#there didn't need to be this weird romantic problem lol

[fuckyourtriangles]

I'm halfway through Parasyte and I can't decide if I'm having a good time or not.

[midnight-shadow-cafe]

hiii, so this might be a weird request but would you ever write like a lesbian reader and the 141 (platonic!!!!!!). maybe she's a sergeant in the team. she's like come to terms with the fact she'll never date and they try to set her up or smth.

i know this is an unusual request so genuinely feel free to ignore if you're not comfortable writing it lol

Operation: Get Our Sergeant a Date

Pairing: Platonic!Task Force 141 x Lesbian!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, awkward attempts at matchmaking, mentions of past insecurity, mild teasing

Author's Note: Happy Pride Month to every queer reader out there. This is for the lesbians. Hope you all enjoy! You deserve your spotlight!

Summary: You’ve long since accepted that romance just isn’t in the cards for you. But the 141 boys? They’ve got a different plan.

Masterlist

MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+

The barracks were unusually quiet for a Thursday night. No gunfire in the background. No barking drill sergeant. No Gaz cussing out Soap over FIFA.

Just the soft glow of your desk lamp and the hum of your laptop, where your night was being spent with a glass of lukewarm tea and an absolutely soul-crushing logistics report. Real romantic, you thought drily.

"Knock, knock," a deep voice called from the doorframe. You didn't look up—there was only one person on base who sounded like gravel and soot had a baby.

"Price. Unless you've come to take over this report, I'm gonna pretend you’re a ghost."

He ignored your threat and stepped in, followed by three shadows. You didn’t need to look. You could feel Soap’s energy bouncing off the walls and Gaz trying to suppress a grin. Ghost, as usual, was just a silent wall of intimidation and judgment.

You sighed, setting the report aside. “Am I dying? Are you all here to deliver bad news?”

Soap flopped onto your bunk like he lived there. “Nah. Intervention.”

"God. What now?"

Price crossed his arms, beard twitching. “You’ve been acting… off.”

"Define off," you challenged.

Gaz chimed in. "Like someone who's given up on joy. On life. On—"

“On getting laid,” Soap finished, as cheerfully as someone announcing the weather.

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“We’re worried about you, Sergeant,” Price said, far too serious for what was clearly about to be absolute nonsense. “You’ve been dodging social events. Not even cracking jokes with Laswell anymore. So. We figured it's time.”

"Time for what?" you asked flatly.

“Operation: Get Our Sergeant a Date,” Ghost said darkly, from where he leaned against your wall. You didn’t think he’d actually speak—but he did. And you almost screamed.

“No,” you said immediately, standing up. “Absolutely not. Don’t you dare try and set me up.”

Soap raised his hands in innocence. “C’mon! You’re always lookin’ after us, but you never let anyone take care of you. Thought maybe you just needed a little push.”

Gaz sat on your desk, looking at you like you were a sad puppy in the rain. “You’re brilliant. Gorgeous. Hilarious. Don’t make that face—you are. If the problem’s just that you don’t like men—”

“I don’t like men,” you said, deadpan.

“Exactly,” Gaz beamed. “So we made sure we’re lookin’ in the right pool.”

“…What.”

Price stepped forward, holding up a folder.

A literal folder.

You stared at him, horrified. “Is that… a dossier?”

"Backgrounds. Likes. Military clearance. Some are civvies, some aren’t. Thought we’d narrow it down for you."

"You lunatics made me a dating profile?!"

"Think of it more like… a tactical asset compatibility file," Soap offered with a wink.

You groaned and sank into your chair. “I don’t even want to date. It’s not like people line up to be with some tired, gay, sarcastic grunt with commitment issues and a coffee addiction.”

There was a beat of silence.

And then Ghost, very softly, said: “That’s the most relatable thing I’ve ever heard.”

Soap leaned over dramatically, throwing an arm around you. “Don’t talk like you’re some lost cause. We just want you to be happy. If that means setting you up with a hot tattoo artist who rescues stray dogs in her spare time—”

“She rescues dogs?” you asked suspiciously.

Soap lit up. “Knew that’d get your attention!”

Price chuckled. “Look. No pressure. But if you ever change your mind, you’ve got a whole task force ready to vet the good ones and scare off the bad.”

Gaz grinned. “And if they break your heart, Ghost’ll bury ‘em in the woods.”

You looked around at the idiots in your room—the world’s most lethal, most stubborn, most insufferably well-meaning idiots—and felt a warmth spread in your chest you hadn’t felt in a while.

Maybe you were still figuring out the whole love thing.

But right now?

You were loved.

And that was a damn good start.

Hope you enjoyed! Please consider liking and reposting! -Midnight💜

[rin-hanarin]

I realized that I've never addressed the elephant in Lucanis's room, also known as his romance plot, as a "Had been delusional about him for months before release" individual, so here's a surprisingly long rant/summary of how I felt about it in the process of playing the game.

As a Rook de Riva player, I obviously loved "Coffee with the Crows": we met Illario, joked about haha three Crows talking about nothing, talked business, Rook and Lucanis had a nice moment getting to know each other better outside of being teammates, Rook de Riva's background was acknowledged again, it really felt like a nice bonding moment, right?

Thennn a whole lot of nothing happens during any of the conversations between them, huh. Lucanis doesn't acknowledge flirting, which is fine, take your time bud, you'll get there; you keep pushing being supportive, he ignores you, you deal with his personal stuff for him one (1) time, and in my case he then proceeds to ignore Rook for 10+ hours of pure game time while busy talking to Neve at every opportunity until I finally get one (1) dialogue option to "express romantic interest in Lucanis".

And let me express my honest innermost feelings on the matter:

Not only did it feel like Lucanis genuinely couldn't care less about Rook even as a friend, it also felt like Rook was forcing Lucanis into something he simply wasn't interested in and that we were just getting in the way of his relationship with Neve. It was genuinely unpleasant to experience in a videogame that is supposed to be wish fulfillment and whatnot, and let me tell you, it was especially jarring because Dragon Age games also have a tendency of occasionally making you feel like the most special little protagonist known to Thedas, at the very least to your companions who you're supposedly building bonds with.

I loved hangout events in this game, too, I was so happy to just have these conversations about whatever with companions, have these little one-on-one moments with them that genuinely felt like walks with friends (especially with my bro my bestie my homie Davrin), and with Lucanis it started and ended with the coffee date. His fears and doubts about Rook later are never addressed, and lol lmao even, yeah, why would they be, when it feels like he barely acknowledges Rook exists outside of accompanying him to deal with his problems, none of which need Rook there? There's no reason outside of gameplay for him to ask Rook and not, say, his favorite Neve he talks about everything to? Somehow a lot of times when I hoped for any sort of dialogue with him, I was met with him talking about something very personal like his current feelings about Illario to Neve, like, isn't Rook supposed to know anything about anything, or are we just his convenient weird coworker he sometimes asks favours from?

We persevere though and keep supporting Lucanis, and can you take a wild guess what was waiting for me after like 40 hours of the game and after the infamous "kabedon assassin style" scene? Yeah bro, Lucanis just happened to talk to Neve. I wish I was making this shit up. My coping strategy was to come up with an entire jealousy subplot for my Rook because if I have to feel like I'm in the shittiest unrequited situationship of a triangular shape, I might as well do it on my own terms, right? It feels petty and stupid because as a player I like Neve, too, she's one of the coolest (no pun intended) characters, but as Rook, and Rook de Riva making an obvious choice especially? Yeah, let's just say this relationship fucking sucked for a while.

So after many trials and tribulations we're finally back with Inner Demons, and yeah, Neve is there again, I couldn't even give a shit at that point, and I'll be real here, the locking in didn't feel like we went through angsty slowburn or that we earned Lucanis' trust. Remember DA2's Fenris situation? Because I suddenly did, and surely one of many, many Neve banters I had to eavesdrop on could be sacrificed to have one or two banters that acknowledged Lucanis's anything towards Rook at all?

Also, Spite? Spite seemingly likes Rook more than Lucanis does. In between "It's so over" and "We're so back" in the Fade Ossuary it feels like somehow Rook gets more bonding time with Spite, which is kinda crazy to me.

We are so back though! As I mentioned, I was a "delusional before release" individual, I am perfectly capable of filling the gaps and extrapolating meaning from implications, and here's where one of the most infuriating things is: the rest of the romance is good, too! I can write whatever the hell I want between the beginning and the end of it, but like, why should I? How should I go about it, when in my game I was under the impression that Lucanis would rather just spend time with anyone other than Rook for seemingly no reason in particular, because there's simply nothing there? The fact that none of my pre-release ideas or comics even necessarily contradict anything about Lucanis or his romance as it is now is more telling than impressive honestly.

So where do I land with this exactly? Well, mostly in the glorious Fanon Land where I've been making my silly comics the whole time anyway. The highs are high, I love what they did at the end and how stable, protective and devoted Lucanis is, but the lows made me salty as shit and I wish I didn't have to feel that way to begin with. I wish I didn't have to connect the dots and joke about how badly Lucanis sucks at this and "Let's go girl give us nothing." And yes, I know about writer lay-offs, rewrites, restarts, etc etc, and it's a miracle that this game came out at all, but it hardly matters when you're just trying to do the good old datesim part of a Dragon Age game and end up feeling like a third wheel while trying very hard to get anything out of the character you're interested in.

[sokkastyles]

I’ve been seeing #that user argue with you and I have like a few things to say so excuse the typos LOL. I almost reblogged their post but didn’t want to add traction but……

ops post is weird for a number of reasons but first off- zuko and katara are not lovers, thus they are not going to be portrayed as lovers in the show. second of all, did crossroads of destiny not exist? katara wanting to heal zuko’s scar? katara cheering zuko up because he was afraid of confronting iroh? zuko acknowledging kya’s braveness and sacrifice (something he’s familiar with as it mirrors his own dynamic with his mother)? katara was so angry with zuko BECAUSE she cared, and he let her down. zuko knew that, hence him wanting to personally atone in katara’s eyes. tsr is not JUST tsr, its an episode dedicated to discussing literally the core aspect of katara’s character; her trauma and recovery. are people who “trauma bond” not deserving of love, then? what are they even trying to say when they mention that? third of all, having respect, intimacy and an emotional connection is oftentimes the basis for relationships, so that argument doesn’t make sense either. lastly, it’s not inherently misogynistic to state that a female lead doesn’t need a man, but is tiring to hear the same take that strong WOC don’t *need* relationships especially when those characters canonically express interest in them (I’m about tired of hearing that excuse as a black woman myself).

honestly…. missing the old age where fandom was about having fun. now, if you’re not sticking solely to canon then you don’t *get* the source material and therefore can’t really have an opinion on things. absolutely insane.

Yeah lol, they kept saying that zutara didn't have a romantic relationship in the show when their original argument was that therefore they aren't "right" for each other, and tried to use things in the show to back up their argument. When I pointed out that judging whether they *could* have a romantic relationship based on whether they did in canon makes no sense, they tried to argue all the same old same old talking points about how they would just argue and Katara could never love the prince of the fire nation, I pointed out how those arguments don't make sense with the close relationship they have in canon. So are we going by their canon relationship or not? Pick a number.

And yeah, it's not inherently misogynistic to say a character should end up alone, but to act like that's the most empowering option is misogynistic. Acting like you think women and girls in fandom need to be told this is misogyny. Not to mention, like you said, that it's also incredibly racist when this is applied to brown women, who often are subject to this insistence that she needs to be "strong," particularly in fandom spaces.

Going into a fandom space and being like "why is all the discussion about this female character about ships?" Is like going into a sports bar and wondering why all the conversations are about football. Like, I'm sorry, but we serve shipping here. Spare me the bullshit about how I should *really* be focusing on xy or z, especially if you're gonna pretend this is about "empowering" a female character. It's just another way of policing female characters that male characters don't get subject to. She can't be a person, she has to be a role model. My favorite male blorbo can take a hundred dicks behind the taco bell, but if I want to talk about a female character's trauma, I must want her to suffer. If I want to ship her with a man, I must not be "liberated" enough.

On that note, when several people told them they were using the term "trauma bond" incorrectly, they tried to backtrack and be like "well I meant shared trauma" and when I pointed out how the problem was not just the incorrect use of the term, but the insistence that bonding over shared trauma was unhealthy, they tried to say they didn't say that. But then that post they made vageuing me also ranted about "romanticizing trauma" so...yeah, I was right that this person has no fucking idea what they're talking about. Because listen, shared trauma is not a dirty word. It's not unhealthy, and in fact is extremely common as a basis for a romantic relationship. What even is this argument, that people shouldn't empathize with each other? That people shouldn't talk about their trauma, especially with their loved ones? This argument makes no sense, especially in the context of Zuko and Katara, whose bond over shared trauma brings them healing and brings them closer together.

But that's a subset of the same misogyny. Don't romanticize Katara being a fighter. Don't romanticize her trauma. Don't put her in a relationship. What is she, a porcelain doll? A witch searching for her lost cat in the alps? We're only allowed to talk about her in terms of how tragic her life was, or how strong and empowered she is. And we're definitely not allowed to talk about the possibility of her being attracted to boys who are not her canon love interest. Now, don't you feel feminist?

[earlgreytea68]

Okay, everyone, I'm just going to go off about this book because I really, really need to vent. This is a book that was a bestseller, that received multiple starred reviews in major publications, that was named one of the best romance novels of the years by many outlets, and by the end I didn't just think it was a bad book, I, like, actively hated this book. I learned an important lesson that I am not going to like this author's books and so I never need to read any of them again, but most of the time I read bad books and I just get frustrated by how bad they are but this one was SO bad to me that I have to get it out.

There are obvious spoilers for the book below and I wasn't going to mention the book title because I didn't want to upset people who really, really loved this book (AND THERE ARE CLEARLY MANY, MANY OF THOSE PEOPLE), but then I was like, "Should I tell people I'm about to spoil this book???" and then I was like, You know what? I suspect my experience of this book is SO different from how everyone else seems to be experiencing this book that it's going to seem like I'm talking about a different book. (Although there are some details too specific to make up.)

THIS IS JUST BULLET POINTS BECAUSE I COULDN'T GET ANY MORE COHERENT THAN THAT. AND OMG NO ONE IS GOING TO READ THIS BUT ME lol it was more like therapy for getting through that

Alright, here you go, here is probably the most identifiable detail of the book, but the whole plot is driven by an entire two-hundred-person wedding getting food poisoning from a buffet that everyone ate but two people at the wedding. Okay, fine, I'm sure it can happen, I really wasn't bothered by that plot device. What I was bothered by is the book is very certain to tell all of us that the particular food poisoning involved wasn't caused by the preparation of the fish, and so the caterer can't be held responsible, and yet there are still several conversations within the book about how this food poisoning proves that you should be suspicious of buffets. I'm not saying you shouldn't be suspicious of buffets, but the food poisoning had nothing to do with the fact that it was a buffet and I guess we're all just supposed to forget that fact? And this was the recurring problem of the whole book. Things kept happening that made zero actual sense but apparently we were all just supposed to go along with it.

For instance, the very first event that the OTP does together on their Hawaiian vacation is they take a boat out to go "snuba" diving. Okay, fine, except...the hero suffers seasickness. The hero is in his thirties and we the readers are told he is widely traveled and so I feel like he would definitely know if he was prone to seasickness. Like, this isn't a rough sea where everyone is getting seasick, it's a pretty tame little boat. I happen to be a person who gets seasick. I feel like, if you have ever actually gotten seasick, you would probably avoid putting yourself in that situation ever again. At least, that's what I do. Because motionsickness is horrible. But the hero mentions nothing about how he gets seasick, and then by the end of the boat ride he's throwing up while the heroine tenderly brushes at his hair. Okay, ymmv, this was not something I considered romantic since at this point these people, we are told, still "hate" each other. But also, like, motionsickness ruins my entire day. Once you get it, you can't just easily shake it off once you're on dry land, like, it lingers and it's awful. But okay, I'm willing to believe other people get seasick in more appealing manners than I get seasick. I still think it's weird that this guy wouldn't have mentioned that he doesn't want to do a boat activity. There were a million other choices. I guess maybe we were meant to believe he was too proud to confess this weakness to the heroine??? Idk, the book itself didn't seem to think it was weird and didn't contemplate the issue very much at all. (Also, the heroine keeps the hero belowdecks on the boat for his seasickness, which I think is the opposite of what you're supposed to do, I think you're supposed to go somewhere you can focus on the horizon? But I'm not an expert on how to cure it, I just know when I feel that way I really, really want fresh air, so the idea of being stuck inside made me feel queasy.) We don't get much clarification of this because the book is first-person POV from the heroine's POV, and the heroine's not seasick, so I guess she doesn't think very hard about the situation. But the heroine apparently does somehow magically know every name of every single tropical fish because she details them all for the reader during the snuba expedition and I'm like, ...I do not buy that this woman from Minnesota who doesn't ever express any other interest in fish knows the name of every single tropical fish encountered in Hawaii. That's the problem with first-person POV.

Okay, whatever, so far these are all minor things, who cares? I haven't talked yet about the fact that these people are from Minnesota, they fly to Hawaii for vacation, and they meet not one, but two vitally important people from their Minnesota lives. One of the people they meet is the heroine's brand new boss. Who literally wakes her up from a doze at the spa where she is relaxing. If my new boss woke me up while I was wrapped in a robe at a spa, I feel like I would immediately be thinking, oh, great, this guy is a creep and now I need to find a new job. Like, this is all portrayed as if the guy is just a nice guy, and I guess he is, but I find it deeply odd that he woke up a sleeping woman in a robe to be like, "Hey! Fancy meeting you here! I just interviewed you last week for that job!" And then the new boss is like, "Oh, we should have dinner together!" And I get that the heroine felt like she couldn't refuse, but also, god, this new boss is terrible. Why would he bother this brand new employee he has literally met ONCE for like thirty minutes on her vacation????? God, I was so annoyed by this plot twist both because it seemed deeply stupid to me but also because the heroine doesn't think it's at all weird or inappropriate or even annoying that this guy is doing this. Meanwhile this new boss is like alllll up in this woman's private life and I just don't find anything about this appropriate, this seems like a million HR violations to me, I just would be like, god, this is a horrible place to work.

Oh, and then, right after we get the new boss out of the way, we run into...the hero's ex-fiancee with her new fiance. Really???? At the same hotel at the same time????? Okay, fine, we'll just go along with the coincidences, fine. But! In the face of the fact that this hotel is crawling with people they don't want to have to interact with, our intrepid hero and heroine keep going to the hotel restaurant to eat. WHY. WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS. ORDER ROOM SERVICE. The book at least tries to explain this by the heroine saying once that she refuses to pay the $12 room service surcharge, but I'm just like, God, I would do it at least once or twice to save me having to interact with all these terrible people. Literally every time they went to eat they had to endure an excruciating conversation. And they agreed that the conversations were excruciating! So why were they willingly subjecting themselves to these conversations!

So then a rainy day arrives. They're like, oh, noooooo, we can't go to the beach! (we will ignore the fact that they NEVER ONCE WENT TO THE BEACH THIS ENTIRE HAWAIIAN VACATION WHATEVER) What will we dooooooo. So I'm like, ....can't you go back to the spa? There's a spa. That's where the creepy boss woke the woman up to be creepy. Instead of going to the spa, they decide.........to go play paintball in the mud. Look, clearly these people are just people who want to make very different choices with their lives than I want to make, it's fine, it happens, whatever.

The next day the hero's like, "I want to get drunk." Okay, fine. Instead of doing this on the resort, he decides to do this in a local dive bar. Okay, fine, I guess it's about the cost? (The trip was "all expenses paid" but I wasn't clear on what they meant since it clearly didn't include room service.) But...the guy got so drunk he couldn't drive back, and so the woman really couldn't drink because she was the designated driver, and maybe she didn't mind, but I still think it's a weird life choice to be like, "I am going to drink myself into oblivion and make you sit here with me dealing with my drunk self." I mean, she thought this was all very charming, so again, I was just very much not the target audience for this book.

But the bigger issue for me with this book was not that I didn't understand any of the choices any of the characters made, but that is was just so badly written. I mean, partly that comes out in all of these previous issues, because if it had been written better, maybe I'd understand all that stuff happening. But for a romance novel, I do not understand how little romance was in this story????? It was so, so deeply weird to me. Like, every time they had a disagreement, we read all about it, but all of the times they got along happened off-page. So we've got like this whole day they spend together that is just like, "It was awesome, he was great, I couldn't believe what a good time I had." That's....I need more than that? He was great how? What did he say? What did you talk about? There was this throwaway line that they both love books, but, like, the entirety of this was because he understood a Harry Potter reference. She referenced horcruxes and he knew what she meant and she's like, I'm so glad he loves books like I do! What???? I never saw any evidence the heroine loved books -- again, they go to Hawaii and she spends zero time reading by the pool -- and he did seem to spend some time reading but we never learned what book and she never displayed the slightest interest in asking him about it. And instead in every single scene she would be like, I'd never seen him smile so much! And she would make this observation, like, during each successive outing they went on together. I guess maybe he was smiling more and more??? But I'm like, Why is she so amazed every time he smiles! He does it on every page!!! It was just so, like, Idk, I found it kind of insulting actually, but I know probably a lot of people just wouldn't think so hard about it. But I was like, ...all you can think of to prove these two people belong together is to tell me he smiles a lot and to assume I think he doesn't smile when he's not with her?

And the real, real, real problem with this, and the reason why I ended up hating the book so much by the end, is that I have no reason to be rooting for these people as a couple because I don't care about them and then the hero's brother, who happens to be a huge jerk who has been cheating on the heroine's sister their entire relationship, proves himself to be a jerk by propositioning the heroine, and when the heroine tells the hero he's like, "I don't believe you. You're reading this wrong. You're a mean, bitter person who always thinks the worst of people." Like, WOW. If that's how this guy feels about this woman....why would you date him???? And to her credit she breaks up with him, but then the whole rest of the book (which isn't very many pages, only like forty or so) is all about how much she misses him and blah blah blah and I'm just like, ...he was boring, you were boring together, find a better guy who doesn't say things like that to you. Like, I was actively upset that this woman couldn't see how awful this guy was to her, and that this was supposed to be the happy ending.

But then again, as I reached the end of the book I realized that everyone in this book was just awful all the time but it's like I was supposed to think they were nice. Like, on her very first day at work, her weird creepy boss fires her because she lied about being married when he ambushed her at the resort. DUDE. THAT'S NOT YOUR BUSINESS ANYWAY. WHY ARE YOU ALL INVOLVED WITH HER LIFE LIKE THIS!!! So, she loses her job. It's devastating. She comes home from work and her entire family is at her apartment and I'm like, oh, no, they're going to want to hear all about her big day. But no. They didn't. They were in her apartment....just because they like to be there? Like, NO ONE asked her how her day was. Zero. Zip. Imagine starting a new job and not a single member of your family -- not your mom, not your twin sister, not your cousins you're supposedly super close to -- asks you how it went. Okay, so then the family does come in handy because a cousin gives her a job waitressing, and she realizes that...now she doesn't really need to find another job? I guess this waitress job pays really well and comes with health insurance, so great for her, BUT ALSO she was just out of work for two months. We heard all about how it took her two months to find this brand new job and she was desperate and freaking out...and she loses this new job and there are zero repercussions. Why....didn't she just...waitress.....during the previous two months......?????? I was so confused but that seems like a minor point because THEN, her entire family helps set up another ambush where they help this guy show up at her place of work to loudly and publicly proclaim his love for her. Okay, so, like, I love that bit in Love Actually when Colin Firth shows up at the restaurant to declare his love for the waitress, even though it is objectively absurd, but this really squicked me out because, as I have already said, this guy's last statement to her was to tell her how awful she is, and rather than taking her side her family is clearly like, well, you're never going to find another guy so we'll have to get you that one back even though he was awful to you. And even though his brother was cheating on her sister and now everyone knows that and they're getting a divorce!! Like, I know the hero wasn't cheating but it seems so messy to me to have to constantly be interacting with my sister's cheating ex-husband, like, I had better really like the guy to do that and, as has previously been detailed, I definitely did not care about this guy enough to do that and I did not think they had anything as a couple that was worth fighting for this relationship. They dated for like a week when they got back from Maui. And then her family manipulated her into this public apology and I was just so grossed out by it, like, this woman was constantly being ambushed by people!! OH, AND ALSO, the best, most awkward part of the whole thing is the family somehow also invited the creepy boss so he could see that actually the heroine DOES love the hero and so now she deserves to be hired again???????? WHAT???????

But! I realized! That this book thinks that's charming, because in the happy-ever-after epilogue there's this whole bit where the heroine's sister doesn't want to go zip-lining and the heroine bullies her into doing it by being like, "You have to be willing to take risks!!!!!" And I think we were supposed to see this as like, The heroine learned a lesson about risk-taking! First of all: What? What lesson? What risk did she take? Taking back a guy who immediately said horrible things about her and was constantly trying to gaslight her about his brother (she knew the brother was lying to her sister but the hero kept telling her she was wrong about that, and he really never fully apologized for that or acknowledged he was unfair to her????)? Was that the great incredible risk she took? Second of all, god, could the people in this book stop bullying other people! lol I felt like I spent the whole book cringing wishing that people would just be nice to each other.

EVEN WORSE this epilogue was from the POV of the hero and I just could not abide being in his head. He kept saying "my girlfriend," "my girlfriend" over and over and it just felt like so much and I still didn't get the impression even from within his head that he really cared about the heroine or they got along well or anything, like, Idk, it was just such a weird book with such a weird vibe, when I finished it I felt so sad for these unhappy people hahahah god, just an awful reading experience.

ALSO this is so minor and again I think other people think this was charming, but the heroine's name was Olive and for some reason the hero was always calling her Olivia. This was before they got together, before they were friends, like, the day he met her he just decided he would call her a totally different name???? And I guess this WAS supposed to be charming and cutesy???? Idk, it was so weird how it landed for me, like, I was like, Call her by her name. And it's weird because I love nameplay! I was like, "God, is Eames this annoying in Inception and I never noticed???" Like, probably, but I find him charming and for some reason I did not find this guy in this book charming at all, like, the whole thing really annoyed me AS YOU CAN TELL lol I think maybe the wrong-name thing would have been cuter to me if he ever seemed to respect her in any way but to me he just never seemed to be a nice guy. At the dinner he went to with her new boss, he immediately told the boss the heroine's most embarrassing childhood story, which he does knowing that she hates it, and she's annoyed that he does it, but then she's like, But wow, I didn't expect him to even remember that much about me! I feel like that is honestly this book in a microcosm lol

[anthurak]

Hey, same anon from before, thanks for taking your time to answer me. I don't think I understand how would Raven be a mom and a dad, but lol fantasy land or something I guess ? We're balling that's what matters.

But I am confused about Tai and Summer .If they weren't together why would Summer help raise Yang ? And live with Tai (???) but maybe she didn't Ilive with Tai ? I just assumed because Yang said she was her supermom who fought monsters while her dad taught on Signal on vol 2 to Blake , I thought that scene implied they lived togeter at that point at least. If there's future information that contradicts that you don't need to say anything.

PS : Your theory of why Summer would try to get another kid punched me in the gut when I thought about it from Yang's perspective. "Sure a Tai kid wouldn't make her stay but one of mine would" that's harsh , Summer XD.

No problem :) And yeah, my personal theory on how Raven could have knocked up Summer is just plain 'magic' XD For one, Ruby being the product of some weird, mystical conception would actually be a nice nod to all of the folklore and mythology that RWBY draws from (just think about how many myth/folk heroes had weird/wacky conceptions)

Regarding Summer and Tai, I do think they were together when raising Yang and later Ruby, just in a platonic sense. Summer did care a lot about Tai, she just didn't love him in a romantic sense the way he seems to have loved her. Ruby and Yang were simply too young to really understand the distinction at the time, and after Summer was gone, well just refer to my comment about Tai's rose-colored nostalgia-goggles.

And yeah, the motivations behind Ruby's conception in this scenario are absolutely kinda messed up, as is Yang's turning out to have basically been an accident. In Ruby's case, it's a case of just how desperate Summer may have truly been to get Raven to come back to her.

Basically, at this point I have no doubt that Team STRQ was actually nothing less than a total dysfunctional hot fucking mess of a team/family XD

[starberriemilk]

I made a new AU... with Sinclaircest!!! Because I lost finally I think.

WARNING: those are copy-pasted from discord so sorry if it sounds weird lol

Basically, there was an accident with mirror technology and 10 random people got overwritten with 10 Sinclair identities… however, that overwritting was permament, and just killing them wouldn't bring them back to their old mirror worlds (it would kill them permamently)

So Limbus Company decided to just keep these 10 in a lonely house in a huge forest no one goes to, to keep them there before they can find a solution to that problem (they can't escape cuz there's some sort of barrier around the area that can't let them go) They tasked Sinclair to live there with them, to keep peace between them

There's just one thing that went wrong: They didn't find solutions for YEARS… and so all 11 Sinclairs, being isolated from anyone else, started developing relationships with each other and living together just like that

Relationships explained under the cut!

ROMANTIC

Boatowrks x LCB: LCB loves baking and cooking for Boatworks (who was sick of crabs), they relate to each other since they both work really hard and don't believe in their own abilities.

LCB x Nclair: First hate each other (Nclair is jealous that LCB had a better life than him, LCB hates that Kromer turned out to be right that he can be like this), but later they found an understanding and LCB started feeling really bad for Nclair and just feels like he wants to protect him and show him he can be loved, for Nclair LCB was the first one that he started trusting out of all Sinclairs and feels very safe and loved with him. LCB is Nclair's main caretakers (with Cinq).

Devyat x LCB: They bonded over their shared love for their family [TO BE DEVELOPED SORRY]

Devyat x Zwei (south): Since Devyat is featful, he looked for protection from Zwei. Devyat got interested in Zwei since he thought he was cute and innocent, and Zwei looks up to him since he is a high ranked fixer. They like eating sweets together (baked by LCB!)

Devyat x Boatworks: Boatworks offered to fix Devyat's trunk when Talisman tried to break it, which made Devyat very relieved and happy. Devyat is very interested in Boatworks's technology. They bond over their differences with where they used to live (snowy city and hot beach).

Zwei (west) x Devyat: Devyat clung to Zwei, seeing as he was distant to everyone, and eventually they started having feelings for each other. Zwei caught feelings first because he thought Devyat is very friendly and sweet and he just wanted to protect him. They also bonded over the fact they both stick to the rules and don't want to cause trouble.

Mariachi x Dawn: Dawn felt attracted to Mariachi and his "bad boy" vibe, and Mariachi kind of needed a more calm and mature person to calm him down when things got too much. They also like playing music together.

Cinq x BL: They bonded over having this bloodlust and "focus mode". They both also have passion to a kind of swordsmanship and they like dueling. They also bonded over the fact they're both two of the more mature ones in the group.

Boatworks x Zwei (south): Zwei always wanted to protect Boatworks because he thinks he's kind of defensless and clumsy (without realizing he's clumsy himself). They like eating sweets together (baked by LCB!)

CRUSH

LCB --> Cinq: LCB admires Cinq and really wants to be like him and he just has romantic feelings for him, however, Cinq only sees LCB as a friend and little brother, nothing romantic.

BL <--> Talisman: Talisman and BL bonded over their love for nature and the fact they both escape to it when feeling overwhelmed. They have feelings for each other however, Talisman doesn't feel like he deserves to be loved, especially since BL already has a boyfriend. Meanwhile, BL wasn't sure if he liked Talisman that way, as he considers himself monogamous and is scared to ask if Cinq would be okay with him dating another person.

Zwei --> LCB: Zwei admires LCB and feels the need to protect him, having romantic feelings for him. However, LCB likes Zwei as just a friend and sees him more like a little brother.

FUCK BUDDIES

Mariachi & LCB: Mariachi in general looked for fuck buddies in the group, as he has one in his own world. LCB's boyfriends have different sexual preferences than him, so having intimate time with Mariachi is fullfiling for him.

Mariachi & Talisman: Mariachi in general looked for fuck buddies in the group, as he has one in his own world. Talisman often feels sexually frustrated and Mariachi helps him with that. At first Talisman was very unsure because Mariachi is taken, but after a lot of convincing he accepted the arragement.

FRIENDS / FAMILIAL

LCB & Zwei (south): They bond over the fact they both really care for the group and their friends, and also Zwei admires LCB's cooking and really likes eating sweets made by him.

LCB & BL: LCB was initally interested in BL, wanting to understand how BL could accept the loss of his family and moving on with his new one. BL taught and helped LCB process his grief.

LCB & Cinq: First the two bonded over the fact they both wanted to keep peace between the group, Cinq being the most mature and LCB being task with that. Cinq was not happy with LCB's initial treatment of Nclair, so he helped him understand where Nclair is coming from. They later bonded over being Nclair's caregivers. LCB also sees Cinq as his mentor, because of his maturity and the fact he's a successful fixer.

Devyat & Dawn: At first Devyat started coming to Dawn's room because of how warm and cozy and peaceful it is, but later on they became friends and started reading books together, as well as drinking tea, which Dawn made and Devyat really loved. Devyat also likes coming to Dawn's room because his boyfriend comes there sometimes too and is also friends with Dawn.

Dawn & Zwei (west): Zwei often stood guard in front of Dawn's room at night because of the music that Dawn played. Dawn knew of that all along and one day let him in, and so the two bonded and Zwei opened up about why he's been distant to everyone in the group, which Dawn understood and comforted him.

Dawn & Cinq: The two bonded over being the most mature people in the group, trusting each other to keep peace between everyone. Dawn also sees Cinq as his mentor, as he has most experience out of the group.

Cinq & Nclair: Cinq was the only person at the beginning to not feel scared of weirded out by Nclair, seeing that he was just in pain. Nclair was very scared of Cinq from the start no matter how gentle he was, but once he got closer to LCB, he slowly started trusting Cinq too, and now he is his caregiver. Nclair sees Cinq as his big brother.

Nclair & Talisman: Talisman was at first not sure what to think of Nclair, however, after a while he thought Nclair reminded him of someone from his own world who was depressed and generally not okay. He started trying to help Nclair by giving him blessed talismans that he made, but Nclair refused as he was scared and untrustful of everyone in the group at the beginning. With time, however, Nclair started trusting Talisman and grew closer to him. The two like spending time peacefully in the nature and Talisman taught Ncliar gardening which helped him cope.

Talisma & Zwei (south): Zwei isn't good at taking care of himself, Talisman noticed that, and he felt worried, so he decided to take care of him by giving him blessed talismans and reminding him to eat and sleep. Zwei always tried to protect Talisman in return but Talisman refused everytime as he considers his talismans enough protection and he wants to take care of Zwei instead.

DISLIKE

Devyat & Talisman: Talisman really doesn't like Devyat as he relies a lot on technology, talking to his trunk and keeping it close to himself. The reason why Devyat doesn't like Talisman as well, is because Talisman tried to break Devyat's trunk once, and succeeded, which was very stressful for Devyat as he values his trunk a lot, having it as one of the only things that connects him back to his world (emotionally).

Cinq & Mariachi: Cinq really doesn't like Mariachi, as he keeps on breaking rules and not listening to anyone, only causing trouble. He also really hates that Mariachi bullies Nclair. On the other hand, Mariachi doesn't like Cinq because he thinks he's too bossy and feels like he's being bossed around by him and ruining his fun.

Mariachi --> Nclair: Mariachi doesn't like Nclair, thinking he's weird and not really understanding the trauma he went through. Being from backstreets and losing his family early in his life, he thinks Nclair is overreacting and just being weak. He often hits and yells at Nclair when Nclair has panic attacks and lashes out, which only makes things worse.

Zwei (south) & Zwei (west): W.Zwei and S.Zwei really don't like each other as they have different view on their job and the world. W.Zwei considers S.Zwei really naive and S.Zwei thinks W.Zwei gave up too early.

FEAR

Devyat --> Nclair: Devyat is really scared of Nclair because of his violent outbursts and the fact he killed his own family, not really understanding why.

Nclair --> Mariachi: Nclair is very scared of Mariachi, as he often gets hit and yelled at by him, getting reminded of his past abusers and not understanding why he's being treated that way.

[xjulixred45x]

Please can i request platonic headcanons of eli,tad and junjie with a Odysseus like reader? Ody!reader can be either a person from the burning world or an habitant of slugterra is up to you🫶

YES! MY EPIC FIXATION AND SLUGTERRA CHILDHOOD COMBINED IN ONE!

Eli Shane/Tad Blakk/Junjie and Odysseus! Reader

Genre: Headcanons

Reader: male

Warnings: none, some Angst with comfort.

Eli Shane

• For Eli, let's say this Odysseus is a resident of Slugterra. Most likely, he's a former companion of Will Shane's who, for once, doesn't turn on Eli.

• Chances are, even Eli already knew about this man, precisely from his father's stories. A slug-thrower who was as skilled with slugs as he was with words, capable of lying and deceiving with great ease.

• Eli had trouble seeing why his father thought this Ody was a good guy if his greatest strength lay in lying for a living—until, of course, he met him.

• Probably when Eli met Ody, he didn't expect this man who loved his wife and child, who was actually not only a good liar but very cunning in general. Not only could Ody infiltrate Vlakk's lairs like it was nothing, but he also knew how to win allies on both sides of the conflict and make people listen to him.

• This Ody probably has a lot of water and wind slugs (he probably calls them all Winion and Argos, LOL) and takes pretty good care of them. I imagine if he's not using them for fights, he uses them to send messages to his wife :3

• Speaking of which, Eli is probably the only one who doesn't immediately get bored of the endless stories about Ody's wife. On the one hand, yes, he prefers his stories with his father or his solo adventures, but on the other hand, you can't tell me Eli Shane isn't a romantic at heart. Plus, Penelope is a badass! He obviously wants to hear about her too.

• Eli definitely won't hesitate to defend Ody's integrity (not only because he's his friend, but because he doesn't want to get into more trouble himself, knowing how impulsive he is, lol).

• What if Telemachus is still a baby? Eli would be so scared of carrying him wrong, but he's pretty natural with him (he once carried him on a mission in one of those baby harnesses).

• Strong parental instincts, Ody can't help but give Eli a toss of hair after a successful assault on Blakk or a firm pat on the back. Which makes Eli happier than he should be.

• Eli thinks Ody's fear of water is both funny and ironic. After all the voyages he's been on, he's afraid of a little water? (Although, if Eli had to face a monster similar to Cardibis or Scylla, he'd definitely be giving Ody a big apology.)

• I honestly think if Ody treated Eli in a paternal way (instincts), the poor boy wouldn't know how to react (Eli won't admit it as much as he'd like, but he misses these kinds of moments with his own father).

• It's highly possible that Eli has called Ody "dad" at least once; the rest of the team won't let him forget it (nor will Ody, he's SO close to getting adoption papers at this point).

• Overall, Ody is the father Eli needs right now, and Eli is the son he wants to have.

Tad Blakk

• OK, LISTEN TO ME, TAD HAS AN SURFACE FATHER FIGURE.

• We don't know what Tad's family life was like, what his mother was like, or how not having his father affected him growing up, so this is mostly based on conjecture and personal headcanons.

• Tad probably met this Ody!reader from his time in the city's sewers/underground tunnels. Ody has most likely seen Will coming and going from Slugterra several times on the job, so he decides to lend a hand to this problem child to make sure he doesn't get hurt.

• Tad obviously wasn't a fan of some random guy sticking his nose in his business (or people in general), so he would constantly try to avoid him, talk down to him, etc. But Ody just WOULDN'T GO AWAY. Not even when he tried to scare him with Piper. He was a weird guy.

• Furthermore, Ody was constantly lending him a hand, whether it was keeping him from taking dangerous routes, bringing equipment from his work to explore further, or even offering to sleep over at his house. After all, he has a son his age, and his wife wouldn't mind if he explained the situation to her.

• Besides, Tad probably noticed that this guy not only had guts, but also many skills that didn't fit a simple technician. He was too strong, too smart, too good at lying at the time. Tad began to admire him because of this.

• Over time, Ody told him some of the things about his youth, his years in the Navy, the army, being lost in many parts of the world, etc. Settling in that neighborhood with his family was his break, His last adventure. Well, until Tad showed up.

• I honestly think Tad is quite possessive of the people he considers close, including Ody. The boy is only 13, after all, and he tends to do immature and foolish things like fighting with Telemachus for Ody's attention or acting more tired than he is to get Penelope to worry about him.

• The only one who sees through these charades is Piper, who sometimes burns him because either 1- she's mad they didn't give her food or 2- she's just having fun.

• It's the first time Tad genuinely has something resembling a family, but he won't say it out loud.

• When Tad goes to Slugterra, there's a 50/50 chance Ody will go with him, having already taught him everything he needs to be the best liar possible.

• In the event Tad hasn't fallen into the deep caverns, I can totally see him forcing Ody to be his second-in-command, of course, until they take out Shane and they can return to the surface.

• Remember the "I'm nobody's junior" thing? Yeah, everyone can see that's a lie. Not only does Tad constantly ask Ody his opinion on plans, but he's even protective of him to a degree that's infuriating to the rest of the crew (like when they had to take a route without water to avoid triggering Ody's trauma, for one thing).

• Overall, even if Tad won't admit it, he enjoys having this old guy on his tail.

Junjie

• Obviously, Junjie's father figure is from Slugterra, but that doesn't make him any less interesting.

• We know that Junjie's parents trained him from a young age to be the next champion of the East, which meant he didn't have many aspects of a normal childhood, like learning to play, having fun, etc.

• I imagine his relationship with his Odysseus is much more bittersweet.

• Junjie probably had Ody as a secondary teacher alongside Lian. But unlike her, Ody was more open to less rigorous training because, well, he's a goddamn kid.

• Ody may have even done things like disguise simple games (hopscotch, hide-and-seek, etc.) as training sessions to help Junjie relax a bit and be a kid his own age.

• (and nope, Ody never told him. Probably Junjie will tell Shane's gang about these "training sessions" in the future, and they won't know whether to laugh, cry, or who will tell him that it was actually a child's game)

• Anyway, fast forward to when Junjie was about to be named champion of the east, everything was going well. Junjie and Ody had a great relationship, and he even named him godfather to his newborn son.

• But then what we all know happened. Goon, the emperor, everything went into chaos.

• And Ody knew that this wasn't his prodigal, not anymore. He was left alone with a cavern to protect, without Junjie, without Lian, with a family to take care of. And with what he could say was a demon using the face of the child he practically raised.

• And so 20 stressful years passed, where Ody lost many companions and had several clashes with powerful casters on the emperor's side, including the Dark Slinger himself. And he was so tired.

• I'll be honest, even when Junjie returns to the eastern caverns as himself, it's hard for Ody to even look at him. Because he can't help but look at him and think about the lives that were lost, how many slugs he still has left to recover, the companions that HE, somehow, took from him.

• But at the same time, he misses the little boy who used to train with Lian so much. He knows Junjie is good. He knew that somehow he couldn't be the Dark Slinger, but there are 20 years of healing to do.

• For his part, Junjie is shocked to see how the years have treated his mentor, but he's so happy to see him still standing, rigid, strong. Junjie can't believe that Odysseus's son is now OLDER THAN HIM! He was just a baby the last time he saw him! Poor Junjie remains like a goldfish for a solid minute.

• Junjie and Ody will most likely have a better chance of reconciling during the Emperor's Tournament (probably Ody disguised himself as a vagabond to gather information unnoticed).

• When it's all over, Ody is happy to not only have Junjie back where he belongs, but also to see him as his son.

Shares, reblogs and comments are very welcome!

[sueheesblog]

I'm rewatching The Bear...... And Lord Syd really walked into fire the same day she started working at The Beef. T being a pain, the loud music, and Richie being loud like Mickey. I got some boring opinions. Let me rant n be delulu 😂🤣🤣😍

Richie saying that The Beef didn't have money problems until after Carmy showed up😬😬😱😱😱..... Knowing what I know about season 3, I see a pattern of Carmy trying to change things too fast, too soon. The Beef been running for 25 years, which means something was going right for it to last that long (we know some d.rugs money was involved lol). Richie confessed about selling from the back a few times lol.

Anyways, I say all of that to say, I think Syd was the only one who walked into Carmy's life with a plan. Carmy saw that n respected her for it. Everyone else was going with a flow that was no longer sustainable (this includes Claire). Yes, she and Carmy had a past, (well to be honest they don't even have a past. They never dated or hangout in HS) it's more like a fantasy. People grow n change..... n love interest can also change. I don't think Carmy like Claire the way he did bk then. It's life!

Carmy was happy he found someone who shared his passion, yes he wanted a business with Mikey..... but I honestly think Carmy wanted it for himself too. He's only wanted 2 things The Bear with his brother and Syd (yes, Syd). He was willing to make a complete stranger help him run his family business after 1 - 2 weeks of observing her. He made that decision with no outside influence (his family). HE WANTED SYDNEY and that want slowly turned into NEEDING HER. I'm not talking on a romantic level of want/need, but business wise she will always be his first option.

The romantic level, based on my opinion started flickering when the mere thought of her calmed him. Now, he's probably too naive to notice that he has developed romantic feelings for her and its pushing to the surface. The mere thought of her brought him peace and steady the tsunami in his mind. That is a leave of intimacy that is top tier. She touched him mentally. Carmy n Syd's conversation in the beginning of Season 2 are soo charged that they don't have to touch to sell the audience a romantic story. This is because their way of intimacy is through food, thats how they express themselves to each other. It's like talking about the menus n stuff is foreplay. It was also funny to see Carmy gave Syd the best orgasm of her life and then take it back. (This was when he said her braised short ribs was tremendous, and then decided to take it back). She like, no sir, we ain't doing that cause I'm still on cloud nine trying to come down. 😂🤣😂🤣

Carmy suspected this and he didn't want to entertained Claire (gave her the wrong number). Now, she's all tangled up in Carmy n Syd's weird mind fuck with food..... Syd feeling jealous is kinda vaild (hear me out). It's valid because all the time they spent together being mentally intimate through food...... those feelings were reciprocated. So, CARMY out here cheating on Syd.... giving all the focus she deserved and EARNED to Claire. Like, Syd should packed his shit up and put him out!

BUT, at the end of season 3 they stopped connecting through their food. It's like when married couple is so far apart that sex/intimacy longer plays a role in the relationship or it took the back burner. Days or weeks would pass and they wouldn't touch each other...... This is what Carmy n Syd are facing. Their relationship is so disconnected that intimacy is no longer on the table.

Let's see if they get a divorce or make up.

[azaliyas]

Hi! I saw this cute tik tok where Alhaitham is autistic and his weighted blanket was being washed so he was very grumpy snd couldn’t fall asleep so like kaveh decided to lay on top of him to try and emulate the blanket.

If it’s ok can you do that but alhaitham x reader, romantic and established relationship? Sorry if it’s confusing 😭

summary : alhaitham is a man of simple requests and simple needs, but when they're not met, like his precious blanket not being on him for the night, it can become quite the problem. luckily for him you, his amazing lover, have a solution that he will gladly enjoy (but he will never admit it).

word count : [ to be added later ]

genre : fluff.

cw / tw : none.

characters : alhaitham.

note : omg me?? posting?? what a rare occasion 💀 yes i'm not dead and i'm still writing! i just forget to post '^' anyway anon i'm sorry for the delay 😭 you have the right to bonk me if you want, i deserve it anyway ;-; this idea was so cute tho, i need to see that tiktok even if i don't ship haikaveh lol // i have more pieces ready they just need proofreading (if i can find the will to, otherwise to hell with that :D). on a serious note 1) i didn't understand much about weighted blankets so if this piece is off eeeeehhhh i tried 2) internet said that habibti was the right word, but if habibi is the one let me know please! hope you can enjoy this, sorry my sporadic appearances 🫠❤️

a few years into your relationship with alhaitham you learned quite the number of curious facts about the scribe that many didn't know — not because alhaitham kept them a secret, but only because of his reserved personality that didn't make him open up to the first person that was in front of him.

the scribe liked his coffee burning hot with no sugar and just a little sip of milk, enjoying it sitting at the same spot of the kitchen table every morning. he also liked working out mostly in the evening and take a shower right after. alhaitham loved sleeping on your chest, the sound of your heartbeat a comforting lullaby.

speaking of sleeping habits, alhaitham could only sleep with his weighted blanket wrapped around his body. because of this, the scribe was very attentive in washing it during the day so it would be dry for the evening. that was one of the first things you taught yourself to do in order to help your boyfriend, a gesture that had the dendro user fall harder for you.

at least, that's what you succeeded to do until today. the rain didn't allow the blanket to dry during the whole day, and so by the evening it was still dump. impossible to let it be used, even when you had hung out the blanket before starting cooking dinner for tonight. by the time you and alhaitham had to turn in for the night, it was still wet. and cold. defeated, you had to put the weighted blanket aside.

you found alhaitham standing near the mattress in your shared bedroom, pyjama on and ready to crash the bed and fall asleep. that was, but his blanket was amiss.

your groan came out sounding more like a whine noticing this scene. you cursed the rain while scrambling your thoughts trying to find a solution.

«it's fine.» alhaitham said, turning on his feet to look at you. you knew he was lying.

«it's not! how are you supposed to fall asleep without your blanket?!» you whined again, a sound of exasperation leaving your throat right after.

«i can put more blankets on top of each other. it's not a problem.» your boyfriend rebutted, walking toward the wardrobe.

alhaitham pulled out some blankets and started laying them on the bed one after the other. deep down the scribe knew it wasn't the exact same thing, but a weighted blanket had its purpose in the deep-pressure touch that brought calmness and comfort. and that deep-pressure touch was given by the heavy weight. by logic, more blankets on top of each other had to be enough heavy.

but for once in his life, alhaitham was wrong. it was a weird feeling, but not as weird as tossing around back and forth, incapable of sleeping for more than five minutes before waking up again. his movements and his grumbling had you waking up.

you turned on your side and faced your boyfriend, just in time to meet his gaze. he furrowed his brows as soon as he noticed you staring at him.

«sorry for waking you up.» he murmured, annoyance clear in his voice. not at you, of course, but at his incapacity of falling asleep.

you looked at him, eyes focused, and alhaitham knew you were thinking hard about something, but what that something was he didn't know.

without a word you dragged yourself on top of alhaitham, who laid on his back as you took place on his chest, your blanket wrapping around both your bodies. your head rested in the crook of his neck, your hands gently pressed on his chest, right above where his heart was.

«habibti... what are you doing?» alhaitham looked at you like you just grew a second head on your shoulders.

«well, the comfort of a weighted blanket is in its weight, right?» you asked, raising your head to look at him. alhaitham slowly nodded. «hence my position: i will act as your blanket for the night.»

to say the scribe was flabbergasted was an euphemism. he didn't mind your wonderful mind and colorful ideas, after all it was one of the reasons why he fell in love with you, but sometimes he couldn't help but wonder if you the hamster running on your wheel wasn't actually high on something.

«it doesn't make sense.» he rebutted.

«this is where you're wrong, haitham. it does. weighted blankets have their purpose in their weight, that brings comfort thanks to the fact they mimic a hug, helping you release serotonin and dopamine, hormones that soothe you and help you sleep.»

you concluded your explanation with a satisfied smile, chin resting on your knuckles while you looked at your speechless boyfriend. it was a very rare occurrence to leave the scribe without anything to say, and almost all of the times it was because of you.

sighing and subtly rolling his eyes, alhaitham decided at last to try your idea and sleep like that — although, your chest was a much better pillow than the feather ones his head was currently laying on.

...

oh what a delight was to see your boyfriend's stunned face the next morning, the heaviness of sleep still clinging to his god-touched features as he was blinking away from the sun rays pouring from the window.

«don't.» he grumbled.

your smile turned into a knowing smirk.

«told ya!» you happily chimed.

© azaliyas 2023 do not copy repost translate or feed to ai

[catwomanarchive]

What makes you dislike BTAS so much when it's where a lot of people, including myself, got introduced to BatCat?

oh lol i never want to ruffle anyone's sensibilities. i don't think btas is bad show at all. i think their depiction of catwoman, however, wasn't the best. it's not something that i myself picked up on until i read the comics and realized how completely different catwoman was depicted in the bronze age from what the show suggested about her tbh. and frankly, even in the 40-80s, some aspects of the dynamic were more progressive for selina in the comics than btas suggests. don't get me wrong, i do think the show does some interesting things with her and batcat as a ship, but the entire concept gets taken apart in tnba, so it's difficult to see the depiction as meaningful.

so, i think i myself didn't understand it until someone pointed it out to me during the time the hush movie released. a big problem with batman and catwoman's dynamic is that in adaptations of the dynamic, the writers of these shows refuse to let batman be portrayed as less than heroic at any point or as someone capable of being in the wrong. this, to me, is really boring. but as cute as the hush movie was for batcat's romantic relationship, the ending scene of that movie was fundamentally altered from the original scene in the comics where despite batman pushing catwoman away, it's catwoman who tells him that they work as a couple because they are who they are. meanwhile, the hush movie sacrifices catwoman's character and the relationship by making batcat look incompatible for one another and that catwoman can't be with batman because she doesn't understand his code of not killing, never mind you that SHE was the one preventing him from killing joker in the actual comic. why is catwoman's complexity now erased to make batman look all the more noble in comparison?

the dcau does this a lot. i don't mean to be nitpicky or expect batcat to be a 1:1 adaptation of their comic counterparts, but it was just weird that they outright made things up about selina out of the blue to make not just batcat but her as a character look less complex and it's something they also do with wonder woman later on that i intensely dislike. they're way too desperate to pigeonhole these women as love interests that they don't consider that batman was hardly the impetus for most of the things selina does in her life. (they also tried to walk back the romance altogether by claiming selina only loved batman and not bruce? why? she's not black cat) i think they go out of their way to make bruce far less understanding to other people's circumstances than his comics counterpart as well. i figure it's mostly because it's a children's show that they need these characters in place to teach kids morals - don't steal, etc. but what is the point if, for example, the only time selina tries to make meaningful change as an animal rights advocate by confronting a ceo who is doing unethical testing on animals, the narrative frames her as being in the wrong for taking on the same vigilante methods that batman has been using his entire career? (batman: gotham adventures #4) what is the point of making her someone who cares deeply about this issue if her relationship with batman is just him trying to get her to "behave." this in contrast to what i've actually found appealing about the relationship for most of the comics - that he quite literally doesn't prevent her from doing whatever the hell she wants, that selina's motivations for not stealing had little to do with him, and that bruce is all too willing to forgive almost any offense she makes against him. in the one instance in the comics that bruce doesn't trust selina and tells her to turn herself in for stealing, it's bruce and not selina who is framed as being in the wrong and selina gets rightfully upset with him and dumps him for not trusting her. it's actually ironic to me that dcau's version of batman cannot come to fully trust selina considering that his comic counterpart's hallmark is quite literally that he's the only one to have complete faith in her.

[beemers-hell]

Sorry if its too NSFW for your blog, but concerning Bloody Graffiti's "situationship" status, was it purely just of a sexual nature before, you know, the triplets came along?

I dont think its too nsfw for my blog, i wrote them in a certain way afterall lol, but I'm posting this late anyway so it doesn't reach my usual crowd lol. also I'm not gonna go into anything explicit or whatever I'm just discussing general stuff about two adults engaging in their sexuality together lol

i wouldn't say it was just sexual, cause there was definitely some tension between them that was of a more romantic nature, or just affectionate in general without it being rooted in sexual desire. but yeah, a good majority of their relationship started with sex. it was initially just a thing the two engaged in in order to "take care" of each other being severely understimulated. Hank doesn't really seek out sex like that but he does have the "i need to get off" autism instinct when he's severely understimulated, and eb, well, has a high sex drive and kind of sus'd out that he had some kind of, i dont know, "problem"? like that? so she just offered to take care of him when he had those moments and thats what started it.

i think in a way it was sort of eb's way of making peace between the two because before this they were at each others THROATS. HATED hated each other. but she knew they'd have to put their shit aside and get it together eventually if they were to work alongside each other, and while she wasn't just dismissing the fact she found him detestable n shit, she figured it was a good way of getting on his good side. which it sort of was! hank was receptive to it and that made him less stressed around her...until it wasn't LOL

after a while of this arrangement, hank started like...feeling things. and he hated that he was feeling things towards her. he didn't want anything more complicated coming his way since he already had pathos as a partner, and he knew eb was fucking the clown too, and he didn't want anything complicated relationship wise to come his way bc he just didn't feel like dealing with it! that's about it. dude just didn't wanna deal with bullshit like that. but he had a hard time denying the fact that he was starting to feel things for her, and it ATE him alive. however, he didn't want to stop their little arrangement because he still really enjoyed how she made him feel.

but eb would fuck with his head by showing him more, like, romantic-esque gestures, instead of keeping it strictly sexual and in the bedroom. and it wasn't like she was fucking with him on purpose, at least not in this way, because she absolutely LOVED fucking around with him, but she wouldn't play with his feelings like that. she's just an affectionate person, and is especially affectionate with those she's intimate with. it was sort of like a weird form of miscommunication between them, where neither really thought the other liked them like that, but eb thought he was cool with her being a bit more affectionate towards hank than a coworker would tend to be, and hank didn't say anything because he had bigger things to worry about. so it was just kind of like this for a couple of years! and hank just kind of got used to it. and so did eb, and it just became another part of their routine.

and then hank got eb pregnant, of course, and there was a whole kerfuffle concerning who the father even could be because, let's be real, eb doesn't restrict herself to one partner and has slept with A LOT of people, so the father could've been anyone with a working dick, really. and hank realized that there was a potential the kid was his and that brewed a whole new storm of emotions, ones that he wasn't used to and hadn't really expected to confront again. because he fully didn't expect to have another kid after bank, especially not at his age at this point in the timeline (like 60) and especially not after the madness happened. so he was all sorts of torn up about the idea that he might've gotten eb pregnant, and that's a whole thing that, like i said, i want to elaborate on in a comic between the two of them.

the tldr though, is that eb and hank have a one on one about the situation, and they kind of finally settle the issues they've had with the other for all of these years thus far, and from then on they just like, work better, at least together. they understand the other Even Better than they already did before and that brews new emotions in them. as hank comes to accept that he's having another kid with her, he begins to appreciate her as a person more and more and eventually just finally lets his walls down, and lets her in his heart.

ebony, throughout all of this, isn't trying to fight him on it, or try to force her way in, she's just letting him move at his own pace, because she has a knack for predicting how things will go and she figured he'd fall for her someday, even if it took years, and she's not scared of him and she's not scared of letting him into her heart, because she has a lot of love to give to people, so she's content with following the road and seeing where it takes them. and where it takes them is where she figured they'd end up eventually!

[cnwolf-brainrot]

I'm curious, what do you think of X-Men: The Last Stand? Are there things you would do to improve it? Besides having Nightcrawler actually in the movie of course. xD

Sorry it took me a minute to get to this ask because I have A LOT OF THOUGHTS, this is a FANTASTIC question because I actually literally just rewatched that movie!! (yes, it was for Weapon by Name. No, it wasn't for anything plot-related, it's cause I've been having a hard time writing Hank McCoy lol)

Very short version: I like some parts of the movie, but I definitely have ideas on how to improve it!

This is going to be a long post so my improvement ideas will be under the cut! But first:

What do I think of the movie? I mean... it's not the best. There are a few enjoyable moments, but it's just genuinely not a super well-written film; it feels unbalanced in a lot of places, leaves out a lot of things I would have liked to see addressed from the first few films (*cough* yes I'm talking about Kurt *cough*) and feels like it doesn't properly give focus to the Phoenix storyline at all. I think one of my biggest problems on a re-watch was the fact that Jean literally does nothing. She has no motivations in the movie and only a handful of dialogue lines. HOWEVER, I do love the mutant cure plot line, and I feel like it makes a fantastic focus for a third X-Men movie! I also think I can blame this movie for my love of Warren Worthington! There are definitely parts of this movie that I do enjoy, there are just things that could have been better! Now, a break-down:

Things that I like/would keep the same: - The Worthington Industries/Cure plotline (I find the mutant cure to be an extremely interesting X-Men plot, and I enjoyed how it was handled here for the most part. I'd make a few small changes to balance it with the rest of the story, but this is something that I'd want to see MORE of rather than LESS of) - Most of Warren's story (again, this is a plot that I LOVED from the movie, but needed to see more of. This goes back to the unbalanced feeling I mentioned, and I'll talk more in a bit about how I'd fix it) - Hank McCoy (honestly I love Hank in this movie, I don't think I have any changes) - Mystique's ending (I actually love how this movie handled Mystique. It's short, simple, shows just how much her abilities mean to her with her casual shifting even while she's captured, and I personally feel that her turning her back on Magneto when he turned his back on her was a very in-character moment. This whole subplot was great, no changes)

Things I would completely take out: - Juggernaut (he was an unnecessary addition to an already packed story, he really didn't add anything and if he's going to be in a movie I think he deserves more screen time) - The whole plot line with Xavier having hidden Jean's true powers from her. (It just makes Xavier a bad mentor figure in my mind, and I'd prefer it if there's just a quick explanation of there being weird energy readings at Alkali Lake or something that could have brought her back.) - The weirdness that was Kitty and Bobby sort of flirting (I feel like this was shoehorned in just to add a romantic tension between Bobby and Rogue. Kitty and Bobby have little to no chemistry and any that they do have just makes Bobby seem like a jerk to Rogue. I have a proposed fix for this subplot, which I'll address in a bit, but I would completely remove romantic implications between these two) - Xavier's death as it was (I feel like there was a strange imbalance between his death and Scott's, so to increase emotional impact I would like to streamline it and get rid of that scene)

Ok, now what would I do to improve it?

HONESTLY if I were to completely rewrite this movie, I would have to go back and rewrite X2 as well because I don't feel like the foundations were set up well for the type of Phoenix Saga that I would have liked to see. HOWEVER, I'm already rewriting X2 in Weapon by Name so there's no way I'm doing that again. Instead, here are just a couple of semi-quick changes that I would make to the movie, WITHOUT changing any of the previous canon.

First of all, let's talk about Scott. Scott Summers is the backbone of the X-Men and he was done DIRTY by this movie, so let's at least make it a bit better. Going based off of what has been established for him by the canon of this set of films, we have basically three character traits for him: he's Xavier's star pupil, he's the leader of the X-Men, and he's in love with Jean Grey. SO, instead of having him sulk and shirk his teaching duties at the beginning of the movie (which goes against two of the three things established about him) we instead go the opposite route. The movie opens up with Scott leading the Danger Room session, and we see that he has basically thrown himself into his work after Jean's death. Storm and Xavier express concern about this, even Logan can tell something is off, but Scott continues to drive himself and the new X-Men (Bobby, Kitty, Rogue, and Peter) into the ground as a way to try and avoid his grief

Speaking of the newbies, let's pause the Summers angst and talk about them for a moment. In the actual movie these four get completely sidelined (I already talked briefly about how Kitty is just used as an awkward romantic device, and Rogue literally disappears for days without anyone questioning where she is/misses the whole final fight scene, and yes I'm happy that Peter and Logan have a Fastball Special, but that's literally the only time he contributes to the movie). I wish that we had gotten a little bit more of the four of them in X2, but again we're not changing anything from that movie here. What I propose as a way to improve them as characters in this movie alone is to treat them as a unit. I think that if the four of them were treated as friends and shown in the first Danger Room scene having a bit of banter/generally joking around and working as a team, it would establish to the audience that these people know each other, like each other, and have a reason for being on the team together. In addition, setting these four up as friends in the first scene with them also helps fix Rogue's whole character arc.

I was genuinely upset with how the movie handled Rogue; it boiled her entire character arc/want for the cure down to "I want to be able to touch my boyfriend". I think this is a huge disservice to her character, and I think it can be hugely improved in just this first Danger Room scene. Instead of having the moment where Kitty saves Bobby, we replace that with a moment where Kitty is in trouble and Rogue reaches out to help her. Bobby or Peter then jump in and pull her back because her gloves fell off in the exercise; if she'd tried to help her friend, she would have only hurt them both. Now Rogue's eventual desire for the cure isn't built on teenage horniness; it's built on a fear of being dangerous to those she cares about.

Now, back to Scott. With this re-written version that focuses more on him trying to drown himself in work rather than just being sad and mopey, I think that a good way to get him to Alkali Lake would be for Xavier to have a talk with him. Xavier pulls him aside and basically says "you're hurting yourself by avoiding this, Scott. Take a few days. Take a breath. Allow yourself to breathe." This is what results in him going off to Alkali Lake and Jean's revival happening.

Personally, I wouldn't kill Scott here. I would let him come back to the mansion with Jean and everyone gets a reunion... however, Scott and Logan both start to notice something is off about Jean. She seems just a bit too on-edge, will zone out occasionally, things will float around her without her even noticing that she's controlling them, and there's the whole fact of she should be very dead.

Scott is concerned for Jean and trying to find a way to help her. Logan, on the other hand, is beginning to wonder if this person even is Jean at all, or if this is just some creature that is trying to look like her.

Now, a quick aside for some thematic values of the movie. I'm sure there are some in the original movie, but I had a hard time finding them honestly. What I would like to be the main theme of my version would be the concept of monster-versus-man or the "beast inside". This theme would primarily be shown in the contrast between Logan and Jean, as they are (or at least SHOULD BE) the main two characters. However, every key character could be shown to be struggling with their "internal beast": - Rogue, who is struggling to be close to anyone because of her mutation (an example of how this "beast" can be harmful to others) - Warren, who tried to get rid of his mutation long before the cure was invented (an example of how denying that beastial nature entirely only serves to hurt himself) - Scott, who keeps his mutation carefully contained to try and please the people and ends up paying for it (we'll talk about his fate in a moment) - Ororo, who is at peace with the wild, natural nature of her mutation (an example of a good balance between the man and the "monster") - McCoy, who is the literal embodiment of the "beast" and can't even attempt to hide, but still contemplates how it would be to feel more human (another example of balance, but with more longing) Every part of the "cure" plotline would help amplify this theme, and keeping that in mind for every character's decisions throughout the film would give it a far more streamlined and dynamic feel

Speaking of streamlined and dynamic, let's talk for a second about Magneto. I'm torn on what to do with our man Erik. Half of me is tempted to completely write him out, because I think he completely overshadows Jean in the original movie and that he's half of the problem with how it doesn't feel like a Dark Phoenix film, lol. However, he's also the best X-Men antagonist and it would feel like a disservice to him to leave him out of the climax of the trilogy, especially when the cure plotline is something that he would never stand to the side and watch.

So, I think that here we still have Eric gather his forces and start making threats over the cure. However, we cut the scene with him and Jean and Xavier in Jean's old house. Instead, we have the X-Men go to confront Eric just before another attack. This is at a public support rally for the cure, and remember Scott is still alive here.

Just before this scene, we should have a scene between Scott and Jean, where they talk about the changes that Jean's been experiencing. Scott's worried about her, and Jean tries to tell him she's fine (and that maybe this new power isn't a bad thing). In this scene we have the moment where Jean uses her powers to let Scott see without his glasses -- only he flinches away the moment he opens his eyes, and basically tells her that it doesn't feel right. He also tells her that the old Jean -- his Jean -- didn't need all of this power. She was content with things they way they were. We see a big example of that "inner beast" theme here, focusing on that contrast of how Scott wants to keep his powers under control in order to fit in while Jean has almost limitless power at her control, and she doesn't see a reason not to use it to make their lives better.

Now, back to the X-Men versus Magneto. As they stare him down, Jean tells Scott she could end it. She could wipe the minds of everyone in the crowd around them, and change them all to mutant supporters. She could change everything with just a thought.

Scott, of course, tells her no. He wants to try and solve this peacefully, the way that Xavier would (it's important that Logan overhears this line).

In the middle of Scott trying to diffuse the situation, one of the anti-mutant protesters tries to take a shot at Magneto. This causes immediate chaos, and another protester takes aim at the X-Men. Magneto deflects the bullet coming towards him. Scott is hit.

Oh goodness I hit a text block limit I didn't even know Tumblr HAD text block limits ok then.

Now, with this being the way that Scott dies, Jean actually has a reason to go berserk and give into the power she feels. She tried to follow Scott and keep it contained, and the attempt at peace got him killed. She ends up killing multiple innocents here, and when Logan tries to reach out to her she turns and leaves the X-Men behind.

Professor X's funeral scene is replaced by Scott's funeral scene. In the original movie it felt unbalanced to have such a focus on Xavier's death and no focus on Scott's, so as previously mentioned I think we should take Xavier's death out entirely. Plus, because of the nature of Scott's death (being killed by an anti-mutant protester), now the whole school is buzzing with unrest about the cure.

This is where we would have the scene where Bobby comforts Kitty, but unlike the original where's it's a "romantic" beat between those two we have all four of the younger X-Men outside iceskating together. Scott was their teacher so they were all fairly close with him, and they talk about it together. They also talk about the cure, and how they don't want to take it after Scott's death... Rogue is the only one who speaks up for the fact that the cure wasn't what killed Scott, it was just the people in support of it. We also have a moment here where everyone ends up knocking into each other as they skate, and that is where Rogue's jealously comes from; simple, human interaction that she isn't able to experience.

She leaves early, and Bobby notices. They have a conversation that only serves to upset Rogue more, and this is where we have a touch of their relationship because yes, it's important to her and she does want to be able to get physical comfort from her boyfriend, but now it's built on top of the other ways it has affected her life. He mutation has hurt her relationship with her family, her friends, and her boyfriend instead of only putting the focus on her romantic life. This conversation leads to Rogue leaving to try and get the cure.

But putting them aside for a moment, let's focus on Warren. I really liked the skeleton for Warren in this movie, but he still feels very flat and stilted because we don't get much depth to his character. To fix this, I would have developed a friendship between him and Leech. Both are prisoners here in Worthington Labs in their own unique way. Both have the illusion of choice (Warren could theoretically say no to his father, and Leech is shown to be comfortable and humanely treated which means he probably had at least a bit of autonomy) but neither have true freedom. I think it would give a level of depth to Warren's character if we see a scene of him sitting with this kid, maybe even moving just close enough that his wings go away, and Leech asking him if this is what he really wants. They could talk about the cure, really give the audience an inside perspective on what would go through the mind of a mutant to make them want to take this, and also bring up another running theme of freedom and what it looks like. ALSO we could have them talk about the complicated relationship between Warren and his dad, which would make Warren saving him at the end of the movie more impactful. Also, it would add another level of depth to the look of pure longing that Leech gives Warren as he watches him fly away after the attempt at taking the cure.

Now, in the original movie I felt like it was a bit awkward for Warren to just show up at the Institute without any real reason to go there. That could be fixed by tossing in a comment about the Institute along with the aforementioned Leech scene, but instead, I think it'd be interesting if Rogue was already heading over to try and get the cure as Warren breaks out. She sees him flying away, and makes the decision to follow him instead of going to get the cure. They end up talking (this could be off screen or on screen, either way) but end up showing up to the final fight last minute together.

Before we get to the final fight through, let's talk more about Jean. Now, at this point I think we've already made her arc better by giving her the earlier scene where she talks with Scott, plus hid death causing an actual emotional impact that would turn her against humanity. I feel like one of the biggest problems with the original movie is that they don't give Jean any screen time, which to be fair they tried to cram a LOT into this movie. However, it is literally supposed to be a Dark Phoenix movie, so I think she should get at least one scene where we really see her struggle with the new beast inside of her. This would start out as a solo scene where we get to see her go somewhere away from civilization, probably into the middle of the woods or something, where she can let go for a minute and literally scream out her grief. We see objects floating around her and turning dangerous in the wake of her anger (maybe she accidentally kills a few animals, something catches on fire, etc), and I'd love for her to have some dialogue that brings into question for the audience whether this really is Jean, or if the Phoenix Force is something else entirely.

Magneto would show up halfway through her breakdown, and try to give her the same "you could be powerful, you could get revenge" speech he does in the original movie to get her on his side. But, Jean doesn't fall for it; instead she says he's going to manipulate her the same way Scott did, and that she's not going to make the same mistake twice. Her reasoning doesn't entirely make sense, but that's where the Phoenix comes in; now that she's latched onto the idea of people hurt the ones I love because I tried to hold back, the Phoenix is using that to make her completely loose control and cause the chaos that it craves.

Magneto attempts to talk her down once he realizes that she's becoming a danger to mutants as well, and this escalates into a fight between the two of them. Honestly, I think it would have been interesting to see Jean kill Erik here; as much as I enjoyed him being de-powered in the original version, I feel like having Erik out of the picture would give more focus to Jean as the climax. She kills Erik, and then turns her sights to Alcatraz to try and take out everything that she perceives as harmful to her people (though at this point, as seen with Erik's death, the Phoenix has blinded her to the point that she can't truly see who her people are)

The X-Men are still in the wake of Scott's death, but they find out Jean is going to Alcatraz and that she killed Erik (because of course Xavier would be able to sense that) and they gear up to go fight. I think we should also get a moment between Bobby and Logan here talking about the fact that Rogue isn't there with a ton of guilt from Bobby, and Logan basically accepting that she's made her choice.

Also, Xavier goes with them to Alcatraz. Everyone is a bit hesitant, but he makes the point that he knows Jean's mind better than any of them, and that at the level of power she's at they might have to take it to an astral plane battle in order to defeat her. Plus, Jean has taken both Scott and Erik from him. He can't sit on the sidelines of this fight, not when he feels responsible for her spiral (again I would like to take out the "Xavier hid her memories from her" thing and focus on the fact that he basically raised her from when she was a teenager, BUT you also could keep that plotline in here)

So now we actually have the final fight, which is just the X-Men and the army VS Jean. For Jean of course this feels like betrayal, since the entire reason she's here and fighting is because humans (like the soldiers the X-Men are standing with) killed Scott. This also gives us a chance to see just how powerful Jean is, because it's literally like 100 to 1.

Now the rest of the fight goes similarly with Kitty rescuing Leech (though she's fighting against the building collapse, not Juggernaut) and Warren coming back to save his father (with the added detail that Rogue comes with him). We also get a reunion between Rogue and Bobby and Rogue helps Kitty save Leech. I'd also like for there to be a sweet moment mirroring the opening Danger Room scene where Rogue reaches out to try and help Leech just like she'd tried to help Kitty, and she's actually able to touch him and save him. At the same time, she also uses her powers in the fight to help, and she doesn't lose her powers at the end of the film.

The fight with Phoenix comes down to Xavier trying to get into her head, and they duke it out in the astral plane. We get to see here that this isn't really Jean any more; Jean is almost completely gone, it's the Phoenix that has overtaken her. We have a bit of dialogue here about how the monster has taken over to reflect that "internal beast" theme, and haha I lies we didn't entierly take out Xavier's death, I think he should die here. It looks like all is lost, until Logan comes up behind her and finishes the job similarly to the movie.

Logan's character arc ends with accepting that he is a beast, and that he can use that to protect those around him. It means he has to make the hard choices, but unlike Jean he's able to come back from that beastial mindset and actually process the grief with the rest of the team.

So THERE WE GO!! I think that's how I would rewrite the movie!! I like a lot of parts from it, but I think it could have been improved! Sorry this ended up being a much longer ramble than I intended and there's still things I could have fleshed out more, but this took way too long to type out so I'm just leaving it here.

TL;DR: If I could make improvements on this movie, I would have given Rogue more of a character arc, Scott a more satisfying death, and Jean the spotlight she deserved. Also, I would have given the film some identifiable themes that actually relate to the character's actions.

If you read this whole thing holy cow thank you this took me several hours lol

[mochidoodle]

First, I want to say that I love love love arisa ❤️‍🔥 I rarely care about other people's OCs because they are basically strangers to me (lol) except for a few I think are good. And you are one of them. Arisa is so pretty and I definitely can see her with hibari together.

Second, I kinda want to ask your advice/opinion (?) but it's pretty weird, so sorry in advance 😭 How would you feel if khr were to suddenly announce a spin-off and in there hibari has a s/o? Very unlikely tho because tsuna himself still needs to sort out his love problem, but let's imagine it for the sake of my question.

I have an OC that I crafted well in my imagination (I can't draw nor write haha) to pair with a male character from another show which has ended. But because I ship them so hard, I start getting irrational fear that if the show had a spin-off focusing on the said male character, he would be given an official girlfriend by the author (since one of his characteristics is tightly related to romantic stuff). It's really weird, like why would I want to gatekeep a character from his own author 😭?

It's just that I've never been interested to create a canon x oc or canon x y/n with characters who are officially in relationship in the story. I know I don't make sense but I just can't fully be immersed in the romantic scenarios while knowing the canon characters are taken... Wait why did I make it sound like I'm cheating 👁👄👁

So uh, do you have any advice so I can enjoy my own OC's lores without minding about the canon material? I guess you might be able to help me since you have a well-made OC 🥹

Omg first off, thank you for enjoying Arisa! I've only posted a little bit about her but to receive so much love... I'm honestly shocked (in a good way) and so appreciative!! 💙💐

Honestly, I've thought about the same question you're asking, and I also have mixed feelings. I'm very passionate about adhering to the worldbuilding that the author has created, out of respect for the work and to keep my creative interpretations "realistic" to that world. But at the same time, I feel you -- what if the author creates something that derails my personal idea completely?

For that, I can think of a few different routes. (Putting it under a read-more because it got a bit lengthy lol) ⬇️👁️👄👁️

#1

I stay delulu 🤪 I think it's so important to be able to curate your own experience in every environment. In fandom, if you don't like someone else's idea, simply wash it out of your brain and overwrite it with your own. In canon, if a character dies -- we pretend they didn't. I think the same can apply to OCs. If the character got married in canon... no they didn't. :) Your enjoyment comes first, even if no one else is on board. You're the captain of the ship!

#2

I overwrite ✏️ Sometimes I take what the author has already given me and I overlay my idea. Character got married? Sure! Now I take my character, paste it over whomever they're married, and voila. I often think about one of my childhood crushes, the rich snobby chara Tora from Maid-sama. He gets an arranged fiancee in the post-series chapter, but I just... pretended it's my OC from when I was 11. Same scenario, very little else changed, but I just put my vision on top of the author's.

#3

I fabricate reasons 🤔 Let's say the character did something that suggests romantic relations. In that case, I try to justify it while staying in-character for them. For example, TYL Hibari holds Chrome in an oddly intimate way while she is sick. I like to imagine a) he's mostly just obsessed with using her to get to Mukuro, and thus needs her alive as a tool, or b) idk, maybe Ari is fond of Chrome and would be sad to see her die. Whatever reason I can think of to redirect the meaning of a scene helps me feel less like I'm changing or twisting canon to fit my needs. I'm just working around it.

#4

I choose (fictional) violence 😈 In your most desperate hour, you have the power to simply get rid of them. Either they never existed, or they died in this timeline, and your ship is canon now. That being said, it's never nice to slander a character for the sake of your own preferred ship, or disrespect someone's past love (real or fictional), so option 4 is my least taken route. But it's still possible!

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Not sure if any of this helped, but I hope I was able to express how I enjoy fandom OCs! I used to feel really shy and guilty about my canon/OC ships because of reasons very related to what you mentioned, but we are all just here to have fun! It's like playing dolls...and kids playing dolls have the most freedom in the world. I aspire to be like them and enjoy my little made up people in my made up world because we all need reprieve from the real world (girl, the tariffs!!)

;v; Thanks for reading all the way!

[delta-lethonomia]

for your request for a random pairing to plot around! One that's honestly intrigued me-- Astarion/Jaheira

oooooooh!!!! That's a good one, ok, thinking.... this has to be a one shot "10 times x happened" type deal, yes? I'm thinking something a little melancholy, a little tragic, a lot slow-burn romantic.

Spawn!Astarion ends up an adventurer/"hero-for-hire", and Jaheira (typically) ends up returning to the Harpers, though you can talk her into remaining in Baldur's Gate. Astarion is a feral stray cat. Jaheira is a "used to be a sweet house cat, is now feral old mama cat who wanders further and further everyday until she one day never comes back at all" type cat. Cat!Astarion needs to join the colony is what I'm saying

It makes total sense to put them together and I love their sass but the emotional availability is the problem here. Astarion is open to emotional intimacy, longs for it even, while Jaheira is only available if you really, really need her, and then only until you're fine without her. (Looking at all the kids she takes on and then her distance when they grow up.) So, plot:

Astarion starts off hunting for his meals in much the same way he used to find people for Cazador. He's pickier, aiming to murder only really awful people so it won't twinge his budding conscience, but in the process he stumbles into a Harper operation or runs into other trouble etc. Some fast talking gets him in front of someone who recognizes him - maybe Geraldus - and before long he's made contact with Jaheira once more, who rolls her eyes tries to get him set up with a few contacts. It's very "if you wanted a job, you should have talked to me. Idiot" -type vibes. This makes so much sense there's even a comic about it lol.

But I can't see Astarion actually enjoying the sort of organization the Harpers are. He doesn't want to join, swear a vow, fall in line etc. so he's very "thanks but no thanks" about it. He goes off on his own again, and then Minsc finds him, forcing him to move (again!). Irritable and a little bored, he seeks out Jaheira to bitch about it and they commiserate over Minsc's.... everything. Maybe he picks up a contract, maybe he doesn't, but contact and a routine is established. If there's the 7k spawn in the Underdark, Jaheira might be a useful person to bring in - she's used to working with strays, has a lot of organizational knowledge and leadership abilities, could have contacts willing to trade with spawn etc etc. That's definitely one route to keep her around for a while.

But the point it - Astarion and Jaheira interact as peers, and that's something Jaheira lacks in her day-to-day life, which frustrates her even in BG3 if I remember correctly. She's pretty burned out on being High Harper but feels it's the best way to make a difference, and after the events of the game gets a drive to fix the things that have fallen apart. Astarion gets to drop in and play the hero on occasion, but he really only listens to Jaheira. Jaheira enjoys the attention and his little flirtations, but that's about it - they've got a flirty old friend vibe going after a few years, though younger Harper's certainly think there's something more to it, though that's purely because Astarion's hot and therefor must be sexually involved with anyone he associates with.

I could see them naturally hooking up after a while. I doubt Jaheira has been celibate since Khalid's death, but I think she'd also initially see Astarion as someone who'd latch onto her, so she wouldn't indulge his flirtations beyond talk, but given enough time she might. Alternatively, a catalyst - the underdark spawn colony gets its first trading partner through Jaheira's efforts and grateful Astarion honestly propositions her (because fucking any of the other spawn there would be.... potentially very weird if it's someone he doomed to vampirism and didn't remember), or some type of whump where an important Harper dies, or perhaps one of Jaheira's kids.... lots of options.

Anyway, they sleep together. Once. Twice. A few times. Not often, not regularly, but an established hookup every few weeks/months etc. Distant enough it never grows more, close enough it's regular and Astarion thinks about her a lot.

One day Astarion realizes he's the closest person in Jaheira's life. Maybe he talks to Rion or another of Jaheira's kids, or someone high up in the Harpers, and realizes he's the Faerûn equivalent of her emergency contact. No one knows where Jaheira went - he knows she's in Neverwinter, dealing with the aftermath of the DnD movie lol. Minsc finds him again. He asks him, "Do you know where Jaheira is?" and Minsc has no goddamn clue. Somehow, he's closer to her than Minsc!

Fuck. Are they dating? Is this a relationship? How did he end up in a relationship and not even realize? How embarrassing. How awful. Does he want this? The second he says something she's going to bolt. He's no Khalid, and doesn't want to be. Should he say something? No. No, definitely not. Why ruin a good thing? They're having fun. It's nice, having a warm bed to crawl into with someone who doesn't look at him like he hung the moon and stars. Jaheira's maturity is one of his favorite things about her.

So naturally he tells her. It eats him up inside - Astarion is terrible at keeping long-term secrets. Maybe he couches it in a joke, a little nonchalant observation, but Jaheira sees right through it. The next morning, she bolts, and Astarion doesn't see her for at least a year.

But a year isn't that long, when you've lived so long already. He's not mad at her, which is new for Jaheira: everyone knows about her issues, call her out for it often, and are yet always surprised when it happens to them. But Astarion isn't upset. Midnight chimes, hm? But they have such chemistry. They fall back into bed together after a while. Things continue.

This plot has already taken place over years lol. They stick together more and more, and so long as no one talks about what their relationship is, it's fine. Astarion keeps quiet. He's smart enough not to make the same mistake twice. Jaheira wonders if she's keeping him from finding true love, a relationship that can meet him at the level of intimacy he clearly desires - but he's an adult and can make his own choices. Selfishly, she enjoys his company.

She gets older. Maybe they take in another stray kid and stay in Baldur's Gate a while, and Astarion gets to play the decadent evil step-mother without realizing he's more emotionally available and reliable to the older kids than Jaheira is. (note: this is the only way I could see Dad!Astarion happening, namely purely by accident and somehow being more emotionally available despite sending the kids late to school with nothing more than half a loaf of bread and a very sharp knife to cut it with.) Or maybe something happens to Rion and they call him instead of Jaheira, and he finally puts his foot down and demands some clarity and definition on what "they" really are.

Either way, despite her young immortal lover (but in truth, because of him) Jaheira decides against extending her life further with the druid ritual. She becomes old enough this adventuring business has reached an impossible level of difficulty - and like an old cat, she leaves home one day without telling anyone, to go die by herself somewhere nice, or in battle, in some selfish way that Astarion does not see coming at all. While he knows she won't live forever, she's not decrepit, and even he realizes leaving someone when they start to degrade is a dick move, so he had no plans to leave her, but Jaheira wouldn't see it that way. Instead, she dies, far away and alone, with Astarion helpless to do anything about it.

He's gutted. They weren't - together - but they were to anyone who had eyes. It was all very comfortable and easy and nonchalant but he did love her even though he never said it, but she didn't respect him enough to talk to him about her plans. She didn't give him a choice. Went off to kill herself, as if he somehow wouldn't care, as if what they had really was just a fling that never ended - even after years or decades together, he was no Khalid. His grief is eclipsed by anger, and a much older Rion, her eyes dry, tells him something that amounts to "I told you so."

I'd end on something years later in the future. Another few decades, maybe with a lover who could dedicate themselves to him as much as he could to them, an Astarion with a bit more experience with love and the pain of outliving someone, after seeing other relationships degrade and how people deal with the inevitability of death - perhaps he writes a journal, or reminisces with someone, and understands just a little more why Jaheira was the way she was. Looking back with fondness and nostalgia, and seeing all the good they had together even if it wasn't perfect. A little bittersweet, a little melancholy - but also a lesson, in what not to be.

Anyway while I don't think Astarion needs a partner, I do think he would benefit a great deal from having one. Emotional intimacy is something he'd crave deeply but it also afraid to ask for, so while he'd be aware of Jaheira's emotional unavailability I think he'd be unable to pull himself away from it. I can't see a relationship between them ending anywhere else other than inevitable heartbreak :(

[threadbearsweater]

From your last reblog, how do you stop hating getting older? Most of my fandom friends are early/mid 20s and it makes me feel so gross being in my 30s. Everyone always shames you for being so 'old' in the anime spaces and I always feel kinda guilty about it and I shouldn't.

How do you come to terms with aging and loving your age? I know I'm younger than you but it feels like I'm aging so quickly when everyone else stays so young lol

I guess what I'm asking is what made you love your 40s? Or even your 30s? What made you wake up and go 'actually, this is way better than people made it out to be'. I hope none of this sounds too invasive but I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice by not loving my age gracefully when I never thought I'd MAKE it to this age, y'know?

I am afraid that it's not really a profound revelation. As much as I'd like to sit here and document my journey to self-love and say that it's always been positive and joyful, it really hasn't been. I'd say that just in the last 5 or 6 years, I've finally had the ability to be honest with myself about a lot of things- namely the way I handle stress, relationship woes (both platonic and romantic) and just life in general. My 40's are loads better than my 30's even. I spent a lot of my 30's being angry- at myself, at my kids, at my ex-husband. At work, at life, at money. And I knew it at the time, but I guess I thought it was just the way life had to be. I told myself I'd just been dealt a shitty hand and it was the consequences of my actions so far that made my life what it had to be. I resigned myself to a life where I'd just constantly be at someone else's beck and call and figured that's what it would be forever and ever amen. (the rest is under a cut because I got REALLY long-winded)

When the pandemic hit, I left a job that had me so wrung out and miserable for almost 6 years. And I woke the fuck up. I never really thought the job was the problem, and I don't think it was the whole issue- but it definitely contributed to my constant need to put my own feelings aside and take care of everyone else before myself. Just last year, my husband and I talked about how angry I used to be. Bless his patient heart, he told me that "things got pretty rough for a while. I wasn't sure if we'd pull through" and it broke my heart to know that my anger affected him in such a profound way.

BUT to backtrack, after I quit that job, I started going to therapy. I got back on meds, I got a life-changing diagnosis that really helped me explain and understand my decades of self-destructive patterns. And for the first time, I started to put myself first. It was ridiculously difficult at first. I started to notice small changes in the way my kids interacted with me, the way I could talk to people, the way I connected with online friends. It didn't come without some lessons along the way, some learned with great difficulty. I don't pretend to be a perfect example of someone who knows herself and knows others so completely, and I do still fuck up- but I own it. I don't try to blame others anymore. And I work to forgive myself without expecting others to do the work for me.

I've been lucky so far to never be directly shamed for being older in fandom spaces. I've surrounded myself with some beautiful souls- most of them being somewhere in the late twenties-late thirties range- and I just come around and be me, flaws and all. I talk about the things I like, I open my mind to the things I might not understand at first, I avoid the things that upset me (this might be the hardest one, especially when it's all available at our fingertips at any given moment). I've seen those posts about how people of a certain age are seen as "creepy" or "weird" or whatever the colorful adjective of the day may be for fandom "elders". And I'm sure there are probably people reading this now who feel that way about anyone who's over the age of 25, but it's all good! I'm having a good time. I'm enjoying the things I enjoy because it's fun to do so, and everyone should feel free to have a good time wherever we may end up, you know?

My heart breaks for you when I hear you say things like "I never thought I'd make it this far". My 16 year old has expressed the same sentiment to me recently, and it just knocks the wind right out of me to consider how that must affect your day to day life. I guess if I were to offer any advice, I'd say Congratulations! You've made it, and you're still making it! Keep going, don't stop, do whatever it takes to keep getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of the other. Give yourself grace. Growing up and growing older really is a gift, and I KNOWWWWW that sounds corny and cliche to say so, but it REALLY is! Fuck the haters, damn the man (save the Empire), and enjoy crying and screaming over fictional characters, because why the hell not? There's no age limit on joy.