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mummer · 10 months

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just saw asteroid city last night, pls explain the proposed significance of the kiss!!

answering this publicly hope thats ok! cant do a readmore im on mobile *****asteroid city spoilers below beware*****

i dont remember anyones names so this is gonna sound partly unhinged. okay so the edward norton playwright and jason schwartzman actor (not character, in the black and white parts) are lovers right. tbh i thought this was kind of a gag and forgot about it. but later we find out that the playwright died 6 months into the production. i didnt make the connection that THAT’s why the actor-jason has to suddenly leave the stage and freaks out backstage about how he’s not sure he’s Doing it right. hes not talking about acting!! because he himself is literally grieving his lover while he’s playing a character who’s grieving his wife written by his lover so obviously it’s too much!!! actor-jason is trying to find meaning in his death through his writing but there isnt any meaning in death [gerris drinkwater voice] which is what the play is trying to say anyway. he doesnt think he’s performing grief right even in his own life!!! (and tbh it’s the 50s so he wouldnt be able to perform grief publicly anyway!!!!) the play starts with a car accident… anyone would search for some hidden meaning there, some sign…. so when he talks to margot robbie outside it’s not really about finding the CHARACTER’s motivations it’s about the actor himself being able to process the playwright’s death! and adrien brody director was probably also dealing with that too (him and norton seemed to be good buddies) so the whole “sleeping backstage” thing gets a bit sadder maybe? maybe everyone else got this in the theatre and im just stupid lol but crazy making stuff to me!!! the whole story is about sublimated gay grief that cannot be expressed?!?!

the tweet that caught me onto this was here which posits that the playwright’s death was a suicide but i think that’s pretty stupid and unnecessary because the whole thing about the play asteroid city is that death is random and meaningless. im pretty sure that’s what the alien represents— a shocking and absurd event that isnt outright evil or menacing, not something anyone can predict or make sense of, it’s just a thing that happens to you out of nowhere, it doesnt mean anything. he’s a little black figure, he’s death! giving and taking! aagh

#you’re the wife who played my actor :(#posthumus #asteroid city #imagine youre in love with a playwright and he writes a play before he even meets you about how you cant get over his death which hasnt #happened yet. id go insane too #im going to see it again to see how this informs the whole thing because its driving me crazy #rewatching the performances knowing that they're performing people performing. augh.#remember when bryan cranston accidentally appears in frame. rending my garments #also ‘you cant wake up until you fall asleep’ confused me a bit but then i remembered that the margot robbie scene was supposed to be put o #as a dream sequence and it makes sense now. thanks #aliens are the new fairytale monster symbol of death. the ultimate Unknowable #EDIT okay i read the wikipedia summary got some facts wrong adrien brody is sleeping in the theatre during rehearsals so its not because of #the playwright’s death he’s just like that.

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 3 months

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The girls are plottinggggg

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wen chao #wang lingjiao #Realizing she was supposed to have an upper lip mole was a cold slap in the face. So sorry ma'am. I won't forget again.#They are evil dumbass 4 evil dumbass and I think we are all missing out on the sheer potential of the comedy between these two.#They have way too much power and are using it for the wrong reasons - which makes them truly great villains.#And when things don't go their way they become piles of whining sludge.#Wang Lingjiao is forever fascinating to me even though we only get crumbs about her.#She's a servant girl who's greatest asset is her beauty and her attractiveness.#Meaning she's had a life being in the gaze of people with significant positions of power over her.#I can't help but read her childishness and petty tantrums as someone who has finally been given the chance to not feel powerless.#If she was a more virtuous type we might 'like' her more but honestly...I don't think she would have survived to this point.#WLJ has only known power hierarchies her whole life. Probably accused of seduction before she even understood what that meant.#I love contrasting her with mianmian because they have similar(ish) backgrounds but different approaches to moving forwards #But WLJ's story is about flying too close to the sun and mianmian's is about going too close to the water.#Like the sea mist dragging her down into complacency - all the sect powerplays are mandatory to 'go along with' if she wants to climb-#-the social ladder. Yet she is the cautionary tale (and a foil to JGY as well) she leaves before sacrificing her own morals.#Mianmian flies away with her wings only slightly plucked while those who sacrificed everything to reach for the top crash and burn.

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lonicera-edulis · 2 months

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Finally figured out a design for Perry. And this piece can be concidered an art for HobbitCember Prompt Challenge, Shire Fashion.

#sansukh #HobbitCember #I wanted to do these prompts but I am late as usual #I will make other few prompts later #I still need to finish hobbits with kids and boffins fam from lotro and I think I can fit them in this challenge too #gimizh is literally a mix of gloin gimli and bofur I don't know #perry is a took but I decided to give him a distinctive nose and hairstyle #actually I had a controversial feeling about their story #first how am I supposed to read Gimizh and think of an adult dwarf now #second I was opposed to another hobbit/dwarf thing (but this opinion of mine contradicts with the whole idea of sansukh and tasâlalkhud)#like isn't it enough it happened once #but I like both perry and gimizh so let it be

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coolchainsawlord · 2 months

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the dreamers

#bart allen #kon el #bartkon #superboy #impulse #dc #ugh ive been reading superboy actually recently... nothing goes this guys way ever does it...#anyways i was kinda trying to 'do my own thing' with this whole piece... which was supposed to be just a sketch... all well that ends well?

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hymnsofheresy · 1 month

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Do you pray for the hostages too?

Yes. I pray for the 110 or so israeli and immgrant hostages assumed to still be alive. And I also pray for the hundreds of Palestianian hostages arrested without charge in Israeli prisons assumed to be alive.

I pray for a ceasefire so that the Israeli hostages are released. I also pray for the end of Israeli apartheid government, so that Palestianians are liberated.

#i recommend reading some articles on the israeli hostages that were released #they each have individual perspectives but i notice online that people are refusing to hear many of their critiques of the israeli state #oftentimes dismissing the hostages of being ''irrationally traumatized'' or ''coerced'' into saying things #now i don't agree with all of them. especially since a lot are reformers. but i think it is important to hear their perspectives #also in general #the sheer number of palestians suffering compared to the israeli hostages is the reason why i think this ''whataboutism'' is ridiculous #you have 2 million people suffering and i am supposed to direct my primary attention to what like 100 of them specifically?#especially considering that there is one side that can end this whole thing: israel #hamas has already offered to release the hostages #in exchange for a ceasefire #and any attempt that the israeli military tried to ''liberate'' the hostages ended up in their deaths #what so far at least 3 israeli hostages were killed by israel (and there was probably more unconfirmed)

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umbrellacam · 1 year

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Reading A Lonely Place of Dying is so interesting in so many ways, but the question I'm still rotating in my mind is about Dick, and specifically why he ends up smiling and soft-advocating for Tim to be Bruce's Robin, after he had his morality crisis over young heroes with Jason's death.

So when he finds out about Jason's death, Dick feels guilty over giving Jason his Robin costume and not being there when he died:

New Teen Titans #55

To the extent that, later in the same issue, he unilaterally fires 15-year-old Danny Chase from the Titans, over Donna and Kory's objections, citing what happened to Jason. He even expresses doubt over his own young age when he became Robin, wondering whether that was a mistake:

New Teen Titans #55

However, when Dick visits Bruce in Gotham to both express his condolences over Jason's death and also confront him over not telling Dick about it, he explicitly rejects Bruce's implication of blame:

New Teen Titans #55

And later, when the Gargoyle is mentally torturing him over his past failures to the Titans, to Bruce, and Jason, Dick breaks through his self-blame issues and firmly asserts that there was nothing he could have done to prevent Jason's death.

Secret Origins (Vol. 2) #3

But understanding his lack of blame logically isn't the same as being totally past it, as it's part of Dick's larger cycle of guilt, as he acknowledges to his therapist:

The New Titans #57

So how does Dick get from here, still wrestling with guilt and feeling ambivalent about the idea of young heroes as a whole, to the end of A Lonely Place of Dying, where he smiles and basically urges Bruce to give Tim a chance to become Robin?

Like, yes, Dick then spends the entirety of Batman: Year Three worried about Bruce's tenuous mental state after Jason's death, reaching out to him in the midst of Batman's reckless, violent spiral, trying to both express care and to call his mentor and hero back to his foundations of crime-fighting through careful detective work, not through brutality - and getting rejected by Bruce over and over. Even while being proud of Dick's methods and the hero he's grown into, Bruce just can't seem to pull himself out of his own morass of self-destruction. Dick eventually has to leave him to it, though he clearly hasn't stopped worrying about Bruce by the start of ALPoD.

Yes, Tim impresses Dick multiple times over the course of ALPoD. First at the circus with his reflexes and his quick thinking (apparently almost as much as he irritates and baffles Dick with his stubborn evasiveness and pushy presumption, lol this total gremlin). Then at Wayne Manor when Tim goes through his deduction of Batman's and Robin's identities, although this one is more an implication through Dick's decision to show Tim the Cave immediately afterward, and Alfred's words to Tim.

Batman #441

And yet Alfred's sentiment here is immediately contradicted when Tim insistently pushes the Robin costume at Dick, and Dick gets pissed off, saying that, "When Jason died, he took Robin with him. And no matter how much anybody may want it - you can't bring back the dead."

The New Titans #61

How does Dick go from this to accepting Tim as the new potential Robin all of two issues later!! This boy's emotions are so mixed up, lol.

I feel like while Dick is clearly angered by Tim's presumptions, kind of baffled and creeped-out by the sort of parasocial fixation Tim has on both Bruce/Batman and Dick/Robin, below the surface he's also genuinely absorbing Tim's driving love and care for them both. Like, he's way too ticked off to show it or even think of it consciously at the moment - and it's hard to process!! despite that day at Haly's Circus tying them together a decade ago, this kid is a rando, it's out of nowhere, it's wild to be confronted with!! - but on some level he has to be touched by Tim's care and passion for their legacy. He wouldn't make his heel-turn later and smile at Tim so approvingly otherwise.

Like, Dick wants Bruce to have a partner that cares for him that much, that forces him to care for himself in a way that he clearly hasn't been since Jason's death. And Dick is both afraid and aware that he can't fill that role anymore - that he can try to stand beside Batman as Nightwing and support him that way, but he can't stand behind Bruce in his protective shadow again, can't cramp himself back into Robin.

So even as Dick is making line-faces at this bizarre kid pushing himself at them, talking about Jason and Dick and Bruce and what Batman needs like he knows better than Dick, UGH… Dick is also considering… is maybe moved a bit by that star-bright conviction and overflowing love in the face of all the doubts that seem to plague both Bruce and Dick lately… is maybe hoping, seeing a possible light in the dark. Not on a conscious level, perhaps, but it's maybe churning below the surface with everything else Dick is thinking about.

Anyway, Dick still tracks Batman down and tries being a supportive partner as Nightwing, even going "I'm here. Always," when Batman finally brings himself to admit that he needs help. Only to IMMEDIATELY run face-first into Bruce's control issues and post-Jason-disregarding-orders trauma - "You're not with the Titans now. If you want to be with me, you follow my orders. Now do as I say." (The New Titans #61) Oof, instant I'm-NIGHTWING-not-ROBIN friction, but Dick swallows it for now.

Then Two-Face blows up a building on top of both of them, and Tim (and Alfred!) have to rescue them both. By the time that they've been dug out, Alfred and Dick are both praising Tim's potential to a very baffled and alarmed, verging on angry, Batman lol. Dick and Alfred then grin at each other while young Tim struggles against his intimidation and argues the tremendously (and understandably!) reluctant Batman to a standstill.

Batman #442

As they drive away afterward (Bruce, Dick and Tim in the Batmobile to track down Two-Face - using the tracker Tim planted on him, good job Timmy!! - and Alfred toward home in a separate car), we get the following thought-bubbles:

Bruce: Even if he's right, I don't want another partner. Dick: Bruce, for once, think with your heart, not with cold logic. Tim: He doesn't want me, but he hasn't said no. So just do your best… Alfred: …One way or another, the rest will take care of itself.

Batman #442

"Think with your heart, not with cold logic" - so does Dick's line here mean that this is what he himself is doing at this point? Setting aside his logic, his fears and reservations about young heroes, about Jason's death, about putting another young boy in the Robin costume - because Tim joining them, maybe becoming Bruce's new partner, feels right? Because everything that Tim has shown of himself so far means the kid deserves a chance, at least? Because Bruce's caution after Jason's death would mean that he'll make sure to 'do it right this time'? Because Tim's passion and conviction could be what Batman needs, and - maybe as much if not more than that - could be something that deserves to be nurtured into something great, despite Dick's own (and Bruce's) fears?

Because Dick has to be wrestling with and at least quelling (if not fully letting go of) his fears about the risks to young heroes in these issues, it doesn't make sense for him to be okay with Tim as Robin otherwise. And it can't all be about what use Tim could be to Bruce - the leash he could put on Batman's out of control behavior. That's far too selfish and manipulative as a sole motive for Dick Grayson; especially after Jason, he wouldn't encourage a kid to jump into the meat-grinder of vigilantism solely to save Bruce or preserve the legacy of Batman & Robin.

I feel like Dick has to also be seeing something in Tim here, his potential, his determination, the good that he can and wants desperately to do, that Dick has to respect, has to think deserves a shot. When Alfred goes, "The boy should be a politician!" and Dick replies, "He'd do more good with Bruce," (Batman #442; panels above), it does feel like he's thinking of the difference Tim himself could make in the world. Dick has to be remembering why he himself could not be put off from the vigilante life when he was even younger than Tim, why Jason also went out there and did his best every night. To help people, in a way that mattered.

Anyway, Tim also puts in a good showing when they confront Two-Face, despite giving Bruce a near heart-attack over this strange unfamiliar boy wearing his son's uniform when Tim briefly appears to have been crushed - only for him to have saved himself and warned Batman and Nightwing of danger through his quick thinking.

Afterward, Alfred and Dick both advocate for Tim, so Dick is clearly pulling for Tim to be given a chance. Dick's smile here, my heart.

Batman #442

I still wish they'd been a little more explicit with the turn of Dick's mindset here, but at the same time I guess it's pretty effective as show-not-tell!

All in all, I feel like ALPoD was very effective storytelling, well done Marv, hugely enjoyable read, and I can't wait to read more.

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mikesbasementbeets · 9 months

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"if they don’t tell me explicitly that mike was never attracted to el then that means he was"

[removes hands while kissing]

[unresponsive to kiss & "i love you," eyes wide open]

[the sunglasses stay on during kiss, also get off me you're crushing the flowers i carefully placed right in between us]

[no fear]

[one fear]

"idk if they don’t make it clear to me that he doesn’t love el romantically then that means he does"

"they haven't given any indication yet that he doesn't like girls..."

"yeah, mike has definitely shown attraction to girls"

[image not found]

...

#this is NOT in opposition to elli's post i rb'd btw it's not obvious it's not supposed to be obvious. but that's the point. if you read #between the lines and pay attention to the subtext then it becomes the only logical conclusion. it's not going to be In Your Face obvious #that's the POOOOOOOOIIIIIIINT #the idea that if it's not explicitly stated outright then it's not there is just. annoying and literally not how this show works ever #a bi m*ke reading recognizes the subtext without acknowledging the fact that the whole liking girls facade is just that. a facade.#and that mike's queerness being invisible and his generally being constantly dismissed and invalidated is a HUGE part of his character #i DO think they'll make it more explicitly clear in s5 but. it IS already there if you look closely enough and don't ignore things #that don't fit into your existing perspective #anyway this post is for marianne who said it was time for gay/bi mlke discourse again #harbinger of the discourse cycle. hi #(jk don’t make discourse out of this im kidding it’s not serious)#(i mean the 'bi m*ke totally makes sense' takes never stop it's just that whenever people refute them everyone cries discourse)#(don't do that)#mikesbasementbeets posts #mike wheeler

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the-judicial-assistants-notebook · 3 months

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sits up in bed. so lana and ema definitely thought they were responsible for edgeworth "choosing death", right?

(the rest of this post was supposed to go in the tags, because it's not very well organised or written, but it got too long so. here are the slightly edited tags for your reading pleasure (or otherwise)):

i was going to make this solely about ema because she's the obvious one with her open adoration of edgeworth, but the thing about rfta is that it goes to great lengths to emphasise the connection between lana and edgeworth as well.

the sl-9 incident showed that lana grows attached to people deeply, hence angel starr's comment on how, when neil marshall died, 'she (lana) felt like her own brother had died.' with edgeworth, i think it was similar but worse. because he's not just a coworker or subordinate who's dear to her. he saved her life. and it cost him his own.

at the beginning of the case, edgeworth says he was mistaken for thinking that lana was always looking out for him post sl-9 (a statement interesting on its own because that's when everyone else says she grew distant), and, later on, he brings ema fingerprinting powder because lana asked him to. then, of course, there's the 'lady luck' comment he makes.

similarly, on lana's side, you obviously have the end of the trial when she says he did well, but there's also that additional moment post-trial where she's the only one to notice — in a group comprising her, ema, phoenix and gumshoe — that he's 'hiding', listening to their conversation. point is, there's enough to suggest that she might have been the nearest thing edgeworth had to a mia; his 'chief prosecutor' to phoenix's plain 'chief'. they're as close as two people can be in a relationship where one of them is constantly lying and the other is von karma's star pupil.

rfta is pretty straightforwardly depicted as the case which solidified edgeworth's resolve to do what he did; i don't think i have to prove that. rumours about him have reached new heights, his car and knife were involved in goodman's murder, he makes an unprecedented mistake in court by failing to connect the evidence room and carpark incidents, thus forcing the chief of police to enter the trial to do so himself, and he's publicly revealed to have relied on falsified evidence to secure a conviction in the sl-9 case, all of which only happened because of lana. jake marshall even claims that from the beginning — that if you trace edgeworth's rumours back to their source, you end up meeting one person: lana skye.

and it gets worse because at the end of rfta, she thinks he's fine!! she literally says, 'i was afraid the pressure would break you, but you rose above it,' and reminds him he's nothing like gant because he's not alone. she leaves the case thinking he will be okay. and then, what, like a week passes, and she finds out that he wasn't, and that he's gone, and it's her fault. even after she was freed from gant's control, even after she had finally stopped lying, she couldn't prevent herself from claiming another life. so much for 'lady luck', i suppose.

and the game reiterates this multiple times. gumshoe states at the start that edgeworth's ties to those higher up in the department have made him the subject of constant rumours, and phoenix says (in front of ema) that he shouldn't be held responsible for the forged evidence because that was all lana's doing, which then leads to edgeworth commenting (again in front of ema) that he feels as though 'something inside him has died.' it all goes back to lana. we can argue and say that it was technically gant's doing that caused all of this, but lana still took actions that led to it. even her complicated friendship with edgeworth isn't spared; it's that closeness between them that exacerbated those rumours. how could she not feel responsible in some way?

and with ema, it's rather obvious, isn't it? if she hadn't gone poking her nose into things, none of this would have happened or come to light. and, of course, she'd never choose anyone over her sister, not for anything in the world — it's simply not a question, but that's the problem, isn't it? it's not a question. it's not some hypothetical moral dilemma. it just is. she may not have killed neil marshall, but she still has one king of prosecutor's blood on her hands. and now she has to live with that. she just. has. to live with it. no matter if he chose otherwise.

moving on from that a little, i think it's actually wild how much of ema's journey to becoming a forensics investigator is paved with bad memories. neil marshall's death and her subsequent inability to testify are what drives her to begin pursuing it, her first proper investigation results in her idol's "death" and when she finally graduates, the person who saved her sister has been disbarred, and she can't even help because she isn't allowed to. all that pain and constant pursuit of her goals, and she's still the same ema skye, still that girl shrouded in darkness, always one step behind the truth, one step a little too late. no wonder she was angry in aa:aj. i would be furious.

#and then like a year later they find out edgeworth's fine and if that happened to me i think i would kill him fr #WKSHDKAHDKS #lana skye #ema skye #miles edgeworth #the skye sisters' relationship with one dramatic depressed prosecutor is something that can be so personal...#ive literally never thought this much about lana or ema ever. they never occupy my thoughts but somehow.#everyone else: man edgeworth's vanishing must have had a real impact on franziska and phoenix. me: what about these 2 side characters who #technically only appeared once in the whole trilogy. in a dlc. what about them.#it's actually so interesting how much lana is set up to be important to edgeworth. phoenix even says she reminds him of mia and when i #first read that i was like ??? bc of the scarf? there's more to mia than a scard phoenix. but then you pay attention to how she interacts #with edgeworth and it's like oh. i see it now. and then she disappears forever.#mind you i dont think she or ema were like. destroyed by the news of edgeworth's supposed passing. not in the way phoenix was anyway.#for better or worse both lana and ema are shown to have a tight hold over themselves emotionally speaking. lana keeps a lid on them for #years and ema is told she might have killed neil by accident and is functional after a brief faint and recess. like those women are strong.#but i do think it would have had a deep impact regardless of how well they were able to cope. like i've said i dont see how it wouldnt.#anyway this concludes my rfta moment. time to go back to being unable to say a thing about susato-san even though she occupies my every #waking moment. if you read all this ily <3 #it's also past midnight so if this is all a bit everywhere im sorry

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freckledgeto · 1 year

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biiiiig day for annoying people

#jjk spoilers #jjk 221 #i cant believe gojo is out of the prison realm i had no idea whatsoever until i read the chapter today what a crazy thing to find out today #the day the chapter is supposed to be released and not find out from assholes posting leaks a whole week in advance wow wow gojo is backguys #WHO knew 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯#jjk #anyways fun compilation of things i saw through the week #leaks so bad u even got the non jjk mutuals reacting to it 🙏🏻#whatever. shoko 🫶🏻🫶🏻#anyways welcome back in the most anticlimactic way possible i guess #:[

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wikiangela · 5 months

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seven-ish sentence sunday

tagged by @disasterbuckdiaz @jamespearce9-1-1 @daffi-990 💖

hi! i finally found some time to write today but im still not fully back to posting tbh bc i'm still so exhausted lol i just missed writing too much in those three days i wasn't writing, and figured why not share haha

prev snippet (whyy doesn't it show up in the tag, i had to go to archive to look for it smh)

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“Why are you still wearing pants?” Eddie complains, hands fumbling with Buck’s belt buckle, but with much less finesse than Buck, way too hurried, getting another laugh out of Buck, and aside from the insane arousal and desire, Eddie is washed over by a wave of fondness. Eddie could spend the rest of his life just listening to his laughter. And he’s going to. Because they’re married. He married his best friend, and now he gets him forever. His heart is so full of love and happiness, he doesn’t know what else to do than to just kiss Buck again, deeply and passionately, hands abandoning Buck’s belt – thankfully Buck takes over and rids himself of his pants quickly enough, then helping Eddie fully out of his own, all while not breaking the kiss once.

“Better?” Buck asks, pulling away to raise his eyebrow at him. Eddie just nods eagerly, eyes raking all over Buck’s chest. He licks his lips, turning them both around, so now Buck’s back is towards the bed, and takes another few steps forward, until the backs of Buck’s knees hit the bed. Then he pushes Buck onto it gently, and he goes easily, looking up at Eddie with a loving smile and a hungry look in his eyes.

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no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @gaydiaz @diazass @thebravebitch @silentxxsoul @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @arthursdent @diazblunt @911onabc @spagheddiediaz @housewifebuck @gayhoediaz @rogerzsteven @watchyourbuck @monsterrae1 @honestlydarkprincess @underwater-ninja-13 @eowon @exhuastedpigeon @weewootruck @loserdiaz @evanbegins @steadfastsaturnsrings @ladydorian05 @malewifediaz @pirrusstuff @theotherbuckley @911-on-abc @spotsandsocks @hoodie-buck @giddyupbuck @wildlife4life @fortheloveofbuddie @nmcggg @diazpatcher @jeeyuns @jesuisici33 @thewolvesof1998 @lover-of-mine @hippolotamus

#married buddie smut #seven sentence sunday #fic snippet #buddie #buddie fic #buddie wip #wikiangela writes #my writing #my wips #they just laugh and tease and joke the whole time lol - this is my fave thing in buddie smut tbh haha #it's been like three days why do i feel like it's been literal months lmao #ngl work is killing me rn and i so need to look for anything else bc this was supposed to be temporary anyway lol #but anyway im still here reading all of y'alls snippets and ill be fully back to writing in like a week probably haha

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beanghostprincess · 6 months

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reiju being the only vinsmoke child that has feelings and can empathize is pretty much obviously referencing the whole "unlike boys, girls are emotional" thing that has always been said to disregard women's positions of power and strengths, assuming that empathy is not a strength itself.

from men's pov, girls are: emotional, weak, sensitive, empathetic... they're the ones doing the "simple" house tasks like cooking, cleaning, taking care of things instead of destroying them.

that sounds, kind of, exactly to what sanji is. sanji's "failures, weaknesses, malfunctions..." are literally what is expected to see in women.

they tell him to man up. to be stronger. to stop crying because boys don't cry. how could he cry?! how could he dream?! how could he cook and be nice to others and feel? how could he be a good person when he's a man and men are expected to be bigger than anyone else. he should take up space, not give it to the ones who need it. he should scream at the top of his lungs, deeply and loudly, not gently. he should take and take and take and he should not give because men are meant to own, not to offer. he shouldn't be clever, he should act. he shouldn't be sad or in pain because men are supposed to take it and swallow and bear with it. he shouldn't be hungry. hunger is for the people who lack food and if you lack food you're weak and if you're weak you're not a man. and lack means wanting, but why's he craving something when he should just take it and take it and take it? so he shouldn't eat because eating is meant to be for pleasure only, if you're a man, and if you need it you're weak because he shouldn't need. he should want and take and never need.

he cries when they kick him and he begs when they take someone away from him. because he's weak. because he loses and loses and loses and never wins only because he isn't man enough to cheat. he goes through life asking first, acting second. he doesn't play dirty, like a man should, but lives in a clean state of pureness and delicacy. he has to be clean to cook, of course. clean to be good. but men don't cook and they are allowed to be as bad as they want. but he isn't, is he? because he feels. and feels and feels until it's too much. so much that it explodes and it breaks and his soul shatters. soul that he shouldn't have in the first place because men are a fortress with enough strength to ignore what's inside. and he is weak. he is small. he is hungry.

god, he's so hungry. but not for power or money or women- well, he is hungry for women. for their soothing voices and soft touches and angry glances that are always a bit too much for his poor heart to handle. he never asks much, just a bit of them. crumbs to feed his starving heart. he finds comfort in women the same way a man destined to death would consume his last meal. he's on the verge of falling but he can't, because men do not fall, they are the ones to push. so he's hungry, but he doesn't eat because if he did, that would mean he needs it and then he wouldn't be a man.

men should fight and not defend, but he's always protecting and never fighting. he fights to protect, never himself, always others. he fights to defend his weak self, but it can't be called fighting when the only thing he does is taking. and he learns to take it without a single word or prayer escaping his lips because a man should not do that.

he's different. a failure. a mistake. a good for nothing. not a man. not powerful like a vinsmoke should be. not godly and royal like his family is. machines built to kill and destroy and take and take instead of living. but sanji likes living. he likes breathing and eating and smiling and feeling and giving and giving and giving until he doesn't have anything to offer. he likes being alive and feeling.

so he has to be human, if not only a malfunction in their mom's womb.

human, but not quite, because being human means being like the rest. the definition for human is "not a vinsmoke", in his perception, so he has to be. he is. he is human. he wishes to be, at least, part of the mankind.

man. man. a man. that's what he should be. that's what he is. vinsmoke men are not just men. they're men. and being only a man should be different, but it isn't. it will never be.

he is human, but not really. he's not a vinsmoke, that's for sure. but he's not human, either, he's still different.

because when he gets out of there, the fire of the stove still burns his hands. and he can cook. yes. he realizes he can cook and he can enjoy and live and give and give and it's liberating to know he can and will live. but he can't dream because dreaming of impossible things —like blue, deep, magic seas— isn't meant for rational men. he's following the recipe wrong, all over again, and he doesn't know what the hell is going on if all the ingredients are right.

then he is hungry again. hungry for life. and food, too. and he has never felt weaker and less of a vinsmoke, but more of a human. he bleeds and cries and begs and starves like any human would and yet... he isn't a man. he isn't a real person. and maybe it's still in his blood, despite having ran away, the malfunction in his veins. there is something deeply wrong with him. down to his core.

and he can't figure out what, but he can starve. so that means he's human. but he's not a man. because men don't starve. they take what life gives them and don't need to eat if they can't. zeff is strong and wide and the manliest man he has ever met. and yet he's hungry, but he doesn't eat. he doesn't eat because he gives. he gives food to a kid who doesn't even deserve to eat. he gives food to a kid, not a man, because if he was a man he wouldn't need to eat.

so he just needs to grow up and become a man, he thinks. that's it. time. time. that's what he lacks and what he should take. years.

but he doesn't become a man.

he grows fond of women as years pass by. they're gorgeous. pieces of art. delicate, emotional, calculative, strategic, pretty, soothing, and perfect in every way. they're everything a vinsmoke shouldn't be. they're everything sanji is- wants to be. he isn't like them. he is a man.

he likes watching them and giving them the pleasures he's refused of, because at least he gets to taste the other end of the stick when dreaming about impossible things turns out to be something too emotional for him to handle as the man he has become.

skirts. dresses. high heels. make up.

it must be hard to fight in those. that's why men don't wear them. because men are meant to fight. girls are meant to just exist. they give peace and love to a world full of destruction just by breathing, they don't need to do anything in order to give.

nami's ruthless. like a storm. and pretty, obviously, like a faint, calm rain. gorgeous and bright, like the sun. and she's feminine in such a strong way that it makes sanji shiver and get on his knees quicker than any woman has ever done. because she's different, too. she's a girl but she's not a girl. and she's not a man but she's more of a man than sanji could ever be in a million years, he realizes, because she's not afraid. and men shouldn't be afraid.

sanji always is. he just doesn't show. showing emotions is a cry for help and boys don't- men don't cry.

she's a girl without being like any other girls. so that means sanji can be a man without being exactly like the rest.

and yet, he's still not a man.

because dresses aren't meant or men, and still he can easily run wearing high heels without any problem. and they feel good, too, not because they fit in but because they fit him. they match the dress and the lip gloss. the world used to be black and white but now it's fucking pink and it makes him feel good and brave and strong and he's not afraid.

then the world shatters again. pops like those bubbles again. and again. like the day he lost himself to the pleasurable feeling of comfort he's been fighting his whole life. because he's a man and comfort means not being able to handle pain. and he fought pain that day until he gave in to his desires. but desiring something is only a thing men can afford, and he didn't actually desire it. he needed it. needs it to breathe and to laugh and to live. needs it because he can't handle pain and if he can't handle pain he's not a man.

so he goes back to hiding and wanting and giving and giving but without needing. and he doesn't take, because he's not a vinsmoke, but he is a man, because he only eats the crumbs women throw at him.

it's raining when he hears it, and he can't help thinking about nami. ruthless, strong, gorgeous and feminine nami.

pudding wouldn't. nami wouldn't.

he wouldn't marry himself either, if asked.

and there's gotta be something wrong with him. something that doesn't work. because he's not a vinsmoke but he's not a man and he's not human and he's not even a failure. he isn't a failure because his mom said so. and if someone as honest and good and kind and feminine as her said that, it has to be true.

and yet he's not a man. he looks at himself from far away. he's always seen himself like that. like a soul flying around an empty body. a shell.

and then it breaks.

it's still raining.

luffy is beautiful. and he is a man. but just like nami isn't a girl, luffy isn't a man.

because he dreams, bigger than anybody else. he shines, brighter than the sun. he feels, louder than any woman. he fights, with his whole heart and fists and punches way harder than any vinsmoke. and he's hungry. luffy's hungry due to a promise. a promise lead by loyalty and love and passion and everything sanji wishes he could let himself feel.

the thing is, luffy can feel all of those and still be a man.

if sanji feels, he won't be a man. nor a vinsmoke.

niji called him girl once. because he cried. and the punches hurt, but for some reason the thought of being allowed to feel if he were to be a woman made the wound heal faster.

luffy sees him cry.

and dream and wish and ask and beg and break.

and he's trying to give, but luffy is asking him to take and be selfish. he wonders if taking something for himself will turn him into a man, finally.

but he cries again.

"i want to go back to sunny."

and he's not a vinsmoke. nor a man.

he isn't sure exactly what he is.

and then luffy says: "that's just how you are!" about him being too kind for his own good and too empathetic for him to be considered a man.

luffy smiles when he says it, as if it was the most brilliant quality of the cook.

he's not a vinsmoke. he's not a man.

sanji lets himself dream about what he could be. lets himself feel what he truly is.

he has never liked feeling weak because that's just what women are supposed to be. delicate and soft and meant to be rescued by the prince he should be.

luffy looks at him like he's the most beautiful thing to ever be under the rain. dirty and messy and crying and shattered. but still beautiful. and clean. and pure. and soothing. and everything a woman is and everything he wants to be and everything he could be.

and it's a very complex recipe and perhaps he still lacks some ingredients and maybe he could use less of others and let it cook for a bit longer.

but it tastes good. to dream. to feel. to exist. not like a mistake but as a human.

as herself.

#what is thissss #it's 4 am and i'm still awake writing this bc i had a sanji kinnie breakdown #this was supposed to be a 'reiju has feelings bc she's a girl and so that's like a metaphor for transfem sanji'#but as you can see i got a bit carried away #i'm not reading all of this again if you find any typos just ignore them #i love transfem sanji wholeheartedly #she's so important to me #genderfluid any pronouns sanji my beloved #one piece #sanji #black leg sanji #monkey d luffy #lusan #lusan?? kind of??? the last things are very lusan and i did it thinking about them romantically #whole cake island

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bonefall · 6 months

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Voted for Bumble bc of course but also if you think Alex would not pspsps Bumble you are wrong. If they could communicate they would go to therapy together /s

If then could communicate they would go to therapy together

/GEN

Kyle/Green Lantern resurrects her but then he becomes convinced that she's not the same person she was before the incident, OR SOMETHING SOMETHING Black Lanterns aren't ACTUALLY bad they're just misunderstood Grim Reaper types, in either case Alex ends up breaking it off with Kyle because they've become very different people.

And then Bumble's there

And then they go to therapy or Alex adopts Bumble, and then uhhh Bumble's like one of the superpets. Like Krypto the Superdog. Free premise go forth and play with it if ur a DC fan

#bone babble #Again I don't actually know a lot about the DC universe besides what my friend tells me #But also from reading into the Black Lanterns having them be evil sound like a WHOLE wasted opportunity #Lanterns are supposed to be emotions yeah? so why the hell are we downplaying the emotion of GRIEF?#There's a whole lot you could do with that actually. Death doesn't deserve to just be a villain of the week #And hell. You could explore some WILD emotions here about Alex becoming so much more than Kyle's tragedy #Can I still mourn you when you aren't dead?#What does it mean for me that the worst thing that ever happened to me has become an opportunity for her?#And... does this make me selfish for not being happy for her?#For not trying to understand the person she has become? for only thinking of how this impacts myself #RE: THIS IS NOT A DIG AT DC FANS #BUT I want to share that like... a reason I've kinda had a hard time getting into comics is because like... really interesting premises--#like that often get turned into Monster-of-the-Week struggles for the heroes to punch into submission #I've probably just seen really bad summaries or not found the editions that would appeal to me specifically #But it's kinda why the only DC hero I'm really interested in is Superman #Because a lot of his thing is that he's a good GUY #And that creates a lot of interesting moral questions #Like YES he's a good guy. YES he has no ulterior motive. But what if he DID?-- how can EVERYONE ELSE in the universe truly know that-#for sure?#And that's cool and I really like the snippets I've seen especially between him and batman #But anyway. so much fridging and misogyny in the world of comics has kinda turned me away from getting into it #because. VERY often. Misogyny can be... *tied* to a bit of a lack of imagination. Or empathy on behalf of a particular writer #RE: There is good stuff in DC PLEASE understand im not trying to be insulting

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loppiopio · 7 months

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in water, fleas will drown.

#durarara #izaya orihara #shizuo heiwajima #shizaya #a cheap imitation #i made a thing #for chapter 44 #hwaaaaaagh #special thanks to @stray-tori for massively helping me out with the poses for me to redraw from #also for shading the character art!! and for generally enabling me :)#the idea came to me all of sudden weeks before but i didn't think it'd be that funny to anyone other than me #but i told tori about the idea out of context and she thought it was funny so #but yeah what a grueling sprint this was #i made a whole deal about it on twitter lol #“two days from now i will share the best marketing you've ever seen except it's also a spoiler.”#“read or ruin. make your choice.”#and gave myself 48 hours from that point to grind my ass out on this #also my friends were supposed to read the chapter before i posted it #i'd done some gradual work on it leading up to that but a loooot of what you are seeing in that video was busted out in those 48 hours #or at least the last 24 hours lol #in true aci fashion i fucked around and did nothing for the whole first day 💀#it was a struuuuggle to get this done but i knew if i didn't finish it that day then it would never get done #i'm super happy with how it turned out though :D #especially with how absolutely dogshit garbage it looks all crunched up to hell and back #tbh the hardest part was drawing (redrawing) shizuo and izaya i am so painfully slow at drawing #the compositing and absolutely fuuuuucking up the quality of it was a long process but really fun for me actually #the most effort i've put into a marketing so far #we're not done yet though idk if i can do anything of this calibre again but who knows #oh btw thank you thank you anyone who tags my stuff it gives me much smile thank you

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thatgirlonstage · 2 months

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Holds Natsuki Subaru in my hands

#re:zero #tal reads #I have. my current super loose overarching theory is #that in some grander Fate’s Design sense this boy is SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD #I don’t know WHY but I think he’s not supposed to survive #and that whatever Satella did with the return by death thing was basically a like #glitch in the universe that forces it to keep retrying until it finds the one (1) reality where he survives #you know your dr strange ‘in how many realities do we win’ ‘just one’ type thing #my WILDLY speculative theory about this is that there was another whole timeline that Subaru has forgotten #and that the entire story is a time travel/resurrection spell to save him gone wonky as hell #where the universe knows he isn’t supposed to be alive so IT KEEPS TRYING TO KILL HIM #but every time it succeeds it has to reset and let him try again #I HAVE VERY LITTLE EVIDENCE FOR THIS. TO BE CLEAR.#like I have a LITTLE but it is 92% just me Making Shit Up that sounds vaguely possible #but. regardless. my theory is that it’s not Like This just bc subaru sucks #it’s like this bc the game is rigged both for and against him simultaneously #so he’s gonna survive but it’s gonna suck the WHOLE time

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lgbtlunaverse · 9 months

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I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.

#mdzs #fandom #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #nieyao #? sorta #this was months ago and i have long since worked my way through the whole novel #plus rereading empathy approximately 14 more times #funnily enough the fics that initially got me interested in 3zun don't gell so well with my reading of them anymore #still very well written and i can reread them happily but it's still kind of ironic #it is what i wanted i suppose. Making sure you don't fall for fanon means fanon sometimes becomes less enjoyable #also @helesia if you're reading this yes YOU are the friend and yes that means this is YOUR fault #i'm billing you for my next therapy appointment #not meta not a headcanon but a secret 3rd thing (unorganized rambling)

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