#seriously. I like to think of it as a miasma

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Hopfully comprehensive list about things in Zelda 2 that might be important for folks doing fan stuff for the game but don‘t wanna play it for expected reasons cuz tbf, yea the game is hard!

(because if I read "8bitrule is a deadly wasteland" one more time I‘ll delete my save file and go join the Yiga Clan XD /lh)

It got VERY long so I sorted into different categories for some semblance of order lmao. It goes:

Backstory

Plot

General info on Hyrule

Towns

General info on Link (+ move set)

Spells

Items

Collectibles

And other funky stuff

Hopefully this will be of help/interest to someone. And if not, oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not enough Zelda 2 stuff out there anyways, so more is always good!

I do like talking about this game so for extra info pls feel free to ask :3

Backstory:

2 Zeldas, the new Zelda is actually a great-great-smth aunt of Zelda 1, and the reason it‘s called "the Legend of Zelda“

Long ago, her bro (and his wizard buddy) pressured her into telling them the secrets of the Triforce she got from their dead dad. Zelda didn‘t tattle, wizard buddy tried to strike her down via spell in anger

Spell went out of control, put Zelda into eternal sleep and killed wizard buddy in one swoop

Prince lost sis and buddy, fell into remorse, locked her in a tower Sleeping-beauty style in hopes the spell would be reversed one day and decreed every princess shall be named Zelda from now on

Plot:

16 old Link chillin his life when a triangle starts glowing on his hand?? Asks Impa for help, she brings her to the magically sealed door where Zelda the First sleeps, cue Backstory

gives him crystals he needs to put in statues in palaces to unlock a seal on the temple that holds the Triforce of Courage (because he did not have that before)

All the bosses are guardians of the statues + Dark Link is his actual shadow that he fights against to prove his heart is pure enough to hold it

It was brought to life by some old guy hanging out there (never explained but he’s probs supposed to be a sage and looks a lot like the Old Man from Zelda 1, though much like all Wise Men in this game do)

Ganon has literally nothing to do with any of that, his monsters just really want Link dead so they can sprinkle his blood on Ganon‘s ashes and bring him back. (Since they need him dead, it probs needs a lot of blood)

Hyrule:

different areas : fields, woods, beaches, caves, swamps, mountains, deserts, graveyards, and one Lake Hylia

2 continents divided by sea, west and east + a small island that is one big labyrinth (named maze island)

different towns, all of them have the names of Oot sages plus Harbor Town Mido and Kazuto Town

the locations/"elements“ of towns do not match their future sages in the slightest (Saria gets water. Ruto‘s in a valley. Nabooru‘s by the sea, fully green and far away from the desert sands).

towns in West Hyrule are well connected via roads

East Hyrule has broken roads (if at all) and Kazuto is even completely ransacked by monsters

there‘s a new Kazuto Town hidden in some woods, while Old Kazuto is an actual Ghost town

Stonehedge is not only a thing but appears in multiple locations

Big Fairies are a thing, but they come without Water Fountains. Instead just hang out in the woods, stonehedge, wherever

streets are always safe. You will never see a monster as long as you stay on it. If you stray, monsters will spawn (though sometimes its fairies instead). If you run back on the street and a monster gets you there, the "battle“ will be empty and you can just walk out. Streets are always safe.

the main graveyard got the King‘s Tomb in the middle of it; has a secret tunnel to one of the palaces

there‘s a smaller graveyard near Death Mountain by Spectacle Rock that‘s apparently supposed to be the Zelda 1 graveyard -> Zelda 1 played in a small part of West Hyrule

third graveyard near The Valley of Death (name is accurate gameplay wise too ._.)

Towns:

very lively communities

different styles of houses, some have bushes, fountains (with drinkable water), different sections separated by gates, etc.

you have to climb on roofs and jump through windows to get into some buildings

Link can get multiple things here: free healthcare from a lady in red, filled up magic from an old lady in orange, a side quest that usually leads to either a new sword skill or magic spell. Those can always be obtained from a knight/wizard in the basement of the main building.

pretty much all villagers can be talked with and either give: generic Hi‘s, vague hints about the next goal, the sidequest, some praise him as the hero and wish him luck

Sometimes they also turn out to be Aches (monsters that look identical to villagers until you talk to them, upon which they turn into bats and attack); pretty much exclusive to the later/Eastrule towns

Link:

16y old and left his equipment at home, only got a sword and shield

Zelda 1 was years ago for him

learned to wear pants between Zelda 1 and 2 (they‘re brown, same color as his shirt. You could make it a onesie if you want to)

hair color‘s somewhere between brown and ginger

Left handed gang

certified recorder player

silly goober

given that Impa got to him so fast, good chance he‘s at the castle often enough

if botw Link is a parry god, he‘s a blocking god

shield is only small enough to cover half his body, hence him learning how to move it at hyperspeed

unnamed sword but the Magic/White Sword from Zelda 1 is on the cover so it’s most likely that one

gains new equipment throughout the game via dungeons

can gain exp and level up, but unless you specifically set him up pre/during his quest, you wanna treat this lad like he‘s maxed out

skills: stab, crouch stab, up jab (like the one from smash), jump/down jab (also like the one from smash, this is where it‘s from)

Spells:

Shield (turns his tunic red and up‘s defense),

Jump (lets him jump high),

Life (restores 3 blocks of HP; your max possible HP is 8 with all Heart Containers. Doesn‘t start out the most expensive, but unlike most other spells barely gets cheaper with higher magic levels, making it the 2nd most expensive in the log run.)

Fairy (turns him into a fairy; small, no fighting but flying, and lets you skip through locked doors! 3rd most expensive.)

Fire (shoot fire from your sword; some enemies can only be defeated this way)

Reflect (reflects magic attacks, lets you block spells that would otherwise go past your shields; basically magic defense)

Spell (turns some enemies into slime + unlocks a secret area in New Kazuto)

Thunder (rains thunder on the whole screen; needed to defeat a boss. Most expensive spell in the game, regardless of magic level.)

the other spells are all dirt cheap in higher levels

if you wanna be real detailed: one magic meter block = 16 MP, totalling for 128 with a maxed meter. A fully leveled (in mp) Link will use 60mp for Thunder, 50 for hp, 40 for fairy, 8 for Jump and 16 for all others. Otherwise, here‘s a table for MP usage across levels.

Items:

Candle: equivalent of the magic lantern, infinite light source. Unlike Zelda 1, this one doesn‘t let you commit property damage :(

Hammer: breaks giant boulders on the road, letting you access shortcuts. Also lets you cut down any tree tiles on the overworld, turning it into fields- Property damage is back baby!

Handy Glove: Lets Link crush blocks with his sword. Even more destruction and a good compromise for the lack of vases imo.

Raft: used to cross from West to East Hyrule.

boots: let you straight up walk on water, but only in certain places.

Whistle/Flute: is actually a recorder (flutes are held sideways, recorders forward. That‘s like. The biggest difference between these two instruments, bar the reputation.) Used to make a monster blocking the road disappear and summon a palace, similar to how you shrink a boss and drain a lake in Zelda 1. Doesn‘t let you teleport though. Does play the same tune, though. It‘s the one also heard in the oot intro!

magic key: the key to end all keys, lets you open all the doors in every dungeon forever (despite the name does not need MP)

Cross: regarless of what some more zealous fans of the series claim as a means to justify their unjustified bigotry, Christianity is not canon to the series. But much like other Japanese media, it sure likes borrowing from its aesthetics! Case in point, this item is just the Kirbo meme. It lets you see invisible ghosts so you can kick their ass. (you don‘t need it to hit them, but they‘re a pain to dodge/ hit even with it.).

Collectibles:

magic jar: same as ever. Blue fills 1 mp block, red fills all. Doesn‘t fill instantly, so if your meter’s got points left you can wait till its half full, use a high mp spell, and still get the rest of the points that‘d otherwise go to waste. Dungeons sometimes contain statues, which drop one jar (or start attacking you).

treasure bag: holds exp (money doesn‘t exist in this game)

key

doll: weird but surprisingly cute doll that looks exactly like a miniature version of Link and gives you an extra life. (The game has lives- if you get a game over, Ganon gets resurrected on screen.)

Bowl of Hearts: Looks, acts like, is a Heart Container. Gives you 1 block of HP; you start with 4, for a max of 8. Can be found wherever Heart Containers would be.

Magic Container: Looks like a filled jar; Heart Container but for MP.

Other funky stuff:

you rescue a kid that got lost in caves

has instances of Link talking in 1st person; one appears by looking under a stranger’s table in a house: "I found a mirror under the table“.

Everyone knows the man the myth the legend, the npc named "Error“, but there’s actually a 2nd guy named "Bagu“. As in, Bug. Game bug.

Bro has a pet Bot (this games‘ version of Chus) sleeping in his house. You can annoy it into waking up and it‘ll tell you where he is so you‘ll finally leave

the waters are NOT poisonous in the slightest (seriously, where did that come from) …but they are infested with jumping Piranhas.

Saria Town only lets people use the bridge connecting the 2 sides of the river if you‘re a citizen or get a permit from Bagu. Vaguely remember you could also take a long road around it tho

With 9.5 towns, a lot of greenery everywhere, and ACTUAL. FUNCTIONAL. ROADS :O This might be one of the most well-off Hyrules in the series (ironically >v<)

Aaaand *looks at length of this post^ ok yea that is enough lmao, I might genuinely hit the word limit here, oof. I‘m a rare Zelda 2 enjoyer can yall tell XD

[ganondoodle]

totk cataclysm event wasnt just a great (but utterly missed) opportunity to change the map in techincally little ways that has drastic consequences both in stakes and in gameplay (like i mentioned before, flooding the gerudo desert would have meant devastating consequences for its ecosystem- like imagine little islands of sand still poking out, acting as a sort of last doomed refuge for sandseals- but also cahnged the entire gameplay of it, good chance to introduce some neat new ways to surf on water like a new ridable creature or an ice shield freezing a path while you surf on it, the gerudo being forced to save the city from drowing in various means or now living on the roofs, trying to adapt by building boats ect - also call back to older games?? since totk loves that so much ..-, vah naboris serving as the savest refuge being high above the water, even if non functional; similarly takign away ALL water from the zora region, gaving it all dry out would imemdiately turn into something way different and could mean death for the zora- forcing them to move to the lower parts of akkala for example- maybe vah ruta is still halfway functioning bc the faith the zora have to mipha, dorephan and sidon is, while not enough to keep it fully functional, but enough to generate some water so the most stubborn or brave zora set up around it like a last oasis; i know its somewhat done with death mountain but the gorons dont really suffer from it bc their only problem is a drugged rock that makes them mean and lazy ..- what about collapsing or exploding it, leaving a large crater that over the course of the game could start to grow with plant life since vulcanic earth is so fertile- some never seen before ones that was dormant in the lava and now that its cooled off is springing to life, which might seem good at first but for the area and its wildlife means loss of their habitat; the rito freezing over, but actually having to move, maybe into the tabantha canyon, building their new makeshift homes in between the walls of it- generally just switiching things around a bit would have done so much wihtout having to edit every last detail ((seriously tho, how did this game take so long given that botw took similar but they did that ENTIRE main map as detailed as it is AND made it all coherent with itself and its themes- im ranting again ..)

-but it ALSO would have been the perfect opportunity to introduce new weather types created by the sudden change in environment, somethign like a super strong wind that slows you when walking agaisnt and lets you jump much farther when with it- a darkness thing that clouds the world in utter darkness with only little light getting through anything that is caused by mushrooms from the udnerground invading the surface and their spores snuffs out all light (which could explain the weird darkness in the ruins from botw too!!), or just simply mist! making everything misty changes the entire feel of any environment drastically- you could make vertain enemies spawn only in certain weather conditions, lessening the repetive overuse of them; and that is only on the surface- what if the sky had sunbeams so strong it sets anything on fire if you dare to leave the shadows- to comabt it get a armor with a giant hat!! the underground could have been filled with different environments in the first place, but then of course thered be those dark spores of mushrooms, an entire forest you have to carefully travers other wise making them release their spores and make it all more difficult, glowy mushrooms, MORE glowy mushroms, theres so many weird ass shrooms IRL you could take inspo from!! maybe soemthing like a forest of kelp, long flowy plants obstructing view and making you anxious by any movement- there could be one thats a mimic or infected with miasma, slightly off color and its knobs are malice eyes that open only if it thinks you cant see it

(also for the idea of taking botws stuff and recontextualizing it, the guardians or shrines, now non fucntional, could be infected my miasma sometimes, maybe randomly to keep you guessing- an overgrown shrine suddenly lifting itself up with hands clawing at you when you get too close or do sth wrong to distrub it- similar with guardians tho the effect might be less since you know them as a threat already- or sth i mentioned in another post, a tower being used as a weapon by a gigatic miasma monster- the one in the gerudo region with the bottomless pit for example, perfect for an arena for you to run around in the spiral while its swinging at you etc etc)

JUST taking what botw had and mixing it up, expanding on it, even if technically little change, it could do so much but in the actual game death mountain and rito is the only ones that saw anything of a change like it, and it largely .. didnt change anything or was reversible easily, and had no actual consquences that meant anything, neither stakes nor environmental or narratively (the gerudo felt like it at first but its also largely reversible, its just kinda .. adding a bit of city)

i hhhhhhhhhhhhhh have so many thoughts still, i am just better at holding them back .... also dont wanna annoy lmao

[queer-ragnelle]

Why do you hate the Once and Future Knight? I decided not to pick up the book because of personal preference but I’d love to hear your rant on it

Hi anon!

I’m assuming you mean The Once and Future King by TH White?

There’s nothing I could say that hasn’t already been said before I’m sure. But I didn’t read the series until I had already read many other Arthurian tales and I really don’t understand the love the series gets. The negatives don’t outweigh the positives, and worse, the lasting impact of TH White’s characterization choices on subsequent retellings is a stain on the literary tradition that set us back too far to comprehend. Putting my rant below a cut because I went off and the subject matter is disgusting.

First and foremost, the bigotry is astounding. The racism, the misogyny, the ableism and every other prejudice and cruelty you can think of are staggering in their variety and magnitude. It’s vile. It’s inexcusable. I don’t read modern Arthurian retellings to be bombarded with that in every single chapter. TOAFK is not “a product of its time.” It’s a product of a deeply unhappy and hateful man. Plenty of earlier writing is vastly kinder to Palomides and Guinevere and Morgause and Mordred and Lancelot or any other character unlucky enough to be depicted by TH White. Literally the Medieval source material is more nuanced than that. Morgause get behind me.

Secondly, the anachronism is an annoying stylistic choice at best and yet another tool for bigotry at worst. Why are Mordred and Agravaine likened to Nazis? Like seriously what the hell? It’s not enough for them to be antagonists, the text has to invoke the Holocaust? It’s so extreme it rips the reader right out of the story and calls to mind the most horrific parts of history for no narrative benefit whatsoever. Baffling and bad.

Thirdly, the prose just kinda sucks. It’s rambling and TH White will pause the narrative to stand on a soap box to talk at the reader about his views. He’s anti-war. Fine. But of all characters to use as a mouthpiece—King Arthur? The warlord King Arthur? Make it make sense.

Fourth, most tragically of all, so much of what TH White did in his series is reflected in stories told to this day. Every other retelling has a cover quote comparing it to TOAFK. (It’s supposed to be a compliment!) To put it in perspective…

You ever read a retelling with evil neglectful parent and rapist Morgause/Morgan? TH White’s fault.

How about added incest between one of the Orkney bros and their mother (which sometimes results in someone other than Gaheris killing her, say, Agravaine or Mordred)? Thanks, TH White, that’s just what Arthurian Legend was missing, more incest.

Ever see disabled, crippled, bad seed Mordred? TH White started that trend.

What about Guinevere assaulting Lancelot when she learns about Elaine getting him drunk and raping him? TH White really said “Lol what if Guinevere hits Lancelot and spits in his face while he’s crying?”

And the racism! TH White walked so Thomas Berger could run (derogatory). Discussions of race are so intense and so frequent and so random like one minute the narrator has paused the plot to talk about how war is bad and now it’s slandering Native Americans? Brother this is Medieval England what is even happening right now? Oh, look, another N bomb. The antisemitism! Weren’t you just comparing Mordred to Hitler? What do you mean the Orcadian/Scottish characters are evil because of *checks notes* “the incalculable miasma which is the leading feature of the Gaelic brain?” [Queen of Air and Darkness chapter 5] Thanks TH White for stripping Lot, Morgause, Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred of all nuance, a condition from which they have, literally, never recovered. Of course there are some retellings since that write one or two of them with a crumb of nuance, but they’ll never be like they were in the Vulgate. Not all at the same time. I feel sick.

It goes on and on. I have to stop listing examples or I’ll get pissed off. But frankly, more people should be pissed off about it! I’m tired of seeing five star reviews on storygraph and goodreads accompanied by a review excusing the most bigoted garbage I have ever read in a children’s book. It’s vile and everyone should feel bad about defending it. It’s inexcusable. This wasn’t a case of good-intentioned inclusion with dated language, this was an author going out of his way to be hateful. Period.

Big names in the fantasy book community like Daniel Greene should not be awarding five stars and leaving an uncritical review.

Far too many readers acknowledge the racism and then rate it five stars anyway. Go to Hell, Spencer.

Here’s some from storygraph with, of course, praise for Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s pedophilic power fantasy Mists of Avalon, another piece of hot festering sludge everyone should stop talking about. Kill the legacy already. The real life victims have suffered enough.

There also seems to be a trend in these reviews that excuse the texts bigotry by referring to how “old” it is. Which is crazy to me for many reasons. TOAFK in its final form was published in 1958. That wasn’t that long ago. Also racism has always been racism, misogyny has always been misogyny, ableism has ways been ableism. Plenty of authors came before this and really make TH White look like a clown.

Let’s promote them. In reverse!

John Steinbeck wrote The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights in 1956 (published posthumously in the 70s, don’t go by that date). His depictions of Morgan and Guinevere are nuanced and fascinating, not to mention some original characters including an old granny who teaches Owain to be a warrior! This book also has a morally gray sun-powered Gawain without insulting his heritage, an emotional and thought-provoking Lancelot without marking his sin with a facial deformity, and a really sweet Marhalt who doesn’t often get much spotlight!

John Erskine wrote Restoring Palamede in 1932. He does exactly what the cover says, and writes a story about the Muslim knight Palomides beginning in his own country, living with his parents whom are both named, and follows him as he learns the ways of the world and finds an ally in his friend Brangaine! Tristan and Isolde are compelling here and while Tristan can still be a jerk to Palomides, it’s not the mask-off bigotry we’ve seen…elsewhere.

Howard Pyle wrote one, two, three, four books between 1903-1910. Two thumbs up from me. No notes. He drank his respect women juice, drew them with loving care, named so many previously unknown, and gave them voices. He was kind in his portrayal to Palomides and even some other knights of color from India. Morgause survives the narrative! We love to see it!!!

Henry Newbolt wrote Mordred: A Tragedy in 1895. A fascinating examination of family ties, all five Orkney brothers here AND their wives Lyonors, Lynette, and Laurel! (Minus Ragnelle bc life is unfair.) Guinevere and Lancelot are tragic and heart wrenching. Arthur struggles against his son Mordred and their destiny in a way that doesn’t outright demonize either side. It will rewire your brain.

Richard Hovey wrote his poetry between 1891-1900. A complex and interesting Guinevere and Elaine who are not enemies, Lancelot close with Galehaut during the war, destroyed by his torn loyalties between Arthur and Guinevere, Gawain who loves his friend Lancelot with all his heart, and so much more without tearing anyone down!

Oscar Fay Adams wrote his poetry between 1886-1906. Here we get a wide variety of character focus, with title-featured names from King Lot to Dagonet to Lamorak to Lionel. Each one is more fascinating and nuanced and fresh than the last, from a tour of Lot’s castle and meeting each inhabitant to Lamorak on Grail Quest learning to forgive himself from “sweet” Sagramore.

William Morris wrote his poetry between 1856-1910. All of it is on the Camelot Project but I also have this scanned book. Here we delve into Guinevere’s trial as she calls out those who have wronged her, lonely Galahad on Grail Quest relating to his father Lancelot and praising Palomides in his steadfast hunt of the Questing Beast, there’s even a poem named for Palomides himself!!!

Anonymous wrote Moriaen in the 13th century. It follows Aglovale’s illegitimate son Moriaen, who is of African descent. As he travels around Britain looking for his father, Moriaen meets many people who are afraid of his dark skin. BUT! All the Knights of the Round Table leap to his defense, even threatening townsfolk who try to demonize Moriaen for the way he looks and refuse him service. It is, essentially, an anti-racism story from the Medieval era. Not to mention healer Gawain’s care and attention given to the sick and disabled. That’s not even the moral/focus of the story so much as Moriaen’s journey, but it’s there and worth mentioning.

So here we are with a whole list of stuff to read that predates TOAFK and surpasses it. The last one is only sort of a joke. But it’s there to make a point about how inexcusable TH White’s racism really is. If Anonymous could give a black knight like Moriaen the narrative respect he’s entitled to for existing as a representation of real human beings that look like him, then TH White was capable of it too. Progress is not linear. This is not to say Medieval times were “better” than society today. But to write off any problematic story of the recent past as “a product of its time” as an excuse to make oneself feel better about liking it, well, I don’t know what to say. Maybe reflect on that. And while that marinates, read something else.

[convoloutedinjoke]

Rating Disco Elysium characters based on how funny I think their kinks have the potential to be

Harry: the DSM of getting off on things. He likes piss he likes feet he likes the idea of being soooo small and tiny you could step on him like a bug, and while none of these things are funny on their own they are when he does them on account of his being a clown. He would also fuck a clown, incidentally. 8/10, knocking two points off because this lacks the element of surprise.

Kim: Leather and uniform fetishist. No wise guy shenanigans here. Will fuck you serious will fuck you professional. His strap is extremely normal, his daddy/boy dynamics are not a laughing matter. 4/10 because he wants to have relations with his car and is embarrassed about it

Jean: No idea what gets him off but he genuinely believes whatever it is means he’s evil and weird, making him the proud owner of The Worlds Funniest Kinks. 9/10, steals mustard from the homeless without remorse but has a moral crisis every time he cums while fantasising about getting gangbanged in a holding cell. Sad!

Trant: not funny. too passionately open about the things hes into. if you tried to make light of his trampling fetish, he would recite the wikipedia entry on cock and ball torture to you from memory and look delighted to be sharing his interests with you the whole time. 3/10

Klaasje: not funny to most on account of being conventionally attractive and good at billing her sexual encounters as suffused with romantic, literary ennui but it SHOULD be funny to be such a Lana Del Rey motherfucker in the sheets so I’m pulling rank and saying 7/10

Joyce: cringefail class dynamics fantasies. Bodice rippers and the opposite of CEO erotica feature heavily here. This wouldn’t be funny if not for the fact she literally owns a yacht. Also wants to get stabbed a little bit. 5/10, probably read the elysium version of lady chatterlys lover as a teen and still jerks off about it.

Garte: a normal man if there ever was one. has kinks but they aren't funny. wears a bra sometimes and it looks cute. 1/10 probably fun to hook up with and a decent communicator

The Deserter: given the 5 decades of loneliness, im willing to bet his brain has rewired itself into having some interesting potentially bug-related reward pathways but whatever he's got going on is too sad to laugh about. 0/10 :(

Sunday Friend: his kinks would be funny on anyone else, but he’s very very very boring. 2/10, you can pay a twink to do raceplay with you, but it wont dispel the grey miasma of being a mid tier government employee

evrart: I don’t know honestly, the lying and manipulating and petty power plays scrambled my brain despite the rube-Goldbergian elements of all his little tasks. Maybe he’d do predicament bondage? Uh. 3/10. Id let him hit, but he also has kind of a Wallace n Grommit thing going on so I can’t say 0

Steban: big on role playing but isn’t very good at it. Starts giggling halfway through when it becomes apparent how silly the fake muttonchops are. 4/10, less funny than it could be because he has a sense of humour about it

Ulixes: probably has a guro thing but also hasn’t had sex since he started focusing on reading theory and feints at the sight of real blood. This should be less funny than pretending to be Kras Mazov in bed, but he takes himself extremely seriously. 6/10 until he starts getting laid again, then still 6/10 but for other reasons

Gary: cuck chair. 10/10. I am not elaborating because I’m tired now, but someone else made a convincing post at one point

[quirkwizard]

Give us the Enji rant, spell boy.

For the sake of context, this is a rant about how people interpret Enji as a character that I alluded to a while back. I understand that this is one of those hot button topics in the fanbase. All that I ask is that you hear me out.

The big issue about discussing Enji as a character is always going to be this miasma that surrounds him. It's hard to analyze him without his abuse hanging over it. Not in how it reflects or affects himself or others around him, but more in how all discussion begins and ends with it. It's to the point that I have to make it clear that I don't support or condone Endeavor. He's a pretty obviously terrible person, and the manga is very clear about it. However, fandoms have been able to ignore terrible things characters have done for analysis sake or even try to soften or redeem them in their own way. I don't even have to use outside media as an example. Tomura unapologetically killed untold thousands of people and threw an entire county into chaos, and fans were still wanted him to be redeemed. So why not Enji? I could bring up any number of reasons. Anything from how he's presented at the beginning of his series to having his actions affect fandom darlings like Shoto and Dabi to something like familial abuse being a lot more personal to more people. Seriously, it makes me wonder if instead Endeavor had just straight up killed some random villain and if that would be easier to forgive in people's eyes.

However, a lot of that is reductive and isn't getting at the heart of the issue. I think it comes down to fans simplifying or misinterpreting a lot about Enji as a character, especially in relation to his arc. And I'm not saying this in the sense of "these people are wrong and don't understand the story". It's just that miasama suffocates his story, to the point where it paints everything he does and how characters act around him in the eyes of the fans. Like how people just assume the worst about Enji at every point. Things like how he's racist, misogynistic, or has done things so bad that I hesitate to even allude to them. And it's something that distorts what his arc is. I do not think the story is saying to forgive your abusers. Because to me, Enji's story was never about forgiveness but atonement. Enji is trying to do right for his family and change who he is as a person. Whether or not people accept that is up to them. And when forgiveness is brought up, it's never about forgiveness for the sake of forgiveness. That people like Shoto aren't letting go to reconcile with Enji. They're doing it so they can move on with their lives. And I just want to be able to say stuff like that without being called an abuse apologist.

[cyphyra]

i think my only big critique of TotK is just the choice of translation for certain words in english

like... seriously... "gloom"? "secret stones"?? two of the most important/widely used names for things over the course in the game, and they're really unassuming

apparently the literal translation for the word they use for gloom in JP is "miasma," which is LEAGUES more imposing than "gloom"

as for "secret stone" they literally could've called them anything that made them sound more important-- magatama (what they're literally based on), zonai keystones, hell, even "sage's stone" would've been more important-sounding

[kairiscorner]

olivia rodrigo my lodi 🫂

seeing him tonight... it's a bad idea, right? – miguel o'hara x reader (heavy angst)

content warnings! mentions of toxic relationships. please don't read below the cut if you are uncomfortable with these topics ^^

“why can't you leave me the fuck alone?”

“and watch you mope about why we're not together anymore all pathetic like that? it's pathetic for sure, but it's just getting sad now.”

you sighed as you took a long drag from the cigarette you fumbled out of the packet and, with shaky hands, took it out of your mouth and puffed a big cloud of gray and white smoke. he chuckled as he watched the puff of smoke dissipate into the air, hearing you cough as the nicotine burned in your lungs. "you okay?" he asked you with what sounded as hints of concern in his voice as he snuck a cigarette from you and lit himself one, putting the stick in his mouth and quickly blowing the smoke out of his mouth. there was something so picturesque, ethereal, about the way he breathed in and out the smoke from the cig–like he was a still life painting, and beneath all those pretty layers on his barely covered up, tan body; the way those black, fluffy curls perched and hanging on the top of his head, down to touch his eyebrows in little hooks just mesmerized you. and it angered you so much that it did, when nothing about him should have any meaning left to you anymore.

you clenched your burning cigarette by its body and squeezed it into two. you blew the remaining smoke out from your nostrils, losing the urge to puff another smoke as you chucked your cigarette to the side and snuffed it out with the foot of your shoe, putting so much pressure on it that the ash spread apart and created a kind of arc-like shape in your stead. he watched as you walked off, sighing softly, the clacking of your heels following you. though you couldn't get away for long since he took your arm in his and pulled you closer to him as he exhaled another puffy cloud of smoke. "it's not a good look on you to be such a bitch, y'know? if you have a problem with me, just say it. we aren't together anymore, don't feel ashamed or any of that... sympathetic bullshit you're thinking of." he practically berated you with his shit ass condescending tone that made you wanna bash his face in.

how fucking dare he talk to you like that? speak for you, do exactly what he kept doing when you two were together—make all his choices your choices, his feelings as your feelings? it may be a far stretch, but hearing him disregard how either of you feel... it sucks ass, it always does. why does he not take you any more seriously after you broke up with him? "are you thinking that i'm supposed to want you back?" he asked you monotonously, breaking the silence as he looks at you with tired eyes. dark circles accentuated the shape of his hazel brown orbs. it didn't seem like this week was of any comfort to him, not when tonight marked the one-year anniversary when you two had broken up. you confronted him, in this very alley that led back to his place, and told him you couldn't take it anymore.

'i don't want this anymore. i'm done. leave me alone and let me live my life.'

and some hurtful words were exchanged that can never be taken back.

'and you think you had a life before me? i'm your everything. you can't... fucking... you can't leave me!'

and some promises were made, on top of the pile of the carcasses of many unfulfilled, unanswered promises and questions that lingered in the miasma of discomfort and willful blindness to what each other wanted back then, needed from each other back then.

'i don't need you to tell me what i can and can't do anymore.'

weaknesses were exposed, and strengths were diminished.

and the love... oh, was there even any love there?

you yanked yourself out of miguel's grasp and crinkled your eyebrows together, shoving your hands in your jacket's pockets, looking away from him as his gaze burns into the side of your head that's turned to him—not letting even a single strand of your hair or patch of your skin escape his exhausted gaze anymore. "i honestly couldn't give a shit about what you want." you blurted out, not leaving the spot you're standing at, despite all the signals in your body urging you to lift your feet up on the ground, kick up, and run away right now before anything else can happen. but you don't. you don't, because you know that there's something more complex than simply wanting miguel to go away in what you want.

but for the life of you, you can't figure even a glimpse or whiff of it out.

miguel sighed as he leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his wispy hair, more curly locks falling down on his forehead, touching his eyebrows. "right. figures." he muttered. "why the fuck do you have to be here?" you asked him with a gruff voice, cracking due to the smoke you inhaled. "i live around here." he reminds you all nonchalantly, pissing you off even more. "...i know that." "and yet, you came by here anyway." he pointed out. he was always a smart ass, giving unsolicited thoughts and opinions when no one needed them. you refused to respond to that and kicked at the snuffed out, squeezed up cigarette that was bent on the pavement.

"if you want to hurt me, go ahead. i know i did really bad shit to you, stuff you never deserved. go ahead, hurt me." he told you as he approached you, his voice becoming huskier and raspier as you heard him from up close. his voice always got like that after argumets, you just noticed now; the way his voice would soften, falter, like his voice would literally get on one knee and yield—let you have your way after him having his way time and time again. "i can't be good for you, and... i don't think i can ever be good for you, really." he said with a sigh as he dropped his cigarette and snuffed it out next to yours. the bent shape of your cigarettes seemed to form crude hearts, the two big curves of a cartoon heart were shaped out by the curved cigarettes you both snuffed the lights out of; snuffed these hearts' beings out of.

he nudged you gently with his elbow and showed you his hands, raising them up gently to show you he means no harm, no pain, no... nothing towards you. he genuinely wants you to do what you've always wanted to him, no matter what it is, he's come to accept it. "just do what you have to. please don't keep... oh, fuck it." he murmured as you kept your gaze down, away from him. you weren't used to this, you could never get used to this; miguel was never the first guy to shove words into your mouth and plant decisions in your mind for you, but he wasn't the worst. there have been countless times when your heart was used, borrowed, broken, stamped on, torn apart—but none of the people who hurt you ever even tried to make amends; it was never in their nature to give you love, it was only in their nature to propagate hurt, and you never knew why you had a soft spot for human garbage like that, less than human garbage.

though he was never perfect, there was some bit of you that felt a catharsis around miguel when things weren't as bad as they were before the breakup, when you really felt like all those bad days... they'd never happen again; the eye of the storm had passed, and a great, sunny day was upon you. but like all sunny mornings that soon became troublesome, fretful, and stormy nights—they never lasted. miguel's smile was warm, once; his embrace felt welcoming, once—but whenever you think of him... you can't help but hear the echoes of the voices in your head whenever he'd get affectionate towards you, intimate with you: 'his love won't last, don't even hope for it.'

you kept your distance, you liked him—you... you really liked him; more than you can ever imagine. he used to not be so overbearing, he used to not be so angry all the time and more patient, he kept understanding for you that you wanted space... but you were always, always on the brink of breaking, even when it was never his fault. and you still are—the worst part of it all, though? you're always on the verge of breaking because... you can't help but yearn for the past with the old him again.

"you some masochist or something?" you asked him with a deadly gaze as you finally glared up at him, seeing his dark eyes become a little swollen. the sobbing was inevitable for him, his soft spot for you was too sensitive, it was an exposed muscle, exposed nerve of his that made him less... furious, and more... protective, yet vulnerable. he sniffled back his tears and tried keeping his voice leveled. "you could say that." he answered simply as he rubbed at his eye, wiping a tear away before it streaked down his cheek, but you caught him—he always did that whenever you'd scream at him on those off days, even when he tried to help, but just can't help.

you tried not to feel bad, not to feel pity, not to... feel a little guilty that you might've hurt him, too, like he hurt you—but you can't ignore that gnawing feeling in your gut that grew the longer you were around him. constantly being reminded of yourself, of your misunderstood to even yourself's self... you can't help it anymore. "look, it's stupid, i know—it's... horrible of me to ask you to do this, when i don't even know if you want to, that was my problem, wasn't it? i protected you from stuff i didn't even know about, didn't know the slightest bit about? i was suffocating you?" "...yeah." you told him with the quiver of your lower lip, with you instantly bit back as hot tears streamed down your cheeks, your chin quaking as you stifled the sobs; but they could only be held in for so long.

"yeah, you did..." you muttered as, along with the coming rain drops, your tear drops joined the pattering rain—staining the pavement as your sobs and cries were released into the air, mixing with the sounds and roars of the thunder, as miguel silently listened to you now, as you exclaimed out how you really felt all this time to him. "is it my fault i'm so scared you'll leave me like everyone else? is it my fault for thinking nobody really cares about the me behind this face? behind this body? is it... is it my fault i don't want you to protect me from my own demons because, even i can't keep them at bay! is it my fault for thinking you'd... you'd hurt me, and that you... your love wasn't even that?" you choked out, hiccuping and sniffling all the while as you screamed your lungs out at miguel. he hesitantly extended his hands towards you, to reach out to you—but he doesn't touch you, he refuses to touch you unless you personally tell him to.

as your sobbing slowed and your breathing became ragged, miguel finally let out his side of things. "and is it my fault that i felt so... ashamed of myself for not being enough to help you?" he choked out, his eyes watering and his voice cracking. he looks at you, and he can't even bear with himself that you are here—you are finally hearing him say what he's always searched for the words to say, all this time. his lips quiver as he stutters, groaning in frustration at himself as he fumbles every time he tries to tell you the rest of it all. "...i thought that, by you... refusing my help, i... i was losing you. there, there, now you know. i was scared of losing you, like i lost everyone else that ever mattered to me. i didn't know what was wrong, i was... i was scared. but you... you can't see me scared, okay? because w-when i get scared, everything goes to shit. and i... i-i wanna relieve you, not hurt you—you were, are, and always will be... my everything." he confessed, the tears streaming down his cheeks as he breathed in laboriously and exhaled deeply, covering his eyes, remembering to himself that crying won't make you feel better—but it's not the crying you're focused on, it's what he said.

and in that heated moment, when the silver lining tearing the clouds asunder opened up in your eyes—amidst the pouring rain surrounding you two non-stop—you pull him in close... and give him your own reassurance through that kiss that was, in all ways and forms, a bad fucking idea.

you didn't want to break up, you never wanted an ex like him—you never wished he got all protective, but you both hurt each other; this'll never make it right, this kiss isn't an oath to be his or for him to be yours—it's not a declaration of your ambiguous feelings... it's what you felt you had to do, and it... it ceased the hurting for once, for a millisecond. it felt like everything was warm again, but you knew this was fleeting... you didn't know if you could take it as a long, perpetual thing. maybe someday, the answers will reveal themselves in time. but miguel's answer... was to place his palms underneath your jawline, and as the rain pattered against your faces—making it hard to tell where the rain began and where your tears ended—you two spoke a language that neither of you understood until much, much too late.

the problem is... will the message be enough to change anything?

tags !! @miguelswifey04 @hearts4gabri @hisachuu @wreakingmarveloushavok @fictarian @yuridopted0 @simsrandomstuff @luvstarrstruck @popeheywardssecretgf @meeom @arachnoia @melovetitties @fable-library @ophanimgold @smokeywhalee @capnshtfce

[alteon77]

Updated Masterlist of Writing and Art

About the writer/artist: I like to write and paint. My current obsession is Sandman, but I enjoy most fantasy fandoms as well as anime (I think I’m on season seven billion of One Piece right now 🤣). I'm also weird as they come (and awkward, too), so just please ignore my oddball (coughTERRIBLEcough) sense of humor.

On a more personal note, I have PTSD and suffer from severe manic depressive episodes. Writing and art are my most familiar coping mechanisms, and I need them like I need oxygen. Seriously, there were times in my life that knowing I had to finish a story or a piece of art was the only thing stopping me from ending up dead. So, I don't take part in fandom drama. Having my peace and protecting my mental health are very big deals to me, and I won't risk those for anything if I can help it.

As for my writing, it ranges from short one-shots to ridiculously long novel series. I use third person POV (on longer series) as well as second person (on shorter things). I also try to always exclude physical descriptions when writing main character OCs and assign them nicknames to avoid using Y/N. I love to read Y/N fics, but writing them makes me feel like I'm at work. And who actually wants to ever feel like they're at work when they're engaging in a hobby? Definitely not me.

Lastly, there's usually more stuff on my AO3 page than I have listed here, because I forget to post it pretty often. Oops. I'll get around to moving it all over one day. Probably. Maybe.

Feel free to leave an ask if you want or just drop by my DMs. <3

Artwork links are at the bottom of this list, so if you're here for those, that's where they are.

Sandman 'Verse

All the Precious and Fragile Things (so easily do they break)

After banishing his lover from the Dreaming for her betrayal, Morpheus learns that she is pregnant with his child.

And that she’s been captured by a revenge-seeking Alexander Burgess.

What the both of them are unaware of is that this will set in motion a cascade of unfavorable events, causing a chain reaction that threatens the whole of existence itself.

PART I: All of This Past

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

PART II: These Tender, Loving Mercies

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

PART III: When It All Falls Down

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

PART IV: The Dark of War

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Epilogue

Sometimes He's Sweet

Morpheus hates the holidays.

As excited as she seems to experience the mortal holiday, he's… less so. Much less so. With the entire collective unconscious contained within him, this time of year can be wholly overwhelming, a miasma of too much red and green, too much worry, too much loneliness, too much excitement, too many similarly themed dreams, too many similarly themed nightmares, and far far too many holiday songs. It all bleeds out from the collective unconscious into his own mind, sticks there like weeping sap to a tree until he feels half-mad with the unrelenting presence of it, with his inability to get free from its cloying trespass upon his very being.

This is just a little sweet fluff for the holiday season. It takes place between chapters 19 and 20 of "All the Precious and Fragile Things". No spoilers here if you've read that far!

The Dog Debacle (or how best to sneak a dragon into the dreaming)

Morpheus' daughter gets a new dog.

Well..... kind of.

That Familiar Feeling of Family (or how Hob Gadling ended up as an uncle to his stranger's oftentimes feral children)

It's a pretty universally known thing that families are just strange. As Hob is quickly figuring out, however, this little fact is magnified by AT LEAST a billion when the family in question is Endless.

(A lighthearted story in which Hob Gadling finds out his stranger has married, makes friends with a homicidal maniac/ruler, and manages to become an exemplary uncle to a pack of magically mischievous children. Really, now all he has to do is convince everyone to stop calling his and Dream's weekly meetups "playdates", and then his life would be practically perfect.)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

The Maker, the Muse, and the Sundered Song

In his temple, what remains of Orpheus waits in trepidation. Something is changing. Something that he knows might alter the very fabric of the world as he understands it.

Finally freed from captivity, Calliope struggles to make any meaningful changes to the laws that saw her bound and taken in the first place. When the strange woman appears on Mount Parnassus and offers help, Calliope knows she would be a fool not to accept it. Even if she thinks that she's being lied to.

Meanwhile in the peace of the Dreaming, Morpheus grapples with guilt over his son's fate. As he basks in the love of his new children, he can't help but to regret his own failings where Orpheus is concerned.

And as for May, she's really just got a job to do. And her own traumatic issues to deal with. And if it's all hella awkward because she's having to work alongside her husband's ex-wife, she'll see it done anyway. There's even the small possibility that she might eventually admit to Calliope the truth about her identity. That is if she can ever actually work up the courage to say it aloud.

Chapter 1

Nothing in This Closet but Boots and a Boy

Morpheus is wildly protective of his daughter.

That's probably bad for the boy in said daughter's closet.

AU's and Other Stuff in the Sandman 'Verse

Of Exes, Hellhounds, and Waffle Fries

Morpheus shows up to rescue the woman he probably loves (though he won't admit it) from hellhounds and ends up getting roped into helping with her family. This is one of those extras that doesn't fit into the main story, but it's fun, so I'm posting it.

The Bizarre Breeding Habits of Anthropomorphic Personifications

It's a tale as old as time.

Two idiots fall in love. Two idiots fall out of love.

Neither one of them is expecting a baby to come along and derail their unhappily ever after.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Original Fanart

I like to play around with different styles and to try new things with my artwork. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I'm still learning, and I am so far from being a professional that it's laughable. But I only post things that I think look decent or that I think others might enjoy.

The Lover's Argument (Morpheus x oc)

Oneiros (Morpheus in Grecian garb)

Because I could not stop for Death, she kindly stopped for me... (Regency era Dream and Death)

[butchreyes]

grief week! (omg such a morbid title)

tagged by @lonestar-s5countdown and @reyesstrand <3

which character death in 911 lone star hit you the hardest? — definitely gwen, because it was such a shock (to me at least, some people said they saw it coming but i really didn’t think they would take it there) and also i just love her so much. like that’s mother to many.

what is your favorite grief-related moment in the show? — carlos in that guy’s garage is one of my favorite moments of the show period. i love to see characters pushed to their absolute limit psychologically, and rafael ate downnn.

do you think there will be a character death in season 5? if so, any guesses about who it might be? — i don’t think they would kill another major character in the last season, but if they did, i think owen would be the best choice. it would be a pretty bittersweet ending: he finally gets what he set out for in the pilot (rebuilding the 126, saving his son) and now he can have ghost sex with gwyn. DEFINITELY NOT MATEO THOUGH HE WILL NEVER DIE.

which living character's death would destroy you the most? — tk or carlos would of course destroy me because of the double whammy effect (i lose a blorbo and have to witness another blorbo grieve) but if we’re talking maximum impact, contained blast radius of one single charlie: my sister mateo… he’s just too innocent.., blame @tellmegoodbye for even putting this idea in my head

which character's childhood trauma do you think was most significant in shaping them? — the miasma of emotional damage is like a dense fog around carlos. as soon as he cooked tk that fucking red snapper i knew there was something seriously wrong with that man. any other character i could meet out of context and assume they had a completely normal middle-class childhood. not carlos though… one look at him and i just knew someone had cooked here.

tagging: @tellmegoodbye @paperstorm @alrightbuckaroo

[sevi007]

Tales of the Abyss, part 20

spoilers spoilers all around, under the cut you go --

Haaah. I called Luke "like a toddler" in the last post and this is another such moment. He takes the easy route, not considering what lies in between or what risks could pop up. He only sees the task Van set for him - who, by the way, pointedly SAID Luke is not to move the people out of Akzeriuth! - and goes straight for it in the hopes of this leading to him getting treated better.

Ion here speaks up, but this is too little and too late probably. In Luke's ears, by now, this must sound condecending, like "this is obvious" or something.

And again, I think a lot of Luke's inaction here is based on what Van said. He explicitly stated not to save the people of Akzeriuth directly by moving them out of the place like planned, but to go straight for the miasma - if Luke saves the people, he will fulfill the score, and thus bring about something bad.

I was almost hoping for Asch to point out something WHY it will be too late, but no. on the other hand, I don't know if Luke will listen, considering that Asch is considered an enemy right around now.

You know, I'm kind of perplexed that Ion goes with this. Sure, Luke asks him to as well. But he is smart enough to know that the door has NOTHING to do with the miasma, nothing to do with the rescue of the citizen, so why? Why not at least demand to wait for the others so they know what's going on?

Uhoh.

Why not wait for them before opening the door then? You are not much use in stopping Van and Luke now that they are here, Ion, but you could have just left the door closed. I'm not angry at him. I'm seriously confused.

Oh well at least Van still cares a little? Yay? XD

Oh woah, he can programm Luke? And that happened already and we didn't see it? Strange. Also this is basically confirming two of my theories all in one - Van is bad, and Luke is a clone. Yaaaaay I would be happier if things weren't going to sh*t at the same time! XD

Outer lands? Can't remember hearing this before but then I was already dizzy from exposition in general.

Errr I will just keep calling her Tear, I can't pronounce that.

Are we just - falling through the Earth's crust? Is that why it's called "outer lands"? Uhoh. I wonder where we going now....

@ahsokaisawesome

@magicmetslogic

[waters-and-the-wilde]

okay speaking of wrestling and also apropos of 'Rita drags him in by his tie', I was previously having Thoughts about imminently post Got His Ass wherein Rita is bound and determined to drag Nureyev kicking and screaming back into being family again so uh. scenario.

Rita corners Nureyev for A Conversation after they Get His Ass, like plot resolution denouement loose ends and stuff where he's in the clear debt-wise, made his peace with Slip however that looks, he and Juno Have Talked but they're like just on the other side of Having Talked. like Things Are Okay but also everything's just so raw and they're being So Careful with each other, it's like the early days on the Carte Blanche again and it's hard to shake the feeling that any more disturbance is going to topple whatever they're trying to rebuild

so Nureyev is just. his whole brain is full of fire alarms. he's vibrating in place like a greyhound that just got picked up at the shelter after it got spooked and ran away from home. this time he has no high ground as the injured party, he and Rita have known each other for a year now so there's a lot less of her initial 'sniff out the new beau' hesitancy, and sure he knows Rita well enough that it's obvious she's not gonna up and Ruin Him on purpose when she wholeheartedly volunteered to get him out of the mess he was in but still. she's the most unpredictable person he's ever met, he has no idea how this is going to go.

like logically he knows that he and Juno are working shit out and logically he knows that Rita's kinder than the people in her life deserve and might continue to tolerate him, but ultimately she's Juno's best friend who might well just be about to give him the mother of all 'you're on thin fucking ice' shovel talks, like she can't possibly still approve of him anymore right??

so he's scrambling to do preemptive damage control, he's throwing everything he's got into trying to Fix This. going on about how he knows what she must think of him and how sorry he is and that all he has to say for himself is that he only wanted to keep Juno safe, that he couldn't bear the thought of dragging him down with him, not when he was free and their family was together and he knows he should have ended it when Juno asked him to and he just wasn't strong enough and Rita's like. yeah that's nice i know Mista' Nureyev, hey can I tell you what I said to Mista' Steel when he told me about leaving you in that hotel?

and Nureyev shuts up and braces himself and nods very seriously and then she's like, actually you might wanna take off your glasses for this, and now he's extra confused and possibly even more terrified, and she waits until he's put them in a little case and set it on a side table and then there's just kind of a blur and a whole Rita NYEEERRRRRRAAaGGHHH!!!! noise and WHOOMP

pillow to the face

(for context. in my brain. I sorta presume that Juno told her about what happened with Miasma at some point in the aftermath of Newtown bc he owed her an explanation about both times he went missing, and yes she was glad that Juno didn't run away on an adventure across the galaxy without her but she knows a dick move when she sees one and also probably has the full context of baby Mista' Steel's self-sabotaging romantic choices (Juno said there was a whole thing about him walking out when he was with Diamond so I am assuming that Rita was privy to any number of related incidents over the course of those years). finding out that he passed up the chance to run away on a romantic adventure with the mysterious and dashing gentleman who he'd been mooning over for month, who was apparently also smitten with him the whole time and saved his life and tried to take care of him when he lost his eye?? she waited until he was staring into the bottom of his glass and then started whaling on him with a pillow)

anyway Nureyev doesn't get a chance to do much except yelp and sputter and get his arms up before she whacks him with the pillow again. and again. and starts yelling like 'YOu! are! such! a! big! dumb! baBY! Just! 'Cause! YOU! Think! People're better off! Without you! Don't make you! All! Noble 'n stuff!'

and he gets with the program pretty fast, which is to say that he's just on the floor letting her do her worst because that's just what's happening now

'alright I yield! I surrender! have mercy your honor!'

'DAMN! RIGHT! YOU! DO! DidN'T! Captain! Mom! Teach! you! aNYThInG! Big! Stupid! Tough guy! Tryin'a! Do it all! Yourself! We're! S'posed to be! FaMBLY! Now you're! Stuck with us! FoReVeR!!'

tackles him with the pillow. starts tickling him. both of them are shrieking. he vaguely registers that Juno has appeared and is slouching in the doorway 'my love i beg of you call off the attack i'll do anything' and Juno's like 'sorry honey i'm a little busy' and is holding up something that is probably comms-shaped and 'Nooooo, Juno how could you, JUNO SINCE WHEN DO YOU KNOW HOW TO RECORD THINGS'

(and the thing is Nureyev was just letting it happen because he assumed this was catharsis for Rita's sake and sure it's not not for Rita getting it out of her system but she processes things pretty fast you know? and she runs out of steam and goes off to get a snack and he's just there on the floor with his hair in his face kinda punch-drunk and Juno sidles up and sits beside him and whoops turns out Rita found the Release Feelings Valve and Juno's like 'yeah she does that. went a lot easier on me but I think that was mostly because I'd just gotten out of the hospital when i told her about all that.')

(a couple months later Ruby turns up to scoop Jet in the nick of time from a dangerous raid on Dark Matters and he asks what it's been up to and it pulls up the footage that Juno copied to the databanks. he gets a good kick out of the fact that Rita was on the same page about the whole 'he is solitary and overconfident and alone he can only fail' thing and that she got the opportunity to address it in the most rita way possible)

[likeadog]

the barbie movie like. ok so [spoilers and long paragraphs under the cut]

yeah it was really basic ideologically it didnt cover all the various intersections and theories of feminism but i think when people saw conservatives flipping their shit people expected it to be like, a manifesto. its a film, and more importantly, it's the Barbie Movie. i think expecting a gender and womens studies class from it would be silly, and while i get why people are disappointed in how much sympathy it lends to the men in the movie, i dont think like, once again, that was ever something to not expect?

furthermore on that point i think showing misogyny from a place of defining the self around a sense of loneliness by men isn't...far off. theres never an excuse for misogyny but thats rhetoric that radicalizes a lot of incels and shit i would rather that than they treat it like some mysterious miasma.

also, i think, once again while it was pretty basic in the ideas it presented... how often is it show that explicitly in broad-audience film? like stated directly to the audience in that manner? theres no flirting with the feminist theory in the movie; it says it outright, which is something a lot of films shy away from out of fear of alienating men once it becomes too "girl power"-y. im not usually for the use of a lot of buzzwords in film and discussion of issues but these buzzwords are never said with cheapness or to obfuscate. it could be heavyhanded at times, but that heavyhandedness wasnt ever really obnoxious? it walked the line of "haha silly" but still took its point seriously enough that you could appreciate the use of that heavyhandedness for comedic effect without being mocked

i also think the fact they just like "solve" the patriarchy in the barbie world isnt meant to imply that you can just fix the real world with a woman president or by being aware of misogyny. in fact a lot of the movie is dedicated to showing how the barbie world and real world are different. the conclusion of the movie is that barbie wants to become human, even though the human world is messy and unsolved and nothing like she assumed it was. she believed barbie had solved misogyny forever, which is a direct jab at the idea that any "one thing" or "girl power" movement can just suddenly whisk away the very power structures that created that sort of oppression.

its very much coming from a cis/heterosexual/white basis. they flirt with further intersection but dont commit, which im really not a fan of. my friends after the film were like "it was more homoerotic than i expected haha" and...yeah, it was, but it didnt do anything to address gayness or what that means in such a heavily gendered heterosexual society. you could read that subtext through allen and his thing.... but allen is a joke. his story is never resolved. hes one of the guys but he isnt, hes one of the girls but he isnt, he benefits not at all from "kendom" but conversely is not oppressed the way the barbies are and vice versa. he's just allen, and the only allen there is. when sasha and her mom want to go back to help barbie, the fact he just goes "God im never getting out of here" and thats just like, left was kinda. well. it was something for sure.

still. i know i just wrote like 200 words on the ideology of this movie but first and foremost its a pg13 comedy meant to be shown to broad audiences in theaters for money. its meant to be an enjoyable watch, and it is! its a gorgeous film, its funny, the songs are fine, and the way it makes its side comments arent distracting nor meanspirited. it knows when to take itself seriously, and i like that. i was actually expecting it to be a general audiences like, kids movie i was so fucking surprised when barbie said penis.

i also think saying the line at the end about the gynecologist is like "saying you need a vagina to be a real woman" is disingenuous honestly. one its meant to be a bit of a shock quip to get a giggle but two i think a lot of people who need gynecological care (which can include trans women) are afraid when it comes to that first visit and finally sitting down and talking about those areas because of the shame and lack of proper education. maybe its bc i grew up mormon but i dont think its meant to imply thats what MADE barbie a real woman or that its fundamental to being one.

once again it definitely isnt a perfect movie. i think the way the ken and barbie talk happened at the end was still a bit coddly and the scope of the ideology underneath the movie was, once again, still very much centered in white cishetero society and thought with only passing mentions of intersectionality that felt both shallow and (especially with the gayness and racial dynamics) occasionally like it was being turned into a joke

still all in all it was a pretty good movie. weird barbie #1. allen get behind me i will protect u

[sweet4nothing]

I keep seeing mention of how Eddie might not have anyone to turn to in season 8 and how he might be isolated and I just can’t imagine the 118 just … leaving him (new addition: I especially cant see buck doing that to his best friend. Buck who has golden retriever levels of loyalty lol and such a big heart.) Like what he is doing right now is shady AF - like damn marisol did not deserve that - but narratively speaking he is not the first in the 118 to cheat on their partner.

I think they’ll be words spoken, advise given, but I wonder if the reason he’s going to be isolated and have no one to turn to is because his is going to be a problem that can’t be solved by anyone else but himself. Like we can have all the support in the world but sometimes we get so bogged down with our own emotions that we feel separate from the people around us, like we can’t reach through the miasma of hurt and confusion and anger.

Idk I just can’t imagine him having that big of a rift with the 118 because he cheated (again not to say that it’s not a big deal because it is). Unless he like comes back married to her and stuff and people are like wait what?? - jk lol (like seriously universe I was kidding)

[ynmnrmt]

You & Me & Rhea Makes Three: Chapter 4

rhea ripley x m!reader x m!reader's girlfriend

word count: 6,348

warnings: explicit sexual content, rough sex, themes of domination/submission, dubiously consensual nonmonogamy, domestic violence, foot stuff, armpit stuff

a/n: Unlike the jokey viewer discretion warning over the last chapter, if you are disturbed or upset by any of the subjects mentioned in the warnings - and here I'm mainly thinking about the DV, not the paraphilias - then please, seriously consider whether you really want to click that 'read more' or not.

(The story so far: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three)

You are in the fully equipped home gym which was installed at great expense in a formerly unused annex of the apartment, lifting hard. It has been a journey, but you finally think you’re doing it right, these days you do not view the motions as something detached and external to you, but instead have your mind go out to the muscles, there and conscious as the weights go up, and still there as they go down too.

You check yourself out in the full-length ballet mirrors in what might be described as gender euphoria, and smile slightly. There is some muscle to your body, and noticeable, too, noticeable for other people and not just from the inside. Certainly you could do more, obviously you could, but still you think this is progress you can be proud of. And you do want to look good for Jennifer, not to mention keep fit enough for her.

A grunt from next to you makes you turn your head. Somehow you’d missed this while gazing into the mirrors, but now Rhea’s in the room. She does curls, and each of her huge biceps manages to hoist about the same weight you’ve just been benching. The veins bulge in her arms, she puffs out the effort as the weights go up again, and you gradually realise the inescapable fact that you’re staring.

With another grunt she lets the weights fall, not to the floor, just hanging in her hands. She glances at you and says “You can go another set.”

It’s not an order, not even a suggestion, just a statement of fact, because yes, you could definitely do another, and of course you want to look good for Jennifer, that is the goal here after all. So immediately you’re back on the bench and your arms tremble as you thrust the bar upward. It quickly returns to the state of mind when you bargain with yourself, this is enough, you can stop after this one, but then with a glance at Rhea you’re suddenly inspired to keep going to the end.

You emit a few undignified grunts of your own when you finally bring the bar back into rest, and then sit up slumped on the bench. Rhea turns her head to you, each curl an effort but still she manages them comfortably, and between breaths she says, slightly musically, “You can do another one.”

“No I can’t,” you gasp, and she chuckles. The sweat lashes off you as if you’re in a thick winter coat. You can practically feel it as a miasma that extends two inches from your actual body. Meanwhile the slight sheen on her neck and shoulders simply looks appetising. And much as you’d like to get in another set, with the vague idea it’d impress her even as she makes the same thing look easy, you could feel your arms ready to give way with that last press, that was definitely your limit.

“I just find it’s nice to have someone encouraging you, and spurring you on,” Rhea smiles. Maybe it’s this that inspires you to shift over to one of the machines, you can at least not have to be one of those people who skips leg day. And now Rhea does squats, which turn her already spectacular ass into a vision from God, even with your blood rushing to your legs you’re getting a hard-on. She glances at you, as you watch her, and chides “Not now!”

“I couldn’t help it,” you protest. “Also, I don’t know what you mean.” She laughs away, still going, you don’t have the breath to join in. A string in your thigh has started to feel like piano wire. Meanwhile Rhea glows in front of you, she moves as if it’s nothing, and there in the mirror she shoots you the same little smile of encouragement, you half expected a superior smirk, she’s earned it after all, but no, she’s silently willing you to keep going.

When you finally crawl off the machine, that wired-up leg halfway buckles underneath you. You weren’t going to fall over, probably not anyway, but you’ll never find out – Rhea has moved fast to support you, one hand up behind your shoulders and her other in the small of your back, like she’s dipped you in the ballroom. Your erection had basically subsided, you’d dared to dream you could stop thinking about it, now it’s twitched curiously to life again and the swell in your shorts is dangerously close to brushing up against her.

“That,” she says, in close like she’s sharing a secret, “is how you know you’ve earned a break.”

“And, and I started before you, anyway,” you breathe, the words go straight into her mouth. Then she lets you hang a bit looser.

“You’re not about to get all competitive, are you?”

“I’m trying to push myself,” you gabble, suddenly the sweat on your brow has nothing to do with the workout and she doesn’t look convinced, “I don’t know about competitive – you’re stronger than me, that’s obvious.”

Rhea relaxes, and now sets you on your feet. “Sometimes men feel a bit, like, it’s upset the natural order, and-”

“Oh, come on,” you scoff.

“I know! I know, I know. I’d wanted to think better of you, I promise.” She’s let you go now, but when you brushed against her chest you felt her nipples point at you through the thin material of her tank top.

“It’s not that I’m worried about feeling emasculated,” you say, where’s this come from, you’re letting it out as if you can say absolutely anything, “just that it would, well, make me less attractive. I don’t know.”

“Some people like that stuff,” she says with a dismissive shrug that makes you feel better even though you’re clearly one of them. “And, besides, I’m sure you’re very strong.”

“Ah, stop,” you say, and wave her away. Before you can bring your arm back she’s caught it and squeezes your bicep.

“See, you’re putting in the work,” she tells you, almost dreamily now as you dangle in her grasp.

“You don’t need to – I appreciate this, really, but let’s be realistic, you would destroy me.” And at that, she cackles in a way that could have been pointed, but when she’s finished rolling her head around she looks at you with nothing but fondness. “Which I do not have a problem with, I mean, that really doesn’t bother me at all.” As you say it, your eyes rove up along the scenic vista of her arm, then back up onto her eyes, into her eyes, while her cheeks flush further than they already were.

“You,” she says, to break the spell, “are distracting me.” With one last, lingering, beautiful grin, she turns away and picks up where she left off. But the feeling’s mutual, because the way her clothes cling to her body, and the darker patches outline the sculpted shape of what’s underneath, distracts you so badly you walk into the doorframe.

*

You hit the shower – not with a closed fist, just a tap of your palm, in the vain hope it will knock some cog or valve back into place. It doesn’t, though, the head offers one spatter of rusty water then sits there, taunting you with every drip. You figure you can at least splash down the main danger zones, so you go over to the sink, but when you turn the tap that’s dry as well.

Locked in now, not physically in the bathroom but with this one last hurdle to vault before you can have a shower, you start to follow the pipes around as best you can, and have to open a few cupboards to do it. Yes, the shower and the sink do seem to be coming off the same branch line, so you fiddle with that, and then from behind you there’s the fresh burst of a running shower. But you’ve hardly even gotten your sodden shirt off before the head gives up again.

At the moment it dawns on you to try the sink in the kitchen, Rhea walks in with a towel over her shoulder, glowing and gorgeous, and says “Fuck! Have you not finished yet?”

“Haven’t started yet,” you say, and turn the dial on the shower to demonstrate. It would be awful, wouldn’t it, if it chose now to start flowing like Niagara Falls, but no, it offers up another cough of water and then nothing.

“Aw, man…” Rhea reaches out to jiggle the dial as well, and it’s surely not because she’s put more power behind it, but it does now produce a thin, unhealthy, trickling stream. “I’d – God, it sounds silly – gotten all geared up for a shower, now I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“I could,” you suggest, “fill jugs of water in the kitchen and pour them over you?”

“Forward,” she smiles, in a way that makes it clear she’s as eager about the prospect as you are. But then, moments later, you discover the kitchen sink’s given up the ghost as well.

“For Christ’s sake,” you mutter, as you give the tap another shake, “of all the days for this to-” And then the power goes out as well. The faint breeze of the air-con vanishes completely. Rhea slumps forward and laughs, because what else can you do, but then she starts to fan herself, and her look of amusement fades into a little frown of genuine concern.

“It’s alright,” you say, half-exhausted, the air in the room hotter and stickier already, “we can crack a window.”

“Yeah,” she muses, distracted, still trying to waft the temperature lower. Even when you’ve opened every window available, and you’ve both flopped down on the couch in what little air flow there is, her long, leonine face still looks more downcast than you’ve ever seen her before.

“It’s okay,” you reassure her, and touch her arm – not the one that’s fanning her, whose movements grow yet more frantic as the pink glow spreads further across her cheeks. “Probably the whole city’s like this, stewing.”

“I’m just sorry you have to see me like this,” she says, a shaft of light illuminating where the translucent material of her tank top adheres perfectly to her flawlessly wrought stomach.

“Don’t be,” you say, and mean it. “Anyway, I’ve seen you after working out before.”

“It’s just, it’s different now. If I’m going to make this work, with you and Jen, and I want to, I really want to, then I want to look sexy for you. In the makeup, with the costume on, that’s fine, of course it is, I knew you’d be into me then, but now I’m all sweaty, and,” she lifts her arm and sniffs, “oh my God, I reek, too.”

“Rhea, you’re gorgeous,” you insist, you take your hand in both of yours as if to declare how serious you are.

“You’re just being nice,” she flutters, but at least your touch, that point of contact, has stopped her sudden spiral of despair. Then she pulls her hand from yours, folds her arm behind her head and goes “Seriously, smell me”, with a nod towards her armpit.

You don’t even need to lean in. She’s right, the thick scent of her exertion is very prominent, and when her heavy, sexy aura fills your nostrils, it’s the 1960s and this is your first puff on a joint, first civil rights rally, and first ride in a supersonic aircraft, she transports you in a moment to a place you hadn’t known existed but already feels like home.

You look up at her, feeling your face slacken into an expression of dazed hunger she really doesn’t know what to think about. Now you do lean in, and reach out too, past the iron ridge of her pectoral to that softer glade where the muscles of her arm all meet and end, she giggles when you touch her damp skin and the thought of having made her feel good in any way is one more pulse-jumping thrill in this long and unending series.

“I told you, I reek,” she says, this time not quite able to keep the smile out of her voice. You take a deep whiff and fill your lungs, the word ‘pheromones’ flashes in your mind before the edge in the air arouses you far past the level of conscious thought. Your eyes meet hers again, she’s all fascinated confusion, the same way as you really, and you leap in and kiss her there on her underarm, not a light kiss either, you suck greedily on her darker, textured skin while your mind whirls at this new vista you have discovered quite by chance.

Rhea squeals with laughter. Did you know she was ticklish, had you even considered such a thing? Her arm flails and the weight of her tricep brains you, which might have been nasty if you were using any cognitive functions other than lust and kissing. Even as she thrashes about with all her might, never does she threaten to pull free of your mouth, and one shining golden thought bounces through the echoing space inside your head, she likes this too.

Eventually you must come up for air. She looks at you in a way that seems just as intimate all on its own. “I don’t think it quite replaces a shower,” she says softly, and runs the tips of her fingers behind your ear, along your jaw.

“No,” you agree, “I suppose I won’t need to do your other side, then.”

Rhea’s grin spreads until you think you see all of her teeth. She leans in, ever so slightly, then raises her other arm and with a thump lets it rest along the back of the couch. It’s probably only the lack of blood in your brain that makes it seem a heat haze rises around her shoulder. “I’m just going to sit like this,” she whispers, “and we can see what happens next.”

You chuckle, and you lean in too. The brief chill when you think she might not kiss you back, not after where your mouth has been, melts on the warmth of her tongue – and Christ, when she takes hold of you, your lungs skip a breath and you have to shift sharply to avoid pulling something.

Outside the safety of Rhea’s grasp, somewhere far far away and probably quite meaningless, you hear the door open. Then there’s a gasp, a gasp you know, and you jump like you’ve been found in a bank vault.

“Rhea?” demands Jennifer, framed in the doorway, awkwardly carrying two big bags of shopping.

“Yeah?” says Rhea, quite casual, as if this could be a question about anything.

“Are you wearing my tank top?”

“Yeah,” in the same easy tone as before. This does explain why it’s that tight on her, she bulges out from inside it, the damp material taut across her chest.

Jennifer’s about to say something. Then the bags in both her arms split, almost simultaneously, and she shouts “Fuck!” as the groceries spill all over the floor.

“Oh no!” cries Rhea, and she leaps up, you follow clumsily in her wake, immediately she moves to gather up the fallen perishables. But Jennifer steps forward, into her path.

“Can I not,” says Jennifer her jaw tight, “come into my own fucking house without finding you fucking my boyfriend?” And in one thoughtless motion, her arms empty now, not much power behind them beyond simple rage, she gives Rhea a shove.

Now you have a real chill. Rhea is frozen, stock-still. Jennifer clearly already regrets it, and the colour trickles out of her face, as if she now remembers that Rhea is twice her size. “That was not okay, Jen,” you say, you step forward, ready to throw yourself between them if you need to. Then Rhea staggers back, her eyes turned glassy, she drops back onto the couch and hides her face in her hands and weeps.

Immediately Jennifer looks wretched – she flings herself to the floor in front of Rhea and reaches for her, but in one jarring movement Rhea throws up a hand. Not a blow, just to keep her away, quietly Rhea says “Please don’t. Not,” she chokes on her tears, “not now.”

“I’m so sorry,” pleads Jennifer. “I should never have done that.”

“No, I – I’m sorry,” sniffles Rhea. “You’re right, it’s a fucked-up thing to walk in on.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Jennifer insists, clutching Rhea’s hand. “I just get so jealous, because you’re pretty and sexy, and those aren’t the same thing but you’re still both, and it’s too hot today, and,” now she’s on the verge of tears too.

“If you’re jealous,” you say, crouching next to your girlfriend, no clue what kind of depths this might open up “then I don’t know if this whole, this dynamic, is really healthy.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she says while she looks at the floor. It’s not as bad as you expected, just a little disappointing that you won’t get to – well, that doesn’t matter. “I’m sosorry, Rhea. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You,” Rhea’s eyes are still red-rimmed, but now she manages a little chuckle, “you didn’t really hurt me.”

“And I wasn’t jealous like that, either, I was jealous because, because you’re everything I want to be.” The sentiment seems eerily familiar. “I was the one who wanted us to be a thing in the first place, and – please don’t let me have ruined it, please let me make it up to you.” By now she’s favouring Rhea’s hand with tiny, penitent kisses. Rhea looks a bit alarmed at how quickly this has turned around, or maybe that’s simply how you feel.

“Clean up the groceries,” she finds herself saying, “and I’ll think about it.” Jennifer springs to her feet in delight and gets busy. You’re about to help her, but Rhea has a finger hooked around your collar, there’s no realistic way to resist that, so you end up back on the couch with her. “And you’d better not stay on your high horse about me wearing your clothes,” she calls over, as Jennifer scoops up some battered fruit and shoots you both a fragile, tentative smile. “Remember, I know what you were doing with mine.”

“How’d you know about that?” you ask Rhea, trying to keep it good-humoured, and she just laughs. Then you add, “Are you okay? I figured you weren’t physically hurt, but, still.”

“It just caught me by surprise,” she says, and you can see that beneath the veneer she’s still shaken. “Like, I didn’t expect that, at all. You – you wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?”

“Of course not.”

“Promise?” A winsome little smile, that seems too small from anyone her size. You give her a hug, you want only to reassure her and make this better. But when you break apart, she’s giving Jennifer a wicked glance, and you see, and she sees that you see. “I think she’s learned her lesson,” says Rhea, her eyes still puffy and pink. “How about you?”

“I-” Your voice catches in your throat. “It’s not up to me.”

The groceries on the counter, Jennifer now approaches nervously. “I don’t mind you wearing my clothes,” she says, softly, not willing to get too close as if she doesn’t trust herself, “not really.”

Rhea arches an eyebrow. “You don’t mind that,” she says, and slips a beefy arm around your shoulders. “Do you mind me kissing with your boyfriend?” Before you can react or protest she bangs her mouth against yours. Now you definitely can’t say anything about it, there’s not even that much tongue, but she has your lips completely occupied.

When Rhea finally releases you, and moves her head away, Jennifer’s unbroken gaze is there to meet you. Her expression is one of longing, you hope and pray not longing for revenge. Then she looks to Rhea and shakes her head.

“See, I don’t believe you,” says Rhea, not accusatory, if anything slightly sad. “I really think on some level this still bothers you.”

“I think I still feel a lot of shame around sex,” Jennifer blurts out.

Rhea nods sagely. You’re just appalled, not with Jennifer but for her, and stutter out “I had no idea you felt this way.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s...being caught on the horns of being pushed into it but also being shamed for even thinking about it,” she explains. Maybe you did have some idea she felt this way, the residual background radiation, you’re slightly disappointed with yourself when you think how the other half live. “And then there’s the whole business of what to wear, and – oh God, this is no excuse, I’m sorry, Rhea, really.”

Rhea extends a hand, the one that isn’t resting by your neck. Jennifer kneels again to take it, and smothers herself against it, and mouths slightly at Rhea’s fingers. “You only hurt my feelings,” Rhea reassures her. “I’m glad we can talk through this stuff.”

“You don’t need to feel any shame about this situation,” you add, and she grabs for your hand too. “Not with me. With us.” That hasty correction came out sounding oddly poignant.

“I still want to do something, to show I’m sorry - what if I kissed her feet?” Jennifer asks you. “It’s an internationally recognised gesture of supplication.”

And you look to Rhea, who just looks startled. “Interesting suggestion,” she says eventually. “I mean – you don’t have to, we were just,” she laughs a little, “we weren’t actually having sex when you came in, we’d just finished working out.”

“Oh yeah, also the water’s cut out,” you add.

“So we haven’t showered, but – should we tell her what we were doing?”

“Oh jeeze,” mumbles Jennifer, her eyes flashing from Rhea, to you, down to your mouth, as if she already knows.

“Come here,” Rhea offers, and Jennifer crawls up between you, along the length of your bodies, lower and closer than she needs to be or is really practical. Even after having struggled home with the groceries she seems fresh and unblemished, at least by comparison, as if the crawl up onto the couch will taint her as well. Then Rhea turns her head and whispers softly in Jennifer’s ear. Now it’s Jennifer’s turn to look startled, in fact her face twists through all kinds of conflicted feelings. Rhea lifts her head, and concludes “What do you think?”

“W-would that really make you feel better?”

“Yeah, it would.”

With surprising force Jennifer leaps forward, face-first under Rhea’s arm, the side you hadn’t gotten to yet. From the centre of this frenzy you hear loud sounds of kisses and smacks and slurps.

“Well! That solves that, then,” Rhea notes idly, as she turns back to you with a cheesy grin. When she shows her teeth like this, you don’t feel especially intimidated. She pulls you in close, this time there is some tongue, since you’ve been walked in on once already again you wonder how some stranger would take this, an established couple all over their pretty young roommate.

*

Initially this had seemed like a diversion waiting for the basic amenities to work again, but the lights don’t pop back on, before you know it the shadows are longer and it’s darker in the room. Jennifer wriggles up, she tries for a kiss too, but Rhea pushes her playfully away.

“You’re showing you’re sorry, remember,” Rhea chides her, and she nods in acceptance, she seems to bear it with the same playful spirit. Then she slips back down your bodies, and goes after Rhea’s feet. She peels one sock off, and takes entirely too long about it, it’s a sock, not a pair of handcuffs, but someone none of you seem to mind this absurd display of her clumsily rolling the fabric past Rhea’s ankle and then over her heel. Even though you’ve long since cooled down, at least from the workout, her skin is still flushed pink, it glows in the lower light.

Rhea’s sock is still halfway on her foot when Jennifer leans in to kiss her, aimed roughly for the centre of her sole. Then it becomes a lick, Jennifer’s tongue following the sock the rest of the way. It occurs to you the taste is probably like that of Rhea’s armpit, plus general foot aura, topped off with stray fibres from the sock.

“I think you’re enjoying this,” gloats Rhea. Jennifer mumbles something in reply rendered incomprehensible by now having three toes in her mouth.

“If this really is you wanting to explore, in, in ways,” you say, “then honestly I’m relieved. I know this is stupid but I was really worried there was some kind of unhealthy dynamic going on here."

Rhea’s toes pop from Jennifer’s mouth, and she tells you “Of course not, I’d have said.”

“Like, if you felt you were somehow obliged, or forced to do any of this-” Rhea thrusts her foot forward, and Jennifer parts her lips to accept it. “Yeah, alright, I get it.”

“She is such a sweetie-pie,” Rhea tells you, hanging on you with both arms now, her mouth perilously close to yours, when she speaks it grazes your cheek.

“I know it’s still ridiculously early,” you say, the hard-on in your pants really starting to make itself known, “but since everything’s off, why don’t we get an early night?” When she hears that, Jennifer trills with delight around the foot in her mouth.

“I thought you’d never ask,” intones Rhea. You rise from the couch and hold a hand out to help Jennifer up – but as she climbs awkwardly to her feet, suddenly Rhea has physically interpolated herself between the two of you, and she says “Well, hold on a second, if you were enjoying getting your tongue all over me, I don’t think we can really call that an apology, can we?”

You’re about to say something, to object, when in delicate tones Jennifer suggests “I could kiss your ass, too?” and then you can only think Christ, leave some for me.

“I don’t think so. I think your punishment is that you’re not allowed to sleep in your bed any more.”

“Oh!” Jennifer trembles as she tries to hold Rhea’s gaze.

“You have to go and sleep in my bed. And you just get to listen. That way you’ll know how it felt for me, all those sleepless nights I had to hear you two banging.”

Jennifer actually wrings her hands. She told you, if she was bothered by any of this, that she would say so. “I hadn’t even thought about that. You’re right. I deserve this. I’m trying to learn my lesson, I promise. I want to be better for both of you.” Then she bats her eyes at you, it’s a clumsy gesture but the meaning and sincerity are unimpeachable, and she adds “Will you at least tuck me in?”

“I love you,” you tell her, as you lay the duvet over her, despite how thick it is you can make out the shape of her body beneath it, yes, you really do still love her, “you know that, right?” You kiss her on the forehead, then she gives a sharp intake of breath as Rhea draws the covers tight across her.

“Do the other side,” Rhea tells you. You obey without thinking, and wrap the bedclothes around under the mattress, now you can definitely see the shape of Jennifer’s body with the fabric tight over her, now she really is tucked in.

“I hope Rhea makes you feel good,” Jennifer gently invokes, just a talking head on the pillow. “I hope you make her come, a lot.” By now you have no doubt at all she is enjoying this, but still it makes your heart ache a little. Then Rhea lends over and gives her a smack on the forehead too. Jennifer beams snugly up at you as Rhea links her arm with yours, and while she uses no force you can still feel her sheer raw strength when she leads you from the room.

Instinctively you move for the bathroom, only to remember that with the water still off you can’t brush your teeth. But when you say this Rhea just replies “Oh well” with a smutty smirk, and yes, suddenly it hardly seems like a concern.

In the bedroom, she strips off Jennifer’s tank top and then the rest of her clothes in neat and practised fashion, like she’s gone skinny-dipping, but it’s the bed, your and Jennifer’s bed that she dives into. Is it absurd to think of it as halfway to the marital bed, that this is some additional layer of betrayal on top of the already-complex levels of it you’ve racked up together? Rhea lies on her side in a pose more like a lingerie model, and pats the mattress, inviting you in. You fumble with your own clothes, and she stalks you with her eyes the whole time.

When you get under the covers, now it feels like a betrayal, Rhea lying there where Jennifer should be, smiling at you the way she would. “It was so sexy when you went right in on my pits,” she confesses. “I thought you’d be disgusted.”

“Come on.”

“At work, after – well, that is what it is, but I wouldn’t go out in public like that.” In the semi-darkness of your bedroom, the sheen of sweat that’s still on her skin glows with unlikely-seeming inner light, the kind of thing that could so easily be mistaken for angelic.

“Rhea-”

“If you smelt me fresh off a match, you’d probably never want to touch me again.”

“Rhea, you don’t need to give it the self-pity, everything about you is sexy.” For a moment you feel her hot breath in your mouth, then her lips are on yours. She didn’t seem to shift in the bed but suddenly you’re pressing against her belly.

“Do you think we could do something special, tonight?” she asks you, and glances away shyly halfway through.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Could we, um,” she swirls her finger cutely on the pillow, “could we have rough sex? Like, really rough, and loud, so Jen can hear it? I don’t want her to feel left out.”

Your mind spins, half of it trying to negotiate what ‘feel left out’ could possibly mean here, the other frazzled by the idea that some of the things you’ve done together didn’t count as rough sex. But she is here in your bed and so close, so you say “Yeah, sure we could.”

“Cool,” she glows – then rolls up on top of you and grabs you by the elbows. Immobilised completely, your cock ready to burst out of your underwear, you reflect she really knows what she’s doing.

For some reason you had been teeing yourself up to get on top, and to be the rough one. In a moment of the insecurity borne of being genuinely desired you ask, because it’s the kind of thing that you cannot shift from the back of your mind, “Would you like me better if I was stronger than you?”

“See, you assume that because I’m a woman, I naturally want to be in second place,” she says, with an air that demonstrates she’s thought about this stuff too. “Try to conceive of the fact that I might have exactly the same impulses as you do, and on some level want to be top dog.”

“Yes. That’s fair enough. Sorry.”

Rhea immediately turns playful again. “I forgive you,” she flirts, and squeezes your biceps. “And I understand that on some level, there’s more of an impetus for you to – well, never mind that. We don’t need to worry about that stuff.” She rolls her hips over you, and glides her pussy back and forth, over the flimsy cloth that’s all that keeps your erection out of her.

“Rhea,” you try to keep the painfully aroused whimper out of your voice, “if you keep hold of me like this, I can’t pull down my underwear.”

Rhea does not reply. She simply brings your arms up against the headboard, so gentle with that immense strength, then manacles your wrists together with one hand – and reaches the other down to your waist. You shiver when she takes hold of your cock, and then you gasp when she slips it into her.

“Oh, fuck!” she booms, and shakes dust from the ceiling. It’s exaggerated, you should know what noises she makes when she likes it by now, but your dick doesn’t know and finds itself buoyed by the sound. “Fuck, yes! Ngh! Fuck me harder!” But of course she’s the one who fucks you, propped up where she grasps your wrists while her hips slam down against yours.

Does the sound travel in here? Did Rhea really spend nights alone, listening to you, dreaming of this? Too hard to imagine now as she looms over you in motion, in her element, that one sculpted arm stretching over you like the vault of heaven, and there where it meets her torso the place Jennifer had kissed her what seems like only moments ago, you fancy you can still see the wet mark Jennifer’s lips left on her skin.

When you wriggle your hips, only to reposition yourself, she bursts out with “Yes, yes! Give it to me!” At this point you think the neighbours must be able to hear it too. So with nothing left to lose you now thrust up into her like you mean it, and prompt a “Yes, there, right there! Fuck!”

“Fuck,” you agree with what little breath you can exhale. She’s so wet, but so tight, if it was your throat she had a grip on you’d be going blue. And looking up at the undignified expression of pleasure on her face, her mouth hanging open, hair out of place over her eyes, you’d probably enjoy it, too.

When there’s a crack somewhere below you, you figure it must be a rib – but there is no pain, not beyond the heated pressure that surrounds you the way nature makes diamonds. It’s only when one corner of the whole bed drops that you realise it’s giving way beneath this onslaught.

“Fuck, ye-he-hes,” Rhea croons, spanning three different octaves. “Fuck, you’re so big, it hurts, but I want you to keep going, don’t stop, don’t fucking stop.” No thought in your head that you would not obey. The wood splinters under you while you use any and all leverage you have to push back, every lunge of her body is like a punch in the face only you crave more each time. “Fucking-” She punctuates this with one of her fiercest kisses, even without any teeth it feels like it’s left a mark. “Come on, come on baby, I’m nearly there.”

“Mnuh,” is the best you can respond. Your mind is beyond any romantic witticism or sweet nothing now. You may even be beyond a mind, beyond a body, you float free-form in the shattered void of the bedroom, and all there is in existence is Rhea, every fibre of her body illuminated with that dark sheen, every motion irresistible.

Your orgasm streams out, and you barely notice – until the clutches of her vagina go past blissful to unbearable, all your nerve endings protest at the continued stimulation. You thrash about in an instinctual hindbrain attempt to get away and she laughs, her beautiful carefree laugh, which turns into a scream as she seizes up around you. Her movements get shorter, tiny little jerks, until with one final cry she freezes completely – then topples off you and crashes down onto the ruins of the bed.

When the blood rushing round your skull calms down enough for you to hear again, to perceive any of the world around you, Rhea is curled up around you, and she gently asks “Was it good for you, too?”

“Yes,” you whisper, spent in a way that makes you really understand the word. Even though you were hardly moving compared to her, there is no energy left in your body, and you are all ready to sink into sleep when you hear a tiny little knock on the door.

Jennifer peeps in, for a moment she just takes in the scene, the broken bed, the swirling mess of the blankets, then she asks “Can I come snuggle up with you guys?”

“Of course you can,” you say, before Rhea can start with any more business about punishment – but Rhea whisks the blankets aside, to let Jennifer get in on your other side. She settles in contentedly, Rhea sweeps the blankets back around you, and all the dark warmth suddenly seems perfect.

“That sounded so hot,” Jennifer secret-whispers to you, but there’s no way Rhea won’t hear it as well. She caresses your face and adds “I got turned on listening, and, um, I ended up, um,” as her fingers brush your lips you can tell that yes, she certainly did.

“In my bed?” Rhea responds in sleepy mock-outrage, that’s turned into a low chuckle before she’s even finished saying it.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it too,” you say, and immediately worry you’ve said too much.

“Of course, her punishment was to sleep in my bed,” muses Rhea. “And now she’s disobeyed.” You can feel her hand grip Jennifer’s arm. “So we’re going to have to punish you again tomorrow night, and maybe the night after that too, and maybe even all the nights after that.”

By now Jennifer’s kissing at your neck, at your jaw, and she lifts one corner of her mouth to dopily mumble out “Every night”. On your other side Rhea kisses you too, and before you know it this becomes you all kissing each other, and then you sink beyond the wall of sleep.

[meduarts]

Secretary! Marinette part 10

I got sick and I'm not sure if I can finish a new chapter this week so I hope a prompt is okay for now! This prompt is going to explore how Marinette is going to help the bats without outing herself as a miraculous holder!!!

I'm thinking of making Marinette use both the butterfly and fox miraculi to help them as her superhero persona

I'd like to think that she would use the butterflies to tail the bats as a security detail.

If one of the bats needed assistance she would send her illusions to help them.

The bats are seriously paranoid at first but after she helps them more they decided that somehow they have received a guardian angel instead.

Jason was the first to receive such help. After his return as red hood, he was cornered by Joker and his goons. Marinette immediately akumatized Jason and manage to calm him down and give him added strength to fight back while also sending her illusions to help. He reports back to Batman and Nightwing.

At first, Batman was unsure about the unexpected helper. He was quite miffed with an unknown magic user in Gotham and didn't appreciate it. But they did help Jason and protect him against Joker so he had to begrudgingly thanked them for that.

Next who got help is Tim because reckless boi decided to volunteer himself to be the new robin. Marinette saved him personally from a very dangerous situation and that was the first time when the Batfam meets her face to face.

Marinette told them that she is the great guardian of the miraculous order. She also kind of alluded the fact that she was the one who helped Bruce Wayne's secretary to find Jason and as the result find Damian as well.

Batman contacted Diana to make sure it was legit. Diana vouches for Marinette.

Dick is pumped! Like a magical guardian angel girl?? LET'S GOOOOOO!!! He wasted no time but to badger her with questions through her butterflies. Marinette got fed up with it that she sometimes didn't tail him with her butterfly which made him mistake some random butterfly for hers.

Cue the hilarious conversation between Mari n Jason.

J: Is that one of your butterflies?

M: nope.

J: so, he's chasing around an ordinary butterfly?

M: yep.

J: *videotapes it* this is going to go viral. Heheh.

Marinette teams up with Alfred. She lends Duusu to him so if she needs a back up the man can send an amok to help. They are a wonderful team together. The batfamily doesn't found out about this after a long time. Why? 1. You don't question Alfred. 2. You also don't question Marinette.

Marinette kind of became known as the Guardian Angel of Gotham or Gotham's Nightingale. She decided she should do something to reduce the unlucky miasma around Gotham, so she starts with Arkham. She uses the butterfly miraculous and sings the healing hymn that Tikki had taught her. It works for some of the inmates but some are too far gone for her help. This is why she got the title Gotham's Nightingale.

[transmutationisms]

also genuine question, what is the miasmic rhetoric surrounding covid and what are the epistemological ramifications? sorry if I'm being annoying I am genuinely trying to understand how it is people talk about covid today. and if you could throw some readings my way if this would all be obvious and apparent from Doing the Reading, even without an explanation of the above, I'd appreciate that

hi sorry this took a minute. no i don't really have readings on this although i'm sure somebody will write on it at some point because it's not a particularly original observation on my part lol. by miasmic theory i'm just referring to ideas popular in medical discourses up to roughly the bacteriological revolution (late 19th/early 20th century) in european medicine that held that 'bad airs' could carry disease (see eg the classic plague masks with the long beaks that were stuffed with things intended to counteract the ill effects of the air to keep the wearer safe). although miasma theories held on longer than most people think and were often synthesised with bacteriological ideas pretty successfully (david barnes and bruno latour have written about this), by 2020 i don't really know of anyone who would still have been seriously defending such ideas. i think this made eg lindsey marr's work very fascinating—you might remember, she was one of the early voices arguing that covid is aerosolised, and therefore airborne in a way larger-particle viruses can't be. this is in some ways reminiscent of miasma theory simply because it forces us to think about things like airflow in much more depth if we want to be serious about not catching covid. at the time her stuff was first being published i remember saying half-seriously that it would lead to a resurgence of miasma theory in popular medical discourse, which was of course wrong because most public health institutions basically gave up and rolled over once capitalist interests started pushing more forcefully to get everyone back to work lmao. but it is still interesting to see eg joe biden using pretty heavy-duty ventilation tech when he gives speeches these days—clearly at least some members of his team are actually thinking about disease in terms of air and airflow in the way we might expect from work like marr's. anyway tbc when i call these ideas miasmic i'm not criticising them it's just sort of funny to see this after like 100 years of bacteriologues trying to present the bad air hypotheses as like, hopelessly passé and scientifically antiquated.