#where he’s clearly talking about liking the female vessel better

[musclesandhammering]

Ok but consider 1901 Castiel realising Ishim is harassing and abusing Lily and that being the reason she rebels against her siblings. So the whole show is set in the early 1900s with fem!Cas and Lily as the lead protagonists and the Winchesters just… don’t exist lol.

Also yeah Lily Sunder is 100% a lesbian, I’m tinhatting but listen. Right off the bat she’s remarkably independent and is a professor of history and the occult in 1901 which already has gay power + energy, and then she’s walking around in 2016 in a gay pantsuit and an eyepatch like……. and then you have her relationship with Akobel which is very clearly not romantic but they let people think they were which I mean thats bearding. And she certainly didnt love Ishim, he disgusted her and she cut ties with him when he started being obsessively in love with her, long before the Incident. Yes she has a daughter but it was the turn of the 20th century so comp het is NOT a stretch, never mind that May’s actual father is evidently not around anymore, if he ever even was since he’s never seen or described or even actually mentioned iirc. The situation is weirdly ambiguous so may could have even been adopted (also not a stretch for the time period) or who knows. Regardless it looks like Lily has been traumatised by men her whole long life and she managed to survive to a year where gay marriage is now legal and thats why i think she deserves a girlfriend

[radiomonkeys2]

"How about we settle this with a test 'a balls?"

"Tsk. I don't even have balls, and I'll tell you I got the balls."

Raza the Space Pirate stands off against Yulaan the Barbarian Warrior, taking place in the run-down streets of New York City, 1977. High on kung fu and wuxia grindhouse films, Yulaan enters a street fighting tournament set against the backdrop of the Great Blackout of 1977, and it's during the final moments of this tournament that a secret challenger enters— another Yaban! This one a nagoi named Raza, who has been eager to fight the Butcher of Gorta for years. And fight they do, showing off their superhuman qi abilities to the humans watching. But this is no fun, so what say they put away the magic tricks and do this like a couple of fellows— hand-to-hand, a pure secular fistfight in a Knife-Edge Deathmatch!

Raza is a space pirate, a vitakoze or deathkommando, one who raids interplanetary and interstellar vessels to sell the materials on them on the black market, but this is really just a front. All he's really into is a good fight and butchery, so he deliberately targets the most well-defended and hardest-to-penetrate ships in the cosmos for the sake of a great challenge. Indeed, because of the insane nature of nagoi piracy, they're often employed by warlords and mercenary groups to do the difficult missions no others will dare to contemplate, let alone try. Raza isn't a top-tier pirate— he's a small fry all things considering, but that's his lot in life. Unlike a lot of his compatriots, he's perfectly fine with staying small rather than advancing through the power structure, feeling that it keeps him close to the best kinds of action— those down-to-Earth sorts of fistfights that really get the blood pumping… often all over the walls.

I've always talked about vroda kvltvr because female characters are inherently interesting to me. But senja kvltvr is also interesting. Nagois are very manly as a rule, and they are still capable of brotherhoods— after all, "senja kagora" literally translates to "brother fellowship" or "fraternal chivalry," so they clearly have this capability. Indeed, nagois ought to have very strong brotherhoods because part of their spiritual dao is that of the ultramasculine huo combined with the feminine yin— but all the feminine third does for them is allow for that self-control and compassion for one another that makes fraternities so strong while also enhancing their destructive potential. Bollois are widely seen as lacking that sort of compassionate side hence why they make such effective butchers and assassins, but they still have chivalrous sisterhoods, so it makes sense that nagois will be males of unity and fellowship. Considering male friendship is a major manly theme on Earth, the manliness of nagois doesn't really need to be stated, hence why I tend to focus way more on the manliness of bollois.

But that being said, senja kagora is still not some feminine ordeal or anything. Nagois do manly things that often get homoerotic, and one of those things is a knife-edge death match, where these manly space warriors get to have their fun beating each other bloody between blades. Again, bollois do these things too— nagois and bollois share many behaviors in their fellowships. Indeed, Djuggesh and Ghojin are an undefeated winners of multiple knife-edge death matches. However, Yulaan had never actually heard of these things because she never had the chance to really get into vroda kvltvr before her war on Planet Gorta, hence why she's confused by the offer to fight in one against Raza. To be fair, he's also beguiled that the Butcher of Gorta has never been in a knife-edge death match, let alone heard of them. It seems more than a bit odd, like a badass mercenary with hundreds of kills having never heard of even the concept of honor dueling or underground fight clubs. So he teaches her via actually holding one.

And what better place to do it than in 1977 New York? A place of the cusp of post-modernity, where the chauvinistic and chivalrous machismo of the past still lingers on and triggers many bystanders to become so incredibly uncomfortable.

It can't be avoided as a subject: Yulaan is female. She may not be a woman per se, but she is indistinguishable from one, since Yabans are essentially that classic "humanoid alien" archetype. She looks and sounds like a woman, and she's female, so to these people, she might as well be a woman— indeed, it's common for people to call her a woman in many forms, such as "Yaban woman," and even "bolloi woman" because they don't quite get that "bolloi" alone works (it would essentially be like calling a female fowl a "hen woman" but made far muddier by the fact bollois are, as aforementioned, indistinguishable from women). She already upsets people by being so well-built and battle-scarred. Tossing her into a brutal bare-knuckle pit fight with an insanely muscular male just seems offensively obscene to these modern eyes. Not that everyone's against it.

Sure, some like Glenn and Michael think it's an afront to the Lord Himself for this to happen and Jennifer weeps, thinking that Yulaan's throwing away her beautiful face and shouldn't be doing something so toxically wretched— but then you have the amazed Jocko and Elf who, even though they also possess era-appropriate chauvinism (how could they know their general attitudes would make them villains to those two generations away in the future?), are more tolerant than they let on and certainly don't mind a lady going topless to fight. Plus the sheer audacity of such a fight is astounding, especially to Elf who sees it not as some mixed brawl but as a legendary struggle of will. Nor is Lori anything but awe-struck. Again, she'd never get involved in such a dumb sort of brutal herself either, and while the fight itself is so dumb to her, it's also awesome.

Alas, Yulaan and Raza couldn't care less about what the humans think of their fight. They're Yabans; this is just what they do. That there might be anything unusual or wrong about a male and a female fistfighting with such raw brutality is an alien concept to them— on Planet Kollidor, only the strong meet on the battlefield! Strength is all that matters. There is no "equality" on Kollidor; only strength and power.

Admittedly, causing that sort of discomfort is part of why Yulaan even heads back to the past, such as to 1950s Spain and 1960s America and East Asia. These time periods were eras of far stronger gender norms and far greater male honor in daily life. There's a natural clash between human and Yaban norms as a result. We humans expect our females to be tender, delicate, graceful, kind, compassionate, submissive, motherly, sensitive, emotional, and indecisive, even in modern times when such isn't "politically correct" to say directly and thus vastly moreso in past decades. Tradwives and tradwomen are supposed to be bearers of that sort of ultra-femininity. Yabans, by comparison, expect their females to be industrious, brutal, aggressive, unconcerned, logical, and cruel. In fact, a traditional bolloi or tradbol would be seen as completely lacking femininity to humans. As has been stated before, bollois may be the females, but the hermaphroditic yenois are the "Women," at least by traditional standards. Yulaan considering herself a "somewhat traditional girl" is ironic in that context considering that, by Yaban standards, she very much is so, and yet by human standards, we'd probably call her "ultra-Butch" and some certainly might consider her a "frigid feminist" as a result. Hence why it's so fun to thrust her into places like Francoist Spain, suburban mid-century America, 80s Japan, and more.

This is what happens when you take the Strong Female Character™ trope and run with it to its maximum possible extent.

Special thanks to Salvamakoto for the artwork!

[autisticandroids]

post about lily sunder has some regrets and angel gender

okay so lily sunder has some regrets is the best episode of late season spn and maybe the best episode of spn right? right? i’m glad we’re all agreed. anyway lets talk about how batshit the gender implications of this episode are. i’m going to be slipping between watsonian and doylist interpretations like soap through your fingers so keep up. i don’t have a point here i’m just obsessed.

anyway the thing is that benjamin is the first angel we ever meet to be gendered against his vessel. benjamin is referred to by male pronouns even though he’s possessing a woman. they even talk about it. “so benjamin is a woman?” “no, benjamin is an angel, his vessel is a woman.” but it’s not like all angels are referred to with male pronouns. in general, angels are referred to either by the pronouns of their current vessel, or the pronouns of the first vessel we met them in (i’m preeeetty sure raphael stayed “he” after switching to a female vessel, and hannah stayed “she” after switching to a male vessel). now obviously the reason for lily sunder doing this is twofold, one is that our friend mr yockey wants us to think about angel gender, and two that mr yockey wants to make it clear that the relationship between benjamin and his vessel has some kind of sexual connotation because, a, he wants us to think about angels and humans fucking because that IS the theme here, and b, he wants us to think “oh, so benjamin and his vessel are fucking!” and then hear SAM say “so she was his..... friend” calling attention to the naming of relationships, and how inadequate a terms “friend” seems in light of what cas has said about benjamin and his vessel, and causing us to pay attention to the name we give to whatever dean and cas are to each other. what i’m saying is that steve yockey said “wanna be boy best friends?”

and then there’s ishim’s line “i liked your old vessel better” which doesn’t scan as weird until a few minutes later when we find out that cas’ old vessel was a woman! and then a few minutes after that when we find out that ishim is a creep. like upon rewatch that line reads like sexual harassment. and yet that’s insaaaaane because angels are genderless!! what the hell difference does it make!! except it does. also side note i don’t think we ever heard hot girl castiel referred to in the third person but i would have liked to hear some she/her pronouns about cas pls and thank you. that would have fucked. that is the only way in which mr yockey has ever let me down.

and then there’s like. this episode also does the thing that annoys me where angels receive gendered names that line up with their gendering that spn does? like every day i wake up and am annoyed that hannah, rachel, naomi, hester were named those things while male-vesseled angels get to have like, weird and kind of sexless angel-y sounding names. except that mr yockey is doing it intentionally, like, first of all this is the first time that a male angel has gotten that treatment (benjamin) and second of all he does it with mirabel, which is a pretty feminine name, right? except then we meet a male-vesseled angel, akobel, like, that’s clearly on the same naming convention. so it’s kind of deconstructing that as well.

there wasn’t a point to this rant it’s just something i think about constantly. i’m not sure if i even like all the things mr yockey added to the canonical concept of angel gender they’re just like, fascinating to me.

[allisondraste]

Cockroaches and Other Things That Just Keep On Living

Fandom: Mass Effect

Ship: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian

Word Count: 4019

Summary: It's only been two weeks since the Reaper War ended, and the Alliance is already trying to bury Shepard.

[Click Here for A03]

Two weeks.  It had only been two weeks since the war ended, since that devastating flash of red light burst from the Citadel and bounced off every active relay in the galaxy, since the Reapers fell dead in space and the Normandy crash landed on some tropical little human colony world just on the edge of the Terminus Systems.  It had just been two weeks, but the Alliance and the rest of the whole damn galaxy were already willing to declare Shepard dead.  And to add insult to injury, they’d  given Garrus the great honor and privilege of hanging her name up on a memorial wall in some trite ceremony to make the crew feel better.

“There isn’t anyone who could’ve been at the epicenter of that blast and survived,” Hackett had explained, far too matter-of-factly. “It’s time for us to move forward.”

“Shepard isn’t just anyone,” Garrus had replied, and then promptly told the admiral where to shove his plaque. It was not his finest moment.

Now, he sat in the mess hall, alone and staring down at the dextro-amino rations he’d barely touched. The bastardized version of some overly seasoned human dish would have been unappetizing even if he had an appetite. But he didn’t.  Something about the person he loved being declared dead left a sour taste in his mouth.  He’d only even tried to eat because Liara insisted, and he wasn’t in the mood for another well meant lecture about taking care of himself.

No longer willing to bother, he shoved the plate away from him with the back of his hand, and looked up in just enough time to catch Williams walk past him.  She stopped, performed a proper about-face and marched up to his table.

“Hey,” Ash greeted him like she’d never spoken to him before in her life.

“Hey,” Garrus replied and watched as she shifted uncomfortably and darted her eyes around the entire room before meeting his gaze.

She motioned to an empty seat across the table from him. “Can I— I mean, do you want some company? You just look—”

“Like I’m one news vid about the ‘late’ Commander Shepard away from going postal?” He let out a derisive snort. “Yeah.”

Williams smirked and  eased herself down onto the bench without waiting for him to agree to her company. “I was going to say ‘like shit,’ but that works too.”

He answered her dryly. “Gee. Thanks.”

There was a pause in conversation, then Ash tilted her head in that sympathetic way every human who knew him seemed to do since Earth. “Seriously though… how are you holding up?”

I’m not , Garrus thought, but the words didn’t make it to his mouth, just sarcasm.. “Didn’t realize you cared… or is this just one of those human things where you pretend to care for my benefit?”

She leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Do I seem like the kind of person who pretends to do anything for anyone’s benefit, especially yours?”

He laughed. “Fair.”

“Listen, this is off the record but… Hackett had that mouthful coming.” She laughed and shook her head. “I’m just glad it was you that said it and not me because, well, I like my job.”

If anyone had told Garrus that one day, he’d have a heart-to-heart with the human woman who’d spent their entire first mission together shooting daggers at him from across Normandy’s shuttle bay, he’d have said they were crazy.  But there they were, raw from the absence of someone who meant so much to the both of them.

“It’s been two weeks,” he muttered, looking down at his hands. “ Two. They haven’t even found her bod—“ he tried and failed to choke back the lump in his throat,  but continued talking anyway, glancing up at her— “It’s too damn soon, Ash.”

“I know,” came her firm reply as she reached across the table.  She hesitated for a split second, but then let her hand fall on top of his.  Deep brown eyes welled up with tears that she tried to blink away.  She let out a frustrated huff as one rolled down her cheek anyway, then cleared her throat.  “ Damn. Pretend this isn’t happening.” “Pretend what isn’t happening, Williams?”

“Perfect,” she remarked, wiping her face with the heel of her free hand and laughing. “Kind of hard to believe it’s only been three years since we tracked down Saren.  Feels like a lifetime ago.”

“And look at us now, being mostly civil,” he said with a sigh, staring down at Ash’s hand.  Alien as it was, it reminded him of Shepard’s, strong to be as small as it was, with too many fingers.  He recalled the many times those fingers had traced the hard edges of his face, how that hand had fit so comfortably into his (after a few clumsy attempts, of course).  He’d take another missile to the face to hold it again.

“You know, Shepard worked her ass off to convince me it’d be fine having aliens on board an Alliance vessel,” Ash observed playfully, pulling him from his thoughts.

“You? Paranoid over a handful of non-humans? I’m shocked .”

“Nothing personal,” she explained,“Just didn’t feel comfortable sharing a station with a guy whose grandpa probably shot at mine during the War.”

“Hate to break it to you but—” he leaned back in his seat— “My grandfather was just a run of the mill C-Sec officer.  All he would have done was write your grandfather a nasty citation. ‘Being human in Citadel space,’ used to be a finable offense.”

“God,” she said with another laugh, “Back then, I rolled my eyes and told Shepard I’d do whatever she wanted me to do. ‘You tell me to jump, I ask how high.  You tell me to kiss a turian, I’ll ask which cheek.’”

“We don’t really have cheeks,” Garrus corrected, laughing when Ash shot him a pointed look, “But that’s beside the point.  I’m guessing Shepard never followed through with that order.”

“No, she told me, and I quote, ‘Nobody’s going to be kissing any turians on this mission, Ash,’” she said in her best Shepard impression, then muttered, “Fucking liar.”

“Well, to her credit, I don’t think she planned on me being so… irresistable.”

Ash snorted and rolled her eyes. “Okay, ladykiller .”

There was another pause in conversation, and her expression fell.  She looked down to where her hand still lay on his. “Back then, I just assumed you’d jump ship as soon as things got rocky, as soon as we— as Shepard — really needed you, but…” She trailed off, grip tightening around his hand.  “You never let her down, not once.  Not even when I—”

“You didn’t let her down, Ash,” he argued, sensing where she was headed, “She never thought that.”

“Yeah, well I do,” she snapped, words clipped, “I should have seen the signs that Cerberus had her pinned down, but I let my ego get in the way.  I’m surprised she wanted anything to do with me after that.”

“You’re not the only one who has ever screwed up trying to do the right thing,” he reassured her, “Shepard, of all people, understood that.”

“That’s… you’re probably right,” she nodded and looked up at him, “Thanks. And for whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Uh, sorry for what?”

“For ever believing you weren’t an important part of the crew,” she stated seriously, then smiled, “And for calling you birdbrain  behind your back.”

Garrus’ mandibles flared in amusement, and he gave her hand a few friendly pats. “No harm done,” he said, then paused for a beat, “Besides, you didn’t hear what I said behind your back.”

One of her eyebrows shot up. “You talked shit about me?”

“So much.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” shouted a familiar voice from across the mess, causing them both to snap their heads toward the sound. “Somebody get this heartwarming moment on camera.”

Ash stiffened, retracting her hand quickly and stuffing it under the table. “Joker.”

“Hey, Joker.” Garrus waved. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” he answered, words pointed. “You know, aside from the soul-crushing agony of my girlfriend dying. ”

Garrus had spent enough time around humans to know that the Flight Lieutenant looked rough, even for someone who’d never cared about keeping up appearances.  His eyes were red, the skin underneath dark enough that even the shadow cast from his hat couldn’t disguise the lack of sleep. He made his way unsteadily to the table and sat down next to Williams.

Garrus opened his mouth, preparing to speak, to express sympathy, but Joker cut him off. “And before you start with any of that ‘I understand how you feel’ crap— no you don’t.  Everyone knows you can’t say Shepard’s dead until we’ve ID’d the body.  Maybe not even then. She just keeps living… like a cockroach. ”

“You know you could just say, ‘I’m not doing so hot,” right?” Ash scolded him,  but there was still a softness to her voice. “You don’t have to be an ass about it.”

“Yeah, but see… being an ass is way more my style.”

The table went completely quiet as Joker crossed his arms over his chest and scowled, tension palpable enough it might as well have had mass.  Not one for tolerating awkward silences, Garrus ventured a question. “What the hell is a cockroach?”

Ash smiled, clearly thankful for the change in subject, and began to explain. “They’re these—“

“ Beetles ,” Joker cut her off, “Big, disgusting ones that are supposed to be able to survive extreme conditions other organics can’t.”

“Sounds about right,” Garrus admitted with a shrug.

The pilot flinched and glared at him. “Wait. I called Shepard a disgusting beetle and you’re just okay with that?”

“Are you kidding? Why wouldn’t I be,” he asked sarcastically, “It actually explains why she kept molting. ”

“You’re having fun. Stop it,” Joker whined, scowl deepening, “Stop having fun!”

Garrus laughed and threw his hands up in surrender. “This isn’t exactly my idea of fun. My cockroach is missing.”

Joking though he was, his words were honest, something Joker must have detected.  His expression softened even as he puffed his chest out. He deflated immediately as another familiar voice called out, likely interrupting whatever barrage of barbs he’d prepared to hurl at Garrus. This time, it was Vega who strutted over to the table carrying an entire fifth of some sort of human liquor.  Cortez trailed solemnly behind him, examining the rectangular objects in his hands.

“Yo, don’t tell me the party started without us,” shouted Vega, setting the alcohol down on the table with a loud clank , pointing a thumb back at Cortez, “Esteban here took forever polishing the name plaques.”

Garrus stiffened at the mention of the plaques, knowing full and well there had been one commissioned with Shepard’s name on it despite all his protests. Turned out, the Alliance brass didn’t give a damn about some loud mouth former C-Sec officer or his feelings after all. He just hoped none of the humans were able to read the pain in his expression— a hope that was in vain if the sympathetic glance Cortez gave him was any indication.

“What’s that for?” Ashley pointed to the bottle of amber liquid Vega sat on the table.

“What do you think,” Vega asked, as if his intentions should have been completely clear, “I’m going to pour one out for the commander.”

“All over the Normandy's floor?” She raised her brows at him.

“Nah.” He gave her a dismissive wave. “Just down the sink or somethin’.”

She picked the bottle up and examined the label more closely. “But…this is expensive stuff, James.”

“Don’t care,” came Vega’s indignant response, “It’s for Lola.”

Ashley gave him a solemn nod, seeming to understand whatever peculiar human tradition he was planning to perform. Satisfied, Vega turned his attention to Joker, snagging his cap, flipping it around, and placing it down on his head backwards. Joker cursed and grumbled, calling Vega a bully among other things, but Vega just smiled and walked over to Garrus, giving him a supportive clap on the shoulder.

Slowly, the rest of the crew began to filter in, each with their own expressions of concern.  Traynor and Tali arrived together, deep in conversation if the emphatic hand gestures were any indication.  They both quieted as they arrived at the table, Traynor frowning and bowing her head, whileTali approached and slid comfortably  into the seat next to Garrus.

She looked down at the uneaten food and back up at him, giving him a nudge with her elbow and complaining. “You are wasting all of the good dextro rations.”

“Good? Oh, come on,  we both know it’s garbage.”

“Well… yes, but it’s digestible garbage,” she said, holding a finger up to make her point.  Her voice softened when she continued. “And you’ve hardly eaten anything the past few days.”

He sighed and looked down at the rations. “Yeah.”

Tali observed him for a second, eyes glowing behind her helmet. She then grabbed his plate and slid it toward him. “Eat up, Vakarian. Or else I will have to feed you myself… with a spoon I am pretending is the Normandy.”

Garrus let out a laugh despite himself. “I don’t think that’ll work, Tali.”

“You don’t know that.  You haven’t heard my engine noises.”  She laughed along with him for a few seconds, then grew quiet once again and gave him a gentle pat on the back. “The Alliance is going to feel very silly when Shepard gets back and they have to explain why they hung her name up on the wall and sold her hamster.”

“ If she makes it back this time.”

“She will,” Tali asserted, voice cracking, “She has to.”

It was Javik who entered next, voice booming in a debate with Liara, who had taken it upon herself to explain human customs for memorializing the dead. He shook his head and ignored her entirely, stating that if he wished for a history lesson, he would ask for one.  He then snapped his many-eyed gaze to Garrus.

“You should not be saddened about Shepard’s fate, Garrus.  She died with great honor.”

Liara let out an exasperated sigh, and sat down in one of the empty seats at the next table over, bringing her hand to her face.

“What is it, asari?” Javik snapped, “Honor in death is something turians hold in high regard, is it not? This should be a great comfort to him.”

“Perhaps with time,” Liara explained,”But right now it is… insensitive.”

“It’s nothing my dad hasn’t already told me a dozen times,” Garrus stated flatly, “I appreciate the sentiment.”

Weird that a fifty-thousand year-old Prothean reminded him of his dad.  Then again, Castis Vakarian was as about as traditional as turians came, and they butted heads on almost every subject, including but not limited to: Garrus’ disregard for rules, his decision to leave C-Sec—twice, his “risk- and attention-seeking” behavior, and his “absurd infatuation with a human woman”. Their relationship had always been strained, to say the least. Still, he had always been there when Garrus needed him, and listened when it mattered. He was the first call Garrus made from the medbay after the Reapers were destroyed, when he realized Shepard might not be coming back.

He’d been sympathetic, but not even remotely comforting, not unlike Javik was at present. Garrus just didn’t have it in him to explain to either how little he cared about the honorable nature of her sacrifice, the high esteem the galaxy now held her in, or the way history would remember her. None of that mattered when she wasn’t at his side.  How could he be proud, when all he felt was empty?

Once all parties arrived and settled in, the group spent time talking and sharing memories. The Alliance crew members all told stories about encounters with Admiral Anderson, how he more often felt like a parent than a commanding officer, and how his reputation was so much larger than his ego. Traynor did most of the talking about EDI, their friendship, and how seamlessly she’d fit into the crew, how easy it had been to forget she was an AI. Joker just pulled the bill of his cap down to cover his eyes.  Then, the reminiscence moved to the commander.

Every single person present had a story about Shepard, about how she went above and beyond the call of duty to help them, and to make sure they were taken care of while aboard the Normandy.  Shepard had always taken time to check in with the people who worked for her, even when the galaxy was falling apart and herself along with it.  She was a good leader, arguably the best, and an even better friend.  It was clear that everyone in the room admired her, and that she was missed.

Garrus knew he should say something, tell one of the many stories of the trouble he and Shepard had gotten into together. The others all watched him expectantly as he scrambled for words.

“I—“ he began, but was interrupted by the buzzing of his omni-tool, followed by several bright flashes of light. He cursed and pulled up the interface to silence the damn thing.  An urgent message alert flashed on his screen, and he tapped the icon to open it.

From: Dr. Chloe Michel

Subject: Jane Doe

Dear Garrus,

I hope this email reaches you, and that you are still alive to read it.  I am on the Citadel working with an emergency medical unit out of what is left of  Huerta Memorial. The blast from the Crucible caused some severe structural damage near the epicenter, and we have been searching the area to find and identify survivors and remains.

There is a Jane Doe here, who I believe you might know. Please contact me on a private channel whenever you are able.

Take Care,

Chloe

His heart sank like lead into his gut as he read what could only be a request to come in and identify a corpse.  The space around him was suddenly too full, too loud, and the curious eyes of his companions lingered on him for far longer than comfortable. He tapped the display on his omni-tool once again to close it, glancing around the room from one set of eyes to another.

“It’s nothing,” he lied. The truth would only cause unnecessary alarm he wasn’t equipped to handle at the moment.  He stood abruptly, a jolt of pain coursing through his leg that was still recovering from a fracture, and excused himself. “Just need to make a quick call.”

“Now,” Liara asked, frowning, “But the memorial ceremony was just about to begin.”

“So start without me,” he snapped and made his way to the main battery.  He’d apologize later, when his world wasn’t caving in.

The battery doors shut behind him with a familiar hiss and he sank down into his seat next to the workbench where his favorite rifle lay surrounded by tools and unused thermal clips. It had taken a beating in the battle on Earth, and Garrus had poured over repairing it in the days following its end.  He hadn’t touched it since.  There were no more enemies to fight, and the gun just reminded him of Shepard.

Bringing up his omni-tool once again, Garrus established a link using the information Michel provided him.  He only waited a second or two before a voice on the other end picked up.

“Garrus,” exclaimed the woman, “I am so glad you received my message.”

“About that Jane Doe,” he began, cutting straight to the chase, “I— do you need me to identify the b— her ?”

“No… it is Commander Shepard,” she explained, “I am absolutely certain.”

“ Oh, ” Garrus said with the breath he’d been holding.  He was glad he was already sitting down, as the last shreds of hope he’d been clinging to slipped from his grasp leaving him dizzy and sick.  It was Shepard.  She was dead. There was nothing to be done about it.

He took a minute to collect himself and his thoughts, cleared his throat and told the doctor, “I, uh…I’m not really sure how to— I mean, I guess I should make funeral arrangements. That’d be better than letting the Alliance—“

“Garrus,” Michel interjected firmly, “She’s alive.”

“ What,” he asked, more loudly than he’d intended.  Hoping nobody had overheard outside, he lowered his voice and continued, “I mean, how is she? What’s her condition? Is she going to—”

“I won’t lie to you,” the doctor interrupted again, “Her injuries are serious, and she has been comatose since we found her.  Still, her vitals are strong and stable at present. She is a fighter.”

“She is.”

The line was silent for a beat then Michel spoke up again.  “I had a wonder… Shepard’s body has, ehm… extensive cybernetic modification. More extensive than I have seen. We are not certain how, or if it is even possible to repair all of the damage.”

One name came immediately to mind. “Miranda Lawson.”

“Pardon?”

“You need to contact Miranda Lawson,” Garrus clarified,  “She is an ex-Cerberus operative, the scientist responsible for Shepard’s upgrades. And a friend. She will be able to help. I can send you her contact information.”

“Good, yes. I will contact her immediately,” Michel replied, relief noticeable in her voice. She then sighed and said, “I apologize for sending such a vague email.  I am realizing now that it was likely… anxiety provoking. I simply did not wish for the wrong people to find out about Shepard’s survival.”

Garrus huffed, “Yeah, if the media caught wind of this, it’d be a circus.”

“That is what I feared,” she agreed with a sigh, “Besides, I thought you should be the first to see her. I know she is important to you.”

“Thank you, doc. For everything.”

“It is the very least I can do.  I owe my life to the both of you. Twice over, now it would seem:”

“I’ll get to the Citadel as soon as I can.”

“Talk to you then.”

The call ended with a beep and Garrus shut off his omni-tool display, staring blankly at the wall on the opposite side of the room for several minutes, attempting to recover from the emotional whiplash the last half hour had given him.  He took a deep breath, rose to his feet, and headed back out to the mess hall.

All eyes turned to him as he made his way toward the memorial wall just outside the elevator.  EDI’s and Anderson’s names had already been placed, tears already shed. Now they looked to Garrus, Cortez approaching with the name plaque meant to commemorate Shepard’s death. He took the polished silver plate and examined it, light glinting off its corners as he stepped up to the wall.  For a long moment he traced the letters of a name that had come to mean so much to him, to those crowded in the narrow hallway around him, to the hundreds of thousands who’d cheered from ships in the massive fleet she’d rallied and led to victory, and to the billions of lives she’d saved across the galaxy.  Shepard deserved so much more than a name on a wall.

And now, just maybe, she could have it.

Garrus would have preferred to keep  Shepard’s survival to himself, to snag her from the hospital and elope to some secluded tropical paradise where nobody could ask anything of either of them again, except “Would you like a refill on that incredibly alcoholic beverage?” But he knew he couldn’t do that.  After all, he was not the only one who loved her.

Lowering the plaque, he turned to face the others, all of whom looked at him with a mix of confusion and concern.  He glanced down at Shepard’s name again, mandibles flaring out reflexively as relief and excitement swelled in his chest.

“They found her.  They found Shepard,” he told them, bringing his eyes to meet their gazes as he spoke. “She’s alive.”

[lovestrucked-again]

Delirium II | Mafia

Summary: After being kidnapped and claimed by the notorious mafia leader, he offers you a 7 day period where you’ll be given the option after of staying or leaving. Until then, you’re stuck, whether you like it or not.

Pairing: Mafia leader X female reader Word count: 2.9k

Genre & Warning: SMUT, fingering, Explicit content, kidnapping, mafia gang, possessive, toxic, yandere like personality, punishment, use of sex toys, multiple orgasms, rough, orgasm denial, begging, orgasm control, praise, teasing, 

Please don’t read this if you’re uncomfortable. A very obvious statement but this series is purely fictional, it is unacceptable in real life and should not be taken lightly.

Part 1 | Part 3

Day 2

When you wake up, the sticky feeling from between your thighs is gone. Your body is still bare but the sheet wrapped around you is enough to keep you warm. With the morning light shining through the windows, your finally able to look around the room. You sit up against the headboard, noticing the pain in your thighs as you drag them up. The room is simply decorated. The walls a dull shade of white with a neat desk in the corner. A few plants littering around the room, giving it colour.

The sound of the door opening brings your attention over to the person entering, your hands quickly bringing the sheets to cover your top half. Taeyong walks in, dressed in a white shirt and shorts, clearly having already showered.

“I made you breakfast. I know it’s just a bowl of cereal, but it’s the only thing I won’t burn.” He tells you, taking a seat beside you on the bed. His piercing eyes from the night before now soft and rounded.

“Thanks.” You mumble, bringing your arms out of the sheet to grab the bowl from him gratefully.

Taeyong smiles at you, the silence seeming strangely comfortable. You couldn't tell what this man was thinking. When you first met him, he looked at you like you were something delicate, the way he carefully approached you, pushed your hair behind your ears. Then last night happened, not that you didn’t enjoy the sex, but it was ….terrifying. You didn't realise his personality could change so drastically in just the little time you’d known him.

“Hey baby, I hope you don't mind wearing one of my shirts for now. I got one of the guys to bring your clothes from your place for you.”

“My clothes?” You question, confused.

“Yeah.”

“Why are you bringing them here?”

“Because your moving in with me.” He states, bringing one of your hands to his lap.

“Wh-what?!” You stutter out.

“It’ll be fun.”

“Wait no, I can’t.” You shake your head violently, “I won’t.”

“Baby I wasn't really giving you a choice on that.” He warns, his voice suddenly low.

“Look, I don't know if you’re okay or if you need some help but I’m not moving in with you, I don't even know you!” You tell him, your voice rising with your words, not finding his jokes amusing, “I don’t even know your name for fucks sake.”

“Baby don't swear; I don't like it.” He murmurs, his hand stroking circular motions on the back of your palm soothingly, “And my name’s Taeyong.”

“I won’t tell anyone about last night,” You whisper desperately, “just let me go.”

Taeyong lets the thought swim around in his head for a bit. Truth be told, he was going to have you no matter what, but perhaps you’d give him a little more liking if he lied.

“How about you move in with me for just a week, if you really hate me then you can leave.” He proposes.

“I’ll leave when I want,” you tell him, getting ready to pull off the bed sheets still covering your naked body, ready to leave exposed if you have to. Taeyong is quick to stop you, only needing to grip onto your wrist harshly to prevent you from moving.

“Baby, I gave you an offer, you can take it or decline it.” He cautions, “I didn't say you could bargain with me.”

His dark eyes are drilled into yours. And you can’t help but notice, the depth of the ink, sorrow, perhaps pain, that was hiding behind them. You couldn't see the whites of his eyes anymore, nor the vessels that flowed through them. He looked, frightening.

“I-I’ll take the offer.” You stutter out. His gaze makes you gulp, suddenly losing the attitude you originally had. You decide to just follow through with his words for now, you could always leave when he wasn’t around.

“Great well, let’s take you around the house for now.” He chimes, eyes instantly switching back as he happily grabs your untouched bowl, putting it on the bedside table. He walks over to his cupboard, pulling out a plain black t-shirt and brings it over to you, helping you slip it on.

“Lift your arms up baby.”

“I can do it myself,” You tell him, feeling embarrassed to let the sheets fall and your body expose itself to his eyes.

“Let me.” He pleads, his right hand taking yours and locking his fingers with yours. You let out a sigh, and you nod, wanting to hide under the sheets in a sheepish mess. Surprisingly he doesn't say anything as your breasts reveal themselves out of the sheets. His eyes are still trained on you, helping you slip the fabric over your head.

“Thanks,” You whisper, feeling flushed under his eyes. He laughs lightly, noticing the red in your face. He cups your cheeks and gently squeezes your face before pecking your lips.

“Wow don’t you just look adorable.” He exclaims, drawing out the last syllable. For some reason all his words and gestures only confuse you, strangely feeling like you were already use to his presence, his touch.

The fabric of his shirt reaches below your thigh, better than nothing. He peels back the bed sheet, giving you a hand to help you off the bed. You stumble a little, the sudden weight on your weaker legs unable to withstand the pain. Taeyong snakes an arm around your waist to support you just as you trip, already prepared to catch you.

The memories of the earlier event vanish as soon as you step outside his room. Who would’ve known the door would lead to such a large open, spacious area with a breath-taking view of your city. A huge flat-screen television dominated one wall, with a soft leather couch directly in line. However, it was the transparency of the windows that surprised you.

Your feet began walking to the glass, Taeyong following beside you. You must’ve been on the top floor of whatever building you were in. The faint outlines of people on the road, the entire view of the city in your sight.

“Wow.” You breathed out.

“Still don't want to live with me?” He whispers, moving to stand behind you so he’s able to envelop you around your waist. His head rests against your shoulder as you both stare out at the city, the sunlight shining on your skin.

“Who are you?” You mumble out-loud. You had no idea what was going on anymore. Who was this guy? How could he afford this place? What had happened in such a short time was over-whelming. The butterflies return to you as his hands lock around your stomach.

“Someone whose absolutely in love with you.” He murmurs, pressing a soft kiss on your neck.

You pull away quickly, the words swimming through your mind at a rapid pace. Taeyong takes a step back, letting you have some space to yourself as he walks over to his couch.

“What do you normally watch at home?” He asks, reaching for the remote and changing it to a netflix channel. You’re still lost in your thoughts when he calls again, “Baby?”

“I-I don't mind.”

“Okay, I’ll choose something then,” he replies, deciding between the first or second movie of Despicable Me.

You break your gaze from the city and turn around to look at him, “I didn't take you for a kid’s movie type.”

“It’s a cute movie.” He shrugs, patting the empty side of the couch beside him.

You sit down beside him, leaving a clear distinct line between the two of you to avoid being right next to him. You’re aware of the minimal clothing you’re wearing (only one of his shirts) so you keep your legs crossed on the couch, pulling the fabric down to cover as much as possible.

As the movie plays you can finally feel like you’re relaxing, immersed in the childish scenes playing out as both of you laugh. It feels comfortable.

You didn't have many friends, only receiving a few texts and calls from them once in a while to talk about their own love life. You were mainly focused on your education, barely taking any social time to explore. The one night you did, bought you here. You had gone for a blind date set up by your college friend and you agreed reluctantly. The guy was a jerk, leaving you alone in the middle of a dark street as he receives a call from his ex, clearly not over her.

That was just a few minutes before you had run into Jaehyun killing a man. And seconds later, you were bought here. To Taeyong.

Around 30minutes in your legs start cramping suddenly, most likely from sitting cross legged the whole time. Taeyong notices you shift in your seat, your hands massaging your lower calves.

“Put your legs up, you need to stretch them.” He tells you, patting his legs for you to swing them over.

You hesitate for a minute, but his expression’s sincere, “Thanks.”

You place your legs on his lap, finally stretching them out and Taeyong starts massaging your calf for you. “Is it this leg?" He asks, bringing your left leg closer to him.

“Yeah.” Taeyong wraps an arm around your legs, keeping you there as he adjusts himself, sitting comfortably. Your hands hold onto the hem of your current shirt, making sure it doesn't move.

As the movie’s almost finishing, your cramps have subsided. You realise Taeyong had continued to massage your leg, using less pressure throughout the movie. As you’re staring at his soft features, still mesmerised by the little minions on the TV, your brought back into reality.

“Taeyong?”

“Yes baby?” He replies, eyes still drawn to the movie.

“Why am I here?”

He reaches for the TV remote, pausing the movie, his focus now on you. “What do you mean?” He asks.

“Why didn’t you let me go?”

“Because I like you.”  

“You don't know me.” You sigh, exasperated at his response.

“I don't know you? Are you sure about that baby?” He asks, amused at your question.

“I’ve been here for what? Maybe less than a day? Of course you don't know me!” You tell him, stating the obvious.

“Baby I do know you though,” He says, smiling smugly, “I know how to make you scream, I know how to make you beg for a fucking, I know -.”

“Fuck off Taeyong.” You growl, his arrogant attitude annoying you again.  

“What did I say about swearing.” He tsks, pulling your body closer to him by tugging on your legs. Your shirt rides up as he drags you, nearly revealing your ass.

“Don't touch me.” You warn, snarling back at him, as you move back to your side of the couch, bringing your legs back to your body.

“That’s not very nice.”

“What’s with you and your crappy attitude Taeyong? One minute your soft and kind, the next you’re like some arrogant lit-.”

“Baby I suggest you reconsider that sentence.” He grins, relaxed and confident as he moves closer, his hands gripping onto your exposed thigh.

“Arrogant little bastard.” You finish.

Taeyong lets out a low chuckle, his eyes flipping a visible switch as he stands up and picks you up easily, throwing you over his shoulder. You let out a squeal in surprise, slapping him on the back as you shriek.

He kicks open his bedroom door, throwing you onto the bed as you land with a soft thud. Before your able to grasp the situation, he opens the drawer from the bedside table slipping the small gold key from around his neck off, he unlocks the case of a square box. The lid flips open and he brings something out of the case. Your neck is craned in the direction, watching his fast movements.

"What are you doing?" You ask, sitting up immediately when you see the item. Taeyong reveals a large, egg-shaped object with a faint string (unnoticeable to you) coming out of it. “Punishing you.”

“What is that?” You gasp, seeing the shape of it.

Your unable to see it properly as he turns around, pulling you by your ankles as you fall back against the mattress. He grabs your thighs tightly, pushing them apart. "You're dripping, baby. I can see your juices running out of you already.”

“What? No I’m not.” You argue, feeling insulted at his statement.

The shirt now no longer covering your thighs lets you feel the air of the ceiling fan spinning above you. Taeyong’s eyes staring right at your exposed pussy. You see him lean forward, bringing the object in his hand closer to your thighs.

You tense and brace yourself, expecting him to shove it in, but the hard shove doesn't come. Instead, he presses gently, rolling the probe back and forth in tiny motions. His other hand slips between your legs as his fingers stroke your pussy and you let out a loud moan.

Eventually, he slips it inside of you, pushing it completely in and leaving only a thin string hanging. The shock paralyses you for a second, as you feel yourself engulfing it whole. Then you shriek and burst into tears as he turns a wheel on a small remote. The vibrator comes to life, buzzing inside you.

“Oh my god Taeyong!” You scream, your hands travelling everywhere, bundling in the sheets and clawing at your own thighs. You squeeze your thighs shut involuntarily and it only causes the vibrations to intensify, bringing a soft moan from your mouth. Taeyong stands up from the bed, pulling up his reading chair next to the bed. He sits down, adjusting the chair for the best view, and watches you write against the bedsheets.

“Ta-take it out.” You groan. He leans back in the chair, smiling, watching you struggle. You thrust your hips in the air, trying to dislodge the buzzing toy; but from his point of view, it looks like you’re fucking an invisible partner. You writhe and twist, as he turns up the speed and power of the vibrator.

“Ju-just fuck me,” You stutter out in a moaning mess, desperate for him.

“What was that baby?” He asks, genuinely surprised at your sudden confession. He turns the dial down for you to repeat yourself, but not completely off.

“Ta-take it out and just fuck me.” “Not right now baby.” He smiles and laughs, leaning back again as he switches it back to high.

The vibrations inside you continue relentlessly as your body grows weak with exhaustion. You clench involuntarily around the hard, smooth object as the vibrations become tingles in your belly.

Taeyong watches. Little by little, the tingle becomes stronger. The thing inside you thrums, fanning the desire into a sense of raging, desperate need. You sigh and moan as your hips rock up and down.

"Good girl. Take it." Taeyong murmurs, moving beside you now to let his one finger part your folds. You let out a gasp as he finds your clit. "This feels good, doesn't it?"

“Y-yes.”

He moves his finger in circle motions against you as the constant buzz chips away inside of you. Soon your hips were rocking again, your head thrown back in a whining mess as he presses harder against your clit. You whimper wordlessly and grind your hips against his finger. "Please...please..." The need consumes you. Your body left on fire as all you can think of is nothing but the vibration inside. You clench and thrust your hips upward.

Taeyong grabs the cord, pulling the vibrator out of you with a single rough tug. The tingle abruptly stops and replaces you with emptiness, tinged with desperation. You felt wetness roll down your thigh, and you pushed your hips back, frantic, longing to feel something inside again but finding only empty air.

He replaces it with his fingers, pushing them roughly inside of you at a savage pace. You let out a loud sob. “You love this, don't you?” He chuckles, continuing his thrusts. "You still need more, don't you, little slut? You can't get enough." He picks up the egg-shaped vibrator again. "Let's see if this does the trick." Without preamble, he shoves it roughly inside your lips, watching it disappear. You gasp and shake as he turns it on to its maximum setting for the first time, letting it resume the hard, insistent vibrations.

Your orgasm comes, ripping through your body like molten fire, and as you clench and tighten, pain lashes through you, too.

When it’s s over, you crash back to earth in a shock. Taeyong turns off the vibrator, pulling it from you with a slurping sound. You make a weak mewling noise as it finally leaves your weakened body. He sits on the side of the bed and pulls you onto his lap; your body curling up around him in instinct as he strokes your hair.

“You did well baby. So well.” he murmurs. Finally, some small amount of strength flows back into you. You open your eyes and look up at him, able to speak at last. "What was that for?" He brushes a stray hair away from your eyes, and looks down at you. "Because you swore again." He smiles.

[frostops]

I have some thoughts about how FGO has handled trans and trans-adjacent characters, and I’m frustrated how many people talk about the mishandlings without discussing the transmisogyny in it, but this is long as fuck, so its under the cut.

Its a good thing that FGO is having more characters with the genderless trait who aren’t given that trait for shitty reasons, but framing this as FGO being better at handling nonbinary characters, while technically true, ignores what caused many of the early issues. That cause is often transmisogyny.

Transmisogyny has been an issue in the game since Da Vinci’s introduction. Da Vinci doesn’t have the genderless trait, but she’s still important to discuss to understand FGO’s mishandling of trans characters. Mash and Romani are both angry at the idea of Leonardo Da Vinci not being a man, and call her a pervert, among other things. This is immediately after both find out King Arthur was actually a woman, but neither seemed to care then. Its understood by the writing that some believed to be a man turning out to actually be a cis woman isn’t deserving of malice, but that person turning out to be a trans woman is. The writing surrounding Da Vinci slowly got better, with characters being less shitty about and eventually respecting her gender. While Da Vinci initially describes herself as beyond gender, she says so in response to Roman and Mash’s reaction to her gender, where as whenever she is referred to as a woman (Lancelot saying he couldn’t hurt a beautiful women in Camelot, Napoleon calling her mademoiselle in LB2), she eats it up. Her early description of being beyond gender feels more like a tongue-in-cheek way of degendering a trans woman. While overall the writing treats Da Vinci better now, there are still times where it gets shitty, even as recent as the event where Van Gogh was introduced, where Hokusai talks about both Da Vinci and Van Gogh having an inherent maleness that bleeds into their art. This event did have a guest writer, but it was still allowed into the game.

The first character to have the genderless trait is D’Eon. Historically, D’Eon was intersex and trans feminine, and very likely a trans woman, but the fate version is introduced saying they were crazy in life, intended to be in reference to how they presented their gender. They are also presented as caring more about loyalty to France than what gender they are seen as, when the real D’Eon blackmailed the king into legally recognizing them as a woman. Transmisogyny, as well as intersexism, is pretty obviously what made Type-Moon take reduce D’Eon to just jokes about gender. D’Eon feels degendered in way similar to how Da Vinci is at time, though D’Eon gets it worse

Astolfo debuted in Apocrypha, where their presentation is used for a joke where Jeanne, believing Astolfo to be a girl, freaks out when she sees that Astolfo has a penis. The joke is that it is such a horrible thing to find a penis on some you think is a girl. I shouldn’t need to explain the transmisogyny behind that, or that Astolfo ostensibly not being a trans woman doesn’t make the joke less transmisogynistic. There are other, better things about Astolfo in Apocrypha, but most of their writing in FGO is in the same vein as the joke with Jeanne. This is crystalized in Agartha, where both Astolfo and D’Eon were used for many transmisogynistic, intersexist, and homophobic jokes. 

The third, and for a long time last, character to have the genderless trait was Enkidu. They are given this trait due to changes to their myth. In Fate, Enkidu is made of clay, and had a nonhuman appearance until meeting Shamhat, and modeling their appearance after her. They don’t have a physical sex, but, due to originally being a male character and appearing feminine in fate, the writers and fans alike treat them similarly to how they treat Astolfo and D’Eon, though less aggressively. Usually when Enkidu appears in a fate work, one character has to talk about how they can’t tell whether Enkidu is a man or a woman, before settling on neither, but only reach that conclusion because they don’t have a physical sex. The transmisogyny isn’t as strong in Enkidu’s writing, but its still there.

Until LB3, no other character would be given the genderless trait, and what all 3 of them have in common is being AMAB or originally male characters who present femininely. Technically Da Vinci fits this description as well, but her body is considered female by Type-Moon’s standards, so she gets the female trait. Also, with the exception of Astolfo, have bodies that wouldn’t considered male of female by most people. In Deon’s case, this is the result of intersexism, and even more frustrating when you remember that D’Eon blackmailed the king to be seen as a woman. I’d wager the reason Astolfo is grouped with the other two is itself a continuation of the joke from Apocrypha. It’s a coy “We all know what Astolfo’s ‘real’ gender is, but we’ll play along with the joke.” 

I think this also explains other characters who, arguably, could be included in the genderless trait, but were not. Nezha, like Da Vinci, only got a “female” body after dying, so they get the female trait too, despite not really being comfortable with any gender labels. Mordred, who consistently gets violently angry at being called a woman, and whose bio states that they don’t like being referred to as a man either (though this wouldn’t be implemented into writing until LB3, where they are clearly far less bothered by being referred to as man) also  has the female trait. King Hassan’s bio has his gender listed as “?????” but he is treated as male by the game and has the male trait.

None of the newer genderless servants fit the same description of amab/originally male and presenting femininely, which does show a more nuanced understanding of gender identity and expression, but it doesn’t show anymore respect towards trans women and transfems. Both Shi Huang Di and Douman have somewhat androgynous presentations, but we still don’t really have trans fem character whose gender and presentation is treated respectfully other than Da Vinci, and that’s frustrating. For the most part, though, these characters are all pretty well handled. 

Two of them, Mao Nobu and Romulus-Quirinus, are new versions of characters who already had the female and male trait respectively, meaning the game has at least someone moved away from equating the genderless trait to a character’s physical sex, but not entirely since part of the reason Shi Huang Di has the trait is their inability to reproduce.

There is some disagreement about how Caenis is handled, and I do have thoughts on that topic, but if I talked about that this would be twice as long. The short version is that the necessity to make characters fit into fanservice, something which negatively affects all of the characters I mention here, limits the ways in which Caenis’s relationship to their gender can be explored. Its also why we have Caenis and not Caenus, and why Caenis is rarely allowed to where a shirt.

There is also Dioscuri, who is two characters, one man and one woman, who are collectively on servant, so even though they have the genderless trait, they're not really relevant.

We do have more originally male characters now in female bodies. Vritra and Van Gogh, who were added recently (Vritra’s bio says she was originally male and now has a female vessel and Van Gogh is Vincent Van Gogh in Clytie’s body), Kama, an originally male deity possessing Sakura’s body, is being added to NA this year, and even back in part 1 we had Quetzalcoatl, another male god in a female vessel. All of them are given the female trait, and Quetz in particular seems to be very comfortable being a woman, but this still feels like what happened with Nezha, where the “physically female” body matters more than the identity of the character, especially with Van Gogh, who had no choice in being put in Clytie’s body. 

Mechanically, the gender traits only affect certain skills and nps, having extra or stronger effects. The genderless servants are exempt from the extra effects, with one exception. Once of Blackbeard’s skills has an effect for female servants, but D’Eon and Astolfo (And maybe also Enkidu, but I don’t remember) were included in this effect as well. The joke here was that Blackbeard is written to be reflective of  the worst qualities of weebs and otakus. many of whom would refer to those two as traps, a transmisogynistic slur, so Blackbeard is into them in the same way. Servants with the genderless trait added afterwards weren’t included in this effect, even though some of them (the ones who transphobic fate fans consider to be women) would still be seen as attractive by Blackbeard. So rather than coding each one individually to be included, they added a new trait, the female looking trait, for Blackbeard’s skill. The genderless servants included in this one all present feminine, but the inclusion of this trait is to make continuing a transphobic joke easier, which almost feels like a step back from some of the previous progress in handling trans characters.

I also think some people are a little too eager to give FGO credit when it may not deserve. For instance, a lot of people liked Douman being included in the genderless trait, and on its own it fine, but the my room line where Sei talks about trying to check under Douman’s robes concerns me. Many people took it as Sei just being horny for Douman, but it could easily be intended as Sei trying to check what’s really in his pants, especially since the canon reason Douman has the genderless trait is that he combined himself with some spirits and deities, one of which is female.

None of this is to say its wrong to view any of these characters as nonbinary (I do view most of them as nonbinary), but I don’t think we should view the genderless trait as equivalent to nonbinary. Not only are there characters included in it who probably shouldn’t be (like D’Eon) and characters who don’t have it who probably should (like Nezha), doing so treat nonbinary as a third and wholly separate gender. And if you’re going to talk about the transphobia of FGO, please be willing to use the word transmisogyny.

[hawkland]

Destiel fic recs #3 - the (mostly) longfic edition!

It’s been a while since my last rec post - mostly because I’ve been wallowing in a number of longer fics (50-350k!) so it’s taken me a while to have enough to talk about in one post (and boy do I talk a lot, here!)

With these longer fics, I do sometimes have some caveats with my recs - or at least reasons why they might not appeal to every Dean/Cas reader. But note that if I didn’t overall strongly recommend reading the fic I wouldn’t include it in my recs here at all, so any quibbles I bring up are minor compared to my overall enjoyment of the stories. Just, I don’t want someone to commit to a long read without knowing what they’re getting into and why it might not be their thing.

I’m still not into reading complete setting AUs at this time, but a lot/most of these are canon-divergence AUs, often written/set at the end of a season and giving an alternative take on what happened next. I love those kind of stories, as it’s often so interesting to see how fans thought of what might happen in the next season (especially when it’s better than what we actually got.)

Onto the recs & discussion behind the cut!

The Sinking Ship by UnfortunatelyObsessed (114k). This is a story that ripped my heart to pieces (in a good way!). I stayed up all night to finish reading because I simply couldn’t stop once I started on it and it gave me a massive fic hanger from all my emotions. Season 14 divergence, imagine if Dean did go into the Ma’lak box to trap Michael under the ocean with him forever...and once there, he discovers that Cas has stowed away with him. Because of course Cas would never leave Dean to such a fate on his own.

I loved literally. Every. Damn. Thing. About this fic. Cas telling Dean stories to pass the (endless) time. Their small intimate moments while realizing they can never consummate physically while trapped in the box but finding every other way to express their love. The absolute heartbreak that had me SOBBING when Michael fights for control of Dean and destroys everything they’ve built together and Cas thinks he’s lost Dean forever. Sam & Gabriel & Rowena & Claire & Jack doing everything they can to devise a plan back home to try to save them both while keeping Michael trapped. Also even just the wonderfully sensitive portrayal of aroace Jack still closely bonded with Claire and Maggie and just. And just. This is a story I’ve already re-read just to savor how much I loved it and its portrayal of everyone in TFW 2.0 and their extended family, it just hit my id in all the most incredible ways and I have nothing but absolute love for this one.

Beautiful Chaos by anyrei, mugglerock (141k). Season 9 canon-divergence, in which Dean doesn’t simply abandon Cas to fend for himself post 09x03. Instead he sets Cas up in a kind of squatter’s nest in an abandoned building near the bunker so he can keep tabs on him and help him out. 

This fic definitely gets the award for FILTHIEST, HOTTEST, SMUTTIEST Dean/Cas (and Cas/other) I’ve read in, like, ever, for human!Cas turns out to be a rather insatiable sex fiend/cock slut and Dean is too up his own repressed ass to easily give Cas what he wants/needs. It is dark at times, Cas ends up in some very unsavory/non-con situations, and the authors do mention that they tried to hone in on endverse!Cas’s characterization more than what we saw in Season 9...so you might roll with it, you might not. I adored their original character Jerry the tattoo artist in this, and like I said it was seriously hot (if you are good with total bottom!Cas and Cas with others, I know those are not everyone’s cuppa). I did have a few minor issues. For one, the last chapter felt a bit rushed and hand-wavey, but clearly the authors weren’t fond of the canon conflicts of season 9 & 10 (Abbadon, Mark of Cain) and just wanted to be done with them. Can’t say I really blame them. And I did have to laugh a bit at Lebanon, Kansas apparently having such a bustling gay bar/tattoo artist/etc scene being someone from a butt-fuck nowhere American small town myself. But, SPN was never all that realistic in how Lebanon was shown (and yes I’ve spent too much time roaming around it on Google maps), so if you can suspend some disbelief this is an awesome hot/angsty/occasionally heartbreaking read.

These Forsaken Lands by destielpasta (53k). I came upon this story when looking for fics that dealt in some way with the aftermath of Godstiel. This is a wonderfully atmospheric late Season 9 “fill-in” case fic (post Meta-fiction) where Cas ends up in a small town that had been visited by Godstiel...and while initially residents have reaped much good fortune, there has suddenly been a wave of deaths/bad events and he is determined to find out what happened and set things right. He calls upon Dean for help, but Dean is fighting the Mark of Cain and it’s going to take a lot to get past its control and find a way out for both of them. Together they work on repairing an old church while trying to repair each other and their damaged relationship.

I loved this story for how well written it was, really invoking a gothic small-town/Americana atmosphere. The original characters blend in very well with the case-fic at the center of it, and the author deals really well with Cas at a very fragile point when he’s running on borrowed grace and trying to navigate Dean’s MoC-enhanced anger. It’s Dean/Cas but actually much more of a Cas character study, so I highly recommend it to my fellow/compatriot Cas-girls who love a good wallow in his head.

Mixed Emotions by Tierra469 (50k). Canon 12 “parallel” fic that then goes canon-divergent with the season finale. I actually stumbled on this while in the mood to read some Cas/ or & Mary fic after enjoying their interactions in Season 12 (don’t hate me). This is sort of two fics in one. The first half focuses mostly on filling in the gaps with some critical S12 Cas episodes, especially Cas & Mary’s developing friendship (and one night of something more). But of course Cas’s feelings for Dean (and vice-versa) are always there, and when Cas figures out a way to get his powers fully back, the question is if Dean can open himself up to be vulnerable - and express love - the way Cas needs for this to work.

This was an interesting fic in a lot of ways. I loved the author’s take on angels’ connections to their vessels and grace, it was very consistent in a way the show sometimes/often wasn’t. Cas is very Cas in not understanding privacy and personal boundaries (so he does some questionable things, admittedly, which might squick some readers). The smut is fucking HOT - though I will caution at one point it involves Cas temporarily in a younger (NOT underage) female vessel (and the story does point out Dean’s discomfort with this and some of the consent issues involved, I don’t want to spoil too much). I wanted the Mary plot resolved more than it was, but I still recommend this story strongly for the quality of the writing and unique/well-developed take on angel lore and mechanics that was quite different from what I’m used to reading.

We Are Either Here Or Not Here by petramacneary (54k) A post-season 12 fic that goes on a different tangent to how Cas returns, and what happens in the meantime. Particularly, it offers a different take on what apocalypseverse!Cas would be like—as Mary makes her own way back from that world with AU!Cas as her prisoner.

What I loved about this story: first off, BAMF!Mary is awesome here. Dean is so heartbreaking, not quite knowing what the fuck to do with this different Cas who at times is just a painful reminder of who/what Dean’s lost...but then becomes a chance for Dean to say and express some of the things he always was afraid to in the past. And when (real/our) Cas finally returns, there’s some very interesting stuff that happens with both Cas & AU!Cas and Cas & Dean that I don’t want to spoil. (And let’s also just say that when real!Cas and Dean finally get together it’s AMAZINGLY awesome. Like, hot Impala!sex. So is the artwork that goes with this story.)

You Can Keep Holding On by NorthernSparrow (353k) The longest fic I read this time around and probably the one I have the most mixed feelings about, but a while on I do keep thinking about parts of it so I do rec it with some caveats. This is a canon-divergence after the end of Season 11. Dean & Sam find Cas after he’s been blasted out of the bunker...to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Mary isn’t in this one except for a brief appearance/visit, which Dean thinks is Amara’s gift to him. Life seems good for a while, they’re enjoying dealing with mundane problems for a change, but then Cas seems to be pulling away from the brothers, spending less and less time with them at the bunker, taking a mundane job at another Gas ‘n Sip, and clearly preoccupied by something else. Or is it someone else? Dean is worried yet finally ready to accept that Cas maybe has a girlfriend, or a boyfried, but then it turns out that is not at all what Cas has going on. It’s something far more serious than that.

Honestly I almost stopped reading when the reveal happened - it’s a subject that’s very sensitive to me from personal/family experience and not something I usually like reading in fic (especially if there is a sad ending.) So I admit I jumped ahead to read how it would end first before committing to finishing it. And I am glad I did, because the author handles the subject matter with a realism and obvious knowledge of experience as well, not how I often see it in fanfic. There are a lot of emotional ups and downs but it’s nice seeing Dean in his momma-hen/mode, and Sam is so so good in this one! I think I enjoyed Sam’s characterization here most of all! And the author has a really cool/well developed angel/wing lore that hit my wing-kink pretty hard. I do think it could have all been edited down a bit - I found myself skimming parts, especially in the last third, just to get on with things. But it’s definitely a story you can disappear into for a good long time and I’ve bookmarked the author’s other works to read later, so again, I do rec it even with a few caveats.

A few shorter fics, too, just because I don’t want to forget about them...

Eleven Erogenous Zones of a Fallen Angel by almaasi (15k) Pure gratuitous wing!kink for me :) Cas uses the last of his grace to manifest his wings...but then is stuck with them in his human form and not even able to use them to fly as he used to. This presents a lot of awkward problems to deal with but also the excuse for Dean to help him keep them clean :) I did say wing kink, right? :D :D I loved how Cas seemed confused about the pleasure signals he got from bathing vs. sex vs. grooming and all of that. It’s sweet and hot and has my favorite kind of caretaking Dean in it.

Fossil Tracks by SegaBarrett  (3k). Dean & Sam & Cas and dinosaurs. How can you go wrong with that? One of the SPN stories from the Id Pro Quo collection I really enjoyed reading (and didn’t write myself, lol).

[finaledenialist]

I'm the anon who sent in the ask about trans!cas.  Saw your answer and figured I would elaborate a bit:

First of all: Yeah, this probably falls under the category of 'this is my headcanon and I don't care' because when I think about it to hard, my reasoning isn't all that sound.  But honestly WHO THE HELL CARES?!

That being said, welcome to my TedTalk:

Obviously, the show makes it very clear that all the angels are essentially agender, since gender is a human construct and they are 'celestial wavelengths of intent'.  They also don't seem to have preferences when it comes to the gender of their vessels the way demons seem to (for example, Meg states at one point while possessing Sam that she prefers to posses women.  Although I guess this could be because all the demons in spn were once human, which means they would have a gender identity from their past life, which maybe doesn't make it an equal comparison, but idk that's another discussion).

We see Cas using a female vessel in the Lily Sunder flashbacks and we see Raphael use both a male and a female vessel and while this is questioned by humans, it's presented as perfectly normal for the angles.  So clearly this switching genders isn't a big deal for angles in general because they don't really care about human gender identity, they are mostly concerned with the practicality of finding a vessel that can a) contain them and b) give consent.  The vessel is just that, a vessel, a mode of transportation.

BUT my argument is basically that the more human Cas becomes (not just physically like in s9 or the end of s5 but like mentally and emotionally human) the more he identifies with Jimmy's body and eventually views it as his. 

And I can't help but think that he is aware of Dean's issues with sexualities other than StraightTM, and that he might have a better chance of getting with dean if he was in a female vessel.

But he stays with Jimmy's body because it becomes his body, it's the way he wants to present himself, it's what feels right.  Even if it might make his love life more difficult in some ways.  Even if it wouldn't make sense to the other angels because it goes against their 'nature'.

And I think that just kind of works out to make Cas (an individual who was assigned a certain identity by his society only to later discover that there is another identity that fits him better) transgender.  At the very least, I think it makes for a good metaphor. 

I'm getting really tired but I hope that makes some sense.

.

.

.

(But I could also see where someone would say that he's just more comfortable in Jimmy's body because he's been using it for so long, or it's what sam and dean are used to so that's what he sticks with, or maybe he can't leave Jimmy's body since all the stuff with being killed and reassembled multiple times and becoming human, or that maybe there isn't another compatible vessel.  But this is where we come back to the 'first of all' because really idgaf its my headcanon let me have my fun 🤷🏼‍♀️)

EVERYONE WAKE UP TRANS!CAS MANIFESTO JUST DROPPED

the way that everything you said makes perfect sense to me and this is what i thought when i think about cas and his vessel but i just didn’t apply it to trans headcanons because, well, i am obviously blind to that narrative, but it makes perfect sense as in: he chooses this vessel to be his more then any vessel he had before. for me it’s like. it’s about choosing what you want to be and what you are, what you truly are, and what you are comfortable to be and why this would completely apply to this headcanon and honestly i had nothing more to add!!! i think we agree here?! <333 thanks for this ted talk this was enlightningt!! 

(edit: i hope the Anon sees this but I am literally sending you flowers for this essay in my inbox <333 i just want you to know that!!!!!!)

[nadiecomoyo]

Fortune Favors The Bold

Prologue

Before visiting Yuta, Gojo travels to America to see a group of skilled individuals. Once there he gives them the task to seek out cases where curses are out of the norm, in hopes to find more of Sukuna’s fingers. All four of them scramble across Japan with one goal in mind: find as many fingers as possible to feed to the new vessel before his execution takes place.

Song Inspirations: La Casita, The Plan, Leave The Door Open

WK: 3.5k

A/N: Hi! This is my first story. It’s more for my entertainment but if people like this then great. Basically Gojo meeting the gang and what not. Enjoy!

“Would your table like to start off with an appetizer while the last person in your party arrives?” the waitress asked, making her round yet again to the table for a third time that night. The pristine white table cloth maintaining the same cleanliness since their arrival. The only indication of the table being used are the four empty glasses littering the table. The exact table currently holding four people who remained silent as sharp glares descend on the vacant seat. The three men and one female all looked like they wanted to be somewhere else, the waitress noted that none of the guests have ordered food, only drinks.

Angel sighed, seeing the lack of initiative from the others, and decided to answer the patient waitress. “No thank you, we’ll order once he arrives. But can you get us four,” turning his head to see Nicole motioning to her glass, “I mean three glasses of Aviation and one glass of water.” The waitress jotted down the request and promptly left.

The lavish Gabriel Kreuther restaurant became alive at night: people chattering, plates and utensils clicking, instruments playing, yet their table did not have an ounce of sound. Unbeknown to the waitress and the people around them, the four were conversating in their minds.

[Some invite this is], Alejandro flicked his wrist to the seat next to him.

[The guy is almost an hour late. I don’t care who he is I’m ditching this place once I finish my drink], Thomas sent an annoyed look to the group. Alejandro hummed in agreement.

[Come on guys, it must be serious if he contacted us], Angel pleads to the other three at the table.

[It’s concerning how he found us. The barrier I generate around us clouds our remnants. The inevitable trails we leave behind should not be enough to trace us ba-]

[-Must be his Six Eyes!] Thomas’ eyes widened at his not-so-genius epiphany.

His internal excitement reached his body, their mental conversation did not help the incoming waitress with their drinks, who has not seen much of a reaction from the guests since they have arrived. She did not expect Thomas’ action and almost dropped the tray onto the floor. A quick apology towards the waitress and a mild smack on Thomas’ head from Nicole amended the almost tragedy.

[As I was saying], Nicole specifically looking at Thomas, [I’m just glad we’re here and not back home. I never want to be in the same room with him and my grandfather.]

[The bastard may finally have a heart attack], Alejandro snickering at the thought of the resigned clan leader kicking the bucket, [Either way being caught between a rock and a hard place sucks.]

Everyone was thinking the same thing since their special, late, guest invited them to the sought-after restaurant overviewing the New York skyline. They all did not like this encounter one bit. All four of them were uncomfortably realizing their present reality. Exorcising in the shadows for so long, while going against their respective clan’s wishes, they preferred no one knew about their prohibited activities. The confrontation by a certain sorcerer clearly irked them, especially Nicole.

[Those eyes of his annoy me beyond imagina-]

Nicole halted her sentence as all four of them sensed an overwhelming presence of cursed energy. Being seated in the middle of the room, it gave them access to seeing the entrance door. An overly tall white-haired man sporting black sunglasses entered the main dining room floor. He exchanged words with the host, who pointed to the reserved table under his name, and began to walk towards them.

“Look who finally arrived,” Angel’s sarcastic comment rang a bit too loud causing a few people at the other tables to glance at him.

Nicole quickly investigated the special guest’s mind.

[Oh, I am so late. But that chocolate pizza really hit the spot. I need to buy one for Yuta before I leave.]

Disappointed with the revelation, she retracted from his mind. Nicole begrudgingly sent him a smile as he sat down at the table acting as if he was not late by one hour.

“Sorry for the delay, traffic here is terrible amiright?” flashing a bright smile towards the four at the table, “My name is Sa-,”

“We know who you are. Can you get on with the point of this dinner? Your timing is immaculate, has anyone told you that?" Thomas interrupted Gojo, sending him the same bright smile back. Gojo seemed to expect that type of response and brushed his teasing comment.

“I knew I made the right choice with you all,” Gojo slouched on his chair and pointed at Nicole, “You made it a difficult task in trying to find all four of you, I’m impressed, but better luck next time.”

His jab at her technique hardly offended her. Unsurprising to her, it offended the three other males. Before the lot opened their mouths, she sent them a reassuring nod before speaking on her behalf.

“Now that I am familiar with your mind, I will sense your presence the second you come into the country again. I will make sure that you will never find us again,” [nor our clans] she thought, while staring into the black abyss of his sunglasses.

“Don’t stay away too far, I’ll miss you,” His shameless flirting earned him scoffs from Alejandro and Thomas.

[This guy, I swear] / [Gross], both men expressed their distaste.

“Are you going to tell us what this dinner is for? Certainly not to get to know us. You clearly have knowledge of us, it got you this far,” disgusted by his remark, Nicole wanted this dinner to end as soon as possible.

“Well to keep this as simple as possible, we recently found a suitable vessel for Sukuna’s fingers. The vessel’s control over the curse is immeasurable. I have never seen a vessel like Yuji Itadori, quite frightening. Fortunately, his execution is delayed by yours truly,” motioning to himself, “I see this as an opportunity to destroy all the fingers. It would be a waste to kill him, right? However, Jujutsu Tech only has a few of the fingers.”

Gojo leans towards the table assessing the table, looking at each person one by one. Not one ounce of interest shown on their faces. On the contrary, their minds were racing with the oh-so-simple explanation given by Gojo. The bomb of information he dropped on them almost short-circuited their minds.

[What the hell? What in the actual hell?]

[Suitable vessel?]

[Yuji who?]

The loud thoughts from the guys started to bother Nicole. Hushing them, they all turned to say sorry. The white-haired sorcerer smirked, “This is where you four come in. I need your help in locating as many fingers as possible.”

“That means he ate a finger and has the capability to consume more without any complications?” Angel questioned in disbelief.

“Mhm!” Gojo nodded in excitement, at least someone is curious. Gojo feels confident in his recruitment skills, all he needs in a breakthrough.

[Hold up, I need food to process this.]

Thomas stood up from his seat. His face held something in between of a constipated/happy look. He spotted their designated waitress, beckoning her to come to the table.

“Sit down,” Nicole pulled him back into his seat.

“Excuse me ma’am, can I get the pork chops drizzled in wine sauce with a side of potatoes and greens?” The surprised waitress wrote down Thomas’ order and waiting patiently for the others. Not having any other option, the people seated at the table quickly ordered their desired plates, wanting the waitress to leave them alone.

The three besides Thomas, who was enjoying Alejandro’s unfinished Aviation, began to think on why this pertained to them.

Alejandro was the first to talk, “that’s quite the task, I don’t know if we’re qualified to handle it,” letting a lie slip from his mouth. He wanted to test the waters with Gojo to see how much he truly knew about them. They never flaunt their techniques, something they learned at a young age, how can this guy know what they are capable of accomplishing?

Seeing through the lie, Gojo smirked. He knew these four individuals were capable enough to exorcise grade 1 curses, possibly special grades. Gojo heard rumors about an American group of jujutsu sorcerers who clear swarms of curses with ease. People who vanish as quick as they strike, never leaving a trace behind. With the help of his Six Eyes, the remnants of their cursed energy were enough to help him locate the group. The closer he got to them, the foggier his mind became. He relied heavily on his eyes to find the four sorcerers. Overall, that technique of hers is a tricky one. Gojo has an inkling that she has a trump card up her sleeve. The others? He has no clue what lies within them. His eyes are failing him yet again, the four people around the table do not radiate any levels of cursed energy. One would say he is having dinner with civilians. But if he squints his eyes hard enough, he can see a glimpse of their energies through the mental barrier in front of him.

“We both know you’re kidding,” Assertive in his statement, Gojo laid back, getting comfortable in his chair.

“Either way international affairs aren’t our thing,” Nicole chimed in.

Gojo shrugged at her comment, “Aiding your fellow jujutsu comrades? Saving the world? This may be overseas affairs however, you’re gonna feel the ripple sooner or later sweetheart. What are you going to do then?”

[Why should we help a country that did not even help ours to begin with?] Being in public, she could not do much but glare at him. Not like that did much to affect Gojo. He's used to being the bane of many people's existence.

“There should be other capable sorcerers, you didn’t have to come all the way over here?” the three nodded at Angel’s point. They all agreed with Nicole's response as well. Why help when the other side of the world turned a blind eye to them? Years of curses running freely through populated cities to small farm towns. The aid back then from Japan was non-existent.

“It would be easier for me to get help back in Japan, but I wanted to see if the rumors were true. And I am not disappointed.” The small praise from Gojo did boost the four’s ego. Getting some recognition from the strongest sorcerer felt nice for a second, until they remembered why he praised them. The bubble from his praise was popped, bringing them back to reality.

“If we chose to accept this task, we will get something out of this. No way in hell am I doing your work for free.” Alejandro crossing his arms continues, “I like saving the world as much as the next guy, but this will not be a one-sided transaction.”

“Alright then, what do you want?” intrigued by what his demands would be, Gojo shifting himself to look towards his right. Signaling to Alejandro that his attention is on him.

Alejandro glanced at Angel and Thomas, both who were already staring at him.

“Great question. We’ll let you know when we need a favor from the strongest sorcerer alive,” Alejandro stated, the three men wearing a smug smile.

“Idiots,” Nicole murmured.

“While we’re thinking on what you can do for us,’ Alejandro gesturing to the four, “stay away from our clans. Do not go near any member of our families.”

Gojo raised an eyebrow when he noticed how serious Alejandro became.

Thomas added on, “Our techniques were a bitch to train, but it had to be done. We trained during the nights growing up; it was the only time we were out of sight from our families. It got easier as we got older, more freedom to roam and do as we please. Hiding our exorcisms from them is not something we are proud of. But we know they would not approve of what we do. Not like they can do anything at this point.”

“But there’s something about disappointing our families that we can’t bear to see,” Angel received funny stares from the three besides Gojo.

“Ok mamas’ boy, save the sappiness for later,” sending Angel a playful wink, the group chuckled at Nicole’s side joke. Alejandro took the opportunity to ruffle his hair. Everyone getting some entertainment by messing around with Angel.

“No one knows what we do. Our clans have lost all hope in saving this country. Growing up we all saw our fair share of deaths caused by curses. Our people have let them roam around for so long. All four of us decided to do what our clans have given up on. So far, I believe we have made a difference and that is all that matters to us,” Nicole loudly sighed before continuing, “But just know I am fully against helping you for your cause. Years have passed here, and our situation only got better because of us. The only reason why I would help you is if they all agree. If not, count me out. Do not think just because your comfort zone is in danger that I will run to help. And I can proudly say that the other three all agree with what I am saying.” Nicole's animosity reached Gojo’s ears. The three men she mentioned did not say anything, but one look at their stern faces spoke louder than words.

“Fair enough, but what about the future? Why do we have to follow the same traditions or actions that they did? Alienating ourselves to protect our useless hierarchy instead of allying with our neighboring countries will greatly benefit us all. Let us show everyone that working together does make changes.” Gojo slid his glasses slightly. His sky-blue eyes peeking out from the black tinted glasses, startling the whole table. One can try to explain how it feels to be under the gaze of Gojo Satoru, but it can never measure up to the actual feeling. They knew he was serious about recruiting them for the task. No doubt about it.

[Man, this blows. He’s actually serious]

[Do we agree?]

[I heard in Japan the fruit is expensive. Should I sneak in a watermelon into the country?]

[His eyes are beautiful.]

“Well 'Mr. Motivational Speaker' you got your point across, now tell us about the task.” That last thought made the three men look at Nicole, she ignored them and focused on Gojo.

“One thing to know, there may be a chance that the fingers resonate. The other fingers may have reacted to the first finger being eaten by Yuji. The chance that it is already eaten up by a curse is highly likely. If you agree, I will give you four individual missions. Each location has had unusual curse activity, a finger can be the cause of the of activity. That is why I am sending each of you to investigate and retrieve the finger if it is there. I would go, but I need to deal with Yuji’s transition into Jujutsu Tech. He is still a kid. I want him to at least enjoy the remaining life he has. Remember his execution is postponed, he will be executed in the future. But before that happens, he needs to eat as many fingers as possible. He is our only way to eliminate those cursed fingers.” Gojo elucidated Yuji's importance in eliminating the indestructible cursed fingers.

“Say we agree, where would we go?” Angel asked the question the four were dying to know. None have ever ventured outside of their county. The thought of leaving America to Japan has them on edge for what is to come if they agree to the mission.

“Let me remember,” one finger tapping on his chin as Gojo tried to remember the important locations, “Nicole to Okinawa, Angel to Musutafu, Alejandro to Osaka, and Thomas to Shinganshina.”

Listening to their designated places did excite them. Spending their time exorcising curses throughout America, they have seen grotesque curses that makes anyone hurl to weak curses even a baby can kill. Given the chance to see other parts of the world, the group began to think hard about their decision. Each one hoping that their decision matches the others.

The silence after revealing the locations made Gojo rethink his method of persuasion, [Should have done this differently, maybe start a game consisting of each person saying what is great about Satoru Gojo!], he thought.

[How is that persuasive?], a feminine voice popped unexpectedly in Gojo’s mind. Ignoring the snark comment, he instead focuses on her presence. He feels her peering into his mind, it felt personal. Not intimately but comfortably, almost as if they were to be playing a game together. Not having much knowledge on her technique, curiosity got the best of him. And he intended to discover more about it.

[Is that so? Tell me how to persuade you], Gojo putting emphasize on the word ‘you’, wanting to continue this private conversation.

[Be truthful. What else is there to say but the truth? Everything else is a waste of a breath.], Nicole stared right into his blank glasses, seeing nothing but her reflection. Sighing from Gojo’s way of thinking, she observes her friends.

Seeing her friends in their own conversations, she returned her attention to Gojo. Rolling her eyes and said, [What is with the glasses? I know you can’t see through them.]

[Helps with my technique], feeling unsatisfied by his response she did not push any further. Seems like we aren’t the only ones cautious, she thought. Deep in thought, Nicole did not notice the group switching topics. Alejandro’s voice reeling her back into the conversation.

“Well why not? I want to see the curses over there. I’ll give them a run for their money,” Alejandro leaned back with his arms on the back of his head. head. Patiently waiting to see where this would go. His response gave Gojo hope as he looked for the other responses.

The three other sorcerers looked at each other. Each of them wondering whether they are making the right choice or not. But after seeing Alejandro’s determined face, they won’t allow him to go by himself. It is all four of them or nothing. No one gets left behind or stranded. They did not need Nicole’s technique to know what they were all thinking.

“We’re in,” all three of them agree to the task.

“Only because this will benefit us as well, don’t forget that Gojo,” she reiterated to the now overly happy sorcerer in front of her. Her negative tone did not match the small quirk on her face.

“Going to Japan huh? Who would have thought?” Angel’s left-hand brushing through his hair, “We have to be crazy from agreeing to this.”

“Extremely but what’s a jujutsu sorcerer without some craziness? Basically a requirement for the job.” Gojo reassured them. Briefly thinking of his students who attract themselves to danger, like moths to light.

“Hey where is ou-” Thomas got cut off by the tray of delicious food heading towards there table. The sight of their food was mouthwatering. The meats to the pastas, everything they asked for was cooked to perfection. The four silently thanking Gojo for inviting them to the restaurant.

As they all settled in with their food, something rubbed Angel the wrong way.

“That Yuji guy, is he ok with all of this?” The question caught Gojo off guard.

“Yeah,” Thomas losing interest in his food spoke, “no one especially someone his age should not experience this. What terribly luck he has,” staring at the skyline.

“Knowing you’re going to die in the future, he must have will power. No regular guy would continue to move forward like that,” Alejandro added in.

The group stopped eating once they saw how silent Gojo became. The topic wasn’t the most positive one, but necessary. The four are weary about Sukuna’s vessel, but if Gojo has faith in the boy then they will follow his judgement. Easier to stomach when the threat is nowhere near your home, praying that this trip will prevent things from coming over to America. Feeling bad for bring up the topic, they resumed eating. No one mentioning again the fate of Yuji Itadori.

[You ok?] Gojo looked up form his plate to see Nicole looking at him. The blankness of her face masked her slight nervousness on how concerned she sounded. She sent him an awkward smile and followed the other’s actions. She ate her food while feeling Gojo’s gaze on her.

[I’m ok], she paused after hearing his thought, to her surprise, relieved. A genuine smile broke onto her face. Not wanting him to see her smile, she concentrates on enjoying her dish.

Dinner almost went smoothly aside from the couple flirty comments towards Nicole. She did not mind them; not like she would tell him that. Her friends on the other hand showed their disgust to Gojo’s flirtation.

After thanking the waitress for her patient service, leaving her a hefty tip courtesy from Gojo, Angel had to be dragged out of the restaurant by Thomas and Alejandro, the poor guy forgets he's lightweight. It was best to enjoy the night as much as they could. The future is ever-changing and they would like to die with no regrets. As they were heading out, going their separate ways for the time being, Gojo had one more thing to tell them.

“You know I’m counting on all four of you,” his parting words held so much weight, but it was also a breath of fresh air. Nodding to him, knowing that they will not let Gojo down. Not when this is the new beginning, one where humans prevail over curses.

[writerman]

The Cult of Dionysus

This is dedicated to @neonelysium who so kindly purchased the game Hades for me the other day. In doing so it sparked my adoration for the good old God of wine, festivity and theatre (amongst other things).

It also helped my start the journey of overcoming a hidious case of writer’s block.

So thank you @neonelysium!

------

I have not yet finished the game and I am peppering in bits and pieces of my knowledge of Dionysus as I go so please take this with the saltiest pinchiest grain of salt.

And with that I give thee trans!Dionysus and Trans!Zagreus in a short piece I just speed wrote after work 2 hours ago.

Thaaaanks.

------

“Look, mate, I know you’ll have heard all sorts about me and I guarantee the majority of it is true,” Dionysus is pouring both of them a drink, deep crimson wine sloshed up the sides of ridiculously fancy chalices as the God tried to keep a steady hand through the mire of his drunkenness, “But honestly, it is literally ancient history and who cares, who cares, you know?” 

Zagreus cared. 

He was too polite to say anything for the moment and instead when prompted, he raised his drinking vessel and toasted to whatever Dionysus had slurred out before bringing the chalice to his lips and drinking deeply. 

All party was good old Dio. 

“Duality of man, wanting to know and knowing you shouldn’t ask, isn’t it?” Zagreus finally found his voice but he wasn’t all too sure the huge man beside him was even listening. 

“Yeah, double nature of the wine. You can have a good time have a drink and laugh, you know, revelry. Then you’ve got the side where man commits atrocities and well it’s all balance, is it?” They weren’t talking about the same thing and Zagreus thought it better not try and steer the conversation at this point, it would be like herding cats, at least he assumed it would be from what he knew of cats, he hadn’t met one to confirm. 

There is music playing around them but Zagreus doesn’t see a musician or instrument in sight, just the maenads and satyrs frolicking their way through copious amounts of wine as they danced and sang under a glorious and intensely blue sky, such was the world of the God of festivity all that went with it. 

An empty chalice was set down by his arm, and when he moved his gaze from it he found Dionysus watching him with eyes bright with a shocking clarity he hadn’t expected to see from him. 

“What was your question?” No theatrics in this sentence that was for sure, and his voice was deep and serious but before Zagreus could fathom how to start a bright smile broke out over the God’s face and he laughed heartily. “You looked so afraid, mate. All in good fun, all in good fun, but what did you want to ask me?” He’s pouring himself another drink and chuckling to himself as though he were the funniest man in existence and maybe he was but not at that moment. 

Now came the tricky part but Zagreus had combatted trickier situations, hadn’t he? 

“You were raised for a short while as a girl to hide you from Hera, didn’t that… do something to you?” Zagreus tripped over his words with hesitance knowing that whatever the response was he likely deserved it. 

The reaction that came did not surprise him but it still wasn’t what he had expected either, calmer and not as boisterous as would be the norm for the God. Dionysus, reclining on a chaise the hue of a storm heavy sky, seemed deep in thought for all of 20 seconds. He stretches and the chalice in his hand doesn’t spill a drop as he unfurls like a great cat. 

His skin had clearly never seen battle yet scars were apparent, but revelry was not always safe and The God was right, the nature of wine could change a man. 

A frenzied and delirious cry was thrown up to the sky from the crowd and Zagreus watched idly as the partygoers writhed against one another teeth and lips uncaring of where they landed to the point Zagreus turned his gaze away feeling the flush of a blush slide over his skin. 

It was probably time to go. 

“Ahah, yes! That old chestnut, oh Dio was raised as a girl for his first few years. Hm, not that the story isn’t an interesting one, mate, but it isn’t what really happened.” The sudden outburst from Dionysus was a decent distraction from the gyrating crowd and Zagreus felt relief wash over him that he had conversation again.

“What did happen then?” 

“I was assigned female at birth, Zag. These aren’t battle scars.” One large hand traced one of the barely-there scars on his chest and he offered a broad and yet comforting smile when Zagreus found himself tracing along with his gaze. 

The recognition of the scars and the relief that washed over Zagreus was unparalleled to anything he had experienced for a long time. Kinship aside this man was his brother in the way that they had both experienced a life most others had not. 

“Ah, now you get it, now you get it and now we can celebrate. Drink up the party isn’t even in full swing yet. If you do it right you’ll be dragging yourself up those stairs towards Hypnos in no time!” 

It was safe to say the rest of his time spent in the company of Dionysus was a blur, a drunken all singing, all dancing blur and when he came back to his senses he was in his bed back home and Nyx sat by his bedside looking almost amused. 

“So this would be how the house of the dead would truly fall?” 

“I hope not, Nyx. Otherwise, it would be in crumbling ruins by now.”

“There is time enough for that but let us hope you do not return in this state again.” 

“I really can’t promise that.” 

[phynali]

more spn discussions, just skip this post y’all

 @queerbluebird​ thanks so much for engaging with my post/reply! i really enjoyed reading your response and i have a long reply here.

i’m responding to your post/reply here rather than reblogging it because honestly that thread is - so long. so very long. 

so first - 

i agree there is a difference between entitlement and what i would call, not promise, but instead “narrative follow-through”. A story that completely lacks narrative follow-through does end up feeling disappointing, or frustrating, or rage-inducing, depending on what’s happened. to me there’s a fundamental difference between critiquing a story based on follow-through and bad storytelling (which your post aims to do), versus say, creating hashtag campaigns about a character being silenced because and spreading conspiracy theories about a bad dub (among other things honestly).

and also - queerbaiting totally sucks, we definitely do agree on that.

where we disagree, i think are these two core points:

i do not see the narrative build-up that demands a follow-through. i do not see supernatural as having built up to the story that many destiel shippers seem to think was there, and no one has ever been able to point out to me any actual textual reasons that do craft that narrative build-up  

i fundamentally do not believe that destiel was ever a queerbait. queerbait involves active intent on the part of creators to tease a ship or queer representation in order to draw in $ from queer audiences without ever making it canon, so as not to alienate straight audiences. so, refering to point 1., i do not see the canon text as having laid the groundwork for a queerbait and those romantic tropes, at least not at any point in the past 7 years. and beyond the canon, the writers and producers and jensen ackles all indicated dean was straight, and that they were not writing a romance. if anyone queerbaited the fans, it was misha collins who kept teasing the possibility, and personally i would argue that was irresponsible of him. but that’s a different discussion altogether and tends to piss people off when it’s framed as such, because misha means a lot to them and it hurts to see the man who validated their feelings get criticized for the manner in which he validated them. so i’m gonna leave that aside.

beyond that, I want to engage with some of your specific quotes:

Supernatural loves to say “wait for it.” And I don’t think it’s entitled to feel betrayed if an author uses their story to say “wait for it” in order to convince you to stick with their story and then delivers the opposite after you do.

May i ask, where was the “wait for it” with destiel? this ties in directly to the queerbaiting. i indicated in my post/reply that while i see it from cas, there’s been little to no hint of any reciprocation of feelings from dean, and if anything the past 7 or so years have driven the point home that it isn’t happening. i personally am not able to see the “Wait for it” and that was the point of my question. without the “Wait for it”, i also can’t see the queerbait. 

I asked for specifics and while i totally get not having the spoons, you provided a few:

(off the top of my head for Dean though, the mixtape, his response to Cas’ death at the end of 12, subsequent grief arc, and reaction to Cas’ return in the front half of 13 rank highly. His reaction to Lucifer’s prank call in 15x19 might rate, but maybe just because it’s so recent.)

not trying to be unkind here, but i quite genuinely don’t see any of these examples as framing cas and dean in a romantic light, or as hinting at a “what if”. the mixtape is like.... okay, maybe. i had read that as being symbolic of something else, but i can see wanting to read it from a shipping lens. (i don’t however think i’d read it as baiting or “what if” - it was quite textually not framed that way. shipping, 100%, but canon build-up, not for me).

for the other examples -- grieving for someone you consider family? and being happy when they come back? that’s not shippy to me. i mean - contrast the grief he showed over cas’s death compared to his grief over, say, mary? or, less extreme, charlie? and nothing compared to how off the rails he goes when sam is dead or he thinks sam is. so i -- i just can’t see those as creating a narrative that demands a follow-through. and when your friend who is dead calls your phone? of course you hop to the door - i don’t know what is romantic about that. sam would’ve hopped just as quick if “cass” had called his phone instead.

and look - i see what is fun to ship about all that. if i shipped it, i’d be happily collecting these moments with a smile and grinning to myself about how cute they are and much they mean. but shipping it vs. it being romantically framed in the canon are two fundamentally different things. shipping doesn’t imply narrative buy-in or deliberation from the creator.

moving on, you also spoke at length about 15x18:

15x18 made the sort of statement that drew back even people who did exactly what OP said they should do, turning off the TV years ago. It wasn’t a quiet “if you’re still watching, keep waiting,” so much as a shouted “hey we’re gonna do this thing, watch this!”

i guess destiel fans vs. those of us who don’t ship it really see this as fundamentally different. because you discuss that moment as one which requires follow-through, and say that if this were heteronormative m/f love declaration, there would be that expectation of follow-through. not necessarily reciprocity, but more - more conversation, more acknowledgment, more something.

(i mean - if there was more, but that more was “hey i love you too but only platonically, sorry man” would that be better?)

but no - i actually just... disagree with your point on that front. i can see why you feel the way you do and i acknowledge that it can be read as the start of a conversation. to me though -- and clearly, now that the finale is out, how the writers saw it -- that was actually the end of a conversation. the end of, like you pointed out, 12 years. a 12-year conversation that ends in a gorgeous declaration of love, and specifically how love isn’t about being together, it’s simply about being - it’s about the fact that you love someone, and that feeling alone is the most beautiful thing in existence.

to me, that declaration can only be written and interpreted as an ending.  a sacrifice, a declaration, and a goodbye. so - while i kind of expected seeing more people in episode 20 and realize that didn’t happen largely due to covid - i’m not disappointed we didn’t see cas, because that culmination of his narrative (and then knowing he was with jack, after, rebuilding the heaven that he rebelled against and finally completing his narrative circle by fixing all the problems with it alongside the good god he sought to find all along) is kind of perfect. 

and i genuinely don’t think if cas was in a female vessel this entire time that that would change. maybe some audience members would feel differently, but i think many of us would see it for the end it was nonetheless. there’s plenty of stories with m/f ships that are one-sided and that character sacrifices themselves for the person they love, so i don’t see why this would be any different (except the bury your gays issue, but that’s a whole other and very real conversation about media tropes).

moving on to the series finale.

As many people have pointed out in praise of 15x20, Sam is the absolute most important thing in Dean’s life, his priority above anything and everything… And yet there, at the actual end of the world, Dean ignores Sam’s call and instead cries over the loss of Castiel. Dean’s loss of Castiel plays in tandem with the loss of literally the whole world. But we’re not to take that as a promise that Castiel means more to this story, or to Dean, than a couple seconds of wistfulness after the dust settles?

I... yeah. i don’t see what this even is arguing. that dean taking a minute to himself to grieve his best friend, who just died in part because dean decided to go hunt down billie (who was literally dying anyway). he’s hurting. there’s nothing about this that’s a promise - it’s an end. it’s grief. it’s the horror of losing someone you care about, and the silence that comes after. it’s fundamentally human in it’s pain. and we, the audience, are invited to grieve with dean.

so I mean - of course cas means more to this story. of course he’s meant more than a few seconds of grief, after 12 years. but just because that’s the last time we see him on screen doesn’t mean we don’t value his story, and celebrate how it too came full circle.

You mention cas as a sort of avatar for a different potential ending for the brothers, and highlight him representing:

An ending where higher powers stop yanking them around and they get to actually live in the life they’ve built for themselves.

So while i never considered cas an avatar for that, i do think we all wanted the brothers to have their freedom. “finally free.” so we can agree on wanting that end. but we disagree on whether it was delivered, i guess? because i feel it was.

you also talk about what you and many other fans conceivably wanted a happier ending to look like. can i -- i’m going to be totally honest. i have not seen a single person who’s critiquing the end saying “i just wanted sam and dean to grow old hunting together with their dog until they retire together and die of old age.”

would that be satisfying to those who are mad about the end? i personally don’t think so, but maybe my opinion is being coloured by the most vitriolic fans i’ve seen. if sam and dean got to have the life they wanted free of chuck, and dean didn’t die, and they kept going (or retired and opened a bar together!). maybe sam still had a kid, but again because romance wasn’t the point, the wife wasn’t important and they left her blurry still so we could interpret ourselves if she was a wife or a co-parent or a surrogate or what. maybe dean has a kid too, with a similar question-mark-wife. maybe we get a few images of them having a holiday with jodie and the girls. and then getting to heaven together in old age, greeting bobby with a beer, and going for a drive.

would that be an end that wouldn’t cause fandom uproar? i would enjoy it, soft an slightly discordant as it would be to me. i prefer the ending we got, bittersweet and heartbreaking though it was, but i wouldn’t be taking to social media to yell about it if we got a softer epilogue, so to speak.

on the other hand... would that still not be enough, at least not for so many of the angry fans? i’m genuinely unsure. it seems to me that so much of the ire is about destiel itself, even if people are pretending it’s about more and other things than that. not everyone, but like, a big portion of them. which leads me to believe that nothing short of dean and cas at least interpretable as together is what they wanted. if every other single thing about the existing finale was the same except that cas was the one to greet dean instead of bobby, and even with the same basic dialogue, without discussing the confession, but they have a lingering smile, and dean leaves to drive and wait for sam with the promise he’ll see cas later - 

if everything else stayed the same except who greeted dean, i genuinely don’t believe i’d be seeing almost any critique of the finale on my dash. maybe i’m cynical, but that’s where i’m at.

which is part of why i really struggle to believe that people are engaging in good faith when they critique the finale. because i feel like if it offered them either a) everything they’re purportedly asking for but still no cas and zero hint of destiel, vs. b) every other thing they claim to hate stays the same except there’s a wink and nod to destiel - i believe they would take the wink and nod. 

   On to some other things you raised:

But how can you know to walk away from a tragedy if the tragedy says “the end won’t be a tragedy, keep watching” right up until it ends in tragedy?

Oh i Get this. I hate thinking i’m consuming fun media only for it to rip my heart out at the end. i’ve literally - well, i’ve had a very unpleasant and distressing experience of this, actually. so i get it. also the opposite: i sometimes feel disappointed when i’m consuming media that is gripping and intense and painful, but then the end is too easy, too soft and happy?

BUT - supernatural never pretended it would have a happy end? the end was so. much. happier. than i ever expected. the Swan Song end was going to have Sam in hell being tortured by lucifer for eternity. according to something i read which i am fundamentally too lazy to link because who knows if it would have turned out this way but -- kripke was apparently going to have Dean jump in the cage with him at that end, if the series ended on S5? the ‘horror’ ending. completely devastating sacrifice for mankind (sam), and completely devastating sacrifice for his brother (dean). just -- oof. even if that wasn’t the plan and the series would’ve ended as the episode did - sam was still in the cage and cas was off waging war in heaven and dean was living every day knowing he was alive and his brother was being tortured.

i’m sorry if you thought you were watching a happier show. i know how much that hurts. that doesn’t mean the story was actually that happy though. sometimes, it’s on us as consumers to acknowledge we were misreading the media. i’ve had to do this. it’s hard, it hurts, but it helps you consume things healthier. i’ve had to do this growing recently, and i’m better off for it.

regarding the specific manner of dean’s death - that’s really not what my post was about and i’m not gonna address it here. i’ve talked about it elsewhere and so have others, and @lovetincture‘s original post spelled it out beautifully, in how human it was. i have feelings on how and why i loved dean’s death, and why it was the absolute opposite of what Chuck’s ending was and what he wanted (no blaze of glory), but i’ll leave those for another time.

They cast aside all the relationships they’ve built. [...] They lost/walked away from the life and home they built in the bunker. Dean got a season 1 death. Sam got a season 1 life.

I feel that there is a very huge difference between regression and progression when it comes to cyclical storytelling. And that difference seems to be missing from the ongoing discussions i’ve seen about this in fandom.

Coming full circle to season 1 does not at all mean that the development is ‘undone’ or that the story has regressed or that anything has been lost or destroyed. It can mean that, if the storyteller doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but in this case i don’t (personally) feel it’s a fair critique.

Dean’s death might parallel his s1 not-quite death from Faith, but the s15 result of that death is night and day. Dean is no longer alone. Dean does not go up to a lonely heaven filled with bittersweet memories, where even his canonical soulmate and him have wide gulfs between the memories they fill their shared heaven with. Dean dies a hunter, but he dies a hunter who literally saved earth and changed heaven and gets to spend eternity with his brother, side-by-side and together without all the pain and miscommunication, and he gets to see his family and loved ones too. he died having literally made the world so much better.

even without that though?

his story comes full circle, but dean’s character development isn’t about his death, it’s about the fact that in the first several seasons dean could hardly admit he cared without acting like his teeth were being pulled. he was too afraid of abandonment to ask for someone to be by his side. he was too afraid of rejection to let anyone in. and in the end? he asks sam to stay. he tells him that he loves him. he pours his heart out and says all the things that 15 years ago were stoppered in his throat, words trying and failing to claw their way free but his hurt and fears were too deep.

dean is free.

the point of dean’s story coming full circle to season 1 parallels was specifically to highlight this incredible development, not to undermine it. he is different. he is free. 

god it makes me tear up just thinking about how happy i am for him despite how gutted i was by that scene??

(i could write a similar analysis for sam, about how he left for stanford to escape his life and how his finale life montage bits were the opposite of that, but honestly this post is long enough already).

Destiel is loosely a part of that promise in the sense that Castiel is a part of that promise. The symbol of free will

You make a super interesting argument about Cas being a symbol of free will. I don’t have much to say about it, because I’m gonna mull it over, because I think it’s kinda cool and I’ve never thought about it.

That’s - all i’ve got. thanks again for engaging. i’m happy to continue the convo if you have questions or want to reblog/reply 

(though my followers might hate me omg, i’ve been spamming long spn meta posts for weeks now, it’s just been so confronting to see the ongoing fan reaction on twitter and how divided it is...)

[whatapunk]

Sooo... I finally decided to start my Kanan/ex-girlfriend fic that I've been writing in my head for weeks. I haven't written fanfiction (or anything fun) in a very long time so this took some real motivation (and unconditional love for Kanan/Kanera).

It is set at the very beginning of Season 2, when the Spectres have joined Phoenix Crew and Kanan is looking for anything to distract him from the formalities of military life. "Anything" including his ex-girlfriend Rhia Denley, current member of Phoenix Crew. This fic will reflect the battle between my love for Kanera and my need to write about Kanan’s love life in general in the only way I see fitting: through a love triangle!

This is just a taste for the first bit, but I hope to keep going!

Title: Endings

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Relationship: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla; Kanan Jarrus/female OC

Rating: t for now, m in future chapters (I'm guessing) for language and some non-explicit intimacy

Word Count: 1688

Chapter 1

Everywhere people walked, trotted, and ran into and out of Kanan’s line of vision. They criss-crossed in every single direction, yet everyone managed to stay out of each other’s way for the most part. It was suffocating, Kanan thought. So many people, faces, ranks and titles. He’d only been working aboard the Liberator for a few standard weeks (long enough, in his opinion), but he’d already given up on trying to remember the ranking system, let alone the specific rank of each rebel. He’d taken to walking behind Hera any time they were aboard the vessel, and when she saluted someone, he, begrudgingly, did the same. Otherwise, he stayed aboard Ghost as often as he could.

Hera was in front of him now, and the kids- Zeb, Sabine, and Ezra- followed close by. Kanan felt bad; she’d been explaining what she wanted to do differently the next time they were on a similar “cargo-thieving” mission as the one they’d just returned from, and he’d all but started ignoring her. It was entirely his fault, he felt. He couldn’t hear himself think over all of the people in the bay and the intercom that seemed to always be seeking out someone.

Hera could sense that Kanan wasn’t really paying attention, but she was mostly talking to herself right now. She always felt better when she could explain things out loud, even if it was only to herself.

“Well I thought the mission went pretty well,” Ezra spoke up, shaking Hera out of her thoughts. Turns out one of them was listening.

“It’s not that it didn’t go well, Ezra,” Hera added, gently. “I’m just saying there’s always room for improvement.”

Several droids, each carrying a large crate, crossed in front of the Spectres, forcing Hera to stop abruptly and Kanan, who was so focused on watching everything else, bumped into her.

“This place is a madhouse. Why do we need to talk to Sato? Didn’t he just watch everything that just happened? Wasn’t he there?” Kanan said, letting more frustration than was warranted slip out. He frowned and Hera turned and matched the look.

“Kanan, it’s standard protocol to debrief with our commanding officer after…”

Kanan checked out at “protocol.” It seemed like these kinds of things were all Hera talked about these days. He hadn’t felt so restricted in years, nor had he felt like he had to compete for Hera’s attention (more than normal) in years. She was still talking when something caught Kanan’s eye and pulled his gaze and his feet to an abrupt stop.

A glimpse of red, he thought, the kind of which he hadn’t seen in years. Seven of them, to be exact.

A glimpse was all it was though. His eyes searched for where it had come from, but there were easily a hundred personnel in any given direction. Five stacks of crates rose and floated by, presumably carried by five people eclipsed on the other side of them. They formed a wall as they passed that effectively obstructed his view of the crowd of people in which he thought he spotted the red hair.

“Kanan?” Hera touched his arm, and his attention returned to her.

“What are you doing?” He glanced back over the sea of people, not ready to admit he hadn’t seen anything.

“I thought I saw....” Kanan trailed off, searching… searching…

“Who do you know in Phoenix Cell?” Hera asked, disbelief and a joking edge surrounding her words. That got Kanan to look at her, his usual smirk back on his face. Hera thought briefly how she hadn’t seen such a face lately, and then the thought was passed up by a million others.

“No one, that I know of,” he said, giving Hera a smile and walking back over to the others who waited, confused. Just as he was ready to get his mind back on the Spectres and whatever mundane, soul-crushing aspect of Phoenix Cell awaited him, there it was again- a flash of the most unique and memorable shade of red Kanan had ever seen. Only this time it wasn’t just a flash, and it was connected to the head and body of one of the people who had just set down one of the large stacks of crates. Kanan stared at the woman, mouth starting to fall open, and almost let her return to the crowd, lost, before he forced a single word onto his tongue.

“Rhia?!” *** Rhia Denley grunted as her arms lifted a crate over her head and locked it into the stack that rose before her. Bashi said something next to her that still wasn’t loud enough for her to hear it (she’d been telling him to speak up since she reported this morning).

“What, Bashi?” she snapped, and the Mythrol pursed his blue lips, hearing the edge in her voice.

“I was saying,” Bashi started, then remembered to amplify his voice even more, “all of the carrier droids have been checked out, so I could only get three of them. So you and I just need to move these two stacks to the drop zone on the other side of the bay where someone else’s droids will see them and grab them.” Rhia smiled, feeling guilty for snapping and also appreciative that he’d finally spoken loud enough for her to hear him.

“Gotcha. Sorry, Bash, you know this place is an echo chamber. I’m already old and hard of hearing,” she joked, giving him a punch in the arm. He smiled and nodded as he typed in directions on the last carrier droid next to them. The droid revved and began lifting the stack; only, it’s motor whined and sputtered, nearly collapsing and bringing the stack of crates tumbling. Before either Rhia or Bashi could react, the droid’s engines fully kicked in and its back thruster let out a gust of warm exhaust that sent a few bits of Rhia’s pinned-back hair flailing. She frowned, pushed the pieces behind her ears, and squatted, ready to lift her stack.

“Don’t forget,” she started, glancing sideways at Bashi who had started to bend forward to grab his crates, “lift with your knees.” She snapped upright, her stack in her arms and her legs feeling underprepared. She would have grabbed an anti-grav platform if she’d known she’d be in charge of the heavy-lifting. Bashi’s recent words floated through her mind at that thought; if droids were in short supply, everything else useful probably was too.

Rhia couldn’t really see where she was going but she was able to sneak her head out from the side of her stack and kept up with the droid in front of her. When she saw the yellow-outlined square appear under her feet, signalling a drop zone, she brought her stack to the floor again. Her legs felt shaky, reminding her she really should adhere to the volunteer fitness regimes more. She stood up and saw Bashi’s shaky stack show up right next to hers. Clearly, the Mythrol had struggled with the weight as well.

“Bashi, I think you and I had better hit the running machine more if the Rebellion gets any bigger.” He looked at her, confused. “There won’t be any droids left to save our legs,” she added, smiling. Bashi grinned, letting a quiet chuckle out, and began walking back into the crowd in the main part of the bay. Rhia began to follow when someone unfamiliar called her name, just her first name, and she looked back over her shoulder. 

“Rhia?!”

There stood a man with a small beard and ponytail, wearing green shoulder armor that extended down his right arm. He was several years older than the last time she had seen him, to be sure, but there was no doubt- the man was Kanan Jarrus.

“Kanan?” Rhia asked, just as stunned as he had been. Around them, organized chaos continued, monotonous calls came steadily over the intercom, and the group of rebels around Kanan all watched intently. However, the two of them only continued to stare. Finally, Rhia spoke first.

“You’re with Phoenix Crew?” she asked, clearly in some sort of disbelief. 

“Well… uh…” Kanan drew his hand up to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess… We’re new,” he added, gesturing to the Spectres. Rhia’s eyes went to them as he introduced them.

“This is Zeb, Ezra, Sabine, and Hera my- uh, my pilot,” he stammered when he got to Hera, and Rhia could instantly tell why.

Hera frowned ever so slightly and gave Kanan a look out of the corner of her eye at the word “pilot.” Kanan was doing the stammering thing he did when he was pretending to know what he was doing. Clearly, he knew this woman and clearly she was having an affect on him. She didn’t want to be jealous and tried to remind herself that the only reason Kanan had stumbled over what to refer to her as was because of the boundaries surrounding their relationship- boundaries she’d been the one to set. Still, the sight and sound of him now reminded her of the moment they’d met for the first time, back on Gorse all those years ago, and, frankly, she didn’t like it. 

“It’s good to meet you,” Rhia said, politely, nodding to the crew. She waited for Kanan (or anyone, really) to speak again, but they stood together in more silence that was quickly becoming awkward. Rhia was trying to think of a quick way to end the encounter when a familiar blue face popped out of the crowd behind Kanan and the others.

“Captain Denley!” Bashi called, a datapad aloft in his hands. Rhia silently thanked him with her eyes for the rescue.

“Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me,” she said, giving a final nod and beginning to walk past them. On her way she paused and placed a soft hand on Kanan’s shoulder. She spoke quietly but not so quiet that it seemed intimate.

“We should catch up,” she said, smiling. And with that she continued past and back into the throng of the bustling service bay.

[teacup-baphomet]

G/t Drabble (Crash landed on a hostile planet trope but NOT via the a tiny vulnerable human in a planet of mean powerful alien bigs route)

tw: a bit of censored cursing. Uh. I’m not sure what else. Maybe broaching of sensitive tops such as sexuality and religion. But not really. Mostly it’s just rlly dumb word play/lame humor and a confused alien being confused (and kinda freaked/troubled due to the confusion? you’ll see if you read it i guess). there is some sad lorg boi times. idk. no romantic relationships. just a shaky friendship is forming between a crash-landed big-arse alien (a human! *gasp*  i woulda never guessed something as vile as that o: ) and one of the much smaller, very much not human locals. most want to kill the poor dude who got stuck on this planet of hostile lil guys who think he’s a monster and immediately decide they much off him asap. so like having this one ally is kinda important to him. But it’s hard. because. lots reasons rlly. culture differences. the language tech can only do so much. the size diff creates definite issues because trust is hard in general. and trusting a big being that could easily cause havoc on your planet mostly just cuz he /seems/ nice is not a very good foundation... there is much to learn between the two before they can be truly good frens. so uh good luck to them lol *raises glass* I mean. I don’t think I’ll ever write these two again. but I’m sure they’ll end up good friends. probably.

Anyway without further adieu, here have a disappointment (read: attempt to be creative but i’m kinda lazy tbh and still kinda bitter I can’t draw for more than like 10 minutes before I start spacing out :/ )

"We are called humans or the scientific name is homo sapiens" spoke the large alien, Lyle.

"Homo sapiens? That is rather long, is it not? Why is a "scientific name" even a thing? Why would that be necessary? Scientific name versus what kinda name? Emotional name? Why are these science names two words? Seems annoying. What is wrong with just calling yourselves simply homos? Or something else just as nice and concise. Straight to the point if you will. Probably. I... Uh.. I obviously don't know what exactly is the purpose of a scientific name as i already implied... Sooo..." The much shorter – and much scalier- native being (called Torrynts) awkwardly looked off the side to stare at the plain, blank, siding of their dilapidated, isolated house as if it were the most interesting thing in the entire vicinity. Which it wasn’t of course. There was a f***ing alien 15 times their size only a few them-sized lengths way…

 Lyle gave his new comrade – and only friend on this gawdforsaken planet that mostly wants him dead- th pondering, and possibly ironically, rather colourfully scaled Torrynt by the name of Kyvlar a bemused look, bordering on coy.

"Huh. 'Straight' to the point you say?" He paused with a small snort. "Well, my not-so-statuesque friend, do I got news for you~"

Kyvlar suddenly blanched, giving a Lyle a look that was like a knife to the heart while blurting out. "Wait, wait, wait! Hold up! We? There are more than one of you? Here? On this planet? Were you just a distraction the whole time. Oh... Oh no.... Have we really been victim a secret homo invasion this whole time! I-"

 Their panicked monologue was interrupted by a most horrendous noise. Like a slowly dying tornado with the hiccups or something.

"STOP. Stop I-I can't. I can't. This is too much much!" Spoke Lyle with his hand covering the bottom half of his  and his eyes scrunched shut.

 'Welp,' thought the Torrynt, 'This is the end. This is when I die. I should have known better than to immediately put my trust in such an enormous obviously dangerous specimen. Ho-'

 Kyvlar’s dramatic internal speech was interrupted when the alien surprised them by uncovering the his face, revealing a huge grin. ‘They weren't upset? Huh?’ The Torrynt blinked owlishly at the human in confusion.

 "Sh*t, bite-size (Kyvlar noticeably paled at the impromptu nickname not 100% the foreign joking tone, well it would have been noticeable to someone their size at least), I know you don't mean to, context-wise, but you reminded me of my great aunt Karen when my Uncle Todd and Uncle Copper decide to have their friends over along with relatives for a gatherin'."

Plastering on a faux distraught look and blatantly mocking tone, he  continue with exaggerated hand gestures. "Oh no, it's the...the...," he paused with snort, "... the homo invasion... No, no, no... Not here... not in this... this good, Christian neighborhood. Aren't just two of them enough? Oh woe is me!" The alien dropped the mocking tone and smirked towards the smaller being. "Heh. Good ol' great aunt Karen could never remember Uncle Todd was Jewish and so was the majority of that neighborhood.... It’s where my Uncle Todd was raised actually…"

 The said smaller being just stared blankly at the homo-no-human they supposed as just “homo” meant something else, they weren’t sure what else, beyond just something else.

 "Uhhm. Wh-what? U-Uhm, so what exactly is “homo” then? And what’s Christian? And Jewish too. What’s that? Are... Are those other types of -uh- intelligent, sentient creatures on your planet? Y-you know, b-beside hom-er-h-humans? Or are these subtypes of humans? What kinda are you? What is a great aunt? or Uncle? Does the great indicate a larger size? Oh gawd, a-aren't you humans b-big enough regularly? Oh... W-wait. O-or are you a great- uhm- great aunt, was it? E-er, g-great something? Ohhh. Zyntall (Torrynt swear). I'm sooo confused r-right now... " The timid tiny being, sighed in frustration before their eyes snapped open wide in a panic, and they did an immediate one-eighty with their behavior, and it was off all their previously trust, as wavering as it was, vanished in an instant, squeaking out a quick "sorry. oh, Z-zyntall... I'm so-so-sooo sorry. I-I hope I d-didn't offend y-you or anyth-thing... p-please, oh please, don't hurt me" while gazing everywhere except towards the much larger alien, hoping desperately the 'bite-size' nickname was just a bad joke...

 Clearly they not only didn't get what so hilarious about the whole thing but also thought he was a monster prone to violence – still. Lyle sighed, all the mirth that was previously in his expression draining out of him leaving him with an uncomfortable grimace on their face. How disappointing... They really wish there was another human here to share in the jesting. But alas, that was not meant to be. At least as far as they knew there was no "homo invasion" in the making. Lyle wasn’t naïve. He knew humans were easy to slip into a gray moral state, at best. The role of villains at worst. And many of his kind would likely take advantage of a planet full of tiny, vulnerable people. Lyle couldn’t help but inwardly cringe at the thought, getting nervous about something that wasn’t an issue. At least now. Currently, human-wise, it was just him on this distant planet. And as far as he knew, no one - well, no other human at least- had any clue where they were. It probably just seemed he simply disappeared. Never to be seen again most likely. Trapped on this random alien planet in scenario that is akin to some sort of a personal hell of sorts.

'Wow. Hello, major depressive episode that’s making me overly dramatic. I haven't seen you since I was - what - eighteen?' thought Lyle regretfully. Calling this planet a personal hell was probably a bit over the top. But still, he couldn’t even seem to keep the trust of his single native ally. It only adds to his feelings of lonely isolation. And he feared his lonely angst will only get worse and worse. But only time will tell.

Giving a small sigh, he mentally prepped himself to try and get back his small friend’s trust. At least he was able to laugh for a wee bit earlier. It had been so long since he had done such. It was nice. Hopefully next time it will not lead to a backtracking in his attempted friendly ships with an open local, or even worse, a hostile local. The little laser guns that native being had stung like a b*tch. It reminded him when he got bit a couple times by some fire ants during a vacation as a child.

-----------

So yeah these were rando improvised characters made on the spot.

But Lyle is a guy (he/him. He’d be chill with they/them too)

And Kyvlar is… a Torrynt. So like they/them I guess. Torrynts don’t have genders. Like at all. I guess they hermaphroditic (intersex if talking by human terms but not really as they are capable of reproduction and they aren’t human so… I dunno… Not even sure if hermaphrodite is a useful term. As idk if hermaphroditic animals, in nature, are capable of reproduction… I don’t think so? But I’m not sure tbh…). There is no variants like there are with human “sex”. And male/female concepts are 200+% foreign to these wee reptile-like aliens (albeit warm-blooded minded, so perhaps more draconian than reptilian idk. Also aliens being described as reptilian gives me hives due to a conspiracy theory that is like super bigoted actually n’ stuff. Very yikes. Don’t want to talk it about it rlly…). Their reaction would def be “wtf. That’s the weirdest sh*t ever” to such a thought as male n female binary dynamics & whatnot. No exceptions. They’d be like why a lot of you guys limiting yourself because of whether or not you are a potential offspring vessel or not. I don’t understand.

So Yeah. Uh. Anyways.

Their conversation about this prolly (or close to this):

Lyle: Hi. I’m Lyle. Just some random dude form Earth I guess.

Kyvlar: a random dude what?

Lyle: uh. I’m a dude. I guess I meant that I’m a boy though dudes don’t really have to be boys I think. But not to derail too much… Yeah. I’m a man/guy/boy/brosef, whatever you wanna call the male gender. Please not by brosef actually, heh. Anyway. Yep. A boy. That is what I am. Uh. How about you. I can just tell… you ….you have uhm two legs. Oh damn. Wait. That sounded so stupid. I wouldn’t assume your gender or anything. I just… You don’t look exactly human so..uh. UGH. Nevermind. I don’t even know where I was going with that... Heh. ANYWAY, so yeah what’s your gender is what I’m trying to say. Sorry I’m awkward as f***. I’m not used to socializing much. Been doing deep space sh** on my own for a few years now and.. uh.. yeahhhh….

Kyvlar: *stares blankly*

Lyle: Uh. Yeah. So. A Gender? Do you, uhm, have one? Or…????

Kyvlar: Uh. I think so? I mean I’m mostly a day-by-day I’ll figure it out then type but I, I really want be able to fix my home up. I want to learn to cook. Kinda suck at it now. Uhm. I guess… Uh. I should probably help you get on good terms with my people so they stop trying to kill you. You seem nice n’ stuff… so yeah. There’s that. I could use a little more purpose in my life. Not to-

Lyle: wait. Huh? What are you talking about? Are you talking about an agenda?

Kyvlar: Yes????

Lyle: *snorts* I didn’t say an agenda. I said a gender. As in A. Gen. Durr. Like are male or female or maybe something off the typical binary track??

Kyvlar: Uh. Er. Huh??? I, I’m so confused right now…

Lyle: Hooo boy. I’m so not prepared for this discussion at all.

-----------

One of these days I’m gonna have a character that’s silver-tongue and smooth af and not some bumbling awkward doofus (*cough* like I am *cough*).

[klbwriting]

Pirate’s Heart - Chapter 3

I’m An Albatroaz

Fandom: Six of Crows

Pairing: Kaz/female!Reader

Summary: Kaz plans a heist that goes disastraously wrong

Taglist: @sixofshadowandbone @thedelusionreaderbitch @itsemy01 @angelicdanvers @marinettepotterandplagg @screen-to-stage @aysegust @sagewrites111 @lilyoflower @hey-peeps @starjane312 @spawn0fsatan @myalupinblack @ameliathackray @moondustmarauder​

Let me tell you all a story about a mouse named Lorry Yeah, Lorry was a mouse in a big brown house She called herself the hoe, with the money money flow But fuck that little mouse 'cause I'm an albatraoz

It was early in the morning, the sun was just starting to rise and Kaz hadn't slept all night.  It was hard to sleep when a person named Lady Heartless was sharing a room with you and she hadn't been sleeping either.  They had seemed to be staring at each other the whole night, studying the other.  It was when the light of the sun was just peaking into the window that one of them finally spoke.

"I know a secret about you Kaz Brekker," she said softly.  He tried to keep his face blank but she saw some curiosity in his eyes.  "I know something happened to you, something bad."

"I'm a pirate, we don't exactly because pirates because good things happen," he said, mocking that she thought she knew him so well.  He was trying to keep himself calm, the look on her face was pity and he had a feeling that she did know what had happened to him.

"I know what happened to you on this ship...what the others did before you killed the captain and took over," she said.  Kaz could feel his face get paler but he tried to ignore it, swallowing hard and scowling.  

"How the fuck do you know any of that?" he asked, gripping the dagger that was hidden under his mattress.  He didn't want to kill her but if she planned on trying to use this secret against his crew he would gut her without a thought. 

  "I don't have a heart, so I learned how to read other people's hearts.  In their words, their mannerisms, their eyes.  A few years ago when we were stuck in that hallway together, hiding because my job had gone back and you made it worse, I touched your arm, just for a moment but the look on your face I have only ever seen in the faces of the girls I release from the pleasure vessels.  That kind of horror is unique," she explained.  Kaz felt his breath hitch in his throat.  He could see now in her eyes the pity but something else, admiration.

   "Why tell me this now?" he asked.  

"Because this is a job we're working together on, and its only fair, you have a secret hanging over my head and I have one over yours, we're even," she said.  She sat up, the night shirt she wore slipping down her shoulder.  Kaz had never seen a woman in his shirt before and he couldn't lie, he didn't hate it.  He noticed that her skin looked soft and smooth until it got to the target like scar on her chest.

  "Is that where it happened?" he asked even though he knew the answer.  She looked down and pushed the shirt up to cover the scars, nodding.  "What did it feel like?"  She barked out a dark laugh.

"It felt like someone was ripping a vital organ from my body and before I could recover someone put a knife through it," she said.  "Your uncle is a fucking prick."  Kaz laughed himself at this, showing a rare smile.  Y/N caught it and smiled a little herself.  His smile was nice, bigger than she thought it would be. "I can't argue with that," Kaz said, getting up himself.  He stood, stretching his limbs, shirtless and Y/N watched, the light hitting him just so that she thought for a moment that he was shining.  It was possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.  She quickly moved to stand, grabbing her pants to hide her blush before he could see it.  Lord, she had laid with men before, and women, why was this one boy making her feel like a virginal maid.  She slid the pants on and stripped off his shirt, pulling on her own.  Kaz had slid his on also and watched her finish dressing, sliding on her boots and putting her long hair up in a bun on her head.  He liked it better down but he wasn't going to tell her that.   "So we should probably wake the others and tell them the plan," Y/N said, moving towards the door.  Kaz nodded and followed her out.  He requested that only his first mates and her mates join them in the lounge.  

"Now Rollins' home is a fortress, heavily guarded at every entrance except for the waterway.  It has wide bars that they assume no one could fit through," Kaz explained, showing them a drawn up blueprint of the fortress.   Y/N glanced to Inej.

"Think you could fit?" she asked.  Kaz looked at her surprised.  He would have just commanded Inej to go through the bars or miss out on the money but she asked.  He was going to ask her about that later.  Inej nodded.  "Alright, after Inej gets in what's next?"

"There is a pulley system inside to raise the bars for releasing the bodies of the executed that can pile up there, she will need to use a device that Wylan is creating to blow the levy and raise it for us," he explained.  "Once we're in we split into two groups, one group goes to the treasury on the second flor and creates a diversion, that group will be Inej, Jesper, Nina, and Matthias.  You and I will go directly to the sea witch being kept in main cell here in the basement.  The diversion should have them low staffed and we should be able to handle anyone who's still there.  Exactly half an hour after we enter we should be meeting Wylan at the entrance of the waterway to head back to the Crow."   Y/N looked at the plans again and squinted some.

"How will the group at the treasury escape if they are creating the diversion?" she asked.  Kaz smirked.  

"Another feat for your Inej, she will have to be a phantom in the room.  When the others are caught the guards will be heading back to their stations and should only leave one or two guards to handle transporting the rest of the group.  She will sneak behind them, give Matthias the lockpicks I will provide and take out the guard in the rear.  Matthias will free himself and handle the other guard.   Y/N nodded and had to admit it was a smart plan.

"You know a lot about this place," she said.  "How it functions."

"I grew up there, I should know it," he said.  Only those in that room knew of his origins and he looked at the women.  "That information doesn't leave this room."  They looked to Y/N and she nodded.

"We can keep secrets just like you," she said, eyeing him close.  He stared back at her.  "But Brekker, remember, you better not just be ruining my life again."

"O I only want to fuck up your night," he said.  Jesper rolled his eyes.  

"Lord you two have a catch phrase," he muttered.

"Excuse me?" Y/N asked, glaring at the man.  His dark eyes danced with laughter.

"Please, every time we meet you two say that.  'Kaz you better not ruin my life' 'O Y/N I just want to fuck up your night' you guys just scream power couple..."

"Enough of that talk," Kaz snapped, cane coming down on Jesper's hand and making him yelp.  "Rest up we leave at 9 tonight."

Inej studied the bars in the waterway, swimming in front of them pushing to find any weak spots, testing the width with her head.  Just when Kaz thought the girl was going to shrug and give up she slipped through the bars and climbed on the narrow walkway just beyond.  She held her hand out and Wylan handed her the small bomb from the rowboat they were in.  She light the device and put it on the levy mechanism before hopping into the water.  The bomb blew but the bang wasn't startling, it sounded like someone had shot a gun for target practice.  They hoped no one would really notice as the bars rose and they rowed in.  Wylan stayed with the boat as the others made their way through the waterway and up the stairs.  This led to a morgue and the smell hit them all hard.  Jesper and Nina gagged, nearly losing their dinners.  Kaz took a deep breath through his mouth before pressing on and out the door.

"Jesper, up the stairs down there, will take you to the treasury.  Half an hour don't be late or we're leaving without you," he said.  Jesper gave him a look that said he didn't believe him before disappearing with the others.  Kaz looked at Y/N who was waiting by the door towards the cells.  

"How did you find out about this?" she asked as they snuck down the halls, looking for the sea witch.  Kaz rolled his eyes.  He didn't like talking during a job, but he remembered that Y/N was a chatterbox during a heist.  

"I was in Port Hilib and it was a rumor, I bribed a guard here and they confirmed it," he said.  Well that was clearly not what she wanted to hear.

"This seems foolish, are you sure that he wasn't lying?" she asked.  Kaz growled.  He had thought of that just now.  He knew he had a need for revenge against his uncle but he didn't realize it had given him tunnel vision.  She was right, this could be a trap and he had just brought not only his crew but her.  O fuck, his uncle thought she was dead.  He would know immediately who she was now and she would be in more danger.  Kaz didn't often care about his competition but he liked Y/N and didn't want her dead.

"Guess we'll find out," he said with as much bravado as he could muster.  He could see that she didn't believe him but she was still following.  

"Guess we will," Y/N said, knowing that they were probably running into a trap.  She could only hope that the others got out and that her and Kaz's brains combined could get them out of this one.  They turned the corner of the final row of cells to find all of them empty.  Now Y/N knew they were in trouble.  The only people in the cells were Pekka Rollins and his second in command Barcham.  

"Hello nephew...O I see you've brought a guest..." Rollins froze then as Y/N came further into the light and he realized who she was.  " Y/N, how...you're supposed to be dead!"   Y/N actually just laughed.  Pekka looked so old.  

"Ok, how long have I been dead?  You look terrible Pekka!" she said, still cackling.  Kaz looked at her worried.  He had been on the receiving end of a beating from Pekka and though it had been years he still felt a twinge of fear in his chest at the look in his uncle's eyes.  

"How long have you been around?" he asked, snarling.  

"About 5 years now, the Menagerie?  Lady Heartless?  Ring any bells ya prick?" she said.  Now Kaz was panicking a bit internally.  He wanted to survive this encounter and she wasn't making that an easy task.  

"So you were dead 15 years and suddenly you came back? How?" he demanded.  She rolled her eyes while Kaz tried to back out of the hallway.  Barcham slid in behind him and held up his pistol.  Kaz froze and glared.   "Pekka, I traded my heart for legs...then you stabbed me in an empty chest cavity.  I literally have no heart, that was not a figure of speech the sea witch was using," she explained as if she were talking to one of her younger girls.  Pekka looked positively livid, she could have sworn steam was coming out of his ears but this was just too much fun.  

"Um, Y/N, I would really like you to shut the fuck up now," she heard Kaz say from behind her.  She turned to see him with a pistol aimed at his head.  She nodded and held up her hands, dropping her own pistol.  Pekka moved over and grabbed her arm roughly.  She felt herself getting sick but held it down.  Kaz looked just as sickened when Barcham took his arm and started leading them out of the cells.

"So the sea witch story?" Kaz asked.

"Just a trap to get you here.  Your little friends will all be on a prison ship to the Outer Isle in the morning, and you Kaz will hopefully learn your place in this life.   Y/N, I might just make sure you're dead this time," Pekka said.   Y/N looked at Kaz and he stared at her as they were led away into captivity.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Anything can be our pet.

The shuttle gently glided down from the sky and rolled across the runway at the spaceport, the heat from reentry still fresh on its hull giving it a near mirage appearance to the waiting ground crew that were rushing over.  The coolant trucks pulled up one by one and the ground crew attached their hoses to them and began spraying down the shuttle as the disembarking tunnel attached itself to the side hatch.  A few moments later the hatch opened and the passengers of the shuttle began piling out. A large Draxic male, a lizard man like species, crouched down through the tiny door frame and entered the tunnel followed by a spry human female. Some of the other passengers hurriedly stepped aside as the Draxic stomped past while the female followed behind embarrassingly smiling and apologizing. She quickly walked up to the Draxic and kicked him in the leg. “What was that for?” He spoke, his lizard eyes narrowing down at her pouting face. “You shouldn’t be pushing past people.”  He tilted his head to the side. “Then they should move out of the way faster. They haven’t been crammed into a seat half their size for the twenty solar hours” As if to emphasize his point he rose to his full height and extended his legs, the sound of creaking bones resounding through the tunnel.  The human crossed her arms and continued pouting. “It’s still very rude.” The Draxic looked at her for a moment longer before grunting and continuing along his way.  She no doubt thought that he was agreeing with her, but in reality the mixture of smells emerging from the world, the cooling shuttle behind them, the various mechanical machines around him, and even the other humans on the plane was beginning to make the Draxic sick. He wished for nothing more than to get to his friends home were hopefully the smells would diminish. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  The world was known as Typhon Socundus, an ocean world whose entire landmass could be summed up as less than the country formerly known as the “People’s Republic of China”.  The largest of the islands held the spaceport that the duo had exited on, while the rest was scattered around the planet forming smaller islands and island chains   Because of the reduced landmass the planet’s population had been kept considerably smaller than other galactic worlds. Some had tried to create floating cities that glided across the waters in an attempt to increase the population, but that en-devour had ended rather shortly for reasons which seem obvious now to those who call the world home.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Draxic gripped the side of the boat tightly as his friend steered the small “dingy” towards her families island. The sea was calm in every direction and the sky was as crystal blue as the ocean water themselves.  When the Draxic had heard that his friend owned an entirely island he was impressed as the land rights of the world were highly sought after. The land was given to her family several generations ago she said because since the time of her great grandfather her family had provided a “crucial” service to the planet’s government. What that service was exactly she had refused to tell him, saying seeing it would be far better.  So caught up in remembering how he had been roped into taking his vacation with her he nearly failed to notice the boat slowing to a near complete stop.  “Why have we stopped?”  he asked his friend as she turned around from the steering wheel and opened a nearby crate that he had been resting his feet on.  “This is part of what I wanted to show you.” she said while digging through the crate before pulling out a small package. She turned to unwrap it and though the Draxic could not see the package he could smell the mixing stenches of meat . “Besides, if I didn’t do this they’d probably wouldn’t let us pass.” Before he could inquire as to what that meant she chucked the contents of the package far out into the water.  The contents hit the water and sunk beneath the calm waves. “What was-” the Draxic begun but stopped himself when he felt something. His keen senses felt something from far away sending ripples through the water and nudging the boat. He stepped to the side of the boat and began scanning the horizon.  He felt the ripple again but this time was able to judge the direction and gazed across the water. Far off in the distance, as far as his eyes could clearly make out detail, he saw the water begin to slowly become wavy. Starting small, the waves quickly grew in intensity until the waves were radiating outwards.  “What did you do?” he spoke as he turned to his friend. She was leaning over the side of the boat and tapping the water with her right hand in a rhythmic pattern.  “If you didn’t see it with your own eyes I doubt you’d have believed me.” She continued tapping the water, unfazed by the growing disturbance of the water. “All I’ll say now, is don’t do anything. Just stand and watch, they don’t like new comers.”  A gout of water shot up into the sky where the Draxic had been focusing on. Emerging from the water loomed a massive form, a shadow that cut through the clear blue sky like an obelisk of darkness. The shadow dove back beneath the waves before he could get a clearer view but whatever it was was now speeding straight for them.  “By the seven suns! What is that!”  Whatever it was dove beneath the waves again and was hidden from his sight. He quickly stepped to the side of the boat and began peering into the waters below, but he could not pierce through the murky gloom of the water. ‘There you are silly boy, come to mama.”  At the words from his friend the Draxic turned and saw her laying her hand and head against what appeared to be a living wall of flesh and scale. An eye easily twice her size looked at her and the Draxic and he could sense the creature was that of a race of predators.  His eyes calmly looked over from left to right and saw that he was in fact looking at the head of a massive Wave Serpent, a creature rumored to grow for eternity so long as it feeds and strong enough to crush the hull of a space vessel as if it was made of paper.  The head of the beast slowly rose higher out of the water until the Draxic saw the mouth was wide open showing row upon row of teeth three times his size glistening in the sun light. He was left speechless as he came to realize that this must be his end and that he would be reunited with his ancestors in the eternal fields of war.  While he was transfixed with his imminent demise his friend picked up several more packages and chucked them into the gaping maw. The creatures mouth clamped down with a thunderous boom that knocked the Draxic off his feet. The boat bumped against the scales of the beast and his friend continued to stroke the scales and talk lovingly to the Serpent before it retreated beneath the water once more.  With the creatures passing she resumed her post at the helm of the ship and fired up the engine once more.  “First time seeing one up close?”  Her words seemed distant as the Draxic began to regain his composure.  “What......just happened?” was all the formerly proud warrior alien could say.  “My family raises Wave Serpents for the world.” She said as she steered the boat onwards. “That one was “Charlie” and I’ve had him since he was just an egg. He likes to showoff to strangers.”  “What do you mean by “raises” them?”  “When my granddad was young he came upon a Wave Serpent egg that washed up upon the shore. Since they grow up to be the size of spaceships he didn’t think the egg that was the size of a football was the same beast. He cared for the egg night and day until it finally hatched, he then cared for the little serpent every day. They developed such a close bond that it actually understood what he was saying to it which became mighty helpful when it grew to the size of a cruise liner.”  She steered the boat around an outcropping of strange rocks, but as the Draxic looked closer he saw that they were in fact spines of several slumbering Wave Serpents that were resting on coral reefs just below the surface.  Some he saw opened their eyes as the tiny boat passed their massive forms while others even raised their heads like cats finding something interesting before returning to their sleep.  “Eventually that little one grew so large it became the queen of her species on the planet. She returned to the island my granddad had raised her and laid her own eggs there. So several generations of the creatures grew up under the stewardship of my family.”  “But what does this have to do with the planet’s government?”  “Well, once the people in power learned that there was someone out in the back country that could tame the beasts that were sinking their cargo haulers they attempted to pay him to teach others. He refused to teach anyone outside the family, but agreed he’d start teaching the serpents not to attack ships if they give him ownership of the entire island.”  The Draxic looked stunned for a moment. “He blackmailed a planet’s government for a island?”  “My granddad was a nice man, but he was also a clever devil when it suited him.” she chuckled.  The Draxic pondered how she seemed perfectly fine around some of the galaxies deadliest creatures and even treated them like pets when something else struck him.  “What did you feed that beas-” “Charlie.” she corrected him.  “Yes; what did you feed “charlie”?”  “I gave him a mix of beef and chocolate. It was his favorite treat growing up and even though he’s so big now his taste buds can still taste anything that touches them, regardless of how big or small it is.”  The Draxic slumped back into the boat and watched as they neared the island she spoke of. Several serpents were strewn out across the island basking in the sun while several more circled it in the surrounding waters, nipping at each other to get closer.  He felt as if his vacation was about to become far more exciting than his lizardman heart would be able to handle.  

[the-citrus-scale]

The Objectification of Billy Hargrove

Ever since the debut of Billy Hargrove’s epic lifeguard catwalk in season three of Stranger Things (which I totally didn’t watch again to write this article, even for science!), there’s been some debate in the fandom about whether or not this character was inappropriately objectified throughout his run on the show. While we understand the sentiment, we disagree in this case. And here’s why.

First, let’s take a look at the fandom’s biggest arguments on the subject. Certainly, almost every Billy moment from the series involves his body in some significant way. There’s a lot of focus on how he looks, and he’s on display often, which naturally leads to the idea of objectification. Also, most comments made by other characters about Billy are about his body, and, if no one’s talking about it, they’re definitely looking at it. The reason fandom is protesting is also significant, in this case. For one, they are understandably tired of seeing characters who are objectified simply for the sake of being objectified, male or female, because that adds nothing to a narrative. Add in that Billy is also a younger character and it's easy to see why people are upset. He’s eighteen in the third season of Stranger Things, but might have been seventeen in the second season. Though either age is technically legal in Indiana, and eighteen is legal in the United States overall, this is a gray area for a lot of people. Either way, Billy is definitely a teenager, and some are not okay with teenagers being objectified, whether they’re legal or not. The biggest (and loudest) issue, though, seems to be that most of the people we see objectifying Billy in Stranger Things are middle-aged women, which gives a predator/prey vibe to a lot of those interactions.

So, you may wonder how, based on all of that, we could possibly disagree with the idea of Billy being objectified in Stranger Things. Well, the answer is quite simple. We disagree that Billy is being objectified because of the characterization and, more importantly, the purpose behind all of these elements in the narrative.

The key point is that Billy Hargrove wants to be objectified. It’s part of his character. Everything he does screams that he wants to be noticed, and everything he says is designed to establish his dominance and make whoever is around him uncomfortable. He wants men to be jealous that they’re not him, and he wants women to swoon because of him. And his primary way of getting the kind of attention he craves is by putting his body on display. Think about it. He drives a flashy car. He dresses so that people will look. He didn’t accidentally put on the tight jeans and the muscle shirt in the morning. He didn’t forget his shirt when he went to basketball practice. He didn’t trip and get his mullet permed before he got his job at the pool. Just look at all the trouble he goes to in the season two scene where he’s getting ready for a date that really doesn’t seem to matter that much to him. And when he does that lifeguard walk, he knows that every woman is looking at him. He enjoys it, because that’s what he wants.

Billy is also physically imposing and demonstrates it frequently. He wants to be seen as better than everyone else and will go to any lengths to prove it. He steals Steve’s Keg King title, wearing only his leather jacket, of course, at Tina’s party. He shows off his superior basketball skills, again making sure he’s shirtless so that people will look. He mentions his sexual prowess when he’s in the shower in the men’s locker room. At home, he lifts weights to maintain his physique. He gets into his epic fight with Steve at the end of season two, showing that he’s not afraid to be violent if it gets him what he wants.

And if he can’t intimidate someone physically, he does it with words. In particular, he flirts with Mrs. Wheeler because it makes him feel powerful. Although she clearly enjoys it to a certain degree, she’s also uncomfortable. During the pool scene in season three alone, Billy pushes and pushes until she agrees to meet him. Mrs. Wheeler tries to refuse several times, but he just won’t take no for an answer. There’s definitely something predatory going on, but Mrs. Wheeler isn’t the predator. The predator is Billy. She’s the prey. He’s completely in control of that situation. His age makes it confusing for the audience, but that doesn't negate Billy's purpose in the prose. He is the villain. The end.

Basically, all of this characterization serves a purpose. Billy needs to be an immediate presence when he arrives in Hawkins to stand out against all of the crazy stuff that’s already happened there, for one. He’s the human villain of the series, especially during the second season. If he wasn’t brash and bold and strutting around like a peacock sticking his nose in everybody’s business, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill that role. He would just be another kid at Hawkins High who didn’t really have anything to do with anything.

More importantly, all of Billy’s behavior in season two sets us up to recognize how abnormal his behavior is in season three after he’s possessed by the Mind Flayer. The kids even make a comment about how unusual it is to see him with his shirt on in the show. It’s how they start to realize that something is wrong with Billy. If Billy hadn’t been strutting his stuff before season three, the differences would have been far too subtle to notice, especially because the kids don’t spend a lot of time around Billy. It even took them a while to realize that Will was possessed in season two, and he was someone they were around literally all the time. If the kids couldn’t have guessed that Billy was the vessel of the Mind Flayer, the plot wouldn’t have been able to progress the way it did. It was essential that Billy be who he is for the story to happen the way it was meant to.

But listen, we’re not in favor of objectifying characters just for the sake of objectification, and  just because you enjoy looking at a character doesn’t automatically mean that they’ve been objectified. Yes, a lot of the Stranger Things fandom is thirsty for Billy Hargrove, but not because anyone writing Stranger Things intended it that way. In Billy’s case, they wrote a character who had certain traits that he needed to have for the story he was in, and people happened to be attracted to him after the fact. We’re not saying that some of the themes present in his arc aren’t uncomfortable, but he’s not being objectified, and that’s that.