#who is the intended audience for this? no idea actually

[prettygirl-gabi]

Partners-In-Crime

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Rating: General Audiences

Warning: angst (like very substantial amount), fluff, happy ending

Category:F/M

Fandom: Seventeen (SVT), boyband

Relationships: !idol Mingyu x !idol f reader

Summary: In a whirlwind of fake dating to avoid breached contract lawsuit, Mingyu and Y/n navigate growing feelings, blurring lines between pretend and real.

Trope: Fake dating

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Hiiiii everyone who is reading! Welcome to the ninth installment of my new mini series called "Oi! Not this again!" They do not have to be read together or in order! I hope you all enjoy!

I never really thought I’d find myself in this situation: fake dating one of the hottest idols in South Korea. Yet, here I am, sipping an iced caramel macchiato in a corner cafe, pretending that being next to Mingyu from SEVENTEEN is the most natural thing in the world. In reality, my heart is racing, and not in the good way.

“Y/N, could you, like, pretend to be happy?” Mingyu whispers through a tight smile, his voice barely audible over the ambient music and chatty customers. His dark eyes flicker with a mix of annoyance and desperation.

“I am happy,” I snap quietly, struggling to adjust the fake smile plastered on my face. “Well, as happy as I can be, considering I’m fake dating you.”

A little louder than intended, I notice a few heads turn our way. I can feel the pressure mounting. We’re supposed to be the doting couple everyone envies, yet the tension between us is thicker than the whipped cream on my drink.

His fingers drum impatiently on the table, the dull thud echoing my pounding heart. “This was your idea, remember? To throw off the media frenzy surrounding both of us.”

Sure, using the classic “fake dating” trope to divert media attention seemed brilliant in theory. We both had enough scandals and rumors hovering around us to last a lifetime. Pairing up would squash at least half of them.

Mingyu suddenly leans in, looking intently at the menu stuck between the salt and pepper shakers, but I know he isn’t paying attention to the array of overpriced sandwiches. “Y/N, if we don’t pull this off, Dispatch is going to have a field day. Again.”

I sigh, slumping back in my chair. “I know, I get it. But couldn’t we have found another way?”

He opens his mouth to argue but instead, a genuine laugh escapes his lips. “Like what? Publicly announce we’re focusing on our careers and ask for privacy?” The sarcasm in his voice isn’t lost on me.

“Okay, fair point.” I roll my eyes but can’t help a small smile. “So what’s the plan now, Mr. Perfect?”

His grip tightens on the table edge before he looks up with a smirk. “We’ve got a photoshoot tomorrow morning for a ‘couple’ branding campaign. We just need to act like we’re head-over-heels for each other, got it?”

I groan inwardly. Nothing like forced intimacy to kickstart a beautiful, fake relationship. “This is going to be a disaster.”

“Only if you make it one,” he teases, his smirk widening. He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms smugly. “Or maybe you’re just afraid you’ll actually fall for my irresistible charm?”

I snort. “Keep dreaming, pretty boy.”

==

The next morning arrives faster than I’d like. The cosmetics studio is buzzing with activity. Staff members rush around, juggling makeup palettes and camera equipment, their energy palpable.

“Y/N! Mingyu! Over here!” the director waves us over to a pristine white set, where we’re expected to coo and swoon

“Showtime,” Mingyu whispers in my ear. His peppermint breath sends an involuntary shiver down my spine. This fake boyfriend thing is harder than it looks.

I force a smile, slipping my fingers through his as we pose for the cameras. Each flash feels like a dagger, reminding me this isn’t real. But for the sake of our careers, we plaster on the affection.

“Y/N, could you look at Mingyu like he’s the best thing that ever happened to you?” the photographer instructs, eyes focused behind the lens.

Like he’s the best thing that ever happened to me? Easy. I turn, my gaze softening as if on cue. As much as Mingyu frustrates me, he’s also been my confidant and partner-in-crime through this chaotic idol life. Maybe this won’t be so hard after all.

Mingyu meets my eyes, his expression unexpectedly tender. The lines of his face soften, making the acting feel less like an act.

We’re mid-pose when Mingyu decides to speak. “You know, you’re not as bad at this as I thought you’d be,” he says, his voice just loud enough for me to hear.

I raise an eyebrow, still maintaining my “loving” gaze for the photographer. "What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Just that maybe we should fake date more often. You’re adorable when you’re pretending.”

I falter, the smile slipping slightly. “Watch it, Mingyu.”

==

The hours pass and the shoot finally wraps. We receive a round of applause for our “chemistry,” and Mingyu pulls me into a side hug, his hand resting on my shoulder. Pretending becomes so much easier with each click of the camera.

“Good job today,” he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper, tinged with genuine warmth.

For a moment, I almost forget we’re pretending. Almost.

“We pulled it off, didn’t we?” I muse, pressing my temple against his arm briefly before pulling away.

“Yeah,” he admits, his eyes locking onto mine. “We make a pretty good team, Y/N.”

Something in his gaze makes my heart stutter. It feels like he’s trying to say more, like he’s testing unfamiliar waters.

“Yeah, well don’t get used to it. This is still a temporary arrangement.” I remind myself more than him, with a fleeting half-smile.

==

Weeks roll by, and the line between fiction and reality starts to blur. Mingyu and I are inseparable, seen at award shows, interviews, seen leaving our "shared" house, and even the occasional late-night ramen shop. The media loves us. Fans dub us “the power couple of the decade.”

One evening, as we rehearse a choreographed routine for an upcoming awards show performance, the tension boils over. Mingyu’s patience breaks first.

“Y/N, you’re a step behind!” he snaps, frustration evident as he stops mid-spin. “We’ve done this a thousand times, what’s going on with you?”

Anger flares in my chest. “I’m sorry if I'm not perfect like you, okay?”

He throws his hands up in exasperation. “It’s not about being perfect, it’s about working together!”

“You think I don’t know that?!” I shout back, breathless. “This whole thing...it's draining, Mingyu. Maybe fake dating wasn't the best idea after all. Maybe…”

“Maybe what?” he challenges, stepping closer. “Maybe we should just end it? Announce it was all a prank?”

The space between us crackles with unspoken words, and I take a small step back, my chest heaving. “Maybe.”

His eyes search mine, the anger simmering into something else entirely—something raw and real. “And what if I don’t want it to end?”

Time stands still as his words hang in the air. The intensity in his gaze makes my heart race for an entirely different reason.

“What exactly are you saying?” I finally ask, needing clarity even if it feels terrifying.

He takes a deep breath, before lifting my head with his thumb on my chin and two under. “I’m saying...I don’t think this was ever just fake for me. And I don’t want it to be.”

My breath catches. Neither of us moves. The air feels charged and heavy with possibility.

“Me neither,” I admit, my voice barely a whisper, finally understanding the depth of my feelings.

A slow, almost relieved smile spreads across his face, and he reaches for my hand, linking our fingers together much like the first time we “acted” in love. Only now, it feels unforced, genuine.

The journey to real from fake has been messy, fraught with disagreements and tension, but standing here, looking into his eyes, I realize it was worth every moment.

“Looks like we’ve got a new script to follow,” Mingyu murmurs, his thumb caressing the back of my hand.

I smile, leaning into the comforting warmth of his presence. “Yeah, and this time, we don’t have to pretend.”

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‐Thank You For Reading!🩵🩶

-prettygirl-Gabi✨️🎀

[tomcat-reusables]

Wes Anderson's kill count, a result of having too much time on my hands, spoiler: it's complicated.

Firstly, referencing the title, Wes Anderson himself has never killed anyone (at least I hope), but people sure do die in his films sometimes. The question is, exactly how many?

ALSO WARNING!! SPOILERS FOR ALL MOVIES AHEAD! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

The Conditions -

This is a low estimate, meaning only characters who are confirmed to have died are counted. However, if a character is stated to have died and later been resuscitated, they will also be counted. Animal deaths will only be counted if the animal is a character or their death plays a role in the story (for example hunting, or a character eating meat does not count). I will only add to the kill count if I have an exact number, so saying for example, "a lot of people died" means zero for these purposes.

Bottle Rocket

No one died in this one.

Death toll: 0

Rushmore

Eloise Fischer - cancer - 47

Edward Appleby - drowning - age unknown

The Royal Tenenbaums

Helen Tenenbaum - unknown - 55

Rachel Tenenbaum - Plane crash - 35

Royal Tenenbaum - heart attack - 68

Buckley - Hit by car - age unknown

Mrs Sherman - stomach cancer - age unknown 

Death toll: 5

The Life Aquatic

Esteban Du Plantier - eaten by shark - age unknown

Ms Plimpton - overdose - age unknown 

Ned Plimpton - blood loss due to injuries in helicopter crash, likely impaled by helicopter parts - 30

Filipino pirate - bullet to neck - age unknown 

Alastair Hennessey's crew (at least 12 individuals) - cause of death unknown - ages differ

Pirates in hotel (at least 12 individuals) - explosion - ages differ

Death toll: 28

The Darjeeling Limited

Jimmy Whitman - hit by taxi - age unknown

Francis Whitman - motorcycle crash - 39-40

Child crossing river #3 - drowning - age unknown

“One of the sister’s brothers” - eaten by tiger - age unknown

Death toll: 4

Fantastic Mr Fox 

Rat - electrocution - age unknown

Fantastic mr Fox’s father - cause of death unknown - 7 ½ non fox years old 

Death toll: 2

Moonrise Kingdom:

Snoopy - shot by bow and arrow - age unknown 

Sam Shakusky’s mother - cause of death unknown - age unknown 

Sam Shakusky’s father - cause of death unknown - age unknown

Death Toll: 3

The Grand Budapest Hotel: 

Madame D-U-T - poisoned - 84

Jopling - pushed off cliff - age unknown

The author - cause of death unknown - age unknown 

Agatha - illness - age unknown

Agatha and Zero’s child - cause of death unknown - age unknown

M Gustave - shot - somewhere in his forties 

Kovacs - murdered by Jopling - age unknown

Serge X - murdered by Jopling - age unknown 

Headless girl - murdered by Jopling - age unknown 

Kovacs’s cat - murdered by Jopling - age unknown 

Death Toll: 10

Isle of Dogs

Dog in Spots’s kennel - starvation - age unknown

Dog referenced - hung by own leash - age unknown 

Professor Watanabe - poisoned - age unknown 

Atari’s mother - train crash- age unkown 

Atari’s father - train crash - age unknown 

Indigenous dog leader - cannibalised - age unknown

Death Toll: a shockingly low 6, because this operates off of confirmed deaths only. If speculated deaths were counted, Isle of Dogs would likely be the highest by far.

The French Dispatch:

Moses Rosenthaler victim #1 - murder - age unknown

Moses Rosethnaler victim #2 - murder - age unknown

Arthur Howitzer Junior - heart attack - 75

Zeferelli - Electrocuted - 19 

The 8.25 bodies pulled from the Blasé river each week, The French Dispatch definitely takes place over at least three months (evidenced by the riot storyline) , so we’ll multiply this by four and minus one for Zeffirelli, making it 98 - causes of death unknown - ages vary 

72 prisoners - riot - ages vary

6 members of The French Splatter School - riot - ages vary

2 men - shot by Clampette - ages unknown. 

Morisot - jumping from a building - age unknown

Police cadet/nanny - gunshot wound to head - age unknown

7 kidnappers - poisoning - ages vary 

Death toll: 201

Asteroid City

Mrs Steenbeck - illness - age unknown

Conrad Earp - car crash - 50 

Death toll: 2

-

So, without further ado, the lowest possible estimate of the overall kill count from all 11 of Wes Anderson's films is 253, and if you read all of this, I don't know whether to thank you or be concerned.

[theoldworldsrunnerup]

Thinking about this scene

[elftwink]

saw a video about 2 player ttrpgs and one of them was like "this one's about a pretend marriage" and i was like oh? and i looked it up on itch (eyes on the prize, fyi) and it's 50% as of right now and i was like OH? and i bought it immediately & ive read most of it and i am a big fan. and i KNOW that i have friends who would have fun playing it (it's a 2 player or 4 player game; the 4 player variant has 2 fake couples) but asking them is going to be so cringe. yeah we're gonna make up people and pretend to be them and then pretend to pretend to get married and the characters when they start their pretending they're gonna be like "oh we don't have any romantic feelings towards each other this is strictly plot" but then (get this) they will start to develop real feelings for each other. and we're gonna act it out together and pretend to be them but don't worry! we have no romantic feelings towards one another. this is strictly plot. when WE (irl) pretend to be in love it's actually platonic, unlike the people who we are pretending to be to each other. so do you have like 2-5 hours you wanna dedicate to that next week

and the worst part is that's 100% what i want. like i have roleplayed romance before with friends it is literally not a big deal because the whole point of roleplay is that the character ISN'T you. but with a fake relationship the crushing weight of dramatic irony hovers behind me

[coquelicoq]

i finally wrote an xword that i think might be nyt-submittable...i originally wrote it for the local paper though so i now have to go back through and rework the clues to take out the specific local ones and make some of the others harder. i know exactly which day of the week this would run in the nyt (if it gets accepted) because this type of theme always runs on the same day, so at least i know which clue difficulty to aim for, but i'm still finding it difficult to hit that precise level! i'm used to just making the clues as easy as possible because my local paper's audience is mostly people who aren't xword aficionados. i already reworked this puzzle a couple times based on feedback from friends and family but that was all still when i thought i'd be running it in my local paper. i kinda just want to be done with it but i've never had a theme and fill i thought were completely nyt-worthy before!

[jinzouactor]

Big fan of your worm! Out of curiosity - what made you choose that title for your Shimamine comic? Like a mayfly in milk is a peculiar name

t-thank you?🐛

Ok I guess, well partly its a reference to the lyrics of Haru Hisagi by Yorushika. It's a song that i LOVE even if its themes aren't particularly relevant to the plot (yet?). I like the mayfly imagery in that song. For me the word evokes something thats fleeting or short-lived.

I also used the idiom "like a fly in milk" which, honestly I thought was about being out of one's depth / floundering in a situation you're not suited to / not being able to handle one's circumstances (like "a fish out of water"). Apparently the phrase is more like being conspicuous in a negative sense. Either way works I guess..

I don't even know if im happy with this title but even now i can't think of a better one 😭 so we're rolling with this

[seventeendeer]

this isn't at all meant to be condescending or finger-waggy because 100% we all have blind spots like this, but I'm really, really hoping that the people who never found Gaiman's approach to his own fandom concerning in any way will take this all as a learning moment.

he was an older, hyper-famous author engaging directly and frequently with an online audience of largely vulnerable young marginalized people. he presented himself as cultured and worldly, and made himself approachable as someone to go to for advice, encouragement and "wisdom." his manner of speech was extremely pathos-heavy and clearly intended to be comforting and encouraging in exactly the way his target demographic needed it to be to swallow every word. the way he spoke about stories and creativity was designed to make young creative hopefuls feel special and important, while sweeping real analytical techniques under the rug - in hindsight, likely so no one would think too critically about the disturbing amount of patriarchal abuse played for cheap shock value and voyerism in his own body of works.

Gaiman saw a target demographic that was desperate for an older creative role model to tell them they were worth something, and he exploited that pain to twist a narrative around himself where he was king and any critique leveled at him or his works were the enemy.

to be clear, he could have been innocent. he could totally have been just an out-of-touch old man saying nice things to people because he wanted to be kind and he thought he was a lot smarter than he really was. red flags are warning signs, not a surefire way to tell if someone is actually "secretly shitty."

but if you used to look up to him, PLEASE take this moment to revisit the ideas you absorbed from him. did you take his words to heart because they seemed to have objective merit? or did you take them to heart because it felt good to believe what he said? do you still hold these values? does knowing he was intentionally manipulating his online audience make you less certain? do you need more information from a different source before deciding one way or another?

again, I'm just really, really hoping people on here will take a moment to reevaluate the ideas and opinions he's injected into tumblr fandom culture, because his reach is immense and he has absolutely been manipulating popular perception of relevant topics to gain further influence and control the narrative around both his own and Pratchett's legacy. please, please take this moment to notice what he's been doing - and next time someone tries to pull the same shit, hopefully we'll be able to apply what we've learned from experience.

[ccieatchildren]

I’m sure we’ve all seen by now Steve Blackman’s reasoning for Five/Lila stating:

“I felt that Five had to have a love story.”

And how it shows how this man somehow has such a deep fundamental misunderstanding about his own characters. How he helped create the first three seasons of this show and doesn’t realize that

This is Five’s love story.

Umbrella Academy the show wouldn’t exist without Five’s love. The whole plot and story is it.

He is the catalyst of all the plot lines while his family is the center of all the story beats. His love is the instigator for all the events of the show simply because he chooses to do everything possible in the hope that it will save his loves.

It’s not like this was even a subtle idea because Five literally states it himself multiple times over the series!

I just don’t understand how you can get it so wrong.

He creates the Commission in hopes of regulating the timeline so his family won’t get obliterated from existence, tattooing himself with the potential solution to rewriting the universe so they can all live happily one day.

He survives the apocalypse all on his own, when there was no real reason to, just because he believed he could get back to his family, spending 50+ years developing the math to one day do so.

He joins the Commission and murders and maims and manipulates in the desperate attempt that he might have a chance to go back and see/save his family.

He spends the first time he sees his family after over six decades not with them, but rather searching for a way to stop their deaths, sending them all through time when it doesn’t work.

He runs himself ragged stopping apocalypse after apocalypse just for them.

And when he loses all hope, accepting the kugelblitz, he is content to know he is doing so with his family.

As much as this show is about the whole family, ultimately, imo, this is Five’s story about his grueling quest to save the family he loves.

Because otherwise this show wouldn’t exist without him and the rest of the characters would just be decorations in the rubble of a world long gone.

So to say bro needed a love story— he doesn't say romance, but love story— is so durna, like what??? I guess if you really wanted him to have a romance you could do that, but there were many better options than the wife of someone he deeply loves, something he would never do.

(Not to mention all the real world implications of the romance with the actors, production really was waiting for him to be legal ಠ_ಠ)

Also I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many fans view Five somewhere under the aro/ace umbrella (pun intended).

Now, because of this misconstruction the ending of the show also suffers.

Brushing over all the mind boggling things the real ending says about abuse, its victims, and growing from it (which is actually like how did no one look at that and think hmm maybe this isn’t right for the story we’ve been telling), it also misunderstands love. It tells the audience that love isn’t worth it, in a show… about love. Not just Five’s but Hazel/Agnes, Viktor/Sissy, Allison+Claire, and more. How all your pain and suffering and tribulations for those you love are stupid and useless and cringe.

But y’know what, Mr. Blackman, I think you’re cringe for that absolute bonkers bananas ending.

And that’s why having the solution to the series being that Five should have never jumped in the first place would have been the best ending.

Making it so that the only solution to save the whole universe be that Five stay with his family, with those he loved— what he had been trying to do for the whole show— would have been the perfect conclusion to the story. It would show that all he had to do was stay, because that’s all they ever needed, that’s all he ever needed.

AND IT WOULD MAKE LOGISTICAL SENSE.

Five and Viktor are well confirmed to have been the closest ever since they were young. And Five (doesn’t matter if he’s the now Five who lived through the shows events or the young one who ran off) would most certainly be a supportive figure in Viktor’s life. He’s smart, for one, and it wouldn’t be a stretch for him to figure out what was really going on (especially with his hatred of Reginald) and help Viktor that way. But even if he doesn’t, when they grow to adults and Viktor naturally doesn’t take his pills or his power starts showing, Five’s love and care for his (closest) brother would most certainly help prevent the apocalypse. Especially since if Five and Viktor are close, as they grow older, I feel like the others would grow closer as well, maybe not the same degree, but they would be more willing and supportive of Viktor in the end (I feel like Season 1 shows us how at the end of the day the siblings do care for Viktor, but they were just too late, so this time they wouldn’t be).

Through the subway we see the timeline where he jumps still exists, so that should mean there is a way for him not to do that. His jumping (and the siblings he brings along) is what creates the paradoxes and the "need" for the Commission. So by him not jumping, problem solved.

This might come at the cost of the current versions of the characters, but I think if they can make the developmental journeys they did once, I think they can do it again, and have a happy ending.

(Also the Jennifer incident wouldn’t happen either bcs of Five or just bcs that plot line was so fluffin stupid, so yay alive Ben)

(And Diego and Luther meet Lila and Sloane respectively cuz they are also part of the marigold brood so they still do exist at the same time, so yay happy couples)

It is somewhat simple, but I think that works as well, especially for a character like Five. He spends so much time looking at all the different equations, trying to find some complex solution to everything, trying permutation after permutation (as evidenced by our and the diner Five's), when it was right in front of him. Idk, I just think it would be nice if he just decided to stay with his siblings instead of running off.

Sure it may not be completely perfect, maybe Ben still does die, or Klaus can’t meet Dave again, or characters still find themselves prey to their arrogance but I don’t think it needs to be, because real life isn’t perfect. But the bonds we make and the love we share makes it so, a major theme the Umbrella Academy isn't unfamiliar with.

And it just makes me so deeply sad that this isn’t the ending we got. That this isn’t the ending the characters got.

They deserve so much better than Blackman gave them, and it’s a disgrace that he didn’t.

[melrosing]

so stuff I’ve not liked about the finale and S2 more generally…. unfortunately it’s a lot and i'm thinking i might need to say this in several parts but first and foremost: the pacing really was shit and i don't just mean there weren't enough action scenes i mean the whole season they've had almost nothing to say about these characters and have just been making us think they do by having them repeat the same ham-fisted monologues about power and peace and the cost of war and whatever whilst moving at a glacial pace from one minor plot point to another and by the end of it most of these characters STILL haven't changed, and where they have it feels undeserved, and yes they really are at roughly the place they started so what have they even got to show for these eight hours of TV?? like damn

and I do get that the writer's strike has really effected them here and HBO hacking two eps off their season affected them too and that really can't be helped. but the pacing has been pretty poor from kick off and I can't just put it down to this being a more 'internal' season. i do not care about big battles. it's fine to have a season of a show that’s more about the characters’ interiority rather than plot action. that’s the exact reason why I like AFFC so much.

but these characters barely have interiority like idk what to say. some like Rhaenyra, Jace and Alicent have been spouting the same monologues every episode about wanting peace/wanting agency/wanting peace again etc etc, and the more interesting moments like Alicent's apparent suicide attempts, Rhaenyra's butchering of the dragonseeds etc... I mean where IS the interiority here?? unless they are spelling out a character's thoughts in the most literal way they can (as per Jace's diatribes about the dragonseeds), they leave their audience to do absolutely all the work by showing us nothing, and just leaving us to figure that the characters must be having some kind of thoughts but y'all can decide what they are.

and even Daemon, whose entire ARC was about his interiority.... like look I was so so ready to love this arc. i love fucked up little dream sequences. i love harrenhal. i was really enjoying the angle they took with alys. i was here for it. but now we've seen the whole of his S2 arc, im going to say yes, it was intended as a redemption adjacent kind of arc, and it isn't a very good one. Daemon has a handful of weird dreams, gets shouted at by some Riverlands folk, and he's a changed man.

consider the character everyone compares Daemon to (and who I'm always more than happy to talk about) and that's Jaime. and look at the sheer ground covered in ASOS: Jaime breaks out of a dungeon, Jaime meets a younger version of himself, Jaime gets his hand hacked off, Jaime reveals his anime villain backstory in the bath, Jaime deals with Roose Bolton, Jaime has a weird weirwood dream, Jaime fights a fucking bear - and at this point we're still only about halfway through.

now in contrast, what have they actually managed to do with Daemon this season. where has that finale moment with Rhaenyra been earned. this is not slow pacing for the sake of powerful character development, it's slow because they don't have anything else to say.

and also look at the state of characters like Aemond who seemed really promising in S1, yet in this season he barely reflects on the fact that he hadn't meant to kill Luke, and this war is an accident that he started, etc etc - he's just a killing machine lol. there were some nice touches in there, like i say i enjoyed Helaena telling Aemond how he'll die in the finale. but I no longer trust these writers to do anything with their more inspired ideas because they just consistently fail to do so.

look at Baela!!! like my god, has Baela had the opportunity to do anything except A) what she's told and B) counsel men on their feelings. she has like one moment looking at Daemon and you feel like the series is going to explore how complex it is to be Daemon Targaryen's daughter.... but my god they never do!! so where IS this interiority we've spent eight episodes on! what have they got to show for it!!

and i talked more weeks back about how frustrating i've found the writing of women more generally in this series and as of the finale I am finding it so egregious and so condescending. women want peace. women want to protect their children. women are tired of men. women are tired of war. women are trying to end this war peacefully. women are pacifists. women hate violence. and so on and so on and so on like jesus christ who am i even talking about here. even i don't know. it's so boring. it's so dry. and it requires female characters to always be the paragons of virtue, never do anything truly condemnable, never be unlikeable, never fucking anything except stand around saying how much they hate this. im bored of it and it makes me angry that they would do this in a series that specifically seeks to make everyone grey and everyone complex - they keep suggesting that might extend to the women before abruptly shutting it down again. see Alicent and Rhaenyra even STILL, after EVERYTHING, trying to peacefully shut down the war for the sake of love and friendship in the goddamn finale. I don't believe it anymore!! it's not cute! it's just dull!!!

and finally that just kind of brings me to how shortsighted a lot of the plot developments seem, when you see how the characters fail to reckon with their pasts or shit that just happened. Rhaenyra and Mysaria make out, and then that's never mentioned again and the tone never changes between them. Rhaenyra is done thinking about Luke. Helaena is done thinking about Jaehaerys. Aegon actually didn't mention Jaehaerys in the list of things he's 'lost' in that finale. Alicent's relationship w Viserys was just now condensed to 'we were fond of each other but he always liked your mum better'

like idk it's just. if this season's pacing is all about giving characters the chance to change and grow into the people they'll be when this war REALLY kicks off.... do it. write it. do not just write the same monologue a dozen times and hope it'll hit harder with each. doesn't work like that. sorry.

[genericpuff]

The excessively passive voice when talking about Minthe being intended to have BPD is hilarious. "It was thought to have her written with BPD"? So weird

Honestly, once you start noticing this passive voice in how Rachel writes and talks, it's kind of hard to unsee.

Like, for starters, the BPD example. It's very non-committal, almost as if to sound like she never actually wrote her with BPD, it was just an 'idea' that she could neither confirm or deny as canon. But then you read the episode with the slap and-

It's- it's literally called "Splitting". It's about as subtle as a brick to the face. This entire episode showcases Minthe having an actual literal episode of splitting and it's plain as day to anyone who can read the title card and put two and two together. So for the wording to be so passive around her characterization... it wasn't "thought" to have her written with BPD, she was written with BPD.

Another example that sticks out in my mind of Rachel's passive writing is far later in Season 3, when Demeter reunites with Persephone and naturally expects her to come back home with her.

This line still fucking bothers me to this day. Besides the fact that it's just really poorly written dialogue, Persephone describes her being in love with Hades as if it's just some coincidental thing that happened to her that she can't avoid and not a deliberate choice she's making. "It would seem" my ass, Persephone is a coward for not being upfront and just talking to her mother like an adult by saying, "Mother, I love you, and I understand why you want me to come home, but I'm in love with Hades and want to stay in the Underworld with him." Instead the way it's worded is almost designed to absolve Persephone of any and all agency in her own decisions and active participation in her relationship with Hades by instead making it out to be just some circumstance that she can't get herself out of.

Again, this isn't quite as egregious as the aforementioned BPD scene, but it's still irritating because Rachel writes like this a lot throughout LO. And it's not just the dialogue either, entire decisions throughout the comic are flip-flopped and kept vague by Rachel so she can give herself plausible deniability over the narrative. I could come up with some of my own examples, but I think she managed to speak for herself just fine in the end-of-series Q&A that left both critics and fans of the series massively confused and disappointed:

LO is full of half-committed plotlines because Rachel herself can't commit to her own decisions. So the decisions she does make are left vague enough that hardcore fans are willing enough to fill in the blanks themselves, but anyone who asks her genuinely what her plan was, she just gives the same wordy "IDK it's up to your interpretation!" response. It's like she thinks people are asking her as just another reader who can only speculate, but she's literally the author, so why is she acting like her guess is as good as theirs?

Well, because that's how she wrote LO. That's how she's always written comics, with vague half-finished thoughts and just enough for readers to do the mental gymnastics of making sense of it all just to give her the credit for "smart writing" that she never actually did because she stopped paying attention after the first sentence. And that method of being vague for the sake of audience interpretation is fine for illustrations or anything that isn't trying to be a concise narrative, but LO did try to be that and it really shows how hard it failed in doing so when its own creator can't even come up with something slightly plausible to explain all the questions people had in the end. "There is some backstory there" but proceeds to not actually expand on said backstory. "I like to imply things without outright telling people", so do I, but the difference is that Rachel is using that as a crutch to not answer the questions she setup for her readers and then didn't resolve after five years. There's not wanting to spoon feed people the plot, and then there's literally refusing to explain your decisions when writing said plot, almost because you don't know any more than they do.

The entirety of LO is rooted in Rachel's passiveness, from her inability to answer questions concisely to every little plot point that was established and dropped throughout the comic's run. Writing a story is a series of decisions, deciding what to keep, deciding what not to keep, deciding what has to be changed, etc. and Rachel just... doesn't seem like someone who's ever been capable of making those decisions, especially when she's writing an actual long form story to the end and doesn't have the luxury of dropping it whenever it feels convenient for her like she did several times with The Doctor Pepper Show. Once she was actually held to a standard, once she was actually signed into a contract that expected her to make those decisions, she failed to and it culminated in one of the messiest conclusions to a story I've seen since Game of Thrones.

LO is kind of like Schrodinger's Cat - a plot point can be or not be whatever it needs to be so that Rachel can be either praised for smart writing she never did or absolved of bad writing that she did do. It's equally parts interesting and vague enough that whatever her readers give her credit for writing, she can give them a thumbs-up and go "you're totally right, champ!" and proceed to take all the credit of being a "good writer" from the efforts of her own audience who had to jump through a million hoops to make sense of her own messy writing.

But when she's put on the spot by those very same readers to answer for her own decisions, she can't.

Because she never made them.

Because there was never anything "deeper" going on, that's just what her style of "distraction writing" made you believe. The plot never lets you stop to think about what you just read long enough before zipping away to the next thing and distracting you with a new twist or a new character or a new plot point, and before you know it, you've gone weeks without reading about the last thing that was established you probably haven't even realized that those questions never got answered. Sometimes Rachel remembers to get back to those things and resolves them within a handful of panels, other times she forgets them entirely and just leaves them to rot in the hopes that no one ever calls her out on it. And when they do... she can just pull the get-out-of-jail-free "Welp, it's up to your interpretation!" card and get that credit all over again for being deep and insightful, meanwhile those who are rightfully dissatisfied with that answer are blanket-accused of "getting mad at Rachel for not writing the story they wanted".

To close out this ask that, per tradition, turned into an essay, I'd like to recall the famous words of fictional detective Benoit Blanc: "Look into the clear center of this glass onion... Miles Bron is an idiot!"

[honeytama]

Please don’t keep me waiting.

Noah Sebastian X Reader (uses she/her pronouns, referred to as a girl)

A/N: This is my first time writing for THE attractive, tall man. Your girl is a new fan <3 Feel free to lore dump on me in my asks/dms. This piece is hella self indulgent, because all I want is a detailed tattoo tour from Noah himself. 🧎🏻‍♀️

Summary: Twitch streaming a tattoo tour with your best friend and his viewers catch on to your natural chemistry. Noah notices a change in your demeanor due to their comments and bugs you for a talk in private once the camera is off.

Content: Use of y/n, fem!reader, fluffy things, very slight angst. This fic lacks smut, but my content is intended for an adult audience, MDNI.

Word Count: 1k

“You can take my chair,” your best friend, Noah, pushes his gaming chair in your direction. You thank him and shyly slide into his chair. You notice your feet slightly dangle above the carpet in his bedroom.

Noah had pulled in a chair from his dining table and sat next to you excitedly while pulling up his account to go live.

“Y/N, I’m so fuckin’ happy you agreed to stream with me today,” he exclaims while clicking about his screen. “It’s been forever since we’ve gotten to hang together just us two, huh?” He smiles, turning to look at your face.

You smile back, of course, even though you couldn’t keep yourself from fidgeting in your seat out of nervousness. Well it won’t just be the two of us, you think. This was your first time on stream with him and you noticed from past streams that his viewers. always loved when he had a guest on; you just hope they’ll love you too.

“You ready?” He asks.

“Mhmm,” is what you manage before he clicks “Start Streaming” and a window with “Stream Starting Soon” pops up in front of you.

“I’ll just give, like, five minutes for people to start coming in before we actually start,” he reassures. “What did you want to do on stream? Your choice since it’s your first time.” He leans in towards you.

“We could do—“, you hum and your eyes search across his bedroom for ideas. Your eyes land on his thigh. He’s wearing shorts today and his Itachi tattoo sparks your idea.

“You’ve never done a tattoo tour have you?” You smile excitedly.

“You just want me to take off my shirt, huh?” He laughs and sways into your shoulder.

You blush. Of course I do, you think. “I’m being serious! Also, isn’t that TOS? I don’t think you can flash your nips online, Noah.”

He laughs, “Fine, I think it’s a good idea. I’ll show off as long as you show yours too.” He points toward your forearms.

“Noah,” you whine. “They don’t know me. They’re not interested in mine.”

“Well you better get ready, because we’re starting.”

In less than a second, your faces appear on the screen along with his stream layout.

Comments started off with “heys and hellos”, but got a little apprehensive to you after a minute.

I thought it would just be you :/

Wishing that were me omg

Who’s the girl?

Noah introduces you to his viewers, “Hello hello. This is Y/N, they’re my company for today. She’s been one of my best friends for years and she came up with today’s stream idea. We’ll both be showing off our tattoos, talking about them, and answering questions if you have them.”

You spent an hour with him as he showed off his neck, arms, and hands to the camera. You watched as his fingers brushed against his own skin to show different parts of his arms. You can’t help but imagine his hands caressing you in the same way.

As time passed, you and Noah shared flirtatious banter and inside jokes. The comments started to warm up and even encouraged the way you two interacted.

Aww love that he gave her his chair, so cute

The way he looks at her omg

She can’t stop looking at his hands SAME

You read the comments as they floated up his screen. While it warmed your heart to know that his fans felt comfortable about your relationship with Noah, you couldn’t help but have negative thoughts intrude your mind about what could happen if you ever pursued him.

“Y/N, show some of yours,” he whispers to you once he’s finished. Before you can retaliate, he softly places a hand on your arm. He turns it to the inside, which shows an illustrated piece of a black cat right under the crease of your elbow.

So cuuuute

Love! I also have a cat tattoo

You smile toward the sweet comments in chat. Noah gives you a look of I told you so before mentioning that they’d be ending the steam after you showed off the tattoos you felt comfortable with.

— — —

The stream has ended and you’re left sitting in silence with him next to you.

“So, what’d you think?” He pushes his hair back before finally looking at you from his screen. “Hey, are you feeling okay?”

He watches as you frown and deny eye contact. He reaches across your lap to put a hand on your knee. He pulls you and you spin to face him so your knees touch.

“Will you please talk to me?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” you mutter. “It’s just— a lot of different feelings came up for me, and I don’t know what to think.”

“Like what? The chat, my fans, they loved you. I thought you were having as much fun as I was. I saw you smiling when they said we were cute together.” He grins while placing his hands in yours. You look down at them in your lap.

“I want to be cute together in more than just a friend way,” you admit. “I’m sorry.” You shut your eyes and squeeze his hands.

“Please don’t apologize for that, Y/N,” he huffs. His thumb brushes back and forth against the back of your hand, “I feel the same way, but I guess was scared to admit that, too.”

You explain to him how the idea of ruining your friendship haunts you or how he might feel pressure to have you in the public eye. “I just wish I told you so much sooner. It would have made things easier.”

“I’m ready to try now if you are.” He smiles softly while wiping a tear from your cheekbone. “In fact, I know where a couple of nerds like us could go on our first date,” he gushes and raises his brows teasingly.

You already know you’re headed to your favorite arcade bar with him at your side by the weekend. The thought of you being able to be closer than ever calms your nerves and gives you hope for your future together.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

When I first saw a Miraculous Ladybug salt post it was the usual Lila takes away all of Marinette's friends Adrien does nothing Marinette becomes super successful Lila gets exposed blah blah blah

When I see posts like the ones you post where people give actual constructive criticism about the characters and not favor one character over the other has made me realize that these are fictional characters and its not their fault they are the way they are. Also they're 14 what kind of 14 year old makes good choice's? Especially when they have the fate of the world/universe on their shoulders

If anything the character I really blame is Master Fu. He was obviously meant to be some sort of mentor figure for them or at least Marinette's mentor. He was the one to tell and encourage Marinette to keep everything a secret from Adrien. Comparing him to other mentor like figures in the world of superheros he isn't really all that helpful.

Compared to DC Ladybug and Chat Noir do not have any adult superheros to help them. In DC younger superheros have entire superhero families to help them out and if not that than they have other adult superheros to help them or they have an actual team. We know that other miraculous holders exist and the order is back I have a vague idea as to why they can't help but I still find it weird as to why they are around if not to help. Like phones and the internet exist do they not?

Sorry for they rant, I want to know what your thoughts are on this?

Your rant was fine! I don't think that I've talked in depth about mentors as a concept and I should both because I love mentors and because Miraculous has completely failed to give us any good ones. This is a writing failure not because good mentors are required, but because the show chose to have mentors characters and then not use them.

Before I get into the topic at large, I want to start with a brief discussion of mentors in shows aimed at young children as Miraculous' intended audience is young children and that fact is worth keeping in mind when discussing what Miraculous did wrong and some of the ways that you can fix it.

Shows aimed at kids generally avoid adult characters in major roles for the very obvious reason that the intended audience is kids, so you want the kid and teen characters to be the stars. This doesn't mean that adults aren't allowed to save the day or have important roles. It just means that they should be used sparingly. This is why mentors are a great addition to kids shows. They allow adult characters to be deeply involved with the plot without anyone expecting them to intervene because that's not their role in the story. They're not here to be the hero. They're here to guide the hero.

One of the powerful things about this setup is that it allows the writers to give the real kids watching at home real advice about real life problems. For example, if Marinette comes to Fu to talk about feeling alone and overwhelmed, then he can give her real, practical advice that would apply to anyone who is feeling alone and overwhelmed, but no one expects him to directly intervene because he's supposed to say hidden.

A lot of these elements apply to mentors in media aimed at older audiences, the rules just apply for different reasons, so I'm going to stop reminding you that Miraculous is for elementary school kids and focus on the failed mentor issue as it would be an issue no matter what Miraculous' intended audience was.

When it comes to bad mentoring, a lot of people focus on Fu and I get why. At first glance, he's the classic wise old Asian man who is supposed to be there to guide the protagonist on her mystical journey (not getting into the racism issue here, just know that I'm aware of it and that Miraculous dropped the ball on this in a lot of ways even though they absolutely could have made it work.) But Fu isn't the main focus of my ire because, while the writers seemed to have designed him around the mystic Asian trope, they never actually wrote him like a mentor.

He doesn't train Marinette and Adrien in the ways of the miraculous. He just sneakily gives them their miraculous and then disappears from their lives for quite some time. So he's not around to get them properly started on their hero journey. That's strike one for the mentor role.

Strike two is the fact that we never actually see him mentoring Marinette. I don't think that she ever went to him for advice? If she did, then it wasn't a big element of their relationship. When I think of Marinette and Fu, I picture her going to him to grab a miraculous or two before booking it back to the ongoing fight and that's about it. The guardian training she supposedly had was all off screen, so we have no idea how close they were or what he even taught her outside of potion making. Even that wasn't really him teaching her something. It was them working together to figure out a puzzle because Fu never completed his own training, making it impossible for him to properly train a successor.

Strike three is the fact that - outside of the King Monkey incident - Fu never gets directly involved in helping team miraculous. He's never gives them feedback on fights or works with Ladybug and Chat Noir to strengthen their bond. He doesn't even help them track down the two missing miraculous or hand out the temporary miraculous on Marinette's behalf, a choice I still find super weird. "This fight is super hard and we need help, so I'm going to leave Chat Noir to fight alone while I go get said help!" is absolutely nonsense logic and one of the many examples of the writers desperately needing to let Marinette hand her responsibilities off. Why wasn't this Fu's job?

This brings us to fix one: if you want the guardian to be a mentor - which is a role they arguably should have - then the guardian needs to be actively involved in Marinette and Adrien's lives in an on screen way. For this to work in the context of Miraculous - a show that really wants to focus on the teen characters - then the guardian probably needs a teenage apprentice who isn't Marinette and that apprentice will be the one doing the mentoring.

My pick for this is Luka for two big reasons. The first one is that his calm personality is perfectly suited to a mentor. The second one is that it seems insane to me to have the snake be a temp holder. The snake should be watching every fight, but staying out of the actual fight so that they can use their power whenever it's needed. That's the perfect role for a mentor character to fill. Someone who is active in the plot, but only ever as a support because their power stops them from getting more involved.

Moving on to the bigger issue.

As I said up above, Fu doesn't actually get my ire. While I wanted him to be a mentor, he never once filled that role and he didn't really need to because the show already had mentor figures that it was actively using and using poorly. Those figures are the ancient magical creatures that follow our heroes around, dispensing terrible advice whenever they feel like it. That's right, as much as it pains me, Miraculous' biggest mentor failures are Tikki and Plagg.

The miraculous did not need to have magical creatures associated with them. They could have just been magical jewelry that Fu handed out and explained. Instead, the writers chose to give us the Kwamis and I don't disagree with that choice. I like the Kwmais! The problem is that they're used in the most lackluster, asinine ways you possibly could.

The Kwamis are not presented as oblivious to the world and unable to give advice. They give lots of advice! The problem is that advice tends to suck! I can think of many examples of times where the Kwamis made everything worse, but let's look at the one that grinds my gears the most: Plagg's actions in season four.

In Rocketear - the episode where Nino gives Adrien an incredibly inaccurate picture of why he knows Alya's secret identity - we get this:

Adrien: I still can't believe Ladybug entrusted Alya and Nino with those Miraculous. Plagg: Of course she did. She's the Guardian. Adrien: But they're a couple and they know each other's secret identities. Plagg: So...? Adrien: So, why does she make it a rule that we can't know each other's identities but it's okay for them? Plagg: She's the Guardian, the Grandmaster Cheese Ripener, and you and I are just cheese on the platter. She decides what's on the menu.

Hey, Plagg, maybe don't tell your clearly upset and vulnerable teenage holder to just suck it up and deal with it when he's feeling alone and betrayed? Maybe encourage him to talk to Ladybug about his feelings so that he can get the full story? Knowing that they learned their identities during the Scarlet Moth incident would probably do a lot to smooth over Adrien's hurt feelings.

What's even more rich is that the episode Kuro Neko lets Plagg go off on Marinette for not appreciating Chat Noir:

Ladybug: What's gotten into him? I didn't do anything. Plagg: Didn't do anything? Well yeah, you did! You've been neglecting a very classy piece of camemebert on your plate for too long! And as a result it got runny, and moldy! Ladybug: What? Cat Noir never gave me any camembert. Plagg: Of course not, Cat Noir is the camembert! For a while now, you've been neglecting this camembert— I mean Cat Noir, and going on adventures with the all other cheeses! Ladybug: But he should be happy about it, it gives him more time off. Plagg: Cat Noir doesn't wanna have time off, Ladybug! He is in love with you! And your persistent calling on all the other heroes has broken his heart.

Dude, if you saw all of this going on, then why didn't you say something??? You and Tikki are in the same location for multiple hours five days a week. Go tell her how your holder is feeling and figure out how to fix the situation! Or be an actual mentor and encourage Adrien to talk to someone about his feelings! At the very least, cut up a wheel of cheese, sit down, and listen to your kid so that he feels less alone!

Also what exactly do you want Ladybug to do to fix the problem you presented? Let Paris burn until Chat Noir decides to show up to today's fight? Refuse to use the temp heroes even if it means losing a fight? None of those are valid solutions when the problem presented in the episode is Chat Noir missing fights. Especially when we know that he's doing it on purpose. Why are you yelling at her instead of working with her to come up with an actual solution? You are such a terrible mentor...

To be clear, I don't think any of this is intentional. I don't think the writers want Plagg and Tikki to come across as actively hurting their teenage charges via bad advice. I think Plagg and Tikki are supposed to be seen as good and helpful, but they can't fill that role because they're tools of the narrative and the narrative has really wacky views on what good advice is. Thus nonsense like the example I discussed above or Plagg and Tikki picking new holders instead of guiding their holders through an identity reveal.

I personally adore letting Plagg and Tikki be good mentors in my own stuff. It falls under the same category as Alya and Nino being terrible friends on screen. I acknowledge the problem and then delight in fixing it by writing the exact opposite setup because what is fanfiction for if not heavy self indulgence?

[froggiewrites]

Picture You (4/4)

Pairing: Sanji x Reader, Zoro x Reader

NSFW

Summary: The crew is celebrating their latest victory when they find you on their laps, drunk and clingy and affectionate, begging for attention. Sanji and Zoro both deal with a clingy drunk, and have deal with the unwanted feelings it brings from deep within them. Warnings: Smut, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Zoro has a bit of a size kink, he's also a bit possessive, Hurt/Comfort Word Count: 3.4k Crossposted from Ao3 Previous Chapter

Zoro is brooding when she finds him, of course. Glaring at the sea like it’s wronged him somehow, a glare fierce enough to send anyone running. Even knowing him as she does she almost wants to turn tail and climb right back down the ladder. His eyes shift to her, and she can see them soften ever so slightly, his hands unclenching from the fists he was holding them in. She doesn’t need to be afraid of Zoro. Not her, not ever.

He lets out a displeased grunt when she takes her final step into the crow’s nest, but he’s looking at her. That’s something, she tells herself. “Hey, Zoro.”

“Hey.” His voice is tight, and someone who knows him less would think it was unfriendly, but she knows better. She’s spent hours with him, fighting back to back, and she knows him well enough to see the slight blush on his cheek and know all of this tension is from embarrassment. For all of the confidence he exudes, Zoro has never been good with people, never gotten particularly close with them. What happened last night was probably uncharted territory for him, she realizes. The crew, her wonderful dear friends, all struggled with normal human interaction, sharing a lot of firsts together. She realizes that this was almost certainly a first for Zoro. He had probably never cuddled someone before, let alone in front of an audience. Was this the first time he had held hands with someone else, fingers interlocked?

No wonder he had run. She’s surprised he maintained his composure enough to stay with her the entire night. He was probably nervous and confused, and had no idea what to do or say the next day.

“Can I sit with you? For a bit?”

“Hmm.” He barely lets out a grunt, but he adjusts to make room for her all the same. Just another in a sea of small concessions he makes for her, small gestures that speak so much louder than his words ever would. She sits down next to him, close enough for their knees to brush together, and she feels a small flutter when he doesn’t shift away.

They sit in silence for a while, not as comfortable as their usual but not nearly as tense as she had expected. He closes his eyes, shifting his head back, but she can tell he isn’t actually asleep. She can’t tell if he’s pretending for his sake or for hers. They both relax all the same.

Her voice is barely a whisper when it breaks the silence. “Zoro?”

He lets out a soft hum.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.” The response is quick, firm, and final.

“Good.”

A couple more beats of silence.

“Can I sit on your lap again?”

He chokes on his own spit. “What?” 

His voice is harsher than he intends, and she almost loses her nerve, but she quietly reminds herself that this is his default when he gets nervous or embarrassed. He doesn’t know how else to respond. “Can I sit on your lap? It’s okay if you don’t want me to, I just–” her cheeks flush, and she looks away from him. “I just thought it might be nice. To be close again.”

His eyes bore into her, searching, considering. He wonders if she’s teasing him somehow, but her voice is calling out again in his head. I’m lonely, Zoro. He sees her big doe eyes, begging him to help her. Before he realizes it, he’s spread his arms out for her, welcoming. She practically runs into his lap, scared he’ll change his mind, and he has her held firmly against his chest in an instant. His eyes are anywhere but on her, his face aflame, but she’s in his arms, safe and happy, and he can’t help it if his heart flutters a bit at the idea.

She rests her cheek against his chest, eyes fluttering closed, practically purring. He rests his chin on the top of her head, both to hold her closer and to ensure she can’t see the embarrassment that might show on his face. She tries to wrap her arms around him, but he’s pinned her so tightly she can’t really move. Not hard enough to hurt, just…firm. In control.

“Thank you.” He can feel her smile against his chest as she says it.

“Hm. This isn’t something you have to thank me for.” He keeps his voice controlled, softer, fighting his instinct to get gruff in his embarrassment. His hand starts rubbing small circles on her back, and she hums quietly.

“But I want to anyway.” She leaves the I know this is hard for you out, knowing it will make him pull back, shy away. Zoro is not a man who likes to admit when he’s struggling. Ever the protector, the warrior, the guard dog. She wants him to know that he can let down those walls, that he’s allowed a little softness, but that is a discussion for later. There’s more obvious things to address, for today. “Why did you run away from me this morning?”

He tenses, but does not move. “I didn’t run away.”

“You’re not a very good liar.” He’s grateful for the slight laugh in her voice, the smile he can both hear and feel calming him down enough to keep his composure.

“I needed–I had to go on watch. For…safety.” He winces at his own fumbling.

“We never have anyone on watch during meals, Zoro.”

“We should. I’m starting.”

“No, you aren’t.” Her voice is firm.

His turns teasing. “Oh, I’m not?”

“No, you aren’t. You aren’t going to stop hanging out with us to brood up here.”

“I don’t brood.” She can hear the pout in his voice.

“You love brooding. You do it all the time. You were literally just brooding before I got here.”

He lets out a hmph that shows his displeasure but does nothing for his argument. He just leans them both back a bit further, resting against the wall, holding her close. She lets the silence linger.

His fingers continue their ministrations on her back, relaxing and strangely intimate. They both start to slow their breathing, and it doesn’t take long for his fingers to slowly glide to a stop as he begins snoring above her. She leans into him, listening to his soft and steady heartbeat as it lulls her to sleep.

They don’t nap for long, no more than an hour, surely, but it’s the best sleep she’s had in quite a while. She stirs, and pulls back to see Zoro woke up before her. He sat here for however long, just holding her.

“Sleep well?” His voice is a little scratchy, and her thighs clench a little. Unfortunately since she is practically straddling him, he feels it too. His eyes show a brief panic, before he quickly covers it with teasing. “Oh, that for me?”

Her cheeks heat, but she plays along. “And what if it is?”

A beat of silence as he adjusts to the idea. “Just for me?” His voice is thick. But then another thought strikes him, and he pulls back a bit. “Not for the cook?”

She’s relieved he brought it up first. “Would that bother you?”

“If you were thinking about another man in my lap?”

“Oh, no, um–” she falters, “Not right now, no. Just like, in general?”

“If you were into both of us, in general?” He ponders a moment. Zoro has never thought himself the jealous type, just the kind of person who is defensive over his things and his people. He didn’t like the idea of another man having her, keeping them apart. But sharing? An interesting proposal. He thinks of the cook holding her, as he is now, with the thought that she would still return to him. He doesn’t feel the ache in his chest he expects. He then has a few more images flash through his head, of her pressed between them, moaning and begging, so overwhelmed she can’t even call out either of their names. He can’t keep the lustful smile from his face as heat rushes downward. “I think I could live with that.”

“Really?” Her face lights up.

“I don’t think I’m the one you’d have to worry about with that.”

“Sanji’s okay with it.”

“You two talked about it?” He’s a little surprised, he’ll admit. He didn’t think the chef would be willing to share. Even more lewd possibilities fill his mind, ones that make his cock harden further. Her mouth full of him, forced further down with Sanji’s thrusts. Her moans around his shaft, the feeling of it. God, maybe it isn’t just something he could live with. Maybe he could want it. “Good. Saves a conversation.”

She lets out a sigh of relief. “This went so much better than I expected. I’m so glad, Zoro. I care about you so much.”

He tenses under her as his mind is sharply redirected from his fantasies. “That so?” He would never admit how his heart skipped when she said that. Nor would he admit to the small, lovesick smile that made its way onto his face.

“Yeah.” Her own smile is just as full of fondness. She slides forward again, her lips brushing lightly against his. She adjusts so her knees rest on either side of his waist, her thighs against his. She can feel his hardness, and to test the waters brushes lightly against it. He juts up his hips to meet her, and he’s proud to say she moans first.

He smirks down at her. “You feel that?” She lets out a soft whine as he thrusts again. “That’s all for you. You wanna feel more?”

She nods, but his hands come down to her hips to stop her from grinding down on him. “Use your words, baby. You have to speak up.”

She whimpers. “Please, I wanna feel more.” She’s still trying to grind down, and at her words, he lets her. He can feel how wet she is through her pants, the dampness making its way through the fabric. He wants to tease her more, but he also desperately needs to feel her wrapped around his cock.

His hands reach under her shirt, sliding it up over her head and revealing her body to him. She thrusts her chest out, begging him silently to touch her, but he just chuckles, reaching back to unclasp her bra and throw it aside. She leans forward more, trying to tempt him, and he laughs again. “Your words.”

“Touch me, Zoro.”

And he does. His large, calloused hands grope at her chest, pinching and squeezing in time to his thrusts. His touch is somehow both harsh and gentle, so fitting for a man so unyielding but who can be so very tender. His mouth begins on her neck, biting and sucking, trying to leave as many marks as he possibly can. He wants to see it, proof that she’s his. That this is happening. That this is real.

He finds her sweet spot, bringing a high mewl from her lips, one that surely can be heard from the deck below. She’s too lost in the feeling to care, and he’s too proud to bring himself to feel embarrassed. He almost hopes that they can hear it, that they know what they’re doing. That he’s making it happen.

“Zo–Zoro!” She cries so sweetly, so beautifully. By the time he’s done, he’ll make sure that’s all she can say, if she can speak at all. “Zoro, please! More!”

He chuckles cruelly. “More? You’re getting a bit greedy, aren’t you?” He holds himself back from ripping off the rest of their clothes and pounding her into the ground like an animal. There will be time for that yet.

“Please!” She grinds down harder, and her mouth leans forward to take his. Her hands tug at his shirt frantically. She feels like she’ll die if she doesn’t feel more of him, all of him, every single inch. Her hands grope at his chest, his abs, hands sliding under his shirt to trace his scars. She wants to know him, totally and completely, and be known in return. She breaks the kiss to once again beg. “Please, Zoro. I want to really feel you.”

How could he turn down such a request? He slowly raises his shirt above his head, not pausing his thrusts for a moment, slowly revealing his body to her. She’s seen him shirtless dozens of times, but it still takes her breath away. He’s so beautiful, every inch of his sturdy and strong. She feels so weak next to him, so small and delicate. It’s not a feeling she’s used to, but it’s one she’s beginning to relish in. After taking off his shirt, he grabs her hips and lifts her like she’s nothing. She lets out a noise of complaint, but he shushes her. “Didn’t you want to really feel me?”

He sets her down on her back, the cool wood making her shudder. His fingers slide below the waistband of his pants, and she sits at attention. He can see hunger and want in her face, fueling his own desires. He slides both his pants and underwear down in one smooth motion, his cock standing at attention the moment it’s freed.

“God,” she moans quietly. “God, you’re beautiful. God you’re–you’re so–”

“Big?” The grin on his face is smug, his voice taunting, but she can’t bring herself to be angry.

“Yeah,” she says breathlessly. “Big.” She instinctively reaches for him, wanting to feel it heavy and hard in her hand, but he pins her by her wrists the moment she tries.

“Tsk. Not so fast.” He towers over her, slowly pressing their chests together. “You don’t just get to take what you want, sweetheart.”

Her voice is pleading. “Please, can I touch your cock?”

“Hmm…” he presses closer to her as he pretends to consider. “I don’t think so. Not now.”

She whines, “Please, Zoro.”

He tsks at her. “It can’t be all about you, babe. I get what I want, too. And right now, I want to fuck you so hard into this floor you forget everything but my name.”

She lets out an unashamed, wanton moan. He takes that as agreement, keeping her wrists pinned with one hand and using the other to slide her out of her pants and panties. He stays up for a moment to admire her, lust in his eyes briefly becoming something softer. She’s beautiful like this, the sunlight on her skin and dancing in her hair. She looks like an angel.

He’ll fix that.

He lines himself up with her entrance, keeping his eyes locked on hers while he does it. She’s making the most pathetic little noises even before he fills her, just begging wordlessly to be touched, for him to make good on his promise.

He enters her all at once, bottoming out in a single moment. She squeals, squirming, unable to decide if she wants to move closer or run away. He leans down, removing the hand on her wrists only to intertwine both his hands with hers and press her even deeper into the wood below them. They’re chest to chest, her tits rubbing his pecs, and every bit of friction is a heavenly torture.

“Are you ready?” Every part of his body is tense from holding back, but he still checks in on her.

“Yes. Please fuck me Zoro, please.”

He pulls out before slamming their hips together so hard she almost cries out in pain. His pace is immediately brutal, unyielding as he is in every other part of his life. He presses her hard into the ground, filling all of her senses, leaving her with nothing but him. The feel of his skin, his scent, the sounds of his quiet moans. It’s all him, the world outside the crow’s nest might as well have stopped existing. He kisses her, hard and fast, teeth clacking together and tongues intertwining.

But as rough as he is in every other aspect, the hands holding hers are gentle, the press of their palms together a soft grounding point for her to focus on when the rest becomes too much. He holds her like she’ll break under his weight, and she knows that as unrestrained he may seem, he is completely and totally in control of both of them right now. He could probably break her beneath him with his thrusts if he wanted to, but each one manages to toe the line between pleasure and pain. Never too much, never enough to hurt, but always enough to keep the heat in her building. Always enough to make her moan against his lips, to keep her hips stuttering against his desperately.

He breaks their kiss as they both grow closer to their release, grunting against her ear. “Tell me who’s fucking you like this. Tell me who you want. Who you need.”

“Zoro!”

“Good. Now tell the world. Loud as you can, sweetheart.”

“Zoro!”

He can’t help the pride that blooms in his chest and the smirk on his face. It’s all him. He’s making her cry out like this. His name. He’s making her come undone beneath him. And he’s going to fill her to the brim.

“There you go. Just like that.” She keeps crying out, his name turning to meaningless babbles, and he releases one of her hands to bring his down to her clit. He’s holding himself back, determined to cum at the same time. To share their ecstasy, to have her look him in the eyes and feel his cum fill her at the same time she comes undone around him.

After only a few seconds they’re there, their moans so loud he’s convinced it could be heard all across the Grand Line. He feels her squeeze around him, feels his cock twitch within her, and he brings his mouth down to bite her shoulder. One final mark, one final reminder.

Their chests both heave as they sit in silence for a few moments, coming down from their highs. He rolls off of her, pulling out, only to pull her onto his chest. His fingers run through her hair, and he brings his lips to her forehead like it’s the most natural thing in the world. They’re staring at each other, simply taking in the feeling of being together.

She wants to say it to him then, those three little words. She knows they both feel it, as they lay together, looking into each other’s eyes. She so badly wants to say it. But she fears it’ll scare him away, that it will be too much for him and that this beautiful, delicate thing they’ve made together will shatter under the weight of her words.

She doesn’t say it, not yet. Not until he’s ready. But a lot can be communicated in a look, in a smile, in a gentle caress. She can see it in his face that he knows, even if he won’t acknowledge it aloud. That’s enough, for now.

They lay, enjoying each other's presence for a while, before she can see in his face he’s about to doze off in the peace of it all. His eyes have drifted closed, his face relaxing in a way it only does when he’s unconscious.

“Zoro?”

“Hm?”

“We should probably clean up and get dressed. Before someone comes up here to get us for dinner.”

“Ugh.” They’re both caked in sweat, but she supposes for him that’s pretty normal. “Why do we have to?”

“We’re kind of gross right now.”

“So?”

She sighs. “We could take a bath.”

“No.”

“We could take a bath together.”

His eyes open at that. “Hm.” He sits up slowly, taking her with him, and they gather up their clothes, sliding them on at a relaxed pace. She tries to ignore the cum getting on her panties. There’s not really anything else to wipe it up with up here.

When they make their way back on the deck, his hand finds the small of her back to guide her to the bathroom. A small gesture, but one that says so much. A small touch that reminds her I’m here, it’s alright.

As they strip down again in the steam of the bathroom, his hands tenderly undressing her, she looks forward to many more small gestures, ones that say the words she knows they’re both thinking.

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Lesbian Pulp Breakdown #1

So I’ll be doing a talk and breakdown of this book.

Few things before going on, there will be spoilers but like there isn’t much of a plot to begin with. And be warned very triggering content after will be discussed.

Okay so this book is filled to the brim with problematic lesbian pulp stereotypes.

Firstly it’s written by a straight man and based on the context you can tell it was intended for a straight male audience.

However, despite that and despite it being published in 1965, some of the views on lesbians aren’t as bad as I thought they would be.

It’s mainly implied that everyone in the book accepts that lesbians are just lesbians because it’s how they are born and not from like trauma or anything. Which I wasn’t expecting at all!! And no lesbian dies at the end, or ends up with a man or gets sent to a mental institution.

Our main characters are Brandy, Claire, Edwin and Meta.

Brandy is teen lesbian of the story. Her actual age is never clarified though. She lives in Europe with her mother and goes to a rich boarding school until said mother passes away and she gets send to love with her father , Edwin.

Edwin is married to Brandy’s stepmother Claire, who is a 23 year old woman who admits early on she only married Edwin for the social status and to get money.

Lastly we have Meta. She is a woman who is well off and recently her uncle dies. She has to prove she is worthy of inheriting his estate by having a job, which she has never had before. So she gets a position as Brandy’s governess.

That’s the basic run down.

Based on the cover you would think the main relationship would be between Brandy and Claire. But after they both conspire to kill Edwin it’s actually Brandy and Meta that end up together ???? Even though there relationship started off SO toxic. A lot of abuse between those two.

While reading I made a list of all the bad things that happened in this book and boy is it a lot ☠️

- So much sexual assault

- Physical abuse

- predatory lesbian stereotype

- Using sex to manipulate people

- Body shaming

- Sexism

- Sexualising the idea of sexual assault

- Toxic and predatory relationships between women

- Unhealthy age gaps

- Wayyyyy too much heterosexual sex scenes

- Abuse of power

- Physical violence

- Homophobia/ homophobic slurs

So apart from the small little pockets of no homophobia around the end this book was a hot mess and I absolutely would not recommend it at all.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a wild part. So Brandy and Claire plan to kill Edwin so they can have all his money. They do this by having Claire have sex with him until his heart gives out. Which works ?? But then it turns out Edwin was a fraud and they lose all his money and because of that they break up and don’t want to be together anymore. Which is where Meta comes in and says she’ll take Brandy with her to be a live in companion and pay her for it. Absolutely wild.

[kaeyacollection]

Who's ready for my Master Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Crepus Theory!!

I originally posted this over at Hoyolab and people there seemed to really like my favorite joke theory that Crepus just tries to gaslight the whole of Mondstadt right after obtaining Kaeya

Majority of this will be the same but with little tweaks for the wonderful tumblr audience

This joke stems from Kaeya's introduction:

and the use of the word "rumored"

Cause it's not like it said beyond Teyvat or the seven nations just Mondstadt

And I mean like c'mon how many families are living off the grid in Mondstadt

(Actually... Don't answer that I forgot Glory's boyfriend is just

Out there in the bush with Razor...)

Initially I had the idea of Crepus walking around the markets one day carrying Kaeya with Diluc beside him running into Varka who asks:

"Who's the boy?"

"You mean my son?"

"Not Diluc the boy you're carrying"

"I have two sons? You know this??"

But then the Caribert quest came out mentioning Kaeya ran away from home near immediately and was dragged home by Crepus just as fast and it became even funnier

Cause imagine you're by the docks one day and richest man in town gets off the boat with no cargo but instead a tiny child you may not have seen before that Crepus seems to be very cross with at the moment and threatening to turn him into a leash kid if he runs off again

In a small town that loves gossip do you know how fast that information is spreading? Cause I do and Varka's knocking on Crepus's door 30 minutes later like:

"Is this what we're doing? We're just taking kids now?"

Both paths lead to Varka asking where Kaeya comes from and getting hit with a

"I think you're a bit too old to still be confused about the birds and the bees Varka"

Varka getting frustrated to the point he just starts demanding Kaeya tell him what's up

Love to see him following in his fathers footsteps of stressing Varka the fuck out

And upon hearing how his birth father left for juice and didn't return Varka went

"Good! That was ALL I needed to know!!"

Follow ups on if his father intended to abandon him or got lost in the storm and needed a search party?

Don't care!! You weren't kidnapped!!

Welcome to the knights! 🤝

Which bringing it back to it only being a rumor

In a town of alcoholics, who's gonna call out the one guy with the winery?

Here's some add ons that got sparked from the comment section 😘

Bonus panels would have included Varka showing up with Rosaria one day mimicking Crepus about "wHaT you ForGot I haD a Kid" sparking a trend within the community of just adopting random children to the point posters are made saying "In Barbatos name: See a child Take a child"

Alice seeing it and pulling a "when in rome" tucking both Albedo and Diluc(who is yelling he is an adult) under her arms and telling Klee if she ever sees someone in need of a mom let her know she'll send over the paperwork right away

And then the last bonus: Venti wakes up, walks in through the gate while playing a tune, and stops when he sees the poster, not sure if he needs to start yet another revolution, or if this one is fine actually

I imagine the posters had to be taken down because visitors were losing their kids left and right and the solution of parents pinning a note saying "not dead & still want custody" to their kids shirt didn't catch on but the saying still lives strong in the hearts of Mondstadt's citizens I mean look Bennett and his 27 dads Mondstadt may have a lot of orphans but the demand is even higher

Comment on original post:

"I have a headcanon where Kaeya fooled first Crepus, then the rest of Mondstadt but.this is too funny!! I want to see this happening!"

Which prompted one of my new favorite lines at the end:

"Wait by fool Crepus first do you mean like Crepus finding him out in the storm bringing him inside to ask him where he lives and Kaeya's just

"? I live here? You adopted me? Are you feeling okay?"

Cause I'm absolutely cry laughing over this that's so good but that also means when Kaeya runs away Crepus is just

"hey no no l'm not misplacing you a second time come home" "

[persianflaw]

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL!

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL! The M*A*S*H fanfiction community has been approved! actually it was approved two weeks ago but i was on vacation

This community is open to any and all fans of M*A*S*H fic. Whether you're a writer, a reader, or a total newbie, this space is for you! You can talk about fics you've loved, ask for advice about a sticky plot point in your latest WIP, ask for recommendations for a ship you like, share an AO3 link to your latest fic, or share snippets from your work; the world is your oyster!

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