#which leads to very unsatisfactory encounters on my end

[eorzeanflowers]

You ever take over 24 hours to realize that your dnd session the day before just didn’t sit right? Yeah, same.

[mirageofadesert]

C-Drama Review: My Journey to You

Broadcast: iQIYI, 2023, 24 Episodes Genre: Romance, Wuxia

My Rating 7/10

A beautiful show with a promising premise, ultimately disappointing with a poorly realized asynchronous story-telling and unsatisfactory ending.

Acting: 6/10 World-building: 7/10 Production: 9/10 Storytelling: 4/10 Pacing: 7/10 Re-watch Value: 6/10  Bonus: for Jolin Jin's and Tian Jiarui's characters. One of my favorite big sister and little brother!

Summary with minor spoilers: My Journey to You tells the story of two assassins, Yun Weishan (played by Yu Shuxin) and Shangguan Qian (played by Lu Yuxiao), who are sent to infiltrate an enemy sect territory, the Gong residence, disguised as potential brides. However, their respective objectives are in conflict with each other, and so are their targets. They encounter two very different young masters and their respective families. Young Master Gong Ziyu (played by Zhang Linghe) surprisingly attains the title of Sword Wielder of the Gong family, but faces accusations about the legitimacy of this status and title. Only by completing three challenges can he prove himself and take up his family's legacy. He falls in love with Yun Weishan early on, meanwhile Shangguan Qian future husband Gong Shang Jue (played by Cheng Lei) distrusts his new bride. In a balancing act, she must win his trust without revealing her true intentions. Thus begins a dangerous game, wherein the lines between friend and foe are blurred. The price? Freedom from the oppressing employers - and their own survival.

My review - spoilers ahead!

The show started out incredible promising: A captivating premise, a darker tone in both cinematography and theme, beautiful sets and costumes, decent special effects and a different voice for Esther Yu. And while the show had great moments, it overall failed to deliver what it promised. So what went wrong?

The short version is that the show suffered from the typical shortcoming: mediocre acting, misguided directing and bad writing.

Esther Yu and Zhang Ling He never stood out to me as particularly great actors, and this holds true in this show as well. However, I don't think the problem with My Journey to You can be blamed on their unconvincing acting, but is rather a product of the direction the writing took them.

The tension arcs get boring really fast: Again and again the female leads are in danger of being exposed (or better: exposing themselves), but by the third time it doesn't feel exciting anymore. The other major plot line is the conflict surrounding the succession of the sword wielder title, which I was never able to care about. I think a different story-line for the ML would have greatly benefited the drama. Trying to make the audience care about him by putting a lot of emphasis on his hard childhood early on in the show, didn't work, because it felt so irrelevant compared to the backstories of the other characters. It didn't give him depth, it actually took it away.  Therefore, the dynamic between the main couple wasn't working either - she was too cold, he was too immature for them to create any interesting chemistry.

The second couple not only had the better written characters, their storyline had more suspense. I have seen mainly Esther Yu being criticized for this drama, so my potentially controversial opinion is, that it's actually the fault of the dull main storyline and the bland ML.

The other big problem are the poorly build-up plot twists. Some of these plot twists themselves were great, like the switch of the medical document and the death of the little sister. While these were great plot points, the narrative build-up wasn't. In retrospect, it made sense we got so much information about the MLs unhappy childhood and complex relationship with his parents, because that build-up both to the medical record swap and the betrayal of the older brother, however... it was just done in such an annoying way, that it made the ML look unnecessary whiny and the storyline boring.

As the show progressed, they increasingly used the element of time-jumps and flashbacks to tell the story. There should have been a better way to deliver tension and twists, than constantly making jumps in order to catch the audience off guard. Part of the fun in mysteries like this is to make guesses while watching, but that only goes so far, when it is all in the editing and crucial information is simply being withheld. And what made this even worse, it that the final plot twist (e.g. the brother coming back) was so predictable, all the asynchronous story-telling wasn't even necessary!

Worst of all was the ending: A twin sister out of nowhere? A villain that was poorly build up? No resolution for the second couple? A cliffhanger for a next season that does not fit the tone of the first 23 episodes and is unlikely to ever happen? Frustrating.

It wasn't all bad: The supporting cast was great. Ryan Cheng, Jolin Jin and Tian Jiarui were amazing! The dynamics between all the other couples were engaging as well. Gong Zishang was my favorite comic relief in any cdrama, and she gave the whole show such a unique vibe! Tian Jiarui's character was right done my alley - I just love my twisted little psychopath in emotional turmoil!

Just one last thought ... please no more Chen Duling? She has been in most shows I have watched this summer and has failed to charm me every time. She is a decent actress, but the type casting of "sad, whiny girl" isn't doing her any favors.

Overall, I think this was a decent drama. I still would recommend you to watch this show, especially if you value intriguing characters over plot!

[allegra-writes]

“The Devil all the time”

Hunter!Tom x Demon!Reader

Supernatural AU

NSFW

Warnings: Smut

"Break the silence, damn the dark

Damn the light..."

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac

Forget everything you thought you knew, you had every reason to be afraid of the dark when you were a kid. In this world where monsters are real, the Holland brothers hunt them so normal people can continue to live in the bliss of ignorance.

But when something goes terribly wrong, Tom will do anything to save his brother's life, including selling his soul to the devil. Well... Not exactly the devil, but close enough.

You don't need to watch Supernatural to read this AU

MY MASTERLIST

He knew it was you, even before turning. He knew it as soon as he heard your deceptively delicate footsteps break the supernatural silence that had fallen over the forest the moment he had buried the little metal box in the old crossroad. Tom didn't want to think about what it meant, having such an intimate knowledge of you to be able to recognize you by the cadence of your steps, being so in sync with you that he could tell whenever you were in the vicinity. 

So he used his favorite deflection technique whenever it came to you.

"Y/n? What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? Sorry, did I say nice girl? I meant evil skank"

The insult didn't phase you. None ever did. It was hard to take them seriously when you knew how many nights he fell asleep with your name on his lips, after pathetically releasing himself into his own hand, or fucking his boring girl-next-door girlfriend, chasing orgasm over unsatisfactory orgasm that would never completely satiate him. Because it wasn't your face the one contorted in pleasure looking up at him from the mattress.

"You called. I came" You batted your lashes, sweetly. "I always come when you call…" 

He gulped, the innuendo not lost to his ears. It threw him off guard, like it always did. 

"I would have thought this would be… beneath you" Tom cleared his throat, looking away, trying to regain his footing, "collecting a deal, like a vulgar crossroad demon"

There was nothing vulgar about the soul of a Holland. But he didn't need to know that, so you just shrugged,

"Queen Rowena has an interest in you boys. She finds you entertaining. I'm just being a good subdit" 

He scoffed,

"Funny. I would have never peg you for a sub"

You took a step closer to him.

"You don't have what it takes to make me submit, Holland" Your hot breath fanned over his skin, setting his skin on fire. Making his blood boil. You had a way of doing that, of bringing out the worst in him. Of making him lose control. And you thoroughly enjoyed it, poking at the bear until the claws came out, laughing at the carnage.

Another step, and you could physically feel it: The hate, radiating from his every pore, his mind screaming with it. He hated you. He hated your kind. He hated your beauty. He hated the pretty white dress you were wearing, so pure and innocent, glowing like a beacon in the dark. A lure, guiding uncountable men before him into perdition. 

But above all else, he hated that, even then, he couldn't help but to want you. Fervently. Desperately. Irreversibly. 

"I came here to make a deal" He croaked, cursing himself internally for showing weakness. 

"Let's negotiate, then," you replied, stepping away, mercifully letting him breath. 

"My brother-"

"I know" You interrupted, sounding bored already, "Reapers everywhere are going berserk. Who, oh who, will get to reap the soul of a Holland?" 

The wind picked up, making your long dress billow around your legs. You twirled a little, admiring the way it moved. Tom's eyes were glued to you, almost hypnotized. Partly because you were too dangerous to be left unsupervised even for a second, partly because you looked beautiful like that. It had never been more obvious to him that you were an unearthly creature, you didn't belong to this world. There, surrounded by greenery, barefoot, swaying softly under the twilight light, he wondered how could anybody ever mistake you for a human.

"Of course" your apathetic voice took him out of his revery, "being reapers, watching them go wild is rather boring. I swear they are the most uninteresting beings of all creation" 

That made him see red.

"Boring? Boring?!" He knew his voice was rising with every word but he just couldn't help it, "They're waiting for my little brother to die!!"

"Which could happen any minute now," You reminded him, all playfulness gone from your demeanor, "so if you wanna strike a deal, I suggest you start making me an offer worth my time"  

He was taken aback by that.

"I- My soul in exchange of a wish, and you collect it in ten years" He tried and failed not to think about what that implied: vicious, invisible hounds of hell tearing apart his body and dragging his soul to hell, "Isn't that the usual deal?"

You scoffed,

"After all the things you did in your life, what makes you think your soul doesn't belong in hell already? And if your brother dies, that is one less Holland on earth to worry about. You and your brothers have managed to become a big pain in the ass for us…"

He pulled out a knife, a strange one, with runes in the blade. You arched a brow in recognition

"The Winchesters' knife. Are you threatening me, little hunter?" 

Your lack of reaction was another blow. He had hoped you'd be more impressed than that. Nonetheless he turned it in his hands, offering you the handle.

"I'm throwing it into the deal" 

To his surprise, you didn't immediately take it from his hands, choosing instead to pace the clearing, deep in thought. 

The truth was you couldn't care less about the knife, it wasn't more dangerous to you than a toothpick. And while it was true it could certainly damage your queen, she had a far better weapon to protect herself: You.

But it did confirm your suspicions about the Hollands having access to the old Winchester arsenal, which meant they had access to something way more dangerous than that rustic weapon made of steel and bone. A book, made of ancient dark magic and human skin, written in blood. A book that was precious to queen Rowena and by extension to you: the Book of the Damned. 

The Hollands were a family of extremely talented, yes, but old fashioned hunters. The stab first, ask questions later kind. They probably had no idea what they had in their hands… but you did. 

"Very well then," you finally declared, "this is my offer: Your soul and that knife in exchange for sweet Harry's life and one year for you to get all your businesses in order" 

Tom felt all the blood drain from his face. One year. Just 365 more days to live, before an eternity of torture in hell. 

"O-one year?" He breathed.

"One year" You confirmed, "More than enough time to go see the Grand Canyon, eat the world's spiciest burger or whatever you have on your bucket list" 

The disdain in your words only made him hate you harder.

"Not nearly enough to live" He replied through clenched teeth. You rolled your eyes, 

"You're a hunter. You lead short, violent existences, charging head first towards what most humans run away from. Things faster, stronger, more powerful than you, surviving each encounter out of sheer luck. Killing one monster after another, until that luck runs out. Because the monsters? Unlike you who rely on it everyday, they just need. One. Single. Lucky. Strike." You punctuated every word with one step in his direction, until you were face to face again. Until, for the first time ever, you could see the fear, the desperating hopelessness he kept hidden inside, reflected on the warm coffee of his eyes. You knew a lesser man would be already crying and begging for Mercy.

Tom wasn't like other men though, that was the whole point. 

"Or…" You soften your tone and your stance, letting your fingers ghost over the back of his hand, his whole skin erupting in goosebumps. That was the very first time you touched him. Ever. 

And it was as if nobody had ever touched him before, the light caress enough to set every nerve ending, every single one of his cells, alight.

He was so distracted by the sensation and his body's response to it, he almost didn't hear your next words over the sound of his own pounding heart. 

"Or you could keep your little pocket knife, and even have your ten years if…"

"If?" He struggled to focus.

"You let me borrow a book"

His brows furrowed in confusion,

"A book? What book?"

"Any book of my liking, for as long as I want" You shrugged it off, "Do we have a deal?"

There was a catch there, it was obvious. He knew he was going to regret it but, what choice did he have? 

"Deal"

Your smile was blinding, luminous. If he didn't know any better, he would have called it angelical. Now, that was one ridiculous thought.

"What now? We seal it with a kiss?" His eyes fell to your lips, so soft looking and inviting. He wasn't eager to put his mouth on a filthy demon and doom himself. He wasn't. 

You chuckled, but there was no humor behind it.

"Oh no, darling. This is big. This is special" You're special, "A simple kiss just won't cut it…"

No. You couldn't mean… could you? Was there no limits to your hatred for him? Did you really want him so defeated, so humiliated? 

"What do you want?" He spat through gritted teeth.

"The same thing you want" You put your hands on his chest, rising to your tiptoes to whisper in his ear, "The same thing you have wanted ever since we first met . The thing that's obsessing you..."

"I don't know what you're talking about"

You smirked,

"You can lie to your family, you can even lie to yourself, little hunter... But you can't lie to me." 

He couldn't hide, you could see every fantasy, hear every single one of his thoughts of you on repeat, like a prayer in your direction. Just like he couldn't hide the way his skin was burning now for you, the way his blood rushed south, the way all logical thought left his brain, his iron grip on his emotions finally breaking as he snapped. 

Lightning fast, in just a blink, he twirled you around, your back hitting the rough bark of a tree, as he towered over you, demon blade to your throat, every inch of his body pressed against yours. His eyes were ablazed with rage, and passion, as he surged forward, striking you with his best hit.

He kissed you. 

Lips vicious against yours, teeth biting and scraping only to soothe the offense seconds later with his tongue, until he was dizzy, light headed with the lack of oxygen and the taste of you. The hand not holding the knife to your neck fell to your breast, squeezing the pliant flesh with enough force to cause pain on a human woman, merely making you moan. He swallowed the sound, letting his fingers trace your waist, your hips, clawing at your dress until he finally, finally, felt skin under his fingertips. 

It was better than anything his mind had conjured in his feverish fantasies in the dead of the night. The skin of your inner thighs velvety soft, as they parted under his touch, the sweetest sounds leaving your lips as his fingers found your naked core. You weren't wearing any underwear, probably never had. The realization that, in all your past encounters and fights you had been standing there, just feet away from him with nothing under that damn dress hit him like a truck, making his head swim. 

He searched between your folds, and suddenly his fingers were inside you. He was inside you, a part of him was buried deep within you, within your silky heat, claiming you as his, if only for the night. 

And you were so wet for him, and only getting wetter as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, scissoring them, opening you up until he was able to slip a third one in, fucking you with his hand in earnest. You were sobbing, clutching at his biceps, head thrown back in pleasure. He took advantage of that to suck bruises on your neck, only to see them fade before his eyes. Your skin tasted clean, smelled like wild flowers and rain. Ozone. Lightning. Like those coursing through his veins with every cry, every delicious gasp you made. 

He found the perfect spot inside you, the one that sent sparks through your nerves with every stroke of his calloused fingers. 

"This what you wanted?" To make him lose it? Lose his mind, himself, in you? "For me to make you come on just my fingers, like the little slut you are?"

The floor disappeared from under his feet as you sent him flying away from you, a searing pain exploding at the back of his head as he landed, sprawled at the feet of an old, dying oak. With blurry eyes, he saw you stalk towards him, all power and cold, controlled fury. 

"Let's get one thing straight, Holland. I'm not one of your sluts" You sneered, "and I'm definitely not your basic bitch of a girlfriend. So you better start showing me a little respect, are we clear?"

He gulped, sitting up. He had to be seriously fucked up in the head, for his cock to be twitching inside his pants at your threatening tone.

"Crystal" 

"Good" You declared, coming to a stop right in front of him, standing between his parted legs, "Now, let's put that mouth of yours to a better use"

He knew that image was going to be forever tattooed on his brain: You standing in front of him, holding the skirt of your dress up, waiting for him to put his mouth on you. Tom took a moment to admire you, before delving in, flattening his tongue over your slit, before drawing tight, precise circles on your clit with the tip. God, you tasted so divine it was messing with his head; something as dark and corrupted and twisted as you, feeling so exquisite, so perfect, so heavenly to his every sense. 

He helped you hook your knee over his shoulder, his other arm snaking around your leg, pulling you even closer. You could feel his smirk against your cunt the moment he realized your legs were shaking, but you couldn't find it in yourself to care, not with his wicked talented mouth devouring you like a last meal, rocking your whole world, making you see stars behind your closed eyelids.

You always knew that man would make the stars fall. 

Tom kept on, penetrating you with his tongue as far as it would go, his whole face moving against you. The slight burn of his scruff felt delicious against your delicate labia, as he used his fingers to open you up like a flower, separating your petals to get to the delectable nectar inside. You were close, he could feel it, the obscene sounds you were making, the waves of sweetness falling on his lips feeding his ego, filling him up with pride. By the time the night was over, you'd be unable to forget him. He would make sure of that. He would make you come, over and over, until the only thoughts left in your brain were of him, the only word your lips knew how to speak was his name. He would mark you, like a bloodstain, like you had done to him. 

Almost there, he almost had you. Your muscles were locking, your walls starting to tremble, when a loud crack resonated over his head, and you stepped away on unstable legs, breathing hard. You didn't even need to breathe, it was just his effect on you. He made you feel human. And it was both exhilarating, and terrifying. 

You took another step back, but he took hold of your ankle, tugging hard enough to make you fall on his lap, white skirt covering the place where his hands were fumbling with his zip, with his boxers, aligning himself with your entrance.

"Fuck!" He cursed, as you sank on his rock hard cock, not giving him any time to get used to the feeling of you around him, before starting to move. 

"How does it feel" You taunted, "fucking a monster? Is it as good as you dreamed of?"

Better. You felt even better. Tom hadn't thought it was possible, but he loathed you even more for it. 

"Shut up" He growled. 

You leaned forwards, breath hot against his ear,

"Cause you feel amazing, Tom. Your cock feels like heaven" 

His hand tangled in your hair, keeping you in place as he crashed his mouth to yours again, the other fumbling for the buttons at the back of your dress, tugging and pulling, tearing at the fabric, in his haste to feel more. More of your skin against his, more of the body that had been his hyper fixation for far too long. 

You sat up, still grinding on his cock, letting the tattered dress fall to your waist, watching in satisfaction as his eyes went wide, zeroing on the way your breasts bounced in sync with your hips. 

Reaching up, for a glorious second Tom could feel one perfect pebbled nipple against his palm, the roundness, the weight of your soft flesh on his fingers; before an invisible force pinned his hands to his sides. 

You tsked.

"Still don't get it, do you little hunter? This?" You let yourself fall all the way down his thick cock, hard, tearing twin moans from his mouth and yours, "This isn't about you. This is about me." 

Leaning back, you braced yourself on his strong thighs, changing the angle, changing your movements to a slower rocking against his pelvis. The friction against your clit was perfect, the feeling of his big, throbbing dick so deep inside you, stretching you like no one before, sending electrical pulses through your spine. It was decadent. It was ecstasy.

It was torture. Underneath you, Tom was sobbing, eyes bright with unshed tears, fighting in vain against his bonds. He needed it faster, harder, anything to help tilt him over the edge you were keeping him on, your sweet cunt too tight, too good around him to allow his cock to soften, your rhythm too leisured to let the tensed, strained coil inside him to snap. You were uncaring, using him remorselessly to get yourself off, your little moans getting higher in pitch the closer you came to your climax. Tom felt himself getting higher just by looking at your beautiful pleasure ridden face. You cried out, and suddenly it was happening, you were coming, pulsating around his cock, falling apart on top of him.

And the ground beneath him quaked. The sky above his head bled, the blue twilight torn open by lightning, and thunder, despite the fact that there wasn't a single cloud marring its diaphaneity. You fell forwards, hand braced on the tree, next to his face, ridding the aftershocks of your orgasm until the end. 

"No!" Tom cried when, after a few seconds of catching your breath, you dismounted him, letting his dick slip out of you. 

You arched a brow,

"Something you want, Tommy?" 

He locked his mouth shut, gritting his teeth. You smiled, amused, knuckles stroking his still iron hard cock.

"Do you need more, little hunter?" You enveloped him in your hand, moving it up and down his member, watching the head disappear under his foreskin, "Do you need to come?"

He banged the back of his head against the bark.

"Yes!" He finally admitted, "So badly…"

"Then beg" You commanded, stilling your hand. He snapped open the eyes he hadn't realized he had closed. Oh, if looks could kill…

"Never" He hissed, livid.

"Very well, then" You picked up your pace, pumping him fast, your grip almost too rough. He gasped for air, feeling the telltale tightening of his balls, the coil inside just about to break under the tension. But you must have felt it too, cause your hand let go of him altogether. Too late, he understood what you were doing.

One beat. And then another, and he was coming all over his t-shirt, orgasm completely ruined. 

He cursed, tears escaping through the corner of his eyes, fingers digging into the moist ground under his hands. You chuckled, cruelly, standing up and stepping out of your shredded dress. He could have ganked you with the demon blade in that moment, he really could have, except his hands were still pinned by an invisible force at his sides. 

"Let me go, you bitch," Tom growled, tossing, fighting against his restraints to no avail, "aren't you done?!"

"Not quite." You smiled, mockingly sweet, "Just one more thing before I leave. Don't worry, it will only hurt for a minute…"

He renewed his efforts to escape, as you bended over, reaching for his chest, white hot pain burning through his ribs. He almost cried out, but what he saw stole the voice from his throat, turned his blood into ice inside his veins, leaving him shaking, jaw slack and mouth open in a soundless scream: 

You, naked and gorgeous and terrible. Transfixed, eyes glowing with a supernatural indigo light, the shadow of two massive, bended, broken wings projected on the trees behind you.

Not a demon, he thought. You're not a demon.

You smiled, and it was terrifying.

"No. I'm the thing demons have nightmares about" You replied out loud to the words he had only said in his mind, "And now, little hunter, you belong to me. Mind, body and soul"

[aurorawest]

"More about his kinks? His rich history of sexual assault and how that messes with him? His hang-ups around physical attraction and emotional attraction? Something else that I’m forgetting to list?" ALL OF THE ABOVE! Seriously, if you wrote an essay on each topic I'd def read it, LOL, I'm so on board 🥳

I’m so sorry for taking forever to answer these. I felt like I wasn’t really giving the topic the due it deserved—I still think I could say more, and say it better, but here’s what I’ve got for now!

TW for talk about general sex stuff and sexual assault.

Section 1: Who is Loki attracted to?

Loki is bi/pan (not a label he would apply to himself, but I’m going to use it as shorthand). This is something he’s known about himself since his early adolescence. He probably was more aware of being attracted to women, just because, you know, heteronormativity. I head canon that queerness wasn’t totally accepted on Asgard when he was young, but there was a wide range of opinion and there were certainly many people that were totally accepting (amongst them, his family). And by the time of the MCU timeline, my hc is that attitudes are largely accepting. So young Loki is aware he’s attracted to men, and he’s willing to pursue that, but he’s still nervous about making it widely known. A lot of that is tied up with not feeling like it’s Asgardian enough, it’s not the kind of masculinity that Asgardians seem to prize. 

My personal head canon is that Loki has been attracted to more men than women.

Section 2: When is he attracted to them?

I sometimes think that I sort of head canon Loki as demisexual (again, not a term he’d use). I see Loki’s libido becoming further and further separated from his capacity for emotional intimacy as he gets older. He gets to a point where he almost never feels attracted to someone unless he’s got that emotional connection...but he doesn’t like admitting to an emotional connection. So he’ll be like, ‘Oh, I just think he’s hot, no biggie. He just pops up in my sexual fantasies all the time, exclusively actually, and I regularly get off to the thought of him undressing—but it’s just physical! I don’t actually like him!” Like he’s fully aware that for other people, this is a thing that can be true. But it’s not true for him. In order for him to be really sexually attracted to someone, he has to have that emotional bond. Which again, he’ll deny. It’s a really healthy emotional cycle.

Section 3: Idk if it’s really sexuality but his genderfluidity

So again, I don’t think genderfluid is a term Loki would use to describe himself, and I also don’t think it’s quite the right word to use to describe what he is (just my personal hc, I of course do not have any issue at all with other people using the term to describe him). I definitely have Loki’s shapeshifting as part of his character, though I write him in his male form 95% of the time for a number of reasons, some of them related to canon, some of them more as a personal response to fanon. That’s out of scope for this ask, haha. I write him as identifying as male in his male form and female in her female form.

Section 4: Compartmentalization of sex as separate from emotional intimacy

Loki views sex, and his body, as a commodity. It’s another tool in his arsenal. He sees it as diplomacy, as a way to get what he wants, to save his life, whatever. He can and will use sex as a bargaining chip.

It’s maybe as a result of this, or maybe the other way around, that Loki doesn’t really feel sexual attraction to people unless he’s already got an emotional connection. He’s completely compartmentalized these two aspects of intimacy, to the point where he really fears the emotional intimacy that would lead to him feeling actual sexual attraction. Because he sees sex and sexual attraction as something he can control, it’s the less scary of the two. So sex is preferable to love. With sex, he can be in control (or tell himself he’s in control) of the situation, in the sense that he has consented to it in some way. But love? He didn’t consent to that. He doesn’t want to feel that. He can’t stop himself from feeling it and he can’t control who he feels it for.

Section 5: Sub/Dom?

I covered this in an earlier ask but I might as well talk about it again! My Loki is very very sexually submissive most of the time. Likes being put in his place, controlled, held down, told what to do, etc etc. He can be dominant sometimes, if the mood strikes him, but his preference is to be submissive.

Related to his nervousness around coming out, Loki very much felt like as the prince, as an Asgardian Man, there was like...a right way to have sex. If he was going to have sex with men, he was going to top. Only top. And he was going to be dominant about it. He had to be in charge, even though this really didn’t come naturally to him. So in his early sexual encounters, that’s what he did, even though it wasn’t what he wanted. This led to him having a lot of unsatisfactory sex as a young man, haha.

He also spent a decent portion of his life being ashamed of the kind of things that turn him on, because again, he thinks it’s bad optics for who he is.

Section 6: Kinks

My Loki isn’t Kinky™, he’s actually pretty vanilla. His favorite position is getting it from behind, and his second favorite position is missionary, and if he only did those two things for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t have a problem with it. He does, however, have kinks, and they are: authority and humiliation. This is kind of where the ‘very very’ comes from in ‘very very sexually submissive,’ ha. He likes feeling degraded, he likes being ordered around. Dirty talk is good, and preferably he’s being told about how bad he’s being and how he needs to be punished.

Caveat with this, which leads into my next point: he only really likes it if it’s with someone he loves. Because...

Section 7: Those kinks have fucked him up!

So part of me can’t help but think that the reason I see Loki with an authority kink is because of his daddy issues, haha. He pretty clearly has a deep need to please his father (not sexually, ew), and I think he then ends up being drawn to powerful authority figures. Thanos and the Grandmaster come to mind. I don’t head canon that anything sexual went on with Thanos (though I could be pretty easily persuaded to write some fucked up fic about it happening), but I absolutely head canon that stuff went on with the Grandmaster.

My head canon is that the Grandmaster was trying to get into Loki’s pants pretty much from the moment Loki showed up in front of him—constantly flirting, way too handsy, orgy invitations, parties with drugged drinks, the whole shebang. Loki was able to get away with not actually having sex with him, though, and always holding it out as a possibility in order to stay in the Grandmaster’s good graces. But when Thor and the Hulk fight in the arena, Loki offers sex in exchange for Thor’s life being spared (I have a fic about this, it’s called Lacuna). The sex is...not good for Loki. There’s definitely BDSM involved, and he is not into that. The Grandmaster rapes him. Repeatedly.

And...Loki is into humiliation and authority. So when he’s degraded and humiliated by the Grandmaster, and he gets off, he goes into this shame feedback loop. This is the kind of thing he likes, and if he likes it then there’s nothing wrong with what happened to him, and he put himself in the position anyway, and if he climaxed then it wasn’t assault, etc etc. He gets this way about non-sexual situations as well; like he definitely feels he deserved what he got with Thanos, and that he deserved to die on Svartalfheim because he feels responsible for Frigga’s death. He has this way of pushing blame off himself and never taking responsibility for his actions...until he does, and then he blames himself for everything.

Section 8: Yes I head canon Loki has a rich history of sexual assault

Oof, guys, Loki has been assaulted so many times in my head canon. His first experience was as an adolescent, where he almost gets gang-raped by two security guards. There were definitely other dubious to nonconsensual experiences in pre-Thor 1 times.

There are some traumatic times after his Fall:

He does some time at the Kiln, and he allows a prison guard to pretty much do whatever he wants to Loki. Loki uses this to escape.

Eventually, Loki ends up getting captured and sold into slavery. He ends up in a sex trafficking market, where he’s raped repeatedly, including gang-raped. He’s heavily drugged during this time to keep him from escaping but still has some memories of it. This is where the Black Order picks him up. They repeatedly remind him that they ‘saved’ him.

Then, of course, there’s the aforementioned stuff with the Grandmaster.

Section 9: Not that he'll ever call it that

Oh yeah but Loki will never in a million years call any of this ‘rape.’ In almost every assault, he’ll tell himself that he actually never said no, so actually, he was in control. He could have stopped it, but he just didn’t, because of Reasons. So it’s not rape. He had it under control. He did. Seriously. There’s no trauma.

He just tries not to think about the time in the sex trafficking market because he can’t really contort that into anything but what it was. If he has to think about it, usually he figures he deserved it.

I mentioned this in an ask recently, where I think one of Loki’s deepest fears is losing control. I think he really fears losing control over a situation, but his biggest fear is losing control over himself. In my hc, Loki really feels as though his grasp on his sense of self is tenuous at best; that he isn’t in control of his own mind (hello, Mind Stone, you didn’t help); that he might just do something that he didn’t plan or want to do. You know that feeling you get where you look at a window and think, What if I just jumped out? Loki really, really fears that feeling, because he’s not sure he can stop himself from actually following through. And stripping him of his bodily autonomy with sexual assault is just another way to fuck him up. Having him deny what it is because he’s so terrified of losing control adds a delicious layer of toxicity to the whole brew.

Section 10: But I still think he's capable of finding The One and having a great sex life and an unbreakable emotional bond

Having said that! Loki’s sexual trauma doesn’t actually hamper his ability to have sex. It does hamper his ability to fall in love, because falling in love is another form of losing control. I think that he could definitely get triggered by certain sexual things, but of course, I write him with Stephen, who is basically the kindest, most considerate lover ever, haha. I talked in another ask about how Loki’s humiliation and authority kinks, coupled with his lack of communication skills, lead him to expect Stephen to be a mindreader, and to just kind of...do the stuff that Loki wants him to do. But of course, Stephen isn’t going to do something that could actually cause Loki physical pain without being explicitly told to do so and receiving Loki’s enthusiastic consent. But Loki doesn’t want to communicate! Loki thinks it’s hot to just get ravaged.

My fic is about a lot of this stuff, not necessarily explicitly the sexual stuff, but a lot of the issues that are bound up with it—the control issues, the attraction to authority figures, the difficulty forming emotional bonds. Through the course of my main series, Loki is really picking away at getting better about all of this, and the endgame, of course, is that he’s able to accept being loved, and loving in return.

I feel like I didn’t articulate any of this as well as I wanted to, but I didn’t want to let this ask sit in my inbox forever, and I’ve been picking away at this now for like two weeks. So, I hope that was a satisfying essay! I could probably go on tbh, but I’ll leave it at this.

[pompamaroon]

2019: A Year of Ups and Downs

In this post, I will go over some reasoning as to why 2019 was a slow year in terms of providing content or updating my tumblr profiles, and how I was feeling. Most will be seeing this coming from either SHSL Scans and/or my Manlyronpa profile. This is not a necessary read, but it will also go into why my interest in the Danganronpa series was at an all time low and despite a burning passion, I overall just gave up on the fandom and community for awhile.

My year started off quite strong, with my occupation changing from something draining to something that allowed me to build a career and have new opportunities. This was definitely the high point of my year, and I was even able to save up enough to take a trip to see someone I had grown close to across the country, something I’d only dreamed of up to this point. However, during the trip, I found myself in awe of the location and in awe of the presence of the person I went to visit. They are truly one-of-a-kind and always know how to make me smile just with their company alone. In comparison though, I felt I just could not stand beside them. Personally, I felt I was a 180 in about every way to this person and I still feel this way. It was a bitter sweet feeling, and by the time I left, I got the feeling that I’d truly given it my best, and I would have to push aside the feelings I had for this person. I attempted to set aside these feelings by devoting myself to my career which was honestly a great escape. Not only did I have a dream job, my co-workers were great to work with and bounce banter off. Additionally my managers and supervisor all had great senses of humor and I truly felt welcome to my position, resulting in a comrade dynamic that is very rare in the work force. Thanks to this boost in motivation at work, I actually managed to be able to consistently pay and commission for things. This is where I first encountered some issues with the DR fanbase. Admittedly, I had commissioned some adult works and the material in these works made it obvious it was me who asked for them, or inspired others to get them.  Around late may/early June, I ended up reaching out to some SFW work artists because I wanted to commission something a bit more wholesome involving favorites, however due to my notoriety of my earlier commissions, 2 artists turned me down as they were either not interested or did not want to be associated with NSFW artists and another artist ghosted me. It was admittedly a bit of a weird situation to deal with, but overall I felt discouraged. Additionally, the NSFW artists I had commissioned before also were not interested in drawing anything further, and so I ultimately had nowhere to go with my ideas. While I understood being turned down is completely in the artists right, I felt that my ideas were just bad, which lead to me feeling like what I enjoyed about the DR series or wanted to see from the DR series was wrong altogether. I sat down and seriously thought about it and realized that despite everything I had done to contribute to the community, that ultimately, there were no real connections made with anyone. The people I had worked with in terms of manga had either stolen my raws, or spoke negatively about other contributors(something I was also guilty of) or even in a surprising case with a certain person, just ended up leaving with out a word! In the middle of nearing completion of a large project as well! Out of everyone I’ve ever met thanks to DR, there are only 2 people I’ve consistently continued to talk with on a somewhat daily-basis. The rest ultimately just cast me aside in various ways, leaving me feeling alienated further and like I just was not going to fit into the community no matter what I tried or what I did. I did get a lot of messages from people of course, but most were reaching out for where they could find more DR manga or what they could get from me.  Eventually, I got so frustrated with it, I decided to just not do anything else in the DR fandom. I no longer felt a need to be exceedingly contributing to it or seeing it grow further, and so, after literally pulling out all the stops, the final V3 anthology release was the last thing DR related I dared to even open for a long time. I really wish that the completion of that anthology series could’ve been something more optimistic, but it just ended on a sour note for me feeling very resentful towards the fandom and community. So I shifted to doing manga I personally enjoyed, and just actually reading manga which ended up being fun! It was awesome indulging in stuff that made me happy and while it was not as popular as the DR stuff I released, I didn’t care. I wanted to treat myself. Once completed(and even during the process) though, I did have an annoying unsatisfactory feeling that I had so much DR manga unfinished. So with a new fire in me, I tackled the manga again, completing the Genocider Mode manga as I was close to completing it but also had promised someone like, 5 years+ ago that I’d complete it.  After that, there was a lot of silence, but not because I had lost interested. Instead it was around the end of August and I was in peak form. I wasn’t just killing it at work, I was going all out with the DR1 Anthologies. I had started working on them in early 2018, however, there was just a large demand for V3 stuff, so I was mostly working on that. I was on a hot streak until early November, when one of my close higher ups was let go. This completely fractured our team and we were all getting divided up as our company began to slowly change. This was a huge shock for me as the high points of my days were going to work, and those were slowly being phased out. My friends at the time also were busy with work and this left me alone for a looong time.  This sent me into a depression that I could just not dig myself out of. Of course, I still functioned and went to work, but with no feeling of social connection with anyone inside or outside of work, I felt no reason to continue my work on the anthology. I had completely given up and there were only 3 stories left to work too. This went on until January of 2020, when the new year started and I had received a promotion at my work due to my continued perseverance and growth. Since then, we’ve received lots of good news at work even with the epidemic going on, and concerning the Danganronpa series, I found my fire being lit anew. Of course, I’m anxious and worried, especially after DR3 and DRV3 failed to impress me, however with both the creators and devs wanting to give off the feeling of a “Class Reunion” for DR’s anniversary, I’m feeling excited that regardless of what we get, it will be something familiar and hopeful and like DR1 inspired me to truly take steps forward, I’m hoping the major game they announce will help me reconnect with those feelings of wanting to just move forward and not let my previous experiences to go to waste. I’m more than ready to give it my all to make this anniversary great as possible too by releasing as much manga as possible, even if it is just by myself. I truly do enjoy the series and am thankful for the few good things it was able to bring into my life by getting me out of the dark place I was in before I played it and this will hopefully be the year I can truly convey that.

[themarinaalexis]

Open Letter to Freeform

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to share my response to the cancellation news of “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists” that became public knowledge yesterday afternoon. As a long-time fan of both “Pretty Little Liars” and the spinoff (for time’s sake, I will refer to them as PLL and TP, respectively, throughout this letter), I could not be more disappointed that the franchise is ending on an unresolved cliffhanger. More than that, however, I am writing to express my extreme dissatisfaction with how your network handled this show from the very start. I fully believe that it was partially your mismanagement and mistreatment of this show that led to its lackluster ratings and subsequent cancellation.

I could predict the poor viewership from the moment I learned that TP was set to air during the same timeslot as “Riverdale.” It is beyond my comprehension why the decision was made to place this new spinoff up against a show that is aimed toward the same demographic, but which has been on-air for several years, receives approximately two million viewers per episode, and airs on a much larger network. It is no surprise that TP encountered some of its highest ratings during “Riverdale’s” several weeklong hiatus. I was, and still am, baffled by both this decision, and the choice to show only one airing of TP each week. During the majority of PLL’s run, episodes aired two times during their premiere night: Once at eight pm, and again at ten pm. This allowed viewers, especially those of us with work and other evening commitments, another chance to view the episodes and have our viewings counted toward the Nielsen ratings. By failing to include a second airing of TP episodes during the first twenty-four hours, you ensured that the only views that would count toward the episode’s live ratings were those who were able to sit down in front of their television in the mid-evening - which is not a large percentage of your target demographic.

Perhaps my largest issue with the management of TP comes from its accessibility to international viewers. While, as a resident of the United States, I was fortunate enough to have both live and streaming access to each episode, tens of thousands of potential new viewers were left completely in the dark. By not making the show available outside of the US either through your website or Netflix, as PLL had been, you pushed out thousands of possible fans that undoubtedly would have increased TP’s ratings by a substantial amount. Hulu’s audience is not nearly as extensive as that of Netflix, and offers no international plans, making it an inadequate way of providing further access to the show. While I recognize the costs of international accessibility, I believe that this lack of access had a direct impact on the poor ratings - simply not enough people were given the opportunity to have their views counted.

Finally, the lack of promotion given to this show throughout its entire run was extremely noticeable, and, in my opinion, shameful. While your network did a great job of promoting the season premiere, it felt as though as soon as ratings did not equal those of the original PLL, the show was essentially thrown to the wayside. Freeform is a channel that I generally keep on as background noise throughout the day. In the week leading up to TP’s season (and, evidently, series) finale, I noticed numerous, almost constant commercials for shows such as “Siren,” “The Bold Type,” and “grown-ish.” In contrast, I recall exactly one advertisement for TP’s finale. Expecting superior ratings from a show that you refuse to promote or advertise is asinine. You cannot expect a show, regardless of quality, to succeed if you do not do everything in your power to give it the tools to do so.

From the very start, it felt as though TP was given up on without giving it a fighting chance. Looking back at all of these factors, most of which easily could have been changed or improved upon for a second season, the show’s cancellation feels like even more of a betrayal. The original “Pretty Little Liars” was one of your network’s most successful shows, and paved the way for your network to become what it is today. The fact that you could not find enough worth in its spinoff to make simple changes and give it a second chance is, frankly, disgraceful. It is beyond unfortunate that the world of your most successful original franchise has ended on an unresolved and unsatisfactory note. The cast, crew, and fans of both series did not deserve to be treated in this way, especially after being strung along for months, waiting for renewal news.

I have been aware of your network’s falling ratings and viewership for several years now, and the cancellation of this show, along with the poor treatment it received while on-air, has cemented my decision to no longer tune in to Freeform’s original shows. I will in particular be making a conscious choice not to watch any new series. Your network has a hideous pattern, which began far before TP, of cancelling shows after only one brief season. I no longer have the desire to engage in watching and enjoying shows that are surrounded by so much insecurity. After all, what is the point in getting absorbed in a show that is only going to be cancelled after ten episodes?

It is my hope that you will take into consideration everything that I have written here. I understand that I am a college student, majoring in Education, who is not aware of every intricate factor that goes into the production and maintenance of a television show. That said, it is clear to me that very obvious mistakes were made during the entire run of “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists,” and what I can say with certainty is that your network has lost a very loyal fanbase with the cancellation of this show.

Regards.

[ofravensandgenesis]

The Investment of an Antagonist - Part Three

Entry 04 continued. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details for the main villains including violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse, neglect, emotional manipulation, dark backstories, drug use, cult content, etc. Spoilers for Far Cry 5 inherent. Part 03 of 03.] [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

— Faith —

Lastly we have Faith, née Rachel Jessop, the youngest of the Seed family. The easiest themes to assign to her are unsurprisingly drug-use and escapism. She is an intriguing and complex character with some very beautifully done layers, in particular playing with gender expectations of behavior both in-world and on the meta in what may have been either intended brilliance of foresight or fridge brilliance by the dev team.

Thematically speaking though, as with the other Seeds, she is projecting her past experiences onto others and turning into the abuser in the recreation of her trauma. In this case, it could be taking up the role of a manipulator using soft-coded presentation and masking shaming techniques with positive wording and oblique expectation-pressures to get people to go along with what she’s saying...as well as making them more pliable via the Bliss. It could be that part of her escapism theme manifests as disassociation, separating one’s self and in this case Rachel from Faith, her followers from their worries and problems, and at the most extreme end the Angels from essentially their entire personality and past. In contrast to John, Faith seems to be much more so about forgetting/burying/separating one self from one’s past problems, sins, unhappiness, etc rather than facing it head on. In a way, it could potentially be interpreted as a denial of those aspects of a person, and herself, through the Bliss. This could be a better parallel to how Jacob also breaks the unwilling down in his Trials, albeit for more specifically war-like purposes than Faith. We don’t get to hear if John has opinions on how the “new recruits” up in Jacob’s neck of the woods are treated well or not, but he doesn’t include Jacob in his jab. The absence could be used to infer that John has either separate issues, less issues, or no issues with how Jacob runs things, but that’s the problem with this kind of absence: it lacks definite, concrete matter to build with. We hear only a very vague telling of the details of Faith’s life from Faith directly, which in this instance is going to be presumed to be true, albeit perhaps glossing over the details and told from a carefully crafted perspective for a desired end result. Others also have their own opinions to fill in on the details of Faith as she is and was, and her life before, including but potentially not limited to Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse, as far as I’m aware at this time. What’s really interesting is the almost split presentation we get at times with Faith: in some moments she is the epitome of her title the siren, bright, friendly, seemingly warm and enticing. Other times she has some lines that cast very long, dark shadows. Three of the phone calls one can find in the Henbane are particularly dark, if one assumes the call with the sounds of a crying woman on the other end to be Faith. Even disregarding that third one, the other two show more of Faith’s darker aspects, as noted below: “Rachel’s so sad and alone. Once was lost, never found. She lead a faithless life and it brought her low. Faith rose up in her, but Rachel stayed low, down. Faith flies divine, and Rachel...Rachel gropes around in the darkness. I left her there, a long time ago.”

The second phone call text:

“A baby is a sack of screaming, shitting, crying impulses with no personality, no thoughts, no understanding of the world beyond feelings. It has no soul. You have to give it one. The only soul we ever have, we receive from others. And it is only others, who can take it away.” One possible interpretation from these two comments from Faith would be that she was very strongly shaped by her family and friends before she ran away with Tracey to join a commune out west. Not into total obedience without personality, but perhaps instead placation and appeasement behaviors, attempting to make the other people in her life “happy” as a form of self-protection coping mechanism to deal with living in an abusive home environment, and later on refined into intentional choices as these lines from her might strongly suggest: "All my life I dealt with people like you. People who underestimate sweet, innocent Faith. You see what you wanna see... a playful butterfly, a delicate flower... a child with childish thoughts. It's easier to disregard a child. Tracey made the same mistake as you. While you all ignored me, I walked right through every one of you." From Faith’s wiki page, it also states that Sheriff Whitehorse talked about “Tracey and Rachel, who were friends, 'joined a free spirit movement in the west, smoking doobies, banging on drums’. But Rachel and Tracey fell on harder drugs and fell out of favor with their community. Tracey searched for a new home and found the Project at Eden's Gate, and Faith decided to return with her to Hope County to join the cult.” From there, with Rachel going through the painful and dangerous process of withdrawal symptoms while attempting to end her addiction, it might be that she also felt that her new self, Faith, or Faith-to-be, was shaped by Joseph and the Project. That this new self was a new soul, and that her old soul, her old identity, Rachel, had been cast away. Perhaps that was another motivation for her to possibly split with Tracey, staying with the cult over staying with her best friend whom she had left her home behind with once before—the friend she’d run away with into the unknown at what was likely a rather young age. Perhaps staying with Tracey, Faith felt too much of Rachel remained. Rachel, the addict. Rachel, the powerless. Rachel, the abused. Perhaps those reminders were too painful for Faith, and she wanted to separate from them as much as possible. If she wanted Tracey to stay though...perhaps she had also hoped Tracey would have a fresh start. That Tracey would be “happier” at the Project. That the two of them would be born anew and cleansed of their sins, as the Project promises. All of the Seeds are in this interpretation trying to cope with their traumas. Faith in this aspect is perhaps the one closest chronologically in time to her trauma, being the youngest, and thus perhaps still emotionally rawer at times underneath it all. Rawer in a more youthful sense, not related to the innocence she tries to project as a front, so much as how she cries out in panic and fear during her boss fight’s finale, when the Deputy strikes the final blow, and how her tone changes when she’s threatened during the fight, talking about how Joseph threatened her and plied her with drugs. In this regard, it is very easy to read Faith as still placating, still coping, still appeasing the powers that be in her life, in this case the Project, Joseph, and the other Seeds to a degree. With being Faith, and not even the first and only Faith but at the very least the third in a series of adopted “sisters,” the danger of being killed, cast aside, or deemed unsatisfactory for whatever reason is very real, and could echo possible fears she’d harbored of her parents, other friends, and community members in her past. How much danger she was in from her parents is unstated as far as I’m aware, but that she was abused and likely was afraid is enough. Fear itself is real enough and a weighty factor in any situation where it exists, as it was meant to be by biological design. So in recreation of that potential trauma-build, Faith placates all of her followers with the Bliss and gentle words, making some members of the Resistance note in commentary that they feel special, loved, cared for. Drawn in to become a part of Faith’s idealized dream of everyone being predictably calm, and open to suggestion. While it is still technically appeasing behavior, with Faith being in control of the Bliss’s drug production and seemingly also the hallucinatory effect it has on people, she is also master of the realm and thus the one with the keys to the kingdom, and I daresay enjoys her power with how she mocks the Deputy upon their return to the Jail after the cutscene of her reasserting control over Burke and the ensuing happenings. Her methods on the surface are soft and appealing seemingly, but she is ultimately now able to control those in her region and under her power with a far more beautifully beguiling and insidious form of puppeteering. She makes a splendid contrast in that regard with how Jacob brainwashes people, with making Angels versus the brainwashed fighters of Jacob’s. Another piece of interesting dialogue regarding the Angels as mentioned by Faith in I believe the Whistling Beaver Brewery is as follows: "Have you seen their faces? On the Pilgrimage? Oh, you should see it. To see the sin fly from their heads and their faces slacken to peace. The vanity shaved from their heads, evil taken from their lips. Never to speak a sinful word, any word, again. It gives me life. Every time a bell rings..." Combining that with the above comment about how Faith believes people don’t have souls until given them and shaped by the others around them, Faith certainly seems to have grabbed the reins on shaping who people are, with the intent to “smooth out” any disagreeable parts. To the point of perhaps erasing a person’s individuality entirely, thus producing an Angel. She like her brothers is also driven by purpose, as she mentions in her first cutscene of being given purpose, and from the random encounter line below: “I’m going to tell you a secret... Eden’s Gate is not here to fix your life. That’s your own selfish dream... No! Eden’s Gate exists to save something greater than you and me. It is here for the Father to bring salvation to the world’s very existence, and you’re trying to destroy that. I put so much hope in you. I thought you’d be special. Was I wrong?” That first bit about not fixing one’s life feels like a potentially open admittance that the Project is not trying to fix people at least in her region, so much as to re-purpose them to the Project’s own ends, and Faith fulfills that with a gentle kind of at-times-gaslit brutality that she selectively applies more forcefully when someone isn’t playing according to Faith’s own preferences. While the doubting may also be real in her case in the later lines, it also serves as shame-based social pressure to not disappoint her, directed at the Deputy as an attempt to erode any resistance they have to conforming to doing the “right” or “sympathetic” thing—as defined by Faith anyway. Its a good bit of manipulation, leaving it blurry whether its outright just intended to influence the Deputy or if she indeed has any doubts. I lean towards the latter for added nuance of emotion, though I do think she’s more than capable and willing of violence and brutality when desired. One minor example among others that comes to mind would be the signs of violence and likely death in the Chan residence, with the implication that Faith sent some of her people to deal with Jasmine and likely kill her, per the blood on the floor and the unsent note contents: “To whom it may concern, Thank you for addressing my complaints about all that noise coming from that Eden’s Gate construction site. One of your representatives (I think her name was Faith, not sure) passed by and said she’d have a word with the people building the statue. She even said she’d make them come by to apologize in person. Although we may disagree on some philosophical matters, it’s nice to see some neighborly etiquette. I look forward to resolving this amicably. -Jasmine Chan” Aside from that, there are also other mentions such as Ethan Minkler overdosing on the Bliss (while that may be a possible accident, the point likely remains that he either died or became an Angel, much to the mayor Virgil Minkler’s grief,) comments by Resistance NPCs about how forced-pilgrims on the Path are sometimes made to crawl on their hands and knees until they bleed, the ones made to jump from the Statue of Joseph and land among the littered bodies of those who did not survive, etc. Ultimately what all of that might be mirroring is her own treatment at the hands of her family and other people in her past, as well as perhaps what Joseph, the Seeds, and the Project asked of her: not to be fixed, but re-purposed. It was never about her, but what she could do for someone, be it her family, friends, or the Project. In that, the Angels are an elegantly simple solution: they are obedient to the wishes of the Project, and are loyal to a fault without any chance of wanting anything to the contrary than what is asked of them, provided they are provided with a steady supply of Bliss (presuming they require it as a continued addiction, though that is purely speculation.) The Angel’s Grave in the Horned Serpent Cave seems to be a lake of boiling muck that is implied to be a mass grave for Angels, per the Grieving Note found therein: “Lana. Christ in heaven what they did to you. The fact that they could make you believe all that nonsense, make you forget yourself so hard. Forget your own name? How, Lana? What did he say to you? What kind of fucking dirtbag blood ritual could make you think your name was “Faith”? Doesn’t matter how, I guess. He told you you were special, but in the end he threw your body in here to disintegrate in the boiling muck, like a common Angel.” This certainly shows the Project has little to no respect for the dead, or at the very least those turned into mindlessly loyal Angel minions. It echoes back to the lack of individuality Faith may struggle with internally as a theme—it may also be that her parents abused her through the unrealistic-expectations archetype of wanting and pressuring her to be what they wanted, without any regard of who she was as an individual or what she wanted out of her life. Perhaps during her life she was treated as nothing more than a commodity, trying to forever appease and live up to her parents’ expectations. I sadly have very little on the Jessop family as a whole, so this is all once again pure fabricated speculation. This lack of personal worth through individuality does thread through the recurring instance of there being multiple Faiths before Rachel, and it is shown in the notes to the two known previous Faiths, Lana and Selena (both referenced from Faith’s article the wiki.) “You’re not the first one, Selena. You’re not the first woman he’s used up and thrown away. For years I’d been hearing this Faith Seed was tall as her brother, with black hair. Couldn’t miss her. And then I saw you in one of their trucks last week, yellow hair in the breeze, and heard them calling you Faith. He thinks he can just SWAP YOU OUT. Like you don’t got a brain of your own. God knows who you are, and so do you. Selena. I love you. Don’t lose yourself to this.” Both of the above notes have mentions to identity issues with taking on the new name of Faith, of losing oneself or forgetting oneself. With the note to Lana and the last note from one of the Faiths there is also the double mention of “being special.” “I just wanted to be special. When Joseph came into my life, I felt like you’d given me a true gift, Lord. That a man who talks to you would bring me in on your holy conversation..? And so I too the name that you gave me, Lord, through Joseph: “Faith.” And I am a woman made anew. But now, I’m ashamed to say, even though I carry this name, my devotion to the Project is..plagued. By Doubt. What do I do? I know you will forgive me, dear Lord. I don’t know if Joseph will.“ The above note titled “A Confession” on Faith’s wiki page is possibly from Rachel, though the wording has me contemplating that it’s likely from someone a bit older, and the style I’m uncertain if I’d attribute to Rachel though I acknowledge that writing and speaking can present very differently. I would expect her to write with a more direct style of wording since presumably she had internet access and was familiar with texting, speculating off of Tracey’s note in the convent that mentioned Tracey being “tired of this 19th-century-ass writing shit.” The pauses via commas and more formal-yet-casual feel of the written cadence, along with more talk of God feels like someone else’s voice rather than Rachel’s, but I could be wrong. But that’s also fitting with the theme of uncertainty of who’s who beneath the name of Faith. Therein lies the loss of individuality and lack of clear denoting of which Faith this was, or is.

—  Conclusion —

What I find absolutely fascinating about all of these villains is how they tell the story of the trauma and past experiences through their actions, dialogue, beliefs, and all while moving the main story forward. We do have some direct story telling in the sense of them telling us about those key moments that lead to their revelation and some backstory details, but the fact that even afterwards in a lot of what they do if not all of what they do we can potentially draw more inferences of how they came to be who they are? That is some very beautiful story and character construction in my opinion. In how the past influences their present and relatively speaking future events, so too does their present and future come circling back to tie to their past. This possible feedback loop of influence is just so neat in my opinion and is particularly pronounced here with the Seed family and how they are presented in-game. I feel it works exceptionally well for antagonists but could in theory also work for any main character. The sheer weight of how their past influences them so profoundly is really interesting, and while we all are shaped by our past, it’s particularly highlighted here with the Seeds. Often the trope of a character having a dark backstory is presented as the reason they’re doing X, or are prone to behaving in a certain way (one such popular demeanor being say brooding,) and is particularly common for villains. What I think makes the Seeds for me more interesting in that regard is how individualized their processing of their traumas is. It’s not just out to do evil because they are simply evil and have a backstory to facilitate handwaving as to why they are evil, they’re going about it in a particular way, and have all developed a nuanced system of belief relating to that and likely significantly influenced by those around them as well, with the Seeds all I would say influence each other to varying degrees. Them being a group of villains is part of that complexity with the layers of them having a family dynamic, the cult hierarchy, significantly different styles of managing their affairs while still sharing some core elements, and being such diverse personalities. The Seeds in their entirety as a group are what make or break the story in my opinion, since to have really good conflict I would say you need excellent villains or antagonists, and the Seed family fits that bill in my personal opinion very well. It feels like there was a lot of time and care put into each of the Seeds in different ways and in crafting their stories as well as fitting those stories to the main story of Far Cry 5. The speculation I personally take away from this in terms of developing interesting characters is that sometimes having a very detailed background and having it influence a character heavily and actively both in-scene and on the meta of writing the scene can be really interesting. Obviously sometimes not knowing a character’s past and leaving it a mystery works very well too. But if there’s been care put into how the character is developed and there are in-world, albeit unknown backstory reasons for their actions, words, and beliefs? Then even if we the audience don’t know the reasons, that can make for a very compelling character for audience members to speculate and fill in the blanks about. Obviously there are other builds and exceptions and such for making compelling characters and in particular villains and antagonists, but I do think this style of character construction in relation to the overarching plot is honestly quite gorgeous as a story infrastructure element in its own right and worth taking a look at should it appeal to one to examine it. It’s a really lovely echo of how much investment the dev team’s put into the characters themselves that those characters in-world also care and are heavily invested in what they’re doing and saying too, as an added accent to it all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hope you all have a good day/night! [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

[enterprisetrampstamp]

The Martinstown WIP Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

This is Part 3 of what is likely to be a nice, long t’pura fic once I’ve banged it out. It’s a bizarre length and actual amount of plot by my standards, so I’m in want of comments and breaking my usual rules to post sections of it before it’s fully complete. Please, holler at your ambiguously gendered author with any #thoughts you have!

This one goes out in particular to the one lovely anon who cares about this fic as much as I do.

***

Vulcans do not dream. But- on occasion- a lack of focus during their nightly meditation can lead a Vulcan to ruminate so deeply upon past events that they relive them, in a strange and filtered way. "Through the looking glass," a human may describe it.

T'Pring does not know why her mind lingers this night on a day long past--one where the heat of Vulcan's sun beats heavily on her shoulders, and her robes are filled with fruit they have foraged. She is accompanied by Spock. They sit huddled on a rock, deep in the craggy valleys of the desolate mountains, with only I'Chaya as supervision.

They speak of everything and nothing, in the way of children. They become sticky as they eat, and their skin grows hot and flushed with the sallow yellow-green of sunburn, for they have not heeded the words of their mothers.

"No," she insists, as he demonstrates a hand gesture, a tiny furrow of focus between his slanted brows. "That is too close to the regular word."

"We should not wish to forget our symbols," Spock argues, "or we will lose our ability to communicate in secret."

"I will not forget." She peels the skin from her fruit, sniffing. "Are you saying you would?"

He bristles immediately. "I would not."

"Then why would I? I am smarter than you."

"You are not!"

"This argument is illogical."

"You are illogical."

It is her turn to bristle. "I am not!"

"You are always angry. Anger is illogical. Therefore, you are illogical!"

T'Pring remembers how this is meant to go--she should consider her fruit for a long second, the colors red and orange and juicy in her palm. "If you wish to see angry," she should scoff, and then reach over to shove the fruit in his face.

But this time she is older, in her thirties and sitting next to a Spock so small she could easily hold him aloft with one hand. Her fingers are still sticky; she can still feel the heat of her planet's sun against her shoulders--now bare, in the modern style of the rebellious Vulcan woman. A flyaway of hair is caught in the breeze. She stares at the fruit in her palms, feels the roughness of the rocks against her ankles, and something inside of her is screaming. It has been for a very long time now.

"Yes," she says. "I am often angry. I think perhaps that is why our minds were found compatible. You have always struggled to maintain a Vulcan lifestyle, and I have always struggled to accept one. That has not--gotten easier.” She breathes out into the air of a dead planet. “Since this.”

"I do not understand," Spock says.

He is so small. It is illogical to doubt her own memories and more illogical still to question the realities of biological aging processes, and yet still she finds herself questioning how it is possible that either of them were ever so small as he is sitting next to her.

"You would not," she says. "We had not lost this, yet. The innocence of childhood. Our people and our planet. Each other." T'Pring does not look at him in pity, because he does not need it--not as a child, trying to find a place on a world which could not accept him, and not as an adult who has found his place on a starship far away. "There is nothing so illogical as grief, Spock; not even anger, for all that they so often go hand in hand. You have not learned that yet. I regret that one day you must."

"You should not say such things," he tells her, looking worried. In time, he will grow better at hiding these feelings, but she will only grow angrier. "T'Pring, you are being emotional."

"Yes," she says. "But no one is around to know. You do not exist outside of my mind, tiny Spockling." She reaches out to ruffle his hair, and he squawks much the way he had once upon a Vulcan afternoon, with his face covered in fruit.

"I find your behavior illogical and unsatisfactory," he says, all harsh and small. It is adorable. "This will be the first thing I say to you when we complete our private code."

"That is exactly so," she tells him, fond. "Although I think you have secretly always enjoyed seeing another Vulcan behave in this way, no matter how you raise your little eyebrows."

She grows quiet, pensive, and then says quietly, "I miss you, illogically. I was the one who ended this easy camaraderie, fearful that the scrutiny our classmates placed on you for being half-human would reflect back on me to reveal my own struggles. It was the logical move to protect myself, I believed. Now I must wonder if I did not hurt us both instead; we were never on the path to romance, but there was a time when I regarded you as a friend."

There is no one here but yourself, she chides. You need not twist your words to obscure the truth.

"That time continues now," she admits, begrudgingly. "I maintain sentiment towards you, despite our divorce. After all, though it was I who initially suggested our severance, you held nothing but support for my decision despite the future peril in which it places you, should you enter pon farr without our bond to fall back on."

(It had not been her motivation behind the divorce, but she is grateful in a desperate and primitive way that she has been spared from the decision to either kill him by inaction or be forced to cure his fever herself--she is grateful because she knows what she would have chosen, and his agreement to divorce her has denied her conscience the weight of his death.)

"Is this what your meditation seeks to have you acknowledge?" Spock asks in that young voice, but with all the perception of his older self. Or her own, perhaps, since there is no one in her mind but her. "That your path of solitude is a choice you have made on your own?"

T'Pring peels the rest of her fruit, and feels the heat of a sun that she will never again encounter outside of memory. "If that is the case," she says, "I struggle to see the logic in regretting what has already come to pass. My family has perished in the genocide of our people, my friendship with you has long since wilted, and I cannot bear to set foot on our supposed new homeworld. I am alone, but for the humans among whom I live."

"You like these humans," the Spocklet says. He has a handful of freckles along the bridge of his nose. “But you find it difficult to trust them.”

T’Pring does not see a point in answering, even within the meditative construct of a conversation.

The crew of the Martinstown is a self-described family, and that T’Pring finds difficulty with such a concept should be self-evident. They are also of a largely psi null race; to obtain mental intimacy with them would require a deliberate conscious undertaking, and to trust without knowing the inside of another's mind… The very concept is unnerving.

There is a role she plays for her crew, much as there was a role she played for her family on the lost sands Vulcan. Unlike the silence and stoicism of the past, she enjoys the teasing and bluntness of her new persona--but it is a persona nonetheless. 

"You like me," her diminutive companion says, thoughtfully. "Do you trust me?"

She slants a sharp, sideways look at him. "I might," she says begrudgingly. "Though I do not prefer to say so, even within the privacy of my meditation. Must you force me to admit these things?"

"The only one here is you," he reminds her. "You are, as you always are, alone."

"I prefer it that way," she says. "Isn't that what we decided a moment ago?"

"No." Spock stares up at her, his thin arms wrapped about his knobbled knees, and his too-human eyes are small, and dark, and troubled. "We decided that it is what you have chosen; not that it is what you prefer."

T'Pring's heartbeat is quick and loud in her ears. "I see," she says. "I shall need to meditate on this properly at a later date. And there is no logic in telling you goodbye, as you do not exist."

"Very well," he agrees.

She opens her eyes.

The smoky haze of incense fills the air of her quarters- barely large enough for her to stretch her arms to either side and not brush the wall with both fingertips- and her ankles chafe not on Vulcanic rock but on the fibrous fabric of her meditative mat. That this particular hour is classified as “morning” is, of course, arbitrary, but she can smell coffee percolating and hear the distant sounds of movement as the Martinstown’s other habitants likewise stir.

Upon waking after a poker game, the crew is often quiet by their usual standards; Cristobal and Elina will sit in the kitchen among the detritus of the festivities, sharing their dark, bitter coffee as they skim their PADDs for the news, and Pinga and the Captain (whose camaraderie stretches back the longest) can often be found sharing a peaceful silence- and occasionally a stiff drink- on the ship's modest bridge.

(No matter the circumstances, the Leiman siblings independently and uniquely refuse to arise before the theoretical sun. "Artists," Pinga says, as if this word explains everything.)

T’Pring rises from her meditation, first dousing the last smouldering heat of her incense before bending loosely at the waist to roll the mat into a neat cylinder and tuck it beneath the austere desk which takes up nearly a third of the room.

(She uses the surface and the wall behind it to meticulously track not only the Martinstown crew's path through the stars, but also their adventures within them. T'Pring had been hired on, originally, as a record keeper; it has proven a difficult habit to break, even now that her position aboard this ship has little to do with a need for employment.)

T'Pring moves about her routine without haste, but neither does she linger in reflection as she brushes her teeth and hair and sheds the simple robe- of a silken, Terran style- which she had chosen for her meditation.

The revelations of the hallucinatory Spock-child are undoubtedly worth considering--but at a later date, in the darkness and stillness of her quarters, among the smoky haze of the alien scents she has adopted as a meditative focus. (Not only have many Vulcanic spices been lost among the rubble of her planet, but those that remain are difficult to obtain this far away from major Federation outposts.)

She thinks of other things, instead, such as how the braid of her hair is not entirely unlike the elaborate hairstyles of her youth--though less cumbersome, not being piled high atop her head. It is left hanging loosely down between her shoulder blades, tracing the straight slope of her spine.

So too does her manner of dress evoke a reminder of Vulcan without mimicking it; there is the freedom of movement of a traditional robe, combined with the metallic sheen of formal dress. T'Pring typically clothes herself in a simple, lightweight, sleeveless jumpsuit which cinches at her ankles but flows loose about her legs, as well as a stiff, tight vest in a heavy fabric which cuts a sharp line at her shoulders and reaches high up her throat. Both are a deep purple in color- matching her gloves- though the vest is slightly darker and shimmers with the play of light across its surface.

T'Pring has found this combination of garments to be comfortable, casual, and in keeping with the common fashion trends across the galaxy, thereby rendering it inconspicuous.

For economy of space aboard their small ship, the crew have few items of clothing and opt instead to clean them frequently; their choices in attire must therefore be well-suited to a variety of tasks. The combination of sleevelessness and drapery allows her a wide range of motion, while the stiff vest provides additional protection to her torso--a flawlessly logical combination, given the life she leads.

Flawlessly logical. She would roll her eyes if she were human. As if logic is something more than a tool--as if it is the beginning and end of the argument, when incomplete or incorrect data can result in a perfectly logical decision which is nonetheless wrong.

Such scandalous thoughts. T'Pring wishes she could blame the humans for them.

[josselinkohl]

murder!Laurent the sequel - part 1

So this next fic requires some extensive background reading.

Back when @nikanndros was writing Weighed and Measured, I had a lot of thoughts about the original Laurent of that world. (He’s called murder!Laurent.)

My thoughts about murder!Laurent grew into a fic called Your Majesty.

But I didn’t stop thinking about murder!Laurent, and I wanted him to take all of his new experiences from Your Majesty back to his original world, so that grew into a new fic, creatively called “murder!Laurent the sequel”.

murder!Laurent the sequel is becoming quite a long fic, and also I’m using it to bribe @nikanndros to write faster. Here is the first part of it so you can all enjoy and encourage @nikanndros to write more. Hahahahhahaah.

Laurent had spent a week in the other world, most of which had been spent in bed. It had been a honeymoon of sorts, he had come to understand, celebrating the coronation of himself and his co-King, Damianos of Akielos. They had arranged for the two of them to retreat to their summer palace for some time alone after the coronation ceremony and the official uniting of the two kingdoms. From the way others spoke about it, it had been the culmination of years of work by the other Laurent, and a well deserved respite.

When Laurent returned to his own world, he determined that only a few hours had passed, but to him, it felt like a lifetime. Everything felt different. His hair was long again, after he had worn it shorter in the other world, and his shoulder no longer had a mysterious scar on it. But he no longer felt that he knew himself.

He sent Henri and Etienne away when they came to pass the evening with him, and instead spent time alone in his rooms, thinking of Damianos. The other Laurent was likely not alone. The other Laurent was probably in bed being held by his husband. Laurent felt uncomfortably aware of his own physicality. He was more cognizant of his clothes than he was usually, and the discomfort of the ruff of lace at his neck and the tightness of his corset. He ran his hands down his thighs and felt the nap of the fabric against his hands and against his thighs.

He drank most of a bottle of wine and felt what it was doing to him, physically, the looseness in his muscles, the warmth of his skin, the buzz in his head. He felt turned on. He identified with some surprise that he felt as though he wanted to be touched. He wished that Damianos were here with him, in bed with him.

He did not wish the inconvenience and vulnerability of searching out a suitor, but it had been convenient to emerge into Damianos’s bed with the hard part of wooing the man already done.

The following day, Henri tried to corner him again at breakfast, and Laurent sent him away a second time. At lunch, he observed Auguste trying to only eat the dishes that Laurent was eating, again, and while that usually annoyed him, today he felt like he could hardly bother to feel anything about it. Laurent watched one of the pet performances with atypical interest.

The evening meal came, and Laurent looked around the court, inspecting the men present with a new eye. He looked them over one by one. The first was too short, the second too thin. The third was too old. The fourth had an unkempt beard. The fifth Laurent did not care for, though he could not articulate clearly to himself what was wrong with the man. Halfway through the second table of courtiers, Laurent’s eyes lingered on one of the men. His name was Georges, Laurent thought. He was one of Auguste’s supporters, a minor nobleman from the east and a swordsman. He and Auguste trained together, sometimes. In the past, Laurent had only bothered to speak to him once or twice, to suss out his loyalties, and when he had been unwaveringly Auguste’s Laurent had not bothered further.

Laurent let his eyes linger on Georges throughout the meal. As dessert was served, Georges noticed his stare. Georges met his gaze, looked at him curiously, and then broke their eye contact to speak with the woman sitting next to him. She looked up curiously at Laurent next, so Laurent presumed that he had said something like, “Has the Prince been staring at me all night?”

Georges and the woman conversed, briefly, and then Georges met Laurent’s eyes again, and then lowered his gaze to his plate. Laurent could feel Auguste’s gaze heavy on him, as usual, and ignored it.

After the meal, there was some music. Laurent refilled his goblet and made his way across the room. He stood in front of Georges and felt for a moment that perhaps he might not have to say anything, and then the silence drew out too long. “Would you care to join me in the garden?” said Laurent.

It was the same type of invitation he might have made for a private conversation to figure out a man’s loyalties, though the different purpose he had in mind made the words feel different on his tongue. He felt keenly aware that he had never done this before, and he disliked his own ignorance.  

“Of course, your highness,” said Georges, and Laurent turned and walked out to the gardens, hearing Georges’s boots echo on the marble behind him.

Laurent led them to a relatively private corner of the gardens. He could hear the music from the hall only faintly, here. Georges came to stop a few steps from Laurent, and Laurent took a step closer to him, deliberately. Georges was taller than he was, and when Laurent was close to him he had to tilt his head back slightly to look Georges in the eye.

“Would you like to come back to my chambers?” said Laurent. It felt both oblique and too obvious.

Georges looked him over, which Laurent tolerated. Georges must already know how he looked, but Laurent was vain enough to know that his appearance was only an advantage in this.

Georges agreed, and after only a moment in the garden, Laurent had turned again and was leading them to his bedroom. This was easier than he had anticipated.

Once they were there, Laurent set his goblet down on a side table and turned to look at Georges. Georges seemed to be waiting for Laurent to say something, or to do something. That was not what Laurent wanted.

“Show some initiative,” said Laurent, and Georges looked slightly perturbed by this but took a step closer to him and began to unlace Laurent’s jacket.

The encounter was unsatisfactory. Georges touched him too hesitantly, and he smelled wrong. He was attentive to Laurent’s pleasure, but the finish felt far off and Laurent began to wonder how long this could go on.

After some time, Laurent said finally, “Enough.”

Georges sat up, looking uncertain.

“You’re dismissed,” said Laurent, and Georges gathered up his clothing and left.

Laurent lay back on his bed, still feeling the same pervasive dissatisfaction that he had since his return from the other world.

He felt less than he thought he would. When he did not habitually do it, inviting someone to his bed had felt significant, somehow. Had felt like it would mean something to him, or have significance, or leave him feeling tender or vulnerable.

Then Damianos had left him feeling all of those things, and obsessed with sex besides.

But now Laurent felt very little. He felt no different than he had before he had invited Georges to his rooms. Georges touching him had not changed who he was, or made him different than he had been before.

The next day he let his gaze travel over other men at the evening meal. Georges being inadequate did not mean there was no one, Laurent told himself. He selected a man called Francis, that evening, though Francis turned out to talk too much. Laurent thought that perhaps this could be remedied by instructing Francis to suck his cock, but Francis had an appalling habit of pulling off to continue talking, and once again Laurent sent him away.

The following night, he extended an invitation to the Patran ambassador, a man called Horace. There was something promising in the authoritative way that Horace clasped his arm, Laurent thought, but Horace had unpleasant facial hair.

By the end of the week, Laurent’s new habits were causing a stir in the court. He was always on display, as a Prince, and who a Prince took to bed was always of note. Laurent had developed a reputation as a celibate Prince, also, so his sudden streak of lovers was more notable than the usual gossip. And one of the men had been indiscreet, too, so there were rumors circulating now that Laurent was impossible to satisfy.

The rumors themselves must have generated a different type of attention, because the following week a man approached him. He was not a courtier who would have caught Laurent’s eye in his gaze over the room, being a bit older, but he found Laurent in the garden and said, “I heard you are looking for someone who can satisfy you,” and the tone of his voice as he said this caused Laurent to look again.

“And you think you can?” said Laurent.

The man took a step closer to him. Laurent felt a flutter of interest in his stomach. “I’m Jacqs,” said the man.

Jacqs was clearly intent on proving himself in their encounter, and Laurent liked this attitude. He closed his eyes and imagined someone else, but the firmness of Jacqs’s grip was satisfactory, and Laurent liked the way Jacqs repositioned him on the bed without asking first.

Jacqs took Laurent into his mouth, first. Laurent could tell, objectively, that Jacqs knew all of the strategies of how to perform fellatio. He had made the same sort of study of it that Laurent had himself, and Laurent could watch Jacqs exercise the strategies as though the experience were happening to someone else.

After some time, Laurent said, “That’s enough of that,” and rolled onto his stomach as a cue for what he wished next. He was only half-hard, but he had bored of Jacqs’s mouth.

Jacqs’s fingers bored him also, and Laurent said, “Get on with it,” after the second finger, but Jacq’s cock was not all that much more interesting than his fingers. It occasionally brushed interestingly inside of him, but not reliably, and Jacqs made a very unattractive grunting sound as he fucked Laurent.

Laurent considered this for a few minutes. At first he thought, perhaps this will get better. Then he thought, well, this cannot go on for much longer. Finally, he thought, this is ridiculous, and he shifted to cause Jacqs to slip out of him and he said, “We are finished here.”

“But we haven’t--” Jacqs gestured between the two of them, indicating the lack of climax.

“Was I unclear?” said Laurent, and raised an eyebrow and glared until Jacqs gathered his clothing and left.

Laurent tried, next, to purchase time with one of the older pets, Vauquelin. Laurent choose Vauquelin because he had a discreet reputation, a pet who had bought out his contract many years prior but had made it clear he was willing to indulge a lover who would offer the correct gifts. Laurent was able to offer an amenable gift.

There was no pretense of mutual satisfaction. Laurent could direct Vauquelin as he pleased, and Vauquelin agreeably continued what he was doing or changed it at Laurent’s direction. He accepted both specific directions and general ones, equally agreeable whether Laurent explained exactly how he wished for his chest to be touched or if he said more broadly, “I wish for you to lead.”

Yet it was still not satisfactory. Vauquelin did not comment on Laurent’s loss of arousal mid way through their encounter, but Laurent himself felt keenly aware of it. Vauquelin suggested toys, and the pleasure objects he produced were interesting, but Laurent found them no more useful than Vauquelin’s mouth.

“No more,” Laurent said finally, and dismissed Vauquelin, and was not inclined to try the experiment again.

A delegation from Akielos arrived.

Laurent watched Auguste greet the Crown Prince of Akielos heartily, as though the two countries were not consistently on the verge of war, and Auguste welcomed Damianos and his entourage to Arles. Auguste showed off the palace and its finery, and Laurent watched from a distance with his goblet.

At the welcome banquet, Laurent’s eyes stayed focused on the Crown Prince. Things that Laurent had forgotten about his week in the other world were coming back to him. The exact curl of Damianos’s hair on his forehead, the crease in his brow when he struggled with an unfamiliar Veretian word.

Auguste drew up beside Laurent’s chair. “Laurent,” he said.

“Brother,” said Laurent.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” said Laurent, spreading his arms innocently. He was doing nothing. He was seated at the welcome banquet as expected, he had not been rude to the visitors, and if he had overindulged in wine that was hardly even considered a fault among royalty.

Auguste retreated, frowning.

Laurent continued staring at Damianos. He motioned for a servant to refill his goblet.

Auguste and his steward had arranged for Laurent to be seated on Auguste’s right and Damianos and the Akielon contingent on Auguste’s left, which was probably intended to keep Laurent from spreading seditious rumors among the visiting royalty, but had the consequence of making it difficult for Laurent to watch Damianos surreptitiously during the meal. He had a view via a mirror on the opposite end of the hall, if he wanted to regard the high table and Damianos in reverse, or he had to angle himself obviously to look down the table past his brother. There was no way to be subtle.

Laurent spent the first course using the mirror, and then as the servants refilled goblets for the main course Laurent decided he no longer cared about being subtle, and turned himself more obviously.

Auguste and Damianos were making conversation in Veretian about sports, which meant that their words seemed vaguely suggestive even though neither of the two of them intended it that way. Laurent smiled to himself.

Auguste leaned Laurent’s direction again, and said, “Laurent,” with a warning tone to his voice.

“What have I done?” said Laurent.

Auguste couldn’t name a specific offense. “You are planning something.”

Laurent shrugged. “You have told me that my plans are ill conceived and lacking, so I am sure that you have nothing to worry about.”

“This relationship with Akielos is very important to us,” said Auguste, which was the beginning of a lecture Laurent had heard many times before, about how he did not wish for their country to go to war, which was supported with several lines of argument, one moral, one financial, and one about Laurent’s specific lack of interest in military arts.

“I have nothing against Akielos,” said Laurent.

Auguste looked dubious.

“In fact, I was just thinking that I should take an interest.”

Auguste’s expression changed from dubious to suspicious.

“Excuse me,” said Laurent, in Akielon. It wasn’t a language he’d extensively studied, and Auguste knew that, but Laurent had learned a few phrases during his week in the other world, and annoying his brother was always a good reason to show off.

Laurent rose from his chair, bent to grasp his goblet and carry it with him, and crossed the dais to stand next to Damianos.

“Prince Damianos,” said Laurent.

Damianos obligingly turned in his chair to face where Laurent was standing behind him.

“Prince Laurent,” said Damianos. He pronounced Laurent’s name with a slight accent, which was different from the Damianos in the other world. Well, they had only just met here, Laurent supposed. “It’s so kind of you to welcome us to Vere.” Damianos spoke Veretian well, just as he had in the other world.

Laurent drank from his goblet and decided to get right to the point. “I would like for you to fuck me,” he said, exercising another of the phrases he had learned in Akielon.

Damianos blinked. “Ah,” he said, still speaking Veretian. “Let me introduce you to my lover, Nikandros.” He gestured to the Akielon man sitting next to him.

Laurent turned to take in the man sitting next to Damianos, and let his gaze travel from the man’s head down his body slowly. He had similar features to Damianos, and their skin tone was both characteristic of southern Akielos. His build was similar to the Crown Prince also, both of them were clearly athletic men who enjoyed sports. He was dressed simply in draped linen as the Prince was, and he was looking back at Laurent warily. Laurent thought he seemed vaguely familiar from his time in the other world. One of Damianos’s companions there, though in the other world there had been no mention of him as a lover.

Still, Laurent knew from books that monogamy was not especially important to Akielons. He drew his gaze back from Nikandros to Damianos.

“He can watch,” said Laurent.

Laurent flattered himself that Damianos looked tempted, tempted enough that he shot a glance past Laurent to see Auguste’s reaction. Laurent could not see his brother from this angle, but Auguste was probably not encouraging. Next to Damianos, Nikandros also did not look encouraging.

“Perhaps you have had too much to drink,” said Damianos, offering a polite excuse.

Laurent drank again from his goblet deliberately. “I have not,” he said.

Damianos’s lover spoke up. “In Akielos, we only sleep with men who can walk in a straight line along the floorboards.”

Laurent looked at Nikandros. “I suspected you were not particular.”

Laurent could have easily walked in a straight line along one of the cracks in the wooden floor of the hall, but there was nothing interesting about doing that. Instead, Laurent set his goblet down on the table next to Damianos, and then hopped up to stand in the middle of the table.

Damianos was watching him, almost everyone in the hall was watching him now. Auguste was saying his name and probably about to begin some kind of boring lecture on princely behavior. Laurent ignored him and looked up, gauging the distance between his spot on the top of the table and the balcony over the dais. He thought he could probably jump and reach it, and so he vaulted for it and managed to get a strong grip on the bottom of the balcony, and then used his upper body to pull himself up to stand on the outside of the balcony railing.

The whole hall was agog. “Laurent,” said Auguste, louder.

Laurent continued to ignore his brother. Instead, he stepped over the balcony railing, went to the edge of the balcony and used the wall there to step up on top of the railing, testing the give of the wood of the railing and the best way to balancy on top of it while wearing his boots.

Finding his balance, he stretched out his arms and walked easily on the railing from one side of the balcony to the other.

On the other side, he rested one hand on the wall and turned himself around so that he could look down to see Damianos once again.

“My bedroom is that way,” he said, pointing, and then he hopped off of the railing onto the balcony, and left the hall behind him all abuzz.

[disappointingyet]

Royal Flash

Director Richard Lester Stars Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates, Oliver Reed UK/USA 1975 Language English 1hr 42mins Colour

Unsatisfactory tale of Victorian roguishness  

When I was eight years old, I was obsessed with George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels. These purported to be the secret memoirs of a hero of the British Empire in the Victorian age, revealing him to be a scoundrel, cheat, and, most of all, a coward. These books probably aren’t entirely suitable for a child due to the frequent scenes of a sexual nature, including a fair amount of S&M. All that, though, passed over my head (as you’d expect), while I was enjoying the humour and the potted history lessons. Certainly anyone who had read the first of the novels was very sceptical about the idea that George W Bush’s coalition could get cleanly in and out of Afghanistan in a couple of years. And these are the first words works of fiction I can remember encountering that did something I’ve had a soft spot for ever since: mixing fictional characters with real people from history.

Since film and TV have an endless appetite for long-running characters who come with an established fanbase, Flashman seemed a natural for the screen. In the end, though, only this one film was made.

The omens had been good: George MacDonald Fraser had written the scripts for Richard Lester’s popular adaptations of The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, so the pair moving on to the Flashman books seemed the obvious next step. British cinema at the time was rich with actors suited for a bit of period roguery. For what I’m sure were practical reasons, the decision was made to start with the second book in the series, Royal Flash, which takes place entirely in Europe and has no battle scenes. (The film does have a very brief flashback to Afghanistan in the opening scene.)

Despite the talent of everyone concerned, Royal Flash never really comes to life. I think some of problems can be spotted in an early scene in which Harry Flashman (Malcolm McDowell) tries to flee from a police raid on an illegal gambling house. During this sequence, Lester’s focus is much more on the slightly anachronistic technology* used by both the club and the police than on Flash’s attempted escape. At this point in the film, it really needs to be putting us in the head of its antihero ��� but Lester seems to want to do the opposite.

In the book, of course, there’s no problem getting us into Flashman’s head – he’s telling us the story, and so we’re effectively complicit with his infidelity, his bullying, his lying, his cowardice** and the way he will abandon to be killed those who have helped him.

For the film, Lester and McDonald decided to do without narration. I think it’s probably a mistake. I’m not sure why anyone would warm to the movie’s Flash – he’s lacking in charm and it also feels unlikely that anyone would mistake him for a military hero.

Nor do the other characters compensate for the lead’s shortcomings. Our central villain is Otto Bismarck, involved in a complicated scheme in the early stages of German unification. He’s played by Oliver Reed in a rather underpowered performance. Much better is Alan Bates as Bismarck’s henchman, but the problem here is the film can’t quite decide what to do with his character, with confusing – rather than boldly ambiguous – results.

Watching Royal Flash, it’s easy to see why it wasn’t the launching point for multiple sequels. It fails to capture the magic of the books and offers nothing to replace it. A sad waste of the people involved.

*Having machines that didn’t exist until about 30 years later seems to be a running gag throughout the film, but one that relies on the audience knowing when, eg, pedalled bicycles were invented. Curious.

**Although as consumers of fiction and indeed non-fiction we’re often meant to pass judgement on those who try to save their own skins, I’d worry about anyone whose instinct wasn’t to piss themselves and then try to flee during the retreat from Kabul or the Charge of the Light Brigade, to pick a couple of the events covered in the Flashman novels.

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

Beautiful pictures of Paris! Including the ones with you, silly! Regarding your quick thoughts on the Wayward episode-I’m right there with you. It did indeed feel forced and in particular Brianna’s portrayal of Donna. Claire being sold as this bad ass hunter who’s been on her own all this time? No, just, no. Kathryn’s acting is flat and boring. Dull? One layered? Pick one. Hell, pick three. (To quote Dean). Where is this superb acting ability I keep 1 of 3?

reading about, cause I sure ain’t seeing it. The best part of the episode was the campfire scene. The worst (how do I choose?) was the quickie rescue. Talk about premature evacuation. I was looking for to relaxing and having a cigarette afterwards and wham, bam, thank you ma’am it was over. Please. Two famed hunters couldn’t find a glowing rift between dimensions. Wandering around for two days... So unsatisfactory. Lazy and ruined any suspense earned up to that point. And please explain to me why Sam and Dean would be Hill enough to drive off leaving Jodeo and crew to handle the rift and all who came thru.Monsters never seen before. Not to mention the robed figure that they encountered much less the possibility that GIGANTOR might as well. Two LEO’s/a part time hunter/former Vamp, a novice hunter who is a legend in her own mind and two newbies. Dean especially. Ok with that? Uh, no. The Sam and Dean I know wouldn’t just leave them like that.

Hello dear anon!

Thank you! xx *blushes* Paris was cold and a bit rainy, but definitely very beautiful. :)

As for the rest of your messages: It is good to know that I was not the only one feeling kind of “underwhelmed” by the episode and especially in departments that could have easily been executed and handled better. It is kind of sad that that didn’t happen when the potential was there...

I actually usually always really like and enjoy Kathryn Newton as Claire on Supernatural, but I feel the way Claire was written for this episode just didn’t connect. And I mean, the girl is really busy shooting quite a few different projects, so she has shown on multiple occasions that she can act imo (like I said I like her portrayal of Claire a lot in episodes prior), so maybe it was really that the direction/writing wasn’t the best that lead to this end product.

I LOVE Donna most of all the characters tbh, but yes I have to agree that a lot of the scenes with her felt ott, which pains me, because like I said Brianna is such a sunshine and Donna is so lovely, but in tone this episode/backdoor pilot just a had a handful of issues imo.

LOL, you are right the rescue in itself was a bit anticlimatic to say the least. Especially the fact that they supposedly were incapable to find the rift when Kaia and Claire found them like... immediatley when one would expect that of Sam and Dean were there for two days, they should have been quite a few miles away at least ;P That is what I mean with “bumps in the road” and lazy writing. *hides* Sam and Dean leaving like that is also part of the “plot demands” it, but really in character it doesn’t make any sense, which is an approach we have seen way too often under Dabb’s showrunning. Sam and Dean needed to be gone because they can’t be part of the WS and the other way around, but yeah... mehhhh in execution. Though I have to say I had thought the rift had closed, so I’d assume Gigantor as you called it :) will not have come through (and I think with these smaller crawler thingies they would be able to fight, but again it is “plot demands”), it was Dark!Kaia that deliberately was able to travel worlds and opened it up again. And that of course seems to be framed to become the myth arc, whereas Claire’s homecoming as mix of Sam’s college days but with Claire as Dean in spirit will build the emotional backbone of the show. But like I said, for me it is too much relient on SPN in how it features lines and themes from SPN - it cheapens it instead of giving it gravitas imo, but anywayyyyy....

The hooded figure/traveler reveal to me seemed very much foreseeable to begin with right from the start LOL. Meaning that it was Kaia herself. I do like the aspect though because I felt it did cleverly parallel with Dean and the MoC arc and how Kaia may have lost a part of herself when subconsciously dreamwalking and needed to become whole again - it seems like a very direct Charlie and Oz parallel. But of course one could also see all this as “Unoriginal” since we saw it on SPN before, but since this arc was one of my absolute faves I don’t mind in this regard too much. :)

[pussymagicuniverse]

Vibe

Essay by Kristine Esser Slentz

“They needed to hear more about being with a woman. Thank you for sharing that,” my friend, and the only other woman at the table, whispered to me. 

•

“What is the best and worst sexual experience you’ve had?” was the question prompted by a viral New York Times article stating the 36 questions that can supposedly lead to love in relationships. All of us New York City transplants were out at a bar when this conversation enveloped us: four straight-identifying men, one woman – we’ll call her K – who was currently exploring her sexual identity and married to one of the men, and me—the unabashed bisexual. 

They wanted to go around in a circle, of course starting with me—the furthest acquaintance from this particular friend group. I smiled, dropped my head to my dark beer, and passed while I “thought about it.” They graciously accepted while I started to internally ponder my own landmine of sexual experiences…

The men at the table added their escapades to this seemingly bar-banter of a conversation. Each one sharing their worst experiences with women, which consisted of: women’s untimely period problems, women’s bodies becoming too sensitive after orgasm; and women accidentally urinating while drunk, while the best moments mostly boasted tender minutes in a lover’s embrace and exciting locations in the backseat of a car. 

This led to some pause, and not just from me. There were follow-up questions: Was this the first time you experienced a sexual encounter during someone’s cycle? Could you not touch her at all after orgasm? So, then what did you do? So, like, how much pee was there? Did she care? How did she feel about it? And overall, do you still talk to her? 

In that moment, the thoughts that I ashamedly felt I couldn’t say aloud were: Is this fucking serious? Is this the conversation we’re having about sex as thirty-somethings in the “best city in the world” right now? Stressing over normal bodily functions and disgracing the women for having them as if they are unusual and depraved? 

•

My mind kept flipping through sexual scenarios I’ve been in, but mostly the horrific ones: multiple rapes, countless harassments, and wondering which of the following scenarios was worse: that time I thought I was sneaking out with a friend for some car sex but found that he'd planned for his large friend to be there as well, which ended with a drive into woods I didn't recognize? Or the time I was drugged and woke up naked next to a stranger? Certainly, these would not do because our social mores dictate that these things remain unmentioned to avoid discomforting or upsetting people. This was at a bar during a festive moment — a very public space — where a woman killing the vibe could be the biggest rule to break of all. Instead, I decided to pivot into a mad mental dash to bar-appropriate erotic hijinks. What would be amusing? What would be funny? What would keep the conversation light and the party going? 

•

Then, it was K’s, the only other present woman, turn to speak. Her best experience included a time with her husband in a sensual backseat rendezvous, which also happened to be his best experience too. Her worst experience was with a past partner. He had asked her for sex and she had not wanted to. He kept pushing to make love — he did not want to take no for an answer. Finally, she gave in. After he was finished, he said to her, “You know you wanted it.” At this, she looked down at her beer nodding. Then tells the table that that was the last time she ever had sex when she didn’t want to. “It was fucked up,” K said. 

•

Now, I had to speak. For my worst, I decided to go with the time my now-husband fell asleep on me while we were having sex. At this, one of my male friends asked for clarification, “But was he tired or drunk?” Why, yes — he had worked, acted in a show, and had a couple of beers. He gave a nod of approval. Interesting, I thought, or was it really? This way of questioning to defend another man is something I didn’t really notice before, and why? I pocketed that note and moved on with my turn. For my best, I depicted the first time I was “with” a woman in the very back of an SUV full of folks. Or better described as: the moment I knew I was truly attracted to women. 

Stepping back into beer three that had now been switched to a cheap domestic, it wasn’t lost on me that these lovely, well-intentioned men tended to blame their partner for their worst experience, while I, the woman, subconsciously took on the responsibility of being the “worst.” Why did both K and I have such shielding body language? That reaction of being faced with these traumatic events had us looking away from the men and down into our supposedly liquid courage. This wasn’t the first time I’d detected something like this or the first conversation that had brought up not only the discrepancy between what a “best” and “worst” experience is, but also who gets the responsibility of being the worst in said experience. Once again, I was struck by how commonplace it is for women to have abusive or simply unsatisfactory stories in regards to sex. K and I both had them even though she was much braver in sharing hers than I was. I was also witness to further evidence  that men seemingly have no clue that women — their friends and lovers — have many horrific stories as their go-to “worst.” They themselves have never experienced a "worst,” nor do they get that it is feasible that they may have been someone's worst — even if it wasn’t blatantly abusive.

•

Then, K turned to me and said, “Thank you.” I was shocked. Shocked that she thanked me. Shocked that the men felt blameless. Shocked that the women felt shameful. Sadly, I was shocked that a woman would thank me for telling my truth.

Kristine Esser Slentz is a queer, experimental poet from northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area. She is a Purdue University alum who double-majored in English literature and creative writing. Recently, she earned her MFA in creative writing (poetry) at City College of New York where she is an adjunct professor and an organizer of the MFA Reading Series. KRISTINE’s full-length manuscript has been long-listed, is a 2020-21 Glass Poetry Chapbook Series finalist, F(r)iction Spring 2020 Flash Fiction contest finalist, and will be completing a residency with Poets Afloat in the near future. Some places her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming include Yes Poetry, Moonchild Magazine, The Shallow Ends, Glass Poetry, Pink Plastic House, Barren Magazine, Crab Fat Magazine, Philosophical Idiot, and Flying Island Journal where she was nominated for a 2017 Pushcart Prize.