#there is some trauma projection pls ignore it

[volfoss]

Like it sucks when fans r like omg ok well if you ignore this and this about this character they're actually not the worst but it's also like you have to recognize the authorial intent

[starwarsanthropology]

i need to know more about tomo pls i love 'dog with separation anxiety' characters

Ok ok I gotta put this under a cut because hes. rotating inside my head always. Going to put a link to his whole little page i posted bc this gives you Some basic information as to his Vibes.

Tomo is a Corrie medic! He’s got a few different like. personas he puts on depending on context. I talk a lot about his Weird Little Unhingedness persona bc thats when he’s letting is all out without hesitation or shame, which is really fun, but he’s a brother first, then a medic, and then a pathetic little creature.

As a vod and a brother, he is very, very loyal and committed to his siblings. His core guiding motivation is to make things better for them, but because of how he thinks this tends to be an individual focus rather than a group focus; he’ll individually get everyone a blanket before pushing for a new project to get everyone blankets, etc. 

When he’s off duty and relaxed, he tends to be a friendly, nice guy. Will bend over backwards to help a vod, even one he doesn’t know, with minimal questions asked. Not a whole lot of respect for rules and authority; if you can’t indicate the practical reasons behind a standard or regulation, he will probably ignore it at his convenience. HOWEVER, he is also Definitely younger sibling coded and can be a bit of a shithead as a treat. Kind of a doormat and seems easy to bully but once he realizes he’s being teased or bullied he’ll go from the NOOOO!!! NOOO!!! younger sibling tears to I’m A Medic And I Can Tolerate And Shut Down So Much Bullshit on a dime. Likes people, likes to be around people in general, will worry and fret and scold if you’re being a bit reckless but also the biggest enabler in all of the med corps tbh. Believes in happiness and autonomy as a primary element of wellbeing and this drives a lot of that enabling; is the most likely corrie medic to go out of the way to let u keep a scar you want even if it makes his job fixing underlying structures more difficult.

He’s actually quite good at being professional when hes Being A Medic, and honestly can be a little ruthless, in terms of not hesitating to make calls (because that’s how you get people killed). His specialization is in orthopedic and reconstructive/plastic surgery, which in practice means he’s NOT out of medical much when on shift; if he’s called onto site, things are really bad. On a good day he has no emergency cases, but most of his emergencies are cases where there needs to be immediate and dramatic surgical intervention to prevent fatality. Amputations, skin grafts, major muscular trauma, broken bones; he sees a lot of really nasty shit, in his emergency capacity. In a non-emergency capacity, he still sees a lot of unpleasant and upsetting things, because he’s, yknow. reconstructing things and overseeing recovery from skeletal trauma, but it’s much much safer and less stressful. As a result of all this, he has a really strong stomach and a skewed sense of when gore, blood, or guts gets upsetting.

Also in his capacity as a medic, but off-regulation, Tomo provides a lot of suppourt to trans vode with gender-affirming care! He’ll do just about anything that’s not hazardous; he refers for tracheal shaves and bottom surgeries that require significant specialization or more advanced/specialized equipment than he has. But fillers, FFS, top surgery, horomone access? He’s gotchu.

Also; he knows he's cute. He knows people see him kind of as a pathetic little creature. He ABSOLUTELY weaponizes the shit out of this as a medic. he can cry on command because he learned the magical efficiency of just BURSTING into tears on someone avoiding the medbay. If you aren't guilted/made uncomfortable enough to comply he'll just get someone to drug you and haul you off lol

He’s a really affectionate, friendly, and easygoing guy overall, but the part of him that i talk about most often is his Little Freak setting. This is a manifestation of extreme seperation anxiety. He’s good at respecting verbal boundaries but is a Stage 5 Clinger. He will follow you into the bathroom if ur having a conversation and not notice until ur like excuse me that its weird. He’s really scared of loosing people, either to death or just to the vast distances of the galaxy, so he really really wants to be like. tangibly tied to people. This is where his cannibalism schtick comes from like he cannot imagine a closer intimacy than the physical substance of one’s self being intergrated into the other through consumption…. carry him with you forever and vice versa….. woah…..

@mamuzzy also pulled a GALAXY BRAIN take putting him w Mereel in that one art. Rotted my brain hard for them as a cringefail couple where their respective toxic traits slide off each other like water off a duck. I have a Lot of meta for that im not going to elaborate on too much beyond tomos tendancy towards clinginess being satisfied by mereel pinging him when he’s away, mereel being unbothered and indulgent of his weirdness, and tomo being game enough to help mereel that mereels habit of social engineering and manipulation to get what he wants doesnt have a chance to get toxic bc tomo is already willing give mereel whatever he wants with the ironclad exception of endangering his patients, which he is too stubborn and protective to be manipulated directly about anyway.

I decided that they met bc mereel needed to change his apperance for smth, hooked up w tomo (convenient emotionally vulnerable mark! yippee!) to gain access to medical supplies, was asking about a kind of filler (intended use for joint injuries but off-label use as a filler) to figure out if he can self-administer it and Tomo was immediately like oh i can administer it if you want to try! It’s easy to dissolve if you don’t like it! Mereel agreed, Tomo put in the temporary fillers, and they both walked away from the encounter satisfied and with each other’s contact information in their pocket.

It is very important to note that while Tomo IMMEDIATELY recognized Mereel was interested in the filler’s capacity to change facial structure and apperance, he did not realize Mereel wanted apperance-altering interventions for a mission until months later when someone pointed out he is a black ops specialist and got together with Tomo to use his skills n specializations.  He had fully been working on the assumption that Mereel had just been interested in gender exploration even after they had an established pattern of Tomo administering temporary cosmetic procedures for Mereel’s missions

ANYWAY thank u I love him he is so deeply strange. just an odd little dude.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Hello. It's the anonymous quests giver again. I'd like to challenge you to write a fic or scenario based on your interpretation of :

damaged ideals, shooting star, broken heels

Character : Haitani Rindou

Please take your time if you decide to accept this challenge. Have a nice day, Challenger!

P.S : so few people accepted my challenge. I appreciate you a lot

Okay, but I AM SO EXCITED to see that you dropped by again! I was thinking about sending you a vague "hey I would like another one pls" but I didn't know how to get in contact with you or if you would even SEE it. So imagine my face when I see your request in my inbox! I was like:

I love this. I'm so grateful to you.

Still Life: Rindou Haitani x Fem!Reader

wc: 2.1k

tw: NSFW

masterlist

song recommendation:

The sky is a deep grey.

Everything outside is dreary and foreboding, and if you'd paid attention to the signs more, you might have avoided the tragedy that was set to befall you.

"Listen, Shuji, I can't push the deadline up any further," you gripe, talking on your cell phone in the midst of the Roppongi traffic. People are pushing against you, ignoring your urgency for theirs, and progressing on with their lives as if there's no one else that matters except themselves.

"You're going to have to do something," your boss sighs into the phone. "I don't have much time left to dedicate to the proposal, and you'll need to take over the project at some point."

"Fine," you quip, stepping onto the air vent in the middle of the sidewalk. "I'll just-- ah!"

The snapping sound of your heel and the feeling of tilting over into the traffic-ridden street goes in slow motion, and for a second, you see the headlights of a car and your life flashing before your eyes at the same time.

Imagine, you think to yourself. This is how I die. In the street.

Images of your childhood flash quickly, the memories of your adolescent life go by just as fast, and your first seven years of your twenties roll by in agonizing slowness.

You hadn't done much. You hadn't lived. You hadn't really been the person you imagined you would be when you grew up. And now, there's no time to go back and change that.

"We were kids back then. We can't hold on to the past."

"Oh, fuck!" is the last thing you hear before your world goes dark, and you're dropped into an endless eternity.

_____________________________________________________________

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Your ears are ringing.

Are your ears supposed to ring when you're dead?

And your head is throbbing painfully. No, you're not dead. Things aren't supposed to hurt when you're no longer alive.

"...just checking in on how she's doing..." The voice of your ex-boyfriend filters in through the muck, and you part your lips to speak.

"Rindou?" Shoes clack against the tile flooring, and you hear the sound of someone coming up to the bed. "Is that you?" Your words are slurred, but you swear you feel a hand ghost across your palm.

"I'm here." You want to open your eyes to see your former lover, but you can't. Your head hurts too much for you to try to do that right now.

"What happened after I fell?"

"You were knocked out for a few days. You hit your head pretty hard."

"Yeah..." You groan a little, trying to angle your head toward his gentle voice, but a sharp pain prevents you from doing so. "How'd you find out I was here?" Last you checked, Rindou hadn't been in Roppongi for years. It had been an amicable breakup for you when he went to jail, but you'd kept in contact with the Haitani brothers during their trapezing across the country via social media, watching them grow up from a distance. Rindou inhales, then smooths his fingers across your upper arm.

"I heard from Ran. He was in town." You hum and Rindou continues. "I was worried for a little while there. They said you'd be fine, but you'll need care after leaving the hospital."

"Care?"

"Your legs are pretty messed up, and it looks like you might have some brain trauma after all of this. But don't worry." You can hear the smile in Rindou's tender voice. "I'll have you come stay with me. I'll take care of you if you want."

"Take care of me? Do you even live in Roppongi?"

"I have a few residences here and there," Rindou mutters. "Don't worry. Everything will be taken care of."

Rindou takes you with him two days later, and a modern mansion looms in the near distance toward the end of your drive from the hospital; massive windows and lush, green lawn startling you into silence before you can find the words to speak.

"How can you afford to live in this house?" you croak, your mouth drying up as Rindou pulls into his driveway. He smiles at you with that cheeky grin you know and love and replies,

"I've got a lot of profitable hobbies," he laughs, parking the car and opening his door. You're a little worried as he pulls out your wheelchair and rolls it to your side of the car, but as he eases you into the chair, you feel the worry pass. "I'll have dinner ready at eight, and I have someone coming to help wash and clothe you."

"Huh?" You look over your shoulder as Rindou pushes you up the path to the door, and he peers down at you with his violet eyes, raising a brow. "Why all of that? I can put my own clothes on and--"

"Two healing legs doesn't make for adequate washing situations."

"But hiring someone who is a full-time caretaker is--"

"Not a problem for me. Don't you see where I live?" You go silent again, watching Rindou push one of the doors open and then wheel you inside. "I'll take you to your room so you can get acclimated. There's a little call box if you need me, and I'll send up your caretaker when they get here."

"Thank you, Rin," you whisper, placing a hand on his. "You really don't have to do this."

"Oh, y/n, it's my pleasure." He leans down to kiss your cheek. "Can't let my favorite girl just suffer, can I?"

_____________________________________________________________

You awake from your dreams in sweat most nights, the sound of your own breathing the only thing you can hear in the lavish room decorated just for you, with your things and some trinkets Rindou insisted you have. (Like the little glow stars on your ceiling that mimicked your bedroom in your apartment and the box filled with crafting parts for you to do in your spare time).

But tonight, you feel your anxiety building past its usual threshold, and you try your best to calm down, but to no avail. The blue "call" button looms to your left, and you consider reaching your hand out to press it, thus waking Rindou from his sleep so he can help you get some water or something to calm down. But you're frozen still, hand not daring to move in the darkness.

So, you lay there, praying to the fake stars above your head that something would ease your suffering, your pain. You pray as hard as you can to a god you're not even sure exists that someone would walk by and feel the tension in your body from outside of the door and come to rescue you from yourself.

You suppose this god doesn't exist because no one comes to your aid.

Not at all.

And in the morning, your caretaker comes in, followed by Rindou, who is still dressed in his nightclothes. His lavender hair is tousled around his face as if he just woke up, but he beams at you anyway, whispering,

"How'd you sleep, y/n?"

"I didn't." Your admission shocks both Rindou and the caretaker, who quickly excuses herself.

"And you didn't call for help?" You look away from Rindou, slightly ashamed but resolute in your decision.

"No. I..." Rin approaches you carefully, taking your hand in his and stroking the back of it slowly. "I didn't want to wake you."

"I was up all night." The words hit your core, and you frown deeply, trying your best not to cry. Rindou hated to see you cry when you were younger; you imagine it hasn't changed now. "What happened that kept you up?"

"Bad dreams," you reply. Rindou opens his mouth, but closes it, then opens it again, murmuring,

"You'll come sleep in my bed, then. I'll stay with you through the night, so you don't feel threatened, okay?" You hesitantly nod, and Rin stands up, scooping you into his arms. "For now, let's get you back to sleep. I've got a nice California King bed that needs warming." You want to laugh, or at least giggle, but as you place your arms around your ex, you wonder how many girls he's been with since you. It wouldn't be out of your jurisdiction to ask, but part of you doesn't want to know how many women he's had in his bed during your umpteen years of separation.

Rindou senses your uncertainty as he slips you under the navy covers, and his lavender eyes roll to the other side of the bed gradually.

"I haven't had another person in this bed since I bought it," he notes, and you grunt once. "I suppose it would be nice to know what it feels like to..." Rindou trails off, mouth turning down. "Anyway, I'll be at work at my desk if you need me." The man retreats after kissing your hand, walking across the plush carpet to a heavy wooden desk by a large window. You watch him type away at his computer, stopping every so often to note something on a legal pad beside his keyboard before going back to whatever he was doing, and your eyes close slowly; your mind finally at peace with someone you knew would protect you from any and all harm.

Even from yourself.

_____________________________________________________________

The sounds of kissing echo in the dimly lit living room, your bruised hips resting on the cushion of the couch and legs carefully placed in Rin's lap. You suppose the wine with dinner caused you to do this... caused you to run your hands along his shoulder and press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. You suppose the wine also made him whisper how much he loved you still - after all those years - and how he was glad you were healing. And you suppose that's how you arrived on the couch, exchanging deep kisses with the man you'd left in a juvenile detention center.

"You're all I can think about," Rindou admits, a gentle hand resting on your heavily bruised legs. They'd been wrapped in bandages previously, but mid-makeout session, he'd stopped attending to them and tended to your lips instead. "I'm so glad Ran called me."

"I am, too," you whimper, threading your fingers through his hair. "I've missed you." Rindou kisses down your neck, his breath warm and comforting against your skin. You'd never gotten past heavy petting with Rin when you were dating, but now... even though your legs are still healing, you want his affection more than ever.

You guide the hand that's on your legs to the waistband of your pants, and Rindou groans into your mouth, sliding his fingers past it. You part your legs slightly, letting him slip a finger into you carefully.

"You're already wet for me," he purrs into your ear, and your hips buck into his hand at the thought of him taking you on the couch, ramming his cock inside of your pussy, and making you cum over and over again. You gasp, and Rindou captures your bottom lip between his teeth, tugging gently. "Such a beautiful woman..." The finger inside of you moves at a moderate pace, stroking your g-spot while his thumb moves across the bud of your clit.

"Rindou," you exclaim, but he just gives you a lazy smile, his half-lidded eyes full of lust.

"Tell me if this hurts," he warns, then slides another finger into you, which your lips easily accept and suck into your cunt. "Feels so good," Rindou moans, eyes fluttering closed. "You're so amazing."

You accept his praise with soft moans and whimpers, rolling your sore hips into his hands and relishing in the pain-pleasure of his motions. The sounds of your arousal replace the earlier sounds of your kissing, the soft but sharp clicking noises imitating it.

"Rindou..." The panted name is enough to make him go faster, hand moving at a breakneck speed. "Rin! I'm gonna cum... I... oh, god!" You shudder in his grip, body clenching and unclenching in the same way your pussy clenches around his fingers. You ride your high out, eyes fluttering in the soft lighting, and Rindou whispers about how much he loves the way you look when you cum, when you moan his name, when you give him everything he's ever wanted.

"You've always been so good to me." He slides his fingers out of you and deposits them in his mouth, licking them clean as his other hand lays across your hips. "Now let me be good to you."

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

I posted 14,618 times in 2021

398 posts created (3%)

14220 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 35.7 posts.

I added 15,340 tags in 2021

#adrien agreste - 2271 posts

#lol - 2229 posts

#ml - 2202 posts

#miraculous ladybug - 1932 posts

#ml fanart - 1769 posts

#chat noir - 1217 posts

#ml spoilers - 1158 posts

#marinette dupain cheng - 906 posts

#love square - 872 posts

#lmao 🤣🤣🤣 - 784 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#ive had this idea in my head for long after seeing people rag on adriens shoes but it was anna's post that pushed me over the edge sjksnsgk

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

The thing about Adrien's forgiveness is that it's not just an aspect of his kindness but also a result of the emotional trauma inflicted on him by Gabriel.

Adrien is so afraid of losing people and so used to having his boundaries trampled that he doesn't know what they are anymore. Boundaries are for other people

(That's why I side eye arguments that say Adrien is okay with something because he let it happen. Adrien doesn't even know what his boundaries are. And tolerates things that really aren't okay on a daily basis. Not the most solid of evidence.)

So, yes. I want Chat Noir to be angry at Ladybug. I want the validity of said anger acknowledged not just by the characters but by the narrative. And I don't want the Ladynoir fallout resolved due to magical nonsense.

Because it will show Adrien that he is allowed to feel angry and upset at people he cares about without worrying about losing them. And that he's allowed to have his own boundaries respected.

... Just thinking about this now but allowing himself to be angry at Ladybug before the reconciliation could be used as a narrative stepping stone for the inevitable confrontation with his father. Where Adrien recognizes that he needs to cut some people out of his life for his own well-being. Even if they're a blood relative.

I don't know about anyone else but that's what I mean when I say: I want Chat Noir to be angry at Ladybug.

524 notes • Posted 2021-10-29 12:02:53 GMT

#4

Adrien is Not "the Male Character"

Which is to say: Adrien is not the Generic Male Protagonist.

Protagonists have been used as embodiments of their respective genders for... a long time. The Generic Male Protagonist supposedly representing all men the same way the Generic Female Love Interest supposedly represented all women. This is both by design and baseless in reality.

Yet, these representations persist in our collective understanding of media. A male character represents all males; a woman all women. Despite the fact that not everyone shares the same experience. Especially not with such broad generalizations. My experience of being male is not the same as that of someone else.

Adrien is not merely "a male character" that can be seen as symbolic of all Men. He is not this projection of masculinity, toxic or otherwise, that the fandom puts on him. Adrien's character and personality show the opposite even; a boy with "traditionally feminine" qualities.

Adrien is a part of a very specific subset of men: male victims.

From that lens then, I suppose it should be less surprising that the fandom treats him the same way our society treats male victims. Victim blaming him for the abuse he suffers, placing the onus on him to "grow a backbone" essentially just another way of saying "man up". His harrassment by female characters ignored because he is male and they are not. And, in a disturbing echo of false feminist rhetoric, his harassers are idolized for being "strong women" standing up to "men".

Reducing any character down to one singular aspect of themselves is something we must grow out of. Adrien in particular is not just "the male character" because being a boy is not his most defining characteristic. No matter how hard the fandom tries to make it so. Such a view is reductive, inaccurate and, potentially, dangerous to one's worldview.

656 notes • Posted 2021-06-10 16:38:53 GMT

#3

Okay, so Dearest Family gives a lot of backing to the idea that the inequality between Plagg and Tikki, and by extension their holders, is an artificial situation established by the Order of the Guardians.

As Yin and Yang they keep each other balanced. But because of the notion humans have that Destruction is inherently more dangerous than Creation (something the episode shows is not true at all) they give Tikki more freedom while restricting Plagg's. (Which we can infer from Su Han's reaction to hearing Plagg is free)

Inevitably making things worse.

Canon has implied that Plagg's aloofness is a defence mechanism stemming from the way the Guardians, and possibly his past holders, treated him. Like a monster that needed a tight leash.

Tikki isn't free from this either. As she suppresses her desires and less ideal qualities in order to appear more in control. Therefore not needing her leash to be quite as tight as Plagg's.

The Guardians doing the equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot. While the kwamis are arguably more controllable, Tikki is a volcano waiting to explode. And Plagg is as unhelpful as he can get away with. Even encouraging his holder to sit out fights in the early days.

This is especially evident by the way Canon shows us a better way of keeping the kwamis unlimited power under control.

Plagg is the only one shown using his power without some disaster following. And it wasn't when he was helping Ladybug. It was when he was rescuing Adrien.

Adrien has slowly and invariably snuck his way past Plagg's defenses. He is, ironically, the only one Plagg listens too.

In the same vein, it's only after Marinette reassures Tikki that she won't abandon her due to her flaws that Tikki starts getting a handle on her hunger.

Because if kwamis can affect their holders like Tikki did then it stands to reason that the opposite is true as well. The Miraculous are a joint venture between kwami and holder whose powers are limited by the imagination of the wielder. Why wouldn't strengthening that bond help the kwamis use their own power safely?

The Guardians' treatment of Plagg and Tikki also extends to their holders. If not by doctrine then by practice.

For all his talk about not following the old traditions Master Fu certainly echoed Su Han's thoughts on the Black Cat in his actions.

The summary for Ephemeral implying that Chat Noir's identity needs to be known, not for practical considerations such as coordination, but so he can be controlled, i.e. manipulated. A lack of trust and paranoia Fu also showed during his time as Guardian.

In order to move forward the Black Cat has to be acknowledged as the Ladybug's equal. Not only in word and thought but also in action.

Something no character has yet done.

730 notes • Posted 2021-10-20 21:44:12 GMT

#2

Why Adrien Agreste is a Great Hero

This has been done many times before but now it's my turn... Again.

Chat Noir always prioritizes the civilians' safety. In Origins Chat Noir saves Alya twice despite losing his baton in the process. In Anansi he makes sure everyone is off the ferris wheel before going after the supervillain. Every time he protects Marinette when she's an akuma's target.

Adrien acts like a hero even without his powers. After being hit by Reflekta he rallies the students to protect Ladybug. During Oblivio he distracts the supervillain long enough for Ladybug to evade their attack. He tackles Marinette to safety in Riposte and Heroes Day.

He respects Ladybug's privacy. Chat Noir has had many opportunities to learn Ladybug's secret identity. Particularly in Lady Wifi and Kwami Hunter. Both times he has respected the boundaries she placed.

Adrien's empathy. Adrien is empathetic to everyone. Being simultaneously his greatest strength and greatest weakness. He will see you as a person first and foremost, not as your flaws.

Screw the Rules I'm Doing What's Right! Related to number four Adrien is far more likely to bend the rules for someone else than he is for himself. He embodies doing the most good for the most people. Putting it another way: Adrien is Neutral Good.

Chat Noir doesn't follow blindly. Despite the at times excessive trust he places in Ladybug, she earned that trust. The Guardians did not. And Chat Noir won't hesitate to question authority. In Syren he questioned the then Guardian Fu's rules of secrecy which had and still do drive a wedge between Ladybug and his teamwork. In Furious Fu he didn't hesitate to denounce the Grand Master.

Chat Noir is good at compartmentalizing. Even when upset Chat Noir quickly puts it behind him in order to defeat the akuma victim. As shown in Glaciator and Frozer. Also in Simon Says and the Collector. And on less emotionally stringent occasions like Gamer 2.0.

Teamwork. Or perhaps faith in Ladybug. Chat Noir trusts her completely. He has never so much as insinuated that she could not beat an opponent.

Emotional Support. Related to number eight Chat Noir has constantly been Ladybug's rock when the seas grow too turbulent. Providing a moment of respite before turning her back to their duty. In the rare instance where he speaks to the temporary heroes Chat Noir also provided support for Rena Rouge when she needed it.

Chat Noir takes his duty seriously. When observing his carefree attitude one could be forgiven for mistaking Chat Noir's attempts to lighten the mood/keep his spirits up for a lack of care. (Not by me though. I won't forgive you... Adrien might.) Chat Noir doesn't diminish the importance of defeating Hawkmoth or of helping the akuma victims. When Ladybug is compromised he takes steps to ensure victory. Such as taking the lead with Miracle Queen and preventing her from revealing her identity in Truth. Even going so far as renouncing his ring when he felt he was no longer worthy of it.

This has been a non-exhaustive list of why Adrien Agreste is, was and will continue to be a great hero.

781 notes • Posted 2021-05-01 20:06:23 GMT

#1

I haven't seen enough people praising Adrien for how he acted with Juleka and Rose this episode and that needs to be corrected.

Adrien asked Marinette to hang back so he could talk one on one with her and knelt down to be at her level. He asked what she needed, if she wanted someone to talk to he would listen. And he did. Adrien waited to hear what she said before doing anything.

Then with Rose he was the only character that wasn't shown in the class's overreaction montage. Besides greeting Rose at the steps he doesn't have any lines until later.

I love Adrien showing how empathetic he is with everyone.

2252 notes • Posted 2021-05-05 17:44:45 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[bibbykins]

Hi happy new year to you babe!!! Hope you had a fun time celebrating the new year, cuz I can't lmao. I dunno if someone already asked you this or if this is a spoiler or something (you don't have to answer this btw). But if I may ask, (1) would there be a mafia fic soon? (no pressure tho, just curious). (2) is the obsession of the boys already at its peak or nah? and if nah, would we see how worse they can get? (3) (if this makes you uncomfortable, I am sorry and please ignore this) as someone who is self-aware that I have a very shitty coping mechanism, the household bunny really speak to me and it kinda is my comfort fic, I just wanna know how the boys would react if the mc just shut down? Like for me, it's hard to speak my thoughts out loud because I am self-aware how others might see my thoughts as me trying to gain sympathy or that I'm just making it worse than it actually is or that I might influence their way of thinking and make them think like how I think (which is not good), so yeah I wanna know how the boys deal with it. (4) would Jungyoon, the mc, and the boys be in the same room in some point in time? I really wanna make Jungyoon feel really uncomfortable lmao.

Sorry if I'm just dumping this here. Again, you don't need to answer any of this as this may be triggering, but thank you for writing really. It helps me.

Happy super late new year to you bb!! I will answer the questions as best as I can without spoiling!

1.) Yes... I hope. I have almost 9k of the next mafia one written... and they haven't even kissed yet lmao, so this one will be a doozy but I hope to get it out the moment I finish!

2.) I am assuming this question applies to the household boys (if i'm wrong pls tell me and I'll answer it again!) Buuuut I would say none of em have reached their peak, Jungkook might be the closest to it? But yes we will see how the closer they get to her, the more they realize how precious she is to them, and they're all insane (not as insane as the mafia boys but still) so that will translate into some yandere-ness, nothing too crazy ofc but still crazy lmao

3.) (I'm so glad my fic is a comfort fic, this is a huge compliment don't worry!) Also the coping mechanism I believe you're referring to is the "freeze" response? *pushes up glasses in psych bachelor's degree* i'm jk i know this bc i read a lot and went to therapy lmao But the guys would freak out, not at her or in front of her ofc. THe only ones who would understand what's going on would be Jin, Namjoon, and maaaaybe Hoseok. Jin is a doctor, so he had to have taken some psychology classes in school and Namjoon is an educated fellow who reads a lot. Namjoon would take the more direct approach of sitting next to her, not too close, and talking, asking her questions, but not getting irritated if she didn't respond right away, he gets that she'll respond if she's ready but he would ask questions like "What color do you think that flower is? I say it's more pink than purple, but I don't know?" as a (not-so-sly) means to ground her. Jin would probably ask if he could hold her and if she says yes, he'd hug her, maybe sway a bit, as he reassures her softly.

I could go on for days about the four f's in trauma responses, both as someone with CPTSD and someone who somehow got a degree in psychology, but I'll just let you know that dealing with life is hard, and not everyone is going to understand how you deal with it, but that doesn't make you any less brave for doing so! Whatever people project onto your neutral actions is not your problem, no matter how much they try to make you feel like it is!

4.) ...yes >:) I won't say when, but I greatly look forward to writing it/sharing it with y'all. His discomfort fuels me.

Also don't worry bb! It's lovely to use all my psych knowledge on something, makes the degree and books feel like a worthy investment! I'm no licensed professional by any means but I like helping in whatever quirky way I can! Thank you for being so wonderful and thank you for entrusting me with this ask!

[marnz]

pausing my “”productive”” evening to be briefly insane with rage at this extremely stupid, imprecise, and ignorant essay about garth greenwell and ocean vuong, holy shit, i guess punching down is quite easy when you don’t even feel the need to make a point. 

i haven’t finished On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous so I cannot speak to that aspect of the essay other than to say 1) the prose is amazing 2) writing to reach someone is the main function of a writer, you need to approach an emotional work in an emotionally open and receptive manner, 3) the critiques of the novel come across as jealous and a purposefully mean spirited reading. however,

if you READ What Belongs to You, if you READ Cleanness, you understand WHY these books are so sincere and WHY there is so much “”gay suffering”” and it is because the narrator fucking hates himself. This is not a secret. Greenwell’s primary aesthetic project in these books is tackling the intersections of shame and desire. What causes intense shame? The fact that the narrator’s father treated him horribly for his entire life because the narrator is sexually attracted to men--and so Greenwell explores gay sex and intimacy. I don’t think this could have been made more apparent? In the middle section of What Belongs to You the narrator reflects on his relationship with his dying father, and begins by discussing the innocent and familial intimacy between the two of them that vanished immediately when the father realized the narrator was gay, as a child. 

The narrator is “”sincere”” and confessional about everything as a way to convey the intersections of shame and desire using prose that mirrors the looping, sometimes ponderous thought process of the self loathing. He is capable of reflecting on his terrible qualities and unsafe sexual choices, his obsession with self endangerment through sex and his self blame/culpability, because he thinks there is something not only inherently wrong with him, but inherently unlovable. This is something he obsesses about and it is why partially why the book reads as confessional (the other reason is it is the contemporary modern style. Almost every celebrated litfic novelist is doing it nowadays.) Sex is linked danger, shame, and rejection over and over again for the narrator and he struggles to move on from it because it’s all he thinks he deserves! The craft decision to use sex as a way to explore not just shame/desire but the narrator’s character is incredible! More people should do this! In one of the most harrowing chapters of Cleanness, “Gospodar,” the narrator goes to a professional dom and confesses to wanting to become “nothing.” He explicitly engages in humiliation play. Enough said!

The whole “gay suffering gay man sad” thing is NOT done as suffering for shock value or because it’s a sincere belief in what gay people deserve. This was a common critique of What Belongs to You and I agree it’s thankless to read if you went into it expecting gay Pretty Woman or a happy ending, l m a o, especially since one of the other craft projects of the novel is using Mitko to symbolize Bulgaria post iron curtain/””communism.”” Greenwell then uses Cleanness address the gay suffering critiques by exploring the narrator’s relationship with R....and these chapters are absolutely beautiful and moving and healing for the narrator, he finally gets to say shit like:

 “Sex had never been joyful for me before, or almost never, it had always been fraught with shame and anxiety and fear, all of which vanished at the sight of his smile, simply vanished, it poured a cleanness over everything we did” and 

“I caught my breath at [something R did for him], I felt a weird pressure and heat climb my throat. I felt like my heart would burst, those were the words for it, the hackneyed phrase, and I was grateful for them, they were a container for what I felt, proof of its commonness. I was grateful for that, too, the commonness of my feeling; I felt some stubborn strangeness in me ease, I felt like part of the human race.”

I don’t think it’s ever confirmed that the narrator in What Belongs to You is the same narrator as Cleanness but I think they must be because of the social implications of cleanness as related to gay sex and to aspects of shame, especially because in part 3 of WBTY the narrator learns he has syphilis, which is a very publicly disfiguring disease if not treated. It’s sexual leprosy, it is disfiguring shame. We read all of Cleanness understanding certain actions he takes as being because of what happened to Mitko, like insisting on condoms. I think the choice of it being syphilis as opposed to AIDs is purposeful but that is another post i will not be making.

The relationship with R is doomed to fail partially because R also experiences immense shame connected to being gay for a different reason and because the narrator is predisposed to self sabotage and other various reasons. It does end, the narrator goes back to his dangerous sexual practices, and Greenwell is careful to show that part of the reason the narrator does this is because he finds social as well as sexual gratification from it. With R the narrator did not do any form of kink except body worship, but body worship is not what the narrator craves because he craves humiliation play! I think the thing that is most interesting about Cleanness in particular is the way it explores different avenues of intimacy, different modes, you can be with someone for a very long time and feel felt and loved and understood and then be with someone else and feel felt and loved and understood in different, equally important ways. Every single relationship in your life is a trade off of these and your own prioritization of your own needs. Greenwell shows that the narrator’s sexual practices and his love for kink is an important need just as it is a self destructive one because of the linking of shame and desire. This is all made explicit in “The Little Saint” (which we are given to understand is post-R) narrator acts as a dom for once and explores being on the other side of the coin. He gets into it and later finds it very upsetting because for him all shame and humiliation is linked to being gay, which circles back to his father, and the sub ends up explaining to the narrator that you don’t have to dominate someone by humiliating them like that. Like what’s not clicking here!!!!!!! 

My other main frustrations with this essay are:

the linking of sincerity = gay trauma when good art is often about sincerity and sincerity of emotion, either exploring it or eliciting it, even satire, even fucking...marvel movies, lowest common denominator writing wise, try to make their fans feel something

the fact HE CLEARLY DIDN’T READ THE BOOKS. i know Cleanness is set up as a collection of short stories so you have to take it apart line by line  but WBTY is not like that. The shame = bad dad aspect could not have been more clear if it was underlined.

The fact that the essay says Ocean Vuong “is an artist of the memorably obtuse one-liner” as a derogatory thing which is SO rude and comes across as incredibly petty and jealous. Ocean Vuong is a fucking genius. Go after Rupi Kaur if you want to critique a poet who is actually over celebrated, damn

the idea of sincerity = cringe and the inability of many modern critics to moderate their response to a piece of work based on the project or any of its other qualities it is doing instead of like, how it made them feel expressed as sarcastically as possible. I am not a critic but I do not think this is difficult to do. What Belongs to You made me incredibly uncomfortable and sad for much of the book but I was still able to appreciate it? Even when I was like “ahhhhh i hate this” I could understand and appreciate aspects of craft/characterization/emotion/prose/whatever. This is basic shit.

the fact this essay doesn’t even explore the craft genius of Cleanness? it is really subversive to use sex like that in litfic, let alone gay sex...like I understand not liking something just based on your personal tastes but I’m like ?????????? so shocked that the whole craft thing and aesthetic project just doesn’t come up???????? At all?????? ALSO YOU WOULD THINK in an essay that tries to cash in on the outrage of ‘all gay art is suffering’ would explore why the wealthy, straight, white publishing industry and literary elite does invest in gay suffering and the homophobia/history behind it but no! this essay doesn’t even do that!

the fact this got published at all

anyway this essay is stupid and i am stupid for typing up basically an essay about it but like! where else can i do this! if you read all the way to the end pls read Garth Greenwell and Ocean Vuong thanks bye

[legacysam]

"#*erases a rant about fandom cas characterization bc god who has the energy*" me. i have the energy. give me the rant.

*cracks knuckles* okay let’s see if any of these particular intellectual muscles still work.

I am always pro-cas-being-canonically-dickish posts (even if they are misleading one way or another, more on that later) because dear GOD this fandom loves to infantalize the man. He’s a “baby in a trenchcoat.” He’s dumb about pop culture and clueless about human things isn’t it adorable? SHUT UP!!!! And pls especially shut up if you’re using his ignorance as a way of making another character look cool or smart by comparison. “it’s a shortened version of my name” was 100% Cas fucking with Dean because he is a dick sometimes! and it’s great! Also: Cas’s indifference to pop culture isn’t a weakness just because pop culture knowledge is a major currency on tumblr!!! It’s indicative of the fact that he’s got much bigger and more important things on his mind. (Also. listen. This trait was canonically erased by Metatron and it was literally the only good thing that fucking character ever did so can we please as a fandom just acknowledge that little slice of canon? pls?)

(Can I also just say.....fish out of water stories are only good when they are on the side of the fish and not just using the fish to make jokes. Just. as a note on the trope in general but specifically re: every time this shows up in fanfic with Cas or any other similar character. Thor comes to mind.)

Anyway Cas isn’t a child, he’s ANCIENT and TIRED and CONFLICTED about major moral issues, which is FASCINATING for an angel character and forces us as an audience to consider more deeply the actual differences between heaven and hell, good and evil, destiny and free will. Is this how we expect an angel to behave? What does this tell us about Heaven? If Cas is an aberration, what does that tell us about Heaven and goodness and God? So his expressions of anger and frustration and his impatience with or indifference to human courtesies are a really great part of his character and people should appreciate them more (and not just when it’s funny!)

(Sidenote bc I always think about this when I think about fandom and Cas, the reductive fandom approach to “””crazy!cas””” (what a fun way of saying “deeply affected by horrible trauma and guilt and trying to repress it so he can function.” thanks for that fandom) as comic relief or a woobified victim is. hm. bad. That’s all I’ll say about that one.)

{ANOTHER sidenote, this one for fan artists in particular but fan writers definitely aren’t free from sin: Cas isn’t pale or short and he isn’t a fuckin twink pls stop projecting weird m/f stereotypes onto your queer ships pls and thank}

ANYWAY about these screenshots specifically: Listen I love this post but the context of these scenes is SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING than Cas being a dick to Sam. They aren’t really about Sam at all, actually. “Don’t ask stupid questions” is such a painful fucking response to Sam asking if he’s okay, because he’s clearly not okay--he’s still struggling with the knowledge that God has given up and abandoned them--but he can’t be vulnerable about it. So he redirects to ask what Sam needs from him because that’s what he does, it’s what he is, he’s a tool. He’s a solution to problems (except his own). And his unwillingness to confront his pain (while also not being able to hide it) isn’t really about his relationship with Sam, it’s about his relationship with God and with himself and his own failures. The visibility of that struggle while he continues to try to help in this episode is just really fucking moving, okay?

Also there’s absolutely nothing hostile about “Sam, of course, is an abomination” in context. Like. Not a damn thing. There’s a task that needs to be performed by a “servant of heaven,” and Cas is explaining why none of the three of them qualify, and we know he feels shame about the fact that HE doesn’t qualify by how he reacts later, calling himself a poor example of an angel. He’s as much an abomination as Sam is in this moment.

Actually you know what? Literally everything in these screenshots that gets interpreted as “Cas hates Sam” is 100% actually Cas hating himself. He hates Sam’s voice while he’s stuck using a human voice himself to communicate, through technology he’s hostile to because it’s limiting compared to angelic communication. He rejects Sam’s compassion because he doesn’t want to talk about his own weakness. He calls Sam an abomination in the same breath that he acknowledges that he isn’t a servant of heaven anymore, and with much less anger than when he later calls himself a poor example of an angel. He sees himself in Sam but he hates himself too much to use that as a point of connection and pushes away from it instead. (I’m not going to go on a shipper detour here but sastiel shippers....you know)

So Cas is angry and complicated and self-hating and yeah, it’s funny, but if you don’t respect those feelings and their complexity, maybe don’t try to write Cas or write about him. Maybe if you only like Cas when he’s making you laugh you don’t actually like Cas.

And this isn’t to be like...”writing fluffy shippy fic with Cas being sweet is bad” or whatever. That fills a need for some people, I get it. I’ve written fic where he’s sweet! There’s a difference between someone lovingly wrapping a character in a blanket and going “nice things will happen for you now” versus using that character for a reductive joke.

There’s also a difference between people who are actually carefully writing fic and people who are, yknow, tagging posts or circulating meme-like gifsets with this kind of commentary. Which, bc I don’t read fic as often anymore, tends to be the most common way anything like analysis of Cas reaches me. I do NOT recommend this method of engaging with fandom because it’s really the worst, unfunniest, most simplistic takes that get repeated over and over again (I would pay money to never see anyone call Sam “moose” or “sammy” again dear lord), and it obscures the actually really good work some folks are doing when they write these characters.

tl;dr 1. Cas is not a child and he is not stupid. 2. Cas doesn’t hate Sam but he DOES project onto him and it’s fascinating. 3. fandom wants to be transformative but bc of meme culture and the way tumblr works it can be painfully reductive and it’s exhausting

ps nb I haven’t watched a single episode since they killed Charlie off and I don’t know much about what happened after that lol. so don’t come at me “well actuallying” bc honestly I don’t care and bc canon has been a dumpster fire for years and all extended analysis of it including my own is really nonsense just by virtue of the source material being nonsense.

pps the showrunners are ABSOLUTELY complicit in this but I can’t. I just cannot get into that. I am too tired.

[buns-with-a-book]

Spider Lily

For Day One of DMCWeek2020! The prompts filled for today was Weapon! Special thanks for @furyeclipse for the idea of the weapon in question.

Fandom: Devil May Cry Characters: Nico, Vergil/OC, Dante Tags: @nimnox @astral-space-dragon @queenmuzz @i-write-fanfics-to-procrastinate @harlot-of-oblivion

Summary: While Nico works on a new katana devil arm for Vergil, Cassandra and Vergil discuss the nature of devil arms and the long-shattered Astra.

It was a warm evening on the island of Fortuna. Outside, cicadas sang with the ocean waves beyond. Just a little ways away, the outskirts of Castle Town were quiet.

It was this evening that found Cassandra with Vergil in the Devil May Cry van. At her workbench, Nico was hard at work making her first proper Devil Arm. She remembered Nico practically vibrating with excitement from a trip to Japan with Lady and Trish, where they not only slew a rather violent and aggressive demon, but earned a slew of demon parts and materials for Nico’s projects. One such project was a katana, for Vergil. Behind Nico was the katana’s scabbard, a blood red sageo laying atop it. Sitting across from Nico’s workbench was a potted red spider lily, the inspiration for the devil arm in the making.  

“Man, binding the demon into the metal was the biggest challenge in the first place.” Nico hummed. “Stubborn varmint.” The metal seemed to heat up angrily at that. “Oh can it, asshole!”

“I must admit, I never expected to find Nicolett- ahem, Nico’s work so...amusing.” Vergil hummed.

“It’s a hoot.” Cassandra grinned, her hands full of ice cream. “Here you go.” She handed him a cup of pistachio gelato. Vergil smiled as he took the cup and began to eat.

“Thank you, my dear.” Cassandra sat down next to him, beginning to eat her cup of cherry gelato. She looked to Nico. “Where’s Dante?”

“Probably pissing off Nero.” Cassandra said with a shrug. “He just does that, ever since they met.” Vergil let out a hum. Cassandra looked to the weaponsmith, noticing a sparkling black obsidian earring on the weaponsmith. She let out a hum. “Didn’t know Nico was into jewelry.”

“It’s more than just jewelry.” Vergil said. “I recognize it as an enchanted earring, to protect the wearer from demonic influence. Creating devil arms is a very dangerous task, she will need all the protection she can get.”

“Do you know that?” Cassandra asked. Vergil shook his head.

“No. I do not know about the creation of devil arms. But devil arms are dangerous in their own right so it stands to reason that their creation is even more dangerous. The weaponsmith must tame the devil’s soul into the metal.” Vergil explained. “Sometimes, a more powerful arm is split in some matter.” He looked to the Yamato, sitting quietly next to him. “My father split his original sword into three: the Sparda, Rebellion, and Yamato.”

“And, if what Dante told me is correct, he reunited Rebellion into the Sparda with his own blood, creating Devil Sword Dante.” Cassandra mused.

“Uncreative name aside-”

“He’s only creative when he’s fighting demons.” Cassandra pointed out. Vergil snorted.

“As I was saying, Dante technically created a new devil arm, using Rebellion and the Sparda as a sort of base. But I am only speaking in hypotheticals.” Vergil shrugged. “Devil Arms are...unique. And Dante’s is no exception.”

“And difficult to pin down in terms of crafting, aside from the fact that a demon’s soul is it’s core.” Cassandra finished. She looked to the scar on her left hand. “You wouldn’t happen to remember Astra, would you?”

“I believe you polished the blade as a subtle threat to me when I was V.” He replied. Cassandra cringed.

“Yeah...sorry about that.” Vergil chuckled. “But you remember the blade. I don’t think it was a Devil Arm.”

“No, I doubt it ever was one. I would call Astra a spirit weapon. Spirit weapons are exceedingly rare, tied to bloodlines.” Cassandra slowly nodded. All of that sounded correct. “They all fade at some point in time, but Astra’s shattering was what surprised me.” She felt his hand rub at her scar. “Astra appeared to have a few more generations before it would fade.”

“What can I say? Life throws curveballs.”

“Curveballs in the form of angry houseplants!” Nico yelled. Vergil glanced up to her, still hard at work at the katana, before awkwardly taking another spoonful of ice cream. Cassandra chuckled.

“Well, that curveball gave me a sassy sweary bird, a snuggly panther, a baby, and Cordelia, so I like to think I ended up smelling like roses by the end of it all.” She leaned onto Vergil. “And I got one very handsome half-devil as well.”

“Ugh, lovebirds. Get a room!” Nico gagged. Cassandra gave Nico a look. “And don’t think about using the van’s shower! That’s not a room!”

“I dunno, it technically would count as a room-”

“That’s a one way ticket outta my van!” Nico snapped.

“Nicoletta, the katana. You have to be focused on making the devil arm or the demon will escape from the metal.” Vergil cut through the conversation, his tone serious. Nico nodded and went back to work on the katana. Cassandra looked back to her gelato and continued to eat. A quiet fell in the van, aside from the sounds of Nico working hard.

“...Cassandra.” Vergil murmured. She looked up. “If you could keep Astra, would you?”

“...no. For one thing, I wouldn’t have Cordelia. I would never have to face the memories I forgot, either from trauma or a conscious attempt to forget. And I would probably have to slay your nightmares, something I...would have a hard time doing. I’m too fond of them.” She mused. Vergil nodded. “I wonder, if Dante had found them before me, would he have struggled with slaying them as well?” Cassandra fell quiet, a train of thought that Vergil didn’t want to go down either.  

“Aaaaand done!” Nico chirped, sliding the newly-forged katana into its scabbard. Vergil put down the empty cup of ice cream and set it on the small table across from them. He placed the Yamato in Cassandra’s arms, earning a soft ‘oh!’ from her. Nico snickered at the sight, a snicker that faded when Vergil walked over to Nico. “Ahem!” She held up the newly forged katana. “Behind, my genius!”

“Does it have a name?” Vergil asked, glancing at the red spider lily across from the workbench. Nico grinned wide at that.

“I call it Spider Lily. But uh, brawling stuff? Don’t know about that. But I do know that the demon inside will try and make you go nutso if you stare at the reflection for too long.” Nico explained. Vergil slid the katana out of it’s scabbard, silver eyes staring deep into the blade’s shining surface. A tense quiet fell before he looked up, sliding the katana back into the scabbard.

“Child’s play.”

“Hey! My work is not child pl-”

“I was not referring to your craftsmanship. The demon bowed easily.” He said. “Your craftsmanship is impeccable.”

“...aww shucks.” Nico laughed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Cass, why is your man a charmer?”

“Because he genuinely likes your thirst for weaponsmith knowledge? You’re not as annoying as Dante?” Cassandra threw out with a shrug. “Speaking of Dante-” She looked out the window. “Ah, he’s coming back with a strawberry sundae. Probably bugged Nero into paying for it-” Vergil suddenly stepped out of the van. Cassandra watched as he walked over to Dante, pulling out the newly forged katana. Nico followed him, poking her head out of the opened door.

“Hey Verg, did you get yourself a new toy?” Dante asked, taking a bite of strawberry sundae. Vergil suddenly impaled his twin in the gut with the katana, earning a yelp of pain. “VERG!” Vergil pulled the katana out and inspected it.

“Hm.” He flicked the blood off the katana and slid it back into its scabbard. “I will need to hone it’s edge on other demons.”

“THEN WHY STAB ME!?” Dante yelled. “I nearly spilled my sundae!”

“If a blade cannot go through you cleanly, then is it a blade?”

“I’m just gonna eat my sundae-” He looked over to Cassandra, noticing the Yamato that was in her hands. “Huh, that’s where you put the Yamato.”

“Whatever are you talking about Dante?” Vergil asked, raising an eyebrow. Dante pointed his plastic spoon to Cassandra. Vergil’s eyes followed his spoon to her, then back to Dante, before a blush crept onto his face. He promptly pulled the katana back out and stabbed Dante again. Blooming from the wound was a scarlet dripping spider lily. Dante looked down, a noise of confusion passing his lips before it appeared to explode. Dante was thrown back a little from the blast, stumbling to the ground. Although his strawberry sundae thankfully didn’t spill, he was surrounded by scarlet spider lilies. Vergil sheathed the katana and returned to the van, ignoring Nico’s snickering.

“...well, I still got my sundae.” Dante huffed.

[mavspeed]

First Line Meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

Hey @applesfallingfromblondehair, thanks for the tag love!! likewise i dont usually do this but this feels interesting so lets see if my ass has improved over the last few stories lmfkjgjk

also this will prob be a mix of xmcu fic + kingsman fic bc i think i have a more or less equal number of fics written for both

1.

The first time Charles meets Lucifer Morningstar, actual devil from hell, ruler of the underworld, fallen son of the lord above and god knows what else, it had been after Erik had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the highest security cell in the Pentagon. 

- this is from a professor and a devil walk into a bar, which is kinda a crossover rarepair fic that rose out of me and mutuals on twitter discussing tom ellis and james mcavoy being roommates and kinda... devolved from there. i am proud of this one lmfnjgkj

2.

“Are you okay, Professor?” Hank asks quietly.

Charles blinks. He supposes it’s a valid question. He’s been in a bit of a funk the past few days- scratch that actually, the past few years. He’s just lost so much- his father, and then his mother’s love, and then Raven and Erik and Sean and countless others. Building a school, gaining students he loved to teach and nurture hadn’t helped him in the slightest, and he’s as lost as he ever was, wandering the halls of a drafty mansion alone, feeling like he’s been stranded at sea even whilst surrounded by people.

- from in the belly of the beast, which again came out of me wondering what would have happened if fox had gone w their original plan and charles had been that last horseman instead of erik. this story will prob gain a sequel... sometime in the near future when im not too bogged down by current wips

3. 

The Xavier family hall of the deceased- because of course they’re weird enough to have a cemetery- is full of rows upon rows of holograms. Charles is four and gets bored of his father crying over his mother’s hologram, so he toddles over to the other rows. Unfamiliar names, all of them- Charles is young, and he doesn’t understand death. He doesn’t even know who his mother is, who’d died at childbirth and left him with a father still at a loss when it came to bringing up a kid.

- from tequila on a spaceship, the sequel to a fic that still has some people angry at me i think. this fic never did gain as much traction as the first one but im still proud of it esp since it discusses certain themes of reincarnation that ive always wanted to see explored for myself in reincarnation aus (and i only ever saw it in danveresque’s reincarnation au)

4.

There are cork boards covering every inch of the wall. Red strings, photographs, conspiracy threads, everything. Raven takes it in, swallowing, noticing the picture in the middle.

It’s one of Charles, when he’d been in university. His final year- he'd just been done presenting his year- end project, his fringe a tumbled mess and a bright smile on his lips. Erik had taken the picture, Charles scurrying to his side once he’d been done and demanding to look at the image, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. He looks like how Raven had always imagined him to be.

“He wouldn’t want this,” she finally says, turning to look at Erik.

- from tequila on a beach, the first fic to the fic above. this fic is v special to me because i actually wrote this on a spiral after having a very tough visit with one of my parents in the hospital after a surgery for organ removal to prevent the onset of cancer. its simpler than my other fics yet i think more powerful because of what happens. also i think the first time i killed charles off lol (spoiler alert). also idk if ppl were aware of this but this is called tequila on a beach precisely bc charles and erik were tipsy from tequila at a frat party and then went to a beach. its the way they first met (and will continue to meet for all their next lives)

5. 

Erik doesn’t know how it all started. Maybe it was when his insane sergeant had started rambling about imaginary cities, treasures of gold and cursed incantations. Maybe it was when trickles of rumours had started pouring down about the higher ups wanting to investigate unfound territory, disregard the Egyptian government’s feelings on the matter, and put a previously unfound myth on the map for all the world to see. Or maybe, Erik thinks, it was when archaeologist Klaus Schmidt put a bullet through his mother’s head and he ended up going to America armed with dual citizenship and the sole intent of wanting to drive a coin directly between Schmidt’s eyes, joining a division of the American military focused solely on guarding archaeological digs- more importantly, in Egypt, where Schmidt’s interest had shifted.

- from courting the end of the world, another one i’m just insanely proud of! this is the first time i’ve ever attempted a multichapter movie au and it actually managed to work pretty well, i at least haven’t run out of inspiration for it yet lmfjgjg. also erik as himbo rick connell... very rent free in my head

6. 

The day after they murder Shaw and leave his house of horrors, Erik crosses the Canadian border with Charles across his back. Charles had started getting tired while they’d been walking, stumbling and nearly tripping until Erik had forced him to get on his back, ignoring Charles’ protests.

The blood’s seeping out steadily from Charles’ nose, staining his shirt and soaking it through. It’s been leaking on and off, and the effects are already obvious in the dark circles beneath Charles’ eyes. Any more, and Erik knows they’ll have to find him a doctor. He hopes the nearest town in Canada has one that would be willing to treat them.

- from a world built for two. i actually dk where the inspiration for this came from, i think i was once again on a depressive spiral and wanted to break my comfort characters into pieces and put them together again. this also deals with codependency and unhealthy coping mechanisms as a result of trauma which i showed as sweet in the fic but i would def not recommend in real life. pls if u relate to either charles or erik in this go see a therapist

7. 

The call comes in the afternoon, an hour before Charles is supposed to teach his Intro to Genetics class. Frowning, Charles abandons the game of Candy Crush he’d admittedly been playing rather badly and picks it up. “Charles sp-”

“We need you, Prof,” Kitty says desperately into the phone. “He’s been in a temper all morning, and then Alex’s reports missed out a whole subsection, so he’s fired the entire marketing team! Please, Professor, you have to come immediately!”

- from and we can be pirates. i wrote this in like 4 seconds for my friend who wanted professor charles and ceo erik and actually did not expect this to gain the attention it did... its always the fics u write in like 4 seconds lmfjggj. a sequel for this Is coming too probably at some point in the very far future

8. 

Charles Xavier can admit as he sits across from Essex, hands cuffed to the desk, that in hindsight, this had perhaps not been one of his better ideas.

He refuses to admit it as he controls Erik’s mind, preventing him from lashing out and making him close his eyes to the nightmare unfolding in front of him. He refuses to admit it as he gets shoved into the back of a black pickup truck, and the butt of a gun is smashed across his forehead hard enough to knock him out cold for a few hours. He refuses to admit it when he wakes up what appears to be hours later in a cold interrogation room, hands cuffed to the table in front of him, with a suppression collar rendering his mind dark and almost achingly silent.

- from from the land of gods (bring me home). i’ve been struggling w this fic a lot (it didnt come as easily to me as the first one did) but its getting there. also i put charles through hell in this rip sorry mister xavier

9.

In the aftermath, both of them stand at the border of the mansion. The air feels frigid, slicing into Raven’s lungs like a thousand paper cuts. “Charles, please,” she begs, heart in her throat and voice hoarse. “He wouldn’t want you to be like this. He wouldn’t want you to do this. It’s not too late, you can come back.”

Charles gazes back, a brick wall. He hasn’t even cleaned up, still in that damnable yellow and blue suit with blood drying in the corners of his mouth, the bridge of his nose. There’s nothing in his eyes- blank, almost see through. He looks as if he’s a mere shade, a ghost lounging about where he once was. Raven knows better.

“I will raze the world to the ground,” he finally says, his voice free of any inflection, “and when I’m done, no one will be left standing. Not you, and certainly not me.”

- from where all the poets went to die, a dark fic based on what would have happened if moira had killed erik with the bullets. its the first time ive written dark charles and it was v fun if im being honest

10. 

Charles is a light sleeper. It’s a trait that stays with him- all the way from his father and the tests to taking care of his mother to Cain Marko and his fists to Cuba and then now, the dust of Washington settling over him and making the waking world lie an inch beyond his eyelids. It therefore stands to reason that the second the windowsill creaks he’s up in a shot, hoisting himself up and lashing out with his telepathy instantly.

That’s not a trait that had stayed with him. That’s a newly formed trait, bitter and bold, carved into existence by Cuba by his students disappearing one by one in Vietnam by the letters that announce Sean’s death in black unfriendly print by-

The tendrils of his telepathy forged cold and distant meet a barrier and recoil, stunned. He focuses his eyes and then widens them, staring at Erik who stares back, hidden beneath that infernal muddied magenta helmet of his. They stare at each other for a moment before Erik clears his throat.

- from in the valley of kings (you will come home). my first ever cherik fic! im actually also proud of this one even if i ended it horribly and half my mutuals refuse to read it bc of how it ended LMFJGJGJ. i cant believe this was supposed to be a funny and cute kid fic and then i turned it into an angst ridden mess. also leo is actually an oc whose adult version is fancasted as charlie rowe by me and another mutual on twitter and im v proud that readers are willing to die for the baby

11. 

Mike has to google it, finding a crafts shop nestled into the corner of the street right smack in the middle of Louisiana, past a long and winding dirt road and the crumbling farmhouses relics of a time long past. The air is hot, humid, sticking to the back of his neck like an unwieldy parasite as he pushes the door of the shop open to the sound of the bell tinkling above.

He finds the origami paper quickly enough and has a momentary breakdown about what Bill’s favourite colour even is- he had never thought to ask him. Twenty seven years of following every single footstep of his like a dedicated, most definitely creepy stalker, three months of more than a few states traversed with Bill’s laughter now echoing in his ears like a shadow that trails after him, and this is what stumps him. It takes ten minutes, but he finally settles on light green.

- my first and last entry into the IT fandom bc i love these two but to be very fair there isn’t much content out there for him (and twitter content actually intimidates me lmfjgjjg) a thousand paper cranes never got much traction either but i suspect its bc i was horrible at promoting it. also i very much love this fic even if it never did that well bc ive always wanted to write a fic like this after watching the movie in cinemas in 2019

12.

ok nsfw i guess 

Mornings start like this- Eggsy snuffling into David’s neck, attempting to work his way back up to wakefulness as David sleeps the sleep of the dead, the streams of morning sunlight gradually lightening up the room. It’s a while before he gets the energy to sit up, pushing an eager V off the bed- V for Vendetta, a kitten named after one of David’s favourite movies that they’d adopted about a month after moving in together- before stumbling to the loo. He’s already in the shower when David comes in, naked as the day he’s born with his arms entwining themselves around Eggsy’s waist as he murmurs a sleep-soft, “Good morning, love,” as he presses a kiss into the two-days-old hickey on Eggsy’s shoulder. His breath smells of toothpaste, the minty fresh kind he insists on buying from Target no matter how much Eggsy insists that the other brand is much better. Without fail, Eggsy always has a split second thought of thinking that he must truly be in heaven because no way can this be his reality, every single day, before sinking to his knees and allowing David’s cock to hit the back of his throat.

- from that’s the kind of love i’ve been dreaming of. i genuinely wish i had an opinion for this but i don’t remember writing this its been way too long

13. 

The first time Eggsy sees her is in Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square is uncomfortably packed on any normal day, but on New Year’s it is quite the hothouse. Sweating armpits and hot bodies plastered against each other, the twinkling lights overhead providing a flash of blue and green and yellow and red, screaming children and giggling teenagers shoving their way through- it’s a recipe for disaster. Eggsy doesn’t know how he ends up there. It happens sometimes- one second he blinks, sequestered in the comfort of his living room, and the next he’s somewhere else, as if he’s been teleported. “Life goes past you,” Tilde had said once, “and you don’t even notice.” Tilde would be right.

- this is a roxy and eggsy friendship centric fic that i abandoned bc i lost my ardor for this world about the same time i got into xmen lmfjgjg. all the king’s horses also had some great fancasts in it with dev patel fancasted too... rip ig

14. 

once again, nsfw

Eggsy, truth be told, doesn’t actually like having sex in bathrooms. First of all, bathrooms generally have an unsanitary air about them. Besides that, the granite of the sinks always feel cold against his hips, there is the ever present fear of being walked in on and unlike what people might say, he actually really isn’t that much of an exhibitionist- and truth be told, he’s never liked the look of himself in the mirror mid coitus.

For David Budd, however, he suspects he might be up for anything.

- from do you ever dream of me. im actually proud of this fic and this series, i never usually write straight up porn or friends w benefits and i think it worked well in here. once again didnt get much traction but that was very of the norm for my kingsman fics lmfjgj

15.

It is on his fifth meeting with the therapist on site that she brings the issue up. The elephant in the room- or the bomb , David thinks morbidly. If asked, he can’t remember specifics about that day now. All he remembers is this- the burn of Julia’s picture in his wallet against his thigh, the Botticelli painting on the far wall and Miss Paulson’s face, severe and unsmiling.

“When you couldn’t reach Julia,” she says, after he finishes describing the feeling of running to Julia, the panic searing his chest as he’d prayed for his legs to work faster so he could do something, anything to reach her hand. “How did that make you feel?”

- from your haunted social scene. i genuinely... do not remember anything about this either helpfkjgjg,,, this has 55 comments tho which. Nice

16.

David brings her home on- in a move far too cliche for it to be reality- a stormy night. It’s in fact storming so hard the windowpanes shudder like leaves in the wind, droplets crashing against the glass in a cacophony so loud Eggsy more than once considers turning the radio all the way up to drown it out. He’d gone scrounging for David’s sweatshirts instead of his own halfway through, wincing intermittently at the flashes of thunder. At a particularly loud one JB had jumped up, squeaked in a very undoglike manner and skidded across the floor to cower beneath the sofa, only coming out when coaxed by Eggsy to do so. Officer Oatmeal had watched the proceedings from her regal place by the armchair, dozy eyed and blinking heavily.

- from a cat named lavender. from what i remember this was also my first try at bringing up trans eggsy

17.

He first appears at the black prince on a cold Monday evening, eyes like Frank Sinatra and lips arresting anyone’s gaze if they weren’t careful enough. He stood out too, clad in a respectable bomber jacket and boots that clicked against the tile rhythmically and loudly, a sort of organised, measured cacophony.

“Go and serve him,” Andrew said, fat and disinterested, seated behind the counter and idly flicking through bills, less than ten percent of which he pays Eggsy. “I’m busy.”

- from trust is left in lovers after all. i never continued this which is sad bc this did get a lot of attention... it was just v hard to keep the story going

18.

It usually rains cats and dogs in London but for some reason, the rain is heavier than usual today. The droplets splatter against the windows in a constant buzzing rhythm, the sound meshing together in a melody not altogether pleasant to the ears. It’s half past five and yet the light has to be kept on because that’s how dark the sky has gotten- thunder rolls like a loud crack, abrupt and deafening, causing Daisy to jump in her seat.

“Just a thunderstorm, flower,” Eggsy says. They’re seated at the dinner table, Eggsy going over her homework while David sits opposite them, hunched over his laptop as he attempts to finish a post mission report. Eggsy is half convinced he gave up ten minutes ago- he’s got his earbuds in and he hasn’t really typed anything in a while, eyes focused on the screen. His eyebrows are scrunched up in a glare that’s too adorable for his own good- and for Eggsy’s.

- from could feel like kryptonite. a lot of my kingsman fics are actually so much happier than my cherik ones... i should prob look into that rip

19.

“When you’re done lazing around you can come in, you dozy dog,” he tells Officer Oatmeal, who butts her nose into his knee. She’s the only one not on a diet in the house, Eggsy deeming her far too healthy and skinny to need one anyway. In fact, she’s under strict instructions by Eggsy to fatten up instead.

Once the animals are done feeding- Eggsy sporting a suspicious scratch on his left forearm- they settle down to eat their scrambled eggs and toast. David’s taken a large gulp of his scalding coffee when Eggsy says, all of a sudden, “So, I have a school reunion.”

- from gonna set this dance alight. don’t remember much about this either tbh

20. (the last one FINALLY)

It isn’t a big event or explosion that makes David realise he wants to see his father’s ring sitting pretty on Eggsy’s index finger. No teary confessions in the rain like in the rom coms Eggsy loves to rent out and sniffle his way through, or a fight that makes David see sense. In the end, it’s breakfast that cinches the deal for him.

The day had started out normally enough. David wakes up at eight like clockwork, the soft downy hair at the base of Eggsy’s neck tickling his nose with his arm locked tight around his waist. He’d yawned, exhausted- mostly because they’d stayed up very late into the night making good use of the bed- before standing up and shucking his shirt off to head for the shower. Eggsy had shifted in his sleep, mumbling something unintelligible, and the sight had been too endearing to resist so he’d bent down, pressing a kiss to his forehead and smiling when Eggsy groaned out loud.

- from lover boy rules. i actually started a lot of my kingsman fics in the same way which is rather awful of me. im glad thats changed with my xmen fics lmfjgjk. also this has 15 comments???? i dont even get that much attention with my xmcu fics these days... which is arguably a more active fandom... Hello

anyway that’s the end of it needless to say i do not know 10 other authors so im just gonna tag whoever i know rn: @hellfre , @queerneto, @ikeracity, @drinkingstars, @zebraljb

[withthekeyisking-writer]

What’s a Batman story you wish someone else would write for you instead of writing yourself??

Gotta tell you, I got super excited when I got this ask, because there are so many things!! That I would love to see happen!! That I’ll never get around to writing!! So uh, strap in because this is gonna be a big ol’ list :) I’m gonna organize these so that it starts with gen ideas and then switches to darker ones (otherwise, really in no particular order). Also, because it’s me, many of these are Dick-centric.

1. First up is a Batfam Hogwarts AU, but with the specifications that Dick is a Slytherin, Jason is a Ravenclaw, Tim is a Slytherin, and Damian is a Hufflepuff. Skalidra actually made an amazing post about this that I agree with so fucking much, and I want a fic that does this justice.

2. Batbros are actually blood bros. I know there are a couple of these already out there, but not the way I picture it in my head, so here you go: Bruce knows about Dick while the kid is growing up, visits the circus any time it’s in town, takes Dick out for ice cream & shit like that, but Dick thinks this is just some family friend his parents like him hanging out with. It’s not until Mary and John fall that Dick learns the truth about his parents. For Tim – Janet never really wanted a kid, so when she and Bruce sleep together (up to you to figure out why) and got pregnant, she was like “okay brucie as soon as this pops out you can keep it” which, once Tim was born, Bruce did. Jason can go so many ways, so up to you!

3. Transgender Dick!! Yes, these are already out there. Yes, I want so many more! Give me the struggle of coming to the realization while amongst Gotham’s high society. Give me extra supportive Bruce or a Bruce that just can’t wrap his head around the concept and absolutely fails to be in any way a good parent of a trans kid. Or take the extra step and give me a non-binary Dick!!! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one of those, and as an enby individual, I really would love to.

4. Jason as a teacher. Do whatever the fuck you want with that, but I want to see Jason teaching literature. Still in the superhero world, no alternate world where Batman isn’t a thing. I want a Jason who’s been Robin and died and come back and been Red Hood and is a teacher.

5. I had a dream about Dick being a clone, and then an idea popped up behind it: In the Young Justice cartoon world, the Light makes another clone of Superman. But this time, the human DNA they used to stabilize the Kryptonian part isn’t Lex Luthor’s DNA, but Batman’s! That Superman-Batman clone is Dick. While Conner gets rescued by the YJ team, Dick (or whatever title CADMUS gave him, like how Conner was just called “The Superboy”) isn’t found, and is trained to fight against the team of young heroes as the Light’s weapon. Dick gets captured eventually and Bruce&Clark find out about their clone baby. Throw in some Superbat if you feel like it, or just Two Bros And A Baby. Either way, I would kill for this.

6. Ok you know how at one point or another Damian, Jason, and Cass were all members of the League of Assassins? Well, what if there was overlap? I want the three of them working for the League and knowing each other. I don’t know if this even works out at all but I just think this would be kinda cool, especially if it includes Bruce finding out about Damian or about Jason being alive and gaining a daughter along the way.

7. While we’re on the subject of League of Assassins, all four of the boys work for the League!! Do with this what you will, I merely present the concept to you.

8. Secret Agents. Just…just give me them as spies. Pls.

9. Dead Robins Club that ACTUALLY INCLUDES DICK BECAUSE Y’KNOW HE DIED. It’s a pet peeve of mine, when people write these kind of fics and include Tim and Steph (neither of which actually died) but not Dick, even though he did die for at least a couple minutes. Please stop ignoring Dick’s trauma guys, I beg of you. There’s one amazing fic between Jason, Damian, and Dick, and I want so many more of stuff like that.

10. Greeks/Roman Gods AU where Dick is the God of Death and king of the Underworld instead of the springtime god. There’s a really great jaydick fic out there that has this, but it’s abandoned, and I rally really want more of a Dick like this.

11. AU in which Bruce is the youngest member of the Justice League, and is still the badass leader he is in canon. No one in the League knows the truth, but it’s not like Bruce ever said I’m in my 20s or older, he just. Never mentioned he just graduated high school and is working on his accelerated bachelor’s degree.

12. A fic that addresses the fact that Dick has, in canon, been buried alive. I might one day write this, but I have a lot of projects that I do know I’m going to write, so this is wayyyyyyyyyyyy down the line, long enough that I’d be very happy to see someone write it instead. Bonus points if it’s a fic about Dick and Jason, and the fact that Dick killed Joker also comes up.

13. Tamaranean!Dick. And I actually have a whole word/plot for something like this that I’m never gonna write so if you wanna do this hmu I have THOUGHTS

Ok boys and girls and enbys we’re about to hit the dark shit so turn back if you don’t want to have to read it. You’ve been warned.

14. Ancient Rome AU in which Bruce is a senator and owns his robins as slaves (gladiator-wise and otherwise) who try to earn their freedom but Bruce likes using them too much (both for himself and in gaining control over others, like sending one of them to seduce somebody to gain leverage or steal something or what have you) and so he keeps changing what will gain them their freedom.

15. Auction fic where Dick is drugged and kidnapped and auctioned off to a bunch of villains. Yes, fics like this exist. Yes, I would like Many More.

16. Brusladick where Bruce has some Bad Thoughts about Dick but can’t bring himself to act on them, but he wouldn’t mind letting someone else do it, and who better than Slade Wilson, who absolutely wants to fuck Dick. So Bruce sets up a camera in the room and gets off to all the hard shit being done to Dick, but Slade breaks their agreement a little and tells Dick that Bruce is watching.

17. In an ABO universe, Dick is an omega. The world is pretty modern overall, of course there will always be some level of sexism but it’s not a large issue. But there’s this far-right terroristic-type group that thinks omegas are just good for ding as they’re told and being bred and have made it their mission to “fix” omegas who think they deserve equal rights, and they get ahold of Dick, sending a video to Bruce saying they’re return Dick when he’s better. For some reason Bruce and Co can’t find Dick for a long time, and by the time they do Dick’s severely traumatized and been conditioned into obedience and submission towards alphas.

18. In the Young Justice cartoon world, while Kaldur is undercover in season 2, an interaction with Deathstroke reveals something horrible about Nightwing’s past, and Kaldur has to act like hearing these graphic, awful things about his friend. After it’s all over, he goes to Dick and mentions Deathstroke saying something and Dick kind of shuts down and says like “How many people heard what he said?” There is a twitter thread between me and a friend on this very subject if you need inspiration ;)

19. Something based on this amazing art

20. Bruce is hella abusive. Dick lets himself be Bruce’s outlet so he won’t hurt the others. This, of course, comes to light. Yes, shit like this exists. But I pose you a question – is there ever too many? And has it been done by you yet?

21. Brainwashing. Just, give me brainwashing. Turned against your family, used and mocked by your enemy, kneeling “willingly” at your enemy’s feet. Bonus points for all kinds of abuse.

Well, that’s my list!! Go off and do great things for me! Thanks for the ask!!

[presidentrhodes]

Spider-Man Far From Home spoilers

I just finished watching it and, honestly, I’d say it was a pretty good way to bid farewell to the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Spoilers under the cut. This is pretty long and rambly. 

1. Midtown high is supposed to be a school for geniuses but these little shits use comic sans in tribute videos and steal watermarked Getty Images pictures to put in them. I loved it, particularly with the song choice and the fact that Vision’s picture was from the Civil War airport standoff in Leipzig — that means only Peter could’ve provided it and no one bothered to ask how he got it. 

2. Tom Holland really wasn’t kidding when he said the film was a love letter to RDJ/Tony Stark. He was everywhere, his sacrifice was being recognised around the world: they even had a documentary on him, which was available in the in-flight entertainment, plus, there were murals and photographs in Venice and Prague. He was very much present throughout the film. 

3. EDITH. In a nutshell, it’s an augmented reality-enabled AI that controls a tactical and defensive system Tony built to protect Earth in the aftermath of his demise. Think Ultron’s perfect self minus the winning personality — EDITH controls a bunch of massive Stark Industries satellites in orbit that are equipped with thousands of weaponised drones. It can remotely target individual threats and take them out with simple voice commands. It also is able to connect to any network in the vicinity, so, Peter was able to see what his classmates were doing on their devices. 

I’ve already seen so many angry posts comparing EDITH to Project Insight without taking into account a) intent; and b) the reality of the MCU. Tony didn’t build EDITH for the same reason Zola built Project Insight. The former was meant to be a last or first line of defence, controlled by an Avenger Tony personally trusted. The latter was a means to subjugate the world population to Hydra’s will. 

All tech in the MCU is dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands — that’s why they’re called the wrong hands and why Steve once said the safest hands are their own. The supersoldier serum gave us Steve Rogers; it also gave us the Winter Soldiers, a bunch of dangerous, invincible highly-trained assassins. Pym particles gave us Ant-Man and the Wasp as well as time travel; it also gave us Yellowjacket, who immediately wanted to weaponise the tech. The Iron Man suit gave us Iron Man; but also gave us Iron Monger, who wanted to build an army of metal soldiers. Wakanda’s highly-advanced weapon systems were able to withstand a full-scale invasion from the Outriders, but those same weapons almost started a global war in Killmonger’s hands. Project Insight and Ultron showed us the bad side of AI; JARVIS, Vision, FRIDAY, Karen and EDITH, to an extent, showed us the good side of AI.

The point is, technology in the wrong hands will always be a bad thing yet people only seem to gripe about Stark tech while ignoring every other piece of advanced technology we’ve seen weaponized or misused. I wonder why. Since the MCU canonically isn’t made up of one big Luddite colony, there’ll always be new technology being developed and bad guys finding ways to abuse them. 

Just look at the holographic tech Mysterio designed while at Stark Industries. Even before he was fired, his ambitions were grander and afterwards, he weaponized it and willingly sent people to their dooms so that he could play a hero. When 16-year-old Peter Parker, MJ and Ned — literal children — found out the truth and Mysterio risked being exposed as a fraud, he actively tried to kill them. Mysterio beat the shit out of Peter and threw him in front of an incoming high-speed train, so, no, I don’t care if Tony Stark was mean to him by firing him, he was a piece of shit who tried repeatedly to kill a kid. 

Tony, meanwhile, spent $600+ million on the holographic tech to design B.A.R.F — a technology with some really promising applications in the MedTech sector to help people overcome their PTSD and trauma. That’s the fucking difference between a superhero and a supervillain.

Sure, EDITH also has massive privacy concerns. That’s on Tony, but after the Decimation, I think people have bigger problems to worry about than whether Peter Parker is snooping on their text messages. Ultimately, EDITH offers Peter, and whoever else is going to fill up the Avengers roster in the future, a plan B to strike the bad guys from a safe distance. I

4. Tony left Peter in charge of EDITH. Not the Avengers, not SHIELD, and definitely not the US Department of Defense — a fact that actually pissed off Mysterio. Tony left it in Peter’s hands because he knew Spider-Man took the meaning of responsibility far more seriously than he ever did. All those years ago, Peter told him if one could do the things he could, and they didn’t, and then the bad things happened, they happened because of them. And, honestly, if anyone deserves to have control over such a potentially dangerous piece of tech that can help in future battles, then it’s Peter — even more so than Tony. 

5. Again, Peter is 16 in this film and still coping with loss and trauma. He willingly gave controls of EDITH to Quentin because Mysterio had everyone fooled, including Nick Fury/Talos — they’re both highly experienced soldiers. Fooling them wouldn’t have been easy and Mysterio’s plan was extremely well thought-out and perfectly executed. Peter redeem himself in the end and takes back control of EDITH. 

6. Peter and MJ were super adorable. Spider-Man is the only franchise apart from Iron Man, where the secondary lead characters are allowed to grow without it all being about the main hero. MJ is allowed to explore her feelings for Peter and measure them against Brad’s affection. Ned is allowed to also grow in his character and be more than Spider-Man’s best friend/guy in a chair. 

7. Happy and May were also adorable.

8. Happy ruined a perfectly good bed of tulips just to rescue May’s nephew and give him the TLC/pep talk he needed after, again, Beck pushed Peter in front of a high-speed train that would’ve killed an ordinary person. 

9. Peter confusing ACDC with Led Zeppelin is the most Gen Z thing ever. Happy watched Peter design his own suit and it reminded him of the times he spent watching Tony tinker in his lab. You could feel Tony’s absence pretty viscerally in that scene on the jet. 

10. Peter tingle. Lol. 

11. Happy’s words about Tony were beautiful. He said something along the lines of, “Tony was my best friend. He second-guessed everything he did. He was a mess. But the one thing he didn’t second-guess was picking you.” That really furthered the Iron Dad Spider Son narrative.

12. Iron Zombie was the w o r s t thing ever. Again, Beck emotionally manipulated 16-year-old Peter Parker and said if Peter was any good, his mentor would still be alive just as he projected an illusion of a decaying Iron Man corpse attacking him. To give you a sense of how manipulative he really is, he told his guy in the chair that Peter’s blood will be on his hands because he had failed to report a missing drone part that MJ had discovered in Prague. 

13. Peter finally understanding that he doesn’t have to be the next Tony Stark or Iron Man. He just needs to be the next Spider-Man and Peter Parker. 

14. Peter choosing to safeguard EDITH. 

15. J. Jonah Jameson and J.K. Simmons. That is all. He’s the MCU equivalent of Alex Jones and I love him so much. I wonder if this means we’ll see Doctor Strange offer Peter his help to erase everyone’s memories about the reveal of his secret identity. 

16. Every Nick Fury scene automatically becomes 2000x funnier when you realize it’s Talos posing as Fury and 90% of the time, he has no idea what the fuck is going on and he’s just winging it as he goes along. Also, he was furious that he and his wife, as members of a shapeshifting species, were unable to detect Mysterio’s ruse. 

17. Mysterio was a douchebag. Apart from trying to kill actual kids because he feared they might expose him, he did nothing worthy of a hero. He was jealous and angry about Tony, and he wanted to usurp Iron Man without doing any of the hard work. He willingly put people in danger, was prepared to sacrifice people to make his actions seem more realistic and wanted to take credit for saving the day and preventing an Avengers-level catastrophe. I’ve already seen reviewers trying to sympathise with Mysterio, and his persistent attempts to kill a 16-year-old kid because Tony was apparently mean to him. 

18. And, no, Tony did not steal B.A.R.F tech from Mysterio as some review sites are claiming. The narrative is unreliable at best because we hear only Quentin’s point of view — the same Quentin who had been using his holographic tech to deceive people and put them in harm’s way because he wanted to shake the Queen’s hands or some misguided bullshit. He deserved to fired. Plus, he was a Stark Industries employee. Tech companies almost always own the patent to whatever tech you design or invent for them when you’re on their payroll. It’s how corporations work.

19. Tony quoted Henry IV to Fury when he told him to give EDITH to Peter and said Spidey wouldn’t get the reference (Heavy is the head that wears the crown) because it’s not Star Wars. It was a nice, poignant moment — made funnier when you realize that’s Talos in disguise, which means at some point, Fury had to have a conversation with him about Shakespeare and Star Wars. Someone pls write the fic. 

20. The most important thing is that this film actually tried to address the Decimation. Endgame pretended to gloss over it to give Gay Joe Russo his 15 minutes of fame. But this film actually started with May and Peter organizing an event to help the displaced. Pepper sent a huge check and apologized for not being able to make it in person. :( 

20a. I love Jake Gyllenhaal. I had expected Quentin to be a dramatic thot but he really brought a lot of depth to the character. 

Overall, I liked the film a lot more than I had anticipated. Some people are going to scrutinize this film to death to prove Tony was the ultimate MCU villain and, hey, if that’s the hill they choose to die on, I don’t really care. After 11 years and 23 films later, if they still think that Tony was the real villain all along, then nothing we say or Marvel does, will change their mind. 

Personally, I thought this film was a good send off to Tony, now that they’ve firmly established that Peter Parker/Spider-Man is going to be the new face of the MCU and will carry with him the Iron Man legacy. He wasn’t always right and a lot of his choices tended to backfire but, in the end, his motivations were good and he still went out as the man who saved the world. He, unlike Beck, or Vulture before him, never tried to kill a child, not even when he brought him to a parking lot brawl among friends. 

Now, if only Marvel can just leave Tony’s legacy alone and let Peter, and the rest of the MCU, thrive on its own instead of retconning established Iron Man lore to fit new narratives. 

[beardofkamenev]

@nuingiliath​

Seriously?! Jesus Christ. At least if O’Brien had paired it with Catherine’s neglect-filled, trauma-filled childhood (which probably wasn’t that bad in reality), it would’ve made sense in a “well, they barely remembered to feed her, why would they educate her?” way. But nope, for some reason, they just didn’t care that Catherine de Valois, likely future queen of England, didn’t know how to read because she was a girl. LOLWUT. Eleanor Cobham very likely could read (possibly not in French or Latin, but still) and she was well below Catherine’s status.

Honestly, it’s all so stupid. Catherine gets told as a child that Englishmen have tails because they’re evil (by a nun in the convent she’s raised in, no less) and then she’s so stupidly innocent on her wedding night she just straight out asks Henry V if he has a tail. I’ll never know why he doesn’t immediately the marriage annulled because she’s clearly an idiot and not suited to be queen at all? Most Catherine novels seem to be leaning heavily towards the romance novel so I think that’s something to do with it too? They go hard on how tragic Catherine is - she’s got a tragic childhood, she’s got her evil mother pimping her out and then she marries Henry V (who may or may not be a decent husband), then he dies and Catherine is immediately forcibly separated from her son (I think she was with him until he was about 8? So normal medieval procedure, then) and no one lets her get involved in politics or shag Edmund Beaufort… so Owen turns up not so much to be a character but her reward for suffering so much. So he ends up being anything you’d want in a romantic hero except interesting.

Maybe Edward IV was the original Weird Pasty English Guy That Women Go Nuts Over? (Now it’s Richard III). I watched a clip they did of the history behind The King (I’m still yet to watch the movie itself) and they talked about the arrow-wound and it’s not even in the film? WHAT. Honestly, I’m forever disappointed that we never get any actual arrow-wound in any Shakespeare adaptations. And how the fuck can you do Agincourt without any arrows?! What is the fucking point.

I finally decided to transfer our convo to new post to avoid eye torture lol.

It’s only part of her “trauma-filled childhood” insofar as her mother neglects to educate her because she is neglectful in general. I actually scrolled through The Forbidden Queen ebook again to see if I remembered it correctly and while Catherine isn’t 100% illiterate, she “struggles” to read and write. Then there’s this passage:

“Does she read? Write?” “Not that I am aware.” “She must be taught.” “Is it necessary? Such skills are irrelevant for her future role, and I doubt she has the mental capacity to learn. Look at her.” The Queen was cruel in her contempt as I snivelled in terror, wiping my face on my sleeve. “She will be wed for her blood, not for her ability to wield a pen.”

BAHAHAHA. A lot of these novels go so overboard on the pathos too. I’ve lost track of how many novels have Catherine starving and wandering around in rags, being ignored by Henry V, having Henry VI ripped out of her arms by his evil guardians etc. Like, is it really so hard to feel sorry for someone who had an insane father, was widowed at 21 and legally prevented from remarrying? And Owen Tudor is literally just a plot device half the time and any semblance of personality he’s given is pretty repulsive (Jarman pls).

The King is alright as a movie but it is an absolute HISTORICAL CLUSTERFUCK. It might as well have been a straight-up fantasy movie about High King Frodo, Fifth of his Name because that’s how little it resembles history or Henry V or the Shakespeare plays, for that matter. I don’t know if I should recommend it to you because you might lose your shit (I know I did). SPOILERS obviously but don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.

Henry gets disinherited in favour of Tommen Thomas of Clarence, and only ends up succeeding because Thomas is later killed by “Welsh rebels” (barely anyone in England seems to care about this, btw). Far from being a warmonger, this Henry loves peace. He averts the bloodshed of the historical Battle of Shrewsbury by challenging Hotspur to an unintentionally-hilarious silent wrestling match, which also conveniently ends all rebellion in England. He somehow pacifies the Welsh rebels by paying Mortimer’s ransom because their historical war for independence was apparently just a glorified hostage situation. He is reluctant to go to war against France because it’s little more than his bad nasty father’s pet project (because it’s not like the English kings had claims to France dating back to Edward III or anything like that), and only ends up going because the evil Dauphin is evil. He mercifully allows the women and children of probably-Rouen to evacuate, unlike the real Henry V, who let them starve to death in ditches. But the real cherry on top is the film’s depiction of the Battle of Agincourt, which is little more than a giant mud wrestling match with the occasional arrow-confetti here and there (I counted TWO VOLLEYS the entire battle). Weapons are merely decorative; instead Henry decides that his bare fists are the most effective weapons against a fully-armoured enemy. AND THEN EVERYONE JUST STOPS FIGHTING because the evil Dauphin turns up to challenge Henry to single combat, but he doesn’t even get to fight because he keeps slipping in the mud before five random English archers descend upon him and wrestle him to death (none of the French care enough to retaliate, btw). This ends the battle and Henry becomes the undisputed master of France. The film ends with Henry stabbing a dude in the head (whose name I literally fucking forgot because I was so distracted by the flagrant and egregious historical inaccuracies) and asking Catherine to be truthful with him.

I should also mention that almost all these events take place in near total silence, including the battles/wrestling matches. The costuming and armour is just WHACK (here’s a video of someone ranting about it lol). Also, Humphrey of Gloucester and John of Bedford do not exist.

[theboykingofhell]

raven boys

WHIMPERS AS HIS HEART SWELLS WITH LOVE AND HE EXPLODES

raven boys more like the most neurodivergent boys in the south

gansey: ah i neglect gansey so much as a character which i think is a fault of the narration but also, like, the point of his arc... boy is dying of anxiety every second of his life. he’s also SO. SO. UM. SO PTSD UM... ANGEL...! he canonically hallucinates because of his trauma, yall, he’s actually literally a psychotic and i love him. i also think adhd+autism is a good fit for him, don’t you think i can ignore his hyperfixation/special interest that is welsh history. and he fidgets constantly and he just. is. cuutee. he definitely has a problem with cognitive empathy while also feeling so much for his friends. i would also give him bpd AND hpd because, 1) it’s impossible for this boy not to be cluster b have you seen him, 2) what is my identity who am i??? 3) what ISN’T a sense of self hi i’m richard campbell gansey the third the most fakey fake individual in the world who has carefully and carelessly shambelled together a million fancy aesthetics and traits so that you love me haha pls love me haha pls love me 4) honestly i can talk about gansey’s histrionic and borderline tendecies forever dont tempt me i accidentally kept bold on

ronan: hey! while i’m here wouldn’t it be so much better if ronan was a black boy considering so much of his characterization would have actually been perfect and revolutionary despite maggie stievacter and all the well-meaning-but-tragically-incorrect white ppl like her think otherwise but that’s a post for another day lol ANYWAY he’s been diagnosed as antisocial. it doesn’t mean he IS. it doesn’t mean he isn’t. but umm. ronan is put through the wringer tbh people glance at him and make the worst judgements based on him, and based on his criminal record and tendencies for violence, man... anyway if you didn’t think i was making this boy schizoaffective you don’t know me hi. i would also give him bpd, i would give him c-ptsd, i would give him adhd, i would give him psychotic depression on TOP of his schizoaffective-ness like, yeah, that’s right, ronan’s DEPRESSION has got fucking depression, he’s drowning in it. listen ronan does not stay in therapy enough to get a proper actual diagnosis, he gets those rly annoying brief ones where you talk for 45 minutes and then they’re like ‘you have this’ and you go ‘cool’ and then you leave and then 2 years later after you try and jump off a building you see another therapist and they’re like ‘actually you not only have this but you ALSO have that’ and you’re like cool and then you get arrested and sent to another therapist i’m not projecting my high school experience on him YOU are

adam: p...t...s.....d............................................................................ and bipolar type 2 like i want to be clear that he goes through depressive cycles FAR more often than hypomanic ones. i think, because, let’s be real, would adam.. ever.. want to admit to himself that he needs psychiatric help... that it’s the type that will later progress into bipolar 1, and then later progress into something worse, again, adam has canonically hallucinated before so. he also has a problem with dissociation which is def linked to his trauma but i want to make a POINT of that, that, this is something that i think also gets worse before it gets better, and that adam’s mental illnesses will end up mashing together and manifesting into something rly severe (meanwhile ronan is getting a lot better and his starts to settle down over time..). i think he’d also be pretty susceptible to an eating or sleeping disorder, or psychosomatic illnesses which makes me rly sad (refusal to accept what he has and constant repression of his symptoms leading to him having actual physical health problems oh god my heart my baby..)

noah: AH NOAH MY POSTER CHILD FOR ADHD. speaking of projecting my high school experiences on trc characters (and i am sorry that literally every hc i have is ‘they have bipolar’ but, like, they all do) but did you know! that! sometimes if they only treat your depression without treating your mania, you can get stuck in a PERPETUAL MANIC MOOD SWING for, uh, ever? haha. hi noah. he has very supportive parents but that’s kind of causing his downfall, i see noah bein on a LOT of the... not-as-correct-as-they-could-be meds but also skipping them and crashing a lot but also abusing drugs a lot (is that a canon thing? well now it’s a canon thing).. you can induce bipolar through drug use tbh so i think that’s pretty much what happened... i think he also has seasonal depression and winters are Hell for him so he just SPRINGS up once spring comes along, pun not intended. he’s also got some general anxiety but compared to everything else, it wasnt too bad...! still existed tho. this is all when he was, ahem. alive. by the way. yeah.

henry: um hello can we get a beautiful ptsd+hpd+npd angel up in here wow hello henryyyy.... congrats on being the only raven boy with the ability to concentrate and VAGUELY have a stable mood... oh, what’s this... sleep disorders out the wazoo??? NOICE. anyway, i think henry just is insomniac af (like more than all the others, tbh, when do any of them fucking sleep the answer is never).. i think he gets night terrors a lot too but i think henry is also the most well adjusted when it comes to his orders so he approaches them more as a ‘haha! another night, another moment being suspended in the flaming bowels of hell!’ thing than anything that really... hinders... also think he had a bout of some sort of ED when he was younger and he recovered from that yay henry, so good

[xavierscos]

Stuff to post w art today:

For the robosona ref:

Yup here’s my botsona!!!! Here’s some extra info on him!!!

·         He has inner fans to keep him below a certain temperature (one of them is busted)

·         If he gets too flustered/excited and goes past a certain temperature, he’ll blue screen and crash

·         If he gets too stressed he’ll do that weird color static thing computer’s do and then he’ll crash

·         Has a volume + power button on the side of his head. You can mute him by turning down his volume button (which will then result in him communicating through emojis and such)

·         He can use emojis when he’s not muted but he doesn’t really like doing that. The only emoji he uses no matter his volume level is the knife emoji

·         Can display words one at a time on his screen (the most used are: various curses such as FUCK, CUNT, ASS, SHIT; YES; NO; MOE; C-3Y). the word ERROR shows up when he crashes/does the blue screen thing

·         Pupil can change shape (hearts, eye swirls, money symbols, etc)

·         His cat companion Booby (yes based after my cat Boobs) was actually stolen! Yup! This lil bot fella stole a cat from someone’s house and the cat just ?? went with it?? And bonded with the bot??? anyways story is xai was homeless for a lot (he still is but now he travels) so every day when the person went off to work he’d sit at the fence and pet the cat bc booby would hop over it and he’d feed the cat and shit and one day he just. ran off w the cat

<b>Liquid mood-color chart </b>

Purple – standard mood, average

Pink – lovesick/lovestruck, doting, affectionate (tints the purple a bit more pink around ppl he genuinely loves buuut gets really bright when feeling Extra Affectionate)

Blue – sad, sullen (darker means feeling worse)

Red – angry, outraged (brighter means angrier)

Yellow – excited, energetic (different from happy – brighter means more energized)

Dark green – jealous, bitter, resentful

Bright green – disgusted, grossed out,

Pinkish-red – embarrassed, flustered, nervous,

Blue-green – apologetic, guilty

Neon/cyan blue – Frightened, panicking, scared

 ------

For the Duckpaw/Perse + alters

Hey yall as u kno duckpaw/perse has DID so I,, finally made art of her alters anyways let’s go

WC name | Human Name | Info | <b>How to tell if WC form is fronting</b> | <i>How to tell if Human form is fronting</i> |

 Mudpuddle | Mariana | She/Her. She’s the essential “caretaker” of the system. Makes sure the body isn’t damaged beyond repair and will take care of the body after Duck/Perse has had a bad episode. | <b>She constantly grooms her fur so it curls upwards slightly rather than Duckpaw’s straightforward style. Speaks in a soft, low tone.</b> | <I>Curls her hair w/ a curler. Wears blouses, dress pants, boots.</i> |

Patches | Dudley | They/Them. Tends to stick up more. Will front when Duck/Perse is being pressured to do shit she doesn’t like and/or recalling blocked out memories. Irritable, snarky, snide. Tends to be rather smug and a know-it-all. Yells @ ppl who pisses them off. | <b>Doesn’t groom as much as Duck or Mudpuddle, so fur kinda sinks down ish. Not really too far but. Still spiky like Duck’s. Cranky, loud. Will typically let u kno they’re fronting</b> | <i>Wears suits and ties, or dress shirts and pants. Wears hair up in a bun.</i>

Bugs | Bud | He/Him. Prefers to isolate himself, distances himself away from friends and shit. Doesn’t interact much unless necessary. Sleeps a lot and eats a lot. | <b>Will run off from camp and hide out in territory. Doesn’t groom, collects dirt in fur. Doesn’t really talk around others either.</b> | <i>Won’t change out of pajamas, doesn’t brush or wash hair, locks himself in the room.</i>

 ----

That ross/perse picture

Oooohhh boy lemme dive into the history of human au ross + Persephone real quick uh

<b>Trigger warnings: Physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental/emotional abuse, psychological trauma, death, pedophilia</b>

Ross had 4 other siblings and he was the youngest – his mother died after giving birth to him, so he always kinda carried around this guilt that he was the reason his mom was dead. His dad always kinda was distant/didn’t spoil him as much as the others, but he still cared for ross and shit. When ross was about 10 or so he was driving with his siblings while he talked 2 ronnie on the phone. Another car kinda rammed into them and they got in a pretty bad car wreck which Ronnie heard over the phone so he called ross’ family and shit. Reyes and hollyanne and his dad all came and a couple of ross’ siblings died on scene; he was hospitalized with one other sibling. He had a broken arm and a couple fractured ribs, bruising and lacerations but he was alive – his sibling was in a coma and didn’t come out.

Ross’ dad was kinda resentful bc he lost all of his kids besides ross and he already kinda resented ross for taking away his wife so he like. flat out ignored ross, didn’t talk to him, didn’t really do anything. Hollyanne started picking ross up to and from school bc he started missing bc his dad wouldn’t drive him. Eventually ross and his dad moved in w hollyanne and reyes (and then addar and Persephone came along). ross’ dad started saying some nasty comments over a period of a year or two that started to bring ross’ waaaayyyy down so ross turned to another guy (said guy was 18, ross was 13-14) who flattered him and told him nice shit. This guy took advantage of ross + ross’ insecurities and slept with ross more than once (despite ross saying he wasn’t comfortable the first few times)

The family caught ross + the guy in his room one night and hollyanne/reyes were pissed @ the guy bc this dude is 18,,preying on a 14 y/o so they kicked the dude out (they started filing for charges/restraining order after) but ross’ dad was pissed @ ross bc this wasn’t “right” (ross’ dad was a firm believer in abstinence and also this is an adult with a child and ross’ dad kinda blamed ross for not realizing what was happening was bad) so ross’ dad’s belittling started getting worse and worse afterwards and one day ross kinda said something back and ross’ dad hit him over the face and hollyanne/reyes were like “alright you have to go like right fucking now” so they kicked ross’ dad out and he left w/out looking back and ross hasn’t spoken to him in a while

Ross is now a bitter dude who thinks his only value in life is sex/sexual purpose and he doesn’t believe he can amount to anything good so instead of risking shit (like failing grades or job interviews or whatever) he bribes ppl 2 either do shit for him or give him shit (take a wild guess abt how the briberies work)

 Persephone has like 98% of her memories from her childhood blocked. Her mother died a little bit after her first birthday and no one knew who her dad was so she went into care under her uncle and her uncle was,, kinda poor so he had a bunch of friends/family he lived with. Persephone saw a lot of death growing up (people overdosed on drugs, sickness related, people got shot) and that kinda stuck with her through her life so she has a phobia of death stimming from that. Also some of her uncle’s friends started getting uh, handsy with her and touching her and shit so that has ,, stuck with her. She’s blocked out the memories but if she tries to recall them she’ll have a bad mental reaction. Eventually she managed to book it during the middle of another move (the family moved around a lot) and she kinda wandered the streets for a few days until hollyanne/reyes spotted her and took her in. eventually after a little bit of living w them she came out as a trans girl so now holly and reyes r helping her with her transition n shit. Also they got her professionally diagnosed

When she was in like 7th grade ross had brought home some dude he worked with on a science project. The guy was a senior but took some lower classes and shit,, also he’s addar. Anyways addar was always rlly friendly w Persephone and gave her a lot of brotherly attention and holly was eventually like “Hey do u mind babysitting ross and perse while reyes and I go out and do some errands” and addar was like “sure!!!” eventually they all got super close and addar moved in(?) so now theyre all one big happy family :”)

 Uh characters mentioned belong 2: :devberryboats: :devbabysiut: :devppurble:

((pls don’t read this if the triggers will cause bad shit just lemme kno what u wanna hear abt the history ill give u an abridged version of where ur charas r involved))