#so they remain repressed and go insane

[khachmaxo]

i like to cope with my beautiful tap-dancing wife’s death by watching shock treatment. i am in deep denial, so i like to imagine that she somehow survives the anti-matter beam and goes around scamming people with magenta and riffraff, making up fake identities together and whatnot…..

becoming a fake nurse for the “mckinley” sibs and actually enjoying the job, feeling important for once, unlike with frank… and her and magenta kiss sometimes too……….. listen, let me dream a little! shes alive in the circus of my mind!

“um actually thats not possible bc-“

WRONG!!!! off to the asylum with you.

she wanted to please nation soooo bad im crying

AND THE WAY HER SMILE FELL WHEN COSMO SPOKE LOL

they are so in love. lezzing out. spreading my gorgeous colgenta agenda once again.

[ventique18]

It's so unnerving how calm Malleus is. Barring Jade who's obviously enjoying this because he's insane, everyone else including Leona is obviously panicking with sweat on their sprites. Malleus on the other hand looks like he's taking this as if he's numb to it all.

Malleus: "... Kingscholar's conclusion is most likely correct. I do not sense magic here; not from Skellington, not from this place."

Malleus: "Yet, things that should not move move, and things that shouldn't talk talk. The book has taken us to another world."

Yet another proof that Malleus represses negative emotions because he feels like he should remain a person his people can rely on when things go south. 😭

[linkspooky]

YUTA WAS ALWAYS SELFISH

I was originally going to make this post the week the big twist with Yuta in Gojo's body happened, because of the massive subversion that it was. It was the kind of twist that made you question if everything you ever knew about the character was wrong. Namely, Yuta one of the most empathic sorcerers we see in the series - the character who seems to lack the selfishness of the other sorcerers that make up jujutsu society. The kid who fights with the literal power of love.

Was Yuta a monster to begin with and we just didn't see?

So ignore the clickbaity tagline, Yuta is one of my favorite characters I'm not going to start calling him a terrible person. Rather that Yuta is dismissed as a soft kid or a wifeguy, when he's actually more cunning and cutthroat than anyone gives him credit for.

If a sorcerer is nothing more than a con-artist, then if the talent for trickery he displayed in the Sukuna fight is anything to go by Yuta is a true sorcerer down to his bones. Yuta turning Gojo's body into a puppet seems like a massive twist, and almost out of character for Yuta who was so devoted to Gojo.

His earlier fight in the culling game even seemed to hint that Yuta was too soft and he didn't truly have the attitude to fight someone like Ryomen Sukuna who was the embodiment of a calamity.

These panels seemed like a prophecy that Yuta was doomed to fall short against Sukuna. That he could never live up to his title as the next Satoru Gojo, because unlike Gojo and Sukuna who can stand on the top alone Yuta clings to his loved ones.

Sukuna got to where he is by rejecting love. Sukuna is Sukuna because he's never needed anyone to satisfy him. So how can Yuta who needs to be surrounded by his loved ones at all time to validate him and tell him it's okay for him to be alive even compete?

However, even in JJK zero Yuta's love is questioned on whether or not it's as selfless and "pure" as it seems. To begin with, Maki calls him out early on for attracting bullies by playing the victim a lot. He pretends to be a good and innocent person put upon by his circumstances and bullies when really he doesn't want to help himself. Instead of standing up to the bullies he's always let Rika protect him and then condemned her for being a monster. He's let Rika take the blame for all the destruction, even though Rika is HIS cursed technique, created by HIS emotions, and is protecting him.

Yuta doesn't make any attempt to try to learn to control Rika, or even work with her, he just shrivels away in fear.

"You act like a good person, but it feels fake..." Yuta has always adopted the facade of a good person. He seems soft, socially anxious and withdrawn, even after he gains confidence as a sorcerer those traits don't go away because they're a part of his outward persona. Jung divides the psyche into two parts, the persona a mask that faces the world the parts of yourself that come out in your social interaction with people and then there's the shadow your repressed personality.

Yuta's shadow is a literal monster that declares her love for him and then expresses that love by violently destroying everything around him.

Yes, Rika initially contained the soul of someone else but Rika the curse was created by his technique, her power corresponds to his emotions, she comes from his shadow, and even after the real Rika passes on the Shikigami RIKA still remains completely under Yuta's control. Rika is Yuta, the embodiment of his twisted definition of love that would curse his loved ones to keep them by his side forever because he can't live without them. All of Rika's insane possessiveness? That's Yuta's too. Rika's violent overprotectiveness? That's Yuta.

How poetic is it really that Yuta and Rika are so codependent that Yuta's shadow, the other half of his personality is literally RIKA. Yuta cannot exist without love, and without someone too love, he's so terrified of being alone that he cursed Rika and then turned her corpse into a puppet after death. He uses his loved one as a weapon to fight his enemies.

If you think about it for more than five minutes Yuta's cursed technique and Rika has some seriously messed up implications, but it's hard too because as messed up as Yuta's love is it's still genuine.

Love is a curse, but in 236 Nanami speculates that sometimes curses can save people too, just like how Jujutsu Sorcerers use curses to fight and protect others.

So Yuta's love is a screaming, raging, overprotective monster, but it's also what give shim the motivation to fight ofr others. Yuta's love is a curse, but curses can save people too.

Yuta on the other hand isn't aware of his own darker nature most of the time.

The big twist in Jujutsu kaisen Zero is that just as Maki accused him of from the beginning, Yuta was playing the victim all along. He acted like Rika cursed him with her dying breath, but Yuta was the one who cursed her because he couldn't bear to live without her.

However, even this apology is a bit telling of Yuta's self-centered nature. He immediately turns everything into his fault and starts beating himself up over it. He doesn't look at anyone else's perspectives or that other people had a role to play. He deliberately ignores Rika's feelings on the past few years, which Rika is quick to point out for him.

This scene has a parallel later where Yuta ultimately, only thinks about himself first and foremost. In spite of wanting so badly to be surrounded by his loved ones, it's more about him loving them, and less about their feelings for him.

After all he's completely willing to commit a double suicide with Rika to protect his friends, ignoring the fact Rika doesn't want him to pass on just yet, and Maki, Inumaki and Panda wouldn't want him to disappear either. This scene has a direct parallel a year later in the fight against Sukuna when Yuta gives up his body.

Maki almost breaks character from her usual culling game arcs stoicity to fight and argue with Yuta to stop him form doing this, and Rika who one year earlier told Yuta to live a long life so she wouldn't have to see him on the other side so soon is reduced to screaming and sobbing while holding his dead body.

Yuta loves people, or at least he feels an intense amount of love for people, but he can be as self-centered as the other sorcerers we see in the story. Geto even points this out right away, that Yuta is selfish, that he's seeking self-affirmation first and foremost. He needs other people's approval, their love, to feel like he deserves to exist. He'll do anything to earn that love, and once he has it he'll do anything to protect it but it's ultimately for himself.

It manifests in Yuta's technique itself copy, which first and foremost requires Yuta to consume parts of his loved ones that can never be healed if he wants to keep their copied technique. Yuta gets stronger by literally eating his loved ones. We have canon confirmation that Yuta fed part of Inumaki's severed arm to Rika.

Yuta's cursed technique is to emulate the strengths of all of his loved ones copying them and making them a part of his oqn technique, because Yuta will take any shape and form in order to be loved. It's also the perfect technique for fighting as a part of a group, because someone like Sukuna will naturally assume that Yuta's technique STEALS instead of COPYING so he'll forget that the original still retains their technique.

Yuta's not only selfish and has a very selfish, overprotective love for others, but it's those exact qualities that make him an effective sorcerer strong in the area that Gojo is the weakest. Group coordination.

Gojo is in his element when he's alone, but Yuta is so codependent that he literally cannot exist unless other people are looking at him. His strength comes from the things he copies and takes from his friend, and he turned his loved one into a puppet to fight others. Is it really that surprising that this kid would willingly use Gojo's body as a weapon after death when that's literally what he did to Rika.

How telling is it that like Yuta learned that Rika was cursed by him, went so far to exorcise her spirit, and then after finally letting go after her spirit passed on he made a second Shikigami named Rika a few months later made out of the small remnants of cursed energy that Rika left behind as a gift after passing on. The dude is not over Rika, he's like, Geto and Gojo levels of not over Rika.

Yuta's cursed technique being the literal weaponization of his love and his loved ones makes him the best character for group coordination in the entire series. Yuta even adopts apsects of hakari's persona when making his plans against Sukuna since he decides to gamble at several key points in the plan.

Several of the key moments in the fight are all Yuta's plans, with some collaboration from Angel. He makes several bets too like Hakari would. The first being going to finish Kenjaku by himself and using both Todo and Takaba in conjunction to trick him. The second is the bet that he'd be able to make it back in time to rejoin the fight in case Higuruma's plan fail.

It was Yuta who let his own domain barrier down on purpose to let Sukuna think he had the victory so he would let his guard down and make it easy for Maki to ambush him. Something that also required perfect coordination between Yuta and Maki working in tandem with one another.

Yuta set up Hana to do one large jacob's ladder when Sukuna least expected it because he knew Sukuna would forget that his technique is COPY and not steal. He also made the biggest bluff which was leading Sukuna to believe that he fed Rika his last finger.

These aren't just good bluffs, they require near perfect coordination with your allies and taking several chances on them. Nobara might not have even woken up so the last finger / resonance Gambit was perhaps the biggest gamble. Maki and Yuta had to coordinate with each other well so Maki would be there when Yuta dropped the barrier. Yuta needed Takaba a relatively new and inexperienced sorcerer to survive against the threat that was Kenjaku, and he needed all of his allies to stay alive while he was prioritizing Kenjaku.

These are all plans Satoru Gojo would never have been able to pull off, because Gojo only ever relies on himself. If Yuta and Hakari had intervened in the Gojo and Sukuna fight then he would not have been able to go all out, whereas Yuta REQUIRES people collaborating with him in order TO GO ALL OUT.

This is Yuta. This is his strength. Yuta is nothing without love, so he takes on the forms of the people he loves and takes things from the people he loves in order to gain the power to protect him. Yuta copies everything from the people he loves, so is it really that much of a surprise that he'd become a monster just like Gojo.

In some ways, Geto and Yuuta were the same. Geto was too sincere. To someone like him, the reality that the world of sorcerers presented to him was just too cruel. ’…that in a world like this, I couldn’t be truly happy from the bottom of my heart.’ To live for the purpose of being yourself. And for that goal, Geto could only continue to pursue his twisted dream, drowning himself in the curse that lies in the gap between ideal and reality.

Love is a weapon for Yuta. Just like his curse technique can take any form, so does Yuta's love, and so does Yuta himself. Love always wins, and in order to do so Yuta will take any shape necessary, no matter how twisted.

Love is the worst curse of them all, and Yuta will become the worst monster of them all if it means protecting his love ones.

[strangesmallbard]

i do think it’s interesting that severance fans often default to discussing the outties and innies as two separate people—like yes, functionally, they are right now. lumon does its best in-universe to separate outties and innies. for example: banning contact between outties and their innies’ coworkers, banning contact between outties and innies themselves. they create that distance and the fantastic acting also helps create that distance. it’s fundamentally important to the show that we acknowledge that difference.

and like. yes it’s a philosophy question: at what point do outties and innies become truly different people? is a person stored in their memories, their upbringing, or their instincts? etc. as we’ve seen so far, this separation creates some of the most fucked up consent issues you’ve ever seen. but also, and this is so easy to forget, there is also no separation. mark scout is mark s, helena eagan is helly r, and visa-versa. one is just missing necessary history and context to be the other person, but the vestiges remain. essentially: i don’t think they can truly become two different people and therein lies some tension.

for example: mark s has mark scout’s frankly impressive ability to repress any and all grief-related emotions. (i was wondering yesterday, actually, whether an innie who experiences some of the same life events as their outtie will eventually morph into them. like a manual reintegration.) another example someone else brought up: helly r has helena eagan’s entitlement and strong belief in her own personhood.

the outtie vs innie conception is particularly interesting when it comes to how fans discuss helly r/helena eagan. many people love helly and hate helena and it has me going “huh!” because, like. that could be the same gal! in different fonts. they both want to believe they’re completely different and want everyone else to believe that too. but we’ve been shown differently.

i’ve also seen some cognitive dissonance in discussing helly r/helena’s actions, which is also very interesting. there’s a very human urge to paint one as evil, the other good. but that’s never how it goes. yeah irving says “helly was never cruel” but he’s biased! (which is a good thing! i love when characters are biased). helly tried to kill helena last season (i know i just said they’re not separate people, but helly doesn’t agree with me). in season 2, helena stole her body and assaulted mark s. again, absolutely insane consent issues inherent in the severance process. (maybe it doesn’t come down to the good/evil dichotomy at all but rather: power. who has the power and when are they justified to wield or fight it)

anyway! no tl;dr. just food for thought. please try to enjoy each sentence equally etc

[disguisedcheezed]

i hate it when people make john hate other characters because he's so friendly and sees the best in everyone. he's literally incapable of holding a grudge or hating anyone. he either likes you or doesn't care. he cares so much, but he's also too emotionally repressed to show it.

john the beacon of hope that keeps the story alive. he hates himself so much, but he still optimistic and he continues to live for his friends. he wants to save everyone but he doesn't even want to save himself. when dirk said he failed, john takes away the blame and puts it on himself.

he's the Heir Of Breath who is effortlessly cool because he helps people with no exchange with the expense of his life because the narrative made him unkillable Or his unwavering hope makes him unkillable.

he's the Heir Of Grief is because he is full of love that has nowhere else to go. that grief could turn into rage. he's has every reason to go insane, yet he refuses. he internalizes his emotions and remains optimistic despite losing everyone he's ever loved. he still believes he could save them.

as long as john lives, there is hope. the story ends when he says it will. that's what happened at the very end of homestuck. everyone is safe, that means he's useless. he doesn't need to save anyone anymore, but he still refuses to help himself. he thinks he's undeserving of help.

john isolates himself from everyone. in his room where you first saw him, and the last where he makes his grave. john egbert has lost all hope. he lost himself. he badly doesn't want to exist anymore. he breaks his phone with his hammer, ceasing all the means of connection.

[wernerherzogs]

the thing is. i can't even fully make fun of bucktommies for their tommy takes given what continues to be done to my man eddie diaz. like at least tommy's a canvas blank enough that even batshit insane headcanons with zero basis in show's canon are like. eyeroll worthy to me at most. because that man does not matter longterm at all. but with eddie it's like some of you can't envision gayness if it doesn't fit a Recognizable Media Stereotype. so he's been repressed his whole life and hasn't lived a single genuine experience ever yet and everything he does is a performance and he doesn't know how to be A Man because he's secretly an elder sister. despite nothing in canon even remotely indicating that as he's been perfectly normal about being a man who's a single parent all this time. he literally only worries about the emotional side of him not meeting the societal/parental standards of Being A Man Who's A Single Father. his ptsd is a not mental or canon enough a canon mental illness you guys are now forcing an entire dsm-5 on him. he secretly longs to be a weho fag who wears cashmere sweaters and has a purse dog or a cat and he's only overcompensating with his truck because god forbid his fashion sense or current hobbies were genuine. meeting kim was a psychotic break instead of a network procedural character dealing with seeing a dead copy of his late wife in a genuinely the most normal way possible under the circumstances. like why are you twisting this guy into shapes he's not because otherwise you just can't buy him being queer/gay like... do you only know bi sluts and formerly repressed broadway gays in real life with no in between? is that it. because buck is another fascinating part of this. his characterization seems fairly consistent no matter where on the top-bottom spectrum people put him. is it because bisexuality has a smaller amount of stereotypes associated with it so you don't feel the need of implying he's been performing everything his entire life like what's going on. and being a Bi Slut has actually canon room to exist here, so it's naturally never been an issue. but he can be a late bloomer bi and yet no one accuses him of only overcompensating with his truck or being a passenger princess despite tommy driving him around and he can be your dom top while still regularly displaying an affinity for things stereotypically viewed as female-coded (as cooking/baking, even for his girlfriend taylor, or cooing after newborn babies like a fic-worthy omega in heat). those specific things either get ignored or dialed up to eleven in fic but he's still ol' good fun buck who aches and wants to be loved and has his abandonment issues and sex issues and so on and so forth but remains fairly recognizable and mostly true to canon every time in the eyes of bajillion different writers. why is he immune while eddie isn't why are you respectful of canon when it comes to buck but eddie's suddenly in a hbo show and not a network procedural when transported into the fic realm can someone explain this.

[tinygalaxykid]

Ok so what if they WERE fucking the whole time? Kepler and Jacobi are such insane, emotionally mutilated individuals that their hypothetical sexual dynamic is endlessly interesting.

It is never for jacobi's pleasure-- it can't be. However, Kepler's defining feature is a denial of all his individual desires, so it can't be for his pleasure EITHER. That means they're having fucked up powerplay sex where the central excuse is Keplers "conditioning" of jacobi. Emotional manipulation, pain desensitization, torture resistance, obedience, etc. Kepler doesn't touch jacobi without it being a carefully calculated decision. Ever. It's another lever in punishment & reward.

Deep down, Kepler loves Jacobi. He uses sex to approximate violence to approximate intimacy. It's the excuse he has to be close to him, he jusy can't process that. Now, this does not mean that Kepler is a dom. A dom would indicate a focus on his or jacobi's pleasure. Kepler is his commanding officer. His Major/Colonel. Even if it's fun, it must remain impersonal. It must remain expendable: for the mission or as a punishment. It's not quiet trysts or secret affairs on the road. It is what everything else is to Kepler: a way to kill time while accomplishing one of his many ulterior motives. He'll remind jacobi of that if he needs to.

Meanwhile, Jacobi isn't dense. He knows Warren well enough to know what this is... but God isn't he just happy to have his hands on him? He can't have real relationships anymore. It's not compatible with SI-5. It's not compatible with loving Kepler. He'll take what he can get without ever knowing where he truly stands.

It doesn't help that Jacobi responds deeply to praise. Kepler doesn't do this with anyone else. Jacobi is special. Any physical touch, affirmation, and sign of care is enough for him to throw any remaining inhibitions out the window. So, he let's it happen to himself every time.

The sex thing was never particularly frequent but it became completely impossible during the hepheastus mission. It was too much of a security risk with Hera always listening. So their physical relationship just... rotted away. I think there was probably a moment after One Of Them where Jacobi realizes it had already happened for the last time before either of them knew it. I think it breaks his heart because he spent so much love and devotion bowing down to a directionless fool. I think Kepler finally realizes exactly what is slipping through his finger when Pryce and Cutter board the ship. He is forced to reckon with how much he's always wanted Jacobi.

Anyways this post is dedicated to that author who wrote that fic where jacobi had to balance a glass of whiskey on his back while getting his back blown out. I owe you my life.

Some miscellaneous takes below the cut:

They never fucked harder than after jacobi blew up that hospital. 1000%. Kepler knew exactly one way to reward that absolutely deprived, monstrous behavior and it was rearranging Jacobi's guts until he had 0 morals left in his body.

They started fucking before No Complaints. I think it helps explain why jacobi was so petty but also touched by the fireworks. The stakeout prank wasn't just a hook up or a quickie. It meant something. It was more than he thought he was going to get out of kepler. It was almost a date.

Kepler's entire sexual body language is molded around avoiding intimacy. He doesn't look at jacobi's face when they have sex. He always hits it from the back. He will only come AFTER jacobi comes because it is too vulnerable to do when jacobi is coherent. If he feels like he can't avoid the intimacy, he'll straight up leave after jacobi comes.

I also think Kepler pointedly did not initiate sex after the fireworks and jacobi took it very personally.

Jacobi broke up with Klein because he was cheating on him with Kepler.

Alana doesn't know because she doesn't want to.

Kepler is super emotionally repressed but he's not always angry or mean. He's just as funny, nonchalant, and quippy as usual sometimes. It's often more effective at deflecting the emotional situation that being silent is.

Jacobi is a glutton for punishment and always wants to get hit in the face but kepler won't leave marks above his collarbone. He's broken multiple bones having sex with Kepler.

[sun-spice]

On a star wars prequels kick. AU where Sidious buys Shmi and tiny Anakin from Gardulla, like yes this the best back up apprentice plan ever.

Maul is obviously Not Happy, tries to pull some shit and Shmi is like. No.

Anyway Shmi secretly adopts a raging teenager and they plan to kill their slaver. Maul's not really in a place to accept a parental figure and Shmi only has the resources and energy for one son, so they end up with a somewhat sibling like relationship.

At some point, Shmi gets shunted out of the picture, and a furious Maul is left to cobble together a new plan on his own and he manages to escape with Anakin but not kill Sidious. Fuck, Shmi's not here and Maul has to take care of her kid on his own. Fuck. Oh well, he can't be worse than Sidious... Fuck it, he's going to be a best caretaker ever out of sheer spite. Anakin can be his apprentice now and it will be epic.

Anakin doesn't really want to be a Sith in particular but he's free! He can always say no later so he figures he might as well be Maul's apprentice until he finds his mom again. He likes Maul and maybe he can teach him how to fly because wow those were some crazy moves.

At some later point, an ex-padawan Obi-Wan stumbles upon two traumatised former Sith apprentices. One is a small child and terribly endearing, and the other is a passionate but still incredibly dubious caretaker okay? What's he going to do? Walk away and forget?

Maul hates him. Anakin adores him, maybe a little too much. Cue dysfunctional found family shenanigans.

Maul is determined to be a Sith without his master, Obi-Wan is there to say which Sith things are bloody fucking insane and not allowed in this house (ugly fucking smuggler ship that Anakin keeps tinkering with to have, are those flamethrowers in the walls?! Anakin.). Maul is there to stab at Obi-Wan's great wall of Disaster Lineage Repression™️ until it starts to crumble. They argue a lot and somehow both end up with healthier mental states and force connections. While arguing about how best to take care of a child they decide they need an third adult opinion and accidentally rope everyone into therapy.

They reunite with Shmi and wow, Anakin now has three parents! Wizard. Shmi, in her manic attempts to return to her son and ensure they are all free and remain so, has accidentally become a pirate queen... They can work with this.

So: a pirate queen freedom fighter, a rogue Sith, a rogue Jedi, and an Anakin. The galaxy isn't ready. Sidious is seething and frantically trying train a new apprentice.

(He gets Dooku, except Qui-Gon is alive and very much Dooku's achilles heel, and will later foil Sidious' plans for his master. Jango Fett is in way over his head, good thing this Tyrannus seems to have suddenly had a chance of heart.)

The Whills are intrigued. The Jedi are totally lost, what is happening? Quinlan Vos in particular is laughing. The Shadow Council is somewhere between amused and bemused that the surprise!Sith apprentice actually turned out pretty decent, and he's helping them with their shared goal of getting rid of his master. What an unexpected win. They'll take it, the rest of the Jedi cannot know of him until then.

[motions1ckness]

“Letting it linger”

Summary: Roman invited you to a family dinner where you two find a way to enjoy yourselves.

Contents: smut, established relationship, f!reader, dom/sub interactions, exhibitionism, choking, semi public, roman being needy, mention of sexual turmoil

(i’m so sorry if you saw this before i realized i added the same paragraph twice anyways)

This had to be one of the longest nights you have tolerated. You regret accepting Roman’s offer to be his plus one at this dinner. It wasn’t his fault. If it was up to him, he wouldn't have came.

The night was driving you insane. The dinner consisted of the Roy and Pierce families. Roman warned you about the pretentious comments and shitty conversation; you were not prepared for how fucking boring it was gonna be. During the first course, Roman rested his hand on your thigh, normal. It quickly turned into his hand resting close to your heat. You shot Roman a look, but he didn’t meet your eyes. It was a game now.

One of the Pierce's wives made conversation with you. Roman was picking at his food, not paying attention. “Well, I’ve never seen that one. What is it about?” You asked. She started talking and you decided to take action. As she was gabbing about the plot, you brought your hand to Roman’s pants and squeezed. The action made him yelp and practically jerk in his seat, “Rome are you okay?” You asked innocently. He sat at the end, only you could see what happened. He became flushed, his gaze surrendering to you as he sat dumbfounded.

It was risky. He needed a response, “Y-yeah, I'm, fuckin' fine,” he shook his head, removing the attention set on him, and the woman resumed her spiel. Roman’s pleading expression shifted to you, hand in the same place. He didn’t interrupt her; instead letting your hand linger. He adjusted his hips to gain more friction. He was rock-hard. His action surprised you, but it was all the confirmation you needed.

You started palming him through his pants, and he gave a slight huff as you wrapped up your conversation. You began moving quicker. You studied the room to make sure you both were above suspicion. Roman became pale from his arduous efforts to remain silent. You leaned over to his ear, “Stop looking like this is happening, you don't want everyone to see how pathetic you are? Especially your father,” you whispered.

You stayed close to his face as he turned to you. His eyes pleaded with you. Your mind explored the 'what if's?' in this situation. But it was the Pierce family, the dinner was crucial. “P-please, let’s go to the bathroom,” he breathed out. You stopped your action, causing him to repress a whine. Were you really about to do this? No one would suspect anything.

You moved your hand to his shoulder and whispered, “Then let’s go.”

With that, Roman wasted no time, excusing you both from the table. He had to follow close behind you to cover his strained pants. Once you two found the bathroom, you wasted no time kissing him against the door. It was sloppy and needy; one of your hands rested on his neck, the other stroking him.

You sped up your movement. Roman threw his head back, parting his mouth slightly. Provoking you to attack his neck and run your free hand through his hair, tugging at it slightly.

“Let’s fucking do it,” he says, panting. This wasn’t the first time you two had sex, just not as a casual affair. Your eyes lit up as you drew away from him, causing his hips to buck from the lack of sensation.

“Yeah, are you sure? Like actually do it?” You questioned. You weren't going to do anything he wasn’t okay with.

He looked at you, his face red and sweaty, and his eyes insisting. “Y-yes, I want this. Please.” He ensures, focusing his attention on tracing figures into your hip, waiting for a response. You studied his face just for additional assurance before kissing him again. Roman cupped your face as he stumbled, pushing you against the sink. His hands moved down and eventually made their way to your breasts. He kneaded them as you did your best to repress the noises, remembering the dinner outside. As you adjusted against the sink, you heard him undoing his belt. Roman glanced back at you while stroking himself. His eyes fluttered as you heard him spurt profanities.

You grab the back of his neck, “You still sure?” You also took this second to prepare yourself. You were about to hook up with your boyfriend in a bathroom. While his family was 50 feet away.

Roman rolled his eyes while forcing your underwear aside and pushing himself into you. You moan instinctively from the new sensation and dig your nails into Roman's neck. He quickly covers your mouth so you two don’t get caught.

He thrusts himself deeper, pressing his forehead against yours,” F-fuck, just keep quiet for me,” as he cut himself off with a low moan. You looked up at him, retaining eye contact. Roman’s eyes stayed on you, his small whimpers made you want him more. He let you both adjust to the feeling as he adjusted his other arm to keep you against the sink. He began a steady pace.

The room filled with sporadic moans as Roman’s eyebrows furrowed, you could tell he was close. He bucked you closer to him, resulting in him throwing his head back and moaning loudly. Roman moved his hand from your mouth to your throat, causing your eyes to widen from the feeling as a gasp escaped your throat from his noisy reaction. He froze for a moment after he realized how loud he was.

His face turned a deeper tint of red. His demeanor altered slightly, “D-do you think t-they heard me?” he asked. He felt worry trickle down his back. His frightened expression became apparent.

You moved your hand to his cheek reassuringly. “N-no, I think we’re all good,” you answered out of breath. You two waited a couple of seconds to make sure you were in the clear.

Roman looked down at where his hand sat, “Fuck,” he began removing his hand from your neck, but you kept it there.

“No, I like it. You wanted me to stay quiet right?” You said with a lustful grin. Roman’s eyes filled with hunger as he kissed you, returning to the previous pace and now applying pressure to your neck.

Roman’s thrusts started becoming more brutal. He was biting your shoulder to help conceal his whines. It wasn’t long until you felt a knotting sensation in your core. You knew he was close behind from the slight shuddering from his hips with every thrust. “Rome-”

He already knew what you were gonna say, “Do it.” he quickly responded, muffled from your shoulder. To suppress your climax, he tightened the grip on your neck, pushing you over the edge. You felt him bite harder, the mix of moans heating against your skin. Roman wasn’t far behind you. His hips started stuttering as he met his climax. You couldn't make out any of the words he was saying. It was a mixture of praises, swears, and moans.

After you both came down, he pulled out of you and put himself away. He didn’t talk to you immediately after, which made you believe he regretted it. You sat on the sink with your legs slightly trembling, thinking Roman was going to ignore you the rest of the evening.

“I think you'll fuckin' need this.” You look up and see a towel being handed to you. You met Roman’s eyes before getting up and started using the mirror, him directly behind you. You quickly cleaned up and adjusted your dress. “You better hope no one heard,” he said, pulling you closer to his hips.

The tension in your face eases, “It’d be your funeral.”

[socgf]

matt dillon characters' zodiac signs

this came to me in a dream so i needed to write it out because i think too much about him. i didn't get all his major roles because i felt like we didn't see enough sides of the character to determine their sign (ex. jack duncan in liar's moon) but let me know if u agree or have other hcs!!

richie white (over the edge): taurus

extremely stubborn, loyal in a 14 year old delinquent way. his repeated 'a kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid'. at the same can be self centered and over indulgent: thinking of him ditching carl at the party, all his shenanigans with the gun, and the final car chase. he loves the attention on him! also stoners like him are very taurus coded, not even stereotyping because i am a taurus and i just know he is one. (was.)

tex mccormick (tex): libra

this is actually canon because his bday is october 22nd in the movie. but also makes sense. he has the effortless charm/flirtiness ("god gave me my face but he let me pick my nose" - most libra thing ever.) and is also idealistic to a fault, he lives in his own world and isn't very grounded in reality. matt has said he played tex as a simple and naive kid, and that to me is very libra. libras are my fav <333

dallas winston (the outsiders): scorpio

also canon but very obvious i feel like i don't need to explain this. he's got that intensity and darkness in his emotions under the surface of secrecy and danger. resourceful and fiercely loyal which is why he's the go to greaser when pony and johnny are in trouble. he's unbelievably calm and level headed on the surface even in such an emotional situation - very scorpio.

since this character is so fledged out i feel like i can also say at least in the movie version that he's 100% a scorpio rising with his eyes and dark facial features/intimidating resting face.

pretty sure canonically he has an aquarius moon based on his birthday, but personally i don't see that. aquarius moons are eccentric and freedom loving and dally is very repressed. i think he's a leo moon. he's controlled by his emotions and ego and has the tendency to self sacrifice, as we see.

rusty james (rumble fish): gemini

constant need to be independent and self-reliant. if you pay attention rusty james is constantly fidgeting/tapping his fingers and that's very gemini to me, they can't settle down. also his insane mood swings, going from soft spoken to ready to fight at any moment (thinking of patty argument + all his interactions with steve lol).

bob hughes (drugstore cowboy): capricorn

him being intelligent/calculated/ambitious is the foundation of his character. he of course has that inner need for stability in his relationships which is so earth sign. but this is obvious to me only because every capricorn i've ever met has the most insane hustling hardworking mentality ever. and one thing about bob is he is a hustler for those pills!!! also because capricorns kinda scare me sometimes.. they can be cold.

sam lombardo (wild things): sagittarius

i actually hate sag men so much so i'm gonna try to remain neutral even though i did enjoy sam's character a lot. sags to me are like a ticking time bomb, like they can explode at any minute. very unpredictable, brave, confident, abrasive. all of sam's elaborate plotting and violence... only a sag could think of all of that and go through with it. also tendency toward greed and fierce independence which ends up being his downfall. don't forget good in bed (banging all of blue bay).

[icycoldninja]

Can you write a reader with the DMC boys who’s mostly very chill but she actually have repressed anger issues built up due to past traumas of not being able to express her emotions properly without being “lectured” and overall, she’s been neglected almost her entire life without her actually realizing it. She thought that her parents giving her money to spend is enough love but throughout the process of loving the boys, she found out that love can be more than that and her parents may not have properly loved her the way she thought. It’s only when she’s in a relationship with them does she realize how neglected she was,

as early in the relationship, she’s pretty withdrawal from affection, flinching when they gave her physical affection, finding herself hard to set boundaries and voice out her thoughts and refusing to let them do things for her as she believes that if she let them do it, they’ll find her bothersome. On top of that, she kinda has a mindset of not being too attached to them as she thinks that if they ever cheat on her or broke her heart, she wouldn’t be too heartbroken abt it. Now with the relationship progressing, she’s starting to become better but it’s still there somehow

They found out when they saw the reader, who was very fearful of demons (think of her fearfulness similar to that of Kobeni in Chainsaw man) but can get extremely violent moments later when the demon she was avoiding suddenly got beaten into a bloody pulp with her baseball bat

Basically going from “I’m sorry mother, I have failed you as your daughter and you have failed me as my mother. I hope you’ll never forgive me” to “Fucking die! You shitheads, no one shall ever leave this room alive!!”

P/S: Her parents are not abusive, it’s just that her father was barely available throughout her childhood and her mother do not know how to love her properly and is not aware that the reason her daughter barely wants to keep contact with her is due to her past trauma

OK, got it! Here ya go and enioy!

Sparda boys + V x Reader with repressed anger issues headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-Dante found you to be a pleasant challenge. You were uptight, physically and emotionally distant, cold, mean, and extremely reluctant to open your heart to anyone.

-He didn't mind though; Dante was certain that with time, he'd manage to worm his way into your heart and get you to accept your relationship for what it was: true love.

-Upon learning of how you were forced to bottle up your emotions, Dante was outraged. Not at you, at your parents. Why would they deny your the right to express yourself fully? No wonder you were like this. From that point on, Dante made sure to encourage you to say what was on your mind, regardless of whether it was positive or not.

-Dante is always showering you with attention and kind words, making sure you're doing alright every other hour. It really made you think about how you were raised, and how your childhood seemed so deprived of love compared to now.

-You started opening up more to Dante, as a result, sharing your true thoughts and allowing yourself to feel more emotions.

-When Dante took you with him on a mission for the first time, he was shocked to see how you reacted to seeing a real life demon. At first you were crying, laughing, mumbling to yourself like an insane person, the next, you'd pulled out a baseball bat and bashed the thing into a bloody pulp.

-Dante's respect for you rocketed into the stars after that incident, but he makes sure to keep you away from demons unless it's absolutely necessary.

■ Vergil ■

-Vergil didn't mind your physical and emotional distance, as well as your stubbornness to remain independent. He reasoned all this stemmed from trauma, and as someone with these exact same issues, he understood.

-He would never pressure you into revealing things about yourself; all would come in due time. He would simply sit there and read quietly. If you wanted to talk, he would listen. If not, then he would mind his own business.

-He was still very protective of you when you were in public, as prying eyes and gawking strangers never did sit right with him.

-At some point you chose to tell him about how you'd always been told to disguise your emotions and keep them bottled up inside. Vergil found it odd that your own parents would tell you to do this, but since he himself did the very same thing, he didn't say much about it.

-He does want you to know you can express yourself however you feel around him--within reason, of course.

-He was understandably surprised when he witnessed the way you freaked out over demons. First you're cowering, crying and muttering gibberish to yourself, the next, you're screaming and terrifyingly violent as you bash the demon's skull in.

-Vergil realized that if you could actively control this reaction, you'd do very well in battle. Still, he should keep you away from any and all hellish threats from now on.

□ Nero □

-Nero found you rather difficult to get along with since you rejected any and all help from him and was always cold and mean.

-Still, he loved you and tried his best to keep you happy. Since you preferred to do everything yourself, he'd let you do everything yourself.

-He attempted to initiate conversation with you at every chance he got, even if you rudely brushed him off. As long as he kept trying, he was sure you'd let him in eventually.

-Your reluctance to get attached to him was more than obvious; it made Nero sad to think you believed he'd so much as consider abandoning you. He made sure to tell you that he loves you and that he'll stay with you forever, every single day.

-Thanks to his constant reminders, you've let yourself relax around him, and even though you're still somewhat tense, you don't flinch when he hugs you and don't reject him when he tries to kiss you.

-Watching you freak out over demons was no pleasant experience either. He'd never seen someone have such a complete mood switch in such a short amount of time. One moment you look like you're on the verge of a breakdown and the next, you're violent enough to become a demon yourself.

-Your anger issues are scary, but not nearly as bad as Nero's, so the plus side is you two can lash out at the world together.

● V ●

-V (being part of Vergil) understands that trauma makes one extremely distant, both physically and emotionally, so he tries to not let that get to him.

-He wants you to understand that he will never leave you, cheat on you, or hurt you in anyway. He loves you and only you, and it's gonna be that way forever.

-Even though you're audibly against it, V will come up and hold you whenever he feels like it, burying his face into your shoulder, pressing kisses to your neck, wrapping his lanky arms around your waist, the lot.

-You might groan and complain, but eventually you get used to it, and then you just kinda melt into his touch. This is good. It means his plan to coax you out of your shell is working.

-He does let you do what you want on your own, but makes sure to remind you that you are not a burden, especially when he can barely walk around on his own two feet.

-When you guys went on a mission together and he got to see you having what looked like a full on breakdown because of one demon, V grew very worried. Had a hidden phobia just been triggered?

-Then he saw you whack the sorry creature with a baseball bat you apparently conjured into existence and was reassured that all this was just a productive of your supressed anger issues--which was fine. He could work with that.

[all-pacas]

Do you think house’s “you only like broken people” theory ever got into comeron’s head? Like was there ever moments during her relationship with chase where he admits something awful about his childhood (nonchalantly/not thinking it was really awful because he’s a repressed bastard) and she immediately went “oh god what if he’s right” as a fleeting thought?

i'm going to take this prompt as an excuse to yell about lockdown for a minute.

something i find really striking about lockdown -- besides the obvious and hilarious retcon of it all -- is how cameron blazes in there with: this was all my fault, i pushed you out of my life, i am a broken person. and when i say it's a retcon, i mean it: none of this was very presented as a … problem, or an issue. we spent the entire series in cameron's head and not chase's; their divorce quickly swaps from because chase did a murder to cameron is broken.

CAMERON: Because everything you said is true. I'm a mess. I married a man I knew was dying. So God knows how screwed up I already was. Him dying messed me up even more. I pushed you out of my life. And I-I'm unfixable. Not you.

it's insane, right? chase murdered a person and cameron -- and the show -- decides that no, the real issue is that she never loved him and is broken. obviously, the meta reason is that chase is still on the show and needs to remain likeable. but still! it's nuts! while it's true that cameron does fear emotional vulnerability and has pushed chase away when he's gotten too close (s3 fwb and saviors are both examples of this), we've also seen her take pains to rectify her missteps and actually work quite hard to keep chase -- in the itch, she finds out she's been inadvertently hurting him and immediately tries to fix it; after dibala, her first reaction is to try very hard to forgive murder and stay married. it's… disingenuous to act like she's "always" pushed him away, she's "never" loved him, both for the show (which was always thoroughly on cameron's side to the point of completely ignoring chase's feelings/pov until now), for cameron herself, and most of all for chase, who admits he wants it to be her fault so it doesn't have to be his.

(i'm sympathetic to chase in lockdown, because i understand and we see how much the breakup fucked him up for years to come, but also. this is not a good episode for him. he yells and berates cameron until she tells him what he wants to hear -- that she never loved him -- and allows her to take full blame for their breakup, admitting it's easier for him this way. he does try and comfort her when she's crying, but only after he yelled in her face until she started crying. he is a fucking asshole.)

but interestingly, even now, even with all these retcons and getting assigned all the blame for chase's murder of a world leader, cameron never once suggests "i like fixing people." she admits marrying her dead husband was a Choice, and that she already had issues, and that it messed her up worse, but she never suggests she tried to or wanted to fix him. these things are true, and always have been. she then says she pushed chase out of her life which… is still an insane take (she didn't! she wanted to go to chicago with him! he took a job with house and told her "you do it too or we have to break up!"). but she never suggests i just wanted to fix broken people.

neither cameron or chase ever seem to think "fixing broken people" is her issue, actually. if anything, if they did believe this was her problem, now would be a great time to bring it up: chase is already angry with her, why not throw on "you like fixing broken people, but not me?", right? house really is the only one who has ever suggested it was a trait of cameron's, and, while the show does often suggest house is right, we really should not forget that he did it at a time he wanted to undermine her feelings for him, that "you only want to fix broken people" was a way of downplaying her crush and their relationship. no one else has ever thought this of cameron. that she's messed up and her dead husband did a number on her? absolutely. but that she has a thing for broken people? not even once. not even now.

-

as for the actual question: i don't know. i don't think so? house absolutely gets in cameron's head, and we see she takes his thoughts seriously. but so much of cameron and chase's relationship was about chase being supportive and offering advice and comfort that i don't think she ever thought for a second "i'm with him to fix him." if anything, given how quickly she admitted to him she was "broken" in lockdown, i think they may have both believed the opposite. if chase admitted to childhood trauma #84 in her presence, obviously her every nosy instinct would kick in and her every loving one would want to help and find out and, yes, fix. but their dynamic was never like that (the fact that her longest relationship on the show/in life was with chase in the first place) kind of proves house's supposition wrong on the face of it. and she seems to know it, too.

[rnsk-kousatsu]

Wendimon vs. Turuiemon: Mythological Explanations and Contrasting Parallels in Digimon Survive

This is a rewrite of a writeup I previously posted on my old archived Digimon Survive blog, @digital-survivor

Initially inspired by this post by @digisurvive on the mythological explanations for some of the kids’ partners, out of curiosity I decided to check if there’s anything interesting about Lopmon’s evolutions that I could possibly relate back to their roles in Survive (especially in regards to Shuuji as Lopmon’s partner). What I found turned out to be much more interesting than I anticipated, because it seems very likely that they intentionally incorporated elements from the original mythologies, particularly for Wendimon and Turuiemon — both of whom are Lopmon’s adult forms — even  going so far as to draw parallels between them. More of it under the cut.

TWs: mentions of suicide and self-harm

At first glance, it might seem that Wendimon and Turuiemon have no connection at all, given that they originate from two vastly different cultures with no geographical ties. Wendimon is based on Wendigo from Algonquian folklore (primarily among Indigenous tribes in North America), while Turuiemon is based on Tu’er Ye (Tù’eryé/兔兒爺, literally “Lord Leveret”) from a Chinese folk religion in Beijing. On top of that, Digimon as a franchise itself rarely makes their connection clear beyond Wendimon and Turuiemon being the default adult forms of Lopmon. Despite all of that, there’s actually one theme that they do have in common: they both make their appearance during times of crisis. And yet, they both have starkly contrasting roles in their respective mythology.

Let’s start with Wendigo. Wendigo is told to be an evil spirit that emerges during the harshest of cold winters, when resources are scarce and survival becomes increasingly difficult. It preys on those who succumb to desperation and greed by possessing them and turning them into cannibals. Once possessed by Wendigo, the individual is cursed with an insatiable hunger — no matter how much they consume, they will forever remain emaciated and never feel full.

We can already see several references that Survive makes to the actual Wendigo mythology, the most obvious being Wendimon’s act of devouring Shuuji when he finally succumbs to insanity and desperation, which references Wendigo’s association with cannibalism. Many interpret this scene as a representation of Shuuji’s final surrender to his self-harm tendencies (in short, suicide) — and they aren’t wrong at all, but we can go a bit further by drawing more symbolism from the Wendigo myth: Shuuji is trapped in a self-destructive spiral driven by his constant need for external validation and his unfulfilled craving for approval, particularly from his father. This craving can be seen as a form of greed — not for material wealth perhaps, but for affirmation from others. In the same way that Wendigo’s victims are possessed for their greed and cursed with an insatiable hunger that leads to their ruin, Shuuji’s relentless yet fruitless pursuit of recognition forces him to repress his true feelings, and you can say this leads to his loss of self and eventually his demise, where he is metaphorically — and then quite literally — consumed by his own desperation. It’s also fitting that Lopmon evolves into Wendimon when Shuuji is at his lowest and very much cornered with no choice but to resort to desperate measures, which mirrors how Wendigo only appears during the coldest winters, when both despair and survival instincts are at their peak.

Let’s contrast that with Tu’er Ye, Turuiemon’s namesake. According to Chinese mythology, Tu’er Ye is also known as Yutu (Yùtù/玉兔, literally “Jade Rabbit”), the rabbit on the moon who pounds the elixir of life. Legend says that, once upon a time, he was sent by the Moon Goddess Chang’e (Cháng’é/嫦娥) to eradicate a plague on the land. The people of the land were initially distrustful of Tu’er Ye, seeing that his fur was white and white symbolized death in Chinese culture. However, this didn’t stop Tu’er Ye from saving them — he visited a nearby temple to borrow some clothes that he could wear to cover his white fur. After that, the people welcomed him, and Tu’er Ye successfully saved them from the plague. Ever since then, the people have been revering him as a symbol of protection. He is viewed as a guardian figure, especially for children, and is celebrated during festivals for his role in ensuring health and safety.

Even beyond Survive, the broader Digimon lore references Tu’er Ye through Turuiemon’s profile: Turuiemon is described as a Digimon that hunts down viruses that exploit e-mail, much like how Tu’er Ye’s mission is to eradicate the plague. Survive, however, takes this a step further by contrasting Turuiemon’s role in the story with Wendimon’s: While their evolution scenes take place during the exact same point in the story (that is, the peak of Shuuji’s mental breakdown), unlike Wendimon, Turuiemon appears to save him from a devastating situation, akin to how Tu’er Ye arrived to heal the people from the plague. Additionally, just as Tu’er Ye was initially distrusted by the people and could only rescue them after he gained their trust, Lopmon’s evolution into Turuiemon is only triggered when Shuuji finally places his trust in Lopmon (which in turn also symbolizes his willingness to accept himself for who he is). In contrast to Wendimon, whose appearance causes Shuuji’s death, Turuiemon sustains his life — which is very apt considering that Tu’er Ye is known for pounding the elixir of life, like mentioned earlier.

Aside from their mythological references, you can still draw more interesting parallels between Wendimon and Turuiemon from the story alone to see how they’re opposite of each other. Wendimon has an intimidating appearance and strength which gives Shuuji the impression that he has finally gained the upper hand after feeling weak for so long. However, this strength is deceptive — it isn’t born out of genuine growth, but instead out of Shuuji pushing Lopmon (and himself) beyond his limits. His obstinacy in this is fueled by the belief that the pain will help Lopmon grow stronger, just as his father’s harsh upbringing has forged him into the person he is today. It isn’t wrong to say that Lopmon does grow stronger from it by turning into Wendimon, but Wendimon’s strength is so destructive that it literally destroys Shuuji.

On the other hand, Turuiemon, while not exactly what you would picture as physically strong and imposing, only evolves once Shuuji finally adopts a healthier mindset — one of self-acceptance, most importantly. Sure, he doesn’t look that much more powerful than Lopmon, with his size only growing a little from his child form. However, it’s surprisingly this form of a more balanced strength that truly protects and saves Shuuji instead. It sends a message that I personally find very heartwarming — that real strength isn’t always about how much force you can exert, and that embracing who you are, rather than trying to force yourself into a mold that you don’t fit, is what leads to true and lasting strength to face adversity.

[indelen]

This is my reread of the Lockwood and Co. Books, organized by @blue-boxes-magic-and-tea, I'm posting bits and pieces that jumped out at me when I was reading The Whispering Skull.

Part III - Chapters 10-14

Do you think The Problem finally got the British Museum to give up all the stolen stuff it has? Because there are a few locations in London that could produce a Hellmouth in terms of psychic damage and one is absolutely the three above ground and three below ground floors of the British Museum that hold countless items that could easily be sources for powerful and pissed off visitors from all over the world - human remains, stolen belongings, spiritually significant totems, ceremonial and personal items. Another location like that is the Tower of London. I think they must have salted that one from helicopters like the Chernobyl reactor. And given that no mention of the Royals is ever made and nobility seems to be in pretty significant decline it makes me wonder if something nasty came out of some wall in Buckingham Palace for the Windsors and their sort too.

There’s an ongoing throughline in Lucy’s descriptions of Lockwood and it’s that Lockwood lifts. Like, insanely lifts for a 15yo. He can pick up a kid who must weigh at least 50 or 60 kilos by the scruff like a cat that’s a bit bitey. He’s specifically described as never being out of breath after multiple physical exertions (fencing, running etc.) and he’s a very able fighter. Not just able to throw a punch, but knowing how to redirect an opponent’s attack momentum, which is not something you can pick up in an afternoon. Possibly this is Gravedigger Sykes’s doing or at least Lockwood learned it while working for him, but also this is one of those things that give Lockwood a very Sherlock Holmes sort of mystery. Holmes is repeatedly described as thin and wiry, not an especially imposing person physically, but very strong and capable of putting up a very good fight when needed. Other parallels include living in a townhouse with his best friend, running an independent investigative business and taking on only cases that interest him, having a mysterious past, love of disguises, occasional background Orientalism and Victorian chivalry and repression when it comes to girls.

And just to complete the parallel, Holmes is also known to frequently bribe young impoverished kids working menial jobs to be spies/informants.

The only thing more infuriating to Lucy than a girl having a millisecond of Lockwood’s attention is being mistaken for posh. Priorities! Class warfare first, crushes on boys second.

Yea so Flo is probably older than Lockwood by at least a year (this would generally match what we later find out about how her and Lockwood met) which means she’s 2 or even 3 years older than Lucy. But while a two year age difference between two grown ups is nothing, an age gap between a girl of 14 and a girl of 16-17 is a chasm. And this goes back to something important, Flo’s appearance:

Lucy has just barely shed her preteen years here, she is at a point in her life when the worst, most mortifying thing is to be perceived as not pretty, presentable or respectable enough by someone older or more influential. But Flo, an older teenage girl living on dangerous streets of London, is more aware of some harsh realities of life that go beyond simple violence. She understands she’s in an especially vulnerable position given her age, profession and gender. Her choice of work is almost certainly informed by her unprocessed trauma but also has a number of pragmatic safety considerations built in. She works independently and in an area where she can retreat to safety from both Visitors and from people. And her clothing, while it’s appropriate for her occupation, also serves to protect her from unwanted attention. Similarly, Flo’s erratic, antisocial and at times violent behavior is a form of protection against the threat of physical and sexual violence unhoused people live with every day just as much as it is a consequence of her PTSD.

Incidentally, who Lockwood tried to introduce to Flo is one of those questions that feel like the story there is hilarious and forever out of reach. What I like about the books is that they understand that not everything has to be explained. These interactions tell us a lot more than they don’t. We learn a lot about Flo's character and the nature of her friendship with Lockwood. And you also learn about how Lockwood functions, how willing he is to be respectful of other people’s oddities and how he tries to meet friends where they stand and not prod them too much. And I think that also somewhat explains the miscommunication between Lockwood and Lucy in the next book.

Lucy, I'm sorry girl but that’s not the indictment you think it is, the amount of people who annoy you could fill Westminster Abbey. You barely like yourself on a good day.

Classic Lockwood. An absolutely dick move to make Lucy pay for the food, but also, as with getting Lucy to pay for train tickets and luggage to get to Combe Carey Hall in the previous book, we know he’s not just being cheap or mean. Lockwood is implied to be pretty broke most of the early books (Lucy mentions debt collectors coming to the house) and what money he has he spends on cases. In The Screaming Straicase he gave all his money to the taxi driver to deliver his message to DEPRAC and here all the money he had he used to bribe the night watch kid in Kensal Green.

What I think is an interesting change from the show is that book George is 100% aware the mirror did something seriously wrong to him. Like he recognizes and several times voices that he’s just not ok and specifically ties it to the mirror. The sad thing is that it’s not that the rest ignore it, they acknowledge it too, but there is just so little they can do about it. The hazard is seen as part of the job and there’s no real help or support for kids affected by it. The agency system seems to operate on the assumption that most agents will not survive long enough that giving them any help or support is “worth it”. Again a parallel to unscrupulous employer practices in real life.

The trio first assumes Skull is the ghost of a grown adult, but here without knowing they inadvertently stumble past a pretty important point - the Skull is like them. He started out as a kid being exploited by someone in a position of power. Just like agents are consistently exploited for their talent by agency heads and supervisors, Skull was exploited by Bikerstaff who found him and in some way made him dependent on him probably financially and definitely psychologically. We see this hold remain even well after Bikerstaff’s death. I think this is why Lucy and Skull form such a strong bond, they both are recovering from being abused and taken advantage of and they gravitate towards each other. George and Lockwood do not share this similarity, they sympathize with Lucy but their experiences working for someone are very different and so their damage is subtly different. Skull understands Lucy in a way George or Lockwood cannot, and Lucy quite literally understands Skull in a way George and Lockwood cannot. What I think is interesting is that the books really explore the benefits and limitations of bonds formed from shared trauma.

Lockwood smile counter: 6

[applestorms]

i love that both hyuna and luka have developed the same kind of dead-eyed emptiness instinct when it comes to repression.

i keep trying to think of these two as a kind of complementary pair but. honestly it's probably way more complicated than that.

in some ways, they've been put into the position of being exact opposites of one another-- on one side, hyuna is functionally "freed" from the segyein, working with other humans to actively opposite them. due to this she is constantly surrounded by close friends/emotional connections, performing her show on her own terms, for a majority/solely human audience.

she has, theoretically, the most control over her life and what she chooses to do with it out of any of the other members of the cast. and it is with this agency that she regularly makes the decision to continue caring about people, continuing issac's project to save them even when she knows it's a dangerous and somewhat stupid idea.

on the other side, luka is clearly much more heavily isolated. i really like a line from this interview, which shows that luka has very little to no power outside of In The Moment when he's actually performing. note the real motivation behind why he does his little imitation game-- it's not actually necessary for him to win!!

luka is the beloved prince and winning idol of alien stage now two times over, and it is specifically through such a title that he has lost almost if not all of his agency. on stage is quite literally the only time he has free reign to make any kind of choice. even his heartbeats have been trained to be self-regulated.

3. It must put an enormous amount of pressure on you to be known as the greatest performer on ALNST. Do you have any special tricks to help you keep calm? I make sure to maintain my heart rate. Pet-humans must maintain a heart rate of 70-90 bpm to remain composed. I’m keeping track as we speak, would you like to see?

this also, in turn, makes him the ultimate damsel in distress when it comes to the kinds of people that hyuna might want to save, locked up in the highest, most carefully guarded tower...

...someone that she once was once very closely connected to, in intimate friendship (?) with, who has been torn away and placed somewhere unreachable due to the status and fame he's gained from winning. luka has succeeded and reached the top of the horrible system they've been placed within, but he hasn't benefited in any meaningful way from it because he's still stuck inside it, more display animal than person. and hyuna, similarly, can't get away from it either, even as she is in perfect position to break out, because she holds onto her personal connections n care for humanity so closely.

(though, then again-- perhaps her reaction can go the opposite way as well? seeing him as a traitor, someone who turned his back on them to gain all of the riches that they couldn't? who else could be holding this gun, after all. can't forget That childhood moment either or the lasting resentments that may come of it, red light and all.)

on a somewhat similar and yet also quite different note: they're also both so simultaneously empty and completely, utterly fucking dead inside while at the same time being some of the most animated and honestly kind of insane people in the cast.

we perhaps see hyuna's animated side more than her emptiness, and luka's emptiness more than his animation, but i find it fascinating that they both default to the same extremes of Performance or Blankness, particularly when they're under pressure (which, considering This series, is almost always). they both mask constantly, not nearly as forthcoming about their feelings as people like mizi or till who wear their emotions on their sleeves without thinking.

again, considering they're currently stuck in such Opposite circumstances right now, it's interesting that they actually end up interacting with their worlds in a somewhat similar manner.

and all of that really only makes these two frames that much more striking-- the moment when, after all this time, they're finally back together. In Person n everything, right on stage in front of everyone.

i genuinely don't know what the FUCK this next video is gonna be like. they're both just so quietly shocked. like, compare this to their meeting back in round five:

clearly, they still recognized and saw each other here. luka MUST have known hyuna was still alive and well, and hyuna literally cannot escape luka's face haunting the background of like a solid 40% of the frames she shows up in.

so, then? was it the shock of realizing they were Right There, On Stage Together?

(sorry till, this isn't about you right now)

it isn't even clear that hyuna is actually on stage at all initially-- note how she is cut out of this shot, and how we see luka's reaction to her first (shown above) before we actually see the two of them together.

this cutting of one person out of the frame is quite reminiscent of the framing in round six, actually, with how it represents the inability for ivan and till to connect. it also perhaps retroactively speaks to how Together mizi and sua are at the start, since they are constantly standing next to one another in the same frame.

screams. regardless, i eagerly await the devastation to come :3c

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

OLIVIA COOKE PHOTOGRAPHED BY EVELYN FREJA FOR LA TIMES.

RYAN CONDAL TALKING ABOUT ALICENT HIGHTOWER'S CHARACTER ARC IN S2.

Condal describes Alicent’s journey this season as “an ongoing expansion of the character,” although he admits the episodes “really put Alicent through her paces.”

That was something Cooke felt deeply.

OLIVIA COOKE TALKING ABOUT ALICENT HIGHTOWER IN S2.

“In this season, she’s so adrift,” Cooke says, joking that there are only so many miserable faces she can make.

“She’s losing her power. With Rhaenyra and Alicent, it’s like a butterfly effect, so as Rhaenyra is gaining power, the hourglass is turned over and the power is waning from Alicent, and her influence is waning as well. There’s an imaginary rope between [the two characters] that carries them throughout seasons.”

Cooke says Alicent “gets a massive dose of the reality” when her “psycho sons” take control of the realm.

On a more positive note, Alicent has the opportunity to explore her sexuality this season, coupling up with a character who will, for now, remain unnamed (let’s just say he matches her freak).

It’s a rare expression of freedom for a woman who has lacked agency, which Condal says has “greatly affected who her character is.”

“That was really important because you’ve not seen Alicent experience that in her adult life, and all of a sudden, she has all these teenage, passionate feelings toward someone,” Cooke says.

“I think that makes her feel insane.”

ABOUT FILMING 'HOUSE OF THE DRAGON' S2.

After seven months of production, which wrapped in September, Cooke was “absolutely knackered” — a polite British way of saying the experience had completely depleted her.

“Last season, Emma and I were only in four episodes each, so we’d walk in and be full of beans when everyone else was at death’s door. Then I think we both really felt the enormity of the schedule. And it’s so emotional.”

“Both of us are just either sobbing or screaming all the time. I don’t know if I smile in Season 2.”

Despite the exhaustion, Cooke loves playing Alicent.

She’s a character of “so many subterranean levels of repression and anger and despair and passion,” which is a huge gift.

Has compassion and empathy for her, and she understands why Alicent does manipulative, devious things.

“She’s smarter than all the men as well and she could rule and she’d be really f— good at it.”

“It’s so frustrating that she can’t believe she would be this amazing ruler because she’s so indoctrinated by the patriarchy and by her father.”

“She’s been molded to talk sweetly into the ears of these powerful men, and it’s such a disservice to who she is and what she’s capable of.”

ABOUT HER PERSONAL LIFE.

Before Season 1 premiered, Cooke was worried that her personal life might become too public for comfort.

“I just didn’t want my life to change. It’s such a big TV show, and I hadn’t ever done anything to this scale before. Or if I had, it was a film that comes out and then goes away and doesn’t live in the culture for years and years and years.”

So far, Cooke’s fears have gone mostly unfounded. She’s recognized, sure, but not in a way that disrupts her daily life.

And when it does, fans are generally nice about it, like recently when she was on the London Underground going home and a group of drunken girls started shouting “Alicent” in her direction.

“It’s actually been all right. I think you notice an uptick as the show is about to come out because they’re promoting it more.”

ABOUT ACTING.

She calls herself a “catastrophizer” and admits she can be hard on herself when reflecting on a performance.

ABOUT THEIR UPCOMING PROJECTS.

She wants to “embark on more of the unknown,” something the actor is aiming to do with her production company Chippy Tea, which she formed two years ago.

Her first production, a romance film called “Takes One to Know One,” will shoot in Rome early next year and stars Jamie Bell alongside Cooke.

She also wants to try her hand at directing.

“When I’m on set, I’m always figuring out how things work and almost shadowing the director.”

“I find acting a lot of the time to be so insular. You can get in your own way. I like the collaborative process of making something from the ground up, and I want to do more of that.”

“It’s also taking control of my own destiny a little bit more.”

ABOUT ALICENT HIGHTOWER FOR 'HOUSE OF THE DRAGON' SEASON 3.

As for Alicent, well, she may not be so lucky. But, she wants to play her for as long as possible.

“I really want her to just go off and be in the forest with some chickens,” she says, jokingly.

“But really, there’s some good stuff for her for Season 3, if we get it. Really exciting stuff.”