Tumgik
#I mean it's pretty unrealistic but still just in case
xxsabitoxx · 10 months
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My Personal Upper Moon 🍆 Ranking
Warnings: if it isn’t obvious already, this post is taking about the Upper Moon’s and my personal HC on their dick sizes. If that makes you uncomfortable in any way, just keep scrolling
A/N: I was actually very surprised by the amount of comments on my Hashira version of this HC post. So I feel a little more comfortable with giving the Upper Moons a go, especially since someone asked if I would do it eheheh. That being said, these men are demons, therefore you may find my size rankings to be a bit unrealistic. But I’m not gonna go crazy and say Muzan has a dick that’s 2 miles long.
This post includes: Muzan, Kokushibo, Douma, Akaza, Hantengu’s clones (Karaku, Urogi, Sekido and Aizetsu), Gyutaro and Kaigaku. And no Gyokko cause that man doesn’t have a dick, period.
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In a category of his own: Muzan Kibutsuji
Muzan clearly deserves a category of his own for one particular reason: he’s able to alter his appearance.
Therefore, he’s able to change the size of his dick whenever the fuck he feels like it.
And don’t try and say that stupid cause he can literally change gender and age so changing his dick size isn’t out of the question
On average, Muzan prefers to have a larger dick, mostly because he’s a pussy ass bitch man that needs that kind of confidence down there, if you get what I mean.
Typically soft: 10.5
Typically hard: 11.7
But he can make it as big, small, curved, wide, as he wants
When he wants to torture your ass, he’ll make himself as girthy as he sees fit just to watch you cry and squirm and beg for something a little smaller.
Anytime you get “comfortable” he just increases his girth until you’re crying again. Your pleasure is never his first priority, it’s always his.
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1. Kokushibo
Among the demons, it should be no shock that Upper Moon One has always been packing. This man is petrifying so it’s only right that his dick is equally as intimidating as him
Even as a human, this man’s dick was deadly. You can’t change my mind either.
Just in case you’re wondering, Yoriichi is bigger
That’s beside the point, Kokushibo has a lot to work with down there. Whether it’s hard or soft ngl
When soft: 9.5
When hard: 10.7
He’s long, girthy and curves slightly upwards. He’s heavy too, your jaw will certainly hurt by the time you’re done with him.
He’s the type to put a pillow or blanket of some sort under your lower back as he fucks you. Mostly because he’s not clueless to the fact that his dick is big
Kokushibo is the type to ease you into it though, he’s stern but he has a teeny bit of empathy when it comes to fucking you. Unless you’ve pissed him off ofc.
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2. Akaza
I know this one is gonna be controversial, especially since I’m putting him above Douma but hear me out.
This man has audacity, which means he got a big dick. No demon is acting like Akaza and having a small dick to go with it. Nuh uh, no sir.
Akaza is sitting pretty knowing damn well his cock is bigger than Douma’s and it actually something Douma taunts him with… which you think the roles would be reversed but hey…
When soft: 8.5
When hard: 9.7
He’s straight, no real curve to him and he has a single blue line going up the underside of his shaft and one that wraps around just before the head of his dick. Like as in the lines that cover his body lol
Akaza is probably the “gentlest” of all the upper moons because of the respect he has for women
That’s not to say he isn’t rough with you, but he definitely cares about your pleasure and feelings more than Douma or Muzan would for example
He’s pretty confident in himself though, at least that’s how it seems to you. He knows what he’s doing to say the least
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3. Douma
Alright listen, this man is still packing down there so don’t get mad at me for putting him at third.
His dick is smaller than Akaza’s but not by a ton. Let’s be honest Douma is probably the straightest and gayest demon to ever exist. The embodiment of bisexual LMAO
How does Douma know Akaza’s dick is bigger? The world may never know
When soft: 8
When hard: 9.2
It’s pale like the rest of him, a pretty noticeable curve to it as well. He has some prominent veins because of how pale he is. His tip is like a pinkish gray (idk why I felt the need to include this)
He’s pretty girthy too, so he definitely will make your walls stretch uncomfortably if he doesn’t offer you foreplay
Douma is rough, selfish and truly only cares about his own pleasure but he likes watching you whine and squirm while being impaled on his cock
Douma also has a thing for “belly bulges” so he will fuck you in some odd positions if he means he can see his dick from the outside… if ya know what I mean
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4. Gyutaro
Listen, plz just listen cause I promise you I’m going somewhere with this. Cause I can already hear y’all being like ???Scrawny ass Gyutaro is in 4th??? Yes. He is.
Gyutaro got himself a bit of an upgrade when becoming a demon. He for sure does not look like he did a a human. By that I mean he’s taller than he was (even tho he’s hunched)
What I’m tryna get at is demon transformation made his dick bigger and Imma live in my little fantasy world
When soft: 6.5
When hard: 7.2
Gyutaro’s dick is as curved as his spine and as thick as his tiny ass waist. He’s got length but not crazy girth.
Even if he’s rough, it feels good. Like there isn’t a ton of discomfort if he goes in raw with no prep cause he wants to punish you, he’s like the perfect amount of stretch
He’s mean, verbally and physically but at the same time he’s a fucking sucker for your body so he can’t really say much without whining and groaning
He’s got some confidence in his cock but he’s also a bit envious of the other upper moons
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5. The Hantengu Clones (Sekido, Karaku, Aizetsu, Urogi)
I’ve talked about my dick HCs for these four in my A-Z NSFW alphabet and I was tryna be realistic. However, when it comes to this post, fuck being realistic.
Sekido when soft 6.2 | when hard 7.1
Karaku when soft 6 | when hard 6.9
Urogi when soft 5.9 | when hard 6.7
Aizetsu when soft 5.7 | when hard 6.5
There is so much to say here but honestly my brain is malfunctioning so I can’t even delve into it
Regardless, the four of these demons fuck very differently and use their dicks very differently
Sekido and Urogi have no curve, Karaku has a slight curve and Aizetsu’s curves upwards
Hantengu himself had a 3 inch dick and you can’t tell me otherwise. Pussy ass bitch
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6. Kaigaku
I hate this little bitch but I’m including him so I can rag on his fugly ass. Kaigaku simps I’m sorry but I can’t stand him
This douche has the smallest dick among the upper moons. This is full Kaigaku slander.
When soft: 5.2
When hard: 6
I’ll give him a decent dick tho cause boy does he have the fucking audacity
That’s all I’m gonna give y’all cause I ain’t wasting my time on him GOOD BYE I didn’t even tag is ass
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bruisedboys · 8 months
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can I request the prompt “95: sender cradles receiver’s face” with remus lupin? maybe him and shy!reader’s first kiss?
thank you for the request lovely! and I’m really sorry it took so long. hope this is okay angel 🤍
remus lupin x fem!reader
Remus looks at you like no one’s ever looked at you before. He looks at you and it’s like you’ve been struck by lightning.
“What?” You ask, still not used to how he looks at you like you’re made of gold. Your cheeks burn.
Remus tips his head to the side and drags his thumb across the space beneath your eye. Your heart skyrockets. You’re so unfamiliar with being touched in such a mindless way in such an insignificant spot. It feels like he’s got fire in his fingers when he does it.
“I’m not allowed to look at you?” Remus asks, frowning a frown that’s too deep to be real.
You huff, too flustered by his touching and his staring to do anything else. “You’re allowed,” you say quietly. “I’m just.” Shy? Nervous? So in love with him it freaks you out every time you think about it? “Never mind.”
Remus laughs softly and it sends what feels like a shockwave through your chest. He’s got the best laugh you’ve ever heard, all lovely and smooth like honey.
“You’re just what, babe?” He asks gently. In all the affection you’ve look away, eyes fixed on Remus’ knees, and he tilts you back up to look at him now, both hands on your face so you can’t escape. “Shy? You’ve got no reason to be. It’s just me.”
That’s kind of the point, you want to say. “Right,” you say instead. The word comes out sounding half-strangled though you don’t mean it to.
Remus smiles and pushes his hand backward to brush your hair away from your neck. He keeps his hand there, in the juncture between your neck and shoulder.
“But,” he says, “if you want me to stop I will. Just say the word, pretty girl.”
In truth, you don’t want him to stop. He’s looking at you like he wants to kiss you and he’s close enough to actually kiss you. You bite the inside of your mouth and try to remember if you brushed your teeth before he came over.
“I, um. You don’t have to stop,” you say, words jumbled and your heart pumping hard. You did brush your teeth, you remember with a flood of relief. You do every time you see Remus, just in case. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Remus smiles and a wrinkle like a dimple appears in his cheek. It’s not quite a dimple but you like it better that way.
“I thought so,” he says. Not condescending, but not all together serious either. His smile makes the difference, teasing but still saccharine sweet.
You’re so busy staring at his lips you don’t notice how much closer he’s gotten in the past two seconds. He’s so close you could count his eyelashes. You look up at them, at his unfairly gorgeous brown eyes, the tiny scar running just beneath his eye, and try not to pass out.
He’s close enough that you can feel his warm breath on your lips when he says, “Do you want a kiss?”
You don’t have it in you to open your mouth and say an actual word. Instead you nod, past caring how desperate you look.
You get to see Remus’ pretty answering smile for about a half a second before it’s pressed to your mouth. He’s achingly gentle, his hand a steadying weight at the bottom of your neck, fingers curled round to brush the nape. His other hand stays at your cheek, pulling you into him carefully.
His lips on yours is a feeling you can’t describe. It’s exciting. It’s maddening. It makes you want more and makes you want to pull away for fear of going feral all at once. It’s a short kiss, compared to at least ones you’ve seen on TV, though you know those are staged and unrealistic. You’re happy anyway. And you’d probably die in Remus’ hands if he’d kissed you any longer.
You’re noticeably more breathless than Remus when he pulls away. You’d try to hide it but you’re too busy being frazzled.
“You okay?” He asks you, sounding genuinely concerned. He hooks a finger under your chin. He clocks the look on your face and his concern turns into teasing fast. “Woah. I’m not that bad at kissing, am I?”
You groan and tug yourself out of his grasp to hide your boiling hot face in your hands. It’s likely you’ll hide here for the rest of your life.
Remus laughs. “Oh, come on,” he protests, hands at your forearms and climbing. “Come out and I’ll give you another?”
Never mind.
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bunny-xoxo · 6 months
Text
Take It Slow
MINORS DNI
Yuuta Okkotsu x afab!reader
wc: 4.1k
warning(s): established relationship, friends to lovers implied, heavy petting, fingering, masturbation, oral (reader receiving), choking (reader receiving), instance of breath play as a result, slight corruption kink from Yuuta, inexperienced reader, a single instance of slightly mean Yuuta, reader’s chest anatomy is not referenced/described
a/n: first NSFW piece in a VERY long time, was picked from the poll so here you go! hope you all enjoy :)! Also jus wanna say there is NOTHING weird or wrong about being a virgin at any age just so you guys know <33 🫶 also in case it needs to be said, this is an unrealistic portrayal of participating in kink for the first time! Boundaries and safety should be discussed at length before these things, but this is fiction so just wanted to make that clear 😭🤍 anyways enjoy <3
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“Yuuta, stop! I don’t wanna talk about it!” You whined and buried your face further into his chest hoping to spare yourself of the embarrassment from the conversation you’re sure the two of you are about to have.
“Sweetheart, I’m your boyfriend, you knew it was gonna come up sooner or later. Besides, you’re literally the one who started the conversation! There’s no way you’re getting out of it now.” He let out a few boyish chuckles as he tried to pry your face away from him and out of the covers, just to see you pressing your lips together and closing your eyes in protest.
Sure, did you figure at some point the fact you haven’t gone farther than holding hands and sharing a few quick pecks was gonna be brought up? Probably. Especially after 4 whole months of being in a relationship? Maybe. Did you think it’d be right now? No! But is it your fault? Unfortunately, yes.
You’d known Yuuta long before the two of you started dating, having been apart of his friend group since freshman year of high school, and you’ve always had a secret crush on your friend. He was kind, never failed to make you smile, charmingly awkward (so charming you almost thought he faked it), & all things endearing. It wasn’t until a few months ago, now in your fourth and final year at University, that the two of you had confessed your feelings for the other. You had a bottle of tequila and Maki to thank for that.
And honestly, it couldn’t have been more perfect since. He was still sweeter than ever, a complete gentleman always, and even though it’d only been a couple months he’s never failed to make you constantly feel cared for and appreciated. There was only one problem: how were you supposed to tell him you’ve lied about every instance of you hooking up ever? And you haven’t even done so much as grind on someone, let alone fuck?
Maybe you could blame it on Yuuji, he’s the one who brought it up the first time anyways, innocently teasing you about how “you probably don’t even know how to give head”. He was 16, and all 16 year old boys are stupid as shit - besides Yuuta you suppose - so you’ll forgive him for it.
“Fuck you Yuuji, you’re just saying that cause you’re embarrassed you can’t last longer than 10 seconds inside a girl.”
“That literally happened once, and it was my first time! What, you’re telling me your first time was any better?”
It was just humiliating to think of looking at your friends, who definitely weren’t virgins anymore (besides Toge, maybe Toge, you never really trusted his whole story - but that’s beside the point), and tell them yeah no, I haven’t even seen a dick in person!
“No, he was ass, too.” You did your best to not draw attention to the way your palms were sweating profusely, fighting every instinct in you to wipe them off on the denim of your jeans.
“Yep, fits the bill.” Mai rolled her eyes at the thought of her own experience with a man, must’ve been pretty bad.
It’d make more sense to blame it on your age than Yuuji really, looking back it wouldn’t have been embarrassing for more than a couple weeks at most to have admitted you were a virgin when the matter was pressed. But that’s not what past you thought, and now it’s current you’s problem.
“I know, I know, but now I change my mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Your lips are pushed out and puckered slightly from the way Yuuta has your cheeks squished together - his best effort at making you smile right now.
He lets go of your cheeks to squeeze your shoulder gently, looking at your face for a moment before speaking softly.
“You know you can tell me anything, right? I’d never judge you for anything, make comments, nothing. Swear on it.” His voice dipped low with sincerity as he dramatically “crossed his heart and hoped to die”, it was a little goofy but that’s okay.
It was hard to speak while he was staring down at you like that, you knew he’d be nothing but gentle and kind, but the thought of actually talking about it made your stomach twist ‘n turn.
“Uh”, your voice trembled more than you’d like to admit and it did nothing to help your nerves, “I guess I asked what you’d do if I lied about not being a virgin cause, I’m, like, a virgin. Yeah.” You might’ve stumbled through your sentence, but you got there eventually.
His hand continued to rub circles on your skin as he spoke, “Well, I kind of figured that much when you first asked that, cause why else would you. Is that all you wanted to tell me though?”
Glancing up to meet his eyes, you were confused, visibly confused. Was that it? Was he really not gonna pester about why you lied, when you lied, or why you’re grown and still a virgin?
You squinted your eyes and hummed quietly, unreasonably suspicious of him - which he could clearly see.
Rolling his eyes playfully, he groaned out your name and pulled your face close to his so you couldn’t escape him even if you wanted to.
“Ya know, I was kind of talking about the first question you asked me. The one before you cut me off and changed the subject with the whole ‘I’m a virgin thing.’ I want to talk to you about that.”
You’re sure you were listening, it’s just that his face was so close to you that his breath was intermingling with yours, and you could practically taste the gum he was chewing while studying earlier. Not only that but his eyelashes were so pretty and doll like from this angle, looking up at him with his hands still on your cheeks. And his hands were so warm and soft - or was your face warm?
“Are you really ignoring me right now?” He wondered where your mind wandered to, cause clearly with the way you were looking at him with hearts in your eyes and invisible stars circling around your head - you couldn’t have been listening to him.
“Huh?”
Yeah, you definitely weren’t listening to him.
“Baby, are you okay with talking about what you asked me earlier? It’s okay if the answer is no.” His eyes were glued to your face as your own darted around the room.
You wanted to speak up but your throat was dry and your face was hot, and honestly it felt like your jaw was wired shut; a simple nod will have to do.
It felt like the room was getting smaller at the lack of a response from Yuuta until you felt him lean just a tad closer and gently press his lips to your cheek, “would you rather me show you how I take care of myself, or tell you?”
Oh.
Goosebumps rose along the back of your neck and down your arms at the soft volume of his voice in your ear and the way his breath fanned across your cheek.
“Both, please.” The tenor of your voice matched his as your hands fiddled nervously with the hem of your shirt, unsure what to with them while he moved to give you a kiss and sit up in front you.
The embarrassment of how you asked Yuuta how to give a hand job from earlier began to fade and be replaced with curiosity and eagerness at the sight of Yuuta reaching down to palm at himself.
It was still embarrassing, staring so shamelessly at his growing bulge in obvious intrigue and desire, but it was Yuuta, and Yuuta would never make you feel bad for having human urges and wanting him in this way.
Hesitantly, once he was ready, he tugged at the fabric of his pajama pants until he was fully exposed. He was happy you were so needy and awe struck at the sight of him, because your undivided attention to the way his cock sits in his hand is making him blush.
He spreads his legs just as much as the stretch of his bottoms let him while he dips forward to drip spit in the direction of his lap, his wrist catching the fabric of his shirt and exposing a tease of his lower stomach as he spreads the spit along the length of his cock. Leaning back into a more comfortable position, you take in the way he’s exposed himself to you, his stomach visibly clenching as he rubs his thumb along the slit at the tip of his cock.
It was firm in his hand, and you couldn’t help but squeeze your thighs together from where you sat watching at the vulgarity of it all. His loud and unashamed whimpering, his leaking and twitchy cock, and the way his eyes were never closed, always watching your face, when you would flick your own up to get a peek at his reactions.
You thought maybe he’d be a little more bashful, slow and careful with what he wanted to show you, but if anything, it seems like he’s been waiting for you to ask.
“You like watching me stroke my cock, hm baby?”
Your clit began to throb at the sudden recognition and reminder that you’re involved just as much as he is, as well as the sound of him speaking, and speaking directly at you.
“Answer me angel, even a nod’s okay. Wanna make sure my baby’s feeling good.” His voice was hoarse, but soft, and the sentiment did nothing more than increase your arousal and send butterflies rampant in your stomach.
Settling further into the situation, and gaining some confidence in return, you make your way over to him slowly as you nod your head.
“Want you to tell me, Yuuta.” Your voice is small, quiet.
“Tell you what, pretty?”
He’s got an air of fake innocence around him as he speaks but you couldn’t care less when you’re so close that you can hear his soft and barely audible panting, and smell the light scent of musk and sweat begin to gather along his clothed skin from his excitement and exertion. You’d give him anything he wants at this point, and you’re certain he knows it.
“Yuuta,”, you whine and move in his direction, hovering over his lap with his cock not quite close enough to press against your covered cunt as he strokes himself, “want you to tell me how it feels.”
The pair of you groan together at the lewdness of it all, both of you reveling in the freedom to finally explore your deep attraction for another, no longer embarrassed or fearful to admit or indulge in it.
“Fuck, feels so good baby. ‘M so hard with you watching me like this. You like knowing you’ve got me and my cock this needy without even touching me?” Whining at his response, you lean into him and sloppily place your lips on his, ignoring the urge to smack him on his chest as he chuckles a, “yeah?”, into your mouth at your eagerness.
You both kiss, messy and loud, as you reach and drag your hand down his torso, lightly drawing circles onto Yuuta’s exposed lower stomach with your fingertips.
A strained groan comes from him at the sensation, sighing into your mouth as he sits up to be impossibly closer to you. It was all too much.
He could feel the heat from your body as your thighs squeeze him from each side, hear the crude noises your pussy makes each time you adjust, and he could just imagine how needy your poor cunt would smell. Feeling his stomach tighten and his head get cloudy, he knew he was close, and he wanted you to watch.
“Fuck, you’re gonna make me come baby.” Yuuta’s lips were soft and slick with spit as he spoke against yours, while you felt a hand slide from the back of your neck up to the top of your head, turning you to face down and stare at the way his fist was feverishly tugging at his cock.
“Want my sweetheart to watch how hard they’re gonna make me come, how good they’re taking care of me and my cock.” His voice was strained and low, out of breath, and if you weren’t desperate to watch his cock get some release, you would have protested at the sudden lack of kissing.
“Please, need you to show me baby.” You whined and wrapped your hand around Yuuta’s wrist gently, moving in time with the way he was stroking himself.
Hearing your voice was all he needed to let himself go, throwing his head back and getting his sternum sticky with cum as it stained his t-shirt. His balls and cock twitched as he slowed down his movements, whining when he rubs the tip once more, not wanting it to be over. If it wasn’t for the way you were still hovering over his lap, he would’ve let himself stay like this for a while longer, catching his breath and resting his eyes.
But he could see how bad you needed him, your chest heaving and your body hot against his.
Pulling you into his chest, he speaks against your shoulder softly between gentle kisses, “Want me to take care of you too, baby?”
Your body jolts at the prospect, nerves riddling your muscles and your stomach, making you feel almost weak. The thought made you self-conscious just as much as it made you feel exhilarated, but you couldn’t deny the way your cunt was throbbing and hot. You needed him bad, and you could trust Yuuta. You always could.
Words were too hard, like they often were with him in intimate moments like this (the thought of your first date briefly crosses your mind), so you substitute a pleading “yes” for another messy, longing kiss.
“I got you angel,”, was all he said before you were leaned back on the pillows, Yuuta hovering above you with soft wisps of his hair tickling the sides of your face.
You knew you could trust Yuuta, he always knows what his baby needs.
Delicate fingers graze across your side until they reach the waist band of your bottoms, running back and forth along the top as Yuuta chuckles softly at the way your stomach twitches, waiting for a sign of permission.
A warm hand tugging Yuuta’s in the direction of your heat is all he needs before sliding his hand between your thighs to rub heavy and slow circles onto your clit beneath your shorts.
“Oh, god.” You breathe out and close your eyes, letting him take his time in making you feel good.
Your hole ached every time he dipped a finger down to tease your entrance, gathering more of your arousal to rub into your puffy clit. He was such a tease even when he didn’t mean to be, couldn’t he tell you needed him inside? Can’t he imagine how empty your poor hole feels? Doesn’t he know how often you’ve fucked yourself with your fingers or favorite toy, imagining it’s really him inside instead?
“Yuuta.”
The desperate call of his name makes his stomach flip, eyes quickly searching across your face for a sign of discomfort, “‘M here baby, what do you need?”
Sitting up slowly, your face stops inches from his as you shimmy your way out of your bottoms. Laying back down, you open your legs wide and spread your pussy for Yuuta to see, another hand rubbing at your clit slowly.
“‘S too empty, baby.” You fight back the hot wave of embarrassment that floods your body at your crudeness and use all your will power to stay still, cunt on full display, as you watch Yuuta’s breath quicken and his hand snake down to tug at his cock again despite the slight sensitivity he’s still feeling.
He doesn’t give you much time to linger on your sheepishness before you’re tugged further down the bed by the grip he takes on both of your thighs, his tongue impatiently shoved into your mouth with a loud whimper. You both stay like this a little while longer than you would have liked, his tongue running along the inside of your mouth before he has yours between his lips, switching between sucking on it loudly and licking at the saliva that drips down onto your chin.
God, he was so dirty.
Unable to beg for more, you attempt to wrap your legs up and around his midsection, hoping he’ll catch the hint, but instead you’re stopped by a firm placement of his hand on your inner thigh.
“‘Scuse me, beautiful.” His voice is hoarser than before as he speaks softly against your neck, leaving hasty kisses on any exposed skin while scooting down the bed, landing with his face between your legs.
You could have cried when you felt his tongue poke and prod at your hole, pushing in and moaning loudly before licking long and slow up to your clit. His tongue flicks back and forth as he keeps your lips spread with one hand, deciding to then take his time licking and dragging his tongue between every fold before coming back to suck on your clit.
A strangled groan vibrates deep within your chest as you tug on his hair to bring him impossibly closer to your cunt, as if he needed to devour you whole, while you no longer fought the way your hips were grinding down and writhing beneath Yuuta’s grip. It’s not until you finally feel a finger push inside, slender and slow, that you begin to incoherently beg and whine for more.
It doesn’t take many half-spoken pleas for him to get the idea you need more.
“Ah, Yuuta!” You whimper and internally battle between trying to squirm away and press yourself even further into his mouth, overwhelmed by the pleasure of his two fingers inside pumping in and out of you with his mouth nipping and sucking at your clit.
He sits up, kneeling between you to watch the way you take what he’s giving you.
“Yeah?”, his voice is uncharacteristically cocky and out of breath, “Feels good, baby?”
He was going to be the death of you.
If it wasn’t for the way Yuuta was placed between your thighs, your efforts to clamp them shut would be working. It was all too much, but so fucking good.
“Ah- fuck, oh, oh my god - Yuuta please make me come. Wanna come so bad!” You arch your back and attempt to sit up to reach him, needing him closer, but a hand on your chest pushes you back down and slides up until it rests wrapped around your throat.
“Mmm, I’ll give it to you baby, just want you stay right there. Wanna see what you look like when I make you finish for the first time.” His hand wasn’t holding tight, it was merely keeping you in your spot beneath him, but you wanted him to grab you tighter.
With a shaky hand, you reached to hold onto his wrist like your life depended on it,
“Please choke me.”
His fingers stopped curling into you for maybe a second before he continued, his mouth parting slightly as a gentle moan fell from his lips.
Did you really just ask him that?
You closed your eyes in bliss when he squeezed gently, instinctually doing your best to grind down onto his hand, but it wasn’t enough.
“T-tighter, please.”
It took everything in you to open your eyes and see his reaction, a slight amount of shame building up in your stomach for requesting something that felt so dirty - but all embarrassment fizzled out where it sat when you saw the way he was staring down at you.
Nothing was said as he squeezed you tighter and tighter until you let out a choked moan, your eyes rolling to the back of your head.
“Tap me twice if it’s too much.” You’re not sure when he leaned down to speak lowly to you, but his breath fanning across the side of your neck and face sends chills down your body.
You’re so lost in the pleasure of it all you can only nod when he takes your hand to show you exactly how he wants you to tap against his wrist if you can’t take it anymore.
He sits back up and smiles to himself as he takes you in. You look so.. so.. so pathetic like this. And what, all because he’s got two of his fingers fucking your pussy? Cause he’s the first person to ever make you feel this way?
The latter thought makes his dick twitch and pick up the pace of his fingers until even you can register the crude squelching coming from between your thighs. Thankfully for you, you’re too full of bliss to care - fuck you were so close, and he knows it, too.
Your eyes shoot open when his grip is tightened even more, making it so you can only take in shallow and shaky breaths.
“Gonna have to come around my fingers if you want me to loosen up.” It wasn’t a question of how much you could take, it was a matter of how far you wanted him to go to make you see stars. And apparently this was it with the way he could feel you clench around him at his words, your thighs starting to thrash and shake.
“Fuck, you’re so dirty. My dirty little cunt, huh?” His voice was so misleadingly soft. His register was still high, slightly whiny, but you knew it was all to mock you and your fucked out state. If anything, Yuuta was the one being so dirty, and you were thankful for it.
It was hot, so hot, and you could hear your heart pounding in your head, and you could feel how tight you were clenching around his fingers.
Unable to fight off the feeling and attempt to last a second longer, your body shook as you came hard around Yuuta’s fingers, your nails digging into the forearm of the hand still wrapped around your throat. He kept it there for a brief few moments into your orgasm before letting go to immediately bring his fingers down to your clit, helping you ride out your orgasm for as long as you could handle.
The first full breath you took was loud and followed by an even louder mantra of thank you’s and please’s. It took a soft and slow kiss from Yuuta to quiet your whimpers, and warm, and undeniably semi-sticky hands, rubbing tenderly into your thighs and arms.
You both stayed like that for a while, Yuuta above you with his hands rubbing your muscles carefully, kissing slow and catching your breath while sharing gentle sentiments of love and reassurance. Much to your surprise, you were the first to speak a full sentence as you both relaxed into a more comfortable position.
“Ya know”, your voice had a slight hoarseness to it now, most likely from your earlier activities, “I don’t think I like knowing someone else has gotten to see you like this.”
He brings his head up to rest on his palm with a crooked smile, leaning forward until his lips ghosted over yours as he spoke,
“Yeah? You the jealous type baby?”
This time, you did smack him. And hard.
“Ow?” Yuuta pouts, pretending to be appalled, and rubs circles into his chest as if you had actually smacked him hard enough to feel like anything more than a friendly pat.
His request for an apology is brushed off and amended with a kiss, from which you receive no protest, as you sink further into the comfort of his embrace and, now dirty but once very clean, sheets.
“How about we clean up n get some rest, okay baby?” He sounds distant and quiet when he speaks, his heartbeat louder in your ears than his voice with your head pressed into his chest.
Sighing and shaking his head, he leans down to kiss the top of your head with a small smile. Laundry and a shower can wait a few more minutes if it means he gets to have you like this for even a little bit longer.
——————
taglist: @plutowrites @alert-arlert (I think you asked to be tagged in this??? If not I’m sorry !! This was like a literal year ago I started this so 😭🫶) @touyaz (only cause you liked the snippet 🤭) if you’d like to be added just lemme know!!
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howtofightwrite · 2 years
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Do you have any thoughts on making characters like Kim Possible more realistic for stories aside from aging her up? While still keeping the spirit of her, that is.
You can't make Kim Possible realistic because the superspy genre runs on implausibility, the superspy aspect of her persona only works in the genre's unrealistic space. If you try to run a superspy in a realistic world, you either get a dissociative psychopath or Jason Bourne (from the books, not the films) who is still pretty close to being a psychopath rather than your regular spy. To write a “realistic” Kim Possible, you'd end up with your run of the mill, hyper competitive, adrenaline junkie cheerleader without any superpowers or supergadgets and a school board that's not particularly thrilled with her antics. We're talking Buffy levels of burn down the high school. (Buffy did burn down a high school.)
The imporant thing to understand about Kim Possible if you want to deconstruct her character and pul her out of the genre where she currently works is that Kim isn't a character aged up. She's a character aged down and reformatted for a tween to teen audience. If I aged Kim Possible up, I'd have Get Smart's Ninety-Nine or a member of the original Charlie's Angels (take your pick) or a non-powered variant of Shego. Her contemporaries are the girls from Totally Spies, which are also a Charlie's Angels riff, and arguably even more insane than Kim is. To fully grasp Kim Possible as a character you want to write rather than a piece of media you consume is you have to understand her archetype and where all the pieces of her character come from. Those pieces are derived by material that proceeded her in the superspy genre.
This is what author's call a Lit Review.
When you find a character you like and want to use, instead of trying to copy what you see you go deeper into deconstruction. Deconstruction is just a fancy word that means you break everything down to it's base components and take it apart to understand how it works and functions as a whole so you can rebuild it in your own image. In the case of Kim Possible, a simple deconstruction isn't enough because she isn't a character, she's genre loci. (It fun play on genius loci, it means she's a personification of the genre rather than a person or place. She is by nature a formalistic entity, which means she only exists as part of the formula. That's why you're having difficulty writing her as a “realistic” character. Formalistic entities do not function in the real world.)
To understand Kim Possible as a character, you have to understand Kim Possible as a formula. Worse, you have to study two different genres because she's fusion of two different formulas that are both equally unrealistic. Fortunately, the superspy and the superhero genre have enough cross-bleed that you only need one. You'll have to do a comprehensive review of both the superspy genre and the teen dramedy genre (Saved by the Bell, 90210, Boy Meets World, Sweet Valley High,you know, the John Waters version of high school. If you've been consuming mainly CW dramas like the current iteration of Riverdale you have the wrong era and will have to start all over.) For a comprehensive lit review, you have to go all the way back to the beginning with the original James Bond and watch them in sequence, then watch Get Smart (by the time you get here, you'll have the same degree of contempt for Bond as Mel Brooks so that works in your favor), pay special attention to Ninety-Nine the original avatar of the female superspy, and then watch Charlie's Angels, the original TV show not the movies. By this point, you'll understand all the pieces that went into Kim's creation and then you'll be able to independently pull them out keep what you want.
If that sounds like a lot of work, you're right. Picking one isn't enough because she has pieces of all of them, and they're all influenced by their predecessor. Ninety-Nine is a direct reaction to the treatment of women in James Bond, and Charlie's Angels are an adaptation of Ninety-Nine as James Bond. A lot of female superspies are direct references to James Bond (whether they want to be or not) and Kim Possible is no exception. The show is full of James Bond injokes and many of her villains are direct references to Bond villains. The old Sean Connery Bond villains. (Much as it's in the name, you don't need either the original Mission Impossible or the film remakes. If you want to watch the Peter Graves era for an even more comprehensive experience, go right ahead.)
You don't understand Bond? You don't understand Kim.
Teenagers don't make for good spies in a realistic world. They're not emotionally mature enough to do the job. That's not an insult. When you're a teenager, your brain is still maturing, you're halfway to being an adult, but you're still growing into yourself and a lot of what you're experiencing you're experiencing for the first time. Experiences that feel like the end of the world to a teenager, are just Tuesday to an adult. You don't feel emotions the same at sixteen and twenty-five, or sixteen and thirty-five, part of that is experience and part of it is the intensity of our emotions decays over time. Adults are also better at hiding what emotions they do feel. These are all reasons why adults seem so unfeeling to teenagers.
Worse, for the realistic Kim, she comes from a stable home environment. She's got loving parents, appreciative, supportive friends, and lives a happy, well-adjusted life even without saving the world. She doesn't have the cynicism, suspicious nature, mercurial adaptable behaviors, and survival instincts that broken homes and abusive environments train in young. In the real world, evil passes itself off as good. There's no colorful costumes or villainous laughs or soundtrack to point out who you can't trust. The friendliest, nicest people are often the first to stab you in the back. Appearances deceive and ingrained biases cloud perception. Spies are not well-adjusted people or emotionally healthy. It's a lot easier to talk someone off a cliff if you are also on a cliff. The point of a spy is that they're a bad person. The superspy genre is an escape from the realities of being a spy and it was originally written by a former spy.
The kid from the broken home learns early that people behave differently in different environments, and they need to be wary until they determine if the person they think they can trust is someone they can actually trust. Often the most well-intentioned people make bad situations worse trying to resolve conflicts they've chosen not to understand. At the same time, people wear masks and not all secrets are nefarious. To be able to determine the difference between someone acting supiciously (hiding a secret) and someone who is actually nefarious takes practice. This is even a common subplot in teen mystery dramas for teenagers (and adults) to be misled by their own prejudices and their inability to tell the difference between types of suspicious behavior. There's the secrets that don't matter and the ones that'll get you killed and they can be the same secrets. Understanding the faceted nature of people, fully analyzing their personalities so you can predict their moves without being a fully mature person with your own experiences to draw from? That's hard. It's a difficult ask for adults who are professionals.
You can't keep Kim's optomism and turn her into a traditional spy. The traditional spy needs to both be able to see the worst in someone and then use that dark nature against them. They collect secrets and vulnerabilities so they can turn the average person into an asset later. They can't do everything themselves, they need to be comfortable with using people and with the part where using those same people will get them killed. There's elements here that do mimick high school, but it's a much more dangerous game with much higher stakes and a lot less room for error. A teenager this manipulative this young is either a narcisscist or a sociopath, and even then they won't have refined their manipulation to the point they can carry it off like an adult. (If you hav e a difficult time comprehending this concept, you are stilll a child. Enjoy it while you can.)
You also can't really do Kim Possible in the CW mold while keeping her Kim Possible. The same problems as the spy to superspy genre apply. The Vampire Diaries approach to teenagers is antithetical to the John Waters high school. Someone's going to have to be the cynic, half the cast are lovable assholes, evil will prevail over good on a regular basis, and everyone in the CW's world will be varying shades of gray with dark secrets. CW teenage dramas are gritty (and not particularly realistic either, even if they are entertaining.) You can't put James Bond and Frank Miller's Sin City in the same place and play them both straight. Superman's ideals and morals don't function properly in The Boys universe. That optomistic view of humanity isn't supported. If you want optomism in your narrative, you need to fight for it.
An optomistic character can succeed in a cynical world and keep their optomism while making tragic mistakes, but they need to be supported by the author and story's structure. A careful balance has to be maintained between hope and darkness, and it is very easy to go past a character's point of no return. It's easy to become cynical, it's easy to embrace nihilism especially in the face of tragedy. Kim Possible is not a character designed around the idea of moral fortitude. She's not a character who has to fight for her beliefs in a dark world. She doesn't have articulated morals or a philosophical outlook, she just does what she thinks is right. A character doing what they think is right in a cynical story sets the stage for events to fall apart in a tragic ending.
The question is, do you want a realistic version of Kim Possible or do you want a version that you feel is going to be more serious, and literary, and will be accepted? As much as it's currently in vogue, cynicsm and nihilism aren't automatically better or more mature storytelling.
Kim Possible is accepted. Kim Possible being unrealistic is not a failure of the material. She's supposed to be a teenage comedy pastiche of the superspy genre. She works because she embraces both genres in all their corny cheesiness wholeheartedly and without irony. Even when Kim Possible is at its most tongue and cheek, Kim herself is never the joke. The mirror between Kim and Shego is intentional. It's good practice to have your villain be a jaded, cynical, dark version of your protagonist (with better comedic timing.) Shego is cynical so Kim can be optomistic.
Kim's ideals and morals are designed for a more hopeful world than the one we live in and that's fine. James Bond is one of the most iconic film heroes of all time. Get Smart and Charlie's Angels are both beloved to this day. Kim Possible and Totally Spies were successful media properties. A market exists for teenage superspies. While Harriet the Spy is probably the closest to a “realistic” Kim Possible you're going to get, I think you're looking for something else, something more adrenaline filled, something exciting, and that's okay.
You don't need realism. You need a world that feels plausible enough your audience will embrace it. That's just good worldbuilding and understanding your genre. You don't need to be the next Game of Thrones, you don't need to be (the new) Casino Royale. Don't be embarassed by the silliness, don't be worried if the story is serious enough, skip off into the sunset with your catchy theme song and naked mole rat. Tell the story you want, the story that you love.
And do your reading (and watching) because the more you understand, the better you write. If you can't take Kim Possible at her worst (Roger Moore) you don't deserve her at her best.
-Michi
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atiny-desire · 1 year
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Scream pt. 2
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Pairing: Yandere! Wooyoung x fem! Reader Summary: A year has passed since the events on Halloween, and you had given up on the idea of ever escaping Wooyoung's grasp. That was until someone very unexpected helped you out. Word count: 7.1 k Disclaimer: I'm in no way condoning, justifying, encouraging nor promoting this kind of behavior. This is not supposed to represent Wooyoung in any way. Warning: Yandere behavior, violence, stalking
A/N: I'm sorry for the long wait, but after all, I have finally finished the last part.
Pt. 1
◇◇◇
It's been a year since Wooyoung and Jongho kidnapped you. You were sitting in Wooyoung's lap watching the news on TV. It was your first time watching television this year, Wooyoung said his gift to your 'anniversary' was the privilege of watching TV.
The biggest gift would've been your freedom, but that was just unrealistic thinking on your behalf.
"And now to a tragedy, that is still affecting the people of a small town." You weren't really paying attention when the reporter switched the topic, but the name of your hometown made you perk up.
"One year has passed since three students disappeared without a trace." On screen were three pictures of you, Wooyoung, and Jongho.
"Jung Wooyoung and Choi Jongho are currently the prime suspects in the case of the two murdered girls. Meanwhile, Y/N's involvement in the case is still unclear, although it is assumed that she has been kidnapped by the two suspects." You were surprised to see your face on Television, you thought people gave up looking for you or didn't even search for you to begin with.
While you were paying close attention to what was said, you didn't notice how Wooyoung observed you attentively the whole time. He didn't like how excited you were to see that people were still searching for you.
They moved on to show some Interviews with people who knew you. The first ones were your parents and it almost brought you to tears. Your mother was holding a tissue at her nose while silently crying. Your father was the one to talk. Saying how much they loved and missed you.
The next ones were Hongjoong and Seonghwa. "Honestly, Wooyoung always acted weird when it came to Y/N, but never did I imagine that he would go that far." Hongjoong answered the reporter's question about how they would judge Wooyoung.
Seonghwa nodded along and added, "And neither did we think that Jongho was capable of doing something like this."
To your surprise, not only Mingi was on screen next, but Yunho too. Ever since that night, none of the two would tell you what they did with him. Eventually, you drew your own conclusion of what "Taking care of Yunho" could mean and assumed that Jongho must have killed him.
You felt how Wooyoung tensed up at the sight of him. Glancing at Wooyoung showed you that his jaw was clenched and how he glared at Jongho who was sitting in an armchair, opposite of the couch.
"I always knew that Wooyoung did it!" Yunho was still the same, always overexcited when it came to crime. "And that he abducted Y/N? Not surprised either! He always acted way too possessive of her." Mingi was standing beside him while Yunho was rambling about, scratching his neck with his eyes wandering everywhere but at the camera. He looked like he wanted to go home, but got dragged in front of the camera by the crime obsessed guy beside him.
"Jongho was not expected tho. He tried to kill me, but that was the worst attempt I've ever seen. The only thing he did was leave an ugly scar on the side of my stomach." Yunho shook his head as if he was disappointed, it almost made you smile, seeing him still being the same comforted you a bit. At least you knew now that he was okay.
"So you believe that Y/N was kidnapped," the reporter asked him.
He nodded, his eyes were sparkling because now people were actually interested in his theories. "I mean it's pretty obvious, they found her phone with her last call being the police and Wooyoung was the only one staying with her. And on top of that the mask they found, with his DNA all over it! Wooyoung would never kill her, so the only option is that he took her with him." Yunho sighed and shook his head again. "Wooyoung's and Jongho's sloppy job just shows that they never listened to me."
Wooyoung's grip on your hip became tighter the more he listened to Yunho talk. "You're hurting me!" You grimaced your face, he would leave bruises if he kept doing it. His eyes were burning with hatred as he was staring at the screen, completely ignoring your complaints.
You put your hand over his, trying to pry him off. This caught his attention, his eyes met yours, and it made you stop whatever you were doing. A tiny tingly feeling sparked inside your lower stomach, a feeling that you tried to push away for a few months now. Of course, you knew what this feeling was. You were falling in love with him.
Stockholm syndrome. That was the first thing you thought about once you noticed your growing feelings toward him. You tried your best to fight those feelings, but there was only so much you could do, with him constantly being around you.
The next person was an even bigger surprise, you haven't seen him in years and now he was on television. Yeosang. You squirmed in Wooyoung's hold, his other hand which was lying on your upper thigh was now clamped into your flesh too.
"You and Y/N dated for some time. Did you ever notice anything weird about Jongho and Wooyoung," the reporter asked him.
Yeosang nodded, his white hair moving along with his motions. "Jongho, no. But Wooyoung? Absolutely." He stopped to think about what he was going to say next. "I don't know how to explain it, but I always had a bad feeling about him. From always glaring at me to making passive aggressive comments every time we talked."
He stopped again to bite his lower lip. "I know that seems like small things, but still, there was always something about him that would set my alarm bells off, he just-", Yeosang gestured around with his hands while fighting to find the right words, "I don't know how to explain it, but he had a very weird vibe around him."
The screen went back to the news reporter in the studio, but you couldn't listen to what he was saying because Wooyoung started to demand your attention. "I will never let you go," he suddenly said. You turned your head to look at him again and saw that he was already staring at you. A confident half-smile appeared on his lips. "And you don't want to leave me, right?"
It was delusional of him to think that you were staying with him because you wanted to, but you still nodded, telling him the truth wouldn't benefit you at all and would only put you at risk of being hurt. In the corner of your eye, you saw how Jongho watched the whole interaction, he slightly shook his head and then dedicated his attention to his phone instead.
Meanwhile, Wooyoung put his hand on your cheek and caressed it with his thumb. He got lost in his thoughts for a short moment, you knew what he was thinking about and it reminded you too.
It was your second day being held captive when you argued with Wooyoung. The two of you were standing in the doorway of the room they gave to you.
"So now what?! You're crazy if you think that this would work! People are going to search for me," you were yelling at Wooyoung who was progressively getting more annoyed with you.
You didn't know where you got the sudden confidence from to raise your voice at him, and in hindsight, it was a bad idea.
"Go. Inside. Your room," he repeated himself for the third time now, but you still weren't listening.
You stubbornly shook your head. "Just let me go! You're making it worse for everyone!"
Wooyoung sighed and bit his lip while thinking. "Listen-" he reached for your cheek but he didn't get to touch you. However, instead of just slapping his hand away, you took a more drastic approach.
You bit him.
The silence was deafening, he stared at you before he looked at his hand. A red print mark of your teeth was visible on the back of his hand, tiny dark red dots formed where you broke his skin. You saw how he clenched his jaw, the muscles under his skin were twitching and the veins on his neck became visible.
Your eyes widened in shock, you did it without thinking and the severity of the situation was now sinking in. "I'm sorr-," you didn't get to finish.
Wooyoung used the same hand to strike you across your face. He hit you with his open hand, but since you were unprepared for the impact it was enough to make you stumble back into the room. Your own hand shot up to hold it against your cheek, the skin was warm to your touch and it stung.
You could see the fury in his eyes before he shut the door without sparing you another word. You stood there, still in shock with your hand on your cheek, until you heard him lock the door.
You slowly turned around and curled up on the bed which was standing against the wall behind you. It didn't take long before your eyes became watery and you started to silently cry. Why you? Why did it have to be you?  You were silently begging in your head for someone to come save you
They kept you locked up for about a week before Wooyoung let you out again, but not without announcing that from now on you would have to earn your privileges. You never acted up after that again, he taught you relatively quickly that it wouldn't get you anywhere.
Wooyoung took his time just looking at you, at the start, it always made you uncomfortable when he just stared at you but now you got used to it. It didn't even surprise you anymore when he suddenly buried his face in the crook of your neck. Wooyoung wanted to touch you at all times be it hugging you or just holding hands with you. His favorite, however, was when you sat in his lap, where he could feel your warmth against him.
He held you for five more minutes before he sighed dramatically and removed himself from you. "I'm afraid I have to leave now." A pout formed on his lips as he jokingly said, "Don't miss me too much, all right?" He placed a kiss on your cheek before finally letting you off his lap.
You didn't say anything to him, but you didn't have to anyway, since in his mind he already knew that you would miss him. It didn't matter that it wasn't true and that in reality you always wished that he would never come back.
Wooyoung stood up grabbed his jacket and with a last wink your way he left the house. He often left and you always wondered where he would go, but questioning him about it was useless, he would always just playfully say that it was a secret. Nevertheless, you stopped caring about where he would go, because every time he left it felt like a weight was lifted off your chest and you could finally breathe again.
You glanced at Jongho who was still on his phone. Since that night he refused to talk to you, but it wasn't like you tried to talk to him in the first place.
"I didn't help him because I wanted to." Jongho's voice startled you, you realized that you almost forgot what he sounds like.
"I didn't ask." It came out colder than you intended to. Did he really expect that you would act like nothing happened after he helped Wooyoung abduct you and not speak to you for a whole year?
You made eye contact with him, with the anticipation of looking at his usual emotionless face, but it wasn't. Instead, he looked... kind of sad. However the sad expression was gone as fast as it came, or maybe it wasn't even there to begin with and you just imagined it. Jongho was not going to let it go, for some reason he was finally determined to tell you the truth. "You did ask!"
He was right, but that was at the very beginning. What was the point of telling you the truth now? You didn't care anymore, the only thing you wanted was to get back home, even if there was a little voice in your head that was telling you otherwise. You silently stared at him, you wanted to give him a piece of your mind, but your thoughts were a tangled mess and nothing could convey your feelings like you wanted it to.
Jongho, who took your silence as your approval for him to keep talking, took a long drawn out sigh before he started to tell you his side of the story. "To make it short, Wooyoung caught me with San's girlfriend." You didn't know what you were expecting but this for sure wasn't it. "He surprised us, killed her first, shoved the knife in my hands and threatened to tell the police that I did it if I don't do as he says."
You tried your best to keep your facial expressions in check, but Jongho knew what you were going to say because he was able to read you like a book, not just any book, but a picture book made for children. It was as clear as the day that you could not grasp Jonghos' way of thinking, nothing of this made sense to you. "So you just stood there and watched him kill her? You're stronger than him, you could've stopped him!"
"I know but it wasn't that easy!" His eyes were previously wandering around the room but were set on you now, for the first time during this conversation. "He's my friend... he is our friend. He is important to me and I know he is important to you too!"
"Jongho, what the hell!" You raised your voice a little bit and shook your head in disbelief, you couldn't understand his reasoning at all. "He was our friend, yes, but that doesn't excuse him for killing someone?!"
Hypocrite. Your inner voice kept repeating that word. You were lecturing Jongho about still seeing Wooyoung as a friend, while you were slowly falling in love with him. If you could even call those confusing feelings love.
"I know it doesn't, but don't tell me that you don't have the same conflicting feelings!"
"I don't." You stayed stubborn in your stance, Jongho didn't need to know about your feelings. "And even if I did, he literally killed people, in what world does him being our friend make this okay?!" You were repeating yourself, but talking to Jongho was like arguing with a wall. The same thing could be said about you too because both of you were standing your ground.
This is probably the most you've talked during this year. Wooyoung has had already mentioned multiple times about how you lost your quick-wittedness and joked that he would replace you with someone more exciting. You always forced a smile and told him to stop messing around, but secretly you were wishing that he would actually do it.
You were staring at each other, trying to intimidate the other into giving up, but you knew Jongho. He wasn't going to budge no matter how long you were trying to keep this up.
"And what about Yunho?" You now glared at him, while Jongho quickly broke the eye contact. "Tell me, is he not your friend? What exactly are your criteria here?"
He clenched his jaw and started to bite the inside of his cheeks. "I didn't kill him, did I," he quietly hissed and stubbornly redirected his gaze to stare at the TV. You didn't know that an advertisement about teeth whitening toothpaste could be this interesting.
"But you tried." Both of you stayed silent after that, but the tension was unbearable to you and you still had a question, so you broke the silence again. "What about me? Am I not your friend either?"
"You and Yunho are my friends, but so is Wooyoung!" He hissed again through clenched teeth. You had to withstand the urge to roll your eyes. Yes, you're such a great friend that you tried to kill one of them and abducted the other one, you wanted to say it out loud, but you held your tongue. "I didn't want this to happen!"
You couldn't help but snort. "How kind of you, at least you didn't want it to happen," your voice was dripping with sarcasm. You became bolder the more you noticed that he wasn't a threat, but just a loyal idiot. You almost nodded to yourself, loyal idiot seemed to perfectly describe him at this moment.
"If you really didn't want this to happen then let me go." Jongho's face hardened, he had always been scary when he put on his stern expression, but now it seemed to be on another level. "You're going to get a lesser sentence if you cooperate with the police, I'll even help you." His face stayed unchanged, but there was a small glint in his eyes, which could have been easily missed, but you saw it. He was considering it, but he didn't get to think about it any further.
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw something move in the window right by the front door. The door opened not even a second later, and revealed Wooyoung. He smiled as he came into the house. "I forgot my phone."
Now you saw it too, there it was, laying on the coffee table. You bit your lip and hoped that he didn't hear anything from your conversation from the outside. Wooyoung noticed the tension that filled the room as soon as he showed up, he slowly walked to the table and asked, "Did I interrupt something?"
He grabbed his phone and kept looking between you and Jongho waiting for an answer until his gaze finally settled on you after none of you answered him. "Well? Did I?"
You shook your head. "You didn't." But who were you trying to fool? Wooyoung knew that something was up just by looking into your eyes, they hadn't been this expressive in a long time. Wooyoung slowly came closer to you, you felt your shoulders tense up no matter how hard you tried to stay relaxed. His presence was unnerving, you didn't want to know what he would do if he found out what you were talking about.
"You wouldn't lie to me, right?~," he hummed melodically. He gently placed his index finger under your chin to lift your face up. You nodded but you couldn't hold the eye contact with him, so you looked at the wooden wall behind him. His face hardened, which you obviously couldn't see because apparently, the wall behind him was much more interesting than him.
Frustrated he bit his lip, he wanted to know what was going on, but he didn't have the time to discuss this out now. "We're going to talk about this later!" He pulled his hand back and looked at Jongho one more time before he left the house again.
You waited a minute before you tried to talk to Jongho again, but he had other plans. You barely opened your mouth when he abruptly stood up and went upstairs. The sound of his room door closing followed quickly after.
Defeated you sat there for a few minutes. The television was still showing a bunch of advertisements. You could feel the energy and adrenaline, which were previously running through your body, leave the more time passed. You eventually got up, turned the TV off, and went into your room too.
Your legs automatically carried you to the big bookshelf, which was filled to the brim with fantasy and romance books. They were already there when you arrived in this house and often left you wondering who it originally belonged to, and how Wooyoung knew that it would be safe here. The house in general was a really nice one, people would pay thousands for a house like that.
It was a big log cabin surrounded by forest and with a clear lake basically directly at the front door. All of the rooms were big and spacious, you couldn't believe that someone would just abandon a house like that. However Wooyoung refused to give you any information about the owners, or how he knew about the house.
You reached out for a book, which has caught your eye for a while now. "Cursed" was written in bold white letters on the spine. You pulled it out of its spot to inspect the cover and the summary. The story was about eight Pirates who had to break a curse, with the help of the daughter of a famous treasure hunter.
You spent the rest of the day on your bed reading said book. It quickly captured you in its world, to the point where you could almost taste the salty air of the sea on your tongue, and hear the creaking of the ship, as it sailed across the ocean.
The time flew by and you didn't even notice how it turned dark outside. That was until someone knocked on your door. Dread settled in the pit of your stomach, you didn't have to guess who it was. Wooyoung opened the door without waiting for your permission to enter. He strolled over to you and dramatically flopped down beside you on the bed.
He was pouting when he said, "You're sending more times with those books than with me!"
"Well, you're always gone the whole day. Am I supposed to just sit here and wait for you," you responded. You didn't take your eyes off of your book, despite having lost your concentration since Wooyoung entered the room.
He didn't say anything in return and you could finally stop reading the same sentence over and over again, and concentrate again.
Wooyoung was laying on his side with his head propped up in his hand, watching you. He didn't say anything and just observed how your eyes moved over the pages. The soft sound of you occasionally flipping a page filled the room. You didn't see it but had you looked out of the window you would have seen the small snowflakes falling through the light that was falling out of your window. This could have been a romantic moment if the person lying next to you wasn't your kidnapper.
After a while, you almost forgot about his presence, but it was almost as if he sensed it and he didn't like that you were forgetting him. "Do you have a wish for Christmas," he suddenly asked.
You stopped reading in order to look at him, you thought you misheard him, but it seemed as if he was waiting for an answer, so you did in fact not imagine it. It only took you a second and a short glance out of the window to know what you wanted. The snowflakes were now bigger and would definitely add a few centimeters to the already thick layer of fallen snow. You felt the desire to go outside and feel the cold air against your face and to breathe in the fresh air. "A visit to a Christmas Market." It was just a silly idea, and you didn't expect Wooyoung to agree to it. However, to your surprise, you heard him hum in agreement.
You turned your head so fast that you almost pulled a muscle. "Are you serious," you asked in disbelief.
"I'm serious, if you want to go, we'll go." His reassurance made you sit up straight, you closed your still open book without putting a tag between the pages and stared at Wooyoung as if he grew a second head.
He had a satisfied smirk on his lips, as he was finally able to draw a reaction from you. "Don't you want to know what my wish is?" Of course, you should have known that there was going to be a catch.
You sighed and asked, "What do you want?" It came out a lot harsher than you wanted it to be. Luckily for you, he didn't mind.
There was a playful glint in his eyes, you didn't even need to hear what he had to say, to know that it would be something bad for you. "You," he whispered. "All of you."
You froze, you knew that the time would come when he would not be satisfied anymore with just kissing and cuddling, but nothing could prepare you for the moment when he actually voiced it out. You didn't respond anymore, you were too stunned to say something and that held on until he finally left your room again. He winked at you before he left and his last words were, "Dream of me!"
Jongho got informed that you would visit a market, on the next day and he was not amused. You were all sitting in the living room when Wooyoung told him about the news, he first had the same look as you the day prior before it turned into pure anger. "What the hell are you thinking?!" You were a bit taken aback by his sudden outburst, you had expected this kind of reaction from Wooyoung, but not from him. Wooyoung seemed a bit surprised too, as he just let him continue speaking.
"We went through all of this for what?" It was a question but he didn't expect an answer. "Just for you to ruin it all by taking unnecessary risks?!" He bit his lower lip, his hands were clenched into a fist and with his eyes, he was staring daggers at Wooyoung.
Wooyoung sat up straight, his eyebrows were raised, silently asking if Jongho was questioning his authority. The latter wasn't too impressed and just hissed through clenched teeth, "You know who's in town right?"
"And who's fault is that," Wooyoung promptly asked. They stayed silent for a few seconds.
Jongho was the first one to break the staring contest, he practically jumped from his seat he was about to leave, but not without one last comment. "Why don't you just call the police already and safe us the trouble, huh?" And with that he left, the sound of his door slamming shut could be heard through the whole house just a few seconds later. Wooyoung didn't react to his provocation, but his mood was miserable for the rest of the day.
Christmas day arrived agonizingly slow and way too fast at the same time. You woke up with a stomach ache, whether it was from excitement or your anxiety, you didn't know. You were laying in your bed for a while, thinking about different plans and their outcome. Nothing seemed to have a 100% chance of working. You could ask a stranger for help, but what if they just ignored you, what if Wooyoung noticed what you were trying to do? Just running away seemed even worse, you doubted that you could outrun Wooyoung, but you had to try something. You would decide which plan to pursue, once you were there.
And what if you failed? It felt like someone punched you in the gut, once the thought occurred to you. Until now he had always accepted it when you said no, but would he take no for an answer again? How long would he wait until he just took what he wanted?
Until now you were staring blankly at the ceiling, but you had to screw your eyes shut. You were trying to push your thoughts to the back of your head, but it didn't help, they always came back to the surface. What if you didn't want to say no? You felt horrible, you shouldn't have those kinds of feelings for a killer and kidnapper.
After a while, you finally got up and went down to eat breakfast. You would need the energy for later. Jongho and Wooyoung were already sitting at the kitchen table when you came down, one of them had made scrambled eggs. The food on your plate was still steaming.
"Are you excited for today," Wooyoung asked as soon as you sat down next to him. Jongho who sat in front of you shook his head slightly, he still didn't like the idea.
You nodded and refrained from looking at him. You knew if you did catch a glance of him, you would feel those unwanted tingles in your lower stomach again. You could feel his burning stare on your face while you were eating, but you tried to ignore it as well as you possibly could. That was until he finally said something again. "I'm excited too."
You almost choked on your food, you didn't have to be a mind reader to know that he wasn't talking about the market. All he got from you was a quick glance at him before you continued to, now awkwardly, eat your food.
The day went by awfully slow, you kept checking the clock, which hung over the TV in the living room. It was as is the time had a personal vendetta against you and wanted to torture you with every second for as long as possible.
It wasn't until the time finally arrived, when you finally stood outside again, that you realized the gravity of this situation. You literally had to escape, or everything would be over. You didn't know how long you could resist Wooyoung. He was driving you crazy, and not in a good way.
The air was cold but fresh. The thick layer of snow was sparkling under the few sun rays that managed to slip through the cloudy sky. Every step you took resorted in the sound of the snow crunching under your weight. It was a beautiful winter day, you just wished that you could actually enjoy it. You were sweating even though it was cold, your hands were shaking because of your anxiety and your body was producing Adrenaline as if you were being chased by a Lion. You could only hope that Wooyoung wouldn't notice.
The drive to the town was quiet, at least between you two. Your mind, however, was very loud and busy, constantly creating new outcomes and their consequences and replaying them over and over again. The closer you got, the more you felt like throwing up, you were really tempted to just tell Wooyoung to turn around.
After all, all of the worrying you did was useless. The two of you were, of course wearing a mask and Wooyoung didn't let you out of his grasp just once, his arm was constantly around your waist holding you close to him. The Christmas market would've been great under different conditions. People were enjoying the holiday days, the air smelt like various foods and sweets. Every stand was decorated with lights and pretty ornaments, but you couldn't enjoy it. Not with Wooyoung by your side and the dooming knowledge, that he was pretty close to breaking you.
You had already accepted your fate, that was until you spotted a familiar figure. He was hard to miss because he was towering over everyone else and his hair was still the same shade of orange, with which you last saw him in person. You didn't need to see his face to know that it was Yunho. Your eyes widened and your heart rate picked up, this was your chance. You were about to yell his name, but Wooyoung, who had spotted him at the same time as you did, was quick to stop that.
He put his hand over your mouth and discreetly but quickly pulled you to a more secluded area. "Were you trying to call him," he asked as soon as you were alone.
You of course shook your head, but Wooyoung was not having it. He only asked you because he wanted to give you a chance, to tell the truth, and you failed miserably. He knew you, and he knew what you were trying to do. The trip was cut short because of this incident. Wooyoung roughly grabbed you by your wrist, and pulled you after him, not caring if you could keep up with his fast pace.
The drive back was in complete silence too, but it was worse than the drive to the market. The air was filled with tension, and you had to live with the fact that you failed. Wooyoung didn't calm down during the whole drive back, he was clenching and unclenching his jaw and his knuckles turned white from his hard grip on the steering wheel. It was already dark when you arrived back 'home'.
There were different kind of ways of how silence could be described. Awkward silence, pleasant silence, sinister silence, and many more. However sinister would fit the most, had you had to describe the silence as you first walked into the log cabin again. For some reason, you knew immediately that Jongho was gone, which left you alone with an angry Wooyoung, but there was something else that you couldn't quite describe. It was as if the time was frozen, waiting for something.
Apparently, you were the only one who noticed the difference, because Wooyoung was entirely focused on his anger and you. He grabbed your wrist again as soon as he slammed the door shut, you winced at the sound and were surprised that he didn't take the door off its hinges. He continued to drag you after him, up the stairs and to his room, where he then proceeded to slam the door shut in the same manner as the front door.
He let go of you and you shuffled into the middle of the room, where you had some distance from him and couldn't be cornered by him. You stood there unsure, playing with the hem of your pullover until Wooyoung finally said something. "What were you talking about with Jongho, the other day?" This caught you off guard, you had expected him to ask you about the encounter with Yunho again, but not this. You assumed that he had forgotten about your conversation with Jongho.
"Nothing. Nothing important." You said.
He nodded slightly and let out a short quiet laugh before he fixes his cold gaze on you. "I decide what is important and what is not! What were you talking about?" The vein on his neck looked like it was about to pop, he just needed one more reason to set him off.
You considered lying to him, but it seemed pointless. He wouldn't stop pushing until you finally heave him the answer he wanted. Your eyes traveled down to the white square carpet, which you were standing on. It was a big contrast to the dark wooden floor it was lying on. "He-," you were ready to push all of the blame on him, but you reconsidered. "We were talking about leaving."
Wooyoung didn't seem to be surprised at all, he probably had already suspected it. All of a sudden he got closer to you and swiftly wrapped his hand around your neck. He didn't apply enough pressure to cut off your airway, but enough to hold you in place. You put both of your hands around his wrist and tried to pry him off, but he didn't move one bit. "I told you before, not to lie to me. Yet, you told me that you didn't want to leave." His eyes narrowed as he brought his face closer to yours, his lips were ghosting over yours when he whispered, "Are you trying to irritate me on purpose?"
He was dangerous his hand around your neck proved it once again. If he wanted to he could extinguish your life at any moment. All of those facts yet you still got those unwanted tingles in your stomach, because of his close proximity. He must have done it, he must have finally broken you, because you were sick in the head for still having feelings for him. You couldn't think straight, all you were thinking about was how close he was, and what would happen if you crossed the line and closed the gap between you.
"You belong to me, right?" He asked but it still sounded more like a statement. You nodded, it wasn't enough for Wooyoung though. "Then say it. Say that you belong to me."
"I belong to-" You didn't get any further. The door swung open and three armed police officers invaded the room.
"Hands over your head and get on your knees!" Commanded one of them, all three of them were pointing their weapons at Wooyoung, who was still holding you by your throat. "Don't make me repeat myself." He said after Wooyoung made no move to comply.
You were watching with wide eyes, you couldn't believe that you almost kissed him out of your own free will and you couldn't believe, that you were finally being rescued. Were you dreaming? No, this was real. Wooyoung slowly removed his hand from your neck and followed the orders he was given, but not without glaring at them the whole time. If looks could kill they wouldn't be standing anymore.
"Y/N right?" The same officer addressed you now.
Still in shock, you could only manage to whisper a small, "Yes." You cringed at the sound of your voice. It sounded hoarse, even to your own ears.
The officer didn't take his eyes or his weapon off of Wooyoung. "Go outside. Your family is waiting in front of the house." Your Family. Everything felt surreal, after a year you had given up on the idea that someone was going to come and save you. Especially after your most recent failure at the market.
You weren't dreaming, right? Your legs felt like jelly with every step you took, until you finally reached the front door, which was left wide open. Two police cars were standing outside with their lights on, the blue and red lights were reflecting on the glittering snow. Your body reacted automatically when you ran up to your parents once you spotted them. Your parents were both shedding tears when they finally held you in their arms again, but for some reason, you didn't. It wasn't that you weren't happy to see them again, however it wasn't enough to make you cry.
Yunho and Mingi were there too, you finally acknowledged them when your parents released you of their crushing hug. Yunho was the next one who you pulled into a hug. You came to the conclusion that he must have called the police, he must have seen you back then. "Thank you," you mumbled into his chest.
"What did I do to deserve a Thank you," He asked.
Confused you pulled a bit back to look at him. Yunho had his head cocked to the side and looked at you with the same kind of confusion. "I thought... you called the police."
Both of you stayed quiet for a second before he slowly shook his head. "How would I have known that you're here?" So he wasn't the one who brought you back your freedom, but then who else?
Mingi had already opened his arms, pouting and waiting for his hug when you let go of Yunho, but you had your attention elsewhere. Wooyoung was being led outside the house, his face didn't show any emotions, as if he didn't just get caught and ruined his entire life. He didn't even spare you another glance, as he was forced inside in one of the police cars.
Your eyes wandered to the second car. The flickering lights were illuminating the inside just enough for you to recognize a silhouette on the backseat. Jongho. He was staring straight ahead, unmoving, as if he wasn't even present. The gears in your head started turning, if it wasn't Yunho, then it must have been Jongho, who helped you.
You didn't have time to think about it more because Mingi, who was still impatiently waiting for his hug had enough of waiting. He pulled you into him. "Mingi! You're crushing me!" You tried to get some space, but he didn't budge.
"I missed you idiot so much." You couldn't see him, since your face was squashed against his chest, but you knew that he was crying because of his shaky voice. You stopped struggling against him and soothingly pat his back until he was ready to face you again. "I'll never leave your side again!" It sounded a bit like a threat, but it made you smile nonetheless. The feeling of peace overcame you, a feeling you haven't felt during the past year.
Ten months past since you gained your freedom back. Your life became somewhat normal again, and you started to see a therapist, to handle and overcome your gained trauma from the past events. However, you still felt uneasy when Autumn arrived again, and with it, Halloween too. Everyone was preparing for it, everyone except you, your family, and your friends. With every day did your stomach ache get worse until Halloween arrived again. You and your family, including friends, decided to spend the day together.
The day was going well until the news came on. You were all sitting together in the living room when the reporter announced, "Breaking News! Jung Wooyoung, who has been arrested for murder and kidnapping, broke out of prison. The police are feverishly searching for the convicted killer. Please contact the police, should you have any clues on his whereabouts."
Your blood ran cold, and you could feel your heart rate pick up. You didn't know if it were your parents or Mingi who tried to talk and soothe you. In the end, it didn't matter. No words could calm you down anyway, not when Wooyoung was roaming around somewhere out there. He was determined to get you back, determined to never let this nightmare end. You would never be able to sleep properly again, for as long as he was alive.
Tag: @belle643
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aotopmha · 1 month
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The FF14 community has a sarcastic saying along the lines of "great community btw", which is used in cases whenever someone or some group of awful people pop up doing something shitty and which I find annoying.
I think it is really obnoxious because having a great community does not mean there will never be any awful people in that community.
Especially when you get an award for stuff like having a great community – something that in many spaces is usually based on popularity or earned via nebulous committee vote.
That's just not how people work. And putting that strange standard on every single person in that community is really unrealistic.
In fact, I think it would be creepier if occasional assholes didn't pop up. Actual cult behaviour entails a situation where nobody is frustrated, critical or says anything bad about each other ever.
And this is doubly so for stuff that is popular.
We have 30 million accounts in the game now. Do you honestly expect not one of them to be made by an awful person?
The second frustration I have is tying social media with the community. Yoshi-P and his team, don't, even in fact, straight-up can't really, moderate what happens on social media, on Twitter, Reddit, Discord etc.
And as far as I know their official accounts keep it pretty basic and chill.
So, a lot of the bad stuff is just the nature of social media and the internet.
Now, this actually does not mean the dev team bears no responsibility because what they can do is minimise the poison within the game itself.
FF14 is probably the cleanest multiplayer community I've been apart of ever. The most I've gotten is generic insults in French.
The lack of gamerwords in my 3 months of time surprised me the most, and so did the occasional actual compliments. We just either talk about the game or what issues there are with us doing the mechs or disband when stuff isn't working out and time is getting wasted.
But I also know many haven't been as lucky and some of the security features were dated even by the time the game re-released back in 2013.
The friendlist is a mess because it doesn't block properly, and I know stories of people who had to go to another region to escape their stalker.
The GMs, while preferrable to any automated moderation, still don't catch everything, sometimes for years, especially whistleblowers who signal stuff in specific codewords and technically aren't breaking the rules.
Unjust massreportings can happen.
Reporting can be clunky and from what I've explored is hidden behind some menuing instead of just being an open option like in many other online games.
So they kinda can't control Twitter or Reddit at all and they can't change human nature, but I think they can modernise a bunch of the social tab.
I also haven't experienced the game as a non-sprout/at endgame yet, which I'm told can make a difference. Part of the reason why I find the game so rewarding is because you find so many different experiences and opinions in just Duty Finder and you just sometimes get to talking with them about the game and then various other things.
Recently, many gathered to honor Akira Toriyama in many of the data centers and people were just kind of talking to each other about DB and other series.
And I've never seen anything like this in any other MMO or any multiplayer games. I know it happened for Kentaro Miura, too, when he died.
So clearly, the social element is a huge part of the identity of an MMO, so if they mean they're improving the MMO in the MMO, I hope this also includes the social tab features.
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doberbutts · 1 year
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I hope you don't mind me adding onto the conversation you were having. But as an Arab person who lives pretty close to the US/Mexico border, I tend to mostly be read as Latino by people around me. Sometimes Persian since there's a Persian population here, but mostly Latino. The way that race and ethnicity is interpreted can often heavily depend on where you live in the world. To say somebody is "white passing" or "not white passing" without knowing their circumstances takes away a lot of nuance from the conversation.
Same with if events where certian racial or ethnic groups are in the spotlight (usually for something negative). I was clocked as Arab a lot during the first ten years of 9/11, but I got clocked as Latino a lot more now since there's a lot more fear mongering about "Latinos jumping the border and taking jobs" (along with just living closer to the border). This is without people knowing my name (which does read as traditionally Arabic). So much of this is dependant on where you are in the world and the current politics.
I mean this exact situation is why the idea that anyone can be "exempt" from oppression is laughable at best and wildly unrealistic. People get caught in the spaces between all the time and experience bigotry directed at them over a case of mistaken identity. And there's no amount of "hey I'm not actually the thing you're assaulting me for, I'm this other thing" that will work to make the assault stop.
Hate crimes are still hate crimes even if your "real identity" doesn't "match" the bigot's opinion, because if the bigot thinks you match and acts on it, it's still a fucking hate crime inspired by bigotry.
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heliza24 · 11 months
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I just stumbled onto your page and I love reading your insights and analysis of Young Royals. I’d like to hear your take on this if you don’t mind ofc.
When Simon tried to tell Marcus that he was not ready for a relationship, Marcus ignored him and said that they could take things slow with no stress and that he can wait. And when you wait for someone, there are two outcomes, either they’ll get together or they won’t. And in this situation where Simon said that he’ll never be ready, it was obviously not going to happen. They never had a mutual discussion about them being exclusive (boyfriends) and Simon made no promises to Marcus. So what was Marcus expecting?
My question is why was Marcus pissed at Simon in the end? Marcus was the one who said that he could wait for someone who would never be ready. Ig the only thing that Marcus can be angry about is Simon using him at the ball. But he barely talked about it and instead insults Simon with assumptions about who Simon is even though Marcus knows nothing about him.
Thanks anon! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my analysis!
So I’ve already written a bit about the breakup scene. I think Marcus is exhibiting some subtle classism and racism in his reaction to the breakup, and I also think Marcus is operating on a very heteronormative relationship timeline which impacts how annoyed he gets with Simon.
But I thought your question might be a good excuse to talk about character and scene writing in a more technical way, since people still have questions about Marcus’s motivations.  I am a playwright and I like thinking and talking about this stuff a lot.
So, when we design a character in playwriting and screenwriting, we always think about their goals. These are big desires that help motivate a character over the course of the whole script. (Or in this case, season of television).  But in any specific scene, a character isn’t usually thinking about their big, defining goal. They’re dealing with the small piece of that desire that is right in front of them. Usually they’re interacting with another character, and they want something from that other character that is going to get them closer to their big goal. That little want is their objective, and the way they go about getting it drives the scene. A character usually doesn’t try just one method for reaching their objective; they’ll try different techniques, rephrase their words, etc. All of those methods are called actions.
(By the way, when people say that scripts require conflict to work, this is what they mean. Characters always have objectives and want something from each other. It doesn’t mean they have to be fighting; their objective could be to make friends. But that exchange is necessary to make a scene work).
This is pretty abstract, so let’s do a silly example to make things clearer. Meet John, my made-up character. John’s overarching goal is to have a closer relationship with his dad, who is a chef. In the scene I’m writing, John wants his dad to try the brownies he just baked because he thinks they will impress his dad. That’s his objective. He might try different actions to get that to happen. First he might set up a fan so the delicious smell wafts over to his dad. He might eat one in front of his dad and remark upon how delicious they are. If neither of those things work, he might resort to begging his dad directly to just try one!
But what if John’s dad still refuses to try his brownies? He’s probably not going to keep trying. After a certain point, trying more and more actions against an unresponsive scene partner feels unrealistic. So John’s objective might change. He might say to his dad: “Mom will eat these and tell me how great they. She’s a better parent than you.” Boom. New objective: make Dad jealous. It still connects to John’s overarching goal. If Dad gets jealous of John’s connection with Mom, he might invest more in his own relationship with John. It’s not a smart or emotionally healthy or reasonable tactic! But you can see how someone who is upset might resort to it.
Scenes can be broken down into smaller units called beats. A new beat starts whenever a character switches to a new action (so using the fan, remarking upon the brownies, and begging would all be distinct beats). Switching to a new objective would also create a new beat. You can think of a beat as the smallest unit of dramatic writing.
 (This is not to be confused with the stage direction “he takes a beat” which is sometimes just used interchangeably with “he pauses before speaking”. Confusing but true).
Thank you for hanging with me through that extremely goofy example I just made up.  Now let’s use these concepts and see if they can help us understand Marcus as a character and the way that his relationship with Simon unfolds.
I would say that Marcus’s goal across season 2 of YR is to make Simon his boyfriend.  Marcus is a pretty minor character, all things considered, so I don’t think his goal needs to be very complex. (If we were talking about Wilhelm or Simon’s goal in the season, it would probably be a lot harder to summarize so succinctly.)
We don’t know a ton about Marcus’s backstory, but we know a few things that might point to character motivation that would make this goal make sense. He’s an older kid, with his own apartment and car. He’s at the point in his life where he might really want a partner to fit in with this grownup conception of himself. And he likes Simon!
So how does he accomplish his goal? In early scenes his objective is to get Simon to like him. He offers to drive him to campus, he asks him to karaoke, he invites him over. Those are all pretty simple actions. And they are at least partially successful! Simon agrees to go out with him.
In that first awkward hookup scene, his and Simon’s objectives are in conflict. Simon is there to hookup and forget his problems. Marcus is there to make Simon his very serious, very committed boyfriend, which to him means no sex yet. So it makes sense that Simon makes a move and that Marcus shuts him down. Those conflicting actions are a good example of how conflict drives a scene forward.
Ok, now let’s look at the scene in 2.3 where Simon first tries to break up with Marcus. Now Marcus’ objective has changed a little bit. Instead of trying to create the relationship with Simon, he’s trying to prevent Simon from ending it. (Simon’s objective in this scene is to breakup with Marcus). There are a few different beats in this scene where Marcus tries different actions to get Simon to stay. First, he offers Simon time. He’ll wait until Simon is ready. When Simon says that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready, then Marcus compares himself to Wilhelm. He tries to make himself seem a safer and better person than Wilhelm (“I won’t hurt you like he did”). When Simon acknowledges his goodness (“I think you’re like, perfect”) but that doesn’t change his mind, Marcus brings up Simon’s family. Marcus asserts that Simon must not recognize how lucky he is to be dating Marcus because Simon’s parents didn’t model a healthy relationship. Marcus ends up “winning” this scene; after those three beats Simon agrees to keep dating him.
Now we’re at the final breakup scene in 2.6. Things have really changed when this scene opens. Marcus already knows that he has failed at his goal. Simon hasn’t been talking to him, and he knows that he hooked up with Wilhelm in some capacity. So Marcus goes through a pretty dramatic shift here. Instead of trying to win over Simon, I think his main goal is now to try to preserve his own feelings. That’s pretty relatable if you’ve ever been broken up with. You’re just trying to get out of there with your heart as intact as possible. A great way to do this is to make it very clear that the breakup was not your fault. That way you don’t have to accept any blame or feel guilty. I would say that this is Marcus’s objective in this scene: make it very clear that the breakup is Simon’s fault, not his. The first action that he tries to accomplish this is to blame Wilhelm. Marcus is a great guy, but how was he supposed to compete with a prince, especially when Simon is clearly just starstruck by Wilhelm’s status? (This is not true of Simon, I would say, but remember that we’re just in Marcus’s head trying to think of ways to deflect blame right now). Here's where the scene shifts in a really interesting way. Instead of just accepting this, Simon pushes back with a new action of his own. He directly points out the ways that Marcus is at fault for their breakup: Marcus didn’t listen to Simon when he said he didn’t want a serious relationship. That’s a new beat in the scene, and I can almost physically see Simon lob the blame back over the fence onto Marcus (good for him tbh). So now Marcus is on the back foot. He’s about to totally fail to reach his objective in this scene. No more Mr. Nice Guy, time to play dirty. So he reaches for the most effective action he can think of, insulting Simon directly.  More specifically, he accuses Simon of the thing that he himself is doing: deflecting blame. He even says to Simon “everything just happens, and it’s never your fault”. Simon plays the victim, he’s turned on by drama, so this breakup MUST be Simon’s fault. And then he tells Simon to get lost, effectively ending the scene on that final, very strong action. He makes sure he gets the last word.
I hope that helps explain why Marcus reacts so angrily, even if his anger doesn’t seem reasonable to an outside, neutral observer. Everything Marcus does is motivated by his larger goal. Every action he takes, even the ways in which he insults Simon, are tactics he uses to try to meet his objectives in each scene. If you’re living inside of Marcus’s head, all of those steps make perfect sense.
This is a good technique to use in general when you’re trying to understand and evaluate a dramatic text (Play, movie, tv show, etc). Does each character have a goal? Does each scene have distinct objectives for all of its characters? Do the actions they take align with those objectives? Asking these questions will help you understand characters but also help you evaluate the overall strength of the writing. Obviously I think Young Royals does a great job with this generally, and I had a good time breaking down Marcus into his component parts so to speak.
Thanks for the ask!
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mechanical-aristocrat · 7 months
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What are your thoughts on Screwllums letter to Svarog? I'm open for discusstions.
[OOC:]
My immediate thought upon reading it was "this is super wholesome and cute" and yeah, I still definitely think that, but I've got a lot more to say now that it's been sitting in my brain for few days so buckle up:
First off, this man is so totally autistic /aff (as is literally any robot character in any piece of media, you can't convince me that an allistic robot is a thing that exists). Over explaining to make sure the exact point he's trying to get across does so as accurately as possible and apologizing in advance for accidentally crossing boundaries (considering that at this point in time Svarog is basically a complete stranger), as an autistic person myself it's very relatable to see.
Second, I think it's really funny that he only knows of Svarog's existence because he watched what is essentially an E-Sports tournament, which he only watched because Silver Wolf practically begged him to (because I think we can pretty safely assume that the "Stellaron Hunter friend" he was referring to was her); that just adds onto the relatability for me because I also do not give a flying fuck about E-Sports, he's so real for that. I love Screwllum and Silver Wolf's dynamic with each other, they give off uncle-niece vibes and it's very fun (what I don't understand and will never understand is people shipping them with each other, it makes me really uncomfortable for several reasons, but for the sake of my sanity I'm not going to get into it).
Third, the letter honestly just confirmed some of the headcanons I had once I sat down and read all the lore regarding the Machine Emperor Wars about a month ago (which I highly recommend btw it's super interesting stuff). I guess I sort of had the fear that Hoyo would try to make it so the IPC just completely dropped every last bit of their idea to exterminate all mechanical life the second Screwllum proved to them that robots aren't inherently harmful to humanity, and that everything was just magically okay after that and humans and machines could live in perfect harmony with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. Thank fuck they didn't do that because that would've been both super boring and super unrealistic, Screwllum acknowledges within the letter that there are many places where robots are regarded only as tools, they don't often have the same sort of foot holding in society that humans do, and he hopes that changes someday.
(one of the headcanons that I have regarding this is that there's a secretive group of people within the IPC that are specifically trying to fuck up Screwllum's reputation and the reputations other robots who are also massive public figures that advocate for robot rights, but especially in Screwllum's case they haven't found much success because that man does not have a single problematic line of code in his programming)
Lastly, I would kill to see Screwllum and Svarog properly interact in the future, I think they'd get along so well and their dynamic would be so fun. I don't necessarily ship them, but more power to you if you do, honestly I might eventually be convinced to ship them if more stuff like this shows up, this was super cute (also, before anyone reading gets confused, the "we will come to call each other "brothers"" bit at the end of the letter does not mean anything that would make shipping these two characters quote-on-quote "problematic". The word "brothers" in this context purely refers to a strong bond of friendship and mutual understanding. I honestly should not have to explain that, but considering that the internet is the internet, I figured I ought to).
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pumpkinstrawbrew · 7 months
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𝕐𝕠𝕦'𝕝𝕝 𝕓𝕖 𝕒 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕜
𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕀'𝕝𝕝 𝕜𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕒𝕟𝕪… ⋭
(so, where to begin? i guess from the simple fact, that i wanted to do smth fun with this clean-cut parallel. at first, i wanted to make some quick edits, but then, i decided what the heck. i might just re-draw it! *or sort of re-draw it anyways*
the shippy stuff is shippy, but really it was hard not to be all like *insert dicaprio pointing meme* when i was reading the venom comic, and flash just pulled a batman on me. beat jack up, n’ then instead of killing him, like he wanted to, he spared him. took him in his arms all gently-like n’ carried his sorry ass into the dawn. like man, it just hit the cords within me! i was all like oohhh, it's like in one of my most fav scarecrow issues! i wasn't expecting this from the comic, even less so from flash, who always had a bit of bipolar resolute, when it came to jack. 'he wanna kill him, he wanna kill him not'. that sort of thing. yet, this moment kind of shown, that he prob will always find a reason to talk himself out of putting him down.
that's aside, another part of why i love those stories, is that both issues felt personal. both, jon n’ jack had personal grudges, both batman and flash were struggling with personal darkness within them. both overcame it, n' literally had to beat up their personal walking-talking nightmare *flash even refers to jack as that later on*. like, it was pretty great, honestly. all that emotional baggage, uncanny kinships with their own twisted mirror, which resulted in them actually feeling sympathy for scarecrow n' jack. giving them a small speech, that they couldn’t hear *bc unconscious*, sort of implying that maybe ‘they’re not beyond help’. it's almost bitter-sweet. even if most people would argue, that both jon n’ jack are way-way too far gone at that point. even if 'solution' sounds too unrealistic to be true. still, if someone like batman believes in you, then maybe, just maybe there is a chance. n’ if someone like flash spares your life, even though, he’s nothing like bruce *he actually killed people before*, then perhaps, there is smth beyond projection, which made him do it. 
all 4 characters are very different, n’ thb the context in everyone’s motivations n’ struggles are very different too, but i love how bruce n’ flash came to the same conclusion. took the same route with their respective twinky ghoul. showing mercy is noble, n’ it’s pretty sweet tbh. one of my fav tropes in fiction is when the hero/protagonist shows kindness/empathy toward their villain *who in most cases doesn’t ‘deserve it*. that whole cop out thing about 'evil should be punished by death' in fiction really takes away the romantism n' bendiness of fiction as whole tbh. esp with heroes. they supposed to be able to do 'impossible', including 'forgive the unforgiving'. this is why i prob will always advocate for the ‘no kill’ rule for super-heroes. i mean, it makes you have moments like those. smth that is actually emotional n’ also shows the cracks in heroes themselves, bc usually they can only truly relate to their rogues, someone who is usually designed to be a warped up reflection of hero’s own weaknesses, struggles or traumas. n’ while i always see jack o’lantern as spiderman’s villain *he’s one of oldies, a classic villain after all*, i suppose, that this version of jack was tailored for flash’s venom specifically, n’ i *unexpectedly* i loved it. daddy's issues run deep in this one for both of them. meanwhile, bruce be out there lecturing jon's school bullies, after he nearly killed them. what a man lol.
now, the comic panels themselves. just for better visualisation.
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i didn’t include the first bit in my lil art thingy above, but i love how not only the venom mirrors batman in actions, but also how they’re even facing opposite sides, playing around with nearly opposite color pallets in each fight too. caters to the mood, but also it just looks nice side by side tbh. the blue/black/grey for batman, and orange/dark brown/yellow for venom. a dark knight / soldier n' maskless halloween villain. this prob the only point, where they connect narratively n' thematically, but it's a major one.
anyho', i didn't had a hardcore goal to re-draw those scenes to a t, just make it recognizable for the most part. but it was fun! also gave me an execuse to stare at those comic panels some more.
as for the song, it popped out inside my head kinda randomly. but it fits them, i think. even the tune itself adds to it. somewhat sad n’ slow. but the meaning of it, not fully hopeless. at least, they will always have someone there for them. after all, guys like jon n’ jack will always come back, seeking ‘their hero’, hungry for punishment or other things. n’ for someone as crippled as bruce or flash, it might not be the worst thing, really. usually, the hero is stuck in the same miserable 'unchanging', unwinnable situation as their villains are. be it outside forces, fate or sickness, that keeps them bond. it's still better to try and make the best of it, right?)
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onesaltyerik · 1 year
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Deranged Ramblings of A Technoblade fan
Ok I don't know how to blog for shit and I've not slept in two days so yall are now gonna suffer as I throw out my thoughts to the universe.
Technoblade, the character, is often depicted as wearing a corset and while I've not seen anyone complain about it being "unrealistic" because lets be real here the SBI is made up of a perpetually tired bird man, a bard with a habit of destroying countries, a vaguely anthropormorphised to straight up anime elf prince pig depending on the artist, and a Tommy; a corset is the LEAST of one's worries ya know?
Anywho, corsets on a warrior. Being a semi-qualified art historian and an enthusiast in fashion and medieval armour, it is ACTUALLY plausible!
As the common discourse goes, a PROPERLY FITTED and NON-TIGHTLACED corset is actually very comfortable to wear. They were literally designed to support the chest and help with posture despite the common modern idea of the corset being cruel and blah blah blah literally everyone who's worn a proper corset can vouch that it's actually quite comfy. (Myself included, shut up men can wear corsets too.) And depending on the type of corset, they can be very flexible to allow for movement. The type of corset would be the one to look at when determining realism, in this case we got full corsets that are kinda like vests, underbust corsets, and mid corsets. Your full size corset provides the most support as it distributes the weight of the bust around your waist and shoulders, with some types of underbusts doing similar. Seeing as unless c/Techno has a bust size in need of support, this probably isn't gonna be the one worn most in battle as, while corsets can be moved pretty easily in, they were not made in the intention to be worn into battle.
An underbust would be more flexible and still provide any sort of support, and a mid-torso corset probably wouldn't provide the same amount of support but would still help with supporting one's back, especially when riding a horse or walking for a long time and trust me good back support is a BOON when you're wearing armour. On that front, while a corset that has boning made of baleen, metal, or bone might provide some protection to slashing attacks, and distribution of impact to an extent, against an arrow/axe/well placed sword strike, not great. That's the point of wearing a gambison and armour in general. A gambeson acts as a means of keeping armour from touching the skin and chaffing, as well as providing an extra layer of squish between the body and the weapon. You can actually just wear a gembeson when fighting in a pinch, it won't exactly protect against an axe or flail or mace or arrow, but much like a corset slashing damage will be diminished.
So, as for wearing a corset while also wearing armour, to look fashionable but still provide protection, I would say the best way to do so would be to wear a mid-torso corset with a gambeson style interior, and a crop top style gambeson over the top and half-breast plate over that. Would I wear it into battle? Absolutly not. Would it provide protection during a display of power in a parade? Yes. Is it better than nothing? Also yes. Am I going to draw this at some point? Absofuckinlutely! The more likely form, and one that would be very interesting to see that I have yet to see any artist (so far) make, would be a wasp-waist style of breastplate armour. At that point you basically have a full on metal corset that's way more effective than just wearing the weirdly layered bits of corsetry and armour that was previously mentioned. Anyways, I am sleep deprived and have definitley missed a few points but I hope whoever has read this enjoyed the ramblings ok goodnight.
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Hazbin Top 5
I was going to make a top 10 character list, but realized after the first 5 I didn't know where to place anyone- But in case you're curious, some contenders for the remaining 6-10, in no specific order, were Angel Dust, Charlie, Emily, Niffty, and Sir Pentious. Now here's my top 5 with reasonings and appreciation for them all!
5. Lucifer
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Obviously bro is relatable, not only for his awkwardness and hyperfixations, but he also happens to be the same height as I am at about 5'2" (according to the sources I've seen). Being the same height as Lucifer is my biggest flex lmao- I still have no idea why his hatred of Alastor seemed so instant. Like yeah, Alastor was trying to annoy him by being a better dad to Charlie, but the whole 'fuck you' moment happened before any of that started. Did he just sense the bad vibes off of him or what? Anyway, his awkwardness and desperation to connect with his daughter make for probably my favorite lines of the episode, such as the "Hey bitch!" and the whole "You like girls? So do I!" situation followed by him being so distracted he called Vaggie by the wrong name. Perfect comedy
4. Lute
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I love her an insane amount for someone who shows up so relatively little with so few lines, but here we are. I've already made an entire post about her, here it is if you want it, so I'll keep this short (Spoiler alert: I failed). I actually don't think I mentioned just how attractive this woman is, so let's get that out there right now. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this, about half the people I've seen react to Episode 6 have seen Lute without her mask, took a pause of recognition, and we all knew what they were thinking before the pressed play. Istg my taste in women (and sometimes even men, thanks Vox) is just "Can they murder me without a second thought? Yes? That's hot". My favorite line of hers is when she's hyping up the army with Adam and says "Rip Vaggie's cunt mouth out her ass!" and even Adam has to be like "damn girl chill what the hell-" She's so feral I love her so much
3. Rosie
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Everyone needs a Rosie in their lives. I don't just mean a regular therapist, I mean a person in your life, friend or family member, who will talk you out of your downward spiral and gently call you out on why those paranoid thoughts are actually pretty unrealistic (the other side of the same coin would be Husk, he's just more blunt about it). I'm also still completely convinced she has some interesting and sad backstory based on how she was talking to Charlie and I need to know about it so bad. "It can be difficult to admit to things you're not proud of, especially if those things hurt the ones you love" Ma'am what did you do? I find it hard to believe it's just about the cannibalism. I don't know if in this instance, she's the one who hurt someone or someone else hurt her and she was the one who failed to forgive them, but either way I need answers.
2. Vox
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Y'all know I love this man in more ways than one, he one the hottest Hazbin character poll for a reason. But I swear everything about this man makes me love him as a character more. First, I always love a technology based character, his electricity powers and literal screen head are the coolest thing in the world to me. He's voiced by Christian Borle, which was a fantastic choice, along with the glitched effect his voice gets when he's mad, I love to see it. Apparently it's also canon he can fly (with rocket shoes)?? He just keeps getting the best character design choices possible, this can't possibly be fair- The fact his first introduction was being done with Val, telling him to call tf down, and treating him like a child ("Now that's why they pay you the big bucks!") was a pretty good first impression for me lol, made even funnier when it was followed by him losing all sense of rationalism when Alastor entered his line of sight.
1. Alastor
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The character my blog is named after, this should not be a surprise. Shockingly enough, despite my obsession for him and acknowledgement of his charming nature and generally attractive design, I' do not simp for him in the slightest'm not personally attracted to him in the slightest. I simp for a TV and yet apparently deer man with permanent smile is where I draw the line idk- The most I want from him is to be as good of a friend to him as Rosie is (well that and to touch his ears but that's a given). But this is another character I love literally everything about. Who would've thought the concepts of 'radio host', 'serial killer', and 'literal deer' would work so well together to create this dapper yet terrifying fucking cryptid. Not only can he be either incredibly scary or a silly guy, he can and has done both at once. Example: Episode 3 when he's just casually eating a deer carcass in his room (in which he summoned a whole ass bayou). I was genuinely so glad when the 'this face was made for radio' thing happened in episode 1, confirming that they were still gonna lean into his creepy-as-fuck distortion and general vibe he had in the pilot. He's horrifying and evil and I love that about him. Meanwhile he also says shit like "Now he's pissy, that's the tea" (definitely taught to him by Rosie) and kicks his legs on the bed like a schoolgirl as if he hasn't committed countless atrocities. My favorite character, everyone-
Wow I wrote more than I meant to for this, sorry about the essay-
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Okay, I just thought of an AU that's either very big brained or very unrealistic, but here we go-
If you're familiar with some of the newer comics, there's a character called "Respawn", who is a clone of Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) and Talia al Ghul, making Respawn Damian's half-brother. What if Danny was also a clone of Deathstroke and Talia? You could even have Danny be a clone of Maddie and Slade, if you go along the lines of a similar AU to the one that can be found on @batpham-discord-highlights from a while ago, which you can find here that Maddie had once been a part of or associated with the League of Assassins.
You can either have Danny be trained by the League for some time, or be taken in by the Fentons very early on. The former would mean he has more training, while the latter would mean he's uninformed, beyond the fact that he knows he has to die his hair. Slade's hair is usually white/really light blond, from what I can see, so if this really is the former (where Danny knows about his creation and his relation to Slade) then when Danny goes through his accident, and he has his white hair, he gets REALLY spooked.
But that also means that Maddie might see Phantom flying around and think to herself, "Oh that's one of Slade's failed/killed clones" or something along those lines. So she thinks Phantom's extra dangerous to her and her family, to Danny especially. And that's why she REALLY tries to take him down.
If this is an AU where Danny is Damian's half-brother through Talia, then that's where we could see some more action. Imagine if there's Danny, stuck in ghost form but unable to access his powers, running around, still kicking ass. Maybe he has a sword or weapon of some kind, and the Batfam are either in the area or find out and they immediately think: "Deathstroke has another kid???"
He's got the pale hair and the green eyes (Lazarus green, and Slade was in the League at some point) for it, after all, right?
So they're really concerned, especially since this kid looks pretty experienced. And now they're worried if this is another Joseph Wilson (Jericho) situation, or even worse, a Rose Wilson (Ravager) situation, or EVEN WORSE, a Grant Wilson (also Ravager) situation. Yes, depending on the child, the situation could be worse or better. And since Deathstroke is technically a meta, when they see Danny use his powers again, they think that he just inherited the metagene, only whatever he got was MUCH more powerful. And then later, if they find out he's actually a clone, they'd think that he was experimented on to be this powerful.
Basically, the Batfam are losing their minds, Danny is confused and just wants to go home, Damian may or may not be getting a half-brother (of which he has rather complicated feelings about), and Deathstroke wants to know this child is really his or not. In either case, he has no intentions of paying for child support. He's a mercenary, not made of gold.
Sorry for the long ask, btw XD But what do you think?
I think this is brilliant and you should definitely write it! I love Damian having a half brother and being salty about it. I also love the thought that Danny would find out about Slade and pester him. Not for money mind you, but asking about hi other siblings and how to contact them. He might also terrorize Slade into family bonding time.
Danny probably gets kidnapped by the batfam for interrogation but he keeps escaping them :)
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swiftfootedachilles · 11 months
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How about you talk more about volunteer firefighter Ian since I totally ignored your ask about it
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gonna kill you
ok so essentially i am super interested in court proceedings and i have many thoughts abt the (horribly inaccurate) legal shit in shameless. ian was sentenced to 2 years, for arson i assume?? and seeing as hes mentally ill and was unmedicated at the time of the crime, he has a pretty good case to get his record sealed! no i dont think he cant get it expunged, and yes it would still show up on a background check by employers. and doing more research since i sent you that ask, theres like a .00001% chance that ian could be a volunteer firefighter even with a sealed record. fuck you ian for committing a felony youre lucky the shamey writers were too lazy to research that you shouldve been charged and found guilty of a class X felony with a minimum of 6 years in prison
BUT I DONT CAREEEE I WANT IAN TO FIND A WAY TO HELP OTHERS AND GIVE BACK TO HIS COMMUNITY!!!! HE JUST LOVES HELPING PEOPLE SOOOOO MUCH!!!
i want him to go to schools and show kids how the oxygen mask works and complain about how much the firehose weighs and race kids in the outdoor obstacle course in his full gear for fire safety day at the local elementary school. i dont CARE how unrealistic it is i NEED IT. he tasks himself with collecting the students' thank you cards and pinning them to the huge bulletin board back at the station
no im not thinking about his strong muscles as he carries people out of fire or him coming home to mickey covered and sweat and soot. thats gay i would NEVER imagine that 🤨🤨
BUT trying to stay as realistic as possible he could volunteer to lifeguard at the pool ("wdym this apartment complex lets unaccompanied minors in the pool without supervision!! i dont care that living here means signing a waver that makes the complex legally not responsible for accidents in the pool SOMEBODY COULD DIE!!!!") and give swimming lessons to the kids. i love lifeguard!ian too 🥺🥺🥺 him and his silly baywatch red shorts and absurd amount of mineral sunscreen and sunglasses he stole from mickey. hes my dad!!!
truly, i just get immense joy from putting s11 ian in situations
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elatedandexasperated · 8 months
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So there's been some discussion on RWRB actually being a "gay movie"
Most posts I've seen have more or less summarized that the movie is effectively a "straight romance" featuring a mlm coupling, which annoys me a bit. I can't say that this take is entirely wrong per say - I mean, I've called it basically a Hallmark movie, which I still think is true - but it's not devoid of queer experience like a lot of people seem to think it is...
and that "Hallmark" comparison, which I still stand behind, I feel comes more from structure than content.
You can take the film at face value or read deeper into it and still find a case for this argument. Most of this pertains to the movie alone, I'm personally in the camp that if you're going to analyze a piece of media, it should stand on its own. So while the book may have different expressions and levels of inclusion, remember, it's a book, not a 2-hour time boxed movie
Production
Right off the bat we have the movie's production. I'm not going into speculation on TZP or NG's sexuality out of respect, neither have confirmed or denied being part of the community and that's frankly their business and privacy. In a bit I will go into the text of the film regarding the characters, but I don't want to drag the actors into this any further than saying they did an excellent job portraying the characters.
Lopez, though, who is publicly out as gay, as well as McQuistion who is NB, have both put their messaging and perspectives on queer experience into the book and by extension the film and that much is very clear through things like the inclusion of Intimacy Coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt (another Gay man) as a way of trying to keep the intimate scenes grounded and realistic. So in the production alone there were clear attempts to visually represent authentic queer experiences. I think this is honestly the main reason why the main relationship is so compelling: the actors vibed well with each other (to the point that it was the initial feud that seemed contrived and unrealistic, which is just hilarious to me) and the coordinator worked with everyone collaboratively to keep things grounded, realistic, and to prevent it from going too far into the realm of fetishization from a visual standpoint.
As for the writing, we obviously are going to see most of the relatable queer experiences pop up in the lead roles:
Henry
Henry's character is arguably where the representation of queer experience is most explicit - at least from a level that regular (read straight) viewers would get without a lot of hand holding. At a surface level there's the classic "what will my family think?" questioning and general anxiety of being outed. Most of us in the community can relate to that, but in all honesty this is pretty standard fare and not the meat and potatoes of why I wanted to write this, what I am now realizing, unreasonably long rant breakdown *inhales*
ANYWAY.
At a deeper level though, Henry's struggle isn't so much internal as it is external. Yes there's internal angst still about being able to love openly, but in the film it's pretty clear that a good chunk of his family is aware of his sexuality (the statement that the king had a conversation with him when he was 18, him being open with Bea, etc.); He's also pretty confident in his sexuality already (he fairly easily explains his sexuality to Alex, and has confidence in his sexual experience). I'll go into this when we talk about Alex more, but I think this stems from the characters being aged up, but what this also does is shifts the narrative from simply "coming out" to dealing with abusive relatives and power systems after you've come to terms with who you are as a person, and then finding the strength to actually fight them once you've built up your support network.
And progress isn't linear for anyone on this - we relapse, mourn old relationships with people and family we thought would support us, and sometimes silence ourselves because "it's easier"; we see this happen with Henry pretty explicitly when he runs from the lake house. The reconciliation with Alex isn't flawless either: Henry requests time and patience with things so he can slowly begin his process of actually tackling the issue of how his sexuality and relationship with Alex relates to and impacts his professional duties. Alex, in true found-family style, gives him the support that he both wants and needs at that point in the story.
Alex
Alex's portrayal in the film I think has been the more controversial of the two (Not in terms of actor choice, TZP is a fantastic actor... Also fine as hell but that's beside the point). Most people who read the book criticize his relatively short "Bi-panic" period and how they felt it was more fleshed out in the book. Again, we're dealing with a time boxed movie here, so obviously the book will have more details. That being said, I don't think it was as unrealistic as people make it out to be if you dig a bit. This part gets a bit speculative, but stick with me here.
While I can't relate to a Bi coming out being a gay man and all, I think people should look at some context regarding the character's background: Alex is an incredibly flirtatious, personable, and media-savvy character who is also steeped in left-leaning politics. He knows what bisexuality is and given that he had a few same-sex experiences, has probably come to terms with that before his conversation with Nora in her office. In that scene he even stated that being into guys was something he understood for himself, his main source of "panic" was more the realization that he was specifically into Henry, someone he was actually angry and antagonistic with for several years.
As for why he seemed trepid first telling Henry he was Bi, and this is speaking from experience, there's a huge difference between coming to terms with who you're attracted to and putting a label on it for the first time, even to yourself. I think TZP acted that awkwardness well, especially in the Paris scene where, to shift gears a bit, the driving queer experience is Alex's inexperience with going that far with other guys, something most of us go through at some point. And again, in good, supportive fashion, Henry guides Alex through the process without judgement.
Alex and Henry
Both Alex and Henry are older in the movie than they are in the book, a fact that Lopez confirmed via interview. Even though it's only a few years, there's a huge difference in understanding your identity between your late-teens/early 20s and your mid 20s (generally speaking, people can come out at any age and that's completely fine. Everyone deserves to come out at their own pace and in their own way). With this, I think they did a good Job shifting the narrative from the more internal conflict of "who am I", which is very common in teen-centered dramas, to the more nuanced experience of figuring out how "Who I am" is going to impact your relationships and professional life, which I think is more befitting older characters. With Alex, it's how it will look to voters/impact on his mother's reelection AND how it impacts Henry's professional responsibilities; with Henry, it's his duties to the royal family and appearances.
*PHEW*
There's a lot more too when you dig. A personal... Um, well "favorite" isn't a great word, but you get my point - is how some members of the community will actively sabotage others for personal gain: Miguel outing them for the sake of professional ambitions (and maybe some light petty retribution for Alex dumping him, wherein Alex was justified) is unfortunately a pretty common experience.
I'm sure that there will be more to add for this if there's a sequel, which I hope there is and that they bring McQuiston in for (talk about marketing: she writes the outline based on the movie and the novel based on the first book which releases at the same time as the second movie. People would go nuts I'm sure).
Asides
We as a community spent years reading into media to find scraps of representation because that's all we could get, but I think we're not great at reading into it with more explicit movies that, while maybe building themselves off of "traditional" genre frameworks, still have those queer experiences. I think we set our standards too high sometimes because we are so starved for representation. What we got in this movie is, at least in my opinion, decent representation and authentic experiences for many people in our community, it's just subtle and maybe requires a deeper read of a character or scene. I picked up on some of these points and I hope other people can see some of the arguments I'm making here.
As a complete aside, I think we've been brainwashed a bit to think that "queer experiences = struggle" automatically and we're too quick to disregard queer media as "not gay enough" if there's not a suitable amount of angst or a particular identity isn't represented (This is NOT me minimizing the struggles of the LGBT+ community, just making a statement that maybe we shouldn't hinge our identities and portrayals in media on such negative experiences). Gay stories don't have to be tragic or full of existential crisis as it pertains to our identity. And while maybe unrealistic, some good fluff is healthy to see alongside the angst. As we progress as a culture and we become more accepted, struggle hopefully becomes less and less a unifying aspect of queer identity and we'll be able to see that reflected in our media.
tl;dr
I think the movie has more going for it in terms of queer experience than people give it credit for, it's just not what's typically seen in visual media and is buried in there a bit deeper. Just because it's a "Hallmark movie" structurally and plays into tropes doesn't mean it's not gay.
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thenickelportrust · 9 months
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Not to ask another Ricky question but
when he himself has learned to calm down a bit more as his own habits become healthier and his stress levels go down
Does this happen purely on a romance path or is this something he'd ever learn on his own?
Haha all good, I always get in more question answery modes when I'm writing on the demo so short, quick questions about single characters like this are A+ because they work extra well while I work!
Anyway:
Something he learns on his own!!
I'm big on having friendship paths mean just as much / having each character have their own story beyond just "romance".
Ricky's personal character growth is pretty much all about this, learning to let go of his unhealthy habits and discover the parts of himself he's pressed down in favor of an idealized but unrealistic standard.
That's why, even if you don't romance him, or romance him with a female MC, he still also goes through the self discovery of realizing he's bi!
Granted, you can also not interact with him / his story, in which case he'd probably seem the same beginning to end. I like to think he's still going through it in the background but because the MC is the central focal point of this story it might not be fully evident to an MC who isn't focused on him. Still! The man's is there, getting therapy in the background.
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