably wouldn't treat you so callously even if combat was wearing on him. he prides himself for being in your life, and he'd assure you every time you got together that he wasn't just using you for pleasure. he'd comm you semi frequently if he was able.

fives is a little shit who might possibly fit into the scenario described. while i think he'd feel guilty for using you and treating you like he's using you, i can see it happening and just being a poor decision of his that he's not too proud of, but that he can't stop regardless. i can see him playing into a fuckboy persona and trying not to think about it too hard or else he might feel bad. he sweet talks you into letting him in every time and you can barely catch your breath before he's suiting up in his regulation blacks again and heading out the door. he doesn't do it because he's stressed, he doesn't do it because he's desperate to connect with someone, he does it because he's horny and wants a pussy to fuck. he wants to sink his aching dick into a warm body, and that warm body is you.

[ccrypticcorvidae]

RE: Mouthwashing, Curly

I wanna talk a bit abt Curly's so-called "punishment" because I like the symbolism an immense amount and I think his character is really complex.

Before the crash, when Anya tells Curly that she's pregnant, he feels like he's powerless to bring her justice because of the circumstances. Jimmy was his best friend, who he believed to be a good person despite his past mistakes, and who he was able to get a decent job by having his employers look past the criminal records. The team is stuck on the same ship without locks in the sleeping quarters for months, and he wants to do everything in his power to keep the peace so that everyone would make it out of the less-than-ideal situation mostly unharmed. As the captain, he's protective over his crew, and he's already failed one of its members directly by inviting a dangerous man to live amongst them without room for the potentially severe repercussions he would face in society (i.e. "take responsibility"). When he does confront Jimmy, he sees his true colors, having expected him to take responsibility for his actions instead of covering things up. Curly is kind to a fault - sees the good in people - and for this, he takes the brunt of the ship's crashing due to his own selflessness in trying to save as much of it as possible.

Now he's physically powerless; he can't be there to protect his crew mates, to act as a mediator between them via verbal communication as opposed to violence. He can't assist Anya in her deteriorating mental status due to the trauma she endured, and she's ultimately consumed by it - all while he watches on helplessly, wishing he had noticed her struggles sooner. He can't stop the fight between Jimmy and Swansea once Anya reveals to the latter what was done to her, and consequentially, the deaths that followed. The plight of his character is to witness the downfall of those he was supposed to lead and be the only one to survive in the end, continually tormented with the knowledge that Pony Express would likely sweep these horrid events under the rug the same way they did Jimmy's criminal history. If he is successfully rescued, Jimmy's framing guarantees he will be blamed for everything, without any real way to defend himself. In the end, he had no decision in whether he would live or die as the others did, his personal liberties taken from him. Curly is left alone and vulnerable, in parallel to Anya, the cycle of endless pain starting over once again. In the end, Jimmy would never truly take accountability for the pain he caused, and in one, final, selfish move, he sentenced his only real friend to live with it under the pretense of "fixing things."

[deadsetobsessions]

He doesn’t know how they got here, but Jason’s thankful for it. It’s not often that he speaks to Cass, when Jason’s passions are words and righteous murder and Cass’s passions are distinctly not that, but when they do speak, they manage to get along. Somehow.

“So, why don’t you kill?” Jason leans back on the couch, his favorite mug filled with Alfred’s hot chocolate.

Cass is curled against the arm of the sofa. She looks at him, head tilted. Jason knows she’s reading him, but he’s not sure what she’s finding. It’s humbling, and intimidating, to know she sees more than what he allows to show.

“I can see,” she says. “That one time… I killed. I saw. Pain. Fear. Desp- des- not wanting to die.”

“Desperation?”

Cass nods. One of her fingers fiddle with the material of the couch. Jason knows she’s allowing him to see the motion. He knows it’s her silent way of showing him trust.

“There is more. To dying. Like… like they see their lives-They think- remembers. Loves. Their life- regret, love, everything. It goes through-” Cass taps her temple.

“Their lives are flashing through their heads?”

“Yes. Good. Bad. Everything. I see.” Quieter, Cass adds “I know. I know them, then. I killed a life that I know. They love. Everyone, have something they love. I kill, I kill that love.”

“That must suck.”

Cass leans back. She nods, neck releasing their tension and eyes less hunted, more accepting.

“Yes. I don’t want to- I don’t want to be the end.” Cass swivels her shoulders towards him, now. “Why… why do you?”

“Me?” Jason… hasn’t thought about it for a while, nor too deeply. But this is Cass. And her honesty deserves an honest reply. “I kill because some people shouldn’t be left alive to hurt and kill others”

“Not about… Bruce?”

Jason took a sip of his hot chocolate. Cass settled more into the couch, her eyes clear and watchful.

“It used to be,” he admitted. “About him, I mean. It used to be about vengeance. But then I came back to Crime Alley, and then I saw the kids getting hurt instead of being protected. They’re innocent. And then, it wasn’t about Bruce anymore. Killing is just the means to an end now, for me.”

“Do you- not regret?” She makes a gesture at his leg, where on a normal day, his holsters would be.

“I try to make sure I don’t kill people I’d regret, no. Like, you know how sometimes you guys arrest muggers?”

Cass nodded.

“Sometimes,” Jason said, remembering the days of digging through trash for food and the lingering hunger that rumbled through his younger self’s stomach. “They mug people because they’re desperate. I don’t kill those guys. But people deal to kids? Who hurt sex workers? Rapists? They’re doing irreparable harm, with full knowledge of their actions. For profit, mostly. If they’re willing to ruin lives, then they should be ready for their own to be ruined. It’s justice, for people like me.”

Cass studied him. “Justice…?”

“The only kind us Alley kids could ever appreciate. Arresting an abuser, a threat, and having that stick is for the privileged. Having that threat removed completely is relieving.”

“Can’t trust the world to be fair. But death, is fair.”

“Yeah. I think if I saw as much as you do, it’d be harder to do. But I think I’d still kill, because one person’s suffering after a life of being evil is worth the safety of so many others. To know… well, I guess I’m glad I don’t know what that’s like.”

“I see.”

“I know you do,” Jason grins at her. “But not killing is an act of courage too. Even if B makes it seem like it should come instinctually.”

“Yes. He does not connect, with Damian. Does not understand, fully, how hard. To unlearn.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a while after that, listening to the sounds of their family clambering around in other rooms.

“Hey, Cass?”

Cass turned back to him.

“I would kill David Cain for you.”

He would. It makes the Pit seethe when he thinks about how much David Cain and Lady Shiva hurt Cass for her to get this insanely good at reading people. He hopes she sees the pure honesty and sincerity he feels at that declaration

Cass puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezed once. Twice.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“No objections?”

“… would not feel too bad.”

Jason snorted.

“Yeah. You and me both.”

He doesn’t know how they got here, but he’s thankful for it anyways, because he understands his sister just that much more now.

[utilitycaster]

So I alluded to this in tags but did not want to put this on someone else's post and so: I have been catching heat for calling various members of Bells Hells selfish since the start, and to be clear, I will keep doing this, because I have precisely no respect for the intellect of anyone doing this, but I want to underscore that it's not just that I find many of the party's actions profoundly selfish/self-absorbed; it's been a growing pattern in the people who defend them.

It is selfish to fail to take into consideration the perspectives of others and to act out of your own pain in a way that hurts other people. I categorically reject the idea that being traumatized, abused, or experiencing negative things in any way excuses you from having to consider how your actions can harm others. In fact, failing to do this makes you a worse person; to say "the world hurt me and I'll visit this pain on other innocents" is ultimately, an indefensible position on moral grounds. That doesn't, to be clear, mean I dislike it in stories, which should have conflict and moral grayness. But I do not find these characters to be people I consider to be good, if this is with any consistency the frame of reference from which they act.

To say "the gods did not give me things and therefore they deserve killing" is profoundly selfish and vindictive. Having no love for them is one thing; actively wishing harm on them is, in fact, self-centered in the extreme. But that's actually not what I'm here to talk about in regards to Bells Hells' selfishness, both because I've found trying to explain that the gods are living beings and murdering all of them is, you know, bad, to some of the fandom has failed for the reasons I'll discuss later in this post. And, granted, this is a hypothetical, and we may look back in a month or so when the dust clears at a party that defeated Predathos and say "ha, good job guys," but should Bells Hells release Predathos deliberately? That is a betrayal of the Exandrian Accord. If you want to side with the man who destroyed Molaesmyr (and make no mistake, there is no way to do what he was going to do without siding with him; intent only matters if Predathos escapes despite Bells Hells giving it their all, not if they have slightly different motivations for fucking over their allies), that's a valid story, but to take the job and choose to fail to deliver? That is selfish. Someone else could have taken the job. The Doylist excuse that these are the characters the cast happened to be playing at the time does not, in fact, hold water; they could in fact have rejected the Moon Plot, or chosen to become the villains of this story. I would have, in fact, enjoyed that as a story! But this idea that they're not just assholes who think more about themselves and the shitty things various people mostly unaffiliated with the gods did to them during their childhoods than the vast destruction wrought by Ludinus across all of Exandria, is not one the narrative has ever supported.

What's really struck me, though, is a theme of selfish defenses in the fandom. I think bringing up personal anecdotes can be incredibly helpful! I found that some of the people who spoke about their experiences with PTSD in reference to Caleb, for example, provided incredible insight. Notably, the people I'm thinking about were not the ones whose conclusions were "so he's in the moral right to do anything to anyone ever because of PTSD" (and indeed they were usually people who celebrated Caleb as kind of an asshole). But those anecdotes do not override the experiences of other fans. Or, to dredge up some tiresome arguments, Beau is allowed to get pissed off at Caleb's behavior, even if his actions come from a place of trauma.

The two things that really stand out to me (outside of the bizarre ambient noise of white southern ex-Evangelicals acting like they're an oppressed class on that basis that has clung to the discourse like the slime it is) are the recent defense of Ashton on the basis of "punks/leftists are allowed to do this and I identify with Ashton so how could you be so mean to me, a leftist punk and therefore a good person and therefore I can do whatever and you have to like me," and the defense of the various Vanguard members (sans Ludinus) as being victims of a cult and therefore the trail of bodies they leave is fine because various fans have talked about having family in cults whom they forgave. I will speak bluntly here. I'm Jewish, and your argument of "you should be nicer to cult members because a lot of white southern people fall into cults, like one of my parents" is, to me, a combination of insulting, horrifying, and makes me hope your cultist parent gets hit by a car before they hurt more people. Should you wish to forgive your family? Fine, it's your business. To act as though it is a failure of strangers that they are not more generous towards a fictional character because you are sucking your own dick about how good you are at forgiveness? That is a level of entitlement that goes so far beyond the pale I struggle to imagine how you function in society.

I don't think Bells Hells are doomed to this epithet - they have a chance to do the the right thing - and I believe that those entitled fans can change. But yeah man, they - and you - have been really fucking selfish, and the digging in of your heels is doing nothing to convince me you're capable of even hearing the perspectives of others, let alone considering them.

[gallusrostromegalus]

So how much are you willing to talk about Ulquiorra?

I will talk so much about him. There are so many things wrong with that man, but to make a brief list of his most notable features:

He's dumb as hell.

I say that with tremendous sympathetic affection. Ulquiorra barely thinks. It's easy for him to do nothing and go nowhere. He eats chocolate in the middle of the night in the dark. When he gets access to a garden, he often just stands around in it. He's often waiting for things to happen.

He just LOOKS smart compared to nearly everyone else in the fic because he doesn't have much to say, so he's not constantly opening his mouth to jam his foot down it.

Consequently, Ulquiorra starts off having little to no initiative of his own. Stuff just happens to him. Some of that is because he is colossally depressed, but he's depressed because the idea that he has control over his circumstances has straight up not occured to him.

The first person he meets that shows him that "You can just do whatever you want, forever" and the boundless joy it is to be a creature of free will is, unfortunately, Aizen. And Aizen left off the key corollary "-EVERYONE is allowed to do whatever they want, forever. We are all equal in God's dead, empty eye sockets."

So Ulquiorra wanders around trying out this "doing stuff" thing without any concept of ethics.

I realize I am infantilizing this character, but I am doing so in a twilight zone "hey, wouldn't it be fucked up to watch a fully anatomically functional person who is able to speak and blow stuff up with his mind go through the emotional development steps of a toddler?", because I think that's a fun high-concept premise to explore with him. Yeah, what if a toddler could speak articulately and also destroy you? How would he act? How does he feel, learning to have feelings?

It'd probably suck for him and everyone around him, and make him very easy to manipulate, for one thing.

So I don't think Ulquiorra is evil, because evil takes intent. He is dangerous to be in the general proximity of, though

Like a horse

lose

in a hospital!

I love that sketch as much as the next person but if an IRL horse got loose in a hospital it would be bedlam, but the horse would be mostly confused and probably willing to follow around the first person who looked like they knew what they were doing.

You know, like how Ulquiorra follows Aizen around because that's the first guy he's met who THINKS he knows what he's doing, and is good at convincing others he knows what he's doing!

So Ulquiorra's entire first character arc is being exposed to more and more people and realizing he does have control over his life, and that he can take actions, and that those actions have consequences.

Like being emotionally devastated by a teenage girl because he was an asshole to her and she's willing to scream at him about it.

Hm.

Consequences hurt.

He lives through the Las Noches arc, and decides to follow his own star!

He follows it right through a portal that was not meant for him and now he's sort of trapped in somewhere he's really, really, really, really, REALLY not supposed to be.

But it's a beautiful place

And nobody is forcing him to do anything.

And for a long time, he just stands out in the garden, waiting for something.

But then

Ulquiorra experiences a novel pair of emotions that he's recently learned from his new...

Orihime is too mad at him for him to call her a friend.

-but he did learn the names and therefore the experience of two new emotions from her: boredom, and it's natural remedy: curiosity.

So Ulquiorra's second character arc is him learning how to be himself without anyone telling him who he is and what he ought to be.

He's travelling up Maslow's hierarchy with the inscrutable but unstoppable instinctual drive of a salmon returning to its spawning ground.

This has lead to an important discovery on my part: Ulquiorra is terrific for comedy because he is the ULTIMATE straight man to everyone else's nonsense, because he's immune to nearly all nonsense.

He doesn't have societal taboos to be hung up on, nor any sense of what is "normal", so the sole thing he geta hung up on is a lack of internal consistency in others, meaning he can slip between straight man to the absurdist at the drop of a single scathing observation. Yet, he retains a sort of understated dignity that compels people to try to earn his respect.

Hence, I'm having fun turning him loose on the most absurd, internally inconsistent and frankly, insane batch of characters in the series:

The Royal Guard.

:)

[yoinkschief]

I did it - I finally did it, I made concept doodles of the different leaders

I've been meaning to do this for a while now, I've just kept forgetting to and then get distracted with much more pressing matters n shit so yk but I decided fuck it they don't need to be good so long as they just get my idea across,,, and then later on when I have the time, energy and patience to I can fully render them

These are all also leaning into who they are in my HCs, simply because I think it's kinda boring to just go "well what if we put person a in person b's body and keep everything else the exact same" like where's the nuance in that,,,

So all the same story beats still happen, just minor differences, like Tord still leaves and has the robot explode causing the damage (but different contexts now) and Tom is still possessed by the rage demon or whateva and Edd still gets powers and Matt still becomes a vampire,, they just are put in different plot points in the story

I don't like the idea of just reskinning characters, yk, if I were to change story beats for things like "instead of matt getting bitten by the vampire bite it was tord" I wouldn't want it to just be the same shit happens because Tord wouldn't react the same way to it as Matt would, yk ?? I don't wanna give the character's the others personalities, just their plot beats

But in this things stay relatively the same

Except in this Tom, in a desperation to live after failing to dismantle Tord's robot in an act of rage against Tord returning and pretending like nothing happened, makes a deal with his more demonic half and gives up part of his soul to live

Edd gets blown up trying to use Tord's robot against Tord's wishes and something something main characters can't die or whatever so he painfully finds out that his "poweredd" powers grant him a very fucked up version of immortality,,, I made it look goopy because I can and I'm madly in love with my partner and they've given me this idea so fuck them blame them if you want

Matt gets no lasting consequences for his actions because he's a vampire and they have MAD regenerative abilities, but he does still blow up but this time when him and Edd are fucking around in Tord's little office ?? whatever the hell it is he has stuffed in his room as a secondary room, yk when him and Edd are touching all those buttons they're not supposed to, that's what caused the robot to malfunction and Matt ends up getting the brunt of it - I mean so does Edd, and since this would be Tom's world that would probably why Matt and Edd's relationship grows sour since Edd got caught up in the blast too n whatnot I dunno I'm mostly spitballing here I haven't sat down and properly thought out these AUs yet so yk

take all of this with a grain of salt this is ALLLL subject to change in the future but for now this is what I have in my head for everything :p

[absolutebl]

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

This is just me with my analysis hat on. 

1. 2023 = the year EVERYONE went outside their lanes

Everything went topsy-turvy this year in BL. 

For example, Korea gave us agonized yearning and outright queerness (The 8th Sense, The New Employee) while Japan served up soft office workers and tender family (Our Dining Table). 

The BL world went askew for a while, especially in the spring of 2023. 

Not that we still didn’t still get Korea’s soft angsty bubbles or Japan’s “what are you doing and why does it hurt?” kink-fests. But there were quite a few BLs that made us chronic watchers sit up in confusion and wonder if Korea was dabbling in Taiwan’s territory or Japan in Thailand’s. Then they fudged the kisses and we were like... okay, back in familiar territory. 

In contrast, Thailand stayed course-correcting for the damage they’ve done in the past with tropes (2022) and self referential meta criticism (2021), but also almost aggressively returned to their BL roots after last year’s series of shockers. Certainly, they are reexamining those roots, transplanting some, aerating others. But they really went back to classic Thai university and high school BL and pulps in a big way in 2023. 

Taiwan is always difficult to gage because they produce so few but they seem to have stuck with what they do best with no deviation while producing more this year than they have in ages. I’m happy for that, why change a good thing? But there is a tiny part of me that really wants them to hit it out of the part with a quality piece soon. For me, We Best Love still reigns supreme, but I would really like the HIStory franchise to give us that level but longer - like a happy version of Your Name Engraved Herein. I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit. 

I know, what a very odd thing for me to say. But if any BL is going to break into the mainstream American market, I genuinely think it’s most likely come from Taiwan. 

Vietnam and the Philippines are falling behind, in general. They just didn’t bring out very many shows in 2023, and what the brought out tended to fub the endings. This is forgivable in Japan (because of their style and quality) but not what watchers want in the lower production value propositions. In other words, if you do a pulp, you can’t mess up the ending (by romance standards). that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. 

2. The Office Romance Dominated

After years of Thailand serving us an endless (and slightly bland) buffet of university (and a few high school) BLs, this year Korea was basically like...

Ofiice. We like the Office. It’s cheap to film we can use grown up actors, acting (mostly) their actual age. 

And yeah... it totally worked. 

To be fair, Japan has always given us office live action yaoi from the beginning (they had the source material) but this year everyone else, including Thailand, seriously started playing in this setting. 

3. Boys Danced with Boys

The darling @heretherebedork​ was a big fan of this one, and I rather like it myself. Prior to this boys dancing together was very very rare in BL, but this year we got way more than our fair share. It was lovely. 

Never Let me Go

My School President 

Bed Friend 

The Day I Loved You 

Step by Step

Be Mine Superstar

Tie the Not 

Dangerous Romance

I think there were a few more. These are the ones I remembered to write down. 

4. Getting (even more) Meta With Tropes 

BL has been getting more and more meta over the past few years but this year they really focused in on tropes specifically. Calling out their own biggest and most favorite tropes in a massive way, especially Thailand and especially GMMTV. 

Like they tunneled in on damaging tropes with Bad Buddy and the like over the past 2 years, and now they are just having fun with us. 

I mean they just started the dancing trope and already they are calling it out? That’s like rapid-fire regurgitated meta there, GMMTV. 

5. Cameos are the norm now 

Taiwan has always loved cameos but in the past the other countries have been show and steady with only one or two a year. (Unless Japan does a parody.) 

This year Korea got in on the game.

Korea rarely starts trends but they do adopt smaller and lesser known existing ones and make them super popular. 

This year they did that with cameo couple appearances, even borrowing a few of Thailand’s pairs (TutorYim and MaxNat traveled north). They did it so much I stopped tracking. Love Class 2, Why R U?, and Jun & Jun were the heaviest hitters. 

Taiwan, of course, came back swinging. Kiseki was the gum-ball machine of pair cameos. (In Taiwan mafia = gay.) 

6. We are entering the cross pollination age

The number of remakes picked up or started this year was startling, not just countries revisiting their own content (Thailand, Japan) but countries revisiting OTHER countries stuff.

Lemme explain...

Korea has started remaking Thai content (Why R U?) alongside cameo'ing Thai pairs.

Thailand is doing Korean IP (My Dear Gagster Oppa) and has 2 Chinese ones slated for next year. 

GMMTV acquired a lot of Japanese IP (Cherry Magic, Ossen, and My Love Mix Up) - and then had problems distributing it. 

This is probably the most surprising trend for me. Especially the Japanese stuff. I would have thought these properties well outside of Thailand's price range (even GMMTV's) not to mention Japan’s legendary IP issues (I swear I typed this pout before the pulled TayNew’s excellent Cherry Magic). 

Also why not option some of the older popular manga instead? Bet that's much cheeper. (I did see a NEW Thai translation of Finder into Thai, which is 90s yaoi, so I have my fingers crossed on that front.)

I shouldn't be too surprised. 

Thailand is running out of y-novel content. Their publication industry is just not robust enough (I was just talking to a friend about this at length recently). But I didn't think they had the funds to option, especially from Japan. 

Perhaps the option deals are for peanuts?

7. Korea got cheeky

I’m not sure quite how else to put this. 

After finally figuring out boys can kiss, Korea started to do not just higher heat but playful higher heat, with more aggressive word play and linguistic innuendo, like they are entering their racy rom-com teenage years (Why R U? Love Class 2 and Jun & Jun in particular.) 

I guess: Welcome to your BL teens, Korea? 

It’s cute of them. I am very much enjoying it. 

And now that comedy is warming them up, we get to see them play with actual queer burgeoning physicality in shows like The 8th Sense. 

It’s nice. I like seeing Korea stretch its wings. They still stick to their bubble, but that bubble seems to be expanding. 

8. The Amnesia Trope is back

And I, for one, would prefer to forget about it. 

9. BL got trendy 

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this category but basically we started seeing a lot of “modern” romance trends out of the west (like a/b/o) show up in our BL. Not a ton and sometimes quite small, but there has a been a steady rise of things like: no seme/uke, femme gay, out gay, condom use, messy gay. 

We also got an increasing range of sub genre frameworks (like mafia, office setting) that’s moved BL pretty firmly (even in Thailand) out of school and into the workplace, whether actual working is involved or not. 

It’s not to the point where it feels like we get more non-school BL than school BL (if I include all countries in this assessment).

Japan, in classic Japanese fashion, quietly started moving in the opposite direction. It’s what they do. 

10. The Vampires are coming 

This is an announcement trend, which I don’t usually report on but it’s so CLEAR. 

So last year we had a spate of announcements of possible Omegaverse (2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from Thailand - the only one that’s happened). 

This year we got 5 Vampire (or vampire-esk) Thai BLs announced including one from GMMTV. 

Whether all 5 will actually get made is unlikely, but having had (basically) none prior to this (Kissable Lips), I’m pretty confident that we will get at least 2 of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one other country made one as well. (Side eyes Taiwan with interest.) 

Final thoughts

It feels like we are also seeing a decline in BL (both by quantity and quality) from Vietnam and the Philippines. As you all know, I don’t track or really watch either of these two very closely. But it feels like, now, no one else is either. 

I think we have likely seen the BL heyday already in both places and their industries are now on the decline. 

We might be witnessing a thinning in the players in the BL field. 

FYI we had approximately 

136 BLs in 2023

Previous Years

2022: 117

2021: 95

2020: 62

2019: 40

2018: 30 

2017: 44 (China’s last gasp)

2016: 27

2015: 17 (50% micro)

2014: 17 (50% micro)

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted any additional trends you want to call out.

Last year, 2022′s trend report

2021′s Trend report

Last Year’s Stats & Predictions

(source) 

[communistkenobi]

ok my brother and I rewatched all the mission impossible movies and our new ranking is

1 > 4 > 7 > 2 > 5 > 6 > 3

2 is a lot more fun and good than I remember it being on first watch, and 5 was way more mid. Honestly 4 could take the top spot despite Jeremy Renner being in that one. There are a lot of fun physical props and gadgets and doohickeys in 4, and there’s a specific type of whimsy to the direction style that’s not in any of the other ones. You can tell the director had only worked on animated movies prior to MI4, there’s a specific type of fixation on small props and their specific trajectories and positions throughout each scene that is hard to describe but reminds me of how animated movies tend to be shot. Like there is a physical awareness of objects in space that makes sense for an animated director to have a preoccupation towards, and I think he pretty effectively translates those preoccupations to live action.

the first one has the Hollywood 90s charm, which is just firmly lodged in history now, like we are not getting that type of movie back probably because of 9/11. I kind of don’t really have anything to say about it other than it’s straightforwardly good and has some very funny horror-movie-style dutch angle shots in them. De Palma also uses split diopter shots a lot in that film, which I didn’t know much about but is basically when you split the lens of a camera to get two distinct focal lengths in a shot, but at the cost of essentially having a blurry line down the middle of the shot. It makes me wonder if that’s part of why they made the room Tom Cruise wires into all white, because they use a lot of split diopter shots in that scene and the white would conceal the middle blur well. Anywayyyy

MI2 is an undeniably John Woo movie, complete with motorcycle jousting and insane combat stunts, and also captures a bit of that same 90s charm. Also kinda don’t have a lot to say about this one. Nyah is definitely one of the best female leads in the series though, her actor is soooo good in this movie. Shame she never came back MI7 is also a pretty fun movie, you have now-geriatric Tom Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff and fun car chase scenes. He is really hot in this movie also. And “evil AI that takes over the world” is such an awesome stupid action movie plot, especially because it’s not tied to the more rancid tendencies some of the other films have (eg with 6 explicitly being about an anarchist who wants to nuke the world after defecting from his country’s government, etc). Like it’s goofy enough to easily shut your brain off to and accept.

6 and 3 are arguably the worst, with 3 edging out the bottom spot because of the amount of heterosexuality in that one. It’s not at the level of the spn blurrywife, but it’s close enough that Julia (Ethan’s wife) can easily be categorised as a blurrywife, just a smear on the camera meant to move the hero along and then scream and cry when she gets captured (although Tom Cruise is very good at screaming and crying on camera). This is also the beginning of where they tank Luther’s character, he used to be this Gucci-wearing hacking wizard guy and by the end of the series he’s just like a guy who’s on the computer. Like after the third movie we don’t get a line from Luther anywhere as fun or charming as “that punk put a hole in my Versace!” Simon Pegg is fine. I have no thoughts about him at all, he’s the comic relief and that’s as deep as it goes.

6’s plot is hard to stomach, it has fairly poor pacing, and they basically waste the HALO dive too early in the film, so there’s not really any big tension/plot stakes associated with it. The final act is extremely good though, and upon rewatch I like Henry Cavill’s acting a lot more, which is why I think it should be ranked above 3. Also 3 has like no stunts basically ! It’s so generic.

what is funny is that MI tends to become more “interconnected” as time goes on wrt returning cast members, but it’s mostly only dudes with like one or two exceptions, so there’s the funny undercurrent of like misogynistic disposability of women leading to intense homosocial bonds between men because they’re the only constant in the story. Like it’s Ethan Benji and Luther and that’s mostly it, just three dudes having fun. Unfortunately the dialogue/banter writing between them tends to be quite mid-to-bad in these movies, so they essentially are just really long time coworkers who constantly almost die in front of one another.

I don’t think there’s a bad performance from Tom Cruise in these though. He says a lot of dumb lines and does stupid plot bullshit but he manages to make it work basically every time. He seems to have pretty good chemistry with most of the female leads as well, which is the only time where there’s interesting verbal sparring/flirting/characterological tension in scenes. And then obviously he does all those insane stunts, which is a significant part of how much we enjoyed these films. I quite like the way he portrays Ethan during them too, as like this dude who is perpetually pushed to the brink to do insane impossible shit and is basically always having a bad day because of it. it gives the character a really nice human grounding and makes the stunts feel more believable because the character doing them is having the worst day of his life the entire time. He also frequently fucks up, falls, misses ledges, gets hit and almost dies, smacked around, etc. very fun to watch, great balance of cool action hero and guy who gets the shit kicked out of him for a living

anyway these are really fun movies. I feel like if you needed to fill a weeks worth of movie nights with friends these would be really fun to watch. I had a great time yelling at the screen with my brother. A very fun drinking game also is taking a shot whenever Tom Cruise starts running in a scene. That dude is just fucking zipping around everywhere, it made me realise how rare it is to see actors run in films because he does it fucking constantly. And like not short shots either, there are takes where he’s running continually at full speed for like 45 unbroken seconds. I know also from watching some behind the scenes videos about how they did some of the stunts that he always does like 10 takes for action sequences so he’s running an absolute shitload. Anyway these movies are good

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

pretty pleeeease tell me more about this and your ideas for a pjo show directed by you? 🥺💚💚

of courseee thanks for asking! most of the points were covered in OP's post but your ask has given me an opportunity to think more about it and expand it more so thanks again!!

(disclaimer: this is really long and I also wanted to say pjotv is a really good piece of cinema even though rick had no experience in film at all and if anyone doesn't agree about anything, don't be mean about it!!)

I mourned the breaking of the fourth wall in pjotv. when rick mentioned that the writing team were thinking of new ways to show percy's internal narration, I expected a LOT of fourth wall breaking. here is a few low effort doodles on how fourth wall breaking could work because I don't have coherent thoughts on describing it in words

When it comes to animation, ugh there are so much things I could say. imagine the funky expressions. Imagine the potential for it to look stunning like the animation for arcane and into the spiderverse. imagine the awards it could get for best animation.

Or i really really LOVE those little animations within live action like how the autumn leaves fly around Nick and charlie in heartstopper and it'd be really cute in pjo with,,like blue hearts from percy and grey hearts from annabeth ugh <3

I'm sure lot of people wouldn't agree but I felt there was wayy less of platonic percabeth in pjo tv s1. a lot of it was deep like all the sacrifices and all the romantic stares which everyone keeps making edits of and whatever. but there was no chance to show their proper development as friends. so in my pjotv there's mostly only platonic percabeth with the little sprinkle of hints of having a crush like how it is in the book.

There's full room for the show makers to do this in the coming seasons, but I love the idea of the characters starting out with a light palette (pale blues/greens for percy, for example) and then getting progressively darker and darker in colour (blacks/dark blues) throughout the seasons, because I love a good story told through fashion <3

No other changes to the plot except extra scenes for character development (sally/Poseidon/lil percy flashbacks), new character nuances (medusa/annabeth parallels aka the most genius thing to come out of pjotv).

speaking on the humour, I would trash seriousness and just give pjo lot of the elements of a sitcom. like you know how sometimes in between sitcoms they have little interviews where they reflect on what they're doing like

this also helps the internal narration aspect. bonus points if rick is the off screen interviewer

of course if it was animated, walker and leah could voice act, but it'd be weird for a black girl to voice a blonde white girl. but i really do love mixed canon annabeth and percy so the animated version of them would be annabeth with tinted blonde hair and well if you really like blonde percy we can have his blonde roots showing BUT ONLY IF WALKER AND LEAH ARE VOICE ACTING

THEME SONG!!! a banger with a silly montage that will send nostalgic memories rushing through your brain and make you sing along even after 10 years because ITS SUCH A CORE MEMORY

I don't know if you know the tlt musical but I would definitely make the campfire song from that as the pjotv campfire song and little good kid instrumentals here and there

also I forgot to mention you're the screenwriter because I really liked your screenplay that you posted

if you read this till the end, finley, honestly???congratulations!!

[siggiedraws]

i come to you about new official content once more... new changes to the character bios on sonic channel, i wanted to hear any thoughts you had on it

https://x.com/Sephys00/status/1904938734480404664

the most outstanding one to me is "shadow doesn't care about good or evil" which feels like is directly contradicted by his actions throughout the games, even in shadow gens. i feel like calling his methods unorthodox or sometimes antagonistic, but still caring about doing what he thinks is right would be a better way to describe this?? lmk if im wrong though

Oh, interesting! I feel a little out of my element here because I actually don't see anything wrong with this, so the animosity towards it on Twitter is a little shocking to me. I hope I can try to explain well why I don't see anything wrong with the sentiment of Shadow not being interested in good or evil. Shadow is a character who's very focused around character development and I'm aware he's not the same as he used to be so I'll avoid using evidence from games like SA2 and Shadow.

So, the way I'm interpreting this is that Shadow isn't interested in morality and what is seen as good or evil. When he acts, he doesn't care about whether it is considered a good or evil action. Shadow's bio brings up how Shadow is hard-headed and willing to do anything to achieve his goals, which plays into the "good and evil" bit. He will defy what is seen as moral or the right thing to do, with no boundaries on what isn't okay to do, and Forces actually has a good showcase of this in action. Shadow, with the goal of destroying Eggman's facility, kills the Jackal squad because they were hired by Eggman to defend the facility. Then, Shadow even makes a taunting remark after killing them. He doesn't feel any remorse for it. So, I think Shadow not caring about what is morally right makes sense. He's so determined in his goals that he will not compromise or pull any punches. They were in his way, so he killed them. Simple.

Shadow is amoral, yet he is also considered a hero because he does the right thing most of the time. Since we've established Shadow does what he wants to achieve his goals no matter the consequences, the reason why Shadow often does things seen as heroic is because his goals align mostly with the interests of those around him. As implied in his Wallpaper Cover Story and by Iizuka in this Anime Expo interview, Shadow's main goal is to protect the planet Maria loves. To elaborate on this, Shadow doesn't necessarily care about what happens to people. He doesn't care about helping others. He cares about the planet. When the planet is in danger, he will save it, which happens to also save people's lives. This may be what causes confusion about his morals, because he's often shown doing heroic actions that save other people, and the vagueness makes his morality hard to pin down.

(you can certainly make a case about how the word "justice" is unfitting for Sonic but the main point I want to focus on here is Shadow)

In Rivals 2, Shadow works with Eggman, which is an example of Shadow still aligning with evil after SA2/Shadow. Shadow explicitly teams up with Eggman because he is told that the world will be destroyed if he doesn't. If we established that Shadow's goal is to protect the planet, he will do anything to achieve his goal, and he is unconcerned with good and evil, then logic reasonably follows that he will align with someone seen as evil if he believes it will achieve his goal of protecting the planet.

In '06, Shadow doesn't care about the world seeing him as evil and persecuting him in the future. He will fight like he always has.

I can see where you're coming from with Shadow Gens and the narrative's focus on the dichotomy between light and dark, with Shadow being tempted by darkness (Black Doom) and ultimately turning to the light (Maria) at the end. Shadow's heroic actions and association with light can be seen as him caring about morality when I think that isn't necessarily the case with Shadow. Near the end of the game, Shadow reemphasizes that he is fighting for Maria's wish for everyone to have a chance to be happy, which fits in with his goal of protecting the planet, which is ultimately an action aligned with heroism and light. It is important to remember that Shadow does it not out of any moral sense of good or evil, more so that his goals happen to align with moral goodness. Maria's virtues have influenced the path Shadow has chosen to take in life, but Shadow isn't Maria. He will fight for Maria's wish via whatever means necessary.

I don't have as much confidence with talking about Shadow's character, but this is how I understand him to be. It's fascinating to consider his mind and way of thinking, and how that informs his actions! I also hope this explanation makes a little bit of sense. I'm more concerned with the "pure intensity" part of his character bio being removed, because I think that's a really good way to describe how Shadow acts and behaves. He's so uncompromising to the point of being dangerous, and I find it really interesting that it's described as "purity." Perhaps that includes being pure of any moral reservations.

Thanks for your ask!

[animeomegas]

Ideal Valentines Day - Omega! Aizawa, Mic, Toshinori, Dabi

A/N: For the anon who asked <3 I wasn't vibing with Shiggy today, so I left him off. I feel like these all ended up being home dates, but I think being a hero or villain makes those easier lol. There are hints of n-sfw, but it's non-descriptive and very tame.

Aizawa

Actions speak louder than words for Aizawa, and I think his preferred love language for receiving affection is Acts of Service.

He has no need for material items, and that goes doubly for anything covered in hearts. I don't think he's a massive fan of chocolate. And flowers are just another thing that he has to sort out and try to keep alive as long as he can. No, he much prefers practical care on Valentine's day.

He wants you to pick him up from UA after work so he doesn't have to drive, a warm cup of his favourite coffee, far sweeter than his image would suggest, ready for him.

He wants to go straight home of course. When he walks through the door, he would love to see the house sparkling clean and tidy. It lifts a burden off him that he didn't even know was there.

There's no fancy outfits with him. He wants to immediately get changed into the comfiest clothes he has, and he would love if you did the same.

Dinner should 100% be his favourite takeaway, eaten on the couch, of course.

I don't know why, but I don't get the vibe that Aizawa is that interested in sex on Valentines Day. I think he'd prefer the intimacy to come from a shared bath or a massage.

And ideally the night ends early, so he can face tomorrow well rested, for once in his life.

Mic

Hizashi loves cheesy romance, he lives for cheesy romance! He eats, sleeps, and breathes it!

I think receiving gifts is something he loves, so get him a pink teddy bear, get him a comically oversized chocolate bar, get him a sappy card filled with cheesy love poems (bonus if you write them yourself.) He loves it all.

He also wants to be at home, because he's worried about people recognising him and interrupting the date.

He would love, love, love if he came home to a trail of rose petals to follow, he's always wanted to do that!

I think he'd enjoy cooking dinner together, just making a mess, playing around, listening to music.

Please pull him to dance with you, he will melt.

Once the food is eaten and the mess left for tomorrow, I think he'd want to do some sort of activity. A board game, a video game, painting together, anything! He's having fun as long as he's with you.

And then... well he's certainly not going to complain if one of your gifts to him was lingerie or a new 'toy'. And it would be rude to not try them out 😏

Toshinori

His idea of romance is old school. He developed his taste mostly from films, rather than experience, after all.

He wants roses so badly. He can't decide if it's more romantic to get a dozen roses, or just one, so he'll let you decide.

I think something private would be more meaningful to him because he's spent his life in the spotlight.

He wants you to meet him at the door with a rose/bouquet of roses, and then lead him into the living room of your home, where you've laid out a fancy dinner.

He wants the fancy dinner table to be set to the nines, he wants candles, champagne, and some food that he can eat. He wants classical music playing in the background.

And then he wants you to pull out his chair for him and wine and dine him until he's completely smitten, not that that's hard.

He doesn't mind if you order the food, but he'd prefer if you either made it by hand, or had it ordered from a special place as opposed to just off a food delivery app. He wants everything to feel special.

The best way to finish the night after dinner is with a movie. One of his favourite films, probably a ridiculous American action film or terrible romcom.

He needs some good old fashioned cuddling at the same time of course.

And because he's getting old, he wants to spend the final moments of the day tucked up in bed, talking about feelings and the future, and all the fuzzy things you're both looking forward to in your relationship.

Dabi

Dabi is softer than he will admit, which means Valentines Day with him involved tricking him into feeling loved.

You can't do things that are too typical, because he'll get spooked. If he comes home and sees heart shaped balloons or dozens of roses, he will flee the scene.

Luckily, he is utterly weak for pizza, so if he comes home and you've ordered his favourite pizza and got a video game/film set up, he can't resist.

"This isn't some weird Valentine's shit, is it?"

"It's just pizza, Dabi, but if you don't want any, I'll eat it all."

"What? In your dreams, knothead."

Once you've lulled him in with pizza and games, you can start putting the moves on him.

He's almost always down for sex, so that part is easy. The hard part is stopping him from escalating it into something rougher, and keeping it gentle.

He gets frustrated at first that you're being too soft on him, and it's at this point that you start lavishing him in praise and body worship. His frustration turns into bashfulness and Dabi gets kind of shy.

Let him know how much you love him.

And then, right when you're both about to drift off, wish him a Happy Valentine's Day.

[epickiya722]

This is so funny to me...

There's this video called "No, You CAN'T Fix Him- These 4 Anime Men Are Beyond Saving" and of course, Sukuna is one of those four (the other three were Griffith, Eren and Light).

And the guy narrating was like "and this is your hear me out" after listing how Sukuna is evil, he's the embodiment of all those bad things, yadda yadda.

He mentions little later how the ironic thing is that Sukuna is somewhat fixable as at the end of the manga it took him to be defeated to realize he could take a different path and called that his "redemption" but then I thought about that.

Geniune question: would you call his end his "redemption"?

The way I see it, just because a character recognizes what they do is wrong doesn't mean they're redeemed or at least, entirely. They have to really put in the work to prove they want to change and make up for their faults.

In the afterlife, Sukuna admits his faults and decides to take a different path for a chance of reincarnation with Uraume. It's up to imagination as to what could happen to them after that.

Sukuna may have chose to go a different path, but does that mean his life completely around? No, he's liable to repeat his actions depending on the situation he is born into. But does that mean he will repeat those bad actions? Also, no.

I don't think Sukuna's end was redemption. But him becoming enlightened that he could live however he wants and he doesn't have to choose the same path as before. That for once, do something different. This is his chance for redemption.

That was the thing about him. Sukuna had a repetitive life. Eat, kill, put fear into people and repeat. After his complete defeat, he then thought "Alright, yeah, I did all those things, but how about I take that chance to do something different with my life?" Say what you want about how Sukuna feels about Yuji and vice versa, but the two will think about what the other says to him.

Sukuna did take in account of Yuji's words of "what if your life could have been this".

Now, as for "fans wanting to fix Sukuna"?

I don't see it.

Take it from someone who is a Sukuna fan and have seen what other Sukuna fans say about him.

Yes, some talk about him having a sad story and have their fantasies, but I don't think I ever seen a Sukuna fan ever actually want to fix Sukuna.

In fact, his evil nature is one of the reasons why he's a "hear me out".

Yeah, seen "Sukuna can have a soft spot with me" or whatever, but not "I can change him to be completely good".

Heck, even in AUs, Sukuna still has mean streak. He's still kind of a jackass.

Now I'm sure there are fans who think they could "fix him" to a totally different character or whatever.

But from what I have seen? Sukuna fans, at most, don't actually want to fix him.

The video may talk about other characters, but this is one of those times I feel like people kind of have this thing to make fun of fans of JJK men, who mostly are women, like "Oh my gosh, they're so weird, they're so delusional" and no matter how you say your words... it's ridiculous.

Any guy who makes of a woman for finding any JJK man attractive, better have that same energy for their homeboy crushing on any JJK woman or any animated woman.

In general, I hate this thing where people act like only female fans like animated characters for their attractiveness and "want to fix that character" (and half the time it ain't it) and then call them "delusional and weird" (let's stop with those words) when sir, I just seen you post the YGO "It should have been me, not him" meme pertaining to wanting this anime woman to wrap her legs around your neck and choke you until you pass out.

[smilingformoney]

Die With a Smile

Chapter VI. Never Tear Us Apart

Summary: Every action has a reaction, but nothing lasts forever.

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

Mary had never expected to get married, but of course, she’d fantasised about it. When she was fixing a hand-me-down wedding dress, she’d wonder about the kind of dress she might wear. She thought about children, and the sort of things married couples did to create them, and though she yearned for a brood of her own, she never thought she’d have one. She’d accepted long ago that her purpose in life was to protect Tommy, and maybe one day he’d be the one to find a nice girl to marry.

She’d thought about a wedding day, the first night, the life that comes after. She’d fantasised about what life would be like to live amongst the gentry.

She’d never imagined it would be like this.

Elliott was right. Turpin only wanted her for her body. He filled her up with his seed at every opportunity, at minimum every morning and every night. He’d mutter filth into her ear as he fucked her, telling her how good she’d look once her belly began to grow with his child.

The rest of the time, he ignored her. He spent most of the day at court, and if his evenings weren’t spent socialising with his peers, he sat at his desk and worked on his paperwork. Sometimes he’d have visitors over, other important-looking men who sat around drinking gin and smoking cigars, talking about whatever men talked about.

Mary always had to stay out of sight when visitors came over. She didn’t mind that. Turpin’s friends frightened her almost as much as he did. And sometimes he’d be too drunk for sex, so she’d have a night of respite, and sometimes a morning too if his hangover was too troublesome.

At least when he was out, Mary could see Tommy. They’d go out into the courtyard and play games, and because he was acting under orders of the Lady of the House, the butler who bossed him around couldn’t tell him off.

She had a weekly allowance, which she used to buy materials, as Turpin had allowed her to turn Johanna’s old room into a makeshift workshop. She wasn’t to sell anything she made - Lord Turpin couldn’t have anyone thinking his wife had to make her own money - but he allowed her to do it as it kept her busy and out of the way. She mostly made children’s clothes, and at night Tommy would sneak out with them and give them to Mrs Harris to hand them out to the children who lived on the street, those who had once been Mary and Tommy’s friends.

After the first month, Mary worked up the courage to ask Turpin about the promise he’d made.

She knew she had to get him in a good mood first. Some days he ordered her to visit him at court during lunch, so when he sat at his desk with a sigh of frustration, Mary obediently knelt between his legs and took him in her mouth.

When he finished, she licked him clean, then sat on his lap as he tucked into the sandwich she’d brought him.

“Sir, might I ask you about something?”

Turpin grunted through a mouthful of sandwich.

“When you proposed to me, you said you’d put Tommy into school. Did you really mean that?”

Turpin snorted derisively, then swallowed.

“Yes, I did. But surely you don’t expect me to follow through on that, do you?”

Mary blinked in surprise. “Oh - um —”

“You also told me you’d marry me, then promptly made every effort not to do so. I don’t see why I should follow through on my promise when you tried so ardently not to follow through on yours. He’s working in the kitchens, that’ll teach him everything he needs, and I’ll hear no more on the subject.”

“…Right. Of course. Sorry, sir.”

After Turpin returned to court, Mary went down to the Post Office.

She was learning to read and write, but her progress was slow. All she had were the letters Elliott had taught her. She had to put words together bit by bit, and no doubt her spelling was atrocious. Fortunately, since very few people in London could read or write, the Post Office offered a scribe to write out dictated letters to those who could pay. And thanks to her allowance from Turpin, Mary could pay.

Once the letter was written, she almost cried when the scribe read it back to her.

Dearest Elliott,

I know you must hate me, but I beg of you not to throw this letter in the fire. When I first accepted William’s proposal, before I knew of your feelings for me, he promised an education for Tommy. I know now he has no intention of following through on that promise. I cannot stand the thought of him spending his life in the kitchens, but it seems William is determined to leave him there. I know he would thrive with you. I don’t ask you to adopt him as you said. Employ him as you would any other, if you must. But please, I beg of you, take him away with you. I know I would never see him again. But I’d rather he leave forever, and know he’ll thrive, than have him by my side but wasting away in the kitchens. I know I ask a lot. But Tommy is only a boy. None of this is his fault. I won’t ask you to forgive me, and if you refuse, I’ll understand. But please, if you truly loved me, do this one thing for me. For Tommy.

All my love, Mary

She gave the return address as Mrs Harris’ shop, and waited anxiously for a reply. Even just to hear a “no.” And when the night came that Tommy delivered the weekly bundle of children’s clothes to Mrs Harris, Mary waited for his return, hoping he’d come back before Turpin woke up and found her missing from the bed.

The response she received was worse than a no.

Tommy handed her an envelope addressed to her, and inside was another envelope - her own letter returned, unopened. With it a note. By candlelight, and with much difficulty, Mary managed to read:

Lady Turpin,

I return your letter unopened. Although curious, it’s not for me to interrupt the communiqué of lovers. My nephew left for Australia mere hours after you left for London. He’ll be almost to Cape Town by now. Below is his address in Australia. Though I warn you, you may wait six months before receiving any reply. Good luck.

Sincerely, Duke R. Beaumont

Mary tore off the bottom part of the letter containing Elliott’s address, stashed it away between the pages of her sketchbook, and promptly burnt both her unopened letter and the body of the Duke’s response.

It was another hour before she went back to bed, once her tears had dried. She knew Turpin would never stand for her crying in bed, much less if he knew the reason for her tears.

It was about two months into the marriage that Mary realised one day that she hadn’t yet had her monthly - not, she realised, since the week before she’d met Elliott. The only bleeding she had was after sex, when Turpin hadn’t prepared her properly.

She tried not to think too much of it. But when she began bringing her food back up for no apparent reason, she couldn’t deny the truth.

She told Turpin her suspicions one night after he’d finished, and in a rare display of emotion other than irritation or lust, he grinned with excitement and kissed her.

“Oh, darling, I knew you’d be able to give me a son! Such a good, dutiful wife.”

He took her again, the news apparently springing his cock back to life, and held her close against his body as he thrust into her.

“What a good wife you are, taking my seed so well… mhm, yes, I can’t wait to see you swell. My perfect wife, carrying my son…”

He’s not your son.

The thought came unbidden, but Mary knew it was true. Logically, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even know it was a boy, let alone that Elliott would be the father. But something deep inside her - perhaps her mother’s instinct, or perhaps something deeper, something in her soul - it told her the truth. Yes, she was carrying a son, but not her husband’s son.

She swore to herself, there and then, as her husband spilled his seed inside her for the second time that night, that he would never learn the truth.

She was already lying to him. He still thought that he’d taken her virginity the night he’d snuck into her bed and raped her. What harm could it do to let him think the child was his?

When the baby was born, Mary had little choice over the name. He was William Turpin’s first son, so tradition dictated he would also be William Turpin.

It felt strange, though, to call her son the same name as her husband, so she nicknamed the child Billy.

Turpin wasted no time trying to get Mary pregnant again. She was exhausted from spending all day looking after the baby, too tired for sex, so she simply laid there and let her husband do what he needed to do. He quickly got bored of that, though, so he hired a nanny to help look after the child, giving Mary some time to rest.

Not because he loved her, or because he cared about her needs. Mary had accepted a long time ago that things like care and kindness were things she’d never get from him. But it was because, he told her, she had a duty to her husband. And, despite everything, she was still attracted to him, so when she had the energy for sex again, she was an eager participant.

It was really the only connection they had. And because he kept her inside, it was pretty much the only connection she had at all other than Tommy. So Mary took what Turpin would give her, and if that was nothing but sexual chemistry, then so be it.

It wasn’t long before she was pregnant again. She recognised the symptoms straight away this time, but there were some other symptoms she was more concerned about than her own.

Turpin was sick.

The doctor threw every treatment he could think of at him, but sickness was even more powerful than the great Judge Turpin, and he died within a week of falling ill.

Mary sat dutifully by his bed every day, nursing him the best she could, making sure he got as much time with little Billy as he could.

He must have known when he was about to pass. He’d been stubbornly trying to get up and go to work all week, even flirting with Mary as if he was in any state to do anything. But that day, he’d been lethargic and quiet, not like himself at all. And as Mary rocked Billy to sleep in her arms, Turpin just watched her.

“Mary,” he croaked when she returned from putting the boy in his crib. “Mary. Mary…”

“Yes, I’m here, Will,” Mary said softly as she sat back down and took his hand in hers. His hand that looked nothing like his hand, now it was ghostly pale and thin, hardly capable of moving.

“Mary… I need you to tell me the truth. I know… I know you loved Elliott. Tell me… is the boy his?”

Lying to him was almost second nature to her now.

“No. No, he’s not, Will. I’ve only ever been with you. You know that.”

Turpin let out a long sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezed. “Mary, I’m so sorry. For taking your innocence as I did, for forcing you to marry me. Elliott was right. You can tell him that, from me. He said so, didn’t he? He said I’d die miserable and alone, that no one could ever love me.”

“You’re not alone,” Mary said earnestly. “I’m here.”

Turpin looked at her and smiled.

“I couldn’t help falling in love with you.”

Mary wiped away a tear.

When she looked back at him, he was gone.

She cried. She didn’t know why. She hated him, didn’t she? He’d trapped her, hadn’t he?

But he was her husband, and he’d been alive, and now he was neither of those things.

So she cried.

- - -

Elliott was having a lot of fun playing with his food.

Ever since his return to Australia, his men had noticed a change in him. He’d always been ruthless; he’d slaughter an Aborigine camp without a second thought just to get a nice spot to build a new pigsty. But something had changed, and nobody dared ask why, because just the slightest change in the wind was enough to set him off.

He had a vendetta, but the source of his ire was back in London, so he took his frustrations out on anyone who pissed him off.

And for the last few weeks, that someone had been Matthew Quigley.

Now, he had his prize in front of him. The great Quigley, the hero of the Aborigines, the fucking pain in Elliott’s backside. He thought he could show up, take Elliott’s money, and refuse him. Well, nobody said no to Elliott Marston. Certainly no one who lived to tell the tale.

“Now you’re right in front of my old pistol target,” Elliott laughed. How many times had he practised shooting here, imagining himself in a duel with some outlaw? Now here he was, laying down the law - his law, on his land - and the American cowboy was no match for his quick draw.

“Some men —” Elliott began, but he cut himself off when he heard the familiar sound of a horse’s hooves on the ground, the creaking of wooden wheels turning.

Elliott frowned as he looked in the distance at the approaching carriage. He wasn’t expecting any visitors.

“O’Flynn, get the gate,” Elliott commanded. “Dobkin — take back the revolver, make sure he can’t do anything while my back is turned.”

His two remaining men ran to follow Elliott’s command, both well trained by now to obey him without question.

Elliott watched as the carriage came closer and passed through his gate. He thought it intriguing that it was a carriage, not a wagon. The visitor must be someone important, or unused to Australian heat, or both, with very little luggage.

The driver finally pulled to a stop and hopped down to open the carriage door. Elliott approached with a mixture of caution and curiosity. The door opened, the driver gave a small bow, and held out his hand to help the mysterious occupant down.

It was a good thing Elliott’s gun was still in its holster. He might have dropped it in shock.

He never thought he’d see her again. He’d resigned himself to a life without her, come to terms with the fact she’d been a fleeting light in the darkness. He’d neither love nor marry again, and that was something he’d accepted months ago.

Yet here she was, as beautiful as the day she’d left for London, despite his begging and his promises. She’d left with a cloud of misery hanging over her shoulders, and leaving another hanging over him too.

She reached back into the carriage for something. She pulled back, and the driver closed the door as Mary straightened up, holding…

A baby.

She had a baby.

She turned, her eyes searching, and when she spotted him, she smiled. A true, radiant smile that, although Elliott didn’t know it, she hadn’t sported in a very long time.

“Mary…” Elliott croaked. He took a few steps towards her, then jogged the rest of the way, too impatient to walk.

“Mary, what - what are you doing here?”

Elliott glanced around, wondering who else might be in the carriage, but he saw no sign of the man who’d torn them apart.

“You said you’d wait for me,” Mary said hesitantly. “…Did you?”

“Yes! Yes, of course I did, I… oh, Mary, look at you.” Elliott took her face in his hands as if to check she were real. “I could never love anyone but you. But why — where —?”

“He died,” Mary said, answering the question he was hesitating to ask. “Some sickness, it took him quick. I sold everything and bought us passage to Australia. I don’t expect anything from you, Elliott, but… I wanted you to meet your son.”

“My —?”

Elliott looked down at the baby in her arms, one hand carefully reaching out to cradle the boy’s round, bald head.

“The moment I knew he was there, I knew he was yours. I just knew.”

She didn’t have to explain. There was no science to prove it, the timing told them nothing, but Elliott knew it too. He could tell, looking at this tiny human clinging to his mother, that he was his son.

“What’s his name?”

“I didn’t dare tell him he was yours, so I didn’t have much choice. Everyone calls him Billy, though.”

“Hello, Billy,” Elliott said softly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Buh,” said Billy, and his tiny fingers wrapped around Elliott’s thumb.

“What a gentleman, he’s shaking your hand!” Mary laughed.

“He certainly is. Oh, Mary, he’s perfect.”

He looked up at her, a grin on his face and the threat of tears in his eyes.

“Just like his mother.”

Mary smiled coyly. Over her shoulder, Elliott saw the driver unloading the bags from the back of the carriage. And with him, a few inches taller than Elliott remembered, was Tommy.

“Tommy!” Elliott called. “I’m glad to see you’re alright!”

Tommy waved back, then turned his attention to the bag he was lifting. Elliott turned back towards his men, who were both standing guard over Quigley, watching with no doubt a lot of confusion.

“O’Flynn, keep an eye on him. Dobkin - put the boy’s bags in the lodge, and Mary’s in my house.”

“You’ll - you’ll let us stay?” Mary said cautiously.

“Mr Marston, what’re we doing with him?” O’Flynn called over, interrupting before Elliott could respond.

Elliott rolled his eyes. He glanced lazily over at Quigley, who was still standing by the fencepost, not daring to move with no gun to defend himself with and O’Flynn standing guard.

He’d spent the last few weeks obsessing over capturing Quigley, and now, Elliott found he didn’t care about playing with his food. The man had to be executed, and Elliott would certainly not be giving him a gun for a duel, not with three precious lives so close.

He whipped his pistol out and shot Quigley clean in the head.

Mary yelped in surprise, and her hand flew to cover Billy’s exposed ear, the other already pressed against her chest.

“Chuck him in a ditch somewhere,” Elliott called back to O’Flynn before reholstering his gun and turning back to Mary, who was staring in shock at Quigley’s dead body.

“Elliott, you killed him!”

“Sorry, darling, you came right in the middle of his execution. He’s a dangerous man — or was, anyway,” Elliott smirked. “He killed almost all of my men. Dobkin and O’Flynn are all that’s left. I can’t have him free, especially not with you here. Come on — let’s get you out of the sun. Dobkin will get your bags.”

Elliott put an arm around Mary’s waist and guided her towards his house.

“I know you told me how big Australia is, Elliott, but it’s hard to comprehend until you see it. It’s enormous! I thought we must have been going in circles with how long it took to get here from Perth. And the driver told me most of the land we crossed is yours!”

“It certainly is,” Elliott said with pride. “And I took about another 200 acres of farmland after I came back. Here we are. Do you want some water? You must be parched.”

Once inside, he guided her to the sofa, and gestured to his butler to bring her some water. Elliott sat down next to Mary and rubbed her back gently as she adjusted Billy to sit on her lap.

“Was the journey okay for you? I know how arduous that boat journey can be, and the ride here from Perth isn’t exactly fun either.”

The butler set down a tray on the side table and Elliott dismissed him with a wave of his hand so he could pour Mary a drink himself.

“Honestly, Elliott, it was awful. As it turns out, I get horribly seasick. I was so worried for the baby, but everybody was so lovely to me. People would give me portions of their food to make sure I ate enough, even though most of it ended up coming back out again.”

“Well, you’ll just have to make sure you never make that journey again,” Elliott said cheekily. “Good thing everything you need is here. And how’s Tommy? I’m glad to see he seems to be alright, I was worried that even if you married William, he’d still harm him.”

Mary smiled gratefully as she took the glass of water from Elliott.

“Oh, Elliott. You really worried about Tommy?”

“Of course I did. I’ve been worried for both of you. Trapped in a house with him — I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.”

Mary took a long drink of her water.

“It wasn’t too awful. He ignored me most of the time except when he wanted sex. He could be callous, but he wasn’t cruel, not really. He never wanted to hurt me — he just didn’t care if he did. So long as I was obedient, he treated me well enough. I had an allowance and he even let me set up a workshop in Johanna’s old room. And I taught myself to read! I used the letters you taught me to figure out words in books. I’m not so good at writing, though.”

“Then I suppose I ought to teach you. Tommy, too. And Billy, once he’s old enough. Would you like that, Billy?”

“Ga ba da ga!” Billy replied when Elliott looked down at him with a smile.

“What about you, Elliott? Are you alright? I tried to write to you after a month or so, but your uncle told me you’d left soon after I did, and I was too ashamed to write to you here.”

“You’re the one who was forced into a loveless marriage, and you’re worried if I’m alright?”

“I broke your heart, Elliott,” Mary said in a small voice, hanging her head slightly in shame. “It’s haunted me every day.”

“Hey.” Elliott took her chin between his fingers and forced her to look up at him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and her lip began to wobble.

“It - it is my fault, though. Oh, Elliott, I’m so sorry!” Mary sobbed, and Elliott immediately wrapped an arm around her and held her close, rubbing her arm soothingly.

“It’s not your fault, Mary,” Elliott said again. “It was his. He took Tommy hostage and forced you to marry him. You had no choice. I know that.”

Billy seemed to notice his mother’s distress, because he started crying too.

Elliott was at a bit of a loss. He was exhausted from being awake all night watching out for Quigley, and now he had a crying woman and a crying child in his lounge.

Fortunately, at that moment Tommy and Dobkin came in with the bags. Dobkin was as confused as Elliott, but Tommy simply put down the bags he was carrying and came over to pick Billy up.

The child clung to him, and Elliott realised that Billy must recognise Tommy as caregiver just as much as he did Mary.

Tommy carried Billy outside to soothe him, and Mary took the opportunity of being babyless to wrap her arms around Elliott’s waist and bury her head against his chest. Tears were still streaming down her face, but Elliott realised he didn’t give two figs if she got his shirt wet.

“Take her bags to my room,” Elliott said to Dobkin, then turned his attention back to Mary. He didn’t know what to do or say, but she seemed to want to be held, so he wrapped his arms tight around her and held her close, rubbing her back and muttering words of sympathy against the top of her head as she sobbed.

After Dobkin left, not without another uneasy glance at the mysterious crying woman who’d suddenly appeared, Elliott and Mary were left alone for a little while — that was, until the door opened again, and one of the Aborigine women backed into the room, apparently carrying something.

“What do you want?” Elliott snapped.

Mary looked up, curious, still sniffling although her sobs had subsided.

The woman didn’t respond. She just carried on into the house, followed by another of the women, who was carrying the other end of —

“A cot!” Mary gasped.

It was rudimentary, and Elliott would definitely have to send someone to Perth to get a good and proper one made, but it was a cot.

“Put it in the bedroom,” Elliott commanded when the women hesitated, unsure where he would want it. They obeyed, and when they emerged, they kept their heads bowed respectfully as they passed back through the lounge to leave.

“Thank you!” Mary called after them. They paused, evidently surprised to be thanked, then curtsied clumsily towards her before leaving.

“Oh, Elliott, they gave us a cot! How kind! I must see it!”

Mary sprung to her feet, her tears apparently forgotten, and Elliott had to hurry to follow her into his bedroom, where the cot had been placed against a wall.

She examined it with a grin on her face. It was literally made of sticks stuck together with resin, the most basic, clumsy cot that Elliott could have imagined. Billy had probably had a significantly fancier cot back in London.

And yet, Mary loved it. Something about the rudimentary cot that had been made by an Aborigine whore for her halfling child was magical to Mary, and that was what Elliott loved so much about her. She saw wonder in everything — even him.

He couldn’t resist her.

“Mary…”

Elliott crossed the room in a few long strides and took her in his arms, pulling her in for a kiss. Their lips met, and Mary reciprocated eagerly. Her lips were still a little wet with tears, but Elliott didn’t care. She was here, she was real, and she was his. That was all that mattered.

He placed his hands on her waist, ready to encourage her out of her dress, when he felt a strange fluttering coming from her belly.

Mary broke the kiss and looked down, laughing. She took Elliott’s hand and guided it over her belly.

“Someone’s saying hello.”

He’d been so focused on her, he hadn’t looked at her belly. Hadn’t noticed the way it protruded just a little. Not obviously, easily missed, but now that he looked, it was clear as day.

She was pregnant.

Pregnant with his cousin’s child.

The thought didn’t anger Elliott as he would have expected it to. So what if he was a Turpin by blood? Elliott would make sure he was a Marston by name. Billy and Tommy too. He’d adopt them both, and if Mary wanted more children, he’d give her more. They were her sons, and that was enough for Elliott — they’d be his too.

“Marry me.”

Mary looked up at him, eyes wide.

“You’re certain? Even after everything that’s happened? Even - even with a child that’s not yours?”

“But he is mine. Because he’s part of you, and you are mine. I told you that a long time ago, didn’t I? I’ll adopt Billy, Tommy too, and we’ll have more if you want more. I’ve got plenty of space. We’ll have a whole litter if you want. Just say yes, Mary. Say you’ll marry me.”

She beamed up at him with the most adorable smile he’d ever seen. It lit up not just her face, but the entire room, and Elliott’s heart with it.

“Oh, Elliott, of course I’ll marry you! I won’t let anybody come between us this time, I swear it!”

“Perhaps we should do it quickly, just in case,” Elliott said, only half-joking.

“I know you jest, Elliott, but let’s do it! I don’t need a big fancy ceremony, I already had one of those and I hated it. All I want is to pledge my heart to you.”

“Alright, then,” Elliott agreed. “There’s a chapel in Meekathanga nearby. Let’s see if the chaplain’s at home, shall we?”

Elliott barked some orders at his men outside, instructing one of them to clean up the bodies that Mary hadn’t even noticed were scattered around, and he sent the other to Meekathanga to bring back the chaplain.

“Oh, and if you find any men looking for work, tell them I’ve got plenty of work and gold for them,” Elliott added as an afterthought. “I can’t be picky, so take deserters if you must. I’m sure Ashley-Pitt will forgive me, given the circumstances.”

“Elliott, why are there so many dead bodies around here?” Mary asked with trepidation as Tommy handed a now calmed Billy back to her to feed.

“Thank God you didn’t arrive earlier. Quigley, the man I shot earlier - he’s been on a rampage across the Outback recently. Murdered nearly all my men last night. Fortunately I - bloody hell, darling, warn me before you get your tits out, won’t you? I’m as weak a man as any.”

Mary laughed as she held Billy up to her breast and he eagerly latched onto her nipple to feed.

“This is what they’re made for, you know.”

“They can have two purposes. There are two of them, after all. One for him and one for me.”

He grinned cheekily, leaning against the pillar of his porch as Mary sat in the shade with Billy in her arms, and Mary thought he looked particularly handsome out here, in his natural environment. London had never suited him. It was too cramped, too stuffy. Someone like Turpin might thrive there, but Elliott, he belonged out here, in his home country. It was very easy to believe that he owned the ground he walked on.

“What are you smiling at?” Elliott asked with a smirk.

“I was just thinking about how handsome you are.”

“Oh, really? And how handsome am I, exactly?”

“Handsome enough that I sailed halfway around the world just to see your face again.”

“Ah, so you’re only here for my looks!” Elliott put his hand to his heart in an imaginary wounded gesture. “What if I’d had a horrible accident that disfigured me, hm? Would you turn around and run back to London?”

Mary laughed. “No, of course not! I’d love you just the same no matter what. Even if you shaved!”

“Now that is love,” Elliott teased. “Maybe I’ll shave just to test that theory.”

“Oh, no, please don’t!” Mary said in alarm, and Elliott laughed to see just how much the thought of him shaving panicked her. “You look perfect just the way you are.”

“I’m joking, I’d never shave it off. It makes me look powerful, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes,” Mary agreed earnestly. “And I like the way it feels against my lips when we kiss.”

“Oh, you do, do you? So something like this?”

He crossed the gap between them, then leant down to kiss her — and cheekily grabbed her spare breast while he was at it.

“Elliott!” Mary laughed as he fondled her breast brazenly, for all to see — not that there was really anyone left to see.

“God, look at them, they’re so fucking full,” Elliott growled. “I knew pregnancy would suit you.”

“Elliott, stop it,” Mary blushed, covering up her breast again as she batted his hand away. “Not while I’m feeding, please. They get very sensitive.”

“Of course, darling,” Elliott said, and he kissed her gently on the head before pulling another chair over to sit next to her. He looked away for only a moment to grab the chair, and when he sat himself down and looked back at her, she had tears in her eyes. “Oh, Mary — did I do something wrong?”

Mary shook her head as she wiped a tear from her face.

“No. No, quite the opposite. Oh, Elliott, I’m sorry. That’s twice now I’ve cried since getting here.”

“Hey, it’s alright. You’re pregnant. If women weren’t unpredictable enough as it is, pregnant women are even worse. Is there something I can do?”

“No, Elliott, there’s nothing you can do. It’s just… oh, but I shouldn’t speak of William, it’s uncouth…”

“Nonsense. Tell me what you’re thinking, Mary. Tell me what’s got those pretty eyes all wet.”

He wiped away a tear from her cheek, and she smiled as she leaned into his touch.

“Well, it’s just… he used to do that too, he’d grab my breasts and - and even when I said it hurt, he didn’t care. He said that because we were married, they were his to play with as he pleased.”

Elliott sighed. There was no doubt about the fact that his cousin had left Mary with a lot of trauma. It was going to take him a long time to help her heal — and fortunately, they had the rest of their lives to do exactly that.

- - -

It was a good few hours to Meekathanga, and the same again in return. That left Mary and Elliott waiting all day for Dobkin to return with the chaplain — and, Elliott hoped, some new men looking for work. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to manage with just Dobkin and O’Flynn around.

Fortunately, they had a lot to entertain themselves with. Elliott introduced Mary to the horses in the stable, and the cattle in their pen, and he promised that when he next went out to tend to the sheep, she could come with him. He earned himself an extra kiss for that promise.

When the heat became too much for Mary, she said goodbye to the farm animals, and Elliott brought her back inside. Billy was getting restless in her arms, so she opened up one of her bags in the middle of the lounge and Elliott moved some furniture around to make some space for a little play area.

“I couldn’t bring much with me, but I brought his favourite toys,” Mary explained as Elliott rolled out a woollen blanket for her to lay Billy down. “He doesn’t really play with them as much as he tries to eat them.”

She put him on his back and placed his favourite coloured blocks just out of arm’s reach.

“You’re not going to give them to him?” Elliott asked with amusement.

“It’s important that he gets them himself so he learns to move. Look, see!”

She watched with a grin of pride on her face as Billy spotted the colourful blocks, reached out for them, and when he couldn’t grab them, he rolled over to his front to bring himself closer.

“Good boy!” Mary cheered. “Isn’t he clever, Elliott?”

“A veritable genius,” Elliott replied sarcastically as Billy began trying to put the square blocks in his mouth.

“Oh, shush,” Mary laughed. “It’s been difficult to teach him to roll over when he’s spent half his life on a moving boat. I imagine it must feel rather odd to him now to be on dry land.”

“Gahhh baya!” Billy exclaimed excitedly, holding up a blue block and showing it to Elliott.

“Do you want to play with papa, Billy?”

“Baga!” Billy replied, still trying to give Elliott the block.

“Alright. Christ, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Elliott sighed. He looked the block from Billy. “Now what do I do?”

“Show him how to play with it!”

“It’s a cube, Mary, I don’t know how to play with it. Unless I’m supposed to eat it too?”

Mary plucked another block from the pile and placed it in front of Billy.

“Show him how to make a stack.”

“…Alright.”

Elliott placed the block he was holding on top of the other. Billy looked up at it, eyes wide and curious, then reached out and knocked it over with a squeal of joy.

“Hey, I built that!” Elliott protested indignantly, but Mary just laughed.

Billy, catching onto his mother’s mirth, laughed too, and he began banging the two blocks together, enjoying the clacking noise they made.

Mary turned to Elliott and looked up at him with a grin.

“He likes you! He doesn’t share his blocks with just anyone, you know. Do you think he can tell that you’re his papa?”

“Maybe. Did William ever play with him?”

Mary’s face dropped and she glanced away.

“No. He wouldn’t even hold him. He said he didn’t know what to do with a baby. As if any of us know… I certainly didn’t when Tommy was a baby, and I figured it out. He didn’t even try…”

Elliott rubbed her back soothingly. “It’s his loss, Mary. You won’t be doing any of this alone anymore. Tommy’s clearly good with him, and you’ve got me now. I can hire a nanny to come from Perth as well, if you like. You might need the help when Elliott Junior comes along and we’re trying to juggle two babies.”

“Elliott Junior?” Mary laughed. “Is that what we’re calling him, is it?”

“Well, why not? William named my son after himself. I might as well return the favour.”

“Well, I — I did have another name in mind. But if you really want to call him Elliott —”

“No, no, tell me,” Elliott said, placing his hand over hers. “What did you have in mind?”

Mary threaded her fingers through his.

“Well… your uncle was so kind to us. And after William died, I went to him, and he refused to listen to arguments when he proposed to buy everything from me. It was his idea, you know — he insisted on buying the house, the furniture, everything, under the condition I use the money to buy our transport here. I’m not sure he even wanted the house — I think he just knew I wouldn’t accept it as a gift. So, well, I was wondering… maybe we could call him Rupert.”

Elliott smiled. “You’re right, he was very kind to us. A byproduct of having nothing but daughters, I think, it turns a man soft. I’ll have to write to him and thank him for everything. But, I’ll be honest with you, Mary…”

“You don’t like the name?”

“It’s an awful name.”

Mary laughed. “Alright, alright, not Rupert. But maybe as a middle name?”

“A middle name, yes. What’s Billy’s middle name, by the way?”

“Sinclair Alexander Lionel. Why do rich people have so many names?”

“God knows. I think my father asked the same question, so I ended up with just the one.”

“Which is?”

“Elliott James Marston, at your service, milady,” Elliott said with a mock bow.

“Oh, James, that’s a lovely name! My parents didn’t even give me a surname, let alone a middle name. I was always just Mary. I added the Taylor on myself.”

“Sounds better than Mary Seamstress, I suppose.”

“Or Mary Theapprentice, that’s how Mrs Harris used to introduce me.”

“You know what name does sound good? Mary Marston.”

Mary blushed. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Oh, but I do like James. Maybe we can give him your middle name.”

“Well, James was my father. I wouldn’t mind naming him for my father.”

“And if it’s a girl? What was your mother’s name?”

“God, no, we’re not naming her after my mother. I adored her, of course, but her name was Eunice.”

“Oh, Lord, the Beaumonts didn’t have the best taste in names, did they?”

Elliott laughed. “No, they certainly didn’t. Is Mary Junior out of the question?”

“I’m not giving her my own name! What about Victoria, for the Queen?”

Elliott hesitated.

“Well, ah… I never told you this, but… I was married once before. Her name was Victoria.”

“Oh.” Mary bit her lip. “What - what happened?”

“The sickness took her. Too much sun can make you sick, and… well, it made her sick. This was… it must have been five years ago now that she died.”

“Oh, Elliott, I’m so sorry,” Mary said softly, stroking her thumb gently over the hand she was still holding. “How long were you married?”

“A year.” He frowned. “Strange, that we both were married for a year before they got sick. But Victoria was nothing like William, she was amazing. She really got stuck into farming the land, it was a matter of pride for her not to ask the men for help. That was her downfall, I think — she’d rather stay out working on something alone for hours than get it done in half the time with help. So she’d spend much longer in the sun than she should have… and it took her in the end.”

“She sounds wonderful. I wish I could have met her.”

“As fun as it might be in bed, I think two wives might be a little much to handle.”

Mary slapped Elliott playfully. “Get your mind out of the gutter, El! Honestly.”

“I’m just teasing you, Mary,” Elliott replied, tickling her back to make her squirm. “I have you now, and you’re all I want.”

“Well, back to the actual topic at hand! If we have a girl, I’ll gladly call her Victoria. Both for the Queen and for your first wife.”

“Really? You’d do that?”

“Of course. It’s a lovely name. And Victoria Marston deserves to live on, don’t you think?”

“Oh, Mary. Your good heart knows no bounds.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Alright, then. James for a boy and Victoria for a girl. You don’t want to use your parents’ names?”

“I… don’t know what their names were. I always just called them mama and papa. Maybe they were Mary and Tommy too, who knows?”

“Well, Mama and Papa Taylor made two wonderful children. Strong, resilient, hardworking, and very, very brave. I especially like the daughter, she’s ever so beautiful.”

“Sounds like you have a bit of a thing for her,” Mary teased.

“I most certainly do,” Elliott teased back, wrapping an arm around her waist to hold her close. “I think I might marry her, actually. Do you think she’ll say yes?”

“It’s not her you’ll have to ask.”

Mary picked Billy up off the floor, where he was still trying to eat his blocks, and sat him on her lap.

“What do you think, Billy? Should mama and papa get married?”

Elliott uncrossed his legs to lay down on the floor, propped up on his elbows, so that he was face-level with Billy.

“Oh, please say yes, Billy, I’ll treat her ever so well,” he pleaded. “I’ll show her that I love her every single day, and I’ll give you as many little brothers and sisters as you want. What do you say?”

“Bah nana!” Billy said confidently.

“…Did he just respond to my proposal with ‘banana’?”

Mary laughed. “I think he’s calling you bananas. But it sounds like a yes to me.”

“Oh, Billy, you’ve made me the happiest man in Australia,” Elliott grinned.

He leaned forward to give his son a peck on the forehead, and Billy laughed to feel Elliott’s moustache tickling his skin. He reached up and grabbed at Elliott’s face, curious and amused by the funny hair on his face.

“You like it too, hm? Yes, mama likes it, so I’ll be keeping it. Maybe one day you’ll grow a nice strong moustache like mine, hm?”

“Gabada!” Billy replied.

There was a knock on the door, and Elliott reluctantly pulled away from his son’s grip to answer it.

Dobkin looked over his shoulder, still flummoxed by Mary’s presence, but decided against questioning who this woman was and why she had suddenly appeared.

“Just got back from town, Mr Marston. The chaplain’s here, and I managed to pick up half a dozen men. I can get more from Perth.”

“Excellent. Get them settled in the men’s quarters, then put them to work. I want a count of all the outer pens, I wouldn’t put it past Quigley to murder my livestock as well as my men.”

“Yes, sir.” Dobkin hesitated, glancing again at Mary, who was standing up now with Billy in her arms. “Mr Marston, can I ask —”

“What? Oh, right. Introductions.” Elliott beckoned Mary over. “Mary, this is Mr Dobkin. He’s the best of my men, even before they were all slaughtered. He kept the place going while I was away. In fact, if I weren’t able to trust him, I’d have never gone to London.”

“Oh, in that case, I must thank you, Mr Dobkin!”

“Er - no problem?” Dobkin replied with confusion.

“Dobkin, this is Mary. She’s to be my wife. She’s to be treated with nothing but respect, so make sure those new men know it, alright? She has just as much authority as me. More, in fact, because I do what she says.”

“Elliott!” Mary laughed.

“Pleased to meet you, miss,” Dobkin said with a tip of his hat. “And who’s the little one?”

“This is our son, Billy,” Elliott said. “And the lad you met earlier, that’s Mary’s brother, Tommy.”

“Your —?”

“Our son, yes. I’ll tell you the whole story later, but I need those headcounts. And where’s the chaplain? He has a wedding to officiate.”

- - -

All that time Mary had spent imagining what getting married would be like, she’d never imagined this.

Her wedding to Turpin had been large, opulent, the pews of St Dunstan’s filled to the brim.

It had also been terrifying. Mary was miserable, she didn’t know a single one of the guests, and any affection she might have harboured for her groom had dissipated the night he’d threatened to hang her brother if she didn’t marry him.

But her wedding to Elliott was everything the first hadn’t been.

It was small, intimate, with only Tommy and Elliott’s trusted worker, Mr Dobkin, in attendance — and Billy, of course, in Tommy’s arms. Mary had married Turpin in a church and become a Lady — now, she was marrying Elliott in the middle of the desert, and she didn’t care that she was relinquishing her title as Lady Turpin. She’d rather be Mrs Marston any day.

Mary hardly heard what the chaplain was saying. She recognised the prayers and the blessings she’d heard at her first wedding, but she didn’t really listen. All she could do was look at Elliott, so handsome in the Australian sun, and when he recited his vow to her, she began to cry.

She just about managed to hold it together as she repeated the vow back to him.

There was no wedding ring, but neither of them cared for that. That could come another day. All that mattered was that the other was there.

More prayers, more blabbing from the chaplain. Mary began to get impatient. Then, finally, she heard the words she wanted to hear.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

“Finally,” Elliott growled. He wrapped his arms around Mary’s waist, pulled her in close, and kissed her fiercely.

Somewhere, Tommy and Dobkin were applauding, but Mary didn’t pay them any mind.

She was married! To Elliott! She was married to Elliott! She was Mrs Mary Marston, and nobody could change that.

Elliott eventually pulled away, and quickly scooped Mary up in his arms, causing her to squeal with surprise.

“Right, nobody disturb us for at least an hour. I need to spend some time alone with my wife.”

“Er - just a moment, Mr Marston,” the chaplain said, hesitant to interrupt Elliott’s enthusiasm. “The certificate first, please.”

“Oh, right, right. Quickly!”

Elliott set Mary back down to her feet and the chaplain unrolled the certificate onto the table on the porch.

“Right, then, here we are. Names… Elliott James Marston… Mary Turpin… ages?”

“Forty-three,” Elliott replied.

“Nineteen,” said Mary. Not that she was certain, but it was her best guess.

“Condition - both widowed. Rank or profession. Pastoralist, I suppose, Mr Marston?”

“Yes, fine.”

“Father’s name and profession?”

“James Marston. Merchant.”

The chaplain looked at Mary expectantly, and she hesitated.

“Oh, um… I don’t know.”

“That’s alright, we can leave it blank. Mr Marston, sign here — Mrs Marston, there. Then these two can sign as witnesses and we can leave you two to, uh… celebrate.”

Elliott had never signed anything so fast or with such certainty. Mary did her best attempt at a signature, though it looked childish next to Elliott’s, and Tommy’s was just a cross.

“Come on, Dobkin, hurry up,” Elliott snapped as Dobkin signed the last signature. “Right, is that it?”

“Yes, I’ll get this registered back in town and send it back to you,” the chaplain said, but Elliott hardly heard anything after “yes.” He swept Mary up in his arms again, grinning, and practically kicked the front door down.

“No interruptions!” he barked back at Dobkin. “And I want those headcounts!”

The door slammed shut behind him, and Mary laughed as he practically sprinted to the bedroom, kicked that door open too, and threw her quite unceremoniously onto the bed.

“Clothes off,” he commanded, already shrugging his waistcoat off, and Mary eagerly stood to undress. “I’ve waited too fucking long for this. You have no idea - no idea… you ruined whores for me, you know? I tried, but they were all disappointments. I’d rather my own hand than a cunt that’s not yours.”

“I… thought of you,” Mary admitted with a blush as she loosened her dress and let it fall to the floor to reveal her undergarments. “When I was with William, I’d… think of you.”

Elliott grinned with pride. “I bet you did. Thinking of my cock while taking his. The little one might as well be mine. Go on, let me see him.”

Mary pulled her vest over her head, revealing her swollen breasts and her slightly protruding stomach, and Elliott groaned. The sight of Mary - his wife - round with child… it touched something primal within him.

He knelt down and placed both hands on Mary’s belly, his lips ghosting her skin softly.

“Hello, James. Or Victoria. But hopefully James.”

Mary laughed.

“Another man may have planted his seed, but make no mistake, I am your father. And once you’re out, I’ll put another one in there, as many as your mama wants.”

“Two more,” Mary told him. “I’d like two more, if that’s alright with you.”

Elliott looked up at her with a grin. “Oh, I will very happily keep impregnating you. Let’s practice, shall we? Get these bloody things off.”

He hooked his fingers under the waistband of her bloomers and pulled them down, leaving her fully nude in front of him.

“God, I missed this,” Elliott groaned. He guided Mary to sit on the edge of the bed, instructed her to lie on her back, and promptly buried his face between her legs.

“Elliott!” Mary gasped as his tongue began exploring her folds, hungrily lapping at her like a man starved.

It had been a long time since she’d felt his mouth down there. Turpin had certainly never seen the point, since it wasn’t for his pleasure. And Elliott had never eaten a whore’s pussy — he didn’t pay to give her pleasure, only to take his own. So he really was a man starved, not having tasted a cunt since he’d last brought Mary to orgasm with his tongue in Sussex a million years ago.

Not that he seemed out of practice. He easily recalled the way she liked his tongue to circle her clit, and when he slid his fingers inside her, he knew exactly where to go to find that inner sweet spot.

He showed no mercy to her, continuing his precise movements as she came, and only when she mumbled, “Stop… too much…” did he pull away, grinning victoriously with a face covered in her juices.

“I could stay buried in there all day,” he said as he wiped his face on the back of his hand. “I’d gladly die suffocating between your thighs.”

“Mmm, well, I think it’s time you put something else between my thighs, don’t you agree?”

Mary shuffled up the bed as if to prove her point, laying her head against the pillow as she spread her legs for him.

“Oh, someone’s grown bold,” Elliott purred. He gladly climbed on top of her, rubbing his cock between her legs to spread her slick along it. “All that time I spent trying to get you out of your shell, and all I had to do was marry you.”

“I spent over a year without you, El. I thought I’d never see you again. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

Elliott leant over her, their torsos pressed together, though he tried not to put too much weight on her belly. He kissed her neck and nibbled on her earlobe, then muttered in her ear, “Tell me what you want, Mary. I’m yours to command.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders, desperately trying to pull him close.

“Fuck me, Elliott.”

There was no way he could resist that.

He lined himself up with her entrance and pushed, and her cunt gladly let him in. It gave him all the wetness he needed to move without resistance, and her walls easily acquiesced to him, stretching around his cock as he moved deeper inside her.

Mary had never felt the pull of any drug, but she suspected that the first hit of an addict’s substance after a long time without it felt something like this. Like she’d been missing something, and finally she was whole again.

Pregnancy made her cunt more sensitive, she’d learnt this last time, and so she felt every inch of her stretching around him, every nerve on fire as his cock filled her up so perfectly. And when he began to thrust, Mary felt like she might just die of pleasure as his cock dragged along her walls and pushed against that sweet spot inside her.

“More, Elliott, please,” Mary begged, desperate with frustration at his slow pace. “I can take it. I won’t break, I promise.”

He chuckled, and looked at her with his amber eyes darkened with lust.

“Anything you wish, my love.”

Mary clung to Elliott as he fucked her harder, his hips pummelling into hers as if trying to make up for lost time. The bed began to creak — Elliott had had this bed for a long time, and he’d never known it to creak. He’d taken plenty of whores here, his first wife too, and none of them had ever made the bed creak. Maybe it was getting old. Or maybe he just hadn’t ever desired someone as much as he did Mary.

The creaking of the bed was matched only by their moans. Mary was sure she’d never heard a sound so beautiful, so arousing, as the noises Elliott was making right now.

“Elliott…” Mary panted between moans. “Elliott, I love you.”

He grinned, full of pride. “Of course you do. I love you too, Mary. I love you so - fucking - much. Fuck! Mary… Mary, I’m afraid I won’t - ah! - last long.”

“Fill me up, El,” she begged. “Please, El, please, I wanna feel it inside me…”

“Oh, I’ll fill you up. Gonna fucking - mhm - fill you up with my cum. ‘Til you’re leaking. You want that, huh? You wanna be full of my cum?”

“Yes, yes, please, Elliott, I need it, need to be full of you…”

“Say it,” he commanded, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Say you want my cum, Mary.”

“I want your cum, Elliott, please, I need it, need your cum…”

He exploded with a roar of pleasure, his cries loud enough to be heard back in Perth, and Mary felt his cock pulsing inside her as, just as he promised, he filled her cunt up with his seed.

He’d barely finished when he was kissing her again, his tongue demanding entrance, as if he needed to follow his cock fucking her cunt with his tongue fucking her mouth.

His cock was softening inside her, but it was only a temporary reprieve. Elliott knew he had more in him. Oh, he’d fill her up alright. Again and again until his balls were expended and he had nothing more to give.

They finally parted for breath, and Elliott propped himself up on his elbows, gazing down at her with a possessive pride.

“I hope you don’t think that was all I have for you,” he purred. “You wanted my cum, you’re gonna get it.”

Before Mary could answer, Elliott pulled out of her and shuffled down the bed to position his head between her legs again. He used his fingers to push apart her lips, gazing with pride at the way his seed was leaking out of her.

“This is what this cunt was made for. Being stuffed full of cum. Fuck, you take it so well, Mary. Better keep it all inside, though, hm?”

He used his fingers to scoop up the cum that had leaked out and pushed it back inside.

“Gotta keep it all in there,” Elliott said, as if he needed a reason to push his fingers up inside her. “Mmm, such an obedient cunt… it deserves a reward, no?”

He pressed his lips against her clit, which was still swollen and sensitive, and Mary moaned his name as he licked her again, his fingers fucking her cunt as fiercely as his cock had.

He could feel it twitching to life again against the mattress, but Elliott ignored it. He was enjoying this, savouring every moment of his wife’s pussy against his face. Besides, the way she was gripping his head now, her fingers tugging on his hair, he couldn’t have moved away even if he wanted to.

To his surprise, just when he thought she was about to reach her peak again, Mary pulled his head back, and he looked up at her.

“Lie on your back,” she said.

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Elliott moved over to lie on the other side of the bed, his cock fully awake again now, and Mary took full advantage of it. She swung her leg over his waist, took his cock in her hand, and sank onto it with ease.

“Oh, Mary,” Elliott groaned. The short time they’d had together, she’d never done this. Never taken control — never owned her pleasure. She was too shy, too eager to please. She had no idea how to do anything for herself, only for others.

And she rode like an expert. She’d definitely had practice — it seemed Turpin had been good for something, at least.

Lord, she was beautiful like this. Her belly round with child, her tits swollen with milk. She was already pregnant, she had no need to take his seed. No, she was taking it because she wanted it. She was riding him for the pleasure of it, for the intimacy, for the sheer decadence of bringing herself to orgasm. And when that orgasm began to build, Elliott grabbed hold of her hips and took over thrusting, letting her lose control of her body as she came around his cock, her tight walls squeezing him. He had no choice but to follow suit, another round of seed exploding inside her as they both cried out, Mary’s cunt milking his cock for all he had left.

She collapsed, exhausted, on top of him, and Elliott gently rolled her to her side, ever wary of her belly.

They laid there together in silence for a little while, Mary comfortably snuggled up in Elliott’s arms, as they both caught their breath.

“When you said you wanted to learn to ride, I thought you meant a horse,” Elliott murmured eventually. “But I think I like this better.”

Mary giggled and looked up at him. “Well, I definitely didn’t sail halfway around the world to ride a horse. There are plenty of them in England.”

“Plenty of men, too. And I’m sure they’d happily let you ride them.”

“Mmm, but none of them are you.”

Elliott smiled at her.

“I’m so proud of you, Mary. I know how difficult it is for you to do anything for yourself. And yet, here you are, following your heart half a world away.”

Mary shook her head. “No, I - I didn’t do it for me. I did it for Tommy, so he could have a better life, away from the class system that keeps him from achieving so much. I did it for Billy, so he could know his real father, and for the baby, so he can live without ever having known the struggles Tommy and I faced.”

“You don’t have to justify yourself, Mary. Not to me, never to me. Yes, I swear it, your sons - our sons - they will have a better life here. But if it weren’t for them - if you were all alone, with no home and no family in England, just your late husband’s inheritance - would you not have come anyway?”

“I - I guess,” Mary admitted. “If there was truly no reason to stay in England, and I knew you were out here… I suppose, yes, I would have come to find you.”

“Then I am truly honoured to be the first thing you ever chose for yourself.”

Mary blushed. Elliott tucked her hair behind her ear, and kissed her on the forehead, before letting her settle back against his chest.

“I think you might be my soulmate,” she whispered.

Elliott thought back to the day they met, the way she instantly felt so familiar to him, so comfortable. Like home was within her… as if the homesickness he thought he felt for Australia had been for her all along.

He remembered the day he’d decided to visit England. Nothing in particular had triggered it. It was something he’d wanted to do, but the timing had never felt right — until it did. As if fate itself had whispered in his ear: She’s waiting for you. Go and get her.

Mary giggled at something, interrupting Elliott’s train of thought.

“You know, we only met because you were pickpocketed,” she said, looking up at him with amusement. “If you hadn’t been in the right place, at the right time, you may never have walked into the shop. Isn’t it lucky you were?”

“I don’t think it was luck, Mary… I believe it was fate.”

“Do you think we find each other in every life?”

Elliott cupped her face with his hand and looked deep into her eyes, as if trying to communicate with her very soul.

“Mary Taylor-Turpin-Marston —”

She giggled at the silly name.

“— with God as my witness, I promise you this. Whatever happens in the next life… I’ll find you. I will always find you.”

Mary grinned.

“Not if I find you first.”