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#and all that effort i put in the post was ABSOLUTELY worth it ..

dwyntwo · 3 days

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Okay, so... as a collective fandom, we can agree that bullying Kaz is fun, yeah? There's just something about seeing the guy down at his lowest and then prodding him with a stick and going "Come on, do something."

But I'm going to stand in his corner for a bit in this post.

Something that never really sat right with me is the collective implication that Kaz isn't good enough for Inej (and never will be).

I'm totally with you: he didn't deserve Inej in the first book and maybe not even yet in the second because he didn't give her anything to work with. He didn't even visit her after she was stabbed, or show her how relieved he was when she recovered. And this is just the thing: he didn't deserve her because of his BEHAVIOUR, not because he's inherently less important or less valuable or less of a person than her.

However I've read so many post-CK fanfictions where Kaz has been working on himself, is openly communicating with her, basically kisses the ground she walks on, treats her as his equal and goes above and beyond to make her as comfortable as possible, and still everyone INCLUDING Inej (and Kaz) goes "I/she deserve/s so much better than me/him". And THAT implicates that the reason Kaz wasn't good enough for her was not his behaviour towards her, but the fact that he as a whole human being is just "not enough" and "less valuable" than her, and that viewpoint has always made me super uncomfortable, especially considering his trauma.

Now I know what you're going to say, and I absolutely agree: trauma never excuses abhorrent behaviour. But there's just something icky to me about looking at a traumatized person who has not only been making an EXTREME effort to overcome their issues, but also shown amazing results, and going "They don't deserve X", "They're less than X" etc. just because they haven't fully healed yet or might never fully heal. It gives "Traumatized people are damaged goods"-vibes, which is especially weird considering my next point: INEJ IS TRAUMATIZED TOO AND HER TRAUMA GETS IN THE WAY OF A GOOD AND LOVING RELATIONSHIP JUST AS MUCH AS HIS.

She literally admits to herself that she wears as much armor as Kaz does and was being kind of hypocritical when she told him to remove his. Inej is a flawed character (which somehow seems to be a controversial take in the fandom), and to put her on a pedestal because of how virtuous and "better" she is than Kaz takes all the nuance out of her. There are definitely some parts in the books where I felt like she was in the wrong or toeing the line, but the others never really call out her behaviour the way they do with Kaz, not even in their internal monologue, so we're left with this image of an Inej who can do no wrong and a Kaz who simply got lucky.

The fact that in aforementioned fanfictions (that I still absolutely adore btw) Inej too thinks he isn't good enough for her despite everything he does for her and for himself, and despite how far he's come also turns her acknowledgment of her own self worth into something ugly and vain in my eyes. She loves herself, but she also loves Kaz, so I don't think she, or any good partner, would look at her boyfriend who clearly already thinks very little of himself and go "Yep, this fucker isn't good enough".

So often people will look at a healthy happy couple and go "He/she could do so much better than her/him". Like that's a whole person you're putting in a competition of "Who's more worthy?" as if they were some object that is of better or worse quality.

I don't think I articulated this too well and there's a lot more to be said about this, but I hope you understand the gist of it. Post CK-Kaz who works on himself and openly communicates ABSOLUTELY deserves Inej, and I will ROT on this hill.

Now I've been nice to him for long enough I think *whacks him with a crow bar*

#wtf is wrong with me omg #kaz brekker #six of crows #soc #inej ghafa #ck #crooked kingdom

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blumineck · 4 months

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Your videos are so awesome! Question about pole dancing:

I'm a trans man, and before I transitioned I did some aerial silks and trapeze at a school near where I lived. Then I transitioned, moved, and after a few years have wanted to get back into something similar. There are plenty of pole places around my house, but they're heavily oriented towards women. One's even marketed for ONLY women. I feel really weird about trying to attend classes as a man. Any advice?

OK, this is a tricky one. As this is anon, I need to post publicly, so here's some context for passers-by:

Pole dance is a heavily female-dominated activity, and because it's also frequently sexualised (either by design or by association), and requires fairly revealing clothing, many women feel less comfortable in classes with men. Some studios might then attempt to foster a safer environment by excluding men altogether (and even if they don't, the vast majority of students are usually female anyway, so pictures on the website, etc rarely feature men even if there's no actual policy).

And I GET all that. But also, I feel like it's ok for men to want to do pole too. I was literally drawn to pole in the first place BECAUSE it defied traditional gender expectations. So here's my advice, to you and any other men who might want to start:

1) Ask. Drop the studio an email, see if they take male students. The way they respond will tell you a lot about whether this will be a safe/welcoming space for you. It might feel weird and scary, but they don't know you yet, and if their answer is off-putting, they never have to!

2) Be prepared to be in a minority. Even if the studio is welcoming, you are unlikely to be in a class with more than 1 or 2 other men (at most!) and reasonably likely to be the only one. You may find different moves easy/hard, and you may find it takes a little longer for other students to relax/open up around you. This can be hard for some men who aren't used to that dynamic, but it /is/ a predominantly feminine space, so it's worth being thoughtful in how you approach things.

I'm not saying this to put you or anyone else off! IME most studios are happy to take male students, and most students are reasonably open and welcoming, and once you get settled, you can have a lot of fun and make lots of friends. As long as you check in and make an effort, I absolutely recommend giving it a go!

#pole dance #advice #this is based on personal experience and some trial and error #it's not to be taken as some kind of difinitive rule set or anything

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snickerdoodlles · 3 months

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one of my most formative fandom experiences was a comment i had gotten on a fic i wrote for a halloween themed fandom event.

this was for a manga/anime, so the fic was a general ghost story obviously set in Japan. the beginning of it involved a pizza delivery and while writing it, i had spent like 30 minutes just double checking tipping customs and the types of pizza they serve and even fell down a wikipedia rabbit hole looking up the history of pizza in Japan.

now, i just like the research part of writing, i do stuff like this because i have fun doing it. and while i was writing this particular fic, i had laughed at myself for my 30 minutes of googling that amounted to 2.5 offhand lines in a 3500 word fic. i didn't think anyone would care about or even notice those particular details except for me, especially since none of them were relevant to the ghost part of this ghost story.

except, when i had sent this fic to a Japanese friend, the first thing she said to me about it was "OH MY GOD YOU GOT THE PIZZA RIGHT"

and that was the moment when it had really clicked for me. what had just been 30 minutes of effort on my part had become a moment of relief for her. my friend was far more used to reading ethnocentric fic that ranged from unintentional ignorance to outright superiority against part of her culture (the original story's culture no less). and even with the "innocent" ignorance (heavy quotes on that) far outstripping any outright maliciousness, that's still so many people saying her culture was not worth learning about. the pizza in my story was a small detail, but i had cared enough to put in some effort to check it. and for her, coming from a fic experience where her norm was bracing for hundreds of inaccuracies born of ignorance, especially at that time after a flood of stories centered around "Halloween as a cultural holiday in the US" premises instead of the "Halloween is a commercial gimmick in Japan" reality, seeing someone put in some effort even for minor story details meant something to her.

this also throws me back to the discourse that arose in a french show fandom a few years ago because there were a lot of fic authors that wrote 'dollars' instead of 'euros'-- but when people brought this up as a prevalent issue across the fandom but an easy one to fic/watch out for, many of these writers instead pushed back to complain that they were posting stories for free and it wasn't that big of a deal. which really upset a lot of people, but then this upset was met with a new wave of indignation that people needed to 'get over it' because they're writing fic ~just as a hobby~. but, even if 'dollars' instead of 'euros' wasn't a big deal, by digging in their heels about the issue, they were saying "your culture isn't worth even five minutes of my time or effort."

I've been thinking about these things lately because the ethnocentrism in Thai drama fandoms is...staggering. just over the turn of the year, there were waves of Christmas fic for Buddhist characters. and just. Christmas in Thailand is a tourist thing at best. sometimes a pop culture gimmick for international audiences or maybe an offhand high school thing to blow off steam between midterms. it's not a cultural thing. and even if a character is a part of the Christian minority, a Christian Thai's holiday customs and culture are going to be vastly different than a Christian's customs in the Americas or Europe. and while the Christmas fic is at least finished for now, I'm already bracing myself for the Easter fic wave that also seems to pop up for Thai dramas. it's so frustrating to see this sort of cultural overwrite all the time, especially since most Thai drama holiday works aren't about Thai holidays.

but the thing that really got me bristling about all of this again was i saw a post the other day where op said that they weren't going to write [thai drama] fic because they don't know much about thailand.

what an absolutely appalling statement to make.

google is right there. wikipedia is free. you don't even have to leave tumblr or AO3 to learn more because there are Thai natives in fandom who write essays to explain common elements of their culture. hell, even just watching these Thai stories and considering the values and messages imparted by the narrative framework and story lens tells you something about that culture. the audacity to look at a culture different from your own and say "this is not worth my effort or time to learn anything more about," are you kidding me?!?

the messages and values of a story tell you about the writer's values, which are going to carry their cultural values, beliefs, and biases. Thai culture is going to be heavily relevant to any Thai story, even the ones that aren't explicitly about Thai culture/customs/etc. (hell, Thai bl/gl as a genre alone-- just the fact that queer Thai writers are making these stories in Thailand's current political climate is highly political, even the "fluffy" ones that don't seem to make outright political statements.) to approach any story like it was made in a vacuum is to remove the writer(s)' culture and values and to overwrite them with your own.

especially because this is fandom. these are the lowest stakes to learn! it sucks to see people say things like "but i'm scared i'll get something wrong" and hold up that fear as a shield to justify their ignorance. no one's expecting anyone to get every detail right, especially not for a culture that isn't theirs, just make an effort to learn something new about it. pick out something that caught your eye as different to learn more about and see where it leads you.

and for the record--making a mistake trying to broaden your horizons is a far, far better thing to do than to superimpose your culture on everyone else's because you're scared to confront your ignorance.

edit: check out this reblog thanks

#fandom

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budgebuttons · 4 months

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There's a lot of reasonably frustrated but ultimately misdirected psa-style posting about how viewers NEED to start reblogging things rather than just liking them because that is the primary mode of post circulation on this site. The modern manifestation of this sentiment seems to miss the fact that, if you've been here for ~15 years, were here prior to, during, and after the exodus to the bird app, you already know that likes have always been more common than reblogs, that many people simply don't want to put your art on their blog, and that guilting end-users into using a microblogging site A Specific Way absolutely does not work. If it did, the trend would have shifted a decade ago. Because this conversation really is that old. Regardless, the modern discourse of how difficult it is to be Seen specifically on Tumblr isn't productive because I think it ultimately misses the reason being an artist online feels so Bad, now.

The social media era has funneled Looking At Stuff on the Internet into an economy of engagement that encourages end-users to treat everything we/they see as quick, cheap, and disposable. This is just another fun and flirty way that capitalism devalues art. It's nothing new. Trying to force masses of users to behave in a way that is healthier for the circulation of art isn't going to do anything to solve the discontent we all feel when we hurl something into the void and it is ultimately ignored. I swear up and down: A higher notes number won't feel better, either. Popularity is just as demoralizing as radio silence, but it manifests differently. Instead of 4 likes and maybe 1 reblog from Old Faithful Mutual, you get a horde of people who treat you like a content machine. You keep hoping for an impossibly Bigger Number. The notifs on the first Big Number Post haven't even settled, and people are already asking when the follow-up is coming. You get anons, but most of them are trying to passively convince you to give them More Content.

It's really, really hard to make people care about art. If there was a silver bullet for making the average person appreciate the enormity of human effort behind every beautiful thing they encounter, we would have found it centuries ago.

The best thing creatives can do for their lives online is to be friendly, or at least kind, with other creators. "Big" artists don't form in-groups because they're snobs. They find each other because they casually showed each other support, and their mutual appreciation for that Thing that wound them up in the same tag becomes a foundation for connection, and in many cases, the ever-illusive Bigger Audience as they introduce themselves to each others' circles. We get more eyes on our work by building community with each other.

Where does that leave people who are just here to look at things, not post them? I think the answer is almost identical: COMMENT!! Please, comment! The first step to engaging with art on a more meaningful level is to point out something you particularly enjoy about a given work. It can go in the replies, it can go in the tags, doesn't matter!! If you notice some symbolism or make some connection, there is all likelihood that OP put it there because they desperately wanted somebody to notice it. Let them know why you like it!

Reaching for the nebulous, impossible goal of better post circulation isn't going to make being a creator online in 2023 suck less. Meaningfully connecting with each other can, will, and does. You can make someone's day just by passingly letting them know that their effort is worth more than a number.

#budgetalks #I got to thinking about this because of fanfic actually #the proportion of comments to kudos ESPECIALLY on popular fics bums me out #especially when you open the comments and half of them are people asking for more

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qqueenofhades · 2 years

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“Its not like she was evil or anything”…. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😭😂😭😭😭😭😭😭😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂LMFAOOEIJDJEJJFJFJFJDJJKEE

I mean... I put "tired historian" in my bio. One day people will learn not to come for me if they do not want to get a faceful of receipts, but today is not that day.

A few others I didn't get around to in my last post:

The brutal British treatment of Cyprus in the 1950s and how they generally fanned ethnic tensions to control and divide the island;

The absolutely horrifying role the Anglican church (during her reign, until the 1990s!) played in the Canadian Indigenous residential school system, forcing the Archbishop of Canterbury to personally apologize (not until earlier this year when they found all those skeletons buried in unmarked graves);

HOLY SHIT THE BRITISH LITERALLY DESTROYED THE ENTIRE COUNTRY OF KENYA'S HISTORY IN PHYSICAL/LITERAL/ARCHIVAL WAYS (related to my mention of concentration camps in the last post) in order to cover up their own crimes, in something called "Operation Legacy"; literally there are so many sources for this and even today historians are often blocked from investigating what really happened (again, this was all happening DURING THE QUEEN'S REIGN, not in some imagined benighted past)

QE2's own extensive lobbying efforts to keep her personal net worth secret and to hide Prince Philip's will for 90 years, while running the $28 billion imperial money machine of "The Firm"

(We all remember what a racist goblin Philip was, right?)

Likewise, Buckingham Palace, for a long time, banned LGBTQ and "visible" ethnic minorities from working there, even in office jobs, and the queen personally exempted herself from compliance with civil rights/sexual/racial discrimination laws;

And the Diana thing, which I'm not going to link to because we all know what happened, but the Queen was always known to act in ways that would preserve the monarchy "at all costs"

(But sure. Respect.)

#anonymous #ask #history #british history #history of empire

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depravitycentral · 4 months

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Enji Todoroki General Yandere Profile

Yandere! Enji Todoroki x fem! reader

Tw: kidnapping, stalking, power imbalances, financial trapping, mentions of physical/domestic abuse, mentions of non-con, sexist undertones, Enji wants you to be his cute little housewife, mentions of breeding/pregnancy, a few mentions of making sure you eat enough/food, Enji is patronizing whoo boy, he makes you share a toothbrush and yes he's weird about it, this is set in a divergent timeline where Enji and Rei are formally divorced and his relationship with his family is loose and not super tight, fem reader, MDNI

I do not condone any of the actions described in this post - this is fiction and should be treated as such. If you or a loved one is in a similar situation to anything contained in this post or my blog in general, please seek help. You're in charge of your internet consumption; please make responsible choices. With that, enjoy!

WC: 11K

DARLING PROFILE:

Kind

Enji is, simply, harsh.

His quirk, his mannerisms, his attitude, his everything, really, is a bit rough around the edges, forming a man with only enough self control to get what he wants. He’s lived his whole life bitterly, constantly jealous, constantly wanting, willing to throw everything away in order to achieve his goals.

And once everything starts caving in around him, his family and career both taking unexpected turns, Enji finds himself so, so painfully alone. He doesn’t pretend to delude himself into thinking he’s not deserving of his fate, but this places him into a position where he shoulders the guilt while desperately trying to find any outlet to forget it.

And this is where a darling who is kind comes into play – he needs someone who won’t judge him for his past. He needs someone who doesn’t treat him like scum, who is still polite and empathetic to him and his emotions. A darling who is able to consistently praise him will have him smitten quickly, growing emotionally dependent on hearing their sweet words in order to function, in order to not let the depression and stress get the better of him.

And even once his obsession has formed and he’s deep in the depth of his infatuation, a darling who is just too kind to kick him to the curbside is absolutely essential for him – they must be doting and caring, helping rebuild his shattered confidence and psyche, and with every compliment they dish out, Enji vows that he’ll return the sentiment tenfold, in his own way of course.

(This means buying his darling millions of yen worth of their favorite things, all kinds of wonderful gifts that he hopes will sway them in his favor, that will get them drooling over him and all that he can provide for them.)

Hardworking

Although he’s in a mental state that leaves him much more susceptible to finding a partner once he divorces Rei, Enji is still a picky man. He won’t fall for just anyone – no, they must fit his standard, be acceptable and meet the rather long and detailed checklist he has for those he considers as potential romantic partners.

And near the top of this list is determination. He’s a man motivated by his own goals and is willing to stop at nothing to achieve them – and so, a darling that can at least somewhat match this aspect of his personality is critical.

He has no patience for a darling that gives up easily; he wants someone that’s willing to put in the effort to see it pay off, someone who understands the concept of self-discipline and holding yourself to certain moral standards.

He finds it wildly attractive when someone has strong character, and his interest would immediately be piqued with a darling who brings an attitude of perseverance and hard work into every aspect of their life, be it work, their hobbies, their relationship, and everything in between.

He wants someone who is perhaps not quite as stubborn as him, but is still serious in their goals.

(He hopes that one day, making him happy and pleasing him will be one of these goals – just as pleasing his darling is one of his own. And he’s more than happyto please them in whatever way they so desire. More than happy.)

Motherly

Because he views his darling as the perfect wife, his darling absolutely must possess at least somewhat of a motherly air about them. He likes the idea of having a nurturing partner, if only because he finds it endearing when they care for others.

As a hero he shares this sentiment, and although it may sometimes be overshadowed by his need to become the best, deep down inside he does very much wish to help others – his methodology is just a little more violent, a little more overt.

His darling, by contrast, should prefer a methodology that’s much gentler, something that focuses more on making others feel safe and heard and cared for.

Besides, Enji very much desires to have children with his darling; to build a second family, one that he’ll care for and nourish much better than his first. And so, if his darling is to be a good mother, they must embody these traits.

Besides, although he doesn’t fall for his darling because of his fantasies of making them a mother, once the feelings are formed these daydreams only further his feelings, deepening his obsession because oh, he’d give absolutely anything to see them pregnant with his child, carrying his seed, creating something that symbolizes the love and dedication between them.

And so, his darling needs to be someone who naturally takes care of others – and in return, Enji will take care of them. Just how it should be.

Pushover

This trait is a bit less crucial compared to the others, but it’s still most definitely a positive from Enji’s perspective.

Of course he likes a darling who has strong opinions and stands up for them, but he loves a darling that will let him guide them through any hard decisions, or really any decisions at all.

Although he’s not as outright controlling with his darling, he still very much feels that he wears the pants in the ‘relationship’, and thus he is the one calling the shots.

A darling who is happy to let him take over their life like this is a massive help to him – he doesn’t have to fight for control, nor does he have to argue with them about why certain decisions really should be made by him as the more dominant partner, as the one who knows more about the world, as the man. It’s an outdated view and it’s one that he doesn’t really want to admit out loud, but he enjoys the idea of a partner who will revere him and allow him full control.

He wants to be loved and cherished, and in return for a love like this, he’ll do his best to provide for and take care of his darling in every way he possibly can – so really, if his darling knows what’s best for them, they’ll step back and let him make all the tough decisions.

They’ll nod and smile and agree with whatever he chooses, pressing a kiss against his cheek and telling him how much they trust him, how they know he’d never hurt them, how he only wants what’s best for them.

Just the thought makes something warm swell in his stomach, the level of trust making him feel wanted, needed, a concept so foreign that it almost feels wrong. But oh, how he likes it.

GENERAL YANDERE TRAITS:

Controlling

But in a very, very strange way – a lot of what fuels Enji’s obsession is this desperate, innate need to right his wrongs. He’s very, very aware of how thoroughly he ruined his family, how horribly he treated Rei, how he was a poor excuse of a father and husband, and he sees his love with you as almost being his second try. With you, he can do all the things he should have done with Rei and his children – he should have been sweet and loving, a present father that cared about each of his children equally. He should have been a doting husband, spoiling his wife and making her feel loved and desired.

But he didn’t, and although Rei has long since divorced him, Enji finds himself feeling lonely, incomplete, restless to try again, to properly provide for a sweet little thing he can call his own. And this is where you come in – and from the moment he realizes his feelings for you are more than a simple attraction, he dives in head-first.

He decides he'll approach everything with you in a way as opposite from his previous marriage as possible – he's all grand, romantic gestures, always showing up with a bouquet of flowers in hand and just the slightest pink tint on his scarred cheeks.

The grand, romantic gestures are, of course, merely things he’s seen in rom-coms; the women always look happy when the love interest swoops in with flowers and gifts and pretty clothing, the beaming smile and large hug the man gets as a reward seeming very, very appealing to Enji, despite his rigid exterior.

(Just the thought of you hugging him has his heart racing – it’s something so intimate, so entirely new that it makes every nerve in his body stand on edge, a shiver running up his spine as he imagines the way your body would feel pressed against his, how you’d sigh and sink further against him, how you’d squeeze him and god, the view he’d get when he looks down to see your body pressed so tightly against him that not even a breath of air could separate you -)

He’s scouring through women’s magazines, burying his nose in the glossy pages and searching for ideas and clues as to what women enjoy as courting gifts.

(He has to scoff under his breath every time he sees a new dieting tip or regiment, internally frowning and worrying that you’re seeing these ads and potentially obsessing over your weight. The last thing he’d want is for you to be unhappy with your body – certainly not when he’s so very happy with it. Not to mention the nutritionally heinous foods the magazine recommends – he’d sooner have you eat raw paper than follow this ludicrous advice.)

He’s even caving and very, very awkwardly asking his female sidekicks and employees at his agency about their tips on how to seduce a woman. He struggles to make eye contact with them when he asks, his imposing figure almost reminding them of a shy, nervous teenage boy with the way he’s so earnest about his question, his eyes lighting up when they mention an idea he hasn’t tried yet, pressing them for details and specifics and you must tell me what to say to her – how does one follow up gifting a puppy?

It would be sweet, really, how devoted he is to making sure that you’re absolutely spoiled, that you get a whole variety of lavish gifts designed to sweep you off your feet. It would be wonderful, really, except that Enji has never understood the concept of being too much – which is how everything will start to feel very, very early on in this process.

It was nice at first to receive a fresh bouquet of roses every morning at your desk with a handwritten card attached. (Written in impeccable handwriting, the cursive letters looping and elegant as they spell out short, simple, sweet messages signed with a capital E at the bottom, reading please make sure to eat enough today and that skirt looks lovely on you.)

It was nice at first, but after the second week of daily bouquets and even a few finding their way to the doorstep of your apartment, the sight of the pretty red flowers makes a sinking feeling swirl in your gut.

(Enji notices this, dismayed and frustrated by your lack of a positive response, and decides to double down and just gift you bigger flowers, because maybe your lack of joy at receiving the bouquets is because they aren’t big enough, aren’t grandiose enough, aren’t good enough.)

It was nice to get the cute, small stuffed bunny on your desk one morning, and you’d even grown so fond of the little thing that you perched it on the edge of your desk, assuming it was a one-time gift. But it wasn’t – the stuffed animals kept coming, getting bigger and more detailed and much, much more expensive, you’re sure.

(Enji is careful to remove each and every price tag on every gift he sends you, simply because he doesn’t want you to feel that you owe him financially, nor does he want you to be swayed into accepting him as your partner by mere economic standing – that’s an asset that you’ll come to know, of course, but he’d rather lure you in via more traditional ways. It doesn’t exactly stay secret, though, because once the necklace with a delicate array of at least five diamonds in it arrives at your front door, your secret admirer’s wealth becomes very, very difficult to hide.)

He’s gifting you jewelry with more precious jewels and gold and silver than you could possibly wear, and outfitting your closet with all kinds of dresses and skirts out of materials and cuts you could never hope to afford for yourself.

(And, of course, they’re all tailored to fit you perfectly – how Enji managed to get your exact sizes is still a question that haunts you, one that makes you scared to upon the nicely wrapped boxes that you find in excess outside your front door.)

It’s all just too damn much – Enji is suffocating with his attempts to woo you, his every gift and gesture leaving you feeling uncomfortable. What he’s trying to do is very, very obvious – and it feels wrong. He’s the number one hero, a busy man with much more important things to be doing – so why is he going after you? And why with such ferocity?

His forwardness will scare you off, driving you to avoid him and grow suspicious of his motives, and Enji does not like this development. This wasn’t supposed to happen – you’re supposed to want him, to be seduced by all of his efforts, to be swept off your feet and swooned by his gifts and words (delivered with the grace of a garbage truck, of course, but the sentiment is there – even if looking at your pretty face distracts him, all the words leaving his head and making him stand there gaping like a fool).

Enji doesn’t like it, and so he presses harder, stepping up the frequency and volume of his gifts, only effectively pushing you further and further away from him as you grow more uneased and unsettled. And if you were to confront him about it?

Well, this is where his controlling tendencies come into play – denying who he naturally is can only last for so long, and despite being a man with superb self-restraint, the moment that Enji feels you’re slipping from his fingers he’s morphing back into the man that commands your every move.

Suddenly he’s no longer presenting you with the newest shampoo you’ve been talking about (it’s salon grade, the best stuff out there, and much too expensive, but not for Enji – nothing is too expensive for him when it’s for you) but rather letting this expression wash over his face, one that you’ve never seen before.

It’s cold, remarkably so; his lips are pressed tightly together, his brows perfectly straight, those eyes lifeless as he tells you to stop fighting, go inside and change into the green dress I gave you last week. We’re going for dinner, and you’ll order the house salad and a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. Do you understand me?

It’s weird and unexpected and scary, and it’ll have you immediately stuttering out a yes and scurrying inside, too frightened to disobey. And really, while Enji winces every time he does this, eventually he finds himself trying to justify it as simply ensuring your relationship will last.

Obviously it’s not good that he has to force you into these small, minor, inconsequential things (like going on a date with him or letting him accompany you home afterwards), but this is different from with Rei – you want this, right? You’re just too shy to tell him how flattered you are about all the attention he’s giving you.

You’re just playing coy, acting on your age-old feminine instincts to make men chase after you, to be demure and make your partner work for your affection and love. And eventually, Enji will convince himself that this is different, he’s wooing you and getting you into a relationship with him willingly – you want him.

You practically love him already – things are going well. They’re successful.

They have to be.

And so, while Enji doesn’t mean to be controlling, the end results is that although he plays the nice guy that spoils you and gives you anything your heart desires, at the end of the day he is the one in charge, and he is the one dictating your relationship.

And really, what can you do to stop him? He’s strong, both physically and with the general population – one word from him and you’d be hunted for like a madman, ostracized from the community, brought back to him like a pup to its owner.

You belong with him, and it’s his job to make you see that – even if you want to remain blind.

Possessive

Enji Todoroki doesn’t share. Once he decides that he wants you, you become unequivocally his.

Sure, he wants to do things a bit differently with you and get you to harbor more loving feelings towards him, but from the moment his infatuation forms you don’t really have a choice in the matter.

You can pretend like you do, if it makes you feel better (and it will, because at least you can pretend that you have even an ounce of control in the relationship, that you aren’t just some adorable little thing he’s decided he wants hanging off his arm and warming his bed), but at the end of the day you’re subject to Enji’s whims.

And although Enji lets you harbor this fantasy of your relationship being truly consensual, the moment something occurs that threatens it, his true colors are shown. Namely, when he thinks your attention is veering away from him, his jealousy and anger become difficult to keep in check, his quirk acting up and letting off small sparks and flames all along his body. His fists clench and his jaw tightens when he sees another man around you, and although he tries to rationalize that the man likely doesn’t want anything to do with you, just simply being in your presence is enough to make Enji suspicious.

Even if the man isn’t talking to you or acknowledging you in any way, he’s anxious – he’s scared that something about this man will attract you, that you’ll somehow find him better than Enji.

Maybe the man is friendlier – Enji’s aware that he isn’t exactly the most approachable person on the planet.

Maybe he's funnier – Enji knows he can’t crack a joke to save his life.

Maybe he’s a better conversationalist – less formalities and awkwardness, able to get you laughing so hard you snort.

It makes Enji’s skin crawl, his knuckles turning white from how hard he’s fisting his hands, and before long he will intervene. He’ll grab you as gently as he can on the elbow, guiding you carefully but quickly away to the other side of the room and physically maneuvering so that his body is blocking your sight of the man – and more importantly, blocking his sight of you.

He’ll try to talk with you, trying to distract you and get your mind off of the other man, all in an effort to get your attention back on him. He’s reminding you that you have him, that you don’t need some other man, that you already have one who’s capable of providing for you and caring for you as you deserve.

Frankly, he discovers just how deeply his feelings for you run in a situation where jealousy gets the best of him – you’d been approached at a small gathering by a man from another agency who was clearly hitting on you. He was leaning in close, smiling with a smarmy smirk and nursing on his cocktail like a lifeline.

Enji had noticed the two of you out of the corner of his eye, and immediately he’d gone stiff. He couldn’t stop staring at the way the man kept getting gradually closer to you, how he kept leaning in further, how his hand slid from his pocket to your shoulder, then your arm, down to your hand and oh, oh god, it looks like he’s bringing it down to your waist –

Enji had been by your side in mere moments, his gaze card and harsh as he’d stepped in front of you, making some poorly toned excuse about needing to speak with you for a moment, before unceremoniously dragging you away from the stupefied man.

From that day, Enji absolutely refuses to allow anyone close to you. And really, can he be blamed? After all, he fell for you, so why wouldn’t anyone else? You’re beautiful and caring, smart and dignified, and if he can see your potential as a lovely, perfect little wife, surely others can too.

And so, Enji ramps up his controlling tendencies the more he’s presented with situations where the green-eyed monster accompanies him. And this control takes its main form through financials – that is, while Enji originally didn’t want to attract you to him via his material wealth, he decides it’s a necessary evil in order to have you staying by his side only.

He starts ‘forgetting’ to peel off the price tags of the gifts he gives you, pretending not to notice how your eyes practically bug out of your head when you unbox the pink pendant he’d bought for you.

He starts inviting you out for lunches and dinners more often, ordering for you and choosing the most expensive items off the menu despite your numerous pleas that you’ll opt for something – anything – cheaper.

(It’s frustrating, too, because as angry as you want to be at him for ordering for you, he always chooses something you end up liking – of course it’s because he’s done extensive research and stalking, finding out your favorite foods and what flavors you dislike, but it all seems like one large, awfully strange coincidence to you.)

Exerting financial control over you keeps you complacent, because the guilt you’ll feel at how much money he’s sinking into you will have you following his every word, even if it his commands are a little strange and off-putting – like spending less time with any male friends (or really any friends for that matter) or slipping the small photograph of him into your purse (it’s weird and you do so hesitantly, making sure the polaroid is at the bottom of the bag – and trying to ignore the way his muscles are oh-so fucking defined in the tight black shirt he’s sporting in the photograph).

It’s all just a big ploy to keep you from running off with some other man – but really, if you somehow did manage to do that, Enji won’t be particularly merciful. He will be cornering the man as he leaves your apartment and he will be holding him by the neck against the cold concrete wall, threatening him to leave you alone or experience the rather unpleasant sensation of burning alive.

It’s not particularly heroic, but Enji doesn’t care – he can’t, not when the threat of you leaving him for another man is very much present and real. It’s too scary, too much for him to handle – it would mean you rejecting him, his second fuck-up in love, and the loss of someone who fits absolutely every one of his desires in a woman.

You’re too perfect for him to lose – so instead, he’ll own you.

Dependent

He will never admit it, but there’s this part of Enji that grows stronger day by day, every time he sees your face, that tells him in the most raw, real way that he absolutely needs you.

He’s essentially lost what he had of his family, and with the sharp uptake in responsibility as the new number one hero, the new symbol of modern peace, Enji finds himself turning to you in his time of need, in his more vulnerable moments.

Because really, though his exterior is tough and jaded, he’s only human – he too needs someone to love, someone to hold and latch onto, and latch he does. You’re his, and he expects you to understand that even if he doesn’t verbalize it.

He cherishes your very existence, each and every thing you do, finding you to be remarkably weak yet remarkably endearing, your inability to defend yourself simultaneously adorable and frustrating. He needs you to realize that you’re his everything; his whole reason for living now, even if he doesn’t give you many clues into this.

He isn’t the best at expressing his emotions, and although the love and desperation he feels for you is constantly overwhelming him, overflowing from his chest and making him dizzy, he doesn’t articulate just how deeply these feelings run.

Of course he’ll tell you how you’re beautiful, or that you’re my responsibility to protect, but he’ll also say significantly less romantic things like how you belong to him, how he's never letting you out that front door, how he’ll never let those disgusting, filthy villains touch something as perfect as you.

He thinks it’s sweet and exactly what you want to hear, but it’s not – it’s scary and strange and weird, but these are your biggest clues as to his dependence on you.He won’t tell you, but his expectations for you are honestly monumentally high; he wants you to be his perfect little wife, everything that Rei wasn’t, and this includes giving you every ounce of his love.

He wants you to be diligently cooking him hearty meals, keeping the house tidy and clean for the two of you, to be massaging his shoulders while he relaxes from a stressful day at work. (Hell, he even wants you to wear cute little aprons, collars with his name stitched onto them, those maternity/breast feeding bras before you’re even pregnant…)

He wants a domestic fantasy with you, and this extends to other, more vulnerable things as well. He expects you to embrace him as he walks through the door everyday returning home, to give him a light peck on the cheek and ask about his day, to let him hug you from behind and kiss your neck as you slave away over the stove.

He never really got the chance to do such loving things with Rei (not that he particularly wanted to), and as a result he honestly feels like he’s having to make up time, that he needs to be taking every single ounce of affection and love you can possibly give him, and he’ll feel no guilt at all.

He won’t outright ask you to cuddle him, but when he sits on the large, overstuffed leather couch and stares at you expectantly, you’ll quickly learn to run over to him and snuggle up into his side, to bury your face into his chest and wrap your arms and legs around him even if his body heat cooks you alive.

He won’t ever explicitly ask you to give him those fluttery, soft morning kisses he’s seen all the time in terrible corny rom-coms he religiously watched for inspiration while trying to court you, but the moment you smile sleepily at him and press a kiss against his lips while you holds you close in the morning glow?

God, it’s in those moments that he wants to give you absolutely everything he has – every part of his body, soul and heart, every single cent he owns, every piece of fame and fortune he’s ever amassed.

Enji just wants to please you, and although he comes off as an odd mix of demanding yet generous, terrifying yet strangely awkward, inside his heart is hammering against his ribcage every time you so much as smile at him, every time you so much as look at him. In the hazy afterglow of a round of passionate morning sex (in which you’ve realized that fighting will get you nowhere – it’ll only earn you an Enji that’s more frantic and desperate to get you moaning and crying out his name), when he latches onto your smaller, exhausted and sweaty body, pressing you as tightly against him as possible, sometimes his demeanor will crack.

He’ll lean down to deeply inhale the scent of your hair, to watch the way your chest rises and falls, and he’ll whisper in the softest of voices that he loves you, you’re the light of his world. He doesn’t know what he’d do without you, but Enji is hellbent on never finding out – after all, there is no chance of escape with him, and he’s sure you’ll learn your place soon.

After all, pretty, submissive girls like you always do.

DEALING WITH RIVALS:

Enji is, regrettably, terrible at hiding his jealousy.

He’s always been in a constant state of envy, whether it was vying for the top spot in the heroing world against All Might, desiring the perfect offspring in order to have the Todoroki name and himself live on, and countless other examples. He’s prideful and so fucking jealous of everyone around him, and this is only heightened when it comes to you – his possessiveness over you is nothing to sneeze at, and the minute he feels that your attention is threatened, that you could possibly be yearning for another?

He’s wasting no time stepping in, mercilessly shutting down each and every opportunity you could possibly have of being with anyone other than himself.

As much as he’s loathe to admit it, his jealousy and possessiveness stems from a place of insecurity; he’s aware that he’s by no means the perfect partner, and he rationally knows that you could do much, much better than him.

And so, as a sort of panic-induced response, Enji decides that you simply aren’t allowed to interact with any other men – this way, you aren’t presented with the opportunity to even let the feelings form. And he’s diligent with this theory, too – he’s always standing near you, acting as your shadow with watchful, hawk-like eyes trained on your figure.

He’s never been the best at reading people, but he’s able to tell from miles away when someone approaches you with intentions that are less than innocent, and immediately his lips are thinning, his brows furrowing, his entire body temperature raising by five degrees because you’re his, and this piece of scum disguised as a man obviously doesn’t realize this.

He’s your guardian angel in many ways (though really, he takes the guardian portion much too far – even men who have no romantic intentions with you are viewed as potential threats, shooed away with a vengeance that will make them too afraid to even think about you without imagining themselves engulfed in flames), though at times it will make you feel more than a little patronized.

It’s as if he doesn’t trust you – you don’t really have a relationship, at least in your eyes, but you know the number one hero wants something more than friendship with you. And so, you do your best to avoid evoking his anger and wrath by not romantically involving yourself with another man – and yet that’s not enough for Enji.

It can’t be, simply because as pretty and sweet and smart as you may be, Enji will always know better. It’s a controlling tendency and a mildly sexist view, but he thinks of you as his doting, loving housewife-to-be, and it’s the man’s job to make these sorts of decisions.

You’re just too sweet and outgoing for your own good – you’ll get mixed up in all sorts of trouble if you’re not careful, and lucky little you has someone like Enji to watch out for you and make sure your pretty head has nothing to worry about. And so, Enji sticks to you like glue, warding off potential suitors with grueling stares and a presence and reputation too strong to ignore.

Enji’s day had been long, and one of those days that made him seriously question his abilities as a hero. A villain had managed to trick him, and although Enji had of course eventually arrested the perpetrator, his deception had led to a lot of wasted time and more damage to surrounding buildings than was acceptable.

His head was pounding, his body still feeling overly hot from all of the fighting, and though not normal, he’d decided he was done for the day and left the rest of the agency’s calls to his sidekicks. Leaving early had felt almost freeing in a way, the world looking a bit different with all this extra time – walking down the sidewalk, Enji scanned the windows of each shop he passed.

As per usual, you’d been on his mind all day – flashes of your face sitting just behind his eyelids, your name just a hair away on his tongue, the feeling of your phantom touch sending shivers down his spine. It was irritating, distracting, heavenly, and with each window he passed, he kept an eye out for anything you might like.

He’d gotten you a pretty tea cup set yesterday, and although you’d been hesitant and visibly uncomfortable at receiving such a gift (the set was very, very obviously expensive, the marbled china too perfect and pristine to have costed anything less than a year’s worth of your salary), Enji was eager to gift you something that would be received better today.

Streets passed by, nothing quite suiting his vision for what you deserved – he’d need something more subtle today, something simple and sweet and something he knows you like – The confectionary is small, with swirling black letters over a baby pink banner spelling out the name of the store. The windows are lined with all sorts of chocolates and candies, all wrapped up in pretty, ornate packaging that makes Enji immediately pick up his pace, practically storming into the small shop.

It smells like vanilla and sugar as the door shuts behind him, and although it makes him wince, he knows you’d love it. Shelves nearly as tall as him line the shop in narrow rows, displaying all sorts of sweets that he’s never heard of before – caramels, gumdrops, chocolates, lollipops, anything and everything under the sun.

He’s only been in the store for roughly five minutes, staring at a collection of truffles with furrowed brows and a downward curl of his lip when he hears a small laugh over the gentle, happy classical music playing quietly over the speakers. Immediately he’s perking up – the laugh sounds familiar; the lilt of it, the tonality, the soft intake of breath right after it stops.

His lips part, eyes going wide, and before he can even really control himself he’s rushing towards the source of the noise, his entire face growing warm when he sees you – you’re at the register, a few candies sitting on the wooden slab, your purse in hand as you fish for presumably your wallet.

You look gorgeous today – you’re wearing a shirt he’s never seen before and your favorite pair of jeans (the ones that make your ass look so, so very perfect – perfect to squeeze at, to grope and touch and smack and press himself against…), and although he’s briefly disappointed that you aren’t wearing an item of clothing that he’d gifted you, he notices the clerk all too soon.

The clerk – Hyoshi, his nametag says – is smiling at you. He’s all teeth, a grin that makes the hairs on the back of Enji’s neck stand up, his nostrils flaring because you’d been laughing, and it must be this man’s doing. This man, who’s visibly weak even under the ridiculous confectionary uniform he’s sporting – arms that couldn’t hope to lift even a fraction of what Enji can, a chest that isn’t ruggedly defined like the hero’s, and a stature that’s frankly pathetic compared to the frame of the redheaded man behind you.

Enji’s angry, and as the man opens his mouth to presumably say something else (potentially something that’ll make you laugh again), his words die on his tongue as he glances behind you to see the behemoth of a man who’s quite literally acting as your shadow.

His eyes widen and immediately he’s stuttering out a w-welcome in, Endeavor! At that, your shoulders go stiff, your mouth parting into an adorable little ‘o’ that Enji can practically see in his head, and you slowly turn around.

Oh, hello Endeavor, aren’t you normally on patrol right now?

Enji’s jaw works, and although a small part of him is pleasantly surprised that you’d remembered his patrol shift, your words only serve to further frustrate him. You knew it was his time on the clock – and yet, you’d still ventured out into the heart of downtown, completely on your own, defenseless except for the measly, very sad pepper spray you keep in that worn purse of yours – both of which he keeps pleading with you to let him replace.

(He’ll get you new pepper spray and a taser and a pocketknife, just because he knows how dangerous these streets can be, and with your pretty face and your pretty body he’s sure villains would be lining out the door to get a taste of you. And of course, the new bag – he’s bought you plenty, in a wide variety of styles and colors, each gift getting more and more desperate to be the one you finally deem as being good enough to use, but alas.)

Enji doesn’t even bother with a greeting, instead stepping up to the counter, slamming down his credit card and stepping in front of you. I’ll be paying for her sweets. His voice is cold, firm, and sends the clerk into a scurry to process the transaction, meanwhile you’re staring in mild shock from behind the hero.

Of course you’re not surprised – how can you be, when he insists on spoiling you in every possible way? And yet the raw animosity he’s radiating right now can’t be ignored – you get the feeling as if you’re somehow in trouble, though you can’t figure out what for. As soon as the card reader beeps, Enji’s scooping up the card and your sweets, his thick fingers wrapping around your wrist just barely too tightly and marching out the door, telling the clerk over his shoulder to keep the receipt.

It takes every bone in his body to not turn back around and swing at the man behind the counter, his eyes shutting tightly in concentration as he tells himself that it’s not worth it, the media will find out, your reputation will be damaged. But as his eyes peel open and he realizes the way you’re squirming in his grip, he only sighs and releases you, those teal eyes of his appraising you with a frown.

You’re feeling guilty again, unsure of yourself as you gently rub your wrist, and for a moment Enji feels regret – did he hurt you? He hadn’t meant to, he’d just been angry and it was already hard enough to not harm the man who’d made you laugh, and surely you’d understand that he didn’t mean to –

You break the silence before he can voice his concerns, clearing your throat and thanking him in a meek voice. Enji merely nods, a small grunt your only response as he begins walking again, your sweets – and your purse – firmly in his hands, just so that you won’t have to carry them.

When you don’t immediately follow him, Enji pauses, looking back over his shoulder with a brow cocked.

What? Follow me – we have dinner reservations this evening, at that new seafood restaurant by the harbor. Fuyumi tells me it’s quite good; order the crab legs and the caviar.

There’s no room for disagreement in his tone, and for a moment you just blankly gape at him, the situation too strange for you to really process.

But all too soon his eyes are narrowing, and you’re practically tripping over your feet to follow him, keeping your gaze cast downwards as Enji’s hand rests on the small of your back, guiding you even though there’s not a civilian in sight on the desolated sidewalk he leads you down.

TAKING HIS DARLING AWAY:

Honestly, Enji is complicated as a yandere; there’s a part of him that knows that there are aspects of his relationship with you that mirror that of his previous marriage. He knows that although you may not be treated as terribly (and that you have more purpose to him than simply an incubator), you’re still trapped, essentially a slave to his will.

And yet, as time passes and his dependence on you grows stronger, he can’t help but justify his actions, deciding that yes, you may be stuck with him, but at least he spoils you rotten with your favorite foods, expensive clothing and jewels, an unlimited supply for each and every hobby you may have. He may have you trapped between a rock and a hard place in terms of leaving him, but at least he genuinely loves you - he aches to spend time with you, to hold you in his arms, to feel your heartbeat against his ear, your lips against his, your body writhing below his.

He’s convinced himself that this time is different, that you’re different, and as such he eventually decides that it’s really in both your best interests to just relocate you, to get you officially by his side. It’s really paranoia that drives this decision – he’s a working hero and a man with many, many enemies, and so it’s really the only option that keeps you safe.

Stealing you away into his private home – he’s the sole inhabitant, aside from a cleaner or two, since moving out of the Todoroki household – is the best option for a multitude of different reasons. You’re safer this way – the state-of-the-art security systems he’s installed around the estate are the best money can pay for, able to detect intruders and any suspicious activity in the blink of an eye. Enemies don’t have much of a chance of getting inside, and even if they had managed to, Enji will be right there to burn them to a crisp for even daring to get close to his beloved.

And even aside from outside threats, keeping you trapped at home will allow him to keep an eye on you and make sure that you don’t accidentally hurt yourself – you’re ridiculously clumsy to him, your every action having him hold his breath slightly in anticipation, in fear that you’ll somehow trip or fall or bruise your pretty skin. Plus, this way he’ll know that you’re eating healthily and in the right quantities, that you’re getting proper exercise, that you’re relaxing as you should, that you’re spending adequate amounts of time in the interior courtyard he’d prepared in preparation for you.

(It’s beautiful, as loathe as you are to admit it – all kinds of flowers bloom along the walkways, bamboo and tall grasses and trees growing in neat lines and providing shade for the flowerbeds on hot summer days. There’s even a small stream flowing through it, the gentle trickling noise almost enough to cancel out the painful silence that exists between you and Enji when he decides to join you for your scheduled garden time in the afternoons – uninvited, as always, and yet still unable to sense how desperately you wish you’d get these times alone to yourself.)

Aside from your safety, keeping you in his home helps feeds into his domestic fantasies of the two of you – you’re so very precious to him, and from nearly the beginning of his obsession with you, he’s always viewed you as the perfect wife – specifically, the perfect housewife.

He’s a traditional man, believing in traditional gender roles, and although he doesn’t view you as being less-than based upon your status as a woman, he does expect certain things from you. He’s the breadwinner, the strong, capable one who provides you with a roof over your head, food, and any gift under the sun the moment you make even the slightest inclination of wanting it.

And in return, you’re to be his caring, nurturing wife – the one who keeps the house neat and tidy, a room dedicated to only cleaning supplies that you get always stay stocked and ready for you, should you become inspired and wish to fulfill this domestic fantasy of his. The cleaning products are all diluted down to a level that wouldn’t be dangerous if you were to ingest them – you’d get sick, surely, but it’s nothing a home-trip from a doctor who’s been sworn to secrecy can’t handle.

There’s also, unfortunately, a drawer within the room that a particularly bored you had one day opened only to immediately slam it shut. Dozens of cleaning outfits sat neatly folded in the drawer, the black and white getups looking much too tight and much too short. A few weeks later you’d returned to the drawer, bored out of your mind while Enji was away at work, peeling one out with careful and trembling fingers. And of course, to no one’s surprise, the outfit fit like a fucking glove – hugging your curves and accentuating them, the skirt full and flouncy and very easy to flip up, the bustline practically choking your breasts with how tightly the black cotton pressed them together. You’d changed out of it shortly after, the rather disturbing and shameful fleeting question of whether this was the type of thing Enji liked making you too disgusted, guilty, and bashful to really consider.

In his idealized domestic world, you’d cook for him, too, but it takes a very long time for him to trust you enough to not purposefully burn or cut yourself in the kitchen. He has daydreams about coming home from a hectic work day to see you standing over the stove in a cute apron, humming some song and lighting up when you hear the door open and close, his announcement of being home making you practically bounce on your heels.

He wants to have you cook for him, to see you slave in the kitchen putting every ounce of your concentration and time into making him a meal you know he’ll enjoy, but that fantasy has to wait for the time being – just until he thinks you’ve finally lost that rebellious streak of yours, just until you finally come to realize that you belong by Enji’s side.

And so, in the meantime he’ll have you make him small things that hold little potential for you to hurt yourself with – simple sandwiches with pre-sliced ingredients, so that you won’t cut yourself chopping tomatoes or slicing bread. He'll have you prepare a sandwich for him and one for yourself, too, ordering you to sit down at the dining table with him and share a meal – though the conversation is hard to come by, and each attempt he makes at starting it is only met with single word answers from you.

(Another domestic fantasy he harbors but would never tell you about is to have you sitting with him at the table, looking at him with those pretty eyes and your voice dropping to a sultry volume, your chopsticks bringing the food you diligently and loving prepared for him up to his lips, your tone teasing as you tell him to open wide! He’d keep eye contact the whole time he chews, never once breaking it as he tells you in that low, gruff voice of his that it’s perfectly done, the seasoning is impeccable. He wants you to be bashful, to smile and hide it with your hand, your lashes fluttering as you glance at him then back to the food again, too shy to say much but your body language showing just how much his praise effects you, just how good it feels to be the center of his attention, the apple of his eye, his absolute everything.)

He wants you to be his sweet housewife, and although he won’t force you into any of the work, it’s extremely obvious what he wants of you – he’s always telling you about when you get adjusted, how you’ll be more open to fulfilling your role.

When you’re more adjusted, you’ll be happy to iron his clothes; perhaps you’ll spritz a bit of the perfume he buys you onto his shirts, just as a reminder of you during his long days.

(As if he needs a reminder – certainly not, when you’re on his mind nearly every minute of the day.)

When you’re more adjusted, you’ll be pleased to see the positive pregnancy test in your trembling hands, your voice riddled with joy as you announce the good news to him, watching him drop the phone and keys in his hand and instead hoist you into the air, spinning you with a grin on his face so bright it nearly blinds you, concluded with a passionate kiss and a few tears on his cheeks because he just can’t fucking wait to have you as the mother of his child.

It’s all this talk of ‘when this’ and ‘when that’, but the strange thing about Enji as a captor is that he’s incredibly patient with seeing these fantasies come to fruition – sure, he may be forcing you into being a housewife just as he did with Rei, but this is different – you get a choice about some of it, unlike her. You don’t have to do the dishes, but you can if you’d like. You don’t have to bear his children, but you can if you’d like.

(And frankly, it’ll be hard not to – once your need for human contact and your strange, mixed feelings for him grow, you’ll eventually give into his requests for intimacy, and once the floodgates are open, you will end up pregnant from the sheer frequency and volume at which he pumps you full of his cum.)

All that being said, life as Enji’s captive will honestly not be too terrible – he’s still following you around the house like a shadow, but he’ll let you sleep in your own bed at the start, let you have your own bedroom and bathroom, and he won’t even force you into spending time with him at the beginning.

Because really, as tortuous and painful as keeping you away from him is, he repeats the mantra over and over in his head that eventually it’ll be worth it – eventually you’ll see things his way, and eventually you’ll come to see just how deeply his feelings for you run. You’ll realize that he’s only ever loved you, that he cares for you more than any other man possibly could, that he only has your best interests at heart – that’s why he always swung by your apartment at the end of his patrols, peering in at you through your windows, just to make sure you were safe and sound.

That’s why he kidnapped you, to ensure your safety and keep you in the arms of the only man truly capable of providing for you, just as you deserve.

That’s why he’ll never let you escape him, no matter how you beg and plead for your freedom – you don’t understand the outside world like he does. You think you do, but each villain he arrests is a nail in the coffin of your freedom – you have no fucking clue how dangerous the world is, and Enji isn’t hesitant to remind you of this.

You’re unhappy with him? Well, your options are here, in his warm house where he’s willing to give you every ounce of his attention, love, and touch, or out in the big, scary world where women like you are easy targets for men who love destroying easy targets.

So really, you’re in the best hands with Enji – he knows how to take care of you, and he’ll spoil you with every possible treasure you could want. What’s not to be happy about?

PUNISHMENTS:

As a general rule, Enji doesn’t ‘do’ punishments. Because he views his relationship with you as his second try at finding a companion, there is no part of him that actively desires to hurt you. He loves you, in some sick, twisted way that’s much too obsessive and desperate to ever be considered healthy, but it’s still love nonetheless.

And as such, Enji does genuinely want your relationship to be as wholesome and sweet as possible; he wants you to want him, to actively choose to spend your time with him, to want to be in his presence every moment of every day. He wants everything to be as perfect as possible – the idealized life, a life where he’s the number one hero coming home to his lovely wife who cherishes him and he cherishes in return.

And so, when you do something that doesn’t quite line up with this fantasy, Enji is understandably upset. Why can’t you just accept that this is your reality now? Why do you insist on fighting him, even when you know you won’t win? How could you?

He’s Enji Todoroki, Endeavor the Flame Hero, and you’re just you. You’re pretty, of course, and smart and sweet and caring, but you’re still just you. There’s nothing you can do against someone like him – which is why Enji is able to excuse your poor behavior most of the time.

He understands; it’s difficult to accept that you’re weak and powerless, and he understands that when you lash out and act out, you’re just expressing frustration and fear at being taken care of so wholly and completely by someone so much stronger than you. It must be scary, after all – Enji can be so intimidating and he knows it, so he’ll try his absolute best to calm down anytime his anger starts to flare.

The last thing he wants to do is harm you, and he wants everything in your relationship to be as different as possible from that with Rei – and hurting you in any way would too closely resemble his previous marriage, ruining the beautiful illusion he can live under with you.

And so, most of the time Enji is able to grit his teeth and shut his eyes, letting the anger subside by telling himself about all the wonderful things about you – things that always get him feeling calmer, that make the buzzing sensation in his head and the suffocating feeling of anger dissipate. Nine times out of ten, he’s able to calm himself down this way – and if that’s not enough, normally exiting the room and getting a breath of fresh air is enough. He’ll tell himself that he absolutely cannot fall into the same habits he did with Rei – you’re different, you’re special, and he’ll calm himself down as often as he needs to in order to avoid being seen by you as the big, scary man who will hurt you if you disobey him.

Thus, getting Enji angry enough to the point where he can’t simply calm himself down is actually quite difficult – generally, this involves you hurting yourself. Most other things he can twist into seeming not so bad, rather just being you not having adjusted to life as his woman quite yet. He can write off your escape attempts as you still clinging to this ludicrous sense of independence you seem so hellbent on keeping.

Attempts to harm him can be discarded as your misplaced sense of anger at your situation, because although in your heart of hearts he’s sure you’re happy to be in your natural familial setting (as the wife of a strong, capable man of course), you’ve confused yourself by trying to reject something that’s just so right.

Of course these events don’t make him happy, but they’re able to be disregarded – but when your blood is drawn by your own accord, even Enji can’t pretend this is something else. This is you purposefully trying to injure yourself, purposefully trying to show him that you aren’t happy, that you don’t want this – an idea that makes him panic, that sends his fists clenching, that gets him pacing and his mind racing as he tries to figure out how to set you straight without harming you. And so, Enji eventually decides that after he cleans up your injury, rather than simply hitting you

and physically showing you that he won’t stand for this sort of misbehavior, he has to be more restrictive with you. He won’t be so lenient for the days following your bad behavior – you won’t be so spoiled, your rights won’t be so freely handed to you.

You must understand that Enji is charge, and that he’s being generous and loving and kind by allowing you such free reign around your shared home. Really, he doesn’t need to be so generous – and he’ll teach you that an angry Enji is much, much worse than the normal doting, lovesick Enji you’re used to.

Enji is frozen as he opens the front door. He’d come home a bit early from running some errands, the groceries in his hand dropping onto the hardwood floors below him. His jaw is dropped a bit, the sight of your bright red blood staining your forearm making a wave of sickness wash over him.

Who did this?

Who could’ve hurt you like this? There’d been no security alerts while he was gone, and there was absolutely no way that you’d left the interior of this house in the two hours he was gone. In the next breath he’s rushing forward into the kitchen, by your side before you can even blink, paying no mind to the way you gasp and stumble away from him, as if you’re afraid of him.

It makes Enji’s chest ache, but the sight of your blood is too distracting for him to focus on the uncomfortable ache. Instead, he’s thrusting your arm under the kitchen sink, the lukewarm water making you wince ever so slightly as it runs over the wound.

Enji’s brows furrow as he examines your arm; the cuts are long, zigzagging in every direction in a way that looks strange, not like any normal attack pattern he’s seen before. This doesn’t look natural, either – not like a regular scratch, not like you just slipped and fell and had unfortunate luck. No, this looks like something else entirely – like something purposeful, like their appearance marring your pretty skin isn’t accidental in the least. It’s only then that Enji sees the glinting silver fork out of the corner of his eye, sitting on the edge of the counter with a bit of red staining the ends.

Immediately his body is freezing, his grip on your arm squeezing tighter as the gears turn in his mind. You must have…

His jaw flexes as he grinds his teeth, those blue eyes of his slanting over to look at you with such intensity and anger that you physically shrink in on yourself. His grip is too firm for you to pull your arm back, Enji absolutely unwilling to let you run away from this.

Did you do this to yourself?

His voice is surprisingly even, given the look on his face, and immediately you’re shaking your head, your entirely body paralyzed with fear. You’ve never seen Enji look this scary before – or at least not towards you.

Your answer only serves to further anger him, it seems, because soon he’s literally snarling, his face twisted up into this ugly look of rage that’s only heightened by the scar across his eye.

Don’t lie to me, I will always be able to tell when you’re untruthful with me. He pauses, taking a deep breath, his voice just the slightest bit unsteady. Did you do this to yourself?

This time you nod yes, tears prickling at your eyes and starting to spill down your cheeks, and at the sound Enji makes, they only flow faster. He looks like he’s in more pain than you are – his face is red, and a few flames lick up around his shoulders. The heat washes over you, and soon the begs are slipping off your tongue before you can help yourself.

Enji pays you no mind, every ounce of his self-control going towards not slapping you in the face for your blatant stupidity. Soon he’s letting go of your hand, stomping towards the small first aid kit he keeps in the kitchen, entirely silent as he carefully wraps your arm in bandages, not paying your rambling any attention or mind.

As soon as you’re securely bandaged, he leaves the room and you hear the sound of his bedroom door slamming shut reverberating throughout the house.

The rest of the night passes in a blur, with you somehow getting from the floor of the kitchen where you’d laid down and eventually fallen asleep all the way to your bed, with the blankets carefully slotted over your body.

Nothing seems to be amiss the next morning, your footsteps cautious as you approach the bathroom, your brows shooting up when you notice that the counter is completely bare – your toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash are all missing, as are all the expensive lotions and facial scrubs Enji normally keeps in piles for your convenience.

The kitchen is empty, too, you notice – the silverware drawer is completely empty, and there are no cups or mugs of any sort in any of the cupboards. It’s unnerving, and immediately you’re getting goosebumps all over your body, the air feeling prickly and cold, as if there’s something lurking that you don’t know about. Biting your lip, you make your way to the table, gingerly sitting down and trying not to jostle the bandages too much – the bandages that had been changed, you distantly notice.

A few minutes later, Enji joins you in the kitchen, his expression not exactly jovial, but not particularly hostile. He greets you as he normally does, before placing the mug you now notice is in his hand under sink. The sound of rushing water gets your mouth watering, not having realized how thirsty you were until this moment.

Wide eyes watch him turn towards you, making his way to your seated figure with slow, heavy steps that get your heart thudding in his chest. He stops right next to you, before telling you to open your mouth. Hesitantly, you do as he says, jerking slightly when his fingertips – always unnaturally warm – cup your chip and bring the cup up to your lips, the water cold as you’re forced to drink it.

Enji watches with neutral eyes, though you see the corner of his lip curl up slightly as you drink the entire glass, the pacing of the water flow nearly too much and nearly choking you. Soon it’s gone, and Enji uses his thumb to wipe at the corner of your lips.

Since yesterday’s little spectacle has shown me that you can’t be trusted with basic household supplies, let me know if you require another drink, if you’d like to brush your teeth, or if you’d like to wash your hair. You obviously can’t do it alone, so I will be joining you. Now, go lay down on the couch. I need to change your wrappings again.

You’re dumbfounded, watching him keep the mug in his grasp as he heads towards the living room. And though the threat seems too extreme, Enji means it – you only last a few hours before you reluctantly ask for another drink, your throat too dry and sore to go without it.

And that night, when you shamefully ask him for your toothbrush, you’re not particularly pleased to find out that he’ll be the one brushing your teeth, using his very own toothbrush to get the job done, just to make sure you don’t even think about trying to choke yourself with the brush.

(And when you finally have to shower, well, Enji’s face turns bright red when you ask, rushing to his feet much too quickly, grasping your hand and practically pulling you to the bathroom before applying all sorts of soaps and scents to the bath he draws for you. His breath is hitched as he turns around so you can change in privacy, but don’t be surprised to see him sneaking glances at your bare body beneath the water’s bubbly surface. Don’t be surprised when later that night you hear a suspiciously rhythmic thumping sound and muffled groans through the wall that your bedrooms share, the faintest wet, squelching noise accompanying them.)

And, roughly a week later when you wake up to the cups and mugs back in the cupboard and your shampoo back in the shower, you’ll decide against hurting yourself anytime soon. It’s not worth it – not if that’s how you’ll be treated; forced to ask permission for your basic needs.

And Enji couldn’t be more pleased – now you’ll think twice about using that fork again, or anything else for that matter.

(And he can still force you into using his toothbrush – under the guise of furthering your bond and intimacy, of course. And because he’ll use it after you, savoring the feeling of the bristles against his tongue like some sort of drug.)

OVERALL DANGER:

7/10

Enji isn’t necessarily dangerous, but rather inevitable.

He’s a determined man, driven by motivation for his goals, no matter the methods he uses to get there. And once he sets his sights on you, deciding that he wants you, that he loves you, you’re certainly no different – he will have you, and there’s not a single thing you can do about it. He’s a force to be reckoned with, and really, what sway do you have?

He’s a professional hero, known in the public sphere responsible for saving more lives than you could ever hope to, and who are you? You’re just a pretty face, a woman who happened to have the exact set of traits and physical appearance that Enji finds desirable – you have no real way to combat him, and who would believe you, anyway? Enji is the new symbol of peace – as far as the Commission is concerned, he can have whatever the hell he wants, and if that one thing is some civilian, then you can kiss your freedom goodbye.

But really, all things considered, Enji isn’t too terrible – he’s trying desperately to right his wrongs, to love you in a way that prioritizes your happiness and is just better, and although you’re certainly not happy being trapped by his side, he can at least pretend like this is better.

He wants you to be his pretty little thing, to be his housewife and treat him like your devoted, loving husband. He wants you to greet him with a kiss on the lips when he comes home from work, helping him out of his jacket and asking about his day, then lead him into the clean kitchen where you’ve got dinner waiting for him, then join him in the shower and then the bed, letting his hands wander to where they please, then fall asleep on his chest, letting him feel like he’s protecting you even in his sleep.

Is that really so much to ask for? Enji thinks not – besides, isn’t that the dream for you?

All you have to do is let him take care of you, to spoil you with flowers and chocolates and jewelry and all sorts of things that make women swoon. You’ll be spoiled rotten, treated like a goddess, and all you have to do is let Enji make all the decisions for you, to let him take control of your life and your future – it’s better this way, he promises.

This way, you’ll be properly cared for, kept safe and secure and comfortable by his side. You may not see it yet, but Enji is sure this is really what you want – you’ll come around eventually, he’s sure of it.

And if you don’t? Well, at least he’s not a monster, right?

#yandere bnha #yandere mha #yandere enji todoroki #yandere endeavor #_lee's profiles #_enji todoroki #_bnha #endeavor x reader #enji todoroki x reader

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surely-sims · 5 months

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SMALL SIMBLR SATURDAY SHOUTOUTS !!

AKA an excuse for me to yell about how much I love these incredible free CC creators and throw flowers at them.

@lumenniveus - LxN CC 🌹

LxN makes some of the most interesting, whimsical, and creative CC that i think the community at large is so lacking. Every time I load up his CC In my game I find myself smiling and laughing at all the love and little jokes he includes. Please Please Check out his stuff if you haven't already. I think he might be the most tragically slept on BB creators.

▶ Check out LxN Here!

@hamsterbellbelle 🌸

HamsterBelle is one of the most brilliant creators I've come across in this community. Not only is she crazy smart and makes some of the coolest cyberpunk CC I've ever seen, she is also a mind blowing builder and takes the time to write out some incredibly helpful tutorials. I've learned so much from her whether she knows or not haha. 🐹💖

▶ Check out HamsterBellBelle here!

@nolan-sims 🌼

Not only is Nolan a goddamn pillar of this community for many years but she's also an incredible, sweet, and wonderfully talented creator and friend. Her CC is always so well thought through, completely original, and lovingly detailed. We definitely don't deserve her. 😭💗

▶ Check out Nolan here!

BONUS ROUND: 💐

All these creators are amazing and I would carve their names into the stars but ya'll would shoot me if this post kept going and going down your dash that long.

⭐ @gilded-ghosts Amazing amazing vintage CC, thoughtful, beautiful original meshes and textures. ( X ) ⭐ @myshunosun Myshuno deserves all the hype and praise her CC gets. She's an absolutely lovely human and has saved my ass once or twice too. ( X ) ⭐ @dallasgirl79 DallasGirl makes the best heels your sims will ever wear. Hard stop. I will not be taking questions at this time. ( X ) ⭐ @doctorsimcraft A dear friend, an amazing writer, builder and maker of delightful vintage Build/Buy CC too. ( X ) ⭐ @vyxated HOLY FUCK. Vxyated is crazy intelligent. Their work with CAS rooms and now the new Rig Plus Helper is mind blowing. ( X ) ⭐ @adjusted-karma ( X ), @simmireen ( X ), @herecirm-warcry ( X ), @rebouks ( X ), @madebycoffee ( X ) Beautiful people, beautiful poses. Also Ireen runs @ts4-poses which is a goddamn godsend to this community. ⭐ @twentiethcenturysims ( X ), @chere-indolente ( X ) Fantastic Historical CC from two very good eggs. ⭐ @jellymoo ( X ), @laeska ( X ), @xldkx-cc ( X ) Three lovely and fantastically talented CAS creators that put a ton of thought and effort in going the extra mile with their CC and it absolutely shows. ⭐ @awingedllama Anna is smart, skilled, and deserves all the flowers she's gotten this year. We really do love to see it. ( X ) ⭐ @kamiiri Some of the best hairs that have ever graced my game. I am actually obsessed. ( X )

If I missed anyone I apologize, but please know every single free CC creator makes my heart grow a little bigger every day. 💖 And to my fellow Creators, Storytellers, Simmers - Go make weird shit, make something that makes you laugh, make something that brings you joy. Cause y'know what? That joy bleeds into your work and we can all see it and feel it. That joy is infectious and special and THAT is what makes this community worth being a part of.

xo, Anne 🦐

#smallsimblrsaturday #ts4 #long post #cc u later #its almost midnight here so im dropping this now cause i wake up waaay later than everyone else hah

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txttletale · 4 months

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Sorry if you posted about this before and I've missed it but are you arguing with anti-AI Art people (Specifically the ones deliberately ignoring or misrepresenting material facts) just on the basis that they're wrong? Or are you doing it to try to show that AI is going to be used anyway and they need to change the way they argue about it if they actually want to be productive with their goal of not having AI be harmful?

I suppose in truth I already seem to believe you're doing both at once, which is fine, but I guess what I'm really getting at is trying to prompt you for more of your own interpretation of the AI art discourse as a whole and how you feel about people calling you "Pro-AI" despise the fact that your economic beliefs inherently make you (from my very biased perspective) "more" "Anti-AI" than they are!

Sorry for the messy ask lol, you're just getting at a lot of thoughts I've been having trouble putting to words and want to see more!

yea i would absolutely describe my critiques of 'anti-AI' as coming from three separate but related places because there are three separate types of 'anti-AI art' talking points:

talking point type 1 is all the 'not real art / soullless / no effort' bullshit. i'm mostly critiquing these because they are fundamentally reactionary and profoundly silly and because i like talking about art and what art is and how it's made and shit.

type 2 is, to borrow a phrase from marx, "the economic shit". it's here that i think my critiques are more 'positive' than 'negative', as in, i think that these talking points are mostly coming from a reasonable place but are tactically misaimed -- my critiques here mostly amount to 'stop whining about midjourney and start unionizing your workplace because one of those will make a difference when AI comes for your job and the other won't"

type 3 is IP/copyright-brained petty-bourgeois mindset, arguments centering on ridiculously expansive concepts of 'theft' or 'plagiarism' and 'ownership'. they are superficially similar to type 2 arguments but instead of the fundamentally sympathetic and reasonable "i am worried i am going to be fired by my boss / no longer taken on by clients because of this new technology" they are instead arguing that they are either owed the hypothetical lost profits or royalties for every generated image. this is the type of argument i'm most vehemently against, because i think that all of these arguments essentially end in campaigning to strengthen copyright and IP law, something which i'm profoundly and fundamentally against.

sometimes people will make type 1 arguments when they fundamentally have type 2 concerns, but that just makes their type 2 concerns seem weaker and less worth taking seriously by association, which isn't good for us organized labour fans out there. but yeah these are all separate talking points -- i think i try to approach The Economic Shit with the 'you need to change how you think to achieve something productive' mindset, because of the three positions that's the one i have a fundamental political commonality and nominal shared goals with.

#ask #ai art

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ollieolliewrld · 3 months

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DMC Men in Relationships (SFW)

Dante ☆A playful lover ☆He’s cocky and wants someone who can keep up with him ☆Adventurous dates are big with him always switching between showing off and making sure nothing ever happens to you ☆Very classic will carry you over puddles kind of guy ☆You’ll tease him when he falls into stereotypes ☆He’ll play it off like nothing happened ☆Dante is a player who has finally found the one he’s going to do everything he can to keep you there ☆Rainy days are special that’s when he gets to take a day to stay in with you cuddled up on the couch ☆You two spend those days watching movies and being close ☆He feels like all of his struggles in life are worth it now that he has you

Vergil ☆Vergil cares about you deeply but doesn’t show it in an obvious way ☆He does not mess around and he wants to make sure things work so that you are both happy ☆Dates with Vergil are thought out ☆His love for you shines through with the carefully planned trip to a small bookshop that happens to be next to a tea shop ☆Not too big on pet names but will refer to you as his angel you make him feel safe like he can finally rest ☆Vergil has a lot of knowledge that he wants to share with you ☆You learn from him and he learns from you ☆He enjoys hearing your thoughts on the world ☆Absolutely fascinated with how you see things so differently from him ☆He wants to keep you by his side and never let you go

Nero ☆This man is new to the whole relationship game ☆While he’s unsure at times he makes up for that ☆Like his father, he loves to listen to you ☆Nero may not know everything but he can understand where you’re coming from and makes sure he’s there to support you ☆Dates with him are chill but cute ☆For one of your first dates, he takes you to a park where he’s done his best to surprise you with a picnic ☆He puts effort in but it’s not always perfect ☆Very easily flustered ☆Does not matter how long you’ve been together ☆Will blush when you catch him staring at you ☆You are his everything ☆Everything he does in his day is with you in mind ☆He keeps a small picture of you somewhere on him ☆Frequently has to replace it because of all the action ☆But it’s the thought that counts ☆Nero wants to show his love for you 24/7

Author's Note: Thank you for all of the support! I did not expect anyone to be as kind as you all have been BEFORE I even made a post! I hope you guys will enjoy this one and there are plenty more in the works. <3<3<3

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majorbaby · 3 months

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it takes a conscious effort to break your patterns of consumption and unlearn the notion beauty, interiority, diverse ways of existence aren't exclusive to whiteness or maleness. part of that isn't your fault. certain music is played on the radio, certain shows survive cancellation no matter what, certain people seem to be able to commit the worst possible acts against other human beings and are excused on account of their creative genius. others are selectively punished, with good reason sure, but still, selectively.

now more than ever it's easier to immerse yourself in art made by people outside of the mainstream. reading lists, free resources, playlists... all this stuff is more accessible than ever, but you've got to make an effort to give it a try. it's black history month, the recs are pouring in, go have a look. or take a chance on something absolutely no one has recommended anywhere and if you find something you like, rec it to someone else because the likelihood is they haven't heard of it.

tracy chapman's "fast car" is one of eleven songs that appears on her self-titled debut album. can you name the second hit single from it? if you're american and you fell anywhere left of center as of the 2016 election, it should be on the tip of your tongue if you were engaged in your country's politics at the time, regardless of your level of actual investment in the system. if not, the next time you're doing a task you need both hands with, washing the dishes, having dinner, doing your makeup, put that album on.

there's a post with over 100K notes on here that i see all the time of bruce springsteen and clarence clemons kissing. there's a part of that that is immediately meaningful to many if you're lgbtq, and a part that is harder for non-black lgbtq people to feel the weight of. but it is worth trying to do and was part of the reason why they kissed so often in the first place. clarence clemons was from norfolk, virginia. he released multiple albums outside of his work with the e street band. they may not be for you, but give them a try.

give enough music, or movies, or books that aren't a part of the approved canon a try, and there's no way you won't find something you don't feel as passionate about as you do about springsteen, siken, the beatles, what have you.

james baldwin was a prolific artist. see if you can't find something of his you like more than giovanni's room.

immerse yourself in ringo sheena, who mitski cites as one of her influences.

if you have difficulty paying attention to music you don't recognize, (i get it) make a playlist that alternates tracks you know and love with brand new tracks. start small. 5 faves of all time, 5 you're going to try out. you won't like everything, but you might find yourself looking forward to 6 songs instead of 5 eventually.

for movies, pick an actor whose performance you loved in something and explore their work. last year i picked whoopi goldberg, also a prolific artist, with a vast body of work that's pretty accessible as a result of her constant, intentional effort.

if you're an artist yourself, you can only stand to improve by getting to know your fellow artists better. so expand your notion of what art is. you can do it for free in lots of cases, and you're spending that time listening to music or reading or watching movies or series anyway, what have you got to lose?

anti-racism sometimes means engaging in real-world narratives of pain endured by brown and black people. that pain permeates much of our art, but we're just as three-dimensional as everybody else, and every aspect of our experiences come through in our work. you know that already, because what else is happening when you indulge in various genres. for everything you love or enjoy, there's a brown or black person who's doing something along those lines, in many cases, those genres wouldn't exist in their current form without the influence of our communities, some more than others, depending on where you're from. you can actually keep one foot inside your comfort zone and dip your toe into something else. that choice is both a joy and a luxury.

#im saying this with generosity #the best time to start was ten years ago the next best time is today #hope i don't regret this. lol.

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noxturnalpascal · 4 months

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My 2023 Fanfic-Wrapped

I only really started reading Pedro fanfic in April or May, I got started on some of the well-known fics on AO3 that were recommended on tiktok. However, one of them brought me to tumblr (because I wanted to see more from this author, I wanted to see their moodboards and their sneak peeks). And I haven’t left since.

I even decided to try my hand at writing as well. It’s been a LOT of fun. (My masterlist is here if you want to see all the weird shit I wrote so far). Thank you to everyone who has supported me in all my efforts and to all the friends I've made.

I wanted to create this list to highlight some of my faves this year. If you haven’t read these, they all come highly recommended by me.

I'll be reblogging everything on this list throughout the day. If you’d like to reblog this post and add some of your own favorites from this year - PLEASE DO!!! I would absolutely love to get new recs!! Let’s share the love!!

In no particular Order - Here are some of my favorites from the year!

Fave Writers (I’ll read anything they write)

@toxicanonymity (joel miller masterlist) Personal Faves: NightWalks!Joel, Vamp!Joel (both Ongoing)

@theywhowriteandknowthings (masterlist) Personal Faves: Creep - Joel, Princess and the Duke - Dave York (Ongoing)

@chloeangelic (masterlist) Personal Faves: Love Me Back - Joel, Seeking What is Desirable - Joel (Ongoing)

@goodwithcheese (masterlist) Personal Faves: The Layover - Frankie, Paranoid Heart - Javi P (Ongoing)

@beskarandblasters (masterlist) Personal Faves: Me and My Husband - Din Djarin, New York or Nowhere - Bodega!Joel (Ongoing)

@absurdthirst (masterlist) Personal Faves: Kinktober 2023 Oct 15th - LactationKink!Dieter, A Marriage of Convenience - Regency!PeroTovar, (they have SO many good ones)

Fave Ongoing Series

Mall Rats (Jackson-era!Joel) by @strang3lov3

Oh! Honey (Monster!Joel x Mortician!Reader) by @lincolndjarin

Hard to be Soft, Tough to be Tender (Pimp!Joel) by @iamasaddie

On the Waterfront (Chubby!Mafia!Frankie) by @beefrobeefcal

The King’s Queen (Royalty/ArrangedMarriageAU!Javi G) by @wardenparker

From Eden (PlantShopOwner!Joel x Married!F!Reader) by @5oh5

A Lover’s Pinch (Professor!Joel x Student!Reader) by @hier--soir

Into the Beat of the Night (Bi!Frankie x afab!gn!OC) by @perotovar

Fave Finished Series

A Stranger’s Heart Without a Home (Jackson-era Joel) by @morning-star-joy (This is the one that brought me to tumblr. Doni created this beautiful story and it has a very special place in my heart.)

Late Night Texts (Post-Colombia Javier Peña) by @undercoverpena

Someone’s Wife in the Boat of Someone’s Husband (Married!No-Outbreak!Joel) by @netherfeildren

Something New (SexWorker!Frankie) by @prolix-yuy

Something Wretched About This (DrugDealer!Joel) by @covetyou

Pioneer Frankie (A series of stories about Pioneer!AU!Frankie) by @frannyzooey

Trial & Error (No-Outbreak!Joel helps Tommy & reader get pregnant) by @thetriumphantpanda

Pleased to Meet You (Meeting Francisco Morales - twice) by @intheorangebedroom

Fave Characters

Husband's Best Friend Joel Miller (with Married! Reader) (HBF!Joel) by @gracieispunk

Jackson-Era Vampire! Joel Miller (A Secret Worth Keeping) by @multiversed-daydreamer

Soccer-dad No-Outbreak Joel Miller gets a racy text from an unknown number (The Right Wrong Number) by @proxima-writes

Demon! Ezra (with Witch! Reader) (In Every Lifetime) by @xdaddysprincessxx

Protective Jackson-Era Joel Miller (A Safe Haven) by @joelsgreys

THROUPLE Frankie x Joel x F!Reader (Catalyst Masterlist) by @ezrasbirdie

Sleezy Gas Station Joel *MC* Miller (Meet Me in the Back) by @atticrissfinch

Porn Star Joel Miller (with Porn Star Reader) (I Know it When I See it) by @bageldaddy

Fave Dark/DDDNE Fics (These fics aren’t being put in the corner but they do come with some very special warnings so I wanted to separate them)

Trick or Treat? (DDDNE Dark!Frankie Morales x Dark!Joel Miller x Dark!Dave York x F!Reader) by @morallyinept

Bullet For You, Darlin’ (DDDNE Dark!Raider!Joel Miller) by @kewwrites

Online Friends (Cherry Bomb) (Dom!Joel, online/phone sex) by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

Blessed Be the Fruit (Dark!DubCon! Joel Miller - Handmaid’s Tale AU) by @romana-after-dark

Red Light (Dark!Obsessive!DubCon! Landlord Joel Miller) by @kiwisbell

The Burglary (DDDNE burglar!Joel Miller x f!reader x burglar!Tommy Miller) by @milla-frenchy and @aurorawritestoescape

I don't know man.... I just know I like it

Menuet (It’s an animal/shapeshifter/monster fucking thing (Pero Tovar) that fundamentally changed who I am as a person) by @psychedelic-ink

Liquid Gold (Joel - and Tommy? - help Pregnant!Reader out when an issue arises) by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Get a Grip (Watch Model!Joel Miller x Manicurist!Reader Hand/GloveKink!) by @bonezone44

Mother Who Provides (Mommy!Kink Joel gets breastfed) by @pedge-page

Goodbye 2023, See you all next year!!!!

#fanfic wrapped #noxturnalpascal #pedro pascal characters #joel miller fanfiction #frankie morales fanfiction #din djarin fanfiction

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wise-tortoise · 5 months

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Hi! i’m new to chengxian. so i was wondering, do you have any recs please? preferably long one shots (10k+) and set in the original location (i don’t like modern aus mostly as they are based in the us or uk). sorry for all the stipulations!

HELLO ANON AND WELCOME TO CHENGXIAN!!

I am DELIGHTED to be a source of fic recs, and I have JUST the fics for you.

First of all, I highly recommend checking out the various ao3 collections of past chengxian events, such as Chengxian Happy Ending Fest, or Chengxian Minibang 2023, Chengxian Week 2020, Chengxian Week 2021 , Our Meeting is Inevitable or The Chengxian+ Collection, which are a goldmine of wonderful fics. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding something to your taste among them!

Now, on to my personal recommendations, under the read more because this got LONG.

Based on what you said you'd prefer, the fic all my dreams have come and gone a half a million times by iri_vail sounds like something you'd enjoy. It's a lovely post-canon shuangjie reconciliation fic, 10k words, with wonderful art. There's frogs too!

consider rivers by Lirazel, 9k, canon divergence fic with no war that rewrote my brain chemistry. Jiang Cheng wants Wei Wuxian to marry Jiang Yanli: lots of yunmeng trio feels, lots and lots and lots of pining.

after the sun sets by Artemis1000, 12k words, it's an amazing fic set during sunshot campaign, lots of hurt/comfort, lots of love and understanding and softness between our two favorite miscommunicators.

electricity between both of us by zyprexd is an absolutely incredible series of two fics that make me go feral. Past w4ngxian, tentative shuangjie reconciliation with long overdue communication, lots of feelings aknowledged and accepted, Wei Wuxian introspection.

Turn Back, Dull Earth by groundwiremantaray, 8k, canon divergence, a whole lot of fluff (with a delightful twist). Though not a oneshot, if you like to read happy times with chengxian, this is absolutely the fic for you.

this love that I most fear by Runespoor, 25k words divided in three chapters, in which a coreless Jiang Cheng has to aknowledge Wei Wuxian as his bastard brother in order for him to become sect leader, with all the relative implications. An angsty delight!

Little Sesame by Rurtle, which is an absolute must read. In which the summoning ritual goes wrong and Wei Wuxian reincarnates into a dog. Shenanigans ensue.

born of waters like blood by Artemis1000 (same Artemis as before) which is one of my absolute favorite fics of all time. Chengxian baby made of resentment and lake waters! Chengxian being dads! An unspecified number of eyes!!!! This fic is a bit shorter than the others I've recced, but absolutely worth reading.

letters from inside the storm by serein, in which everyone has a very bad time (not me though, I enjoyed this IMMENSELY), double whump with a very tentative reconciliation.

if tomorrow would ever come... by Midori_99, 17k, a reincarnation fic in which Wei Wuxian after his death reincarnates into a playful little fox and, despite his best efforts, finds himself once again in Lotus Pier, beside Jiang Cheng (and, really, there's no better place for him to be). The good, GOOD, cathartic angst right here, good food for the soul.

If you'd like EVEN MORE chengxian fics, my bookmarks are open and the fics are all ready to receive lots of love (and of course, if you like, there's my fics too, but they're only open to registered users)

Alright, that's definitely not all the fics I would like to rec, but that's about all I can fit in a single post before it becomes too long.

I suggest of course that you check out other works by the authors I listed, as they are all incredibly talented (and I really really wish I could put more of them here but I tried to contain myself with word count and setting as per your request)

Thank you for the ask anon, I hope you'll enjoy your stay in the chengxian side of fandom and I wish you a wonderful day!!

#mdzs #chengxian #xiancheng #yunmeng shuangjie #cql #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #the untamed #anon ask

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genericpuff · 6 months

Text

The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere

Alright, so I had mentioned leading up to the release of the newest LO episode that my feelings regarding LO returning were pretty "meh". Not hyped, but not completely back of mind either. Just sort of a weird calm before the storm type feeling that could go either way.

I'm glad I got to have that moment of calmness because good god, this episode was an absolute shitshow. And honestly, I'm not surprised, for several reasons:

Rachel has never been good at maintaining a buffer, even back at the start of the series she only ever had 2-3 episodes ready ahead of her schedule which is NOT an ideal buffer for an originals series.

Rachel has never been good at writing, she's very "draw first write later" and has stated as such in interviews that when she gets 'stuck' on what she's writing, she'll just start drawing and fit the pieces in later.

Four months is NOT enough time to both rest, attend massive conventions, and work on improving a project while also getting buffer episodes ready.

Because of the FP episodes remaining locked over the hiatus, technically Rachel only needed to have ONE episode ready upon return for the newest FP release, not multiple like she'd usually need like in the past during the S2 midseason hiatus or the season finale episodes which would unlock those FP releases like normal - so for all we know, she could have drawn this episode literally last week, especially when the promo material was so last minute. Frankly I think it was REALLY stupid for whoever it was who decided to keep these FP episodes locked (whether it was her or WT, it was more likely WT) but you can read all I have to say about that in my review of the midseason finale episodes.

All that's to say, no, there was never any guarantee Rachel was going to somehow "turn around" the ride we're currently on. I know that many of the critics were hoping for that to happen, but with the circumstances of the hiatus mixed with Rachel's bad habits of putting her best efforts into the procrastination projects that aren't her actual comic (ex. the few original pieces and LO sketches she put out during the hiatus) it just wasn't in the cards. This is where the comic is at and this is where it will remain until it's over.

I want to also point something out about this episode that was... really glaring to me.

As with all of these hiatus returns, LO got priority advertising in the first two banner slots and push notifications AND a popup ad within the app. This is unsurprising, Webtoons is still trying to milk this thing for what it's worth.

I know a lot of people are gonna focus on the art, or the fact that WT is continuing to shill LO, but I wanna point out the part that WT implemented specifically - "NEW SEASON".

This is literally just false. At best I'd like to think some intern just messed up and thought this was a new season, but it's literally not, the episode designation still says "S3". Note that the creators only design the banner art, the actual labels on top are put there by Webtoons.

But at worst, this feels like blatant lying to continue to hide the fact that LO is ending. Mind you, Rachel and Webtoons have still not put out official posts stating that this is the final arc. There is NOTHING from either of them to communicate to the audience that the comic is ending next year. It feels like they're trying to avoid the topic altogether out of fear of losing the fanbase they still have, rather than hyping up the comic's end for those who have stuck around to see how it all wraps up. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, considering they're now trying to funnel the fanbase into Penguin/Inklore with new marketing deals and the whole Rachel Smythe Presents thing. They're trying to make this seem like the beginning of something "new" when it's really just a quiet shifting of management (Penguin House).

But all that aside, let's actually get into the episode. It's one episode after 4 months, which is not standard for LO's hiatuses, typically FP episodes release on schedule (meaning free readers start hiatuses 3 weeks after FP readers do), the only time this has been an exception has been with the 2 week breaks because the whole point of those was to build a buffer (which you can't do if you're going ahead and releasing the FP episodes anyways). For extended hiatuses like these, usually free readers still get their FP episodes, but that wasn't the case here. That means Rachel technically only needed one episode ready for the comic's return, and it shows. It really fucking shows.

FROM HERE ON OUT THERE WILL BE FASTPASS SPOILERS REGARDING EPISODE 254. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED !!!

As per tradition, we get a title that means nothing at all. It just says what we already know.

Our collective husband Zeus is dying, no thanks to the poison cupcake fed to him by Apollo. For those who don't remember, Apollo had tricked Zeus into eating the cupcake by making him believe it was from Hebe. We are fully aware that it was Apollo who poisoned him. Remember that for later in this review.

Right off the bat we're off to a hilarious start, both with a cryptid appearance from Apollo in the background (lmao) who is, for some reason, ALREADY returning to the scene of the crime he just committed because... who knows at this point. Apollo and Psyche know it was Apollo at this point, I might add, but I have no clue why Apollo is actually returning to the scene of the crime when he has no idea Eros and Psyche know.

Moving on from that, can we talk about this hilarious dialogue?

"We have to call a doctor! Let's call Asclepius!"

"No, we can't trust him! Gosh darn it, why are we only bothering to think of ONE doctor in this universe where we've seen more than one doctor?? Guess Zeus is just gonna die! What a horribly contrived situation this is!"

And that's literally how I can best describe most of this episode. Contrived. There is a LOT of manufactured drama in this that makes ZERO sense even on a surface level.

And what do you mean exactly, Eros? "What a terrible system!" Is this supposed to be a joke? Lampshading? We've seen Persephone go to the gynecologist. There are non-god doctors who tend to gods all the time here.

Eros just doesn't seem to be that pressed over this, he sounds like Ned Flanders and that's NOT a good way to open up a scene like this... let alone an episode people have been waiting four months for.

Anyways, after a few pointless reaction panels (again remember I have to cut a lot of what I show here for Tumblr image limitations but I promise you, I'm keeping as much important stuff as I can in this, there's just THAT MUCH filler at this point), Eros and Psyche confront Apollo and he is... good god.

There is... so much to unpack here.

First of all, remember those theories about how Rachel was clearly trying to write Apollo as this "secret twist villain" the whole time but it doesn't work because Apollo is simultaneously written as both a 'conniving villain' and a massive dumbass at the same time?

Well, I finally have a more appropriate term for him. He's your average red pill redditor - someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when really all he does is sit on reddit all day using big words incorrectly in arguments he gets himself into with a bunch of equally-air-headed dumbasses.

"You can't possibly understand the nuances of the Olympian political system," Apollo said proudly, a man who had, ironically and obliviously, run for president in a monarchy. The union of kettle and pot is eternal.

He's the Slappable Jerk but instead of it being a painfully hilarious impression, it's just painful and hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

this is so stupid because it's 1.) Eros pointing out how obvious Apollo's plan was, despite Apollo acting smart two seconds ago with a goddess who, mind you, has been a goddess for ten years, and 2.) patricide isn't even intrinsically linked to politics, there's nothing 'political' about a guy trying to kill his dad except in, idk, a monarchy, which again, Apollo has spent ten years trying to rise to power in as a president which is a completely different form of government.

If I wanted to be really granular with this, I'd like to think Apollo is making some kind of point about the critics who call out LO's whack as fuck political system (especially in the trial arc) - as if he's saying "well you're just a stupid reader and this is fantasy where you don't understand exactly what political system we're using, so shut the fuck up you stupid twig" - but I don't think it's meant to be that deep. I think it's just Rachel trying to write a smart character and then failing at it because she, herself, is not a smart writer. And I'm really inclined to believe that more than the theory about this being some kind of meta-narrative about the critics because this entire plotline is contrived and stupid down to its core.

I did not cut anything out here, that's the pacing. Leto literally just appears out of nowhere and uh oh spaghettio's, she has Kassandra! Remember Leto? The character we were led to believe was truly "pulling the strings" until she disappeared from the story completely after she realized that Apollo and Persephone weren't a thing, even going so far as to call out her own son for being a fucking dumbass? Well, she's back and once again she's being involved as some kind of "double agent" in this whole thing, even though we literally haven't seen her since halfway through S2.

"Mm yes, you're so stupid, falling into my trap! Even though you had no reason to remember Kassandra anyways because she's literally a mortal woman you just met and you yourself have committed acts of violence against mortals without a shred of care! I'm so smart! My plan is all coming together!"

We've never seen Apollo do anything except cry and poop his pants, the closest he got to being "powerful" was his attempts to murder Daphne (who he seems to have forgotten about in this "master plan" of his) but ultimately he's literally just a piss ant baby and there's no reason to believe that he could somehow outmatch the God of Love who can literally manipulate people's emotions and states of mind with his arrows. But yeah sure go off, you're so powerful and smart.

The worst part is, I can't even buy this as the narrative trying to be like "see how manipulative and conniving he is?" because it's just silly. We've SEEN this man cry with his victim complex, we've seen him say and do the DUMBEST things that don't lend to any amount of "intelligence" he may have, it comes across less as him being "smart the whole time" and more as him trying to sound smart but ultimately sounding incredibly stupid. And I can't even immerse myself into it and buy that maybe that's the point, because it doesn't feel like the point, it just feels like inconsistent writing, he doesn't feel like a 'threat', he's just monologuing.

Bad art and Apollo literally just repeating what Leto already implied so this is a waste of the audience's time.

This is the funniest panel in the whole episode because I can't tell if Apollo is supposed to be in the background (for some reason, despite him literally being in front of Eros and Psyche two seconds ago) or if he's in the foreground and just REALLY small for some reason. This is so off-putting. And of course, it's just Apollo explaining what we're ALREADY SEEING ONSCREEN.

You see, in addition to this episode being contrived, it also talks down to its audience a LOT by explaining exactly what we're seeing onscreen. It's like Rachel saw the criticisms about her not including enough to depict what's actually going on in her head and so she thought the solution was to spoon feed information over pictures that are already doing the job of explaining what's going on. Rachel really doesn't know how to write and even when she tries to implement changes that reflect criticisms that have been made of her writing, she somehow makes things worse because she completely misses the point of what those criticisms are trying to get across.

Anyways, without even trying to resist (for some reason) Eros and Psyche get sentenced to horny jail.

They're now trapped in a basement that Leto somehow has in her home. How do we know that?

HAHAHA FUNNY LAMPSHADING SO FUNNNYYYYYYY

Leto claims that they shouldn't try to escape because the dungeon is "enchanted", but she doesn't even bother to explain what that means. So they literally don't bother trying. They don't try to call her bluff, they don't try to teleport out of there, they literally just go "well shoot", shrug their shoulders, and accept their fate. Just like with the whole "we can't trust the only doctor we bothered to think of" situation, Eros and Psyche are turning out to be some of the stupidest, lowest-effort characters in this comic who literally can't be bothered to try because that would require too much brain power.

Notice how much time we've spent on this and we haven't gotten back to where the cliffhanger of the last episode left off? Well buckle up because there's still more to cover.

So it turns out Hebe was still inside with her dad, in FULL VIEW of what was going on through glass which is somehow COMPLETELY soundproof, and when Apollo steps inside, she just has no idea what happened. She never bothered to even look outside to see what was going on with Eros and Psyche, she's just been sitting on the floor staring at Zeus' dead face for what was likely several minutes, unless Rachel is seriously trying to convince us that conversation and hostage negotiation from earlier only took 2 seconds. The timeline is such a mess at this point that characters basically freeze in place as soon as they're not the focus of the scene.

Apollo rushes inside, acting shocked over the situation, and when Hebe asks where Eros and Psyche are (again, she could have just looked out the window at any time), he's just like "dur idk they just left lol" which Hebe just... buys, I guess.

That's just Persephone but yellow. She's even missing her beauty mark.

See how Apollo put his hand on Zeus' chest/shoulder by the way?

Apparently, despite Mr. Smarter Than Everyone Else trying to pretend it wasn't him, he's able to discern that Zeus is dying from a toxic and rare poison just from touching him. He doesn't even really seem to use his powers, he just touches him and goes "welp he's dead i guess lol don't bother asking me how I know that".

But oh nooo remember that note from before? Well gasp Apollo's gonna use it to frame Hebe! In front of no one else at all!

Hebe of course says she didn't write it, but Apollo continues to try and frame her anyways, even though, again, there's no one else present here, and so it effectively just becomes the most absurd form of gaslighting I've ever seen.

Again, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE HERE IN THE SCENE. He's just trying to claim she did it to absolutely no one at all, in the hopes of... what exactly? That she'll just take the fall for something she knows she didn't do? That she'll somehow be convinced? It's not like Hebe has the same thing going on as Persephone where she has a 'wrathful dark side' he could pin it on, this is just a criminal who just robbed a building pointing at the first person they see and yelling "YOU DID IT!"

All I'm saying is that Apollo would be really bad at Among Us. He'd be the type of player to kill someone, hit the report button, then claim yellow did it which, even if he DID convince the rest of the team, would still get kicked anyways as soon as yellow was proven through the eject to not be the imp and everyone would go "okay cool so yellow wasn't the imp, that means obviously it's purple self-reporting." It's a trick that doesn't even work anymore because of how old it is. Hebe isn't a child here, she's an 18 year old woman who should be fully capable of raising an eyebrow and wondering why Apollo is this quick to accuse her - almost like he's trying to hide the fact that he did it.

But Hebe can't catch onto this, just like Eros and Psyche, she has to act stupid for the sake of the plot.

At first I thought maybe Rachel was trying to do some "whodunit" scenario, but that doesn't work here because we already know who did it. And while there are stories that exist like that that pull it off (ex. Knives Out) the problem with trying to do this the way Rachel did is that the person being framed has to have this thing called motive. The reason why Knives Out and Glass Onion work so well is because the person who was murdered (or conspired against) is someone who is being targeted by multiple people who could all be the murderer. It's quite literally called out in Glass Onion as a form of smart lampshading. "It's like putting a loaded gun on the table, and turning off the lights."

But it doesn't work here because Hebe does not have motive. If you're going to attempt to frame a murder on someone, it has to be someone who would have reasonable motive to commit that murder, even if they didn't actually commit it.

And who among Zeus' children has motive?

What about the war-mongering bloodthirsty god of war who has been regularly sentenced to time in the Mortal Realm to fight in wars in which he's been regularly injured?

What about the chaos-seeking wrathful goddess who would do it to get revenge on the parental figure who cast her aside, or even just for the fun of saying she did it?

Why try and pin it on Hebe, the doting daughter of Zeus who's only had a collective of maybe 20 panels in the entire comic?

But then I realized... it's not Knives Out, it's the fucking Lion King.

Which is just as contrived - if not more - than the assumption this was gonna be some attempt to frame Hebe. It's not. He's literally just trying to keep her from assuming it was him. He could have just as easily played dumb without calling attention to the note but he intentionally went out of his way to try and be Scar from The Lion King , while completely missing the point of why that scene worked in the original movie.

Scar wasn't trying to 'frame' Simba for Mufasa's murder. He was trying to hide the murder, while also attempting to get the only heir to the throne out of the picture, so he passed the guilt of the death onto Simba - a child who, unlike Hebe, wouldn't have the ability to rationalize or realize his uncle his a scumbag - who then ran away from home because he was too terrified to face his family for what happened, assuming that it was all his fault when it wasn't.

That's not how this is panning out here. Hebe is the now 18 year old daughter of Zeus, and not one of his only children. She doesn't even fit into the whole "sons overthrowing their fathers" prophecy like Aries would. Apollo is literally just being a big idiot here by saying "well I'm gonna give you a headstart to run away, because if you stay, I might hurt you" (which btw, should be MORE of a smoking gun that Apollo did it??)

And again, it's all so contrived so that the plot can move forward. "Well I'm going to frame you for this murder, but y'know, you should just leave, I'm not gonna try and press it further lmao"

Again, Apollo is a fucking idiot here, because he just attempted to frame someone who has NO MOTIVE to harm Zeus, to absolutely NO ONE at all who would side with him, only to let her go which would leave her to question why Apollo would try to accuse and harm her in the first place before considering other options. And through ALL this he claims he's the smart one, which I can't even be bothered to "love to hate" because it's written so poorly.

And really it all comes down to how everyone else behaves in relation to Apollo that makes it so stupid and unbelievable. Apollo, you're not smart just because all the characters around you are intentionally being written to be as stupid and non-confrontation as possible. If you can only write a smart villain by making everyone else stupid, you haven't written a smart villain, you've written a dumbass whose victory only happens due to contrived plot convenience. It's not even done well like in Glass Onion, it's just bad writing, full stop.

And who does he call to report this emergency? The satyr police? His son the doctor?

No.

The media. Literally just "hello, the media?? I need your best journalist here stat!"

I need you to understand, even if he were calling a tabloid magazine like The Weekly Nark, you don't just... call a journalist to report a murder. These are not the actions of someone who's trying to absolve himself of guilt, these are the actions of a complete dumbass trying to get news coverage of his trophy kill who would be better off just playing dumb instead of trying to play smart. Even Walter White wasn't this fucking stupid despite all the times he fell on his own sword, Apollo is literally just instigating suspicion towards himself for no reason at all. He's self-reporting so hard and worst of all, you can't even take any of this seriously because of how corny it is. There's no dramatic tension, no stakes, it's just a bunch of characters performing in a really bad stage play and reducing every conflict to "well I guess Zeus is just dead now because no one's bothering to make an effort to stop Apollo or ask questions lmao"

It's truly the epitome of "this plot wouldn't exist if characters would just talk to each other."

But finally, FINALLY we mention the thing this episode is named after, the transition point to Persephone.

Just like with the midseason finale episode, there's a lot to cover here, so I'm gonna get more into it in a part two post.

That said, you can see already this is the messiest, most contrived bullshit to ever wind up in LO. It's trying so hard to be smart and it just comes across as a bunch of toddlers in the world's worst stage play rendition of Clue. None of what was done here was in any way dramatic or tense, it's just a bunch of characters infodumping shit we already know, trying to set up new plot threads that don't make any sense, and allowing one another to get away with what they're doing because they don't bother to even try.

It's completely manufactured, contrived nonsense. It's not "smart", it's not "so dumb it's brilliant", it's just dumb.