#shit even the side characters were interesting
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fraternum-momentum · 4 months ago
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for a mosterfucking manga, this was actually pretty wholesome
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lord-squiggletits · 1 year ago
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One of my favorite parts of phase 2 (and indeed one of the few moments I resonated with IDW Prowl) was when the neutrals were coming back to Cybertron and Prowl said that he refused to let Autobots be pushed aside and overruled after they were the ones who fought for freedom for 4 million years (the exact wording escapes me atm).
And I mean, that resentment still holds true even once the colonists come on bc like. As much as it's true that Cybertron's culture is fucked up, and as funny as it can be to paint Cybertronians as a bunch of weirdos who consider trying to kill someone as a common greeting not important enough to hold a grudge over.... The colonists POV kind of pissed me off a lot of times, as did the narrative tone/implications that Cybertronians are forever warlike and doomed to die by their own hands bc it just strikes me as an extremely judgemental and unsympathetic way to deal with a huge group of people with massive war PTSD and political/social tensions that were rampant even before the war?
Like, imagine living in a society rife with bigotry and discrimination where you get locked into certain occupations and social strata based on how you were born. The political tension is so bad there's a string of assassinations of politicians and leaders. The whole planet erupts into an outright war that leads (even unintentionally) to famine and chemical/biological warfare that destroys your planet. Both sides of the war are so entrenched in their pre-war sides and resentment for each other that this war lasts 4 million years and you don't even have a home planet any more. Then your home planet gets restored and a bunch of sheltered fucks come home and go "ewww why are you so violent?? You're a bunch of freaks just go live in the wilderness so that our home can belong to The Pure People Who Weren't Stupid And Evil Enough To Be Trapped In War" and then a bunch of colonists from places that know nothing about your history go "lol you people are so weird?? 🤣🤣 I don't get why y'all are fighting can't you just like, stop??? Oh okay you people are just fucked up and evil and stupid then" ((their planets are based on colonialism where their Primes wiped out the native populations btw whereas the Autobots and OP in particular fought to save organics. But that never gets brought up as a point in their favor)) as if the damage of a lifetime of war and a society that was broken even before the war can just magically go away now that the war is over.
Prowl fucking sucks but he was basically the only person that pointed out the injustice of that.
And then from then on out most of the characters from other colonies like Caminus and wherever else are going "i fucking hate you and your conflicts" w/ people like literal-nobody Slide and various Camiens getting to just sit there lecturing Optimus about how Cybertronians are too violent for their own good and how their conflicts are stupid, with only brief sympathetic moments where the Cybertronians get to be recognized as their own ppl who deserve sympathy before going right back to being lambasted.
Like I literally struggled to enjoy the story at multiple points because there was only so much I could take of the characters I knew and loved being raked over coals constantly while barely getting to defend themselves or be defended by the narrative so like. It was just fucking depressing and a little infuriating to read exRID/OP
#squiggposting#and like dont get me wrong barber wasnt trying to make cybertronians the bad guys or whatever#it's just a problem with his writing where like. he has A Message he wants to send#and so he uses the entire story literally just for The Message even if it involves bullshit plotlines#or familiar characters ppl were reading about for the past decade being shit on by OCs made up to fill a new roster#like barber's writing tends to lean way too much on a sort of lecturing tone#without giving proper care towards including moments where characters get to like. fucking express themselves and share their side#sort of like how barber couldnt be bothered to write pyra magna and optimus actually talking to each other during exrid#and instead during OP ongoing pyra is suddenly screaming about how OP is unteachable#even tho she never even tried to teach him bc she and OP never interacted bc i guess barber couldnt be bothered#he just needed someone to lecture OP so fuck making the story make sense or like letting OP get to say anything in defense#this is the infuriating part of barber's writing bc i think he has incredible IDEAS and was in charge of the lore i was most interested in#but most of the time his execution sucks and he's basically just mid with a few brilliant moments occasionally#or like he has a message about the cycle of violence he wants to convey#but his narrative choices trying to convey that theme made his story come off as super unsympathetic to the ppl who suffered#to the point where barber actively kneecapped some scenes that couldve been super fucking intense and emotional#in favor of the characters lecturing each other or some stupid plot to criticize OP#that time in unicron where windblade screamed about how this is their fault and then arcee replied that her planet is build on coloniation#shouldve happened more often than literally the last series of the ocntinuity. like goddamn stfu about your moral superiority#when your own sins are right fhere lol
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mohntilyet · 26 days ago
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not to mention the entire antaam fleet like 😭 that was the PERFECT moment to show off what the lords could do!!! The antaam fucked over rivain, theyve been a thorn in the whole nations side for a long time now, they would not pass up a chance for payback via full scale naval warfare so that the veilguard can do what they need to!! Sure dreadnoughts are dangerous but at this point they probably have tricks up their sleeve, thats one of the few things they have!
also wouldn't it be personal because does solas not try to blow up kont-aar because he's trying to 5d chess tevinter and the qunari into destroying each other. like. i know technically this would not be incredible widespread news because the attack was stopped, but i don't think the wonderful citizens of kont-aar would have missed the tsunami that nearly hit them and the shockwave that actually hit them. rumors go around. and i assume irian/vadis tell varric. who i think would tell isabela. who would tell the group she leads. who would care because ofc, they LIVE IN RIVAIN, and now know that solas and his followers thinks they can trade rivaini lives* to further his plans.
*while i also think there's probably a divide between kont-aar and the rest of the nation, it's one that the rivaini love to jump across and back over. an interesting comparison to be made here with most of rivain having similar sentiments towards dairsmuid and the chantry. like this is the country specifically mentioned to have a lot of citizens who follow the qun/are non-andrastian + it being MUCH more multicultural and accepting than other nations. any attack on rivain, even if it's a qunari settlement, would fan a lot of flames that solas cannot put out so the idea of trying to him taking multiple steps back because he didn't realise how intensely the qun/rivaini/lords would react is very fun for me. it would have been soo interesting for rivain to be a hub for efforts against solas because of how it's not influenced by andrastianism, how he (or his agents) specifically fucked them over, and (maddeningly for solas) also part of this resistance has spirits who willingly guide them against him. this could have even been a plot device where the door goes both ways and solas finds out rook's plans because he manages to eavesdrop through a seer or something.
and on the spirits. all the stuff where the mourn watch regularly communicates with spirits could have been done with rivain as well, and with different takes on being 'friendly' with spirits. iirc there's a spirit in the hall of valor which is so interesting but it's literally just there for flavour text. THERE'S A SPIRIT IN THE HALL OF VALOR THAT DOES NOTHING BESIDES LIKE. SAY HI. ??? bioware i would have liked to see more spirits and seers and the matriarchal pantheists you have talked about please. and also the idea of the peaceful qunari settlement being pushed to protect the country they are part of and what that means for them as qunari vs. rivaini. taash's storyline could have contributed to this . so A LOT less about choosing a side, more about how kont-aar has developed, changed, how rivain has influenced it and what it means to be qunari. not the qunari agents and fighters that we have seen, but their 'civillian' way of life in kont-aar.
complete waste not seeing any of established lore reflected in the lords of fortune or rivain because i stupidly actually thought we were going to see some kind of settlement and be introduced to a very different cultural norms.. in my beautiful mind i like to think taash is a little taken aback by how badly mages/elves/etc are treated. like they understood it was different outside of rivain (they would have been young when the dairsmuid circle annulment happened right? so they don't 'remember' it themself, they likely heard others talking about it when they're old enough to understand) but until they actually saw what was happening first hand, they had a weird dissonance about it. but what we got was a deserted beach, ties to another faction (wardens are fine!! they are great !!!! the fourth blight is interesting!!!! yet they are not the faction with a lack of info about them!!!!!) and also the hall of valor that exists as flavor text with nothing meaningful behind it besides a pub used in a few cutscenes and a minigame.
#it's just hard to discuss the qunari in general when it is so obviously written to be quote unquote bad#and theyre like. in veilguard. really just reduced to being an invading force. which they were before. but there's literally nothing else#not a single character that explains more about the qun or how it operates + the game presenting choices about taash#that obviously lean towards favoring rivain. god knows why. its not like we know enough about it to choose it#even a quick peek into a rivaini lifestyle would have been helpful. all we know are from lorebooks !!!!#its actually like. 'qun would have made taash into a weapon/they are actively invading treviso/theyre working w ghil+el/shathaan' etc#and then on rivain's side the points are just 'umm. well the lords are super nice. and love freedom... and its also NOT qunari!'#there ARE reasons to pick rivain just none of them are in the fuck ass game. no one who doesnt read the books would know this shit#does anyone know why the antaam are acting outside of their orders. i dont rmb if this was explained or if its supposed to be like#a very severe response to solas and defying orders to 'deal' with a threat?#but god. kont-aar as it exists is so interesting. maybe elements of like .#'the main qun ignore the changes in kont-aar/rivain because it's such an important part of their trade' situation. idk#i just cant see a lot of the extremely rigid qun followings actually meshing with this extremely 'accepting' culture that is in rivain#eg. rivaini seers allowing possessions vs. sareebas#but its said that the rivaini pantheists actually have lots in common with the teachings of the qun (?)#and again. its peaceful. most of the issues that are mentioned in games/etc are to do with the ORLESIAN chantry causing issues in rivain#so it just. makes me think. maybe things have changed and there's a blind eye to whatever happens in kont-aar#or if there are more hostilities or issues caused by their differing beliefs then it would be good to fucking like. hear about it#plus the qun in general is just. worldbuilding standpoint is like. what. im not a guy who knows too much about this part of da lore so#i had to fact check a few things while writing this response and some of the answers were like#just so unbelievable that im choosing to do whatever i want#anyways. sorry. got out of hand. let me know if anything i said isnt true#its entirely possible. my knowledge of rivain is patchwork but this is probably to do with the fact there's not a lot. yeah#god. i have to stop talking now. thank u anon for agreeing w me. sorry u asked me about the lords and i took it as an excuse#to air out my issues w rivain. because tyche was partially built up around that and then none of it even mattered#veilguard spoilers#answered#rivain
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potionwine · 4 months ago
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Thinking about Margrace as Joshua's name post-Phoenix Gate.
Mar-grace.
In FFXVI the Undying choose their own names (Cyril explains this in-game), and many of them have names drawn from Final Fantasy XII, including their leader 'Margrace' himself, from Al-Cid Margrace. The page for Al-Cid notes that Margrace is likely an alternate form of the title 'margrave', an old title for military commanders on the border.
That aside. This is the name chosen (by the boy himself?) for the boy who should have rightfully been known henceforth as 'Your Grace', 'His Grace'.
Grace (style of address), from the Oxford English Dictionary:
With a possessive adjective: a title of respect, esp. for a person of royal or noble rank. Frequently (in 'your Grace') as a form of address. Now archaic or historical. Formerly (in England until the reign of Henry VIII and in Scotland until 1707) used for a monarch or prince; now replaced by Majesty or Highness. Even so, "Majesty" for the sovereign of England was not used exclusively; it arbitrarily alternated with both "Highness" and "Grace", even in official documents, until "Majesty" finally became the official style to the exclusion of others (source).
Grace (other meanings):
1. Divine favour, benevolence, or providence bringing about worldly benefit or advantage. 2. A person's lot, destiny, or fate; luck, fortune. 3. The quality of being pleasing; attractiveness, charm; esp. (in later use) refined elegance of manner, expression, form, or movement, esp. regarded as natural or effortless; gracefulness.
Whatever the etymology of margrave, the name Margrace in-game is probably meant to call to mind the meaning of 'mar' as in damaged, spoiled, ruined. All the grace that ever belonged to his family, his home, his birthright—marred, of course.
Mar+Grace, the last heir of the oldest unbroken ruling dynasty in the Twins at the time of the opening events of the game**.
The living ghost, carrying the desecrated corpse of his legacy in his new name. Introducing himself by his humiliation: "Hello, I am Margrace", "Hello, I am the ruined dignity of my house." "Call me Margrace", "Call me the wreckage of one fallen from divine favour." "My name is Margrace", "My name is blemished fortunes and diminished nobility".
It's appropriately brutal and dramatic for such a character, especially since the game is frustratingly silent on how Joshua personally feels about the loss of his duchy which is a rant for next time.
**Footnotes:
In the Year 860 (Prologue year/Phoenix Gate), Rosaria is about 260 years old (est. Y600). Older, if you count from the time of the Rose Alliance (est. Y550). The Rosfields have been on the Rosarian throne since the inception of the duchy in Y600, and prior to that House Rosfield was already known to be the chief of/the preeminent house of the Seven High Houses that united to found the duchy. House Rosfield has held ruling power for 260-310 years at a minimum.
For reference, England's longest-reigning dynasty was the Plantagenets, who held on for 300+ years. Rosfields aren't doing half bad!
Veldemarke would have been older had it not been overthrown by Barnabas; therefore Waloed is the youngest nation state at the time of the prologue (only 17 years old). Also we do not know much about the governance of Veldemarke, although as a 'kingdom' it was likely some type of monarchy.
Sanbreque was formed 100 years after Rosaria, and at any rate is not actually a hereditary monarchy. The Holy Emperor is voted into office by his fellow Cardinals, likely the five who form the Council of Elders. We are also explicitly told that Sylvestre 'won his throne' in 865; there is no indication either way that his predecessor emperor was a Lesage. The wording suggests the throne is not Sylvestre's by lineage or birthright. How this is supposed to relate to the concept of Sanbreque having a 'crown prince' (Dion) is unclear and contradictory, since an emperor by election should probably not have the authority to unilaterally decide on the succession of the throne, and his issue—legitimate or no—should not automatically be in the line of succession.
Dhalmekia is a republic with elected officials.
The Iron Kingdom apparently has a royal family, but nothing else is known apart from it being impotent and sidelined by their state religion.
The Northern Tribes likely do have hereditary rule, and Jill is referred to as a princess, but once again little is known.
Ergo—and I am ceaseless in this propaganda—Clive and Joshua are really, properly posh! Absolutely baffling that Anabella would allow anyone to put down the pedigree of her sons when they are so blue-blooded precisely because she is! For someone with such entrenched ideas of blood purity she should not stand for it, no matter how she feels about her eldest.
#sure i'll accept the game just gave josh this name because al-cid was from rozarria#but i like it to have additional meaning because it gives joshua depth#every time you say his name you call him a failure and a stain on his family's proud history!#how long is it until he can accept being called by his proper title#how long before it means something beyond a painful mockery or a reminder of weakness#i rather vehemently thought ffxv could have done more to showcase noctis' feelings as a king in exile#but ffxvi somehow manages to do bugger all for joshua#sorry xv i was too harsh on you#please stop creating royalty if there is no interest in exploring how that character relates to sovereignty and leadership#don't say oh but xvi did explore that with clive because yes i know they did but consider this clive is not rosaria's sovereign#ffx had no sovereigns in the main party and every relationship was solidly crafted#it's such a frustrating business because we literally know how so many other side characters feel about their kingship#yes you barnabas you made benna and sleipnir do all the talking at the consult where you were bored out of your mind lol#yes you elwin ready to send your 10-year-old into war for your people#yes you sylvestre you don't give a shit about the replaceable riffraff#we even know how martha and l'ubor feel about leading their little towns ffs#but we have only the tightly clenched fists and the cold shaking hands of a boy who died at ten#okay okay okay okay i'm not salty#ffxvi#final fantasy xvi#joshua rosfield
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navree · 7 months ago
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in terms of how pervasive the fanon perception of tim drake as this neglected/borderline abused child of the horrific drake parents who are the worst human beings to ever live, i think it largely comes from the fact that i would bet money that 90% of the people perpetuating it just didn't have two parents who both worked.
#personal#the other ten percent comes from people trying to make him marginally interesting by pretending he's suffered more than jesus#(he hasn't he isn't even the character who's suffered most or second most in his own family and it also doesn't work)#(cuz he's still boring)#but like every time people bring up 'oh the drakes went on TRIPS for their JOBS how AWFUL' i give the most intense side eye#there was a period from when i was around 8 to 13 where my dad went on VERY long business trips for his work#like months long business trips#because again both my parents worked but he earned more money#or the fact that i spent a lot of summers with my sister and babysitters before my mom went into university teaching#because neither of them had the free time because they were WORKING#like i think these people just aren't used to having both mom and dad have jobs they need to do#plus the bit where they go hard on jack drake in particular makes me laugh because 'oh he stopped tim from being robin' yeah no shit!#if i found out my kid was robin i'd stop him!#a) unlike his predecessors or immediate successors tim has no internal drive that necessitates robin in his life#b) the last one very famously died! on the job! violently! and it turned batman into a crazy person!#as a parent jack drake is perfectly within his rights to not want his kid to be in very real and present danger#that's not him being abusive that's him being very normal#also i don't even get it because beyond people not understanding the concept of 'parents with jobs'#have some of you guys ever even read tim-centric pre-52 comics?#he doesn't mind his parents' work at all and he likes that his house has a bunch of cool artifacts and the way it's lowkey a museum#just make an oc at this point my god because it makes the tags and ao3 a fucking nightmare honestly
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icewindandboringhorror · 11 months ago
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Hrmm... Revising my game and I feel like there's still sooo much writing left to do, for something that probably won't even amount to much, so.. I do want to narrow my focus more (especially given my health problems seeming to get worse/less energy the past few years), but I'm not sure how would be best to...
I currently have 5 characters as the Main ones with full planned questlines and such, with each character having 6 quests you can do for them. But I haven't really started the writing for the 5th main character. So then I was thinking, if I were going to write 6 full quests worth of content anyway... is it better to allocate that time on just doing a Complete 6 Quests for ONE single character, OR would it be better to do something like.. choose THREE side characters and do 2 quests for each of them? So that people have a wider variety to interact with and sort of sample around (of course with the idea that, once the first version of the game is released, IF people actually care about it enough to make it worth the effort, I would then add additional content to complete those 3 characters stories as well)
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SO... If you were playing an interactive fiction sort of game centered around talking to & doing quests for a cast of characters (like there's no larger plot, more it's just about interacting with people, every character kind of has a self contained story, the focus is just learning about them and the world and exploring the area) --- Which would you rather have?
(and of course it would be stated up front which characters have only partial questlines, so people don't expect them to have full quests like the others and then get disappointed, or etc. etc.)
Basically, is it better to just focus in specifically on having one fully complete questline? Or for there to be a few stories that are not complete yet, but have more initial options available?
#I guess I just feel weird about investing too much into characters if possibly nobody will like them. so the idea of being able to sample#around a wider variety opens up the option of like 'hey even if neither of these 4 are your favorite - you have 3 other options soon too!'#or whatever. BUT I also am very anti-the trend of releasing half finished games or shit like that where people preorder and then#the game sucks on actual release and isn't fully playable or good until 5 updates later#HOWEVER.. those are giant companies with hundreds of employees and millions in funding. I feel like it's different for someone#if they're just like ''hey I am getting zero money for this and doing it entirely on my own in my free time and before I do like 50+ hours#of work on top of the 100+ hours of work that I already did - I would like maybe to at least see some proof#people are interested in this - so I'm releasing the game with like a small amount of the originally intended content removed#that I still have planned out and hope to add later and the game is still entirely done and completely functional#except for just a few quests I might add later.. sorry'' etc. etc. ??? like I think that's different. but maybe some people dont see#it that way and would still be like 'grrr.. how dare there be unfinished options..>:V" idk#And the nature of the quests is such that it's not weird to have it be partial like.. again.there's no major plot. it's not like the quests#are leading up to some dramatic thing and having them half done would make it feel like a cliffhanger. It's meant to be very casual just#chilling and doing little tasks and such. And last thing to clarify I guess - by 'side character' I don't mean taking some unimportant bac#ground character and forcing them to have quests. I mean like.. originally the game had 8 full characters and I thought that was#too much so I cut it down to 5. So I still had everything planned for all the side characters too. Id' just be like.. re-giving them#quests and focuses that were already planned from the beginning but that I got rid of.. former main characters banished to the side lol..#ANYWAY... hrmm... hard to decide... It's just so niche I think. I feel more and more like I should just get it to a 'proof#of concept' state and get it out there to interest check rather than invest in it soooo much for nothing. Because I really do not have the#tastes other people do or interact with games or have interest in things in the same way. A lot of the stuff that I love (slow. character#focused things with basicaly no action or plot where its' just about getting to explore a world and learn about#people in a casual low stakes setting but ALSO not romance) I think people find very boring so... lol...#This year as I try to pick the project back up again after abandoning it for like 3 years I keep looking at stuff and going.. ough...#yeah... cut this maybe.. I should cut that too.. I should make them a side character.. remove this.. blah blah..#Though I did ADD a journal and inventory system and other things that like People Expect Games To Have so.. maybe#that will count for something.. hey..you can collect items.. it's not just 'talking to elves for 600 hours simulator'.. are you#entertained yet? lol.... When I was making my other tiny game for that pet website and I gave it to the play testers and someone was like#''it should have achievements so I feel I'm working towards something concrete'' I was literally so blindsided like..??... people WANT that#in games..? is the goal not simply to wander aimlessly &fixate on world/character lore& make your own silly pointless personal goals? I did#do them though because it IS fun to make up little achievement names and such but.. i fear i am out of touch so bad lol..
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desertdragon · 6 months ago
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This shit is so ass I just want it to be over
#the moment i saw it has FFX But From Wish.com my intelligence 100% just feels insulted#it was already boring this entire time but disrespecting X's point by turning it into a cheap commodity device is kicking my nuts#just spitting on Sakaguchi by trying to copy his homework in the hopes idiots will clap like seals bc they recognize the reference alone#but when hasn't msq's point been pushing out nostalgia and by the book trope slop for the sake of illiterate's money#gameplay and collectables is all this shit has ever had aside from the occasional side story or side character#i like the collectables. the gameplay is interesting enough. i have a story of my own at home.#they even ripped off IX for more HEY YOU REMEMBER FF9 RIGHT? BUY OUR GAME BC WE SAID ALEXANDRIA & MIMICKED SOME BUILDINGS#YOU'LL BUY IT AND LIKE IT JUST BC IT SAYS SOLUTION NINE LIKE ZIDANE EVEN WHEN IT HAS NOTHING IN LINE WITH FF9- YOU DUMB TOOL#the solution 9 plot is just the twist from ff9 but if it had nothing to do with anything aside from being one giant reference#it's never made to fit xiv itself and it only appears at literally the last quarter of the story with virtually zero mention of it before#and then to drag it out even more they added a sprinkle of ffx fayth but make them disconnected from the themes and have no personal connec#with the protagonist (s)#everything before this is pure seasonal anime lowest grade shounen tropes with no seasoning bc it's played so predictably flat and straight#zero novelty beyond fringe ideas that just get mentioned w/o much writing behind them which this game loves doing#they love mentioning shit just to postpone it to the last second when it's suddenly important despite having no depth attached before#saves money on actually having to write a complete story#they even got Wish.com Steiner in here lmao#if anything the time for them to rip off IX was in EW because those stories actually have themes in common to make some sense#also the way characters are expendable to the story in the sense the game forgets they exist after they play their role#is at the worst it's ever been- they drop even long time main characters like flies once their exposition is done#it's so abrupt too just when you think a character might contribute more they're already gone#this expac is everything bad about the game which makes it worse than bad- it's unbearably boring and tedious#even characters that were HYPED IN THE TRAILER literally only show up for a few lines of dialogue then leave
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fxggotclown · 1 year ago
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i find it very sad that i read a stupid amount of yaoi on mangadex earlier this year just to see what was up but forgot to put them in a list so i dont know what ones ive read
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chooey · 2 years ago
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common kendall L
#THIS IS CRAZYYYY#loved the last episode actually#also rare roman W ?????#when he said youre bullshit we're all bullshit we're nothing like wow FINALLY?????#anyway i found watching the series kind of. insufferable 😭#and like what the hell is this tomgreg endgame lmfao 😭#whatever they have going on i dont wanna know anything ! dont care if it's pride month#roy kids are just a bunch of losers wbk !!!!!!!!!!#not saying logan roy is a good person or that i like him i dont like any of them but according to this show he was a good business man so ?#shivtom ok then!!!!!! shiv though still a nepo baby (semi capable???) i cant really find it in me to hate her#piss babiest award goes to kendall roy idc#ok real talk theres room.... a house for nuance here#ultimately this boils down to logan being a shitty dad to all of them and building a company that encourages toxic shit to fester#but even that piece of shit had his own demons#logan roy unforgivable unreedemable literally hell if it were a man#still... i liked that the last episode at least tried to show his good side (? lol 😭) the scene was the warmest a succession scene can go#also the scene of them acting like children. it was good. it reminded me of the boat scene in s1 at shiv's wedding (probably intentional)#if i could say which character i... didn't like necessarily but people i found interesting/captivating it would be...#kendall tbh... gerri shiv stewy caroline tom (he is SO weird and fucked up) greg??? frank? roman i was on the fence Always#it's bad that in his mind he's the middle child bc im the middle child 😭 I don't identify with this i don't claim it i don't approve of it#........but sometimes........ yeah#logan was right about one thing and that they are just unserious people lmfao 😭 nice parting words huh#unblocking the tag now!!!!!!! wow finally i can see what people were thought of this show/the characters#maybe my view is more cynical and too vanilla i'm sorry i just cant excuse the heinous shit these people did hence i don't have a favorite#it's just a fictional show (!!!!!!) well ok but i just didn't love them as characters!!!!!!! 😭#succession#izza💭
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kerryweaverlesbian · 8 months ago
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If you are a teen drama with a definitive Main Character you can't have a 5-7 person main friendgroup in season one. You only have 10 episodes and 20% of each one is dedicated to party scenes, you have GOT to streamline some of these characters babes.
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ratatattouille · 1 month ago
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Why The Arcane S2 Finale Fumbled, Part I
arcane season 2 was artistically beautiful and thematically cheap. every interesting and meaningful thing it did with its characters (even in season 2 act 2) was reduced to romanticized bullshit, utterly divorced from its season 1 roots. it's so bad it can be considered pro-status quo propaganda (and i do mean that). good ships aside (and i do mean the caitivi, jayvik, timebomb holy triad), this season squats and shits on every zaunite character in the show. not just their zaunite-ness, but how it literally shaped who they were as characters.
Let's start with Vi:
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Vi and Vander:
Vi's loyalty to The Lanes always went beyond Powder. Zaun was her father's, Vander's dream. Zaun was her friends and her family. When she's giving Caitlyn a tour of The Lanes, we see how much she embodies and revels in Zaunite culture (esp in the food scene). She took responsibility for the vulnerable, like Vander taught her to. Her "protective" trait extended to ALL the vulnerable in The Lanes, because Vander taught her that. It wasn't EVER just Powder. Zaun is her HOME. As a child, she wanted to make a name for herself IN ZAUN "one day, this city's gonna respect us." You can make the excuse that Vander's death meant that side of her died, but it clearly didn't because of how she regarded it while showing Caitlyn around. "Family" to Vander, extended to the vulnerable of Zaun, which is how Vi and Powder came to be his "daughters" in the first place. Because Zaun was for THEM. Zaun WAS THEM. Vander and Silco "weren't allowed to fail" at Zaun (i.e. the two daughters).
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Additionally, Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't: forgiving each other and uniting so they could realize their dream for a free Zaun. A big reason why Zaun struggles to be free is because of their own internal divisions (the different gangs fighting for scraps). But if they united, they would be able to liberate themselves from Piltover (who is still the enemy). The whole reason the others are prosperous in the alternate timeline Ekko and Heimerdinger travel to is because Vander and Silco reconcile (not because Vi dies).
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Vander also passes on his sense of responsibility to Vi. He tells a repeatedly vengeful Vi how her ambition to show up her oppressors can overshadow the more pressing priority of looking after those more vulnerable than her i.e. Powder. Like Silco, his advice to his daughter is steeped in his own trauma of getting so zealous he didn’t stop to think what it would cost.
Vi and Caitlyn:
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Caitlyn was an interesting development for Vi, particularly because Caitlyn mirrored Vander's care for all people. Caitlyn was an enforcer that wanted to truly understand and help people. This challenged Vi's biases and also gave them a common goal. Caitlyn appealed to Vi because she gave Vi renewed hope for peace in The Lanes. That Zaun could be free through co-operation instead of violence. Her whole teaming up with Caitlyn, romance aside, was predicated on Vi brokering for peace between Zaun and Piltover (and getting revenge on Silco).
The first break-up between the two (Season 1's "Oil and Water") centred around Jinx, more or less. Vi believes Silco is a threat to peace between Piltover and Zaun (even though The Lanes aren't known as Zaun to her, I'm just using the names interchangeably). She believes Jinx is acting out due to Silco's influence, as well (and she isn't wrong). Had Caitlyn not been injured on the bridge (and had Jinx not felt betrayed by Vi), Vi was going to leave her in pursuit of Jinx. Vi has also never fit into Piltover (and that's also shown in Season 2 act 1-2). She makes no connections with Piltovians besides Cait and (an already disillusioned) Loris who we see for like two seconds.
Vi and Jinx:
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This show was ALWAYS about a tale of two sisters/cities. When Vi becomes an enforcer, it isn't because she's switched loyalties. She wants peace for The Lanes, she just wants to take Silco's creation--Jinx--out of the equation so it can work. Her priority, like Vander’s, is to keep the vulnerable of The Lanes safe, and both were willing to co-operate with Piltover to protect the people they loved. She believes, like Vander did with Silco, that Jinx (and by extension Zaun) is her responsibility. That the reason bad things happened to Zaunites (Vi’s and Powder’s parents dead on the bridge, Jinx’s mania) is their fault.
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Vi blames herself for creating Jinx as Vander does for creating Silco. The only reason Vi agrees to Caitlyn's plan is because, again, their two goals align: get Jinx. The difference is Vi wants to kill Jinx to kill Silco, while Cait wants to kill Jinx to get her city (mother) back. Vi is still explicitly concerned about Jinx, who she has come to see as a threat to other people she loves (e.g. Ekko, Cait, etc). Vi became an enforcer to protect The Lanes and the (appearance) of peace. Vi internalized Vander’s words and doesn’t want war, even if it means Zaun never becomes independent. But she is doing it as penance for what she feels she didn’t do that led Jinx to become what she is.
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The show in season 2 TOTALLY LOST THIS FOCUS. Vi's guilt at hunting down her own people with enforcers is ALSO ignored a lot by fandom, especially because her post-breakup scene where she goes full goth is framed as regret for letting Cait down (rather than the self-disgust she would feel for joining her oppressors). Vi played a part in creating Jinx and her enforcer-arc is still centred around Jinx. This gets shoved aside for romance with Cait. All the time we could spend post-breakup focusing on the sisters, quickly circles back to Cait.
Cait, who, literally became a dictator and weaponized the air ducts her mother had created to SAVE ZAUNITES. The whole thing is viewed as Vi betraying Cait instead of Vi betraying Jinx/Zaun/her family and Cait betraying Vi ("promise me you won't change") and her mother. Cait was the one who sought to help Zaun (like her mother) but betrayed who she was when she was willing to kill Isha, an innocent child.
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Vi would feel even more guilty at how she is literally in an enforcer's suit when she is about to kill Jinx, the only family she has left. She is literally hunting down Jinx, a Zaunite, like the enforcers had her parents. But we barely explore that. It’s just off to chasing Vander/Warwick only for it to not matter anyways!
(ALSO IMPORTANT: Just to further prove my point on how integral the sister's love for each other was, every show started with a record playing. The cover of the disc was Vi and Jinx. They were always the center focus of the story. The song that the record played? Likely "Our Love" by Curtis Harding and Jazmine Sullivan which goes "Our love is a bubblin' fountain, our love, that flows into the sea, our love, deeper than the ocean, our love for eternity." This love deeper-than-the-ocean can apparently crumble in the face of a dictator girlfriend you've known for less than a year lmao).
Summary of Fumbles:
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-Vi's and Jinx's relationship becomes secondary not just to the entire plot of the show but to Vi's arc. Zaun and Piltover's conflict was set up to be the epitome of the show, and the fact that it got shelved for some (ahem military propaganda) epic battle between humans and robots is very telling about the writers and showrunners.
-Vi forgives Cait easily and prematurely, trashing Vi's true loyalties as established in earlier seasons/episodes and robbing Cait’s actions of their appropriate weight.
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-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's interview with TheGamer) The culmination of love for Vi's character ends with Caitlyn and not Jinx. Vi's character, whose love is explicitly centred on Zaun and her family, reaches its peak in romance with a Piltovian. To quote Amanda further: "If Vi had no one left to protect, she would fall in love." As if Vi had no ambition outside of protecting her family. As if her dream since she was a kid wasn't tied so much into Zaun. As if the reason she wore an enforcer outfit wasn't because of Zaun. As if Zaunites aren't suffering right under her nose. As if she was the only kid in Stillwater Prison and struggled to survive the whole time she was there. I can't pretend to stomach it. (Again, it's not that Vi shouldn't be happy, it's that the ship had to shove this aspect of her character aside for it to work). If they wanted to really commit to the Vi-in-video game origin story, they should have set it up better and stuck to it.
-Vi herself takes a back seat in most of season 2, and becomes a passive, guilt-riddled yes-man to Cait
-Vander's re-introduction is almost completely worthless to the plot and narrative (he comes back just to die), and he is used as a cheap way to re-unite (and then separate) the daughters in a way that has no significance to the themes (also, Silco as Jinx's father is completely ignored during this time)
-Cait's deferral to fascism should have been permanent. Idc about the shippers at this point. Vi and Cait should have never come back from Cait shoving the back of her gun into Vi's injured side (let alone the gassing of the ducts). Vi would've never forgiven her, attraction or no. The fact that Cait could become a dictator after losing one parent is proof of their class divides (after all, Vi held onto hope despite losing all her parents to enforcers and Jinx was all she had left of her family). That should have cemented the death of that relationship (and it would have made for more compelling storytelling on class). I’m thinking it was kept because it matters more to white Western audiences to have a Romeo x Juliet rendition that assuages their classist sensitivities. Cait becoming a fascist made sense and was true to her character and the world. Vi forgiving her (and then having sex with her in the prison she was thrown into as a child?) destroyed both her character and the narrative.
Yeah, yeah, Vi was overwhelmed by the breadth of love and forgiveness Caitlyn had in letting Jinx go, but that's bare minimum shit. Vi "always choosing wrong" because she *checks notes* keeps trying to reconcile with her sister instead of letting her go since she isn't Powder anymore? So she resolves her guilt by choosing her own pleasure and putting herself first for once. Okay, I don't have a problem with that except that Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't--by reconciling! And you still won't get me to like the fact that so much of Vi's character arc gets held up in a Piltovian who encouraged her to do the worst shit to her OWN PEOPLE and then fucking turned on her when she couldn't kill her sister. It is frankly amazing how we're supposed to celebrate Caitlyn literally coming between the sisters. I'd rather Vi forgiving Jinx than Caitlyn. And if the whole appeal of Vi's relationship with Caitlyn is that she was overwhelmed with love for how Caitlyn forgave Jinx after she killed her mother, I don't see how a relationship with Cait automatically makes Vi feel less guilty, since Cait also makes her feel guilty for choosing Jinx (remember her accusation "you will always choose her" like sorry I don't want to kill my orphaned, traumatized sister who I ripped into for making an honest mistake as a child and who has carried that since). Caitlyn (as others have pointed out) got a whole ceremony for her mother and instantly turned on Vi's people. The Vi I know would have been like, "You really are all the same," and FUCKING DIPPED. And there's a little acknowledgement of this in act 1 where Vi accuses Caitlyn of acting like Jinx.
Both Jinx and Caitlyn are emotional labour for Vi. Vi still wants to protect Caitlyn from Jinx. There's not that much of a difference, lol, except that Caitlyn is a privileged Piltovian and Jinx is a victim of the abysmal childhood she suffered at the hands of enforcers. Yet the show is more or less saying Vi pursuing reconciliation with Jinx was a bad choice for Vi and the reason the cycle of violence continued (for some reason). The sister reconciliation was what I was here for, personally. Cute ships aside. But noooo, Vi should forgive Cait (not Jinx) to stop the cycle.
And having jail sex is a liberating act for her because it's where they had their meet-cute. (And we're all good bc Caitlyn gave up the Kiramman seat, lmao, like sure okay).
It's frankly made the ship that much more unpalatable. If Vi had to be destroyed as a character for the ship to work, then the ship wasn't all that good (even though it started off that way). It's honestly left such a bad taste in my mouth. What a fuck you to oppressed groups that whole subplot was. (And it's made worse by the fact that the creator thought that was somehow an empowering and liberating act for Vi, like fuck that).
Let's Talk About Victor:
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Viktor and Heimerdinger:
Heimerdinger and Viktor were the most polar of opposites. Heimerdinger was not only a privileged, ulta-wealthy Piltovian, but he had a comparatively endless lifespan while Viktor's own human life-span was cut short due to being a Zaunite, born at the bottom of the barrel and raised on toxic fumes that led to his terminal illness. Viktor's desperation to unlock the Arcane was explicitly about him overcoming his circumstances, his illness, his premature death. It wasn't merely about his internalized ableism, but the unjust way in which he had to suffer. Heimmerdinger could afford patience because he had all the time and resources in the world, but Viktor didn't. Not merely because he was a mortal, but because he was a Zaunite.
Viktor and Singed:
Viktor's arc with hextech is foreshadowed with his childhood interaction with Singed. I understand that in the games, Viktor is a villain-type character and his catchphrase or whatever is "Join the Glorious Evolution," which the show hinted at from Season 1 when Singed explained his experiments to Viktor. While Viktor is horrified by Singed killing the creature that he eventually uses for shimmer, Viktor later says, "I understand," hinting that he saw the sacrifice (and death) necessary to "heal" the world of its ailments. Both Viktor and Singed grow up in The Lanes, and both have ailments they want to cure (for Viktor it is his lung cancer and for Singed its his daughter's dying). In season 2, Viktor tells Singed that while he understands what healing all those people could cost him, he will not sacrifice their humanity for Singed's cause. This is because of Sky’s death (which is partly why it is her who is in the Arcane with him).
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Sky’s death is what makes Viktor beg Jayce to destroy the hex core, since he couldn’t do it himself. He is willing to die if that means no more innocent people do. But here’s where I get a little touchy. VIKTOR didn’t KNOW she was there. Viktor was simply desperate to live. Sky’s death was not malicious (even if it’s true to his character that he’d feel guilty anyways). It is at this point that Viktor has Jayce promise him to destroy the hex core (and by god is this where a lot of my contention with the finale comes from). Also, it is important to note that Viktor’s self-loathing is depicted only in regard to Sky’s death (NOT HIS BAD LEG). Now Viktor feels guilty not just for Sky’s death, but also necessarily for trying to live (AND PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND). TRYING TO LIVE is subtly treated as an AMBITION that, for Viktor, interfered with his ethics. (And please note that in the end, Singed, who repeatedly embraces unethical practices for reviving his dying daughter gets what he wants).
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Anyway, in S2, Jayce blasts Viktor in the chest and all that conviction goes out the window. All this despite Sky (his conscience and “humanity”) being there with him in the astro-nether. Now Viktor's idea of becoming a higher being is just getting rid of emotion (apparently because Jayce did it or something). Jayce killing him without explanation was all of a sudden all he needed to become a divine dictator. The same Viktor that looked terminal illness in the face and preferred to spare others instead of himself? The same Viktor who's immediate action after waking up with a new body was to go and use the arcane he wished had been destroyed to help others? Because the arcane is corrupting him? That’s convenient for a certain political narrative. Especially because anyone would hesitate pressing a button (in Viktor’s case smashing the hex core) that would guarantee their death. Viktor was being human, not corrupt.
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Viktor and Jayce:
Now, I think Jayce's speech had some merit and could have been framed better with a little more time and thought. The philosophical idea of perfection or a perfect world (one which Piltoverians strive toward) being untenable, maybe even undesirable, is a fascinating concept worth exploring. BUT MAKING IT ABOUT SOME INTERNALIZED ABLEISM FROM VIKTOR IS FUCKING STUPID!!!! I'm sorry, but Piltover being the city of progress until it actually included becoming progressive with Zaun was absolutely one of the things Jayce and Viktor's sub-plot was trying to explore.
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Viktor WANTED TO LIVE. Viktor wanted his people to STOP SUFFERING. Viktor WAS RIGHT. He wasn't merely eliminating "imperfections" (and of FUCKING COURSE A PILTOVIAN WOULD SEE IT THAT WAY), he was trying to cure sick and dying people who did nothing to deserve it. He was buying them time that people like Jayce and Heimmerdinger had in spades, but Viktor and Zaunites had stolen from them.
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Children dying of disease and violence in The Lanes was by Piltovian design! It was not some predestined cosmic necessity. Viktor WAS RIGHT TO HATE HIS FUCKING TERMINAL ILLNESS ARE THESE GUYS INSANE??! Wtf kind of message is Viktor embracing it as part of himself sending to vulnerable, impoverished and ill people? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking comfort? Fuck off right to hell!
Like I'm glad if it resonated with any disabled people, but Viktor's struggle with his body was a protest against Piltover, not himself, and I hate that the writers gutted that character development. Viktor's and Jayce's paths "diverged a long time ago" because Jayce had the luxury and time of pursuing his dream while Viktor didn't. Viktor, even up there as a scholar of Piltover, was still getting the Zaunite treatment.
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Jayce had the time to pursue a better world, while Viktor had to struggle for a little more time. When Viktor becomes part of the arcane, suddenly he has all the time in the world to realize HIS OWN DREAM. Why would wanting a better world for others have to result in "dreamless solitude"? Why does wanting progress equal wanting perfection? You are changing the subject and that is cheating!!!!
Viktor becoming obsessed with fixing what ailed humanity was warranted, and his extremism was hinted to have been due in part to the effect the arcane had on him, but it still made the themes of arcane a joke. There was so much potential and the writers (and showrunners) just squandered it for some more romantic bullshit.
The Glorious Fumblings (A Summary):
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-"Humanity, our very essence, is inescapable. Our emotions, rage, compassion, hate. Two sides of the same coin, intractably bound. That which inspires us to our greatest good is also the cause of our greatest evil.” That's a neat quote, but wars don't start simply due to emotions or whatever. This lacks class analysis, and it's annoying that the writers made this the whole theme of season 2 (and retroactively the show) in a story on class divides. Cait did not merely gas the Zaunites because of her mother, but because of her privileged upbringing that made it more acceptable to her to view Zaunites as animals (remember Ekko telling her enforcers “hunt us down like animals"). Cait knew the humanity of Zaunites was real. She just chose to ignore it because she could afford to. While it is interesting that Viktor would come to see being human as a flaw that destroys any hope of achieving peace (conflict theory would like a word with you), it ignored that fascism is not an inherently human trait and detracts from how or why it persists in the first place. It's almost the same as saying men/white people oppress women/poc because the latter were mean to them. It's victim-blaming (and false lmao). The British didn't colonize the Americans because the natives did anything to them. All prejudice is unjustified, that's what makes it prejudice. Again, Cait became a fascist when her mom died, but Vi still drew the line at killing children and even council members despite losing every single one of her family members to Piltover's violence against The Lanes. AND THAT’S JUST IT. Why the Zaunites do what they do isn’t simply because of love and hate, but because of the desperate circumstances they are forced into by their oppressors. Why the Piltovians do what they do, isn’t because of love or hate, but because they are bread in luxury and affluence. Pretending that’s not the case is an insult to the work put into Arcane’s first season (and anyone with a brain and basic empathy).
-Jayce's speech would have been cute in another story, but it's downright insulting in Arcane's. Yes, yes, Jayce's words would have been the only ones to have broken the real Viktor out of Arcane Viktor's grasp by appealing to this deep childhood wound, but Viktor's desperation was not to belong (because his leg kept him from playing with other children) but TO LIVE (because he was dying of an illness). Jayce's speech isn't bad, just misplaced. Like most of the finale.
-Viktor did not have to become a fascist-aligned deity in his quest to heal people. It is a typical MCU thing to have a "villain" that's technically right and then destroy their entire character to make their (correct) philosophy untenable by making them do something extreme. Typical pro-status quo propaganda trope. I DON’T CARE if it was so we could get some game version of him. Viktor was right in bringing progress and his discoveries to The Lanes instead of devoting his efforts to Piltover, the fake city of progress.
-While I am annoyed that the climax of the show hinged on Jayce and Viktor and hextech (a tool to explore the inequalities of Piltover and Zaun) instead of Jinx and Vi, I think it kinda makes sense. Hextech built what Piltover has now become. Jayce, Viktor and hextech kinda represent Piltover (what it could be) and Jinx and Vi represent The Lanes (and the Zaun it could be). Both would have been integral, but the story shouldn't have hinged on hextech, IMO. Hextech should have remained a tool to explore the politics of both cities, but instead it overshadowed everything, cheapening the story's themes, characters and world-building.
-Jayce calling the Zaunites to arms was downright absurd. But not as absurd as Zaunites volunteering.
And Then There's Jinx:
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Jinx and Isha:
Isha's only use, as far as I'm concerned, was to be a reconciling force between the sisters. When Cait was willing to shoot her to get to Jinx, that should have stopped Vi right there and brought her back to defending Jinx 100% I DON’T CARE. When Isha sacrificed her life to save Jinx, that should have been Jinx's wake-up call right there and helped her understand why Vi kept leaving her out of missions as a kid. But instead what do we get? Depressed, suicidal Jinx and an astoundingly even more resentful and indifferent Vi. Now Jinx sees herself as even more of a poison to those she loves (because she can’t protect them like Vi can and frequently kills them while trying to do so). Jinx, who has always wanted to be useful to those she loves. Who pursued her own hextech inventions in order to give her siblings a fighting chance when facing down Silco. Who wants to give Zaun a fighting chance as Silco's daughter (and Isha’s surrogate mother). To be useful to the goals and dreams of her family. Isha was the perfect opportunity to bring the sisters together and get Jinx to embrace all she is (both the Jinx that Vi rejects and the Powder that Silco rejected), but no. Instead, the kid was some kind of foreshadowing to Jinx's own heroic self-sacrifice for her sister (a message that left both sister's arcs unfinished). Or perhaps, Isha was a commentary on the cycle of violence. But that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.
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Why do I say this?
Because the cycle of violence is not a "Jinx" issue, but a Piltover one, and the writers making it an interpersonal issue instead of a political/sociological one damaged the story and what Jinx's character could have meant to mentally ill people like her. It wasn't illogical storytelling, just far less meaningful than it could have been. It would have been more powerful and moving and impactful for Jinx to realize where the true cycle of violence (as established the whole fucking show from the dead parents on the bridge, to Vander and Silco, to Jinx and Vi, to Jinx and Ekko, to Isha and Warwick, to Cait and Vi, etc) was coming from.
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Jinx needed to accept herself and the love others showed toward her (Silco, Vander, Ekko and Vi). Jinx keeps blowing things up because she repeatedly rejects herself (both Powder and Jinx), ignoring the good she's done and tried to do. Isha was a call back to the good Jinx has done and can continue to do for Zaun and others. Isha and Sevika understood (even though Silco unfairly set it up) that Jinx was actually their good luck, their hope, more than just a hex (pun intended) on the city. After all, Jinx made Sevika her new arm (even though she's the reason Sevika lost her arm in the first place), which further proves that Jinx had the capacity to fix some of what she broke. It would have been better for her to embrace responsibility and have the faith to try and fix things (ESP her relationship with Vi). While it is not unrealistic or necessarily bad writing that she would fake her own death to run away and start over (or just die) trying to save Vi, the arc people she represented deserved was her embracing Vi back, not accepting that she was a curse in Vi's life. And most definitely NOT romanticizing her pain.
Jinx and Ekko:
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Ekko's and Jinx's relationship is precisely an exploration of how Piltover's violence against Zaun forced these children with entire futures ahead of them (they are both child prodigies) into endless war and hellish heroism. Ekko and Jinx are repeatedly shown to be hesitant and even unwilling to participate in violence against others, especially their own. Ekko does not hate Jinx, though he wants to, and Jinx does not like who she is when she's violent. She is trigger-happy because she already expects Vi and Ekko to want to kill her (projecting her self-loathing on them, but not entirely unreasonably). She doesn't have faith in their love or mercy because she doesn't see any part of herself as redeemable or loveable, which is why she consistently sabotages her life (but not without help from Vi and others).
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Ekko and Jinx are symbols of progress for Zaun AND Piltover (and Heimerdinger saw that, especially when Ekko insisted he had to go back to his timeline, even if the one he had landed in was better). Heimmerdinger saw what they could have been in the alternate timeline, all the genius that was squandered in The Lanes. Jinx and Ekko are the ones most willing to put an end to violence and injustice because both of them are nostalgic for their families. All that’s ever kept them going is the love of their families. Jinx just doesn't have the same faith in her ability to be their hero as Ekko does, but Ekko manages to convince her for a moment anyways.
Ekko recognizes (like Silco, Viktor and Isha) how integral Jinx is to the creation of a new world. She injects colour and life and hope into Zaun and is the only one who can unite all warring factions in Zaun in the first place. I know people have gripes with this Jinx being the hero of Zaun when she literally killed Silco, opening the market for other gangs, but her most famous act is the bombing of the Council, which pretty much all Zaunites were unaware was about to grant them independence. To the average citizen of Zaun and Piltover, Jinx was the symbol of a revolution (even if Jinx didn’t see herself that way and didn’t really want to be). Both her and Ekko are rebel leaders, but that is hardly used in Zaun's interests in the end. (ALSO THAT WHOLE CONVERSATION WITH VIKTOR AND JINX WHERE HE SAID SHE COULD BE USEFUL TO HIS WORK. This show would have won with a Viktor and Jinx team-up to unite Zaun--also in parallel to Jayce and Vi's team up. We could have had it all!)
Jinx and Silco:
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This, is only second to Vi in the most FUMBLED things about Jinx. Silco was her guide once Vander died and Vi ran away. Silco not only took care of her, but gave her purpose (someone to love and be loved by and protect) and nurtured her talent (one that many others scorned). Silco accepted Jinx even though he weaponized her (which backfired for him). As much as Silco WAS WRONG to lie about Vi (manipulating Jinx) and even try to kill Vi (which was a dumbass move on his part), he wasn't wrong about Jinx's path to healing: self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. And even though Silco's own stupidity led Jinx to "embrace" Silco's version of Jinx to the point that she bombed the Council right when they'd granted Zaun independence (I wanted to fucking kill myself watching that), Jinx was still not ENTIRELY a jinx as Jinx (e.g. when she rescued Zaunites from Stillwater Prison). This fucked up dude did a whole John-the-Baptist thing where Vander tried to drown him with Jinx so she could embrace her Jinx-ness. But I don't think he was telling her to embrace that she was a curse like Vi meant it, but to embrace her new life (baptism is all about death and rebirth) and her new self and take responsibility for it.
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Silco, like Ekko, was the one who saved Jinx from death and offered Jinx a home. While everyone else patronized Jinx for her own childhood trauma, Silco was gentle, understanding and provided space for that, even when her psychosis killed him. He showed zero resentment toward her. But when Silco dies and Vander returns, Jinx just . . . oopsie, doopsie! Forgets about Silco until one final hallucination she has of him in the jail cell. The only one she has where he talks. And what does he say? She needs to break the cycle. How? Not by eliminating Piltover or gaining Zaun's independence like he'd talked about and dreamed about. Not by accepting herself as Jinx and Powder, the inventor, the fighter, daughter of both Silco and Vander, but by offing herself? Leaving her family to think she's dead? Embracing the lie that she really was the poison in their lives and the reason none of them could be happy? The reason they died? NICE! SWELL! WHAT A SATISFYING, INSPIRING CONCLUSION! Even worse, they made her "death" staged. I'm sorry, but do we really believe that this same girl who killed herself multiple times in front of Ekko just 24 hours ago somehow found the will to live and escape into air ducts when she was falling with Vander? She decided to live right when she was about to die? And let's not forget that she was falling to the same song that was playing when she was trying to commit suicide. Why? And why would a heroic death (staged or not) be any form of character growth for Jinx in the first place? When her whole thing is distrusting the love offered to her? Or was she accepting herself by being the one to kill Vander because she knew Vi couldn't? Either way, it's cheap!
I Wonder Who Put All Those Holes In You (Fumbling Summary):
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-Vander's letter to Silco could have been why she hallucinated Silco talking to her about forgiveness, but breaking the cycle here is about forgiving (unapologetic) Piltovians instead of herself, which needed to happen to complete her arc.
-Isha and Vander misery porn
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-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's TheGamer interview) to paraphrase: "SO OUR GRAND CONCLUSION TO VI AND JINX'S ARC WAS TO CONFIRM THAT YES, JINX WAS INDEED A JINX (AND NOT PILTOVER OR ANYTHING HAHA) AND THE SISTERS WOULD ONLY HAVE PEACE IF THEY NEVER RECONCILED - JUST LIKE THEIR FATHERS BECAUSE THAT WORKED OUT SO WELL THE FIRST TIME! :D THE REASON THEIR LIVES ARE IN SHAMBLES ARE PURELY BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN PERSONAL FAILINGS AND NOT AT ALL BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION PILTOVIANS HAVE PUT ZAUNITES IN! XD WE THINK THIS IS ALSO A FANTASTIC THING TO TELL MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE." :)
-Jinx being the reluctant Girl Saviour of Zaun after clinging onto her identity as a jinx so she didn't have to take responsibility for Zaun should have been the completion of her arc, IMO. As far as Jinx's arc is concerned, she was meant to reject the identity of jinx that Vi gave her and embrace the identity of Jinx that Zaun gave her. Loveable and capable of doing the right thing and saving others. Using hex-tech, something Jayce and Piltover had levelled against her people, against them. And she does this to some extent, but we don't even get a hint as to why Ekko's speech worked (and how he got her to fight alongside him and the Firelights in the first place). We know she does so for Vi, but she so quickly gives up once she and her sister are back on the same team. She allies herself with her sister just to die and then fuck off to another land? BRUH! Like act 3 is SO FRUSTRATING!
Conclusion
If the focus had been on the coming war between Zaun and Piltover, then we could have better explored the internal struggles happening with Vi's and Jinx's characters. Using Isha and Vander as misery porn for Jinx was a bad move. I stand by that. Isha didn't need to die that uselessly. Jinx did not need more "trauma" for any character development (positive or negative). It's not unrealistic that Jinx would be depressed after Isha's death (and that Isha was likely meant to symbolize the constant cycle of violence), but that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.
These are where my gripes with Jinx's and Viktor's arcs in S2 really lie: the story tries to strip the political from the personal! Viktor, on waking up with the arcane in him, goes back to The Lanes, and what does he see? The cycle that Silco mentions in Jinx's hallucination in the cell. This cycle is not merely coming from the interpersonal struggle Zaunites have, but rather, the forces behind those struggles: the starvation, the lack of resources, the poverty. All caused by Piltover. Where Season 2 fails while Season 1 succeeded, is it points the camera away from Piltover as the origin of all this mess, and instead, makes it a stupid cosmic clash between chaos and order (kinda fascist ngl). Zaun lost, and Arcane Season 1 had the tits to show why those in The Lanes were always on a losing streak: Piltover. The commitment to saving Piltover instead of destroying it ruined so many arcs, most notoriously Vi's and Jinx's. This should have ended in a war between the two cities, not one where both fought against robo-people and Ambessa.
But what, instead, do the writers brandish as this solution to the cycle?
Fucking forgiveness (of those who harm and oppress you) and acceptance of your (physical) imperfections (like that's what we were apparently talking about, which no, it wasn't). By refusing to acknowledge Piltover's hand in the desperation and violence and struggle the Zaunite characters find themselves, the show inadvertently ends up excusing Piltover.
TLDR: Bad message to send to oppressed people, mentally ill people, and people dying of terminal illnesses, lmao. The Zaunites ALL LOST with this one.
And I'm going to make a Part 2 to really get into it, but from the perspective of three Piltover characters (and one Zaunite) that really prove my point: Jayce, Mel, Caitlyn and Ekko.
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P.S.: It's okay if you think the show is good because it succeeds in many other things, I just think it drops the ball in the places I've mentioned. But if your main criticism of my criticisms is going to be defending your ships, please find another post. Oppression is a serious reality that deserves serious depiction and it's insulting to have such necessary political discussions devolve into dumbass ship wars.
EDIT: I honestly did not expect this post to get more than 20 likes lmao, and i must admit that this was more of a thought dump than a super-deep analysis, but i'm glad a lot of it has resonated with so many of you!
EDIT AGAIN: Here's PART 2.
3K notes · View notes
simpjaes · 9 months ago
Text
EROTIC EMPATHY (s.jy)
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Have you ever taken anyone’s virginity before? Nope. Are you about to? Yep. or the one where jake has a streak of bad luck in bed and his friends make fun of him for it, you find him advertising himself on a dating app and decide to help him out. 
minors dni! | if you read it, reblog it
WORDCOUNT― 12.7k
PAIRING― jake sim x afab reader 
CONTENT― virgin guy who lives with his parents!jake, he’s not shy but he is very clumsy, a lot of texting so be prepared for that, facetime-sex, real life sex
SIDE CHARACTERS― jay as reader’s best friend and roommate, heeseung briefly as jake’s friend.
NOTE― if you've read this before it's because im the person who wrote it [ncteez] and im revamping it for jake, pls don't send me messages on either account about stealing a work that's already mine!
smut tags under cut:: 
smut tags―big huge dick jake, phone sex (ish), face time sex,  masturbation, pet name: baby, making out, he eats you out twice, fingering, whining and whimpering, deep throating, premature ejaculation, desperate man wants his dick wet lmao, grinding, tit fondling/licking, clit stimulation, he bites the fuck out of his tongue to try and distract himself from coming too soon again,  no condom aka cream pie, jake gets feelings like immediately when u touch him
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
“Check this shit out,” you laugh, presenting your phone to Jay with a chuckle. “yes or no?”
Jay snorts, nearly spitting out the bite of food in his mouth as he reads the bio of the man you’re showing to him.
“Depends, you trying to take his innocence or are you trying to get railed so hard that the entire building can hear?” He narrows his eyes at you, making a point to call you out for keeping him awake last weekend. 
You wave him off with an apologetic look. To be fair, the dude from before knew how to make a girl moan, it’s not your fault that you managed to find a decent lay in this city. Even if he ghosted you, you assume you may have been a bad lay for him, if anything. 
“I wouldn’t mind trying something new, dude seems desperate.” You swipe through his photos, seeing that he appears to be just a normal dude with normal interests. “He’s cute too, so I’m gonna say yes.”
Jay groans this time, slapping a hand to his forehead and glaring at you. 
“You’d better warn me if you end up bringing him home, I’m not about to listen to some guy start crying over a blowjob.”
You nod to him, sending a message to the eighty-two-year-old Jake and feeling delighted at his near-instant response to you. 
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll make sure you’re out of the apartment if I invite him over,” You wiggle your brows as you stand to your feet and turn toward your room, eyes now glued to the open dating app’s messages. “Maybe you should go out and find a nice girl to rail to get back at me.”
“You’re so fucking weird.” Jay laughs but feels kind of shitty because it’s not like he hasn’t been trying to get back at you for the loud sex. Guess he just doesn’t have the magic dick to make girls moan the same way you do.
Not that he wants to make you moan or anything, he definitely doesn’t. If anything, he wishes you were more like the girls he brings home.
Fucking quiet.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
You: i’ve never seen a virgin grandpa on this app before 
Jake: ….i’m 21, it says that in my bio
You: I think you’re lying. 
Jake: do u know how to change it, my bitch friends won't tell me lol
You: why would i help you lie to other women
Jake: i’m not lying!!1
You laugh to yourself as you text the new sex interest in your life, wondering if he’s lying about his presumed virginity. 
You: ok, twenty-one-year-old “jaeyun” who is five miles away from me, you’re actually a virgin? Like for real?
Jake: yea….are u here to make fun of me for it too? all the girls here just turn me down even if i offer to cook for them after
Jake: maybe it's the playlists idk
You: send me the playlist
Jake: [spotify link to a playlist titled “NUT”] 
You try not to snort, but you do. Given, he does have decent taste, but why anyone would have dynamite by bts and never say never by justin bieber on their sex playlist is beyond you. 
You: surely it’s not your playlist…….
You: anyway
You: you’re really just looking to get laid for the first time, like, ever? and you’re offering to cook dinner too?
Jake: yea
You: you’ve never had a blowjob or anything like that? you can’t seriously think I can believe you’ve never been laid, it’s not like you’re ugly or anything
Jake: u don’t think im ugly? :) 
Jake: and yea I’ve had a blowjob before
You: why didn’t you sleep with her then?
Jake: can we stop talking about why im a virgin
You: sure but you know im gonna bring it up again, right?
You’re smiling at your phone, finding him charming and awkward in how he communicates with you via messenger. Of course, you’re curious as to why he’s a virgin, even more, curious as to why he’s on a dating app looking to lose said virginity. 
You: do you want my number? it’s embarrassing to have the app open in public if i wanna talk to you.
Jake, on the other hand, is quite literally kicking his feet and checking your profile every few minutes just to look at you. He didn’t even think too hard about you calling him attractive then not following up on it, because the fact that you just offered your number to him in case you want to talk to him? Butterflies. Given, it’s juvenile for someone of his age to still be experiencing the typical high-school crush feelings, would anyone blame him? It’s just how he is, with or without having had sex. He can’t imagine not feeling giddy inside when he’s talking to someone that he thinks is pretty. 
Jake: yea :) u can text me whenever [redacted phone number] 
You respond to him by texting his number rather than using the app messenger, screenshotting his contact info, and sending it to him with a sly smile. 
You: [screen shot// contact name: grandpa jake] 
Grandpa Jake: :| 
Grandpa Jake: im 21
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Okay so, here’s the thing. Jake is undeniably funny, witty, and kind. Another thing, he’s wildly attractive. Especially upon fulfilling your request for a workout selfie from him. So, what gives? You read the texts he’s sent that made you laugh out loud, you look at his pictures, stare at the workout selfie, and you genuinely cannot understand how he doesn’t have women waiting in line to have at him. 
You: it’s been like four days since we started talking
Grandpa Jake: yep, almost five
You: four days of being friends but no mention of your bio on the app, yknow, where you’re begging to have sex for the first time ever?
Grandpa Jake: right, yea. you wanna do it? i didn’t wanna assume lol
You: not answering that til you explain why. i mean, it’s totally ok that you are but like, you’re a green flag all around so im a little worried you might have like a micropenis or something
Disclaimer, if he had a micropenis, you’d still let him use it on you. After all, hooking up is something you enjoy doing regardless of size.
Grandpa Jake: i do NOT have a micropenis
You: prove it
Grandpa Jake: right now???
You laugh to yourself but also like, it’s the first time the two of you have done anything more than bully each other. Or rather, you bully him and he defends himself constantly. 
You: answer my question first
It takes a few minutes for him to respond, but you’re doing coursework anyway so it’s not a huge deal. Totally not like your ears perk up and a smile creeps across your face every time your phone goes off or anything. Definitely not. 
Grandpa Jake: um… i still live with my parents and before u make fun of me for that pls understand that its not like i wanna be here 
Grandpa Jake: i have a job and everything!!! im not a mooch!
He’s getting off track again. You could honestly care less if he still lives with his parents. You wish you still lived with yours, to save money at least. 
You: they won’t let you have anyone over? 
Grandpa Jake: well, that too but 
Grandpa Jake: listen this sounds real stupid but it just never happened? even when i tried or things almost happened, it never did
You: damn, you’re unlucky. so what happened with the girl who gave you a blowjob?
Grandpa Jake: her boyfriend walked in
You: WHAT
You’re trying to pity him, honestly, but damn. Did he go for a taken girl? Yikes. You hate to admit the ick that just flooded your mind. 
Grandpa Jake: its not like i knew she had a boyfriend
You: phew 
Grandpa Jake: so yea. do u wanna help me out or not? 
The whole reason you started talking to him was specifically to help him out. Now that you know he’s not some weirdo, and is definitely super hot and funny, hell yes. 
You: yeah, sure. 
You: about the micropenis though, 
Grandpa Jake: right…um
A few minutes of silence, your coursework is long forgotten in the anticipation of receiving your first dick pic from Jake. You wait, and you wait, and you wait.
You: i mean if you can’t prove it that's ok 
Grandpa Jake:  just give me a sec damn
He’s doing his best to get the most attractive angle. It’s not like he’s never sent nudes to anyone or anything, but like– this is you. The first person to actually agree to take his virginity. Should he hold it? Put a remote next to it for size? Should he have his face in the pic? Take a mirror pic? 
Of course, as he’s taking several pictures of his length to try and impress you, he had to get hard first. He can’t imagine you’d want a flaccid cock pic in your inbox, and that would also mean that he’s working himself up with the amount of touching, holding, and groping throughout the past sixteen photos he’s taken and deleted. It’s at the point that now it’s actually hard to care about taking a photo, pre-cum already dripping out of him as he continues to try.
He’s entered the realm of his regular horny self, only this time he’s texting you. Someone who wants to see what he’s packing. Taking a dick pic is insanely easy once he stops thinking with his brain, and he’s quick to send you a photo of himself this time. His chin at the top of the picture, face entirely hidden, hand wrapped around his thick and leaking cock, sweatpants shoved down. 
Grandpa Jake: [image attachment] 
In all fairness, you’ve never actually cared much for dick pics. Men always look too confident even with the smallest of girth being offered through the pixels. Jake though. He looks a bit desperate even with his face hidden. His cock looks desperate, his fingers wrapped around it look desperate, the way his sweatpants hug against his thighs look desperate. And now, you feel desperate. You keep your cool though.
You: oh, you were jerking off, got it. 
Grandpa Jake: sorry can’t help it 
Then he doesn’t text you back. Which is kind of a drag because he looks to be quite big in the photo alone. Maybe you’d be okay just this once to look like the desperate one. Mostly because you’re about ten seconds from trying to figure out which direction five miles away he resides so you can go palm his cock for him. Plus, the idea of an absolute simp virgin like him seeing you act a little desperate would probably be one for the books. 
You: you know i can help you out with that, right? especially since you definitely don’t have a micropenis
You’re still being ignored. The silence from your phone makes your belly flip around inside of you at the image of him doing it too. He probably does it a lot. He’s probably desperate to feel good and watches porn like 24/7. You can imagine how he’d act if you were in front of him right now, the very idea of taking his virginity becoming entirely too attractive.
Shrugging, knowing full well what he’s doing right now that’s causing him to ignore you, you press the call button and wait. You’re a little bit nervous, mostly because you’ve never actually heard his voice before, or better yet how he sounds when he’s getting off. You’re shocked that he actually answers. 
“Hello?” He says, muffled through the phone and trying to sound not-so-out-of-breath. It’s not like he looked at who was calling him anyway. With his luck, it’s probably Heeseung or some shit.
“Don’t hello me,” You gripe, narrowing your eyes at yourself in your mirror. “You’re just gonna jerk off without me after I agreed to help you fix your little problem?” 
The silence on his end is a bit nerve-wracking until you hear the frantic sound of his palm clearly wreaking havoc on him. You smirk, leaning back on your chair and sighing. On his end, processing that it’s you on the other line sends his entire body into a state of burning with arousal. Your voice is sweet even when you speak with the same sarcasm as you do via text. 
God, this alone is enough for him right now. 
“Were you at least thinking of me?”
He hums into the phone, indicating that yes, that’s exactly what he’s doing. His voice is kind of soft despite only hearing one word and a hum, you want to actually hear him talk to you, or moan, whichever he decides. 
“Were you looking at my pictures?”
He nods his head, forgetting that you’re not able to see him and instantly responds with a small and breathy yes instead. It’s a bit difficult for him to talk right now, especially now that he can put a voice to the photos he’s been jerking off to. It’s a bit overwhelming, actually.
“Do you want better ones?” You ask, encouraging him to speak a bit more. 
“Oh god, really?” He asks through the speaker, his hand pausing on his length as if to hold off until you confirm. “Like, nudes?”
“Mhm, yeah. If you want.” You smile as you speak to him, already standing to shimmy your pajamas off of you and stand in front of the mirror. “Or, you know what would be better?”
“Letting me come over and actually do it?” That’s what he wants to say to you, but he doesn’t, he simply raises a brow and bites his lip, trying to contain his excitement.
“What?” He asks, still keeping his responses short because despite how into this he is, he’s a bit shy about it. 
“I can facetime you.” 
He panics. That means you’ll be watching him too, right? Sure he’s sent nudes, he’s received nudes. He’s sent videos too, and received them. But never has he like, you know, live masturbated on facetime so someone else can watch. 
“If you don’t want to, that’s okay.” You backtrack at his silence, but you’re cut off almost immediately. 
“No! no, we can facetime–”
Your stomach flips again as you fix yourself quickly in the mirror before setting your phone against your desk and rolling back a bit in your chair to determine if it’ll work this way or not. It’s not like he’s expecting you to do it too, he probably just thinks you’re gonna sit here naked for him to stare at. You’re kind of excited to see him in action, to hear him in action for you.
You hit the button to switch the call over to facetime and once again adjust your phone as you stare at yourself in the camera. Then you’re needing to catch your breath at the image of him.
Oh fuck.
There he is, his camera angled towards his face and not at all toward what's going on below his waist, but you don’t mind at first. Looking at him, the lighting clearly shows that he’s a fan of mood lighting. You watch his eyes briefly, staring through the screen at you before moving your eyes to his arm, the one that clearly isn’t holding his phone because you can see it moving as he continues to jerk himself off. It’s an interesting feeling to have only seen him in photos until this moment, and it’s insanely attractive for some reason. Seeing him in motion, knowing what he’s doing, knowing that he feels good right now because of you.
“Let me see,” you say quietly, adjusting your bra strap and preparing to slip it off of you if he so much as asks. “Prop your phone up somewhere like I did.”
He nods, his eyes still staring straight through his screen at you as he moves around and the image becomes a blur of movement rather than his face. He settles in quickly, somehow looking even more attractive with the way his eyes no longer stare at the screen. You can almost sense a hint of shyness from him at this moment and it kind of floors you, given how easy he is to talk to and how easily he sent a dick pic to you.
“Feeling shy?” You ask, spreading your legs wide and cupping the seat of your panties, hiding the small spot of wetness forming there. “You act like I’m not going to be touching you at some point soon.”
You see him perk up, his eyes looking to you on the screen with more fondness than arousal. At the same time, his hand grips the base of his cock as he holds it straight up, erect and glistening proudly for you to look at. 
“You look pretty big, bet you could fill me up so nicely,” You try to compliment, boosting his confidence and ego as best you can simply because he looks pretty with a smile on his face. Especially when his cock twitches at the words. “Would you want to do that for me, Jake?”
“Oh god,” He groans, hearing his name come from your mouth for the first time. His hand jerks up his length once, almost aggressively as he winces at it. “This is going to be so embarrassing.” He admits now, sliding his palm up and down shamelessly as he watches between your spread legs. 
In a way, he wonders if you can see how desperate he is. There’s no way you can’t, right? Like, you can see how badly he wants you, right?
“Embarrassing, why?” You chuckle, tapping now at the spot between your legs. “Can you not see that I’m just as turned on right now?”
He groans again with deep breaths, releasing his length and using that same hand to swipe his hair out of his face, then immediately grimacing at the fact that he now has pre-cum in his hair. Embarrassing, all of it. 
“Well,” He tries to avoid you bringing up the fact that he just did that and only shoots his hand back to his cock in order to distract whatever off-hand shit you’re about to say. “You don’t even have your panties off yet, and I could probably get off right now.”
You laugh, not wanting to ruin the mood with the whole cum on his own face thing, so you save that for later. Instead, you instantly slip your panties off and present yourself to him much like he’s doing for you. 
“Better?”
Jake watched with his breath stuck in his throat, now finding it harder to breathe at the image of your pussy and the way he hopes he can touch it one day. 
“Can you–” He pauses, not being used to dirty talk towards anything other than the porn playing on his phone. He thinks hard, and you can see it based on the way he, once again, neglects his cock with an unmoving palm.
“Can I do what?  Go on,” You urge him, running a hand up to your chest and fondling your nipples right there in front of him, but not yet moving the fabric. “What do you want me to do for you, baby?”
Baby. You called him baby. Not that he’s into that but the fact that you did it makes him wonder if he is now. Maybe it’s because he wants you to take him for all he’s worth at this point. One, to get rid of the virginity looming over his head, and two, because you sound so fucking smooth when you’re watching him get off. 
“Can you spread your pussy for me?” He whispers at first, uncaring of how dirty it sounds falling out of his throat with a moan. 
His eyes are boring a hole through his screen as he watches one of your hands tease at your hidden nipples, and the other hand sliding up and down the wet folds there. So badly does he want to see it. He wants to see your hole pulsing for him, leaking, needy. Just like him.
His cock twitches wildly the second you do it for him. Two fingers spreading your pussy open and tensing your hips just to move it closer to the screen for him. 
“Is this what you want?” You start, making damn sure he can see every part of your glistening cunt. “You want to fuck this?” You chuckle now, slowly dipping a finger into yourself and pulling it back out to present the wetness for him.
“Oh,” he sighs, now fucking into his fist at a pace that proves he’s most definitely never fucked a woman before. “Fuck.”
You nod at him, urging him to keep admitting his attraction to you. You’re aware he doesn’t see it though, as his hips continue to move quicker and quicker each time you press your finger into yourself. 
“You gonna act like this when I’m riding you?” You ask with a tilted head, studying how hard he’s fucking against his hand. You can imagine how good it would feel if it were you, and quite frankly, this one finger isn’t enough at this point. 
“God. You’re gonna ride me?” He moans, eyes rolling only slightly as he imagines it, mouth falling open at the mere thought of it. 
“Mhm,” you hum, now sliding in another finger and scissoring yourself open with them. “Would you want that?”
Before you can even work yourself up, and before he can even answer that question, you see him release. His cum shooting out in spurts across his stomach and nearly up to his chest. His labored breathing shifts the lighting against his abs and makes him look so entirely delicious. You’ve never wanted to lick a man clean so badly in your life.
You’re not even upset that he didn’t make it into the knitty gritty, considering he’s a virgin and all and you’re literally fucking yourself in front of him while implying riding him. You’re actually flattered. 
His release caused him to see white for several moments, forgetting he’s even on camera for you. When he comes back to reality, watching you continue to finger yourself as your eyes scan your screen, all he can do is feel bashful. 
“S-shit, sorry,” He comments with a half laugh, looking down at his cum covered chest before looking at you again. Honestly, he could probably go again if you let him watch for a bit longer, but he’s embarrassed now. “I uh, didn’t mean to come that fast. It just kind of happened.”
“It’s okay,” You comfort him, slightly out of breath as you wonder if this is all you’re gonna get tonight. “It was cute.”
After a few moments, you sense his embarrassment and slowly slip yourself back into a sobering headspace, closing your legs and trying to ignore how wet you still are.
“Are you, um, done?” Jake says, disappointed.
“Mm, no.” You smile. “But it’s okay, I’d rather make you come first anyway.”
His face lights up despite the disappointment in his gut of not being able to see you get off. 
“You still wanna see me after this?”
You nod with a smile, endeared by his need to give, but inability to do it.
“When are you free?” You ask, wondering if he’s ever going to clean himself up. 
“Whenever you are.” He laughs, scratching the back of his head with, once again, the same cum-stained hand. 
“I’ll text you later then,” You smile through the screen and give a small wave before your genuine smile turns into a smirk. “After I take care of my little problem though.”
You notice him sitting up in protest, but you hang up with a satisfied laugh and head to the shower to both finish yourself off and clean up.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Grandpa Jake: what about 3pm on thurs?
You: you want to lose your virginity at 3pm….on a thursday???
Grandpa Jake: my parents have plans so ill have the house to myself for a few hours
You: or you could just come here? 
Grandpa Jake: if ur comfortable with that? i thought u were supposed to come here lol
You: im comfortable, plus my roommate will kick your ass if you’re weird
Jake contemplates hard on that last part but shrugs over it. Probably a girl thing, and it’s not like he’s an actual creep or anything. You’d be the one with power over him when the two of you are alone anyway. 
You: what about tomorrow, 8pm? 
Tomorrow. Hell yeah, tomorrow. God, he’d show up right the fuck now if you let him. He may live with his parents but he’s got a car. 
Grandpa Jake: send ur address, ill be there :) 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
“Tomorrow, you’ll be a man.” Heeseung croaks through the speaker at Jake, totally assuming that this whole virginity loss dating app plan was actually just a joke. 
“Why do you have to say it that way?” Jake groans back, slapping his hand over his forehead and rubbing his temples. “I didn’t think anyone was actually gonna come through, she’s the first one.”
“What makes you think she’s actually gonna send you her address?” Heeseung laughs, once again placing more pity onto his best friend than anything else. “She’s probably not even a real person, you’re gonna end up at some old guy’s house.”
Jake laughs, or snorts really. 
“Oh, she’s real.”
Heeseung sits up in curiosity this time, switching his phone to the other ear with interest. 
“Hm? Have you already met her?”
“Kind of. We like, um,” Jake pauses, wondering if he sounds way too excited to tell him or not. “We facetimed a few hours ago.”
Silence.
“She got naked.”
“Oh ho ho!” Heeseung encourages him. “So you guys did some stuff on facetime and she still wants to meet you?” 
“That’s what I said–wait,” Jake smiles to himself, about two seconds from kicking his feet before realizing what Heeseung just said. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” 
“You’re kind of a loser, we’ve been over this.” Heeseung laughs yet again. “Call me when you get your cherry popped or whatever.”
Then he hangs up. 
Grandpa Jake: do u think im a loser?
You: yeah kinda
You’re laughing at his text as you sit across the table from Jay.
“That him texting?” Jay quirks a brow, watching you smile at your phone and practically ignore him. 
You laugh again at Jake’s string of defensive texts before responding with a short “it’s okay, i like losers”, and putting your phone down to finish telling Jay that he’s gonna get kicked out tomorrow for the night. 
“So,” You clap your hands in front of yourself, glaring at Jay. “You’re gonna have to be gone tomorrow at eight because I'm about to literally obliterate this guy.”
“Jesus, I’m scared for him.”
“You should be scared for me. Because, well…” You trail off for a second, scrolling up your texts to see the dick pic Jake sent before the facetime call. “He’s huge and–”
“I did not need to know that.” Jay sighs, scooting back in his chair and standing to his feet. 
“You act like you don’t ask every time I fuck someone.” You roll your eyes at him, smiling. “Weirdo.”
Jay stands there awkwardly before shrugging and lunging for your phone. 
“How big?” He laughs, not actually trying to see the dude’s dick but always way too curious for his own good despite never wanting to be around to hear what the big dicks do to his best friend. 
“Stop prying, you’ll get jealous.”
He scoffs, brushing off his pants of invisible dust and crossing his arms. 
“I’ll have you know, my dick is perfectly sized.”
“I’m sure it is. Anyway, tomorrow, be gone.” 
He nods, sauntering to the living room and flopping down on the couch. 
“Keep it in your room, please. I don’t want to sit on any cum when I get home.”
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
It’s Thursday. It’s approximately seven in the evening on Thursday and you’re well aware that Jake is probably bubbling with anxiety if his texts are anything to go by. 
So many “are you sures,” so many “you can tell me to leave if you decide you don’t want tos,” and even more “i can’t wait to see yous.”
“Jay, aren’t you supposed to be leaving?” You ask, opening the fridge to pull out a bottle of water. 
You’ve already showered again today, primped yourself up for him really. Everything smooth, soft, and ready to be touched. You wonder if Jake is doing the same, and smile.
“Hm, yeah. But I kinda wanna see him before I leave.”
You turn your head to him with a curious look, glaring only slightly.
“I swear to god if you scare him off, I’m kicking you out.”
Jay laughs, patting the couch as if to invite you to sit with him to ease your own anxiety. He can smell the familiar lotion you use before dates, and he notes that you’ve really tried to look good today. 
“I think you might kill him, if I’m being honest.” Your best friend laughs softly, complimenting you. 
“Thanks, that’s the plan.”
And so, the two of you sit together laughing at stupid comedy shows until your phone lights up at around seven thirty. 
Grandpa Jake: i’m a little early, is that ok? 
“Oh shit, he’s here.” You immediately feel nervous, which is pretty normal for you anyway so it’s easily overlooked by Jay. 
He jumps up, brushing off his clothes and walking toward the kitchen to grab his keys and wallet. 
“Let him in then, I’ll leave when he gets here.”
You give him a knowing look before nodding. 
You: second floor, take a left when you get to the top of the stairs, third apartment on the left.
Within minutes, there’s a very gentle knock on the door and Jay is throwing himself at it to get a look at him. Unfortunately it’s a bit more awkward than he expected it to be. 
Not only did Jake think your roommate was a woman, but he, at the very least, expected you to answer the door. He was preparing himself all day for this moment, to knock on your door and have you open it. At first he thought that maybe he even got the wrong apartment. 
“Oh, I think I got the wrong place, sorry–” 
“Nope, you’re in the right place.” Jay smiles, stepping to the side and opening the door wider for him. “You can come in.”
Jake does, awkwardly. Avoiding eye contact with Jay and barely even looking into the apartment before stepping inside. 
“She got all cleaned up for you.” Jay whispers, throwing Jake a wink before stepping out and closing the door behind him.
Jake still hasn’t really looked up from the floor yet, and you make quick work to make him feel more comfortable. 
“Don’t mind him, that’s my roommate.” You say, making your way toward him and trying your best not to stare because, okay, wow. He’s kind of ten times more attractive in person, which is fucking insane considering how good he looked through a screen. 
“Have you and him ever like…” Jake immediately starts, realizing he might have made things weird. 
“Jay?! Oh, god no.” You laugh, reaching for his arm and feeling him lean into it with relief. “You’re allowed to look up by the way. You’ve been staring at that crack in my floor since you got here.”
Immediately Jake moves his eyes up to you, the eye contact feeling more intense than it should, but you’re locked in too. The awkwardness dissolves almost instantly, he feels no need to question you further about anything really, especially with the way he feels his throat run dry at the very idea of this whole plan actually happening at some point.
When he made his profile on that app, it was kind of a half joke until like, people started talking to him. Given, no one ever followed through but you, he’s happy he stuck with it. Happy you came out of the works from said dating app, happy you picked him. 
Really though, he picked you. Part of you wonders about why you want to take this from him. For power, for control, to be praised, to feel like you’re his entire world of desire for a brief time? All of those things, yes, but you can admit now that he’s in front of you that it’s a bit intimidating. 
He’s not shy at all, just a bit awkward. He seems confident, he seems ready, and you find yourself lucky for being the one to get to do this for him, or with him. If at all, Jake is the type of man you could see yourself hanging out with often, with or without having sex. 
Given, upon seeing him face to face for the first time, the only thing you thought about was how attractive he is. Now though, as you look back at him along with the silence of this apartment offering nothing more than awkwardness, it’s not. Because you’re seeing him for all he is and he appears to not be able to help it. Is this what people mean when they say there’s an instant spark between two people? Despite how attractive he is, you find yourself thinking of how many times he’s made you laugh in the short period of time you’ve known him along with how many times he’s willingly embarrassed himself
And now for the first time, he’s right there and all you want to do is…give him exactly what he wants.
“Okay, listen,” You start, swallowing around a lump in your throat as you feel your body heat up at record speed by just having his eyes looking into yours. You know by this point that you’re not going to be keeping your hands to yourself at all. And for his sake, he’d probably prefer it that way. “If I move too fast, just tell me to stop.”
Jake tilts his head with a dopey smile, eyes still fixed on you, scanning you, coming to terms with the fact that you’re absolutely everything he thought you would be and more. 
“I don’t think that’s gonna be an issue,” He admits, feeling his length confined within his pants twitch wildly at the fact that this is happening. “I struggled not to get hard just driving over.” He laughs, looking away from you for the first time with flushed cheeks. 
You find that painfully adorable. No man would ever admit that to you. Especially after just a few minutes of meeting in person for the first time, but this is Jake and in the short amount of time you’ve known him, you’re kind of expecting him to be really forward and say things that will have you frozen in thought.
“Oh yeah?” You ask, grabbing his hand and leading him to the kitchen. You’re pretending that his apparent inexperience isn’t getting to you, but you’re not really fooling anyone. “Let’s get you some water or something, I can see you drooling.”
Jake laughs, shrugging because yeah maybe he’s drooling a little bit. You smell fucking immaculate, your hand is small in his but still manages to overpower him, your skin feels soft and slightly cold. Honestly, it’s dangerous just having you stand in front of him right now because he could absolutely blow his load just by you looking at him. Embarrassing? Always.
He follows after you, very nearly crowding up to you as the comfort sets in and the last bit of awkwardness leaves his mind. All he can think about is how you sounded over that facetime call. He’s seen what’s between your legs, and during that night all he could think about was touching you, fucking you. 
Now he’s here, and you’re right there. 
It’s hard not to crowd up, it’s hard not to cling to you, it’s hard not to be excited. Seeing your hand wrapping around that bottle of water to give to him, seeing you lean just before grabbing it– of course he’s staring. Of course he’s crowding closer, almost to the point that he’s up against your ass when you lean back up from the fridge.
You turn after grabbing him the bottle and are shocked by his close proximity when you face him. He looks down at you with a soft face, one that shows he’s not embarrassed by how he immediately attaches to you. His smile is just as clumsy as he is, you can tell he knows exactly what he’s doing too. You’re glad, because it makes it entirely too easy to drop the water bottle, grab his face, and chase his lips all the way until he’s against the counter and kissing you back. 
He sighs instantly into it, wincing at the way the kitchen counter hits his back, you pressing against him so harshly just to get that first taste of his lips. He’s excited that you seem as eager as him, maybe even as desperate as him. 
For you, a man has never been this eager just to kiss you, nor has a man ever kissed you this good. You can imagine that he’s probably got a lot of experience in terms of kissing, not much elsewhere though. You can tell by the way he moves his hands to all of the right places, but his blatant virginity shows through all of it as he becomes a horny mess almost instantly. 
His tongue is warm and wet, small whining sounds coming from his throat as you press yourself against him briefly. His hands never leave your body and he shows no shame in touching where he wants to touch. Rubbing, groping, and caressing every inch of your waist, ass, and even moving up to your face to deepen the kiss. His hips press forward almost constantly, and all you can do is brace yourself on the counter behind him to try and tame his relentless hips and obvious attempts at rushing what he wants right now. 
If you’re going to sleep with him though, he’s gonna get the full experience, not a quickie. Plus, you agreed to keep it in your room for Jay’s sake. 
“Hey,” you sigh, trying to pull back from the kiss but he isn’t having it. Still kissing against you and running his lips down to your neck when you continue to speak. “We should go to my room, your first time isn’t about to be in my kitchen.”
“Why not?” He groans against your neck, kissing harshly with faint wet sounds, his hands wrapping tightly around your waist now. “I don’t care where we do it, i just want you like, really bad.”
Still, his lips don’t leave you, nor do his hands. You find yourself giggling against him with a shake of your head at the way he protests when you pry yourself from his grip. Of course, though, he’s immediately clinging to you and chasing after you to your bedroom before practically throwing himself at you again.
You barely get the door closed before he’s pressing you against the wall, hand running down again to your waist and easily snaking up your shirt just to feel the warmth of your skin. You let him, enjoying the way he kisses you for just the second time, enjoying more the way you can feel him lose his composure every few minutes from this alone. 
You’re kind of in love with the fact that he doesn’t seem to want to pull back even for a breath. He seems to love kissing, and you wonder what else he’ll come to love doing tonight too. From the way he moves his tongue and his lips on you, you can imagine he’d be fucking heavenly at eating pussy.
Successfully you push him away again, rushing to your bed before he can make you melt against his lips for a third time, and you’re instantly trying to present yourself to him much like you did over camera. 
“You’re really going to let me?” He asks with a deep breath, brushing his hair out of his face and wiping his mouth. His brain malfunctions at your presumed answer to that question, watching you take your panties and shorts off in one go and leaning back to spread your legs for him. 
At this moment, you’re all his and you make it a point to spread your pussy out for him like he asked you to do before. You can practically see his knees buckle that very instant.
“To think I wouldn’t want to do this is insane,” You say, wiggling your hips for him to see. “Look how wet I am.” You pause, studying the hungry look in his eyes. “Do you wanna try eating me out?”
He doesn’t even nod. He’s immediately on his knees against your bed and gripping your thighs to pull you toward his face. You yelp only slightly at the movement, a chuckle coming out shortly after as you sit yourself up properly to take in the image of his eyes sparkling up at you. 
It looks like he’s been wanting to do this to someone all his life, with his needy body proving it time and time again. Your breath is caught in your throat, a small groan coming out at the image alone before you’re able to process words again. 
“Can’t believe how good you look down there,” You say softly, brushing his hair out of his face for him like he did to himself earlier. “Have you ever done this before?”
He shakes his head, eyes shifting from your pussy to your face. You can feel his nervous yet eager breath against you, making your eyelashes flutter at even that slight sensation. 
“Go on then.” You sigh out, trying to prepare for what he can manage with that pretty mouth of his.
You watch him and the way he doesn’t seem to think at all when he does it. Once again, he’s adorable. His tongue goes everywhere, only grazing your clit briefly every few licks, never staying on it presumably because he’s in the process of finding the clit based on how your body reacts. 
He has a general idea of where it is, but the feeling of having your pussy spread out like this on his lips alone is enough to overwhelm him with arousal, to the point he genuinely doesn’t know what he’s doing. All he can do is taste and smell the mixture of your warmth along with the soap and lotion you must have used before he came here. 
He’s quite literally tasting the entirety of you and loving every second of it. The way his hands grip your legs, both spreading them further open so that he can tilt his head and lick at different angles, and then hugging them to where they almost lock his head in place. 
It feels like he does this for ages, learning your body and what makes your legs shake. He sucks in different places, kissing your entire pussy to the point that it’s almost impossible for your legs not to shake in a reaction at what he’s doing to you.
Dare you say, a man who is inexperienced at eating a woman out somehow feels better than one who knows exactly where to go. 
“Fuck, knew you’d be good at this,” You compliment with a shaky voice, reaching down to his hair and holding his head in place. “Keep licking there, and use your fingers too.” 
He hums without stopping, taking note of where you place his lips and reminding himself that this is the clit, just as suspected. He attaches his lips there, kissing it much like he kissed you in the kitchen. 
You can feel his fingers make their way into you shortly after, each bump of his knuckle sending a delicious sensation throughout your body. You’re tingling from your head to your toes at this point and your face heats up beyond what you thought it would. Your hips move on their own in response, experimentally fucking against his fingers as he keeps his tongue flicking at you. 
“Just like that,” You encourage him, running your hands through his hair and looking down at him. Seeing his head move with each little thrust of your hips is only more arousing in this moment. His eyes half open, watching you, tasting you, almost smiling around your clit when he makes eye contact with you. 
It almost seems like he’s asking if he’s doing well, and goddamn is he. He’s doing amazing.
“So good,” You say shortly, trying to give him the praise he needs while scratching against his scalp as a thank you, still fucking your hips up just to feel his fingers plunge deeper. 
He, on the other hand, is fucking feral right now. Tasting you, dipping his fingers into you, feeling that warmth for the first time, the small clenches— he’s swimming in a fantasy. Every time you move your hips up, he can smell the entirety of you, he can feel your pussy squeeze his fingers, and god. He doesn’t think he ever wants this to end.
All day. He could do this all fucking day. No wonder men make fun of other guys for not giving head. Why wouldn’t they? He can feel your legs tensing up around his head, your gentle fingers running through his hair, the sounds coming from your lips. He’s in love, he’s in love.
He doesn’t stop, tongue flicking your clit so beautifully, fingers slowly fucking in and out of you, not even in time with your jerking hips. Shockingly, you approach orgasm so fucking fast that you can barely warn him, you’re not even thinking when you put pressure on his head, pressing his lips so harshly against your clit— his moan sending a vibration straight through you.
“Faster, with your fingers—“ You choke out in a drawn out and pornographic moan, curling your toes and feeling him do exactly as you say. 
There, you release with his fingers plunging in and out of you, the wet sound of your pussy only sounding more messy by the time you begin to release. In the midst of it all, you feel him pull his lips from your clit and lick around his fingers before coming back up and continuing his ministrations, working you through an orgasm you’re not even sure he knows you’re having right now.
Insane, really, that he needed to taste the messy relief before resuming. 
Strings of curses, little tugs against his hair, legs shaking, all of it happens at once until the feeling of his fingers become sensitive inside of you, until his tongue is flicking a bundle of nerves begging to be left alone. 
You swat him away with a smile, leaning up quickly and grabbing him by the shirt. 
He doesn’t really know what the fuck is going on but he laughs with you, being pulled to his feet and falling onto the bed on top of you. You can feel his cock in his pants, so fucking hard, probably leaking and feeling quite neglected.
“Did you…?” He asks softly, dipping his head shyly with his wet chin shining in the light of your room.
You smile at him, leaning up to kiss him square on the mouth before you flip him over and get between his legs. 
“I did,” You laugh in a daze, starting to work on his button and zipper. You’re reeling from the recent orgasm and want nothing more than to let him feel the same way you do right now. “And now, I'm gonna do the same for you.”
He chokes out a nervous laugh, holding your hand in place from pulling his pants down.
“Unless, you don’t want that?” You ask, tilting your head with a bit of a frown.
“N-No!  It’s not that!” He reassures you, cheeks flushing more than they already were. “It’s just that– like, what if I don’t last very long? I’m kind of sensitive.”
His eyes avoid yours when he says it and once again, most adorable man award goes to fucking Jake.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing?” You lean forward, kissing him again. “You just gave me some of the best head in my life.”
The light in his eyes returns and instantly he’s flashing a nervous smile at you. 
“Jake, I’ve never gotten off that fast from being eaten out.” You reassure him again, making a point to use his name loud and clear. “If you don’t get off from me sucking your cock, I might actually cry.” 
Well, he can’t have that now, can he? 
He releases your grip on his jeans, allowing you to pull them down. For some reason unable to look at you despite knowing you’ve seen him jerk off before. It’s the fact that like, what if it’s suddenly not big enough? What if his cock is ugly or curved in a way you don’t like?
Before he can even start to doubt himself more, he feels your lips on the tip and instantly his eyes are looking down at you. You’re the one smiling now, using one hand to hold his base and the other hand already scooping up his balls for added pleasure. 
You make a point to look him in the eye as you let the saliva collect in your mouth when you pull back slightly. There, you let it fall from the tip of your tongue, all the way until you feel the wetness against your fingers wrapped around his base. 
He thinks he’s going to go fucking insane watching you like this, and god, does he. You don’t even show him your struggle of taking in the sheer size of him. Lowering your mouth until you’re taking him in as much as you can. You try to keep eye contact up until you have to close your eyes. 
It’s not shocking that by the point you get half of his length into your mouth, he’s fucking up without full intention and letting out a choked apology. Still, you try to force your stretched lips to smile for him, even through the gag, even through the harsh feeling of his cock hitting the back of your throat. 
How the fuck has a cock this good not been worshiped before? By a mouth? A hand? A pussy? You’ll be damned not to choke on it. You’d rather eat glass than to let him leave this apartment without being completely emptied and praised for every drop. 
He’s actually struggling already not to come, holding himself back but failing each time his hips chase the warmth of your throat. Each time you gag, it stimulates the fuck out of his cock and he nearly wants to cry each time it happens. Even with that other girl who went down on him, she didn’t even attempt to fit this much in her mouth. Most of the pleasure came from her hand jerking him off while she suckled against his head, but you. You’re down there, slipping your mouth up and down on him like that, gagging, tearing up, and still fucking smiling about it. 
He’s in love.
He holds his hands back at least, keeping them against your sheets and gripping them so hard that he fears he’s ripping through them. Everything feels hot, you look hot, you sound hot, your tongue still manages to move against the base of his cock with what little room it does have, and god– your other hand, massaging his balls. 
“Wait, wait wait–” Jake groans, fucking his hips into your mouth once again until you pull off with a concerned look. 
“Were my teeth hurting you?” You ask, gasping a bit for air.
“No!” He heaves out with fluttering lashes, trying to regain sanity. “I was just getting really close.”
“Hm?” You sigh in disappointment, this time going all in at once and not letting yourself stop until he’s releasing into your mouth. 
You feel his shaking fingers brush your cheek when you do it, hollowing it out just to fit more, more, more into your mouth before lapping your tongue against his base again. 
His groaning turns into frantic moans, his hips jerking wildly, unable to escape the clenching muscles of your gagging throat, and he’s honestly in heaven once again. 
“Ah–wait–fuck.” He tries to protest, not wanting to finish so quickly, but there it goes. There he goes.
Never in his life has he felt an orgasm so satisfying. His eyes roll back and his fingers go numb when he releases, pumping himself deep into your throat and not stopping until he’s dizzy. The fact that you kept your mouth on him through it, the fact that he could still feel you gagging, swallowing, and moaning all at once through it– how?
“How–” he takes a breath, pulling you off of him so you can breathe. “How did you do that?”
You shrug with a confident smile, wiping your tears and crawling up to meet his face. 
“I don’t normally do that for guys.” You say with a rasp in your voice. “I certainly don’t just swallow for anyone.”
He feels special, and fucking spent but god does he want to keep going. His softening cock twitching in a relieving way, probably glad to have finally been touched by something other than his own hand. Part of him wonders if you’re done though, because by now you’ve both gotten off and usually that’s the end goal, right?
But he hasn’t lost his virginity yet, and when he looks at you hovering above him, he already knows you’re not done with him. 
“We need to let you rest until you can get hard again,” You say, kissing him more easily than before and letting him taste himself, letting you taste yourself mixed with him. “What’s something you wanna do to get you back into the game?”
He sighs out a laugh, fucking amazed that you’re his first. How lucky is that? He thinks hard, watching the way you lift your shirt off of yourself. God, he forgot tits existed for a solid part of this day and that’s a shame because instantly his sensitive cock throbs at the image of them coming into view. 
You watch him stare, trailing your hands down and lifting his shirt off of him as well. 
“I– I don’t even know at this point.” He admits with a stammer, ignoring the fact that his hair is definitely sticking up all over from you taking his shirt off of him.
“I’ll just love on you while you think, then.”
He gives a short nod, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside at the way your gentle hands caress his chest and abs before you start kissing against the muscles and soft skin there.
He relaxes his body, feeling your hands and lips on him. You were right when you said you’d love on him as he thinks about it. The hard part of it is actually thinking about what’s going to get him harder the fastest. You doing this could be enough, but your tits. And fuck, your pussy.
He lets out a whine, one that feels entirely out of character and it causes you to pause your gentle kiss against his nipple and pull back.
“Already?” 
He shakes his head, staring straight at your chest and then down to what's between your legs. 
“I want to, um…” He shifts his eyes away from you. “Can I eat you out again?”
That’s new. Twice in one session?
“Oh yeah? Did that get you going?”
You receive a small nod from him before his hands are reaching out for your tits and warming them up. 
You relax into the feeling of his fingers on your chest only for a moment before you pull back again, this time adjusting yourself onto the bed face down, ass up in front of him. Might as well try a bunch of different positions for him too, right?
“Whenever you’re ready.” You sigh, already grabbing a pillow to hug through this. 
You can feel the bed shift behind you, the weight of his body dipping right behind you before you feel his warm breath against your core. Only now do you realize that you already missed the way he ate you out the first time, you can barely contain yourself knowing he’s going to do it again. 
His hands snake between your legs before his lips get any closer, spreading them before pulling his hand back up and spreading your pussy open with his fingers on his own this time. 
“It’s really the prettiest.” He says in a clear and shaking voice, watching the way your hole pulses at the air that hits it. “And I've watched a lot of porn.”
You’d tell him to shut up, but you’re not gonna because it’s cute how forward he is with his thoughts. If anything, he’s treating you right now by doing this, so he can say whatever he fucking wants right now. 
“Yeah? You just gonna stare at it?” You try to urge him, and it works.
Because of course it works. 
You do your best to contain any rising orgasm, solely because you don’t want to spend yourself before you actually let him inside of you in full. But goddamn, he’s just as eager now as he was the first time…if not more. 
He thinks back to the things he did before, mimicking that and hitting all of the perfect spots without fail. Still, you hold back, pushing and pulling yourself away and toward him just to feel his tongue chase. He eventually holds you in place against him, big hands holding you firmly against his face with a bit of force. And now? He’s licking you deeper than you’ve ever been licked before. It’s a different kind of sensation, and the way he groans into it is entirely too much for you right now. 
You need more, you want more. You want all of him by now, so aroused by every touch, breath, and moan that it’s becoming unbearable to just be eaten out. The thought that he’s doing this to get himself hard again is flooring, and the feeling of his fingers replacing his tongue much like before is intense. 
After just that one time, he knows exactly how to make you cum this way and it’s dangerously attractive to realize that. He goes straight for it too, pulling back to watch his fingers slip into you up to the knuckle. 
He hums out a rumbled moan at the sound of your cunt squelching around his fingers. So wet. More wet than any of the girls in the porn he’s watched for years. You’re dripping around his fingers, and the smacking sound is so fucking arousing to him.
And yeah, he can’t reach your clit with his mouth this time so he thinks hard about how to fix this little dilemma and you’re floored even more by the fact that he solves problems without questioning. You feel his fingers leave you and land on your clit, and right then you feel his tongue again, just as deep, licking into you and all over you. 
The sound of your pussy amplifies when it’s against his tongue, and honestly, he could cum right now if he really wanted to. Already he’s hard again, but god feeling you, hearing you, seeing you like this for him? For some guy who has never once been able to give a girl his all like this? 
He’s so focused on you.
Which for you, is a bit of an issue because he’s really not going to let you hold it in, he’s going to have you fucking unravelling again and it’s too good. Thankfully, when you try to lift to look behind yourself, you take note of his other hand working himself. 
He’s hard again, and god knows how long he’s been doing that. 
You pull your body away from him quickly to let your rising orgasm subside, his protesting moan doing nothing but heating your body up more when you flip over and watch him. 
“You were really just going to get me off again and not try to fuck me yet?”
He looks down at himself and then back at you, smiling and running his hand through his hair. 
“I like doing it, I wanted to see if I could make you–”
“You absolutely could have but I’m going to be honest,” You start, interrupting him and pulling yourself up to crawl over him. “If you’re ready, I’d like to live up to my promise.”
His eyes are much sharper than they were before when you say those words. This is actually it. He would have been perfectly happy just eating you out, getting head himself, or whatever. Over and over again. Any and all of it is better than being in his room alone, but you’re really–
“Really?” He asks, knowing full well the answer.. 
“Lay back, get comfortable,” You instruct with deep breaths, scooting up the bed with him, keeping yourself planted on his legs despite the discomfort. “You still want me to ride you, yeah?”
He nods almost frantically, landing his hands on your tits without hesitation and groping them in a blatant show of how ready he’s managed to get himself for this. 
Not that you want to rush, but you’re so fucking turned on by this point, the only thing you want is to be filled by him. His is cock likely bigger than any you’ve taken before, and to be fair, you don’t even care if you’re the desperate one at this point. You’ve almost forgotten he’s a virgin.
“Wait,” He stops you when you slide over his cock, bare pussy coating his length in a languid grind. “Oh, fuck, wait- no,” He breathes in a sharp breath and grips your hips. ”Do that again.” 
You smile at his frantic thoughts pouring from his lips, sliding against him again, and again, up until he’s leaning forward and attaching his lips to one of your nipples and suckling against it hard. 
You groan as you grind, feeling the head of his now, fully hard, cock bumping against your previously stimulated clit. He groans with you, almost at the exact same time but continues to try and leave his mark on you. In love with finally getting your tits in his mouth, your pussy on his cock, and most of all, in love with the fact that you’re not laughing at him for any of it. You seem to melt into it much like he does and he can’t help but want to email the creator of that fucking app and personally thank them for this. 
You rub yourself against him until it’s even more unbearable than before. By now, you’ve completely soaked his length and he’s completely soaked your chest in saliva and tiny swollen bite marks. Not that you mind the biting, his little rumbled grow-like moans only made this all the more arousing.
“Ready?” You finally sigh out, deliberately grinding against him slowly now, with almost your entire weight behind the grinds. 
He groans out a “please” before immediately gripping your hips and stopping you. Pulling his head back so hard and so quickly– he kind of forgot to unlatch from your nipple and it sends a sharp pain throughout your body, one that only makes you want to ride him hard. Right now. 
“Hold on, there’s a condom in the pocket of my jeans–”
“Okay, and?” You laugh, sliding forward again and grinding your clit against him. “I’m on birth control, and I’m clean.” 
He looks at you, his sharp eyes falling back into the sparkling doe eyes as his mouth falls open at the very idea that he gets to hit is fucking raw for the first time? 
“Unless you’re lying, and you’re not really a virgin?”
He’s quick to silence your doubt. He’s 100% never had his cock inside of anything other than his own palm and– malfunction. He’s blank again, staring up at you and wincing at the feeling of you pleasuring yourself on top of him. 
“Please?” He manages to get out, gripping your hips so tightly by now that he’s sure it’s hurting you. 
You smile, humming at him when you lift from him, standing on your knees to grab his cock and position him in the right place. 
“You sure you want it too?” You ask, only now realizing that you’re genuinely about to take a man’s virginity, and it’s only fair that you give him one last time to decide if he wants you to take it from him. Despite how turned on you are, and regardless of how badly you want to fuck him, it’s not right to just do it without making him really think about it. 
“Fuck, yes.” His fingers tighten against you, his eyes squeeze shut, and his voice comes out as frantic and quite frankly, a bit annoyed. “Just do it already.” 
You can’t help but smile at him when you do. Lowering yourself slowly on him and feeling the stretch of it. His face is something that you don’t think you’ll ever forget. He appears to be lost in it, eyes rolling back, his chest heaving, his teeth showing through a half-smile as he moans out at the sensation. 
He can’t get over how warm it is inside of you, the constant clenching of your pussy dragging along his entire length. He can’t help it when he moans, he doesn’t care that his voice cracks, or that it sounds like a pathetic sob. 
By the time you bottom out and sit like that for a moment, you almost feel like he’s the one who needs to adjust. Of course, you’re needing this moment to adjust too but god– just watching him makes you that much more wet and it’s insane how into him you are right now. As if you haven’t been since you started talking to him.
“Feels good?” You ask, involuntary clenching around his size, letting out a small sigh yourself at the feeling of his leaking cock inside of you. 
He hums at you and then takes in a deep breath before fully opening his eyes again and looking at you. Technically, he’s no longer a virgin now. It’s fucking happening, and you’re hot? So fucking hot? You feel so good? You smell so good. You sound so fucking good. 
Everything is overwhelmingly good, all he can do now is press his hips up and instantly moan out at the new feeling. 
You take that as an invitation to absolutely obliterate him, much like you knew you would. So, you do. Lifting yourself up and sliding him almost entirely out of you before sinking down again. 
His hands shoot to your waist, then he lifts slightly to grab your ass from behind you, and then he flops himself back– seemingly unable to know what the fuck to do with himself at this feeling. 
You opt to grab his hands, intertwining your fingers with his and holding them above his head, all so you can lay chest to chest with him, lips right at his neck. You start kissing, riding him so smoothly and doing nothing but listening to his little sounds that he tries to keep inside. 
“You’re really cute, you know that?” You whisper against his ear, kissing there too before pulling back to look at his face.
That half-smile never leaves his face, and his fingers squeeze against yours so tightly that you actually start to worry that he may break them. Thankfully, he begins to relax after a few minutes. Adjusting to the overwhelming pleasure and now losing himself to the arousal rather than fighting it. 
You nearly squeak when you feel him release your hands and grab your face, pulling you up to him as he kisses you mindlessly. Breathlessly, moaning into your mouth all while moving his own hips now. You can feel him jerk his hips, imagining how he fucked his hand through facetime. This is better than that.
You prop to stand up on your knees, offering him the space to fuck you as hard as he’d like, and god. It’s hard. It’s deep, and it’s so clumsy. No rhythm, no thought behind it at all, you can fucking tell he’s purely running on adrenaline as he plunges into you. 
He’s actually going so hard, that your moans sound more pained than pleasurable, but that’s not the case at all. You actually can’t stop moaning, it’s just the fact that each time he slams into you, your throat lets out a broken sound. 
For a moment, you think you can actually hear him unintentionally growl against your slack lips as he does it. Already he’s lasted longer than you thought he would, especially without a condom, and you’re so fucking impressed by it. 
You slide your hand between your bodies, easily rubbing your own clit and drying out your throat even more with the consistent loud moans of how good he’s doing. After a few moments though, his hips stutter and you take that as a sign that you should take over again.
“I don’t know how the fuck you’re doing this to me,” You laugh out of pity for yourself, “I really thought I could last longer than this.”
He barely hears you through his ringing ears and rapid heartbeat, but he chuckles at the compliment. Feeling like he must be doing something right to have a woman say that to him. There’s one issue. He’s about two thrusts from cumming again and he will be damned to ruin this for you. 
You take over, riding him harshly and rubbing your clit even harder. He takes a moment to try and distract himself from how good your pussy feels clenching him and takes it upon himself to bite down hard against his tongue. Something to hurt enough to keep his orgasm from bubbling over, but also not something so awful that he’d lose his arousal entirely. 
You continue, pushing yourself back up from him and watching the way he tries to focus on anything but what’s happening. You ride deliberately to get him off though, knowing that the second he does, you’ll let yourself go too. He doesn’t seem to be picking up the hints. 
“Are you close?” You ask, out of breath and riding him so consistently that it’s becoming more and more difficult to hold your own orgasm. “Let it go, do it with me–”
Instantly, you hear him whimper out a moan as he releases the bite on his tongue. Shooting himself forward and hugging you so tightly that the pressure of your fingers against your clit is entirely unbearable. 
“Oh, god. I’m–” You start, moaning against his hair as he hugs against you.
He’s so fucking relieved, already releasing into you as you say those words. All he can do is breathe through it, feeling your pussy pulse around him as he continues to empty himself into you. 
It’s entirely too intense, his ears popping and heart threatening to send him to a hospital. Never did he think having sex was this intense. 
Little does he know… it’s not. But even you, for some reason, find yourself wondering why the fuck that was so good. 
By the time you pull yourself off of him, both of you wincing and trying to ignore the mixture of cum running down your legs, all you can do is look at him with curiosity. 
He can barely open his eyes to look back at you, but he tries, he really does. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
He’s not going home tonight. Of course he’s not. Like, how fucking rude would it be to take his virginity and send him on his way? Absolutely the fuck not.
In fact, you made him some food, wobbling on spent legs throughout the kitchen as he lays on his death bed in your room. (He’s being dramatic.)
All he can do is listen to the sounds of you in the other room and think hard about how he just felt. Physically, it was a lot. Surely if sex is like that all the time, he’d rather not do it as often as Heeseung does. Honestly, his sanity would be at stake. 
But like, you’re kind of amazing. Given, the two of you barely know each other past lame texts and bullying each other. Physically, you know him more than any other woman and that’s a block he didn’t think would be an issue until it became one.
You made him cum twice. And he thinks you did too, unless you’re lying just to make him feel better. There’s no way you didn’t feel the intensity of that though. There’s no way your wobbling legs were lying to him when you got up and told him you wanted to have a snack before bed.
There’s no way you would let him sleep over if you didn’t feel the same way he does right now.
And by the time you’re back, handing him a plate of food, he can’t help but believe that nothing will ever taste as good as you.
The thing is, that’s one of the main reasons you did this. To be praised, to have a man think you’d be the best he will ever have until he eventually meets someone else and they do better than you did. Now though, you feel weird. 
This is a one night stand. A charity-fuck, as it still stands at least. 
“So,” You start, taking a bite of your food still as naked as can be regardless of how stupid it must look to be eating in a cum-soaked bed like this. “I guess you should change your bio in the app now.”
He looks at you, and then at his food.
“Yeah, I guess I should…” 
“I’ll help you fix your age on it. Now that you know what you’re doing with a woman and all.”
It’s silent for a minute.
“Is it too forward if I say that I’d rather just delete the app and keep calling you?”
Thank fuck Jake is forward and embarrassing with it. You’re not ready to give up the single life but on the other hand, after that, you’re not exactly ready to share him with other women just yet either. If he wants to attach himself for a while, you’re going to let him. Purely because, like, look at him. Everything is endearing, and when he’s not being adorable he’s just being fucking hot.
Maybe you will be ready to give up the single life if it’s with Jake. 
You nod with a smile, wondering if he expects you to delete the app too. Because you’re not so sure about that, but also you think you probably would if he asks with those stupid doe eyes. 
Strangely enough, he doesn’t even ask. He just starts eating the food with a content look on his face. Sweat having dried up but left his hair a mess, his skin is glowing– you think…oh no. Why are you looking at him like this?
“Hey, I should probably call Jay and tell him not to come home until late tomorrow or something.”
Jake nods, lifting his eyes to you and watching you take your phone out. 
“I should call my friend too, he told me to let him know when I get my cherry popped.”
You snort at him with a laugh right as Jay answers the phone, and honestly, you’d rather listen to Jake’s friend than Jay whining about having to spend even more time with his overbearing parents. 
“Hey Jay, don’t come home 'til I call you tomorrow, bye.” You say quickly before hanging up. 
Instantly you’re setting your plate on your table and launching yourself at Jake and his phone. 
“Put him on speaker.”
Jake does just that, laughing at Heeseung’s reaction when he hears you speak rather than his best friend over the line. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
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signedsfs · 3 months ago
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I've got some great fuckin news
Once again got a bee in my bonnet to spend a night doing obscure fandom research to make a point, so. For all those people who keep making the annoying, "Tim keeps '''stealing'' other peoples' names" comments -- have a table.
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Everyone with a check mark has used that codename at some point in DC's 80+ year continuity -- Elseworlds and alternate dimensions/timelines count, adaptations (movies, video games, cartoons, etc.) don't unless they've got comic book tie-ins, and neither do in-universe dream sequences/illusions/fantasies/other narrative elements that are objectively "not real" within the boundaries of the fiction.
A purple marker indicates an element that only applies in Elseworlds or alternate timelines. Yellow is for the originator of the legacy title. Star symbol is for borderline cases/extenuating circumstances/it's open to interpretation (with some further elaboration below).
The "other" column is just there to account for people who've held lesser or non-legacy titles, like Renegade, Wingman, Arkham Knight, Drake, Redbird, Talon, Deadman, Black Bat, Orphan and Catwoman.
Point being: the people who have actually gone through the most legacy titles in this family are Dick, Babs and Jason, tied with 5 each (again, not counting "other;" if we counted those separately Dick would've had by far the most). Tim is tied with Steph AND Helena Wayne, so unless you're whining about them "stealing other peoples' names" you're just wrong, and they're all only one higher than Damian, Carrie and Bruce.
This is a legacy family that passes their codenames up and down the inheritance line. It's what they do. It's not a legitimate criticism to level at one character and not the others. Please get over it.
EDIT: I realize after posting this that I missed some colors on the table, mostly with Babs' Elseworld only roles (Batwoman and Nightwing) but I'm too tired to go back and correct them; refer to the info below for more details.
---
Further elaboration on some of the lesser known/niche cases:
- Bruce uses the Robin ID in Superman & Batman: Generations
- In the second half of Thrillkiller ‘62, Babs cuts her hair and dons the Robin costume worn by her deceased partner Dick to get revenge on his killer; however the only name ever used for her in the series is Batgirl
- Cassandra was a member of the Robins orphan gang from Dark Knights of Steel.
- Duke was a member of the We Are Robins gang, as well as the aforementioned DKS orphan gang, and has appeared as Robin in a couple of Elseworlds, including I believe a White Knight spin-off.
- Cass was Batwoman in one of the versions of the Titans Tomorrow, as was Bette Kane, depending on changes to the timeline.
- Babs is Batwoman in the Batman ‘66 comics and in the 1980 story “The Secret Origin of Bruce (Superman) Wayne”
- Earth-3 Steph is Batwoman in Young Justice 2019.
- Helena Wayne is Batwoman in the possible future story Last Rites
- Tim is a member of the Batgirls vigilante/little league baseball team in the DC Bombshells universe, as is Cullen Row. Some call them the “Batboys” instead. I call those people cowards.
- Helena Bertinelli wore the costume that would later become Cass’s signature Batgirl look during No Man’s Land. However, she was more often referred to as “The Bat” and her Batgirl status is up to individual interpretation.
- Dick didn’t originate the Nightwing name, it started with Clark in the Silver Age.
- Steph has never been Nightwing. The panel where she appears in the costume is a Black Mercy illusion that happens only in her own mind. It’s a dream sequence.
- Barbara was Nightwing in the Smallville Season 11 comics.
- Terry was briefly Nightwing in volume 4 of Batman Beyond.
- Damian briefly became Nightwing after accidentally killing Dick in the Injustice series.
- Dick is Oracle in the “Eight Wonders of the World” version of Earth 2 (aka the Black Superman dimension)
#batrant#I don't have to rant just to drop a great fic link but....the original post#in this house we love....tables. we love graphs. we love data and facts and autism#anyway becoming a Tim Drake fan is the worst thing that's ever happened to me send help#how come when other characters get misinterpreted they get Benefits or at least Shallow But Positive Caricatures#but I get 'tim is boring he's just there he doesn't do anything'#'tim is just a sexist asshole he's not even that good' 'tim is so pathetic he has beef with a 9 year old for literally no reason'#'tim is incapable of doing anything ever' 'tim is just a tiny bruce (derogatory)' 'tim deserves Every Bad Thing actually'#'tim is overrated' (where???) 'I see him everywhere' (sHOW ME WHERE...I WANT TO LIVE THERE) 'they make him too perfect' (I DOUBT IT)#'they make everyone coddle him' (maybe he Deserves It after getting Decades of NO CODDLING AT ALL)#'he doesn't have a Thing' (bitch he IS the thing) 'he stole everything from Dick' (Dick also 'Stole' shit from Tim#Robins literally share so much shit across media that some people don't know there's more than one)#(...cannot believe I read with my own eyes that DICK was the first Robin with pants.....IN KINGDOM COME.)#side note: Tim started calling his shit Redname BEFORE Dick became Red Robin. so I've decided that shit was always meant to be his :)#side side note: DAMIAN GOT NAMED AFTER TIM'S FUCKING CAR BUT WHO'S TALKING ABOUT THAT???#people think Tim's a self-insert but he has.....traits that are. definitely not something you would give a normal blank self-insert#like even from his Intro...were most comic readers little stalker freaks that wanted to travel alone to a hero's civilian home???#little weirdos that wanted to watch their heroes with binoculars?? and break into their old apartment to look for clues and steal shit??#did readers want to be the first and only Explicitly Unwanted But 'Needed' Robin that Defined just how Bad everyone was doing??#did they beg to be parentified and made responsible for grownass adults' violent outbursts despite not being Trapped in the situation???#were readers inserting themselves on That???? Tim sometimes has relatable shit Happen To Him but his Reactions.....#he is not a blank self-insert. he is not there to have a good cathartic time. he's there to suffer and be a punching bag.#also...I know it's Fanon that Tim stalked them Nightly (a fanon I will Always engage with god bless) but like#he Did get Concerningly Clear Close-ups of a Fast-Paced Fight for his 'first time'. he Did have info that he couldn't get from the news.#he Did have a concerning amount of ease with crossing state lines alone to 'follow' Dick Grayson.#and he was sure fuckin quick on that shutter button for someone who had No interest in photography/Never Once stalked his heroes up close.#I don't necessarily think he got rescued by Jason or eavesdropped on a bunch of important events or anything but like...I just think.#he lived in Multiple Residences within Gotham. not in Bristol. he didn't have to bike anywhere to see them. I'm just fuckin saying.
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vaguely-concerned · 6 months ago
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I understand and agree with a lot of the frustrations about the shortcomings of Inquisition as a story. but sometimes when I hear people complain about the chosen one narrative in it I do want to just be like... you know it's a deconstruction of the concept more than anything, right. the inquisitor isn't actually chosen by anything except stumbling into the wrong (right?) room at the right (wrong?) time because they like, heard a noise or whatever. or if you think they are chosen, as many do in-universe, that's something you have to take on faith, the maker-or-whoever moves in mysterious ways indeed-style. the Inquisitor isn't actually a Destined Chosen One, they're a Just Some Guy in a fancy hat, self-delusions of grandeur to taste as you'd prefer.
a running thread that goes through all of the personal quests of the companions is the concept of a comforting lie vs. an uncomfortable truth, upholding old corrupt structures vs. disrupting them, and the role of faith in navigating that. (blackwall the warden vs. thom rainier the liar and murderer. hissrad vs. the iron bull, or is that the other way around? cassandra and the seekers -- do we tell the truth about what we find, even if it means dismantling the old order of the world? and so on.) and your inquisitor IS at the same time a comforting lie (a necessary one, in dark times? the game seems to ask) and an uncomfortable truth (we are the result of random fickle chance, no protective hand is held over the universe, it's on us to make a better world because the maker sure as hell won't lift a divine finger to help anyone, should he against all odds exist). faith wielded for political power... where's the point that it crosses the line into ugliness? is it before it even begins? what's the alternative? will anyone listen to the truth, if you tell it?
interesting how you also get a mix of companion agency in this -- you have characters like dorian who ALWAYS choose one side of the comforting lie vs. uncomfortable truth dichotomy. he will always make up his own mind to go back to tevinter and try to dismantle the corruption of the old system no matter what you say, or how you try to influence him. meanwhile iron bull is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum -- so psychologically trapped and mangled, caught in an impossible spiritual catch-22, that his sense of identity is left entirely to you and your mercy. you cannot change dorian in any way that matters; you can be his friend or not, support him or not, but he is whole no matter what. you are given incredible and potentially destructive-to-him power over bull's soul. it's really cool (and heartbreaking) to think about.
this is a game about how history will eat you even while you're still alive, and shape you into whatever image it pleases to serve it, and for all your incredible power right now you are powerless in the face of the gravitational force of time -- of more than time, of History. you won't recognize yourself in what History will make of you, because you belong to it now. you don't belong to yourself anymore and you never will again. the further you were from what it needs from you to begin with, the more you will find yourself distorted in its funhouse mirror. (why hello there inquisitor ameridan, same hat!)
and to me this is so much the core of what Dragon Age is about right from the Origins days -- how and by whom history gets written, the inherent unreliable narration of it all. I hope you like stories, Inquisitor. You are one now.
I do think it's probably still the weakest of the games narratively, and it's hampered by its structure and bloated systems. but I also find it disingenous to say that there's nothing deeper or actually interesting going on with it, thematically. if you're willing to engage with it there is Some Real Shit going on under the high fantasy-tinted surface.
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verysium · 1 year ago
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attractive things bllk characters (unintentionally) do?👀
i received this ask and decided to write this entire thing through a caffeine-powered fever dream. may have gone a little overboard. please pray for both your sanity and mine. thank you anon for your strong sense of imagination (or delusion, whichever you prefer.)
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nagi lifts the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, and you accidentally (or not so accidentally) get a good look at the droplets running down his abs and v-line. he also does the doorway lean while waiting for you to get ready. since he's so tall, he puts his one arm up on the top of the door frame while scrolling through his phone. when he feels drained of energy, he clings to you like a koala, face buried into the crook of your neck.
rin pushes his hair back when his bangs get in the way, and it shows off his ridiculously sharp side profile. sometimes you have to pause mid-conversation because the direct eye contact gets too intense. he has the brightest turquoise eyes in existence, and they stare right into your soul. pair that with the height difference and him towering over you. hang onto your ovaries because this man is about to snatch them. if isagi or sae are anywhere remotely close within your vicinity, he will personally drag your chair closer over to him. you know, the whole nick jonas chair pull thing? he also unintentionally clenches his jaw when pissed, the vein popping out and everything.
barou is polite to his elders. he holds the door open for others. he tips extra at restaurants. he is kind to service workers. he's just a gentleman overall even though he likes to act tough. he rolls up his sleeves while cleaning or cutting up vegetables, and you can see the veins bulging in his forearms. wears those form-fitting aprons where you can see the outline of his waist and the muscles in his back. he is not immune to raging pit bull moments, but he will calm down immediately when you ask him to.
kaiser requires physical touch to function. all concept of personal boundaries goes poof in his little ego-driven brain. he holds your chin so you look up at him while he's talking. also has that husky growl when he wakes up in the morning. he speaks german. what else is more attractive than that? if you stroke his ego, he will puff his chest out like an emperor penguin and flash that movie star smile. does not slow down his pace for you, and will laugh at your expense when you trip in heels and fall. but then he feels guilty about it and begrudgingly picks you up and carries you home. however, before that he will make you swear on everything holy to never tell isagi about his moment of weakness. (tbh kaiser is a menace and has some serious self-esteem issues. pls avoid dating a man like him in real life until he is fully mature. i still love him tho.)
reo mansplains but not in the condescending way. he does so in the "omg i'm so excited to finally get to share something with you and you're never going to believe it" sort of way. rambles on and on about his interests and gets that little glint in his eye when he's passionate about something. also not sure if this counts but he gets extremely depressed when you don't message him back within five minutes. what do you mean you were busy? he was out here dying from a literal famine. he needs your affection to survive. last but not least, he is good at styling. he knows what colors work best for you, and he will put together three new looks for you in record time.
hiori dreams that you left him for good and wakes up crying with his arms around you. will refuse to let you leave the bed even if it is just to get a glass of water. his rare moments of emotional vulnerability are what gets to you.
shidou does not condone any of your bad decisions. you want to get shit-faced and party until early morning? no complaints from him. you want to wear sexy outfits to the club? say less because he's about to enjoy the view and knock out the front teeth of every guy who dares to ogle you. i don't know if this qualifies as being attractive, but he would never be the controlling type. you can dress and act however you want. unfortunately for you though, this is also a textbook case of the blind leading the blind. if you get horrendously hungover, so does he. if you get pulled over, he's going to be too blackout drunk to even comprehend the officer's words. you can count on him for a good time, but not anything else. do not take any of his advice at face value.
oliver likes to show you off even if he doesn't notice it himself. any talk with his team, and he will find a way to make the entire conversation about you. at this point, the entire u-20 team is done with him. they placed bets that you two wouldn't last more than a month due to his philandering reputation, but the universe seems to think otherwise because you and oliver hit the six-month mark and are still going strong.
ness guards your drink with an unnecessary amount of protection. while you left to go use the restroom, he was looking left and right, and the hairs on the back of his neck were prickling every time someone even came close to your cup. he also shoos away any person who opens their mouth while standing next to your drink because apparently the condensation from their breath could be dangerous. definitely covers your cup with both hands even if it has a lid. no suspicious shit is happening on his watch.
yukimiya is well-read, and he wears glasses. he has a copy of every single classic out there in existence and will fangirl along with you over your virginia woolf collection. he was written by a woman with two cats and a wine glass. not much else to say.
loki absolutely clears the entire carnival/arcade game. you want that giant teddy bear that costs over three hundred ticket points? say less because he's about to win the whole damn pot. of all characters, i would say he's one of the only green flags. like celery green.
isagi always looks for you when he enters the room. intentionally or not, he always seeks your presence. if someone says a funny joke, he turns to you to see if you're laughing or not. also does that somewhat creepy stare thing where he just looks at you quietly while you do mundane tasks. internally he is screaming cus what do you mean you actually like him?
chigiri gives you that thankful little smile whenever you stand up for him. i feel like people don't understand how goofy he can get as he's canonically good at doing impressions/impersonations. also has the prettiest laugh. if he ever cuts his hair, i think i'm going to get a nosebleed.
noa unconsciously says yes to every question you ask of him. he'd be giving bastard münchen a hard time (and denying isagi's requests) but then immediately once you come over, he's automatically acquiescing to everything you say. the rest of the team is low-key shocked you can win him over so easily. when they confront him about it, he just shrugs and goes "y/n is always right."
kurona's entire existence is attractive. he's just perfect. nothing is ever wrong with him. will let you check out his shark teeth and lightly pokes your finger to leave an imprint. hopefully you'll always remember him that way. he's also quiet so he will listen to everything you say and give ample weight to your words.
sae is my baby girl so he gets a whole section dedicated to himself:
absentmindedly plays with your hair. when you're sleeping in his lap, he'll gently run his fingers along your scalp. sometimes in the morning when you're sitting up on the edge of your bed to do your makeup, he'll come up from behind you and brush back your hair. might also press a kiss to the back of your neck.
helps you put on your face mask. when he's shopping, he will buy you lotion along with his own skincare products. says that it was just a convenient store run but you know he personally made sure to get you the best quality ones.
this is canon because i said so: when he gets out of the shower, he slings the towel over his neck or his shoulder. he also involuntarily flexes his biceps when he bends down to grab something. has the world's most defined deltoids.
when you're stuck in large crowds at the airport, he puts his hand in your back pocket to keep you two from getting separated. if the TSA pat-down is anywhere too personal for his liking, he will openly glare at the officer once you've passed the security checkpoint.
bonus point: when you two brush your teeth early in the morning, he has that little bed head where his shorn-off bangs stick up in cute little tufts here and there. will have a dead look on his face, but his eyes soften when he catches your gaze through the mirror.
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heavenlymorals · 7 months ago
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Details that I've noticed about Arthur Morgan-
-He, for the most part, despises male touch, especially if it's overly affectionate. He gets tense anytime a man hugs him and wants it to be over as quick as possible (Jamie, Mickey) and he looks visibly offended when Professor Bell touches him. He even sometimes gets annoyed when Dutch touches him on his shoulder, someone who he considers a father figure.
-On the flip side, he does not mind female touch at all. He even initiates it sometimes (Tilly, the girl at Beaver Hollow). Now one could argue that they were high stress situations, but if Tilly was a dude, he would've just set her free, make a snide remark, give her a gun, and then he'd expect her to help him with the fighting. He is completely cool with the nun giving him a hug and doesn't get offended when Mary Beth touches his hand in their therapy session.
- He seems to be pretty well read. He knows Shakespeare, with Romeo and Juliet, and Icarus. He makes other literary references. This is probably due to Dutch. Dutch is clearly very well read and cultured. However, Arthur seems more interested in practical works like guides then philosophy and stories, given that the only book he has on his tent desk is a plant guide.
- He's great at remembering faces and less so on remembering names.
- He does have an amazing propensity to remember physical features, like how he is able to create amazing portraits of the people he meets without consistent reference. It's incredible and works back to the whole great at remembering faces thing. Same goes for animals.
- He is very curious. He is always touching things, looking at things, critiquing things, and trying to understand how they work.
- He generally refuses to be emotionally open with men and does it only with women- this could be due to the idea of the Cult of Domesticity. I've made a post about it before. Compare him speaking with the nun to Reverend Swanson. Compare him speaking to John about Dutch leaving him to him speaking to Sadie about Dutch leaving him.
- He is very connected or is fond of artistic people. He and Mary Beth talk about their journals. He is fond of Albert Mason's photography and helps him out. He is interested in Charles Chataney's artistic work, even if he doesn't like it or connect with it.
- Since a lot of camp members respond to Arthur's antagonizations with something like "not again" or "I knew I'd be next", it's safe to assume Arthur will go off on people from time to time, regardless if you play high or low honor.
- Does not have a fixed temperament. In some missions, he is more energetic and in others, he is more downtrodden. Very realistic and I fucking love it.
- Has direct eye content at all times- will look anyone in the eye and does not give a fuck. NPCs will look away from him if he stares at them.
- Gets mad when men don't behave like men, especially when it concerns women. He gets pissed at John for not stepping up and being a man to his family. He gets annoyed and even pissed off when asking why Beau couldn't have helped Penelope Braithwaite as she is his woman.
- Given how the camp falls to shit whenever Arthur isn't donating, we can safely conclude that Arthur is the most valuable member of that camp, bar maybe Hosea and Dutch.
- He is very reminiscent of the Dark Romantic, which is really interesting as a lot of times, it can be looked at as the middle ground between Romantacism and Realism, two ideologies that were very popular in the 19th century. I will make a full analysis regarding this later.
- Introverted, but not shy at all. In fact, he's very charismatic and is just as good as dealing with people as Dutch and Hosea (The Riverboat Mission) This 'dumb, mumbling' cowboy thing he's dumbed down to in the fandom is an insult to his character.
- He probably acted like a father figure to Jamie Gillis when he was still with Mary, given the fact that he taught him how to ride a horse. Will probably also make a full post about this later.
- Some people say that Arthur is around 5'10-11. Others say He's 6'0-3. Whatever his height actually is, he's still way taller than the average man during this time period, who was around 5'6. Now imagine that with muscles and armed to the teeth- fucking terrifying.
- Very sentimental. He keeps a photo of his supposedly no good Pa and wears his hat. He keeps a photo of his mother who he doesn't really remember at all. He keeps a photo of his dog, a horseshoe that probably belonged to a dead and beloved horse. He keeps a flower from his mother. Keeps a photo of Mary as well. If he had a photo of Isaac, he'd probably keep that too.
-Arthur died at 36 years old from Tuberculosis if you play high honor. The real gunslinger and outlaw Doc Holliday died at the same exact age and the same exact way.
- Genuinely doesn't give a fuck about movements, social issues, and cultural issues, but does care about individual people.
- I love him
- So fucking much
- 😃
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