#this is more of a personal note than anything it's not like a genuine critique of the show or anything

[esote-rika]

to talk is to bare | Spencer Reid

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Category: hurt/comfort, fluff Summary: three times you've never felt enough for Spencer Reid—and the three times he rectified it immediately Content: insecure reader, written with early s2 Spencer in mind (glasses!Spencer rawr), reader wears makeup, implied bad relationships in the past, Spencer is just a sweetheart Word count: 2.4k A/N: entry for #lovers1kevent (congrats @mggslover muah) - the lyric prompt for this is “And I knew how you took your coffee and your favorite songs by heart, I read all of your (self help) books so you'd think that I was smart” from enough for you by Olivia Rodrigo. This was supposed to just be pure angst but apparently, I can't write this man as anything other than the perfect boyfriend.

“Well, actually, Dostoevsky intended the book to be a critique on certain schools of thoughts and ideologies, namely...”

You stare at your boyfriend, nodding along as he explains the intricacies and historical context of Notes from the Underground to you. His smile is kind and excited when he stops, looking at you expectantly.

“Right.” the smile on your face isn't forced, per se, but neither does it reach your eyes. How many times has it happened this month? It isn’t that you’re keeping count of all the times he’s corrected you—truthfully, you can’t, because you’ve lost count. And that’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? The fact that you can’t even keep track of his corrections anymore, because he does it all the time. 

You remind yourself he's not doing this to deliberately make you feel stupid, your memory immediately calling forth all the times you've seen him correct other people — his teammates, the cashier at your favorite bookstore, a random person in the park. It's never pointed, nor is the act laced with anything but genuine, loving desire to share his knowledge. He's not like the men you've had to deal with in the past, the ones who jump at every opportunity to show off that they know more than you, that they're correct and you're wrong.

But this is Spencer. Sweet, wholly inexperienced, awkward. Half the time, he doesn't know how he comes across, and you've been dating him long enough to understand that. 

No, his corrections aren’t the crux of the issue. In fact, it isn’t even him. It’s you, and all the treacherous thoughts running through your mind. This damn book you’d read because you saw a dog eared copy in his satchel one day, pushing through pages upon pages of dense material just to catch up and relate with him, only to still come up short and have yourself be corrected.

The sting is still there, lingering and acrid in the back of your tongue. You cannot pinpoint it yet, this But it's Spencer Reid, so you grit your teeth and remind yourself not to take it personally. The words slip out easily. You could almost believe they aren’t lies. “Thank you for letting me know.”

The beam on his face is a reminder that not everyone is as patient, that he's come to expect looks that range from baffled to downright annoyed. Nobody else allows him free reign to talk like this, long winded rambles that get nipped at the bud with a sharp Reid. He smiles, beams at you, and this time the smile on your lips finally reaches your eyes.

“So what did I get wrong?”

“You weren’t wrong,” he’s pulling you in as he answers, lips finding the underside of your jaw and the bitterness dissipates, sweetens into something that makes your toes curl, “Just a little inaccurate.”

Your body melts into him easily. “You don't have to sugarcoat with me.”

“I'm not, it's literature. You can interpret it however you want, I just thought knowing the rest of the context would help you with your opinion.” he's kissing down your neck, breaths ghosting over your skin as he continues to talk, and you sink into his arms, forgetting why you were even feeling annoyed in the first place.

You’re not sure if you like the color you’ve put to make your cheeks flush. It's always been a point of contention in the past, your exes saying you don't put enough effort in, so this time with Spencer, you try. Even though you're not the best at it, even though you feel a little foolish because it seems a little too bright despite all of your hurried attempts to blend it a little more. But it’s too late to change now. You don’t want to go through the whole deal of reapplying your makeup because that would mean running late, so you ignore it and head to the cafe quickly. 

Spencer isn't there yet. You order your drinks, his black and into which you dump an exorbitant amount of sugar. Memorization is his thing, but you've come to learn a thing or two about him in the time you two are dating.

He's a few minutes late, and when he arrives, Spencer’s eyes lock on you. Or, more specifically, your cheeks.

“That bad?” you tease, standing from your seat and leaning over for a kiss. 

“You don’t have the coloring for that shade of red.”

Your brow knits as you pull away. Attempting to hide the flood of insecurity that swept through your chest, you let out a chuckle. Soft, shaky, and accompanied with a confused, “What?”

“It makes your cheeks look a little inflamed.”

“Oh.” 

Regret fills your chest, settling in your lungs until it’s difficult to breathe. You should have trusted your instincts and scrubbed the makeup off. Shouldn’t have tried something new on the one day the two of you can go out. He’s probably embarrassed by you. How silly, being a full grown woman wearing makeup bordering on clownish. 

He must have caught the hurt in your voice, the way your body deflates because he’s quick to remedy. “Hey, what’s that look for?”

It should embarrass you, the speed at which he picks up on your emotions. But he’s a profiler after all, he’s specifically trained for this, but sometimes you wish he doesn’t use it against you. Gentle hands cup your face. Cold hands, perpetually so until you’ve started keeping them between yours. They tilt your head up. 

“Talk to me.” 

“It’s stupid.”

“Nothing you say is ever stupid.”

You smile, “No, I think we both know that’s a lie.”

He relents. He knows you’re right; there are moments where you don’t make sense. “Not stupid, just…” his eyes roam your face while he searches for the word to use as compromise, as though he’ll find it tucked somewhere in your pretty features, “Lapses in discernment.”

You roll your eyes at his fancy vernacular, the attempt to soothe his mistake. “I think I prefer the layman’s term.” 

Spencer laughs sheepishly, then presses his lips to your forehead, “I’m never using that to describe you.” he murmurs against your skin, and then, “I'm sorry.”

Antarctica could melt from the warmth in your chest.  “You don't even know what you're apologizing for.”

“I upset you. That's reason enough.”

You sigh, pulling him to join you on the plush booth seat you'd managed to secure for your date. “Well, there's nothing to forgive.”

He accepts the coffee you hand him, corners of his mouth curved in a gentle smile. He sips, and you stew in silence, knowing that you shouldn't be leaving him guessing like this. He'd want to know, you can tell by the way he's studying you, the way he wants to examine and turn over your thoughts and reactions like he does with everything else in his life. But he waits, lets you open up if you so wish.

God, he's perfect.

“I was just having second thoughts about my makeup,” you murmur finally, “And you kind of confirmed it. I told you it's stupid.”

“Not stupid at all. I'm sorry,” you wonder if he takes his coffee sweet to match his personality, this asshole, “It was an insensitive comment. And for what it's worth, you look beautiful regardless.”

“Inflamed cheeks and all?” 

He laughs, pulling you to his side, lips firmly planted on your cheek “Inflamed cheeks and all.”

Maybe you shouldn’t have worn the blush after all; you're sure he's making you flush scarlet just by being such a sweetheart.

“Oh Spencer knows her.” the teasing tone in Derek Morgan’s voice normally makes you smile, but something about his tone makes you pause. You stare at the TV, where a new show is running, eyes zeroed in on the blonde actress.

“Spencer knows her?”

“Knew,” your boyfriend supplies, “Very briefly.”

Derek Morgan gives him a knowing smirk that has your stomach churning all the way to the end of the night, when you’re getting ready for bed.

You're in his apartment, in an old pair of his plaid pajamas and a t-shirt that fits you surprisingly well. It always makes you smile, his slight frame, the way you could easily steal his clothes and they wouldn't dwarf you too much. But tonight, Derek's words ring over and over again, bringing forth the image of her—Lila Archer, dazzling, perfectly curvy, an actress on a popular TV series… and apparently, a friend of his. You aren't really sure where this jealousy is coming from. He’s a trustworthy man, and you know he loves you. Still, the image of the beautiful actress persists, even as you climb into bed with him.

He's reading as he usually is, the low lamplight casting shadows over the sharp planes of his face. Without even looking, he shifts the book to his other hand, freeing up an arm to draw you to his body. It's easy, quiet, his heartbeat fluttering beneath your ear as you rest your head on his chest. The exact opposite of your own heartbeat right now.

“What's on your mind?” 

“Nothing.” It should be a sin, the way you keep denying your feelings. But it's just so silly, and you're a grown woman. Jealousy and insecurity shouldn't be consuming you like this, and yet…

“Please don't lie to me,” his fingers are in your hair, tangling deep into the strands and seeking for your scalp. They’re soothing and rhythmic upon contact, lulling your body into a sense of relaxation even though your heart still hammers at your chest.

“Why do you say that?”

“You usually remind me to use the overhead lights when I read.” fingers putting pressure on your scalp, traveling to your temple. He has you in the palm of his hands, “You didn't do that tonight. And your heartbeat's going at an abnormally high rate, even though I'm quite certain you didn't do anything strenuous before coming to bed. What's going on?” 

Damn him and his attention to detail, and the way he’'s learned your little quirks and oddities. He puts down his book and you turn your face to hide into his chest.

You chew on your bottom lip, reminding youself that this is Spencer, he wouldn't judge. “How’d you know her?” your voice is muffled against his shirt, “Lila.”

“We had a case in Los Angeles.” he pauses, as if considering if he should say more. Right. Confidentiality. You nod, accepting his answer.

“Must have been a high profile one then,” you muse, “Or were you just hanging around Hollywood studios with Derek?” It’s an unfair statement, but you can’t help it.

“No, no, it wasn’t like that.” You look back up at him and oh there’s guilt swimming in pools of honey eyes. “I mean, we kissed once, but I swear, nothing beyond that.”

You exhale. A kiss. He's kissed a TV starlet. 

This shouldn’t even be an issue. This is before you were even in the picture after all. It’s not fair to uphold him to some weird standard. You certainly had relationships before him. But none of them had been as stunning as Lila Archer. And if he could have Lila Archer, then what is he doing with you? 

“Hey,” his other hand comes to stroke your cheek, the soft pad of his thumb rubbing small, soothing circles, “Talk to me.”

It's a difficult thing, being mature and communicating when you just want to stew, but god he's so good, you can't punish him for this, for anything. “I thought you said I was your first girlfriend?” you say instead, teasing him.

“You are, but you know, I’ve kissed before, and been on dates—”

“With Lila?”

“No, with JJ.”

Oh.

“JJ?”

JJ? His lovely, warm spring day beauty coworker JJ? He went on a date with her? And kissed Lila Archer. It’s almost ridiculous, thinking about the type of women he's had dalliances with—lithe, blonde, perfect, before he settled with you. 

“Yeah, I took her to a Redskins game,” he says, his hold on your face still light. There's room to move if you want to, space to pull away should you need it and god he's just so perfect.

“You have a type, huh?” it comes out unbidden, sharp but dulled by a bitter laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“With women,” you reply, trying to temper the snappy tone of your voice. It's not fair to lash out at him like this, you know that, yet you can't help it. It's habit at this point, a form of defense that your exes have all been too happy to participate, “I'm the outlier.”

And apparently, he's an outlier too because his voice grows even softer, eyes searching your face with an anxiety that fills you with guilt. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” you sigh, arm draping over his waist and hugging him tight. 

He returns the favor, tangling your legs together until you're a mess of limbs under his sheets. “Then what's wrong?”

“Sometimes I just feel like—like I'm not good enough to be dating you.” there it is, whispered into his chest, striking straight to his heart. “And now, knowing that you could have had all of these — these women who could pass for models—”

“Angel,” the way he says the nickname makes you hide even further into his chest. He closes his arms around you, holding you so tightly it's difficult to breathe, but that's okay. Let him fuse your bodies together, let his breaths be yours too, “That's not true, you know that's not true.”

“Isn't it? You're so — you. Intelligent, well decorated in academia, an an elite FBI unit…”

He laughs, “I’m also an endlessly annoying know it all, I failed my gun license exam more than once, I don't have abs—”

“You don't need abs,” you counter, fingers clutching on his shirt.

“Wouldn't you rather be with a guy with a six pack?”

“I'd rather be with you.”

He gently moves away from you, hands finding your face to make you look at him. “And I'd rather be with you.”

You pout, “You can't use my words against me, ‘s not fair.” 

He laughs again, leaning to capture your lips in the gentlest of kisses, “I want you, I chose you, and I adore you,” he's murmuring between each kiss, hands cradling your face, “And if you have these thoughts again, tell me, so I can keep reminding you just how much I love you.” 

➺ My masterlist | Event masterlist

➺ thank you so much for reading <3

[p0rk-guts]

Oh my god I just realized. The imps have black blood. All hellborn have black blood. Their blush should be grey.

[katshelluvacritic]

Charlie Morningstar is probably one of the worst written characters I’ve seen in the series.

(This one’s gonna be a long one…)

Ok…. So I watched all six episodes and to be honest I’m pretty much pissed off by this character specifically. This might be more of a rant rather than a critique, so I do understand that not everything I say in this will end up being as constructive exactly but I genuinely need to get this off my chest, especially since she is a character I’ve specifically and recently been hyper fixating on before the show released…

(Side note: I realized the post was very long so, to have it be easier to read I added titles for each section! Hope this helps)

!!WARNING FOR SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES BTW!!

> Charlie lacks the qualities of being a main character.

Now besides the piss poor excuse of an introduction for her (and the rest of the cast) in the main series, I honestly question why exactly Charlie specifically is the “protagonist” in the first place (and I say protagonist with the biggest of quotes here, you’ll see why).

In the first episode of the series “overture”, we don’t really see much of her character, most of the time we’re shown screen time of Vicky (a nickname I made for v*ggie since I’m not gonna call her by her genitalia thank you) trying to make an ad for the hotel and even when we do get the screen time of her, she’s barely doing anything other than hearing viv’s self insert- I mean- Adam just go on and on about whatever he’s talking about.

And when Charlie does go on to explain her plan to redeem sinners she’s just interrupted and then stands there when they start singing hell is forever, she doesn’t “go off” like the hazbin Twitter says, she just stands there and then tries to say something only to get interrupted again and again and then gets pushed out of the meeting room before going back to the hotel to see it’s spread across in the news that the next extermination happens in 6 months.

Now although one might argue “Well didn’t Charlie at one point said in the show that giving orders is so mean?” Well yes but again, Charlie is literally the princess of pride ring, you would think that since her parents are literally rulers of pride, they would’ve probably teach her how to stand on her two feat, especially if your RUNNING A HOTEL. And the thing is, she has stood up and did so in episode 6 and the goddamn pilot (which is at this point is probably canon due to Charlie calling it the hazbin hotel instead of happy hotel), even going as far as to fight Katie Killjoy because she thought it was stupid.

Not only that but the episodes after overture, her screen time lessens until somewhat in 5 and 6. She doesn’t really appear that much in the between these episodes to the point where she feels like a supporting character rather than a protagonist. And when she does get screen time, she’s either forgettable at best and infuriating at worst.

> Charlie’s character is poorly written and just dumb.

In the episodes past overture, she’s literally rock solid stupid that I literally screamed in real life multiple times “you’re a fucking idiot” because of how frustrated I was from what she was doing, In episode 2 she literally trusted sir pentious to go to her hotel even though he almost destroyed her place and in episode 6 thought it was a hunky dory idea to let a person who literally exploded buildings to take charge of giving her employees a “good time”. Yes it could be played off as her being naive but if she’s that naive of a person then maybe she shouldn’t be a boss of a hotel to rehabilitate sinners.

Heck, in episode 4, Charlie gets pissed off and turns into her demon form because val literally started hurting Angel when he followed him into the room (and rightfully so) but when angel tells her to leave and drags her out of the studio, she’s just in her normal form and fucks off??? Reminder she’s literally the princess of hell! She could beat the shit out of val if she wants to, why did she just fucked off after angel had her leave?

“But Kat, what if something bad happens to angel if valentino dies?” Like what? If it was explained that if an overlord dies then the sinners that made a deal with them die too or something like that then yeah, that would make sense but we don’t know that whether or not that’s the case, if anything angel could be just fine after Valentino dies but we don’t know that.

And even when Charlie had the opportunity to go out there and apologize to him herself after he stormed out of the hotel, she and Vicky just send Husk to do it. And I have to ask, WHY? HUSK didn’t know what was happening to Angel earlier. HUSK wasn’t at the porn studio that Angel was working at. CHARLIE WAS….

“Well Kat, what if Charlie was scared about making things worse?” Fair enough, but again sending Husk is a stupid idea, I feel like it would’ve AT LEAST made sense if she sent Vicky out there. Because Charlie didn’t know if husk could fight (if you could even call it that, all he did was throw cards at people), BUT SHE KNEW VICKY COULD THOUGH. But nah we gotta do it for the ship right?

And then Charlie had the gull to be crying that angel forgave her after she fucked up, like shut the fuck up… it’s like if viv looked at a bunch of chars that had the optimistic care-free ‘ish personality and thought that meant making her as pathetic as a baby crying that they didn’t get a lollipop from their mommy.

Like I’m gonna be honest with you, it’s literally gone to a point where I think Orel Puppington (aka the 11 yo Christian kid who worships Jesus and gets harmful lessons from other Christians) makes a better Charlie Morningstar than the Charlie Morningstar herself!

And that thought is justified when he tried to go help people in Sinville, “Kat he ended up turning into a pimp at the end of the episode” yeah but AT LEAST HE TRIED TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING! Which leads me to another question….

> How is Charlie gonna redeem sinners exactly???

Like honestly, I’m serous with this one. How is Charlie gonna redeem these guys?

I ask this because in the series, she barely does ANYTHING to help these guys, she and the rest of the characters just sit around and then do an activity that is the equivalent of something you would do in kindergarten except it’s with ADULTS.

I don’t know about you but If your idea of helping people is doing just that and nothing else, then the only thing the people around you are gonna get is them being annoyed at first and eventually walking out with thinking your not helping them but rather just treating them like a baby who doesn’t know anything, and the only thing your gonna get personally is nothing because you did dick all.

Like other than that she pretty much just whines about sinners not going to her hotel and oh gee I wonder why, it’s not like your not doing anything to help these sinners not committing sins anymore, oh definitely not, your absolutely being helpful.

“Oh but Kat! Charlie was born in hell, how can she know how to help people? She’s not from the human world so, she wouldn’t exactly know how to help these people!” I would tell you to look at the world building for the series and it’s spin off but that’s a whole other can of beans that I don’t wanna cover today and this is already getting to long, so y’know what? We’ll go with that.

If Charlie didn’t know how to help people and was trying to figure out what she can do to help sinners get better, then why didn’t she just ask her employees for suggestions? Y’know, the other sinners who were from the human world and had experiences while they were alive and such?

Yeah, I get that not all of their advice would be exactly good or healthy (since they’re sinners who’ve done many bad things after all) BUT ITS AT LEAST SOMETHING FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!

She literally does nothing, she just expects you to immediately get better after some improvisations or whatever other activities she does and once you’ve done one nice thing then boom you’re close to redemption.

> Conclusion.

Charlie Morningstar is (like I said in the beginning) probably one of the worst characters in the hazbin hotel series, she at best a stereotype of the “everything is sunshines and rainbows” character tropes and at worst is a pathetic excuse of a main character and is nothing but a rotten shell of her character from the pilot.

I would go on about how her design’s also bad but I’m sure millions of people have already said the same issues and I’ve already posted my redesign of her before the show dropped.

I might plan on posting a rewrite of her or maybe explain my problems with another character or episode but I don’t know.

But until then, I’ll see y’all later!

[breathlesswordsbloodyknees]

Narrative Doom

Introduction

I've been playing around in and exploring this space where Sauron as Halbrand was genuinely seeking redemption, trying not to manipulate events but merely nudge them.

In my view, at this point he's in survivalist bed-rotting mode post-goo-form when he meets Galadriel. (I think he's more of an opportunist than a schemer in this era. Not that he doesn't have those schemes, but I think he's pushing those bad bad urges down. I have a web of scenes that I consider in this view for some other day)

I’m building much of this piece on these previous work: (link) (link) (link)

It's led me down some interesting philosophical rabbitholes, and I'd like to share.

Now, important to note, Sauron is a Maia—not a 'human' by any means. He's an ancient spiritual being who doesn’t feel the way us teeny tiny mortals do.

But on a broader scale: Tolkien’s work, like fiction as a whole, reflects and explores the human experience, so we’re riding that train.

All this with the framework of not absolving him for anything that came before or comes after. I plan on expanding into his evil alongside Morgoth and his actions in Season 2 at a later date.

But right now, we’re just exploring this blip of a moment where I consider Sauron could be genuine in repentance.

This is more an analysis of Sauron, but I feel like it has a lot to explore for Haladriel fans. There's some critique of Galadriel's choices here, but I want to make it clear: I'm not assigning blame. More just digging into the complexities.

And, well, I don't think this ship would be as compelling if it didn't have complexities.

Spoilers:

All of TROP S1

Vague themes/lines in TROP S2, mostly from S2E1.

The Good Place spoilers for overall theme and a few season 4 lines, but nothing outright about the plot.

Trigger Warning:

Be warned, I’m going to delve into some dark themes in a very personal way. Including but not limited to abuse cycles, personal trauma, harmful behaviors, and empathy within all of that.

I won’t lie, this work was hard for me. Painful to untangle. I would encourage you to have empathy and compassion for yourself, as well as me, while you read. I tried to put warnings before I go into these themes. Please take care of yourself.

---

To start

Sauron’s narrative, at its simplest, is a cautionary tale: If you let your ambition and drive for power go too far, you turn to evil. Higher values over sinful pleasures. Pride goeth before the fall.

But on a deeper level, being solely a cautionary tale, an overarching villain, a lesson to learn, what does that mean for the complexities of Sauron in The Rings of Power?

Charlie Vickers puts so many layers and so much emotion into his character. Yet he keeps it to a lot of imperceptible movements that, I found out last night, get almost completely lost in low resolution. I can see that being a part of some of the stricter interpretations of Vickers' Sauron. But there’s a vulnerability there that touches on some deeply raw thoughts.

—

So the relentless question in fandom: Does he mean any of it with Galadriel or is he just the Great Deceiver?

I'd like to ask, how much of it is just some deeply relatable ‘human’ behavior? Deflection, defensiveness. Half-truths, twisted truths, fibs.

Because as he says on the raft, he did tell her the truth, that he had done great evil in service of Morgoth. He never lied to her.

(An aside: I personally don’t give the “my ancestor” thing much weight as a true lie, I mean it’s his backstory and he had more reason for it than the Darkling did imho)

But really, who doesn’t try to hide and smooth over the worst ugly evil nasty bits of themselves and their past? We want to shine in the eyes of others—it's a fundamental desire to most.

—

On the other side, touching on influence and ambition:

Aren’t we all trying to sway events and leave an impact in whatever way we’re capable? Don’t we all attempt to sculpt the world like clay? Isn’t that really all we can do in this world?

And don't we often tell ourselves that we’re doing it for a better outcome? Even actions deemed ‘good’ and ‘heroic’ create ripples that have negative impacts, if only just for the orc babies.

I’ve been thinking a lot about orc babies.

—

Galadriel, from their first conversation on the raft in S1E2, backs him into a corner. She’s relentless in her quest for revenge against him and he’s whoops—sitting right there, doing the side eye meme. He’s gotta be self-preservational. And that rings true to me more than outright deceit. (At this point)

But I think over the course of the season, playing as Halbrand, “Lost King of the Southlands”, he’s trying. Trying to be “the hero she seeks”. Trying in the only way he knows how, which is…well, not great, he really toes the line. But he’s trying to ‘choose good every day and choose it again tomorrow’, while he’s on the path she set him on. So it’s a step by step journey towards the light, but the path is ever slippery.

And inevitably, as we know, he fails.

—

TW

So what does that mean for those of us who feel like we’re trapped in the narrative, hurtling toward a doomed end through harmful behaviors we can’t escape? Tied onto the train tracks, staring down what feels like an inevitable fate.

When all you’ve known for ages is subjugation and torment and abuse, what do you become? (Which makes Mairon even more painful, with his origin of beauty and light. Like a whisper of I was once admirable too)

I keep coming back to the image of grooves, well worn. And well, under the influence of an abuser and beyond, I too have done evil.

Holding the good you’ve aspired to and the evil you’ve done in one space; it’s a sharp, heavy feeling like holding coals, like touching a hot pan, something to run and hide from. And looking at my deeply ingrained behaviors from childhood, along with trauma that’s happened throughout my life...I see those grooves echoing in jagged bloody ways that feel comforting, even natural.

For a long while, it’s been the only way I knew how to self-soothe, these behaviors that can cause harm to myself and others. So I’ve been twisting around the question: Can we ever truly be free of the evil we’ve done? If it’s all we’ve ever known, baked and beaten into our bone marrow?

In Sauron’s case, the answer is no. His story unfolds the way it was written. The bad guys perish, the good guys win.

(though there’s the “they meet in Valinor” after canon theory, hope ever shines through)

—

That all brings me into The Good Place and that show’s moral thesis.

Spoilers for The Good Place:

More or less, the show states “people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don't?” and “What matters isn't if people are good or bad. What matters is if they're trying to be better today than they were yesterday.” (S4E8)

Scanlons’ What We Owe to Each Other and the rabbithole of contractualism that I haven’t fully delved into.

I resonate deeply with what The Good Place says. All with the understanding that you have to put on your own air mask before you help others, don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.

But I do believe we should help each other in what ways we can, rather than writing people off entirely.

So, I struggle with Galadriel’s moments of “shutting the door” being considered wholly empowering. Light prevailing, resisting the allure of darkness and the draw of power. It is indeed all those things, especially for her journey. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame her.

But there’s an itching here for me and I have to scratch it.

—

In S1E8, if we’re assuming he’s genuine, he put it all out there in the raft illusion. It was his biggest, his all, his hope. A leap of faith. Real vulnerability with an internal truth that was like holding coals.

He did what was ‘right’. He reached for support, for understanding, for community, What We Owe to Each Other.

(though we can’t ignore the scene before that where he’s wearing Finrod’s face. But I haven’t followed that thread yet).

He made a play for a better future.

And she—light and goodness and holiness in her hair, denied him.

“You are Morgoth’s friend”, “There is no such future.” Boiling him down to his worst parts, reinforcing his worst fears.

Is that all we ever can be?

---

TW

When do we write off people like Sauron, with all his history of wrongdoing? People like my abusers or even myself? When does the potential for redemption become irrevocably lost?

How much empathy should we show, and what are we obligated to offer? What do we owe to each other? All of this while carefully balancing the line of not condoning or becoming an apologist, along with taking care of yourself first.

It’s mind-boggling.

---

The answers are out there: self-compassion, self-forgiveness. Change comes from within. Balance. But it's the same way people say go outside, exercise more, drink more water to fix depression. When you're in the throes of darkness, those words feel hollow, trite. And that glossy sunlit path is more than treacherous when you walk it, especially alone.

So again, I say, I scream: Should we not still help each other?

It's not just internal and external separately, we need both. I have to believe that. Internal change and external support.

—

Conclusion

In the end, I'm really only left with more questions. This barely scratches the surface of what I've been brewing on, I could go round and round for days. I mean, that’s what I’ve been doing this week.

Regardless, all the typical takeaways feel hollow. Choose light, choose hope, every single step, no matter how hard.

It’s never quite that simple, on a very visceral level. And for some of us, like Sauron, it never materializes.

It all just eats and scratches and twists inside me. Ultimately though, I think Caitlin Seida said it best about hope and redemption and the struggle in her poem, Hope is Not A Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat. Which I greatly hope you’ll read and find what I have in it. (link)

So I guess we keep being scrabbly little sewer rats, hoping to claw our way out of the dank dark cave. And y’know, it may not mean much, but I’ll be here, down in the muck. Right there with you.

Maybe that’s all we owe to each other.

Follow-up

[patheticpeoplesupreme]

Fic Title if I had one:

A little piece of me in every body

a one shot

The door opened gently on one of the days he’d preferred silence. Normally, the silence unnerves him, irritates him even, but he feels far too tired to entertain himself with meaningless tunes and jokes.

“Airplane?”

He hums, not looking up from his paperwork, there’s only one person who ever calls him that, and Shen Qingqiu was the one person he didn’t mind listening to on those types of days. He thinks it’s because it’s comforting to be around someone he hadn’t made up in his head. It makes him feel real.

He felt irritated by his king a few times he’d portaled into his office. Eventually, Shang Qinghua had started to make up a mood chart—thing, to which Mobei—Jun had taken note of and respected his boundaries.

Even his martial siblings had noticed which sort of surprised him, he had assumed that they didn’t really care.

He hears some shuffling from wood clinking along wood and soon, the sound of paper flipping every few minutes.

“I’ve noticed something from Binghe.” Shen Qingqiu murmured after a while of quiet.

Shang Qinghua continues reading.

“He’s… well, sensitive sometimes. And clingy and hyperactive.”

“Mn… well, the clingy part might be my fault,” He giggled slightly, “I did advise him to be sticky in order to face your love.”

A deep sigh makes itself known, he knows the man is doing it for dramatic purposes. So he snickers before retuning his focus.

. . .

“Did you project yourself onto him?”

“Don’t all authors do?” He replies genuinely. It earns him an agreeing snort.

“Most authors do,” Shen Qingqiu amended quietly, “but this entire world… feels more like a projection of you more than any other novel.”

Shang Qinghua stops in his tracks, lifting his brush away from the paper, making sure the ink doesn’t ruin the paper, still, he doesn’t say anything.

He hid his eyes under his bangs.

“In most novels, there’s a person of every archetype with each person having a wildly different backstory.”

“My novel has that.” Shang Qinghua muttered.

“I’m getting to that.” He retorted.

“Okay??”

“It’s just that… the backstories of your characters feels like it’s overlapping.”

“Are you critiquing my bad writing again?? I’m not in the mood..”He frowned.

Shen Qingqiu shot him a dry look, “That’s not what I meant. I just meant that there’s a lot story beats that just… looks like a pattern. Parts of the story are so incredibly specific that it makes me think that… this was a part of you that you believed in. Even if 50% of the book was based on popular tropes that is.”

“Okay. And?” He asked, unimpressed, his mood declining the more he spoke. Goodness he thought he could’ve had a break today. He guessed not.

Shen Qinghua looks up at the sound of the other standing up, a weird look present on his face.

“Most of your characters, the main ones at least, have a fear of being abandoned.” He comes closer to Shang Qinghua’s table. “Do you fear that too, Airplane shooting towards the sky?”

“I think that you’re trying to rile me up on purpose,” he growled lowly, trying not to show that he had been affected by what the other man had said. He didn’t really notice. It was kind of unintentional, but now that he’d given him a bit of evidence, he couldn’t stop his mind from whirling with thoughts.

“Yue Qingyuan,” Shen Qingqiu started after a long time of having a staring contest, “was terrified of losing Shen Jiu, to the point thatwhen the man had hated him, despised him and scorned him, he never defended himself because he thought he deserved it. And even if Shen Jiu had no love left for him, Yue Qingyuan was fine with it as long as Shen Jiu stayed.”

“Mm.”

“And as an opposite, Shen Jiu was so incredibly terrified of being abandoned again, he decides to make sure no one could get close to him so that he wouldn’t be abandoned. So that he wouldn’t feel that sinking disappointment and pain when a promise made by a loved one has been broken.”

He wishes he could say that it hadn’t sounded familiar. The longer Shen Qingqiu talked, the more he sank in his chair trying not to tear up.

He wanted to ask why. Why he was torturing Shang Qinghua with this information. He tried not to think of his parents. Of his highschool group mates.

“Mobei—jun with parents who neglected him, someone who would let you hit him so that you wouldn’t ever leave his side ever again. You said that he was so desperate—“

“Okay!? So what??” He finally snapped, getting tired of these questions, and on such a bad day too, he thought the two of their were close friends dammit.

“Airplane.” Shen Qingqiu hissed, “tell me the truth here.”

“What!?” He demanded.

“How much of this was intentional and how much was a reflection of your own life?”

“Why? So you can make fun of me!? Critique my oh so tragic backstory? Tell me, ‘wow he’s such a whiny ass bitch for—“

Shen Qingqiu squeezed his hand out of nowhere, startling him so hard that his mind went blank. “Because you’ve done a lot to help me, so I want to help you.”

“S—So it’s a debt now!?” He scowled, his defenses building itself up very quickly, (channeling his inner shenjiu amirite) trying to push Shen Qingqiu’s hand away, but to no avail, the man was firm in his hold.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you like one of my family, idiot.”

Shang Qinghua sniffled “Evil, you are.”

“Mhm.” The bastard hummed disinterestedly.

Note: sqq’s been trying to approach him for weeks, that’s probably why SQH’s in a bad mood, cuz why is sqq trying to therapise him or something, it should be his job, listening to other people and then doing the work

“I guess— I guess we can start with Zhangmen—shixiong’s part.” He whispered hours later when they’re both on the couch, Shang Qinghua’s head laying on Shen Qingqiu’s lap.

Shen Qing—no, Shen Yuan nodded.

“Obviously I don’t have a super depressing backstory like he does,” He started with a dry laugh, his gaze heavy and sad.

“I’m just... a people pleaser like Zhangmen—shixiong. Unable to say no, especially when it comes to paperwork. I guess it started when my parents started fighting when I was younger. Elementary school, I think? It was subtle. Maybe. I—I don’t remember.”

“My mom was the more emotional one. Had a short temper for all of my childhood. And… my dad was calmer, but just as temperamental.”

He thinks about when he was writing an outline about Yue Qingyuan’s and Shen Jiu’s verbal fights with each other, Yue Qi’s guilt for not being able to do enough even though he had tried. Even though it wasn’t his fault that he’d been isolated for so long without proper encouragement.

Maybe this is where Airplane had split parts of him.

He remembers the time after writing the draft, writing out all of his pent up emotions into his characters, he remembers feeling exhausted. At the time, he had thought it was solely because of the word count. But maybe it’d been because he’d been losing his heart all along.

“Mama was passive aggressive and Baba couldn’t care less. When I turned 13, no one was happy. So I tried to be what they wanted to be, I guess.”

He remembers a few chapters where Lou Binghe had met the parents of some of his wives and how they’d hated his personality. How he’d switched up a more than a few times to make them happy, and for what? In the end, most of his wives had been unhappy anyway. Enraged at her parents that he had to fake his personality to gain their approval. Sometimes it ended badly, sometimes it ended good.

Decades after writing those plots, he thinks now that maybe it’s not just a trope anymore. He thinks he can place himself into the spot of the wife. Trying to please the unpleasable.

“Sometimes it worked and they were happy with me. Mama would buy me desserts I liked, lecture me fondly and gives me a big hug. Baba would actually come hang out with me for once, promise he’ll come back after the divorce and then leave.”

Shen Jiu’s tendency to hide behind a wall of barbed wire. The man was like a rose bush with the spikiest thorns. And Yue Qi was a gardener with no gloves. He’d been waiting for years. Desperately hoping that he hadn’t been abandoned.

“When I turned 20, I saw some picture on the internet. Baba had a new family and he didn’t even come to tell me.” Shang Qinghua finally let out a sob, the first time ever admitting it to anyone.

“It—it’s not like I had a bad life, but—but it sucked being the child stuck in between, so I just gave up.”

Shen Qingqiu lifted Shang Qinghua by the shoulders and wrapped him in a warm embrace.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Mm.” Shang Qinghua sniffled.

—

“For parts of Mobei—Jun’s story I guess I just knew a guy who lashed out a lot. I mean, I was never the type to physically mean, so.” He shrugged, “i don’t know what state I was when I was writing him.”

“My friend didn’t have good parents, had a shitty uncle, I felt bad for using his story. But… he was so quiet, he never told anyone what he was feeling and in the end, I was feeling rage for him. When I said he was created as my ideal romantic partner. I guess it was because I never really knew a healthy relationship up close to write about? That’s why a lot of the wives seemed flat, I guess. Haha, you— you were right about the projection.

“What happened to your friend?”

Shang Qinghua shrugged.

“Became an overseas student I think? I remember seeing his face on the news once so he probably got all popular and got forgot about me. Think he was studying law or accounting.”

—

“I based Liu Qingge and his sister over that friend too actually.”

Shen Qingqiu blinks in surprise when Shang Qinghua has appeared during his lunch break.

“Remember?”

“Ah, yeah, how so?”

—

“Though he hated their parents, him and his sister was super close, kept in close contact always. He was a good big brother. He told me stories about her a few times.”

“So the Xiao Liu…based off of your friends sister?”

“Vaguely.”

—

“How bout you?” Shang qinghua tilted his head.

Shen Qingqiu smiled sadly, “I had two sisters and an older brother.”

“I’m sorry. It must be lonely.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t trigger the choking hazard.”

Both of them laugh at the dark humour.

—

Funnily enough I don’t have any head canons about SY’s family. I guess I like thinking that his eldest bro has a little bit Shen Jiu’s snarky ness and mood temperaments. So he’s a little defensive and a little protective.

And the Youngest sister also loved stories just like him

Youngest sister wanted to be just like Shen yuan, all smart, sassy, and kind

[receivedhope]

An embarrassingly deep dive into the Klaine Animal duet

I did a personal ranking of Klaine duets and ended up at my pick for number one being Animal. Not that it was a surprise to me in any capacity, because it's one of my favorite Glee covers, but it did prompt me to try and word why I love this duet the most. And while saying "it's a good song and a cute performance" and leaving it at that would suffice just as well, I enjoy rambling wayyy too much.

First off: I am genuinely surprised it is not a more common number one pick?

While I am a total layman when it comes to music (I can only confidently say if I liked a song or not, it is beyond me to try and critique anything on a more technical level) I do think Kurt and Blaine both sound really good and complement each other well here, with the Warbler arrangement putting an interesting twist on an already good song.

I also think the performance itself is so carefree and works flawlessly as a music video on its own. The entire warehouse scene is really well shot and has a distinct color grading to it - one of my favorite shots in almost the entire show is the Crawford Country Day girls' knee socked legs framing Blaine when he gives his speech about how they need to be scream-worthy for regionals. I think it's a very playful shot, getting Blaine between the girls' legs, lol. I also like the foam machine, which is honestly just funny to me and I like thinking this somehow references the Jonas Brothers' foam spray stunt from the late 2000's - which just ties the more innocent, one-sided love and boyband appeal of the song and performance (represented by Kurt) with the more raunchy interpretations of the lyrics, explicitly chosen for the purpose of being sexy with a foam machine complete (represented by Blaine).

Animal is also just a surprisingly innocent song despite the context, since it captures a crush that is about to get serious and the yearning and uncertainty that comes with - my friend and I were talking about Klaine duets and after she mentioned this it clicked into place (and inspired this post).

Because Kurt is leaning so much more on the cute side of things rather than sexy that even when singing "you're just a cannibal and I'm afraid I won't get out alive" I buy that he's talking about exposing his heart and feelings to Blaine, a boy he's still trying to figure out - even if one with a dirty enough mind could interpret that line, in a vacuum, to be about sex.

(As a side note, it bears repeating that Kurt is such A CUTIE here. It's okay Kurt, I think you're sexy in a very adorable and virginal way.)

I actually forgot myself that Animal's lyrics can be considered kinda more flirty and dirty if you squint? And funnily enough, Animal is not as inappropriate as several other songs Blaine picks to describe softer feelings. I like the thought of Blaine choosing it as a "sexy" song and forgoing the "will they won't they" one sided love the song is actually about, to describe a more animalistic urge to "not sleep tonight".

Meanwhile Kurt sings it much more innocently. Partly, we know that Kurt has faced a lot of issues with his sexuality and that he loves romance and marriage. Even though we only get confirmation later in on the episode that he is actually uncomfortable with sex to begin with, we can already sort of deduce that based on how we saw him act around Finn and Sam - I don't want to digress too much, but Kurt was very far from a "sexual predator" considering his wildest fantasies boiled down to another boy singing him a love song and kissing him or that the showers is just a place for him to check what shampoo Sam uses and if it's right for his color treated hair - as well as how he is pretty consistently set up as the antithesis of an average teenage boy. Sex is the last thing on his mind.

And when you rewatch his performance, you GET that he thinks this is only about one sided love and it also contributes to his attempts at being sexy be so goofy and a bit cringey. Not only is he uncomfortable, but he does not see the song in the same way Blaine (and perhaps everyone else in this scene) does. Or at least, it's how I explain away the strike contrast between his demeanor in Push It (confident, he even slaps Finn's ass lmao) and Toxic (playful and a bit detached) compared to Animal (very silly...<3) aside from his recurring and staple trait of losing all of his cool and measured manner when he is working to impress someone, rendering him just so very cringe, like when he tried to impress Burt in Laryngitis, Blaine in most of Season 2 and June Dolloway in The Back-Up Plan (most notably).

While I absolutely feel like I am almost trying too hard to explain some indecency into the lyrics (when it is really not what it's trying to convey) Blaine does consistently misinterpret the emotions of people around him and I'd argue, of his own as well. Would he really pick up on the emotional core of songs that easily?

While this may be an almost appropriate enough segue to talk about why Glee being a musical dramedy plays a lot into how one should interpret the songs and musical performances accompanying them at length, I will refrain for now and condense my thoughts on it: Glee (at least initially) follows the adage "when words are not enough to express your feeling, you sing, and when song is not enough, you dance" and the comedy usually takes a backseat (or is played straight faced) so the emotional state of the characters can shine and guide the story. I guess it is up to you how much you are willing to indulge in the characters themselves picking songs rather than the writers, but I find it much more satisfying to consider them part of the narrative and characterization just as much as you would dialogue, for example.

Thus, Blaine consistently choosing inappropriate songs is an interesting look into his character: he picks When I Get You Alone as a serenade song for Valentine's Day, Candles to sing with his fresh new boyfriend, It's Not Unusual to express his happiness over getting to spend even more time with his boyfriend, Cough Syrup as an inspirational song and not to mention the two break up songs he sings to (and with) his brother.

I don't think it is that much of a reach to think Blaine read "No, I won't sleep tonight / Oh-oh, I want some more / Oh-oh, what are you waiting for?" and went "Oh yeah this has crazy sex appeal".

If Baby It's Cold Outside is a look into how Blaine pursues Kurt, Animal is a look into how Kurt pursues Blaine and why I believe they are so prone to miscommunication.

In BICO, Blaine is crowding him and not taking his teasing protests seriously, which is pretty much what the song is about - a cheeky "we know we shouldn't REALLY do this, but let's anyway" duet from a time when women weren't allowed to express such forward interest. It, coincidentally, fits really nicely with the narrative of two gay school boys alone in some common room who end up flirting, despite the society they live in harshly discouraging them to do so and would not let them perform the song together. You know, as two artists.

Later, however, we find out that Blaine can't easily differentiate Kurt's teasing from his hard no's, so he interprets all of Kurt's actions, someone naturally impish, to be sarcastic most of the time. I don't think it is an entirely off-based assumption by Blaine, but since he is not exactly the best at reading people in the first place, it's even harder to discern for him how Kurt feels, who is more subtle about his emotions than most people.

But it works this time because Kurt is into Blaine, is teasing him and wants him to crowd him.

Kurt has a tendency to never really say word for word what he expects of Blaine so Blaine takes everything Kurt says either at face value or tinted by Blaine's own wants and needs - I firmly believe the scene in the Lima Bean from TPPP is the first time Kurt actually does come out and say he seriously wants Blaine to transfer (and why Blaine drops everything to do so rightaway). Or why such controversial scenes that can turn people off this pairing entirely, like the car scene of TFT or the entirety of their DWS plot, could happen. They always had pretty severe communication issues.

Which is why when the song ends with them sitting down so close to each other, Kurt almost expects a confession after such an undeniably flirty duet (you did NOT make it all up in your head, Kurt!) but Blaine would rather run away from the sudden closeness (and ambiguity) instead and promptly exits. He is not there yet to recognize his own feelings.

Meanwhile, everything Kurt does in Animal is a clumsy attempt at seduction (which he has no experience at). He does high kicks, rolls his hips, tries to stick his tongue out as much as he can when singing the words and is not put off by, or even registering Blaine's worried and confused glances at him.

Kurt has a tendency to be so romantic it dips into delusion. We see this a lot with Finn in S1 and until The Lamp Incident of Theatricality, Kurt is ascribing romantic undertones to Finn's actions very generously and guards what he wants to see of Finn very closely to his heart (a knight in shining armor devoted to him), shielding it from the cruel pain of reality (Finn being an easy-going and nice, straight guy who is very susceptible to peer pressure and a bit too dumb). You can see this the best in Home, when Kurt shows off a bunch of swatches to Finn very proudly and Finn manages to break the illusion for a bit - telling Kurt he has a cowboy wallpaper and ultimately, does not care about something Kurt does so deeply for. You can even see Kurt's expression shift at this moment - but then Finn ends up indulging him and randomly picks a color and that's enough for Kurt to consider it another common interest they can share, going back to fantasize about their future shared room's decor.

The lyrics of Animal are just much more relevant to Kurt than they are to Blaine, even if the lines "It's getting heavy and I wanna run and hide / I wanna run and hide" are some of the most Blaine lyrics ever.

I think Animal also stays relevant even until the next time we see Kurt trying to seduce Blaine in S6 - especially with the first line of the song being "Here we go again", setting up this cyclical nature of the relationship the song is about right away - they get close because they move each other down to their cores and want more, until they get sick of each other again, only to then go back to the pining stage - not their first time at this either, because they have already cycled through this in S4.

"And I won't be denied by you / The animal inside of you" may also be some of the most Klaine lines I have ever read, because their relationship lies on the foundation of sentimentality and this inexplicable, deep attaction to each other that regularly overrides common sense.

I also love that in-universe, Blaine kinda already made Kurt his duet partner (since they ARE technically training for regionals here) and also that he did not give a FUCKKKK about any of the other 15 or so warblers.

No notes, 10/10, five stars, etc etc, if Animal has 0 fans I am dead.

[crownbeed]

Spoiler Free Veilguard Critique

Includes negatives and positives

I think my biggest issues are that the person u play as is not allowed to have any personality or opinions and if u do manage to say something ur companions don't like they don't...confront u about it. in other DA games if u pissed off a companion enough they would leave or you could kick them out.

>you don't get to choose ur companions in this game and other than flirting ur relationships aren't really...relevant to anyone else or to their stories.

>I've only played it once so far, but I dont remember there being much fallout from my decisions other than which city I choose and the final battle.

Honestly I feel like they should have replaced Rook with the Inquisitor - it would have made more sense and been more interesting. But its my understanding that the developers wanted to make the game accessible to new players...which is great. but there is already so many small references to the inquisition that is summarized for new players anyway so just...do it (I genuinely look forward to the fanfiction that make this happen)

other grievances i had:

>World building was inconsistent with previous games and there was absolutely no attempt to address it. sure we had mage wars, and race wars as a focus of previous games but its nbd in northern thedas? ok then.

>if a companion wants to speak to me at a specific location plz for the love of God don't make me have to go to them at the lighthouse to find out they want to speak and then make me go to a different country to speak to them. jfc dude.

>Everything was so specifically paced it got boring at times and I felt like I had no control over anything. they lock off areas you might want to explore unless u have a quest there and sometimes u can only go there during the quest. I may have hated the hinterlands but I enjoyed that I could find myself fighting for my life in bear country when my inquistor wasn't ready for it. Or stumble across a dragon 10 levels above me. God forbid u go anywhere in this game without permission.

>The most meaningful and rpg-style change my character could make was to their appearance. And they don't even have a bed.

on a positive note:

>Solas is still a fascinating character and he is delved into a fair bit in this game. i love that stupid bastard, he's such an idiotic asshole. Also he looks badass imo. A little mangy tho, iykyk.

>Some people found it wasn't very dark? I found it to be very very dark. maybe the fact that the Lighthouse was very unaffected by most things outside of the fade misled ppl? the horrors are many. the blight pustules are disgusting. Idk man I felt the dark fantasy of the whole thing and think it holds up to other games. (although admittedly its effect on characters could have been explored a bit more but I think that's typical of DA games lbr)

>I like the companions, I like the glimpses we get of their relationships with each other. I like the character annotated codex pages. Idk I think they're neat.

>I only played the once and I did it on easy but the skill tree seems pretty cool and expansive? I didnt get to explore it much as my brain can only handle figuring out so much at once. there's a lot of options.

>its goddamned beautiful. all the scenery is top notch. I wish I had a high end gaming pc so I could get the pinnacle of its beauty. but alas I am but a wee ps5 owner.

[shalomniscient]

Hi sev! came up with a nsfw fic idea where deren resolves the tension between her and the reader. due to being observant, she may or may not have been aware of all the reader's brief and stolen glances that wandered elsewhere other than her face

wrote this with the deren skin in mind anon if that's alright, because damn i wouldn't be able to stop stealing glances either 👀👀👀

ACT THREE: RESOLUTION || deren x reader [NSFT][MDNI]

cw. cunnilingus, semi-public (?)

notes. this is the simpiest reader i've ever written im ngl

Truly, you don't know if you want to throttle Garofano or thank her on your knees, because in the name of all that is holy Deren looks so insanely hot right now it's unfair.

Her dress hugs every curve of her body, the little mesh cut-outs offering a teasing peek at her smooth skin below. The part by her waist seems like a personal attack against you because God you haven't been able to take your eyes off her, your hands itching to just hike that dress up and run your fingers along her long legs.

But this is a formal event—the fucking DisCars—so you hold yourself back as best you can, even though Deren makes it all the more difficult by casting sultry, knowing glances your way from across the table you're both sat at. The grip you have on your flute of champagne turns your knuckles white as you sip on the bubbly alcohol, and try to not look at the ridiculously plunging neckline of her dress, or the way her necklace rests so perfectly on her chest, just above the swell of her breasts.

Fuck, it's so god damn warm in here.

The entire event drags on at a snail's pace, and by the time a short break is announced, you're about ready to get the hell out of there to get some fresh air in your lungs, before a firm hand catches your wrist and tugs you back. Your heart jumps into your throat when you come face to face with none other than Deren, an amused smirk on her lips.

"Come with me," she says, and it's more like an order. You swallow thickly, and obey—not like you'd do anything else, really. Deren leads you past the throng of other celebrities, all huge household names in DisCity, but you can see nothing but her. Nothing but Deren and the way this fucking dress makes her ass look criminally good, or the way her hips sway as she walks. You're not even down bad anymore, you're down horrendous.

The long walk ends at a bathroom. It's pretty much the kind of bathroom you'd find in a house, though without the shower and twice as large, with a disproportionately massive sink and a terribly tacky gold-lined tap. Your critiques of the interior design are interrupted however, by Deren pinning you against that very sink, leaning close enough to whisper in her ear.

"Been liking what you see, baby?" she croons, and you shiver at the warmth of her breath against the shell of you ear. Your hands grip at her biceps and you nod frantically. Deren laughs at that, her hands finding your waist to pull you close. "I'm flattered."

"Wanna kiss you," you get out, almost petulantly, and Deren grins. She leans in close, ghosting her lips against yours, before turning away at the last second, making you whine.

"Sorry, baby, can't mess up the makeup, now can I?" she teases with faux sympathy. "Wouldn't want anyone to know what we're getting up to, now would we?"

Your fingers curl into the sleeves of her dress and you genuinely feel so close to crying, the need in your veins burning you alive. Deren coos at your desperation, patting your cheek.

"Shh, don't look so sad, baby," she says, grinning. "You can still kiss me—just not where anyone can see, hm?"

You look up at her in confusion, before it all clicks in your head and your mouth goes dry. Deren's eyes turn dark and half-lidded once she sees the understanding bloom on your face, and the hand on your cheek drifts down to your shoulder before she's pressing down on you, urging you lower. Not that she has to do much, because you fall to your knees as quickly as possible, fingers digging into the fabric of her dress.

Deren undoes the clips on each side of the thin cloth, letting the front separate from the rest of the dress. She gathers it up in her hands, and you exhale slowly at the sight of her pretty pussy, covered by a set of black lace underwear. You stare at her for a while, entranced and motionless, before a hand winds into your hair and tugs you forward.

You drag your tongue along her clothed cunt, nosing at her clit through the fabric. Deren groans despite the dulled sensation, eyes fluttering shut as you continue to lap at her until her panties are absolutely ruined, her slick seeping through the lace and onto your tongue. You moan as the taste of her blooms in your mouth, and your fingers find the waistband and finally pull them down low enough for you to put your whole mouth on her dripping cunt.

Deren gasps at the first touch of your tongue on her, directly, without anything in the way. You lick along her wetness, the angle making your neck ache but you truly do not give a fuck right now. The world could be ending, but even that wouldn't be able to pull you from between Deren's legs. Your tongue goes from her twitching hole to her stiff clit and back, the wet sounds echoing throughout the bathroom.

"C'mon baby," Deren hums, though her voice is shaky, "we gotta be quick, or else they'll start looking."

You whine against her pussy, disliking that you can't take your sweet time to savor her, but speed up your movements nonetheless. Deren fully moans when you plunge your tongue into her tightness, the hands in your hair forcing your further against her cunt as she bends over, bracing herself with one arm on the sink. You shudder at the sensation of her blunt nails against your scalp and go even faster, ignoring the burn in your jaw in favor of making Deren cum into your mouth instead.

"That's it, baby, just like that, so fucking good," she gasps out, and with one more harsh shove of your tongue into her hole she cums with a strangled groan, hips twitching against your face as she rides out her orgasm. Her slick spreads along your lower face with each movement, but you just stick your tongue out and let her use you as she needs, drunk on the taste of her spilling into your mouth.

Once she's finally done, she releases your hair and steps back, legs quivering. She grabs a few tissues and wipes herself clean as best she can, and tugs her ruined panties back up, drenched in a mix of you spit and her own wetness. It makes her shiver, but then she helps you up, smiling apologetically at the wince you make as your knees straighten once more after kneeling for so long.

You let her wipe your face with more tissues, your mind still foggy and heady. When you finally regain your sense of higher thought, Deren is fixing your collar and patting your face affectionately.

"Ready to go back, baby?" she asks, and you nod, leaning in to her touch, satiated for now. Deren smiles at you, and kisses your cheek—lightly, so none of her lipstick accidentally transfers to you. But this close, she take the opportunity to whisper into your ear.

"When we get home, I'm fucking you until you can't walk."

Shit, you're not going to survive the next few hours, are you?

[bambimeadows]

Black OPs 6 campaign review/analysis, obvious spoilers under the cut. This is long, so thank you if you indulge me 🙂‍↕️ I speak about Adler towards the end

Honestly where to start, I think I’ll need to play it through again because it was kind of a whirlwind, I think I was too caught up in the excitement of having Adler back. But here are my initial thoughts

I’ll start with some positives. The new characters, Marshall, Sevati and Felix. Love. Love all three of them, they’re brilliant. They’re well written and actually have some strong, unique and discernible personalities. They’re fleshed out and seem very much human, the absence of that has been an issue with call of duty characters in the past so I’m glad to see they’re pulling us in a new direction and understand they need characters like this to carry out effective story telling. If I had to pick a favourite it would be Marshall. He’s a strong and determined leader, but still fresh enough to not be completely war hardened and I like that. Felix and his perpetual anxiousness, melancholy hidden by a bright personality and aversion to being violent is intriguing (side note, he in particular conveyed so much with his facial expressions, especially when speaking with him in the safehouse amazing work there) Sevati’s back story is a little cliche but I still became very fond of her and her sharpness and her wit. I do ultimately enjoy the three more than park, sims and that other one (can’t remember his name don’t care lol) as a team. Jane was a somewhat adequate antagonist, I guess, but maybe just a bit cookie cutter and cliche - the unusually elaborate and unnecessarily long sequence surrounding her back story didn’t do much to change that I’m afraid. But more on that later.

Some of the missions were quite good, I’m not that good at critiquing actual gameplay but all I know is for the most part they were genuinely exciting and introduced us to a diverse range of environments. They’ve gone in quite a different direction, giving us quite a few actual spy missions with the gunslinging. It’s a funny juxtaposition to be in a war torn battle ground with tanks and helicopters and boom boom boom one minute and then in a swanky casino playing poker the next. I can imagine some who are looking for a hard hitting action game might have an issue with this and even I raised an eyebrow at first, but in all truth it stops things getting repetitive and gives us a chance to experience new aspects of the black ops universe.

Now I’m aware COD campaigns have a very limited amount of hours, and yet some of the missions were frustratingly time consuming and made no sense, nor added anything to the story or fit in smoothly. I’m so conscious of time ticking by as I play through COD campaigns, knowing the ending is always near. They implicated zombie mode into the main campaign in a very lengthy and out of place mission and I can’t say I appreciated it. They obviously kept the continuity by not actually inserting zombies into the canonical world of black Ops, but rather telling us we were hallucinating off some toxic gas and that’s why we were seeing zombies. Lord give me strength, THAT is lazy and forced. We have a whole mode to fuck up some zombies. I found it pointless, wasting precious time on what should have been spent on something else. It’s the same with the mission towards the end where they inject Jane with the drug and have us travel through her psyche. Look it was somewhat interesting, but why do we have to have like an hour worth of gameplay (depending on your speed) doing an in-depth deep dive into this woman’s background when we don’t actually really care about her? (Maybe some of you do I’m not sure) And all of that, just to kill her off so unceremoniously? why invest so much time into her then? why couldn’t her motives be explained in a more cohesive and less time consuming way that doesn’t just completely take us out of the game? And it left a glaring plot hole. She believed Adler killed her parents for YEARS and obviously had good intel to believe this. This provoked her into enacting her big diabolical plan against the CIA, and then when she was injected with the drug she suddenly realised it wasn’t him? What do you mean??? Did he do it or didn’t he? And what’s more, if Adler and Jane had some sort of past, where he “took her under his wing” why do we not get to see them interact or even acknowledge each other once? Why were her parents attacked from the inside? What’s with the weird alter ego shtick? Are they implying she’s suffering from some sort of personality disorder and she’s not actually responsible for any of her own actions? This section of the campaign was put in place to answer all the questions but it just left me with more. Idk, Overall that whole part was messy. It had me rolling my eyes. It seems the writers are being a lot more experimental but sometimes it just falls flats.

The ending was awful to me to the point I don’t even have the need to feel angry about it, just indifferent. I don’t have much to say about it. Anti-climatic is the optimal word here. They stopped the bombs, Case promptly kills Jane. Yaddah yaddah yaddah who cares. And obviously we have the end scene setting up the next campaign and that’s just kind of whatever, see you in four or more years I guess. OR, it will just be material for half assed plot lines for multiplayer and warzone with the new seasons, that’s something that recently occurred to me. I really hope that’s not the case.

Now onto Adler. I don’t think the campaign was Adler centric in the way we wanted it to be, but to be honest I think his side character role was generous and fair enough, it made sense and he fit in with the story very smoothly. I can totally see why he took a minor backseat. But with the time he did have in the campaign, I think they’ve done a good job with him. He’s completely different and I’m not exaggerating, this is not the Adler I know, this is not the Adler I struggled to write a semblance of personality for and still felt he was out of character when I did. I noticed a hint of change the moment I met him at the beginning of the game, and then realised he’s had somewhat of a personality transplant. He’s no longer completely cold, mysterious and closed off, he’s even dare I say kind of nicer, sometimes? if not much more charismatic. Don’t get me wrong, obviously he’s not the life and soul of the party and still a complete asshole and very veryyyy much lacking in morals and empathy, but this Adler is more receptive, animated, lighthearted, playful, constantly cracking jokes? It’s crazy. I know many of us have already realised that he likely acted so robotic in Cold War due to Bell, consequently he seems much more at ease with Case who is sort of the Bell of this game, they share quite a few parallels. We still didn’t really learn that much about Adler (apart from him being born in San Diego oooh) but he does show some weakness, a smidge of humility and human errors if you squint, and glimmers of emotions, primarily towards Woods. They both hint at their bond, friendship and respect for each other throughout the campaign, which is a nice touch. For example, the subtle genuine concern in his voice when he stays behind to be with Woods when he’s wounded is groundbreaking for him, a small little thing that somehow speaks volumes due to how little he’s previously shown us. This is already too long and I’m not going to speak about every single thing, but I’ll say Woods is perfect in this as a supporting character, but he’s always been one of the best things about black ops, he’s an icon. They’ve been tactful and realistic in writing him adjusting to his life out of the field and becoming disabled while still keeping his trademark funny and snarky attitude. I’m really glad he was with us!

And as for Case? Meh. We didn’t get much in regards to him. He’s no Bell that’s for sure and I’m more than ready to write him off.

All in all I’ll give the campaign 2.8/5 stars. Somewhat refreshing, great characters both new and old, cool settings (that safehouse was a LOT nicer to explore than the Cold War one huh?) average plot tarnished by a terrible ending, it was certainly an interesting concept but not executed as well as it could have been and somehow not really explored enough? Everything was kind of vague in a way that didn’t seem to be an issue that Cold War had. All in all they could have done more, could have utilised the runtime of the campaign more effectively. Stuff should have been added, a lot of stuff should have been cut.

[finemeal]

AO3 Etiquette

Alright, y’all, you already know what I’m about to say. But go ahead get some water, something to eat, take your meds, and whatever else you need to do as I go into this. Ready? Good.

I’ve seen far too many users on AO3 being rude and saying things that I’m not even sure they understand is rude.

If you’ve done these things, don’t sweat it too much. As long as you learn and do better, that’s what’s important. I don’t wanna make anyone feel bad, but I want to make y’all AWARE.

So let’s talk about some basic etiquette for interacting on AO3.

(Disclaimer: not every AO3 author is going to agree. Some are okay with some of these things, some aren’t. Let’s just play on the safe side yeah?)

Comment Etiquette

Listen, we’ve all left comments on fics we like. But here’s the thing, some of us don’t realize what comments are rude or not.

Comments that pass the vibe check:

Hearts

Something you liked about the story

Saying you enjoyed the story

Excited to see more from an author (not demanding an update, not asking for more, just genuine excitement for whatever the author has in store)

Anything that is genuinely nice

Theories on what you think will happen (not necessarily what you want or hope happens)

Comments that do not pass the vibe check:

DEMANDING an update

Treating fic authors like content pumps and not real people who do this in their free time

Critiquing the story

Saying how they should’ve written something different

Constructive criticism that the author did NOT ask for

Saying things that are purposefully antagonistic

Trolling

Anything that if someone said to you about something you worked hard on you would think was rude

Dogging on how a character was written

Comments that are WILDLY different from the tone of the story (i.e leaving a graphically violent comment on a story that does not feature graphic violence)

Any mention on how long it’s been since they’ve updated — you’re gonna make your wait longer

This one is more of a personal ick but any “want to see” comments, specifically on one-shots (I want you to enjoy what I’ve written, not talk about stories you hope I’ll write — unless author says that they specifically want those comments)

Honestly there’s so many comments that do not pass the vibe check I can’t even list them all. But I listed a BUNCH so, general rule of thumb is: If you’re not sure it’s rude, reach out to a friend and ask. Also, you can ask for people in the comment section to vibe check you if you’re unsure. And? If you know it’s rude and say it anyway, you’re an asshole.

ALSO: author’s will read your comments! They may not respond, but 9/10 author’s will read the comment so remember that you’re not posting into the void. And? People will call you out if you’re being rude. Don’t double down. Apologize, delete comment, move on.

Author’s talk, we will block you if you’re a raging asshole cuz we don’t need that kinda energy in our fics. And, sometimes we’ll turn off anon commenters cuz if you’re going to continue to be an asshole, and can’t even say it to our face, you din’t deserve to comment.

Bookmark Etiquette

This one is prolly gonna get a lot of people riled up and I simply don’t care. If you disagree, that’s fine, just know as an author and friends with other AO3 author’s we consider these sorts of things rude.

Bookmarks that pass the vibe check:

No comment

A nice comment with the bookmark

Private bookmarks (no matter what it’s tagged/commented with)

Nice/neutral tags

A note to self about where you left off

Bookmarks that do not pass the vibe check:

Anything rude for the comment/tag section of a bookmark — unsure what’s rude? See comment section above

Ranking the fic (see this way more often in bookmarks than anywhere else)

Unread bookmarks (not always a fail, it’s just weird? You can mark for later, why are you bookmarking my story without reading it?)

If your bookmark is private? It doesn’t matter how you tag/note it/whatever. But if it’s public? Author’s will sometimes go look at bookmarks because people will leave nice little comments that make us feel good. If you say something mean we can’t even delete it. But I can guarantee we’ll block you!

Yes, bookmarks are for the reader, but just because you didn’t intend for an author to see what you said doesn’t make it any less mean. If it’s public: shame on you. Make a bookmark that’s mean in private, then I won’t care.

Conclusion

Don’t be mean. If you don’t like a story, you don’t have to say anything. It takes more time to leave a nasty comment or bookmark something in a mean way than it does to just back out of the fic. I get it, you don’t like the fic. I don’t like every fic I read. You know what we do? We use the back button.

We’re all people, we all have lives and things going on. Just know 2024 is the year I’m no longer replying to nasty comments. I’m deleting them, blocking if I want to, and moving on.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Again, this post has a very aggressive tone because I’m sick of seeing mean comments on my friend’s fics. Will this stop those comments? No, but I hope it lessens them.

This truly is just about educating people. If you have any questions, anything you want to add. Feel free, pop off monarchs.

[theerurishipper]

Can I ask you something do you have a degree in psychology or something this isn't meant to be read as an insult by the way I mean it genuinely because your the blog I follow most when it comes to your Miraculous Ladybug Analyses post and every single time you be popping out with bangers like you must be really be intelligent to understand Adrien character and the show and because of you you cleared my doubts on my issues with the show.

You made Adrien character so much more enjoyable in your analyses of him before I took him as one-note and boring because this was a kids show but you really made it much deeper than whatever the writers could ever do with him.

I never liked Marinette but not for the stalking or whatever because it didn't really matter because I took it as a playful thing in the show but her treatment towards her partner and I am glad you acknowledged Marinette has empathy issues because she focuses so inward towards herself and not on other for example she treated instances like ( Making Juleka not invite her brother to the party) or ( Trying to take advantage of Adrien being sad at the benchpark) and I absolutely disliked it whenever Luka came on the show because I feel like her relationship with him give me the icks because I count it as emotionally cheating.

It was things little things that bothered me.

I initially hesitated to critique her, but as time went on, I found myself increasingly frustrated with the constant stream of excuses—whether it be exhaustion, trauma, or sympathy for her panic attacks in the Season 4 finale. It wasn't out of malice, but rather a growing sense of indifference towards her.

What funny to me is why I feel more connected to Chloe and Adrien than to Marinette. It's not solely because they got shafted, though that's certainly a part of it. Their backgrounds and how they handle their traumas are remarkably well-portrayed in the show. Even Lila, despite the general disdain from the fanbase, elicits more of a reaction for me, be it positive or negative.

Marinette always triumphs and conquers every obstacle. I hate to say it, but she just doesn't make for a good love interest. Isn't this a blatant violation of Shoujo rules 101? Kagami seems more suited for this role—bold and intriguing. Shouldn't the main character stand out from the other girls in class? I hoped to see Marinette unveil Adrien's true self as they grew closer, but it consistently feels like the group's interventions are pushing them together, overshadowing any natural progression. Her constant anxiety around him is neither enjoyable nor amusing.

Despite being the golden child who can do no wrong, Marinette has turned into a controlling figure in Adrien's life. I'm baffled as to why people still cheer for her. She's become a hero with a corrupted sense of influence over Adrien. It's challenging to understand the fervent support for a protagonist who lacks the depth and complexity that make a character truly engaging. What's the fun in rooting for a hero when the challenges are mediocre, and victories come effortlessly?

I'm glad you like my analyses! I'm not a psychologist or anything like that, I just like characters from cartoons way too much.

And your experience with Marinette is exactly mine. I loved her at first, but then the writing started to have her do questionable things and then justify her, and I started to like her less. Like you, I don't hate her, but my feelings towards her are indifference and apathy. And the narrative doesn't let her make mistakes. When she does make some grave mistake, it's usually someone else's fault, or the person who was affected by it takes the blame for it. Her conflicts get resolved for her and she never has to do anything to grow or change. Marinette is in this weird dichotomy of never getting a proper win and always losing, but also getting everything handed to her, and it really fails to get me to connect with her like I did in Seasons 1-3. I still love Marinette, but that only really extends to her in Seasons 1-3. Anything about her character past that just makes me feel indifferent and apathetic.

All this to say that you're completely right, anon. Thank you for your ask!

[fandoms-and-salt]

Admittedly, this is definitely more of Disney's fault for shortening the series and this post is more of "what could have been" speculation than genuine critique, but i feel like if the crew had six 22 min episodes instead of three 44 min ones (same overall runtime!) the issues with the pacing could have been largely fixed.

They overall seem to work well with 22 min stories, as they had a lot of practice with first two seasons and this is overall more of an animation standard. With season 3 i think they were struggling to fit everything in one episode and then struggling to fill the next.

So! Just imagine (mixed with personal rewrite things bc im a salty bitch):

For the Future could be easily condensed into one episode. Boscha's and Kikimora's deal may be nice fanservice, but it's not of first importance. So the story can be cut and fiddled with to focus on just Luz and Willow with Belos doing his thing in the C plot.

The other 22 min could go either into the Thanks to Them part of the season or Watching and Dreaming part, but personally i would use it to focus on Hunter's possession.

If they want the possession thing to be a genuine point in Hunter's arc, it definitely needs more time. Show us Hunter in his mindscape struggling for control with Belos, connect it more clearly to Hunter's "i don't want to be like Belos" and "i want to be my own person not a tool" fears, show us all the classic drama of "character is forced to fight their loved one(s) but doesn't want to hurt them", give just a bit more focus to other characters reactions to the situation and give more runtime to the depressing aftermath, etc.

There still won't be enough time to show Hunter grieving, so feel like Flapjack's death still should be cut, but if not, then at least the possession thing has more narrative purpose.

The other two Thanks to Them episodes, could still focus on Luz and Camila and Luz and Hunter, maybe give them a bit more time. But i also think the additional time could be used to for Willow (actual hints and foreshadowing to her bottling up problem), Gus (he barely got anything!), Huntlow (i feel like Thanks to Them lacked a major Huntlow moment for the build up to feel more organic) and Wittebane lore.

The Wittebane lore could be also easily connected with Gus since he literally saw all of Belos' memories oh my god--

Also, more of a personal gripe maybe, but the Grimwalker reveal should have happened in Thanks to Them with Willow and Gus. The way it actually happened was just so.. anticlimactic. We could have had a moment of character development with Hunter revealing this by his own volition and that major Huntlow moment i was talking about. It also could connect to Gus&Wittebane plot!

With Watching and Dreaming i have less notes, but they definitely could have paced out Collector's arc better

And also just imagine the devastating cliffhanger Luz's death could have been.

This wouldn't have fixed everything of course, but i think the crew would have had more chance to make it work.

[mdhwrites]

A Nasty Element of Analysis, Featuring Amity and Hunter

So someone in my Discord argued that they prefer Hunter over Amity because they believed that Hunter hit all the same notes as far as an arc goes but did them more satisfactorily, more dramatically and kept more of his personality. That if you were talking about who was better, this made him better. Now I actually disagree with this pretty much entirely. There's a reason I write Amity and Amity like characters into a lot of stories rather than taking inspiration from Hunter.

...But it didn't leave my mind because they did have a point, just not on the front they were making. After all, if you were to remake TOH to keep it closer to its core concepts, themes and GENRE...

Amity is arguably the least justifiable element in the SERIES to have been included. She is almost entirely written for a romantic drama, not a comedy adventure. She's not that funny, she doesn't allow for much comedy, she's not an interesting fighter, she goes on few adventures and commonly when she is a part of an adventure, the adventure element is DRASTICALLY downplayed. That's how we get episodes like Reaching Out.

And for a character like Raine, that's a problem too but Raine is in like 4 episodes in the entirety of the series. Amity takes up a THIRD of the entire series. She has more main plots with Luz than quite literally ANYONE ELSE IN THE SERIES. Lumity takes so much time from the rest of the series as to make it so much harder to actually have things like themes, found family, and a main plot because Luz doesn't have time to interact with those elements.

Worse yet, Amity goes AGAINST elements of world building and theme. She is single coven, she has no reason to go against Belos besides her girlfriend saying so, treats the covens like college rather than the law and instead of self expression and finding a space you can be yourself in, discards her entire character for the sake of making her girlfriend happy. Then in the epilogue, they double down on this by making her just her father.

And both Lumity and Raeda were elements that were planned for the show FROM THE START. If there is any better showing for why the writers had simply WRONG priorities for the show is that for this COMEDY ADVENTURE, part of their main concept was romantic interests.

The point of all of this is that from an analytical standpoint, if you were to try to review the show by what it claims its narrative goals are... Lumity is only a negative. It's one of the elements that makes Luz feel the least secure since she never even pauses about spending time with Amity until Knock Knock Knocking and then NEVER AGAIN besides when she fears everyone will leave her and not for personal reasons, it consumes so much time without doing world building or advancing the plot (anyone remember the memes that if Amity was in an episode, nothing important could happen) and is just straight up against the themes at times.

Meanwhile, I may not like Hunter's character but he is connected to the plot, even if not well, he adds worldbuilding literally just by existing and has a genuinely interesting concept as a part of the world as an outcast due to disability from birth. Even if these elements aren't handled well, they are still more of a part of TOH's genre than quite literally anything Amity does.

The ONLY arguments for Amity are that A: she does allow for representation which... Yay for that and I'm not in the correct position to be able to claim whether it's good or bad representation like I can with Luz as nuerodivergent rep or Eda as disability rep. But B: She is more fun than Hunter. The elements she adds are just more interesting than TOH's main plot 90% of the time. But... These aren't great arguments for saying TOH is some great story. They're excuses for why you should overlook the issues.

And if you're trying to critique a piece of media, those excuses should only go so far which is why I do feel I have to be fair to anyone who tries to stand up for Hunter over Amity (since their characters are so close to being the same) because... Yeah, Amity has no excuse for being here, let alone getting more time than KING with Luz, especially when their relationship literally is the justification for bringing Luz back to life at the end of the series.

Buuuut still don't expect me to shift to writing Lunter anyways. I've got better things to write nowadays regardless.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[darkmasterofcupcakes]

What are five pros and five cons you would give to Hazbin Hotel?

Gonna start with the cons, because I like to end on a positive note.

The Pacing. This was something I had a feeling was going to be a weakness of the show from the time I saw the trailer and learned that the first season was going to involve the next Extermination, especially when it was confirmed the season was only going to be eight episodes long. The twist in the first episode that the next Extermination was happening in half the time helped a little, but it still meant we skipped over months between episodes, with it being implied important stuff did happen that we just didn't see.

While I think it's better than Helluva Boss in balancing it's main cast (I love that show, but the uneven attention given between all of the main characters is one of the biggest issues it has), it still has some trouble with making all the characters feel fully like "people"? Niffty probably being the biggest example, since I love her, but right now she feels more like a living punchline than a real character.

The tone can sometimes be just a little...off with how it feels like we're supposed to feel. Best example being Sir Pentious death. The characters react to it like it was a serious event, because for them, it was...but the death itself was treated as kind of a joke? And I understand the show is a sort of dark comedy, so to an extent I expect stuff like that. But I think at that moment, the switch from "joke" to "you're supposed to seriously grieve this character" felt a bit too abrupt?

This is a completely personal thing, but as I've mentioned before, I don't love the whole sideplot of Sir Pentious having a crush on Cherri Bomb? It felt like it came out of nowhere, whereas most of the other relationships that seem to be a thing in the show were at least given hints in the Pilot. And it's just another example of the pacing being break-neck, since they had Cherri not show up until episode 6 of 8, and then Pentious dies in the finale, so they had basically two episodes (and not even full ones, just some scenes) to try and convince me of a romance, and, maybe it's just my arospec self, but....I couldn't really get convinced at all.

It's kinda hard for me to really think of issues I really have with the show, so I gotta kinda cheat a bit with this last one, since I can't help but wonder if they would've left the scene out had they known from the start of production that they'd get more seasons, but I personally don't love the whole stinger that reveals Pentious ended up in Heaven after Adam killed him? Not so much because I don't like the idea that he ended up there - I like that part. But I kind of feel like his death would have had a bit more impact if the audience did genuinely think he was gone for good for longer than like...fifteen minutes.

And now for the things I loved about Hazbin Hotel

The songs are arguably the biggest highlight of the whole series for me. I don't think there's a single one that I wouldn't happily listen to, whether in or out of context. From what I've seen I apparently don't have as high of an opinion of some songs as others, but I legitimately love all of them. I don't think there's anything I could say about any of the songs in this show that could be considered anything close to a real critique.

All of the characters are an absolute blast to watch. Yes, some of them don't have the most depth so far, but that doesn't change the fact that I just love to watch them whenever they're on screen? And it's not just the main cast, either. Obviously I love all of them, but even with fairly limited screen time, I found myself absolutely adoring whenever I got to see characters like Carmilla Carmine, Zestial, Velvette, and Rosie on screen. And all of the characters are so interesting and fun to imagine in different scenarios. And since I'm a writer, that is one of the biggest pros a series can have.

While the show is arguably more of a comedy, it is actually very good, in my opinion, dealing with some pretty serious topics when it wants to. The biggest example is Angel Dust's struggles with what he goes through thanks to Valentino, but you also have things like Vaggie's past and how her hiding that effected her relationship with Charlie when the truth got revealed. Or the whole thing of how it's implied most of Heaven didn't know about the Exterminations and that being revealed to them caused a lot of tensions, particularly between Emily and Sera. Or even just the whole thing of how Carmilla discovered how to kill Angels...but doesn't want it to be known what she did because she doesn't want to cause a war and lose her daughters, when the whole reason she learned that Angels could be killed was because she wanted to save them.

The character designs are some of the best I've seen in a long time. It really feels like the team took full advantage of the fact that it seems like there's no set rule for how demons can look in their version of hell, and so they went absolutely nuts with it, in the best possible way. Pretty much every single character has an incredibly unique design, and they're all just so fun to see. It makes the whole world feel so much more alive....slightly ironically considering it's the main setting is full of people who are technically all dead.

Outside of the one I mentioned above, I really like how basically all of the relationships in the show are handled, from the romantic to the platonic to the familial. They are all extremely varied and obviously some get more real attention than others, but all are given enough focus and attention that you always get the sense that the characters care for each other very deeply, especially by the end. And because you feel those bonds, you are even more effected by what the characters go through, because you feel like you're part of that group of people who care for one another. And I love that it also applies to the villains, with how Lute was clearly devestated by Adam's death, following the show indicating they were close, but usually showing them in what seemed to be a mostly "professional" relationship.

[veilk]

i would like to know your opinions on Ethereal Workshop. go on. we’re all waiting. 🙂

gamer, you are talking about an untagged three note throwaway post from a nobody on the internet. i don't even participate in the fandom. at most it mighve unintentionally showed up in the non-tag search because i forgot to break up the name with punctuation. who is "we"

anyway i did say that i specifically was not going to get into my opinions, but hey, you're asking, so why not

song link, followers who are nosy but have no idea what i'm talking about

mandatory disclaimer that these are my own personal subjective opinions and that you're allowed to disagree. like that's fine. you do you

so like to clarify i don't actually hate it sso much as i find it disappointing and kind of bad. i just phrased the post like that because i think it's funny to portray myself as comically hateful about a song in a game that i'm like, ten years above the target age for

imo workshop is sort of disjointed and just... doesn't work well. most of the instruments just don't fit together well and create a sound that is strange in a bad way. yes, yes, i'm aware, chaotic and messy fits the island theme. i've heard this many times before. i present my opinion: fitting a theme does not automatically make something good

the extended portion though... whew. that's where a lot of my problems lie. having all instruments play at once for an epic climax sounds cool in concept, but the problem is the more instruments you have the easier it is for them all to start drowning each other out. you have to make sure there's like, actual room for all those instruments to play. workshop... hasn't been doing this. not well, at least

a little side tangent: [angrily shaking my fist at the sky] pen.tumbra.... it has a cool concept but it sounds severely out of place. it has such a drastically different vibe than anything else in the song that it's jarring. the rest of the song does have... something of a vibe going on. it's just not one that pen.tumbra can fit into, even slightly. i do think it could be saved with a bit of editing and some effects but i'm here to critique the actual song not hypothetical versions of the song that don't exist :p (+ yes i know i could just mute pen.tumbra, but again, my criticism is based off the actual full song)

i've also thought to myself "maybe i'm being too hard on them, this is a song for a game about monsters that sing" and then i remember nexus exists and go "nevermind if they can do that with preexisting monsters from different islands they couldve done better with workshop"

ultimately this is not something that matters, workshop doesn't have anything actually inherently wrong with it. it's just a song that exists. i personally have problems with it but that's not like. objective truth.

genuinely, if you enjoy the song, that's fine. i'm glad you're able to enjoy it! i might not get it but i don't have to. part of the beauty of existence is our varied perspectives and opinions and such. this is genuine, if it's not clear

[callieponders]

NGL sometimes I look at the crew's tweets about him needing to stop being in anger mode 24/7 and reintegrate into society, and I wonder: are we supposed to expect him to work through that by himself? Do we expect great emotional regulation and self-awareness from an elementary schooler in an abusive household? He absolutely shouldn't be redirecting his anger at the people around him (note: Hazel. she didn't deserve that ire at all and doesn't owe him any patience about it), but I can't help looking at him and thinking that he needs, like. I dunno. A therapist. An adult. Someone or something that's actually guaranteed to help him out a little. The adults present in the show... didn't seem very interested in doing that, despite seeming to know what his actual core issue was? Maddening. Anyway

(disclaimer before anything i say. i just need yall to know this show could be the worst thing ive ever seen and id still hope the best for the crew bc its their job and people need to eat alright. that being said i do enjoy the show, please dont take this as me saying they need to NEVER WORK AGAIN ala nostalgia critic style or something)

that wording is so funny though, reintegrate into society... the boy is a small child not someone coming out of prison

but seriously this is exactly the type of stuff im thinking, i dont really go on twitter much anymore because i dislike it so i wasnt aware of the things the crew said (and dont envy them because oh man this was a divisive finale it seems). i dont expect an episode like "dev goes to therapy" and the wacky adventures of him going to therapy or something, but im really hoping in s2 they have peri held more accountable for majorly screwing up here and trying to do right by dev with another chance given to him.

the frustrating thing is i cant blame people defending the choices because some people are genuinely really bad at voicing their opinion/critique, especially because it feels like a lot of people arent having the balls to actually point out peri, even cosmo and (frankly the worse one of the two bc she was so much harder on dev) wanda are a bigger blame for the situation with dev. of course people are gonna assume people are putting the responsibility on hazel, id also be defensive about that because thats a ridiculous thing to expect, but like nah its clear its not her responsibility. she is also 10 and has a world outside of dev, and dev SHOULD be held accountable for his actions in regards to lashing out at others around him when hes upset. the fact hes given more critique than the adults around him that are meant to guide him and help him is the bigger issue than that alone.

on that same note, hazel should also be held accountable for the same things, like saying devs problems werent that deep and having wanda, a FAIRY GODPARENT, basically agree??? also when she was like "oh friends work things out" i didnt hear no apology for not hearing dev out or at least for leaving him in the dark on if theyre friends or not. and the thing is i dont expect her to do that on her own, because shes 10, but theyre fictional 10 year olds who will have more maturity than most real kids either way, so like... yknow?

additionally its kind of a double standard either way, if you dont expect hazel to act mature, why on gods green earth would you expect DEV to??? and hazel, compared to dev, has people to guide her the right way and people that are patient with her, meanwhile dev doesnt get that, the most hes ever gotten is hazel and THATS NOT HAZELS JOB!!! im not saying the writers are claiming it is, its just that its frustrating that the writing has ended up with her feeling like the only person who really gives a damn yknow