#and the body of meaning he introduces in the narrative

[tobiasdrake]

You previously anaylzed Yamcha's fighting style and the flaws he doesn't overcome. Do you have any thoughts on how Krillin fights?

Krillin's fighting style is one of my favorites, to be honest. He's a dedicated pragmatist, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to win. His techniques and strategies are deceptive and tricksy, always on the lookout for a way to circumvent the straight fight.

Krillin's fighting style is all about cutting the knot. It's just a shame that, Dragon Ball being what it is, his methods run counter to its central philosophies and so he is doomed to constant failure.

We get our first glimpse of the kind of fighter Krillin is going to be when he defeats Goku in the rock hunt on the first day of their training.

He first tries to win the competition by forging a counterfeit rock. But when the Muten-Roshi sees through that, he instead uses his counterfeit to fake out Goku and steal the real rock for himself.

He's narratively punished for this victory when his reward dinner poisons him via badly prepared pufferfish. But we see the foundations of what will become his martial style beginning to take root here.

Krillin is a tricky trickster. His goal is to be the guy still standing at the end of the fight. That's what he's here for. Though he does quickly soften up and become Goku's Male Bestie (opposited Bulma as Goku's Female Bestie), he carries this pragmatism with him as he begins to develop his skills.

Note that this is not to say Krillin isn't a capable fighter in his own right. As a pupil of Kame-senryu, he is a formidable martial artist. He begins to show the fruits of his martial training as early as the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, where he crushes one of the monks that used to bully him in the preliminaries. He also pressures his own mentor, the Muten-Roshi, by raw skill alone.

Krillin's got the skills and he uses them. When I say he's underhanded and deceitful, I don't mean instead of fighting straight. It's a weapon in his toolbelt but not the only one. Nonetheless, it's a potent one, as he nearly defeats the Muten-Roshi via a special technique that only Krillin would devise.

Goddammit, Roshi.

He starts out using these kinds of underhanded tricks to compliment his martial arts. But as he grows as a martial artist, he begins to incorporate strategies like this into his art itself.

Aside from a brief and mostly offscreen bout with General Blue, his next significant fights are in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai. His fight with Chiaotzu demonstrates the way Krillin's sneakiness and martial training complement one another, as a major spotlight of it is his ki exchange with Chiaotzu.

Chiaotzu, like Tenshinhan, is a trained wielder of the Dodonpa. A lethal technique first introduced by the assassin Taopaipai, designed to fire a thin ki bullet from one finger, straight through its target for a mortal blow.

To counter this, Krillin attempts to perform the Kamehameha for the very first time. Which. Is. Absolutely stupid and reckless, as the Muten-Roshi notes. Baby's First Kamehameha is a poor choice to defend himself from the Dodonpa.

Or it would be, if that were the plan.

This is Krillin's strength in action. He fakes out everyone with an in @ Me Bruh bluff and then skirts around the direct competition to blindside Chiaotzu when he isn't looking. This is what a tricky trickster martial artist looks like.

In his next match with Goku, we see Krillin's ruthless pragmatism on full display. He devises his own version of Tenshinhan's Taiyoken/Solar Flare.

And he nearly wins by a tail when he once again breaks out his weak, improvised Kamehameha.

This bluff is brilliant. He gets Goku's focus on the Kamehameha while his true goal is Goku's tail. Unfortunately for him, Goku - under advisement from both the Muten-Roshi and his Grandpa Gohan - has been training his body to rid himself of that critical flaw over the last three years. His tail no longer saps his energy when it's grabbed.

But if Goku were still the same fighter Krillin knew before, this bluff would have been game-ending for their semifinal match. Krillin's abilities both in martial arts and in knot-cutting have advanced substantially. It's just that Goku's have advanced as well.

Krillin only gets one fight in the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. But he goes hard.

In the three years since last tournament, Krillin's devised bending ki blasts that home in on their target. Holy shit, what a stellar-

GOT YOU SUCKER THAT'S A FAKEOUT IT'S KRILLER TIME

Krillin's invented bending ki blasts that home in on their target as a distraction. Sadly for Krillin, characters at this point are beginning to distribute Bukujutsu, the Flying Technique, among themselves so surprise ringouts aren't an option anymore. Piccolo's been capable of performing Bukujutsu since his previous life.

Krillin loses the match, though he does force an admission from Piccolo that martial artists of his caliber will make the world difficult to conquer.

The next chance Krillin has to put his skills on display comes six years later when the Saiyans attack the Earth. Vegeta and Nappa grow their six Saibamen, forcing the Earthlings to entertain them by battling these veggie monsters. Tenshinhan and Yamcha handily defeat two of them, though Yamcha's killed by a surprise attack.

And then Krillin decides enough is enough and makes his move: Opening fire directly on Nappa and Vegeta with everything he's got.

A fool's attack guaranteed to fail against the insurmountable might of the Saiyan-no, wait, what's he doing?

Ha, fuck you, he was aiming for the Saibamen the whole time! Made ya look. Though he does also hit Nappa and Vegeta for good measure.

Krillin is technically the first Earthling to ever land a hit on either of these guys. Imagine that. It doesn't do shit to them, but still.

This fight also brings out Krillin's ultimate technique. The epitome of his skills, the final fruits of his labors, the be-all end-all of Krillin Techniques. You already know what I'm talking about.

This. This, right here. The Kienzan/Destructo Disc is peak Krillin. Literally a knife with which to cut the knot. Everyone else is throwing ki punches except those assassins shooting ki bullets. And Krillin stops to ask, "What if I sharpened my ki into a buzzsaw so I can slice open an opponent's flesh rather than trying to beat them at punching?"

Prior to Goku's arrival, this technique from one of the weakest fighters on this field is the closest the overconfident Nappa ever comes to defeat.

Nappa outright tries to take it like a punch. But for Vegeta paying the fuck attention, this would have taken his head clean off. Even Frieza can't resist it.

Because it's not something you resist. It's a buzzsaw. It doesn't hit, it cleaves. It's a technique that's so utterly Krillin in nature.

In fact, the entire Namek arc in general is peak Krillin. A three-way tug-of-war over the Dragon Balls between Frieza's ungodly might, Vegeta's rogue wildcard antics and deadly force, and Krillin being a tricky trickster gunning for any opportunity to scoop victory out from under them.

That Krillin wins.

This is the key to Krillin's longevity as a character. Like the rest of the cast, he eventually falls victim to inability to keep pace with Goku's advances, and becomes further and further de-emphasized from the big action pieces of Dragon Ball.

Krillin's tricky methods were rarely allowed to grant him much success in the ring due to the way they chafe against Dragon Ball's tone. This simply isn't a series where ruthless pragmatism and knot-cutting generally wins the fight. But those same methods also gave him staying power and an ability to continue influencing the plot of Dragon Ball long after he ceased to be relevant as a fighter.

Krillin's style is designed to punch above his weight class, and he's in general a tricky trickster outside of the ring too. The result of this is tremendous staying power as a weaker character brushing elbows with the titanic super gods of the cast. He may not be the clincher in a fight but there's almost always something for a pragmatist like him to do.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #krillin

[posletsvet]

I frequently think about how challenging it must be to write convincing antagonists. It's relatively easy to justify morally driven, righteous thinking and good-hearted actions (that is, if justification of something like this is at all needed). Pulling off solid reasoning behind uncompromising, dedicated malice is harder. I think that is because benevolence comes naturally to us -- that's what our evolution as social beings taught us to be beneficial. So more often than not villains come off as cartoonish, false and awkward with their cardboard-thin beliefs and exaggerated petty grudges. And that's why it's always exciting to see characters who are objectively horrible people but still exhibit intricately nuanced and dimensional personalities you can at some extent empathize with.

I guess that is also why I like Toji as an antagonist so much. (Yes, this is a Toji Fushiguro post,, Why do I feel like I should I be sorry?) He is essentially a case study of a deeply flawed, disrespectful and inexcusably violent character with a plethora of other gruesome traits (I mean, the anime adaptation isn't even remotely subtle about showing his nastiness) who's also... just another ordinary human being. He eats take-out food. He overspends inpulsively. He watches sport and gambles. He loves and misses his wife and settles down while he's with her. Toji has harmless basic needs like entertaining himself with a hobby in his free time and having someone to keep him company while doing so. He seems to seek simple human connection (like when he suggests that he and Shiu go eat out in some fancy place after receiving their reward). He gets genuinely amused with the job's destination which is Okinawa and expresses his confusion over the cult's representative's bigoted speech in a mundane, kind of goofy way. He's curious when something goes slightly off a pre-established course of action and asks Shiu about it. He gets nervous and tries to calm himself down by strategizing. He thinks of his family in his last moments.

I'm saying all this with no intention to condone Toji's terrible actions or make them seem more forgivable. I guess it just drives home a point for me that while he destroyed the destiny of entire Jujutsu society he was really just minding his own business by going through another job. Yes, he was in some way taking out his spite on the Jujutsu world by trampling on the 'blessed talents' of both Gojo and Geto, but there was never an emphasis put on it. Defeating two Special Grade sorcerers wasn't a prime event in his life (well, up untill he died as a consequence of it, I guess). Even if there were some strings attached to this job, Toji was in it first of all for the money.

He's mundane. The extent of his cruelty and filth is sickening. He's just like those people you could pass by in the street. He's so morally corrupt it's alienating. He's both unthinkably horrible and still just an ordinary person.

Toji is a walking representation of the duality of man, really, and I find it truly admirable how Gege tied all those conflicting traits into a coherent and convincing character.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk analysis #toji fushiguro #shiu kong #hidden inventory arc #star plasma vessel #really i don't think there's a character i don't find at least in some way appealing #so it's kind of weird for me to see people fighting over characters #and i genuinely find toji to be an amazing villain #he's immensely interesting to think about him #and the body of meaning he introduces in the narrative #he was a character who opened my eyes to the theme of cycles in jjk #all that perpetuating the cycle which he himself was a victim of stuff #all that said #i can't stand him #i hate him and everything he did SO MUCH #jjk meta

[mikesbasementbeets]

ok. look at these.

look. that's the same look. right?

let's take a closer look. to do that, i'm gonna have to zoom in a bit on the first one. because, as you can immediately see, the shots are slightly different. the first is a little farther away, showing both mike and el, walking next to each other, whereas the second is much more intimate, a closeup on mike's expression as he looks at will's face in the foreground. a minor but telling difference about the levels of emotional intimacy in each scene.

so, moving past that first element of contrast, let's look at each shot in full, because in both of these scenes, mike goes on a bit of a face journey before he gets to that final smiling expression, seen above.

personally, i think studying actors' body language and micro-expressions is inconclusive at best, but i won't deny that these look similar. however, it's pretty clear to me that they aren't the same.

toward el, i see confusion, intrigue, maybe pleasant surprise, followed by a glance down (to emotionally process and/or watch his step), and then a nervous but friendly smile.

toward will, i see awe, relief, and overwhelming affection, followed by a shy glance down and a slight schooling of his slack jawed expression into a warm smile.

but, again, that's just my interpretation, and i can't say with any certainty what the intention of all of finn's micro-expressions are. but from my perspective, even a surface level viewing of these two expressions depicts a very different emotional experience. however: there's no denying the connection between these two scenes. they clearly mirror each other, just like a lot of things about mike's relationships with el and will mirror each other. i don't think that's an accident.

whatever you think his sexuality is, mike is undeniably in a romantic narrative with el. beginning in season one episode three, when the concept of their romantic relationship is introduced, the narrative arc mike and el share is heavily focused on that relationship. the first scene above actually happens in that same episode (s1e3), not coincidentally almost directly afterward. and the former scene, with mike, lucas, and dustin behind the baseball field, provides very interesting context for several reasons:

first: bear with me, because we're going back to look at the context behind this context. this is only episode three of the show, but already there's a lot going on, both in text and subtext.

and since we have the entirety of their relationship so far presented to us on screen, when lucas accuses mike of looking at el romantically, we're easily able to go back and figure out where he got that impression: we can examine every time lucas has seen mike look at el at all.

the first night, after finding el in the woods instead of will, and while insisting that the next day she'd be gone and they could focus on will again, mike's behavior is directly reminiscent of benny's. taking el in, and providing her with shelter, food, and clothing.

the next day, after learning that she's in danger and changing his mind about pawning her off on his mother, mike infers that she might know something about will. when lucas arrives, he exclaims that she recognized him and knew he was missing.

later, when lucas tells her that will is their friend, she asks what that means and mike explains. a friend...

and then she displays that she might really be able to help them find will. and mike looks at her like this:

each and every one of these interactions is directly related to will. but lucas, through the omnipresent lens of heteronormativity that surrounds boys' interactions with girls (especially a group of boys who have no experience with girls... more on that in a bit), only seems to consider the fact that mike's behavior, which is undeniably about will, is being directed at el.

throughout season one (and beyond, in more subtle ways), will and el are repeatedly connected to each other through the trope of mistaken identity. will is abducted on the same night (and due to the same series of events) that el escapes the lab. hopper, in his investigation into will's disappearance, keeps running into clues about el. and mike, lucas, and dustin, sneaking out in episode one to search for will, find el instead.

later in the season, hopper eventually realizes the truth of his own more overt mistaken identity arc: while he was under the assumption that he'd been following will's trail, he'd actually been following el's. interestingly, the realization is triggered by one specific distinguishing difference, which tells him beyond a doubt that he's been looking for two different kids: their art.

though much more subtle (aka hidden in the subtext), mike's arc with his feelings about will and el follows a very similar pattern. the main difference, though, is that in season one, the swapping of places is eventually reversed but never acknowledged as such, and mike ends season one with el now missing and will back in his life, but a lingering sense of something yet unresolved.

second: (i'm not going to deep dive into this one here, because it's a whole analysis in and of itself, but i need to mention it because it is relevant) this scene introduces the recurring motif of superheroes being directly connected to mike's feelings for el, which is an association we see follow them all the way into season four and become a defining metaphor for their incompatibility.

third: lucas is the character who first introduces mike's romantic feelings for el into the narrative. and instead of giving any indication that lucas' interpretation is correct, mike's reaction is... difficult to read. his response is immediately defensive, both verbally ("what are you talking about?" "shut up, lucas,") and physically (leaning away and shielding himself when lucas hugs him). we can infer from the original character descriptions why mike might be defensive about this subject:

obviously, this description is only a vague impression of what Mike Wheeler became, but it's clear that the core elements of his character outlined here did come to fruition on screen. here, mike's insecurity is linked both to the bullying he undergoes, and to his inexperience/ineptitude with girls. and it's presented as key to his character motivation (the original concept of his character arc put forth here is very straightforward: at the start, mike has insecurity centered around bullying and is romantically inexperienced. by the end, mike has courage against monsters and romantic experience.)

in any case, this scene is the first hint of this aspect of mike's character in the show itself (the earlier scene of bullying in the show focusing on mike consoling dustin over what he’s being bullied for (“i think it's kinda cool. it’s like you have superpowers or something!”)... see my last point here… mike holds the idea of superpowers in high regard, and they are consistently connected with his feelings about el. something about the mistaken identity through-line feels apt here: mike mistakes his feelings of admiration for el as feelings of romance.) in this scene, mike is confronted with both romance (in direct relation to himself for the first time in the show) and bullying.

but due to the way this is shot, it's impossible to get a read on what mike is truly feeling. it reminds me a lot of another scene, actually...

in both of these scenes, mike's genuine emotional reaction is hidden from us. in the first, lucas forcibly hugs him, teasing him about how much he "loves" el, and in effect introducing the idea of el as a romantic prospect to mike. in the second, el hugs mike tightly, her hand still around his neck from their kiss and his arm trapped in between them, similar to the way he shields himself from lucas. we're then shown that he's signed the card on the flowers squished between them "from, mike." hm. so... not love, as lucas suggests.

we come to learn over the course of season four that this is something mike is actively struggling with: his inability to "love" el in the way that she wants, expects, and deserves. this scene, introducing that season-long arc, conceals mike's true emotional state and motivations from us, again, mirroring the first introduction to their entire romantic plot line way back in season one.

(an aside: lucas' "if you love her so much, [then] why don't you marry her?" aka the inciting event of their romantic arc, is a based on a conditional statement with the hypothesis that mike loves el. as mr. clarke might posit (in, say, season one, episode one): what's the difference between an experiment and other forms of science investigation? ...well, an experiment is a controlled test of two or more variables against a hypothesis. does that remind you of anything happening in mike's romantic narrative? something about...... [murray voice] experimenting sexually?)

anyway. then, after extracting himself from el's embrace, mike finally drops his bag(gage) and opens his now empty arms to will, before preemptively cutting himself short with a punch to the shoulder.

...did someone say internalized homophobia?

and then immediately upon being introduced to argyle, mike is called out for his presentation here not being genuine. ("it's a shitty knock-off,"/"i really thought it was ocean pacific...") we're being told that something about mike's performance is not what it seems (and may even be a case of one thing being mistaken for something else).

and speaking of homophobia...

fourth (and finally): this scene, of lucas' teasing mike about his "love" for el, which i'll remind you again is tied directly to lucas mistaking mike's behavior regarding will as being solely about el, is quickly interrupted by an onslaught of homophobia, during which mike is specifically targeted (read: tripped) by the bullies.

the juxtaposition is immediate and obvious: mike's friends lovingly teasing him, even embracing him, over a crush on a girl vs. bullies maliciously taunting them about will being killed for being queer and then physically harming mike.

(there's also something to be said about the later scene in which these bullies force mike to drop his bike in the woods and chase him to the edge of the quarry, mirroring exactly how the cops assume will must have died... and, to be clear, i'm not saying that mike himself is being bullied for being queer in the way will was. no, mike's queerness is invisible to those around him in a way that will's isn't, so his relationship with it and the ways it affects him are hidden in subtext.)

which brings us directly to the following scene in the woods. el asks about mike's injury (sustained from the aforementioned bullying, thereby linking these two scenes even more concretely) and with a little prodding ("friends don't lie"), he opens up to her about what happened, and about being bullied at school. she listens, tells him she understands (this also follows her recent flashback of brenner's abuse in the lab), and they share a "cool," "cool," and a smile.

so... let's quickly jump over from here to the van scene with will. something similar, yet notably different, is happening in this scene, leading up to that infamous smile at the end. mike is sharing his insecurities with will now, but instead of will prodding him to open up, mike, prompted only by will's "she's gonna be okay," begins rambling so much about his insecurities (while speaking in superhero metaphors) that he eventually cuts himself off, saying it's "stupid." instead of letting him brush it off, will guesses exactly what mike is afraid of: "you're scared of losing her." he gives him The Painting (a symbol of his love for mike) and a long speech about feeling lost and different, while insisting upon mike's value (you're the heart, leading us, inspiring us, etc). and then they share a "yeah?" "yeah," and a smile.

so we can see the similarity in the way the shots are set up, the progression of the conversations, and mike's visible reactions. but we can also see distinct differences, all of which together inform a significant difference in emotional weight between these two scenes.

while mike's conversation in the woods with el takes place in the third episode of season one, at which point mike has known her for less than 48 hours, the van scene is in the second to last episode of season four, and is the fourth of five heart-to-hearts mike and will have this season alone (and following three previous seasons and beyond that years of close friendship). it is also arguably the climax of their shared arc this season. on the other hand, mike and el's season one moment is part of the introduction to their storyline, and the introduction to their romantic arc. in this moment in the woods, mike is looking at el romantically (did you think i was gonna argue that he isn't? because no, he definitely is). in fact, this is the beginning of mike's entire romantic arc, which sets out to address the foundational insecurity that is key to his character. we, as an audience, right alongside mike, have just been told (by lucas) that mike has romantic feelings for el. and then we are presented with this scene. we are supposed to view this as romantic. because mike is starting to view it as romantic.

had stranger things been one season long, then the climax of their romantic arc would have been the kiss they share in the cafeteria, followed by the denouement of el's symbolic death (the gay implications of which i could write another whole essay on...). but the end of season one was not the resolution of mike's full romantic arc. by the nature of the five act structure (which is what stranger things has, being five seasons), the entirety of season one serves as exposition for our full narrative. which means, in effect, that the entire arc of mike and el's season one relationship is there to serve as groundwork, a foundation for mike's complete five season arc. season one, starting from before he even meets el, all the way through to when he eventually kisses her and then loses her, is only act one of that arc. the first act of five act structure is when the driving conflict is presented. so in the context of the entire show, for us as the viewer, mike's narrative arc surrounding the romantic aspect of his insecurity begins with his season one "romance" with el.

and we know that this insecurity is an element of the full five-act narrative, rather than being presented and wrapped in the course of the mini "self contained" narrative of season one, because we can see plainly, three seasons later, particularly during mike's heart-to-hearts with will, that this insecurity has not yet been resolved. we know this, on a basic level, from having watched mike and el's relationship struggles progress, but it is still explicitly laid out for us in season four. and will is consistently the only person who genuinely hears mike out, encourages him to open up, and addresses his insecurities, instead of brushing him off, like most other people in his life (including will at some points) have done. will understands him in a way el only claimed to in season one.

looking back to the character outline: mike has now "kiss[ed] a girl" and even "had a girlfriend" and still hasn't resolved his insecurities even remotely. in fact, after the first season arc wraps up, this romantic relationship becomes the main source of that insecurity. his difficulty navigating a real romantic relationship with el is the basis of their arc in season three. and by season four, mike is consciously struggling with being unable to tell el that he loves her. despite will's reassurances that things will be okay (which stack onto lucas' constant relationship advice in season three), mike keeps circling back around to it. because he can't move forward on the path he is on.

he has reached a point of no return, like a “fight you can’t come back from.” he is unable to find the security he is searching for in his romantic relationship with el... and this is where we arrive back at the van scene with will.

if the scene in the woods marks the beginning of the introduction of mike's romantic arc, then the scene in the van marks the beginning of the conclusion of mike's romantic arc. if the introduction of his romantic arc (season one) presents his insecurity, then the natural conclusion of that arc (season five) is security. throughout season four, mike lays out for will the insecurity that his relationship with el still brings him. he is unable to find that security with el, and, in the van scene, finds it with will instead.

or, should i say, begins the journey to finding it. because, especially after the lie that brings them into that moment, and then traumatic pizza dough freezer incident, we're still at the beginning of the conclusion. there's still a lot to resolve, but season four (alongside mike, who now understands what he's been going through) finally began moving the subtext of mike's arc into the actual text. and this moment indicates that season five will take that next step to fully, textually, actualizing it.

so, getting back to the parallel we're looking at here: each of these scenes is a catalyzing moment in mike's romantic arc. in season one, when lucas suggests that mike has a crush on el, and then what follows is a conversation with el where she is (to quote lucas) "not grossed out" by him, he actively begins his journey toward resolving this character motivating insecurity. he looks at el and he sees the possibility of romance.

and just look at him. he looks excited. hopeful. a little nervous. but... i want to remind you again: mike has known el for less than 48 hours at this point. this is the first conversation they've had in which they've related to each other as equals. for their entire relationship before this and afterward, outside of their romantic interactions (and also. often. disturbingly. concurrent with their romantic interactions...), mike's role has been as el's protector, a makeshift father figure, the elliot to her E.T. here, though, el tells mike that she understands him.

in season one, mike is twelve years old (read: pre-pubescent). he has no personal understanding of or experience with romance. dustin starts to comment in s1e2, "you're letting a girl...?" and ted later scoffs "our son with a girl?" and outside of the queer coding, what we can take from both of these (which draw back to the original character description) is that mike has no experience with girls whatsoever. (outside of, you know. family. but that's not what this post is about.)

and again, this scene happens almost directly after lucas first introduces the idea of romance between them, both to the narrative, and to mike himself, who, very significantly, up until this point, has shown no romantic interest in el. the sequence of these events is not a coincidence. 1. lucas assumes mike has romantic feelings for el. 2. el and mike have a moment of personal connection and understanding 3. mike "boys only" wheeler puts these two together and assumes the connection between them must be romance. but the expression on mike's face here isn't a representation of already existing romantic feelings. there's no basis for those. again, this moment represents for mike the potential for romance.

which... makes his expression in the van scene hit even harder. because unlike el, will isn't a stranger he barely knows, but rather his best friend of ten years. and it isn't lucas telling mike how mike feels. it's will professing his own feelings about mike, in direct response to mike's self-professed insecurities. (ding ding ding, are your alarm bells going off?) mike's expression at the end of this scene, if we're viewing it as a reprise of his season one expression, is a representation of hope for his romantic future. but this time, heading into the resolution of mike's romantic arc, with all of the knowledge and context we (and mike) have gained over the course of the past four seasons, it's directed at will.

ok. so. with the basic connection between these two scenes established, i'm gonna move a little bit sideways here. at the end of their romantic arc in season one, el disappears from mike's life and will reappears in it, effectively swapping their places (remember that we've been dealing with the mistaken identity trope between these two), and leaving the question of mike's romantic security glaringly unresolved.

and we know why - this is a five act narrative we're watching - but just within the context of the season one arc... the climactic moment of mike finally asking the girl to be his sister kissing the girl was preceded by her locating will in the upside down (leading to his rescue) and followed by a resolution in which she disappeared... and will took her place. at the end of the season, mike is left in the same place he started: playing games in his basement with will, his first attempt to resolve his arc of romantic insecurity, with el, ultimately ending in tragedy.

after season one, this arc picks up again, but this time will is the one present in mike's life. and mike's behaviors toward el in season one, during which they were undergoing a romantic story arc, begin showing up again in his behavior toward will. but unlike with el, mike's particular (read: romantic) behavior toward will happens without outside intervention, and in fact, often in spite of outside intervention. now, this isn't to say that all of mike's behavior with el was a result of others' influence. when el reveals to mike that she is on the run from "bad people," mike is immediately protective and caring toward her. however, as i've already explained, this caring behavior (which, again, we know right off the bat is not romantic because it directly mirrors the way both benny and hopper care for her) doesn't turn into romantic behavior until lucas introduces that idea.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, right from episode one of season one, mike's behavior toward will is fully self motivated, even in the face of opposition.

and as we move through season one and beyond, we can see that mike continues to rely on constant guidance in the way he cares about el (particularly and most consistently from lucas).

stranger things is, at it's horror filled core, a coming of age tale. like many of our other characters, mike's full character arc, romantic and otherwise, is about self-actualization. from the very conception of the show, his insecurity is presented as a central character flaw to overcome, while also being directly linked with his romantic fulfillment. the overcoming of this fatal flaw, the resolution of his romantic arc, and his final achievement of self-actualization are all inextricably intertwined.

the reprisal of this specific expression of romantic hope as we enter the end of mike's romantic arc is not an indication that mike is in the same place emotionally at the end of season four as he was at the beginning of season one, just with a different person now. instead, it is an indication of his romantic arc coming full circle. mike began in a position of hope for his romantic future with el, only to have the actualization of that hope (their romantic relationship) gradually degrade his romantic fulfillment and self-esteem. the longer mike and el are together, and the more serious their romantic relationship becomes, the worse mike's insecurities become. this is, i would argue, directly related to the fact that mike's pursuit of a romantic relationship with el is not due to his own genuine desire, but instead a combined result of heteronormativity (lucas assuming mike's feelings for el to be romantic), compulsive heterosexuality (mike's subsequent assumption that his feelings for el must be romantic), forced conformity (mike's attempt to resolve his insecurities firmly within these heteronormative boundaries, under the assumption that a rejection of these boundaries is unacceptable), and the trope of mistaken identity that has been following will and el since season one.

and of course i don't know with any concrete certainty what season five will contain, but based on the narrative so far, and optimistically expecting a satisfying resolution to his character arc, the actualization of his romantic hope regarding will is going to lead to true romantic fulfillment and coincide with his self-actualization (a big part of which is coming to terms with his sexuality).

now, i'm not going to conclude this whole analysis by saying, "and that's why mike is gay!" because while i think this all is a good indication of that, based on all of the context and my impression that this narrative is being presented in a way that focuses on the subtext and deeper symbolism of each of these relationships rather than being a case of specifically el vs. will, you might still have a different interpretation than me. that's fine. however, i am going to end by insisting (me when i argue with the wall), based on everything i've laid out, that this parallel and others like it (ie parallels between byler & miIeven's romantic arcs) are not evidence of mike's feelings, specifically whether they are genuinely romantic or not. this parallel serves as a narrative device in his romantic character arc... the conclusion of which is mike realizing and coming to terms with the fact that he is actually in love with will, and not el.

just to be very clear, i'm not saying these parallels alone are proof against mike being bisexual, but i am saying that they are not evidence in support of his being bisexual. again: they do not indicate that mike is romantically attracted to el. what they indicate is that will and el are foils in mike's romantic arc.

before i finish, i want to address a couple misconceptions:

1. the fact that mike actively and willingly participates in a romantic relationship with a woman means he can’t be gay. this is straight up homophobia. gold star bullshit. no.

2. mike and el being presented in a romantic light means that they have genuine romantic feelings for each other. this is a misconception of the way narrative tools are used to tell a story. going right back to my first point: it is an irrefutable fact that many gay people have romantic relationships with the people of different genders (read “the opposite sex”) before they come out/realize their true sexuality. it is also a fact that many of these gay people fully believe their feelings to be genuinely romantic before realizing that they are not. as i've already gone over, mike is twelve years old when his romantic arc begins. on the surface, his relationship with el is presented as romantic. he participates in (and even initiates) romantic behaviors because he believes that his feelings for el are romantic. in seasons one and two, mike is one of our main POV characters. we can see a romantic tilt to the way some of their scenes are shot because, to mike, while they are happening, they are romantic (keeping in mind what i said before about mike having no experience and therefore no personal knowledge informing his perspective, AND keeping in mind that many of these on-the-surface "romantic" scenes are also consistently subtextually linked (read: paralleled) to familial relationships for both of them... and i haven't even touched the cultural context surrounding homosexuality in 80's. there's so much nuance informing the way this story is being told). and we, as the audience, are supposed to read them as romantic on first viewing, because otherwise the season five plot twist, revealing the truth of mike's feelings, would not work.

it is not a coincidence that the active degradation of their romantic relationship (outside of all of the other context, parallels, symbolism, family coding, etc, that are there to hint along the way that things are not as they might seem) begins full force in season three, at the exact point when the two actually enter a real relationship for the first time, and also when our characters are entering puberty, the time during which a person's sexuality (in a general sense, but also in regard to sexual orientation) begins to fully emerge. after his season one arc with el, mike underwent another season-long romantic arc: this time, with will. it's more subtle, because (i believe) mike doesn't realize yet that it's romantic, but it's there. then at the end of season two, mike makes a choice: he encourages will to dance with a girl and he dances with el, re-writing their tragic ending from season one, but now leaving his romantic arc with will frustratingly unresolved, again mirroring the sense of unresolution from season one: mike has swapped out the end of each romantic arc with the wrong love interest.

and then in season three, now having had the experience of both romantic arcs, and now, for the first time, with both will and el right there beside him, all we can see anymore is the overt contrast between the two relationships, depicted most blatantly through the same type of visual and narrative "parallel" we've been looking at here.

but at the end of this season, instead of making a choice, mike's choice is made for him. he has a romantic moment with will, and then el kisses him, confusing the resolution of these two romantic arcs once again.

mike's season four arc closely mirrors his season one arc (searching for one love interest with the other by his side, mistaken identity trope abound), but with important distinctions: 1. mike is a little older, a lot more experienced, and has a better understanding of both the context of romantic relationships and the scope of his feelings for both el and will. and 2. mike's only real guidance in season four comes from will, and he doesn't simply listen and act based on will's advice, as he did with lucas' in seasons 1&3. now, he fully engages with will's input, pushing back against it when he doesn't agree, and accepting it when he can acknowledge its truth (up until, of course, our fourth (and hopefully final) tragic, incorrectly resolved ending). mike is finally taking control of his romantic narrative in a way he hasn't previously, and the direction it's heading in now is toward security, self-actualization, and will.

so the point of all of this is: nothing is as simple or straightforward as it may seem on the surface. the narrative has always been deeply complex and layered with subtext and symbolism. and most of all, when interpreting the meaning of anything presented directly to us on screen, context matters.

also uh. yeah, mike gay

#byler #mikesbasementbeets posts #parallels are there to be noticed. but that should be where the analysis begins. not where it ends. #this got kinda long i just wanted to be really thorough bc this kind of 'parallel = 1:1 similarity' thinking is way too prevalent #this is less an analysis and more me explaining the plot of the show but. sometimes it feels like it needs to be explained lmao #yes i lied about the ending but when you eliminate the only claim negating that conclusion.... #that's. i mean that's the conclusion. #(btw the difference between comparative and experimental investigations is that in an experiment one of the variables is fixed. #something to think about) #mike wheeler

[mistystepmoonbeam]

Reborn in Baldur's Gate 3: Chapter 1

Plot: You’ve been reincarnated.  It’s the realization you come to when the tiefling offering you a health potion introduces himself as Tav.  You died and your soul revived in Baldur's Gate 3, at the beginning of the game no less.  But you only have the memories of your past life on Earth, and none of your current one.  

Tav invites you to join him on his journey, despite your lack of abilities or maybe because of it.  You might as well go along with it; where else would you go with no memory of who you currently are, or knowledge of anything that lies outside of the narrative?

There is much to discover about your life in Baldur's Gate, and what transpires relies on the tiefling leading your group as Tav.

Word Count: 2.5K

A/N: This is very self-indulgent so there will by a lot of Gale and Astarion.

-------------------

“I’m Tav.”

He’s a tiefling, you recall.  Tall and bulky with curled horns.  The dark gray skin tells you he’s descended from Mephistopheles, and his simple leather gear tells you he’s a barbarian.  Huh.  Yeah, that makes sense, he’s Tav, the hero of the game!  Or…the villain?  Your head pounds as memories flood back to you—tieflings, bards, goblins, vampires—you, sitting at a computer debating which choice would garner you the most favour with your companions in…

“Baldur’s Gate,” you mumble.  You slap a hand over your mouth, staying on your knees as you blink at the tiefling.  At Tav.  He arches his brows and kneels beside you, offering you a small vial of red liquid.

“You’re from Baldur’s Gate, too?” he asks.  “Drink this, it’ll make you feel better.”

Without much thought you take the already opened vial from him and swallow it down in one small gulp.  With a deep breath the pounding in your head subsides and you can think a little clearer.  Maybe not clear enough to fully comprehend that you’re currently in a video game, or that there’s a small wriggling behind your left eye which means…

More images come to you, a mind flayer holding a worm with too many teeth to your eye,  a githyanki—Lae’zel—pointing a sword at you, and then falling from the ship.  The nautiloid.  Tav’s memories of the ship.

Tav winces as the visions fade.  “Guess you got one of those, too.”

A chill runs down your spine, through each and every bone of your body until the squirming thing behind your eye stops movement all together.  

“I uh…”  You look around at the crash area, taking in the rocks and splotches of fire dotting the land on one side and water on your left, until you meet the gaze of a raven-haired half-elf.  

“This one doesn’t seem to be all there,” she says.  Her voice is as smooth and condescending as you remember, and you find it endearing despite the insult.

“Give them a moment,” Tav responds over his shoulder.  “It’s a lot to take in.”

Yes, especially because this is most definitely a dream.  A very vivid, painful, exciting, insane dream.

“What’s your name?” 

You fear all you can do is blink.  You tell them your name, voice as shaky as your body.  There’s a tremble in your hands that you can’t control, even with a hard grip on the now empty vial.  “And thank you…for the potion.”

Tav lifts, holding a large sharp-nailed hand out to you.  “Can you stand?”

You nod, taking his hand and letting him lift you to your feet. You let your hand drop to dust off your clothes, nothing that you remember wearing.  The last thing you recall was going to bed in a tank top and shorts but you’re now wearing a dark blue overcoat atop loose fitting pants and a fitted shirt.  The borders of the coat are stitched with gold swirls, and based on the softness of everything you wear it has to be expensive.  Somehow, after everything (whatever the Hells that involved) you are quite clean.  Not to mention the bag that hangs at your hip beneath your coat is quite heavy, and another bag that wraps around your waist and sits at your back has the contents clinking together when you move.

You look like a caster of some kind, but you can’t tell which.  You can’t feel anything that would indicate your abilities, but some cold sensation at the back of your mind tells you you can do something.  Like another limb sits in your mind, waiting to be moved.

“We don’t have time for stragglers,” Shadowheart says.

“Yet I helped you,” Tav counters.  There’s a playfulness to his tone that doesn’t match his furrowed brow.  

Shadowheart concedes.  “Fair enough.  You’re welcome to join us in our search for a healer.”

You nod.  Yes, a healer!  They’ll be able to—pain strikes your temples as another memory clouds your mind.  

A truck careening at you, horn blaring—a sharp hit of adrenaline and then…here.

“Oh my God I’ve been isekaied.”  Your revelation earns you quizzical looks from Tav and Shadowheart.  Reincarnated.  Just like those cheesy but addicting books about a girl being reincarnated as a villainess in some cheesy addicting romance novel.  You press your hands to your face, feeling familiar features but still wary.  “Quick, what do I look like?”

“A lunatic,” Shadowheart answers.

Tav hesitates, but describes you.  You.  Not some other face, not a character you recall from the game but you.  Regular human you. You sigh, relief flooding over you.

“As…interesting as this conversation is, we should get moving,” Tav says.

“Agreed.”  Shadowheart doesn’t move until Tav heads to the only direction you can go, near part of the crashed ship.  

“We need to find Lae’zel,” Tav adds.

“Less agreeable,” Shadowheart says.  “She’s probably long gone by now, if not dead.”

“Well we should still keep an eye out.”

You follow the two into the still burning wreckage where they suddenly stop and draw their weapons—Tav a large axe, and Shadowheart her mace and shield.  

“Intellect devourers,” you conclude.  Three sit at the far end of the ship, scurrying towards you at a frightening speed.  With one slash of his axe Tav takes out two of them before they can get close to you, and Shadowheart smacks the other one down.  All defeated in what?  Three seconds? 

The three brains bleed out and flop to their sides, clawed limbs twitching.

“Vile creatures,” Tav says, holstering his axe.  You expect the two to keep moving and check the nearby bodies for gold and supplies, just as you do in the game, but they don’t.  They walk right past the dead man without rifling through his pockets and as you step by you feel your stomach lurch.  To see a bloody disfigured body in reality felt very different from the game. The vacant eyes staring upward, pieces of flesh torn from his stomach…It isn’t until a hand covers your eyes and directs you forward do you realize you’d stopped.  

“Just keep moving,” Tav says, keeping his hand by the side of your head so you can’t see the body.  When his hand falls you keep your eyes on his swinging tail, and follow after him as he turns and moves into the sun.

Barrels and a broken down cart let you know what’s coming next—who’s coming next.  

Your excitement strikes you then, still shaky and confused but awake.  You’re in Baldur’s Gate 3, with Tav and Shadowheart, and hopefully all the others.  

Your eyes scan the water nearby, debris scattered everywhere until you spot a dagger on the dock.  Tav and Shadowheart watch you dart over and pick it up.

“I thought you would be one to attack with words, not knives,” Shadowheart says coolly.

You stash the dagger in a boot, smiling at Shadowheart.  Gods. She was pretty as pixels but seeing her in the flesh, she was something else.  “Well, words aren’t always the best weapons.”

“Can I get some help?”

You recognize the voice without needing to see the speaker.  Astarion is just up the hill waiting to ambush Tav and…kill him depending on how he answers.  

Based on how Tav darted ahead at the sound of someone in trouble (albeit fake trouble) you figured it wouldn’t turn out too terribly.  So they had skipped over robbing the dead, and didn’t explore every corner of the map looking for treasure chests…that didn’t mean things would be different with each companion intro, right?  There’s a plot here, and it has to be followed to a certain degree…right?  There were no screen pop ups to decide dialogue and you all appeared to have free will, which was good.

Right?

Your thoughts did little to comfort you as you climbed the hill to find Astarion already pointing his blade at Tav who was apparently perceptive enough to dodge rolling around in the ground with the vampire.  You stopped next to Shadowheart, at ease just watching the situation unfold.

Both men twitch and writhe as their parasites connect.  When their visions fade Astarion questions it, and Tav answers honestly about being in the mind flayer ship and what the worms can do.

You study Astarion’s face as he realizes that he’s somewhat free, but there’s a time limit to the incubation period.  Tav offers for him to join your trio, and just like you remember, he agrees.

“Splendid,” Astarion says.  “Lead on.”

At that the vampire meets your eyes.  Icicles dance up your spine until they pierce the back of your head, making you wince and hold a hand against the spot.  

You grunt at the sudden pain, the sound quiet but drawing attention all the same.  You wave the eyes away from you with your free hand.  “Sorry.  Head still hurts a bit from…having a tadpole put inside it.”

Nobody questions that, though you know it was something else.  Every time your eyes even flit in Astarion’s direction you can feel a push at the back of your head, that phantom limb clenching as if trying to stretch and release itself.  You wish you could say it was the tadpole, but it feels nothing like when you connected with Tav.  

“Well let’s just try to keep our worms separate,” Astarion says, seemingly at you.  “I don’t need to see what’s in your head anymore than you do mine.”

His eyes linger a moment on Tav.  You nod your agreement though he isn’t looking at you now.

“I saw some footprints along another path,” Tav announces.  “There could be other survivors.”

There doesn’t seem to be any question as to who is in charge.  Shadowheart insists on searching for a healer but with a quick convincing from Tav you’re all headed towards a strange looking purple sigil.  

“Looks unstable,” Shadowheart says.

“Best left alone,” Tav agrees.  It was just like a friend's first play through that thought the sigil would kill them, so they never had Gale join their party.  It wasn’t a totally unfounded theory—swirling, sparking voids did seem like something that shouldn’t be touched but everything in this world had a purpose.  Anything out of place or, well, glowing, was important to the story.

But then the group is walking toward the bodies of three goblins discussing supplies.  

They’ll steal from goblins but not humans?  Seems odd but maybe you’re the weird one being so willing to pillage the dead, no matter their race.  You frown, looking back at the sigil and knowing who is inside.  “You sure you don’t want to see why it’s like that?”

Astarion is observing his nails while Tav loots the goblin bodies.  Shadowheart kicks one of the bodies out of her way once fully plundered and looks back at you.  “Be my guest.  But if you get sucked in don’t expect me to come looking for you.”

“I’ll come look for you,” Tav states with a cheeky grin, hands inside a dead goblins pockets. It makes you smile back, so…kind and disarming.  You recall barbarians didn’t have high charisma, but Tav seemed to have it in spades.  Or perhaps your recent head injury was clouding your judgement—after all your reaction to being reincarnated, to being dead, was quite tame. 

“Ah, a true hero.”  Astarion looks between you and Tav, eyes narrowing as if trying to solve a puzzle.

You turn your attention back to the sigil, taking a small step towards it when an arm pops out. 

“A hand?” a voice calls.  “Anybody?”

You slap the waxing hand immediately without a thought.

“Perhaps I should have been more specific,” Gale says.  “A helping hand please?”

“Oh, right!”  You quickly take his hand in yours and tug to no avail.  

“Keep trying!”

You pull harder, wondering if you were going to end up holding a severed arm in your hand as the sigil sparks brighter and buzzes with energy.  You choose to ignore those thoughts and keep trying to free the wizard. 

With one final pull the person connected to the arm comes tumbling out of the sigil.  If it had been Tav to pull Gale free you’re certain it would have been a smooth experience, and he would have stepped back and dodged getting shoved to the ground by the sudden lack of resistance.  But it wasn’t Tav, it was you, and instead of dodging the wizard your feet tangled with each other and you both went down. 

The wind is knocked from your lungs with Gale atop you, his forehead connecting with your sternum and leaving you gasping for air.  Strands of his hair fall onto your lips, soft and smelling of something spicy while his left arm is wrapped around your middle, the other braced against the ground.  You realize he’d been trying to protect you on the way down, but wasn’t quick enough to cover the back of your head, which now throbs from the fresh battering.  

“Ouch,” you croak, voice barely making it out of your throat.  Footsteps approach until Tav, Shadowheart, and Astarion are hovering over you, each with a small smile.  Well…Astarion’s is more of a smirk…

Gale pushes himself off of you and before he can say anything Tav has his hands beneath your underarms and is pulling you up.  His hands slide to your back until you’re steady enough to stand on your own and thank him, rubbing at the back of your head again. 

Throbbing is better than stabbing, you suppose.

“Apologies,” Gale says as he smooths his hair back, “I’m usually much better at this.”

You continue to rub the back of your head as he and Tav exchange dialogue, much of it going in one ear and out the other as you focus on the pain radiating in your skull.  You squeeze your eyes shut and let your hands fall to your sides, giving in to the fact you can’t rub away whatever sensation is there.

“And you my friend.”  Gale is in front of you, drawing your gaze to meet his.  “I am truly sorry for landing on you, but extremely grateful for the help.”

You can’t stop your smile at him anymore than you could with Tav.  “Happy to help.”

His eyes stay on you a moment longer than appropriate, but when they drape down your body you think he’s almost sizing you up.  For a fight, or romance, or maybe to steal your coat you aren’t sure.

You look to Tav for direction, waiting for the leader to…well, lead.  Lae’zel should be next, but that’s when you notice you have an extra member.  With you there it makes five travellers, but nobody has been sent to camp yet.  Wherever that is.  While you’d like a moment to sit and organize your thoughts, the idea of heading somewhere on your own was terrifying. 

“I hear voices over that ridge,” Astarion announces.  Everyone turns towards where he’s looking, just a few feet ahead where the path winds up and you know you’ll find two tieflings looking at Lae’zel.  But you can’t hear them yet.

“Let’s check it out.”  Tav is already moving before anyone can object.  And like ducklings you follow him with Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart.

Taglist:

@half-poison-and-half-hope

#reborn in baldur's gate 3 with no memory and plenty of gold #x reader #baldur's gate 3 fanfic #bg3 #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #gale dekarios x reader #astarion x reader

[nahoney22]

A Climax. A Pinnacle. A Release***

Hunter X F!Reader

word count: 3.3k

Hunter tells you to touch yourself. Only problem was, you find yourself calling his name. But maybe, that’s not a problem at all.

warnings: NSFW 18+ only, explicit sexual content, female solo masturbation, inexperienced virgin reader, fingering, cunnilingus, slight dom!Hunter, friends to lovers, kinda mutual pining. Basically smut without plot. Swearing. Not proofread.

authors note: this is inspired by this scene in Bridgerton. Obsessed.

The flow of conversation with Hunter always seemed to entrance you, leaving your thoughts adrift in a euphoric haze. His commanding presence was so potent that it often derailed any coherent train of thought you had at the time. However, as you observed his intense gaze fixed upon you, your mind scrambled to grasp the gravity of his words.

"So, you've never been with someone before?" he inquired, his voice tinged with a hint of playfulness, his penetrating gaze assessing you with a discerning curiosity.

Ah, yes. That was the topic under discussion—the woeful narrative of your loveless existence.

"Nah, nothing hasn't really come up before," you replied, nonchalantly shrugging, albeit struggling to ignore the sensation of his warm breath caressing your face.

Within the confined space of the Marauder's cockpit, the two of you found yourselves alone, his proximity to your own body causing your heart to race in unmistakable testament to your now growing attraction to the man. After all, how could you not find him attractive? He was always so kind and courteous to you, not to mention he was handsome. And as you looked up at him through your lashes, trying to control your breathing, you came to realise that he was very handsome. Very handsome.

"But surely, you've had experiences," he continued, his coy query accompanied by a slight tilt of his head, as though he were attempting to discern your very essence. Considering his heightened senses, you wouldn't be surprised if he sensed the flurry of your heart trying to burst out of your chest.

“Experience?" you asked innocently, your lack of romantic involvement apparent. Hunter's mouth formed a small 'o,' a hint of surprise flickering in his eyes as he absorbed the realisation of your limited encounters. However, a part of him revels in the prospect of being the one to introduce you to what you had been missing. Yet, he didn't want to overstep his bounds.

"I mean, when someone gets pleasure from another person," he clarified, his tone gentle and patient, hoping to bridge the gap between your naivety and his desire to enlighten you.

Once again, you appeared perplexed, your innocence shining through. Just how sheltered were you?

He took a deliberate step closer, causing your back to press against the ship's wall, his voice becoming hushed, intimate. "The same pleasure you experience when you touch yourself."

"I don't think I understand," you responded, a breathless sigh escaping your lips, your senses overwhelmed by his commanding presence. How could one derive pleasure from such an act of self-indulgence? You knew it happened within a relationship but by yourself? Perhaps this was something you needed to explore and research on your own.

Hunter drew in a deep breath, his voice becoming huskier. "You do touch yourself?" he asked, his words enveloping you like a whisper, his warm breath caressing your ear as he leaned in closer. "When you're alone, at night, you have the freedom to explore your body," his gaze lazily traced the contours of your figure, "anywhere that brings you pleasure."

"How?" you whispered, a wave of warmth spreading through you, a throbbing sensation pulsating at your core. It was a new feeling that threatened to weaken your knees.

"Between your legs," he responded, his voice laden with an unmistakable intensity. “Touch yourself.”

"Then what happens?" you inquired, a mix of anticipation and desire flooding your senses. Deep down, you had a feeling you already knew the answer - something you had overheard your friends talk about at one time but you craved to hear him say it, each word increasing the dampness in your panties.

"Well, you continue touching yourself until... until you reach a climax. A pinnacle. A release." He explained, his voice filled with a raw and primal allure.

The approaching footsteps shattered the intimate atmosphere, forcing both of you to quickly create distance between yourselves. "Hunter, we've received a transmission from Cid," Echo announced, his voice carrying a hint of curiosity as he glanced back and forth between the two of you. "Did I interrupt something?"

You cleared your throat, attempting to conceal the burning flush on your cheeks and the lingering arousal. "No, Hunter was just offering me some advice," you replied, your tone deliberately neutral, hoping that Echo wouldn't see through your half-truth. It wasn't entirely a lie, after all.

Echo nodded slowly, seemingly accepting your explanation, and then let the matter drop. As Hunter followed Echo toward the rear of the ship, he paused for a moment, his gaze briefly meeting yours before he left you alone.

What just happened?

That night, as you lay in your bunk, a whirlwind of thoughts raced through your mind, but one particular notion lingered at the forefront: Hunter's words. ‘Touch yourself’, the phrase repeated in your mind like a persistent mantra, occupying your every waking thought. Perhaps that's why, almost involuntarily, your hand found its way to your neck, fingertips delicately tracing over your skin. You fixated on the ceiling above, your breaths hushed, harmonizing with the tranquil stillness of the ship. Your hand continued its gentle exploration, gliding down from your neck to your chest, as sensations and desires intertwined in the depths of your being.

You’re wanting to take it slowly and to savor this special moment. Bringing your hand up, you gingerly trail your fingers up and down your abdomen in little lines to start. While nothing too special was happening, your core muscles tense up and a shiver ripples through your body in reaction, followed by the stiffening of your nipples. You could not help but imagine your hands belonging to someone else, causing you to have an instinctual response to moan in anticipation. The heat that was building in you ignites even more at the prospect of what is next.

‘Between your legs’ Hunter’s voice echoes in your mind once again.

Encouraged by the feeling of those slight touches, you press forward. Or rather downward. Sliding your hands down the waistband of your nightwear, over your lap and along your thighs,incrementally zeroing in on your target. With some hunger, you start by caressing the inside of each thigh, a move that causes both of your legs to tremble slightly. You’re so close to where your body is pleading for attention, but remain steadfast at taking your time to get there.

Eventually, it got too much. You couldn’t hold it back any longer. The preceding repetitions of Hunter’s voice drummed in your mind. Finally, you allow yourself to find your heat, easing in slowly. “O-oh, ohhhh,” you sigh, your eyes fluttering closed as breathless moans part your lips.

So this is what you were missing.

Despite the feeling of your thighs wanting to close, you willed them to stay apart as your fingers begin to add more pressure between your lips. Rubbing back and forth with firm strokes and pressure, you feel yourself getting wetter by the second. Your bed sheets start to stick to you, sweat already starting to form as you writhe under your own touch. You’re so glad the boys aren’t there to overhear your stimulation that you no longer cared how loud your whiny and wanton moans became.

As you rub your clit in loose circles, your mind goes adrift again, this time in the haze of the pleasure that is building.

A climax. A pinnacle. A release.

“Hunter.”

His name parts your lips, his face being the only thing you manage as you close your eyes.

A climax. A pinnacle. A release.

“Oh, f-fuck. Hunter.”

A climax. A pinnacle. A release.

You ride it out slowly in ecstasy, a near siren of squeals echoing through the ship in the process. You feel the lewd sense of a trickle of your wetness rolling down your leg, sheets thrown to the floor. A result of how much the incredible sensations have shot through you.

Your body is shaking from cumming so hard in such a quick succession, legs spasming. So you lay to let it pass by, collecting your thoughts and more importantly the man who filled your thoughts.

What had he done to you? And why did you find yourself wanting to know what he could do to you?

The next day, Hunter's behavior took a sharp turn. He seemed visibly different, his jaw tightly clenched, and you often noticed him gripping the underside of his chair, holding his breath whenever you walked past him. A nagging feeling crept within you, wondering if there was an issue—perhaps an unpleasant odor emanating from you. However, you were confident in your personal hygiene, as you were the one who showered the most frequently among the crew. So it couldn't be that.

You sat across from him and his gaze bore into you with an intensity you had never witnessed before. It was mesmerising, captivating, and his eyes held a hunger that ignited a spark of recognition deep within you. If you didn't know any better, you would swear that he was aroused by your mere presence.

Locking eyes with him, you momentarily tuned out the surrounding chatter, your focus solely on the gorgeous man sitting across from you. "Is there a problem?" you asked, your voice laced with curiosity.

He froze, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his knees tightly, before eventually tearing his gaze away from you with a heavy breath. "We need to talk. Alone," he replied, his words reaching your ears with just enough volume. The anticipation in your stomach surged at his request, reminding yourself that you were writhing and moaning his name just nine hours ago in your bunk.

He subtly nodded, indicating for you to follow him. You watched as he stood, tall and brooding, before disappearing towards the back of the ship.

You waited a moment, not wanting to raise any suspicions among the others, before finally standing up and discreetly following Hunter. As you made your way, you tidied up the area around you, maintaining an air of nonchalance. Eventually, you found yourself in the cargo hold, the door hissing closed behind you, sealing you in with him.

"You touched yourself last night," Hunter stated firmly, his words leaving no room for doubt. He stood in front of you, his mouth slightly agape as his eyes hungrily scanned your fully clothed form.

Taken aback by his directness and the heat arising from his intense gaze, you felt your body respond, a flush of warmth spreading through you. "H-how did you know?" you stammered, your voice betraying a mix of surprise and anticipation.

He steps towards you, slow and alluring. “I could smell your cum on your sheets.”

Embarrassed? A little. Aroused? Extremely.

Your chest rises and falls, the weight of his words intensifying the tightness within you. "You told me how to. So I did," you respond, your voice carrying a calculated nonchalance, though a subtle tremor betrays your inner excitement.

Hunter's lips curl into a genuine smile, devoid of any smugness. "And how did you feel?" His dark eyes hold yours in the dimly lit cargo hold, sending shivers down your spine and igniting a flame of desire within you. A new feeling that you couldn’t seem to get enough of.

Swallowing hard, you feel a pooling of saliva in your mouth as his presence overwhelms you. "Like I was floating," you admit, your voice laced with a mixture of awe and longing.

With another step forward, Hunter pins you against the door, his hand firmly above your head as he leans in. The magnetic pull between you becomes irresistible, and you find yourself yearning for his closeness, craving his touch. "What did you think about?" he probes, his voice laced with desire and anticipation.

"Hunter, I..." You trail off, completely overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment. Though the urge to confess your thoughts screams within you, your innocence acts as a shield, momentarily silencing your desires.

"Do you want to know what I think about when I find myself alone, yearning for release?" His words flow like liquid gold, seeping into the depths of your being, melting away any inhibitions. Unable to form words, you succumb to the power of his presence, nodding in response.

"You," he declares, sending a jolt of electricity through your body.

The sharp intake of breath reveals your shaken state. "Me?" you manage to utter, your voice a mere whisper.

"Yes," he confirms, his free hand delicately caressing your face, his fingers tracing the contours of your skin. His thumb glides over your lower lip, gently pulling it down, igniting a surge of anticipation. "You can not even comprehend the depth of my desires I have for you sweetheart… the way I wish I could just say what I want to do to you. But I don’t want to rob you of your innocence."

The charged atmosphere between you both crackles with an unspoken longing. A restrained passion which left you suspended in a haze of desire and risk.

This time, you take the step closer, nose just brushing against his own. “Why don’t you show me instead, Hunter?”

His eyes search yours, looking for a definitive answer if this is what you truly wanted but the scent of you was too much for him to handle and his lips were on yours.

Fiery and intense, his lips have you extracting every moan you could possess giving him that needed confidence as he pushes you back to the door with a thud. You gasp, which allowed him just enough time to dive his tongue into your mouth, collecting your whimpers of pleasure as his fingers bite into your waist.

“What if the others hear us or walk in?” You breathe through ragged breaths against his lips, melting as his surprisingly soft lips trail up your jaw and then down to your neck, sucking on the flesh to claim you in a second.

“I’ll tell them to leave.” He chuckles against your skin, vibrations shooting through you and down to your very core. The heat between your legs resurfaces, as does that familiar sensation of your panties getting damp in arousal. “You’re so beautiful.”

You gush at his words but you can’t even string a sentence together let alone a ‘thank you’ for the compliment. He goes back to kissing your lips, dominant and wanting that made your lips deliciously plump. But, his kisses are slow, dragged out as if he had been waiting for this moment ever since you boarded the ship all those months ago.

When he pulls away, he’s staring longingly in your eyes that you easily got lost in but was overcome with pleasure as you feel his hand pluck the button of your pants with just one finger. “Can I touch you?”

You nod, eagerly. “Please,” you rasp.

His hand slides down the waistband of your pants, past your panties where his fingers instantly start to collect your slick. “Maker, you’re soaked. Did I make you this wet?” His voice trembles a touch, in awe of what he could do to you in a second.

His taste buds were already dancing at the smell which is why he couldn’t help but bring his hand out your pants and start to lick his fingers slowly, all the while keeping his eyes locked on you. “You taste delicious.”

The only reply he got was a small whine as his lips came back to yours, letting you taste your own making. His hands are back in your pants and you tremble as his fingers delicately slide between your folds, caressing you before a digit starts to seep inside you.

You gasped, hips starting to involuntarily buck at the sensation. The movement and desperation doubled when he pressed his thumb upon your clit, rotating it slowly all the while his finger curled up into you. “That’s it,” Hunter rasps against your lips, “take my fingers you pretty, pretty girl. Do you like this?”

“Feels so good,” you gasp, your forehead now agaisnt his, looking down at the sight of his hands down your pants, “I - ohhh, fuck - never knew this could feel so good.” It was true. You couldn’t deny how incredible the touch of your own hand was but to feel Hunter, expertly fingerfucking you with a smooth and steady thrum was to die for.

It’s not long until he inserts an extra finger, picking up the pace as he moves inside your pussy whilst thrusting over and over. “Good girl, taking my fingers so well for me.”

Your hand covers your mouth, your cries of pleasure blocked out but it is Hunter who used his free hand to rip your hand away and tsk. “No. I want to hear you moan.” He hissed into your ear, sucking on the lobe. “So tight and wet.”

“Hunter...” You pant, your hands coming up to sit on his shoulders as his fingers hit a spot inside you that had you seeing stars.

He continues to finger your pussy against the door, your pants having shimmied down past your thighs and knees until they look at the floor. “Can I see your pussy, sweet girl?” Hunter asks when he notices that you escaped the confines of your pants, his cock throbbing behind his clothes.

“Of course,” you whisper, gasping at the lewd sound and feeling of his fingers seeping out of your hole as he drops to his knees in front of you. He looks up at you with desire in his eyes.

Your panties are drenched, as expected, and he does the generosity of pulling them down fully until the ship's cool air hits your cunt making you shudder in anticipation.

“You have such a perfect pussy.” He purrs, returning his hand to your sex as he lets his fingers explore you as you now writhe above him.

“T-thank you,” you gush, heart fluttering at the sight of your Sergeant between your legs. Though you waited for bated breaths for his finger to probe back into you, you gasped aloud when Hunter buries his face between your legs, tongue flicking up and down at your slit. He alternates between the lick of his tongue and gentle kisses pressing to you that you just couldn’t help but bury your hand in his hair, gripping his long locks as you pulled him in closer.

“You like this, I can tell.” He cooed against you, starting to trail his tongue against your clit with a firm yet gentle stimulus.

“Please don’t stop,” you whine in ecstasy, panting harshly with your head bowed back as he continues to caress your pussy with his tongue. You worried that you were making too much noise but at the same time, you didn’t care either. Your hips rolled over his face, his nose adding that extra bit of pleasure as it bumped against your clit.

“Can’t believe I’m the first person to eat your pussy baby; hopefully I’ll be the last too.”

With a particularly hard swipe on your clit minutes later, you careened into an orgasm more powerful than you could ever imagine. “That’s it baby, cum on my tongue.” He groans in pure delight, your juices sloshing his face and lips as your knees spasm before you.

“H-H-Hunter, fuck.” You whimper, shaking at the release he gave you. You feared you were to fall to the ground but as Hunter stands, wiping his mouth, he secures you into his arms and brings you closer.

“I’ve got you, darling. You did so well for me.”

You breathed heavily into his chest, eyes closed as a sudden wave of tiredness washes over you. He scoops you into his arms, carrying you towards one of the weapon crates and sits you on top of it before going to retrieve your pants. He’s gentle, sliding your clothes back on and then placing a kiss to your head. “Beautiful girl, do you want to know what else I could do to you?”

Yes, yes you fucking did.

Masterlist

Hunter Works

tags: @ladyzirkonia @photogirl894 @andyoufollowyourheart @littlefeatherr r @kaitou2417 @eyecandyeoz @captxin-rex @cwarssimp @jesseeka @ashotofspotchka @oohyesplease @megafrost4 @theroguesully @mustluvecho @ladykatakuri @jambolska-grozdova @arctrooper69 @padawancat97 @rain-on-kamino @either-madness-or-brilliance @staycalmandhugaclone @ko-neko-san @echos-girlfriend @fiveshelmet @dangraccoon @plushymiku-blog @chrissywakingup @kixs-husband @pb-jellybeans @tech-aficionado @grizabellasolo @therealnekomari @tech-depression-inventory @brynhildrmimi @greaser-wolf @tinyreadersmur @seriowan @agenteliix @kaminocasey @marvel-starwars-nerd @ladytano420 @imalovernotahater @the-good-shittt @whore4rex x @imperialclaw801 @temple-elder @erellenora @mysticalgalaxysalad @fantasyproductions @dragonrider9905

#tbb hunter x you #tbb hunter x reader #bad batch hunter x you #hunter x you #nahoney22 writes #bad batch smut #the bad batch

[meibywabie]

Xie Lian isn’t a hero.

I started with TGCF first when I was introduced to danmei, and I was floored by what I read. It wasn’t just boys kissing in ancient china, it was actually about human tragedy and the selfishness of the omnipotent.

The theme of TGCF doesn’t revolve around XL alone. It’s much bigger than that. This isn’t a ‘TGCF is better’ post, but rather, TGCF is different. And it’s different because Xie Lian isn’t a typical human hero.

XL is not a heroic character like WWX, and he isn’t a sarcastic/comedic relief hero like SQQ. And it isn’t because of their personalities. XL is just as selfless as WWX and just as unreasonably punished as both other MC’s. However, when bad things happen to WWX, you know it’s because of his personality. Because of his kindness, his confidence, his wit. It’s simply BECAUSE it’s WWX as the protagonist.

Same with SVSSS. That story couldn’t have happened without Shen Yuan in SQQ’s body. Like we never would have gotten that level of sarcasm, pity, and empathy. And the novel tells you that repeatedly. Everything that happens in the previous two novels does so because of who the main character is.

But when things happen in TGCF, XL isn’t even the center of the conflict. It’s almost always someone else’s fault, someone else’s business, or someone else’s issue he just happens to be present for. But somehow, it always comes back to him. It’s always his job to resolve things.

Unlike WWX, the conflict isn’t his fault. WWX actively pushes the narrative with his actions. He drives the conflict and later becomes it. Whether he’s at fault or not is the point of his story, but for XL, he’s really just incredibly unlucky. He’s tragic in the sense that he’s just being fucked over by everyone in his life. For what? For being…wonderful!?

I absolutely love that his one little phrase pissed off the evil emperor of heaven. Like his mere existence is a problem.

It’s an incredible piece of writing that the things that get him into trouble are his altruism. Altruism that is fitting for someone who thinks himself a GOD. But also, altruism that many of us mortals share.

Why CANT he save his people if he’s a god? Why CANT he answer everyone’s prayers? Why is he not good enough or strong enough to resolve this conflict if he’s literally a GOD.

XL is constantly facing issues and asking questions that humanity itself has asked.

Why isn’t god answering me, why isn’t god helping me, why do we have a god at all? TGCF has a commentary that doesn’t limit itself to just XL and the type of person he is in the way that MDZS relies on WWX and SVSSS relies on SQQ.

Those novels are how most novels typically function. You choose a specific type of human and see the world through their eyes.

But XL isn’t human. Not in the way he acts nor in the way he tells this story. He tells you everything he witnesses and it barely affects him anymore. He just has some wise thoughts about what everything means.

But TGCF isn’t asking: what would happen if a kind prince ascended to godhood?

Instead—

TGCF begs the question:

What if you told the story of humanity, not through the eyes of a human, but through the eyes of god.

Xie Lian is god.

XL is 800yrs old, has lived through countless tragedies, celebrations, friendships, betrayals, and he ascends. Again.

He’s been stuck with the burden of immortality and now he’s re entering the place that gave him that burden. He walks into heaven to see new gods, but the same old problems. And the whole vibe he has in this is less benevolent and wonderful and more like a fed up mom who’s tired of seeing the girls fighting.

He sits back and watches these issues devolve and shuffles his way into the conflict by accident. Because he’s the only one competent enough to do anything about it.

XL doesnt react like a human being, at the start of the current timeline, he’s a god.

He’s an 800yr old god. He’s seen everything, learned everything.

We see this prince who thinks himself a god then become one. And instead of learning what it means to be a god so he can help the common man— he learns what it means to be a common man so he can become a real god.

XL goes through HELL. He loses countless times, is left, betrayed, ruined, trampled, destroyed. He is constantly being thwarted by not just people but the very gods he worshipped and the god he himself became. But again— XL isn’t even that big of a personality for us to cling to that alone and see how these things happened to him??

He isn’t boasting about how great he is out of pride and ego, he isn’t rampaging or going mad with power, he isn’t a huge character. But his lack of those qualities is what triggers Jun Wu to ruin him. He wants to see him go crazy, wants to see him struggle. Wants to see his ego and pride. And he’s not the only one!!!

Mu Qing is also incredibly jealous, so are the other gods!!! And Qi Rong, his own family!!! His parents even get upset with him for not doing enough. Everyone saw this kid blessed with so much and started wishing for him to break. And they succeed. He goes insane, he starts killing, he starts wanting to die, he starts losing faith.

But MAN it is just so gorgeous to me that this character is almost…forced to be a main character? Forced to suffer, forced to make mistakes, forced to be a problem. He is so powerful and smart and incredible and then he is made to believe he is nothing. Here is this god who has been forced to feel HUMAN.

And once he finally feels that way, once he finally falls to the ground and loses everything, someone comes by and offers his hat.

And that’s all it takes for a man to truly become a god.

TGCF asks what if you told a story through the eyes of god? It shows you this guy sighing through drama and fixing peoples problems.

And then it goes back and tells you: What makes a man, god?

And we read all of XL’s history. His victories and failures. And it perfectly describes how he’s ascended again. Not out of heroics this time. But out of his pure humanity.

God is a kind, gentle, but confident man who wanders around helping who he can and opening his doors to those who wish to come in. He resolves the conflicts he’s there for, and takes note of those he wasn’t there for. He trudges along holding no grudges and sighing when people make mistakes. He loves selflessly and holds no judgment. He feels strange letting people take care of him but he will take care of you. When he can, and when he has the chance, he will take care of you.

XL is almost born with every book definition of what a god is: kind, selfless, strong, and true. But his story forces him to learn how to be human instead. To fail, die, love, kill and suffer. And when that god was beaten and broken, he was saved by one thing. A human.

That’s how you become a god. And that’s what it means to be one. To be human. To be a good person.

XL couldn’t have been a WWX. He couldn’t have been a staple protagonist with a heart of gold, wit and passion. He couldn’t have had a story with everyone’s conflict directly tied to him and because of him. That isn’t what TGCF is for.

It isn’t about XL himself. It’s about god. It explores the selfishness that comes with immortality, and the selflessness that comes with mortality.

There are other aspects that make it a nice protag story. He falls in love, he’s kinda air headed and sassy. He did have the character and maturity to choose to become a wonderful godlike person but that’s a post for another day. But honestly, if this were a regular novel, it probably would’ve been about Hua Cheng. He lives for love and passion and devotion. He kills and saves and sacrifices, he denies godhood and wins the girl in the end. Now THATS a hero.

But XL isn’t a hero. He’s a god.

MXTX wrote a story that wasn’t about a sheepish prince who lost it all, but instead wrote a story about gods and humans. She wrote what reads like a Greek epic to me. With such hard comments on morality and cruelty. She really hit me with everything I love about literature. And yes I do love MDZS and SVSS but TGCF is different.

Like guoshi said: the gods are human, after all. But XL above them all, is most definitely a god.

#im honestly pretty sure if Jun Wu hadn’t ruined XL’s life he woudlve become like LQQ and been a little stupid LMAO #Jun Wu could never #TGCF #heaven official's blessing #heaven officials blessing #hob #hualian #xie lian

[paddockbunny]

You write for my boy mick? Say no more 😩 Can you write something with the numbers 19 and 51 from the nsfw promt list? pretty please and thank you 🥺

"Good Girl"

Summary : He's so sweet and innocent, isn't he? What happens when Mick takes you home to meet his family for the first time? And what happens when you decide you've had enough of the good boy narrative that keeps being spun about him? Rating : 18+ Pairing : Mick Schumacher x Reader Word Count : 1,651. Trigger Warnings : NSFW, 18+, Adult language, dirty talk, slight choking & muffling, fingering, PinV sex, unprotected sex. 💞Authors Note : This hasn’t been properly proof read due to time constraints with irl work, please keep that in mind ✌🏼

Finally, the door closed behind you as you reached the safety of the bedroom. This weekend was fine but that was all it was, just fine. It wasn’t great or fabulous. It was fine.

Mick had invited you to spend the weekend with him at his families place in Switzerland. More fool you for thinking he meant the two of you, alone. You didn’t realise till you pulled up to the impressive large house that Mick in fact was introducing you to his family and that they would all be there. You had only been officially dating two maybe three months. It wasn’t enough time to start meeting parents and siblings in your opinion. Hell, you weren’t even sure you would ever feel comfortable enough to introduce Mick to yours. He had this picture perfect family where as yours? Well anyone could be forgiven for thinking they seemed like a bunch of misfit miscreants all conjured up as if for a joke. I mean really, Adams Family came to mind. But then you had never laughed so much as you did at home. You didn’t feel as relaxed anywhere else than at home and you never felt more loved than you did at home either.

But, after all the introductions and the utterly terrifying moment of meeting his dad – Mick trusting you enough to bring you into the inner sanctum of the Schumacher family – you somewhat settled. You listened to his sister mock her little brother while her boyfriend sucked up to his mother-in-law. Corinna was nice but you were aware she wasn’t too happy that you were in her house so quickly into your relationship with her son. Something, which considering the circumstances you couldn’t exactly blame her for.

So after hours of listening to what a good boy Mick is and how he was the perfect prodigal son carrying on his father’s legacy, you were more than happy when Mick announced it was bedtime.

He lay down on the bed and let an exasperated apology leave his lips. “…. No really, I’m so sorry y/n, they can be a little much.” In your mind you replied with a “You don’t say” but you decided it might come out in the wrong way so stayed silent. It was all so new after all, your relationship. Insinuating his family (his precious family that he was incredibly close too) were a little too much would be all kinds of wrong. You’d never be able to recover from that. But then you saw him stretched out on his bed. One arm propped up behind his head and his shirt dangerously open. Fuck, he really was beautiful. Mick reminded you of some old-fashioned German prince or even a knight from a fairy story you would have read as a kid. No one could ever hold it against you for how much you craved him. How much your body felt like it was desperate for oxygen while you were in his presence. But most of all, how much your pussy always seemed to flutter whenever he did something so fucking simple like lying down on a bed.

You went to the en suite and even from the mirror you couldn’t escape him. His position was reflected back at you and you had to close the door a little because you almost couldn’t hold yourself back from jumping on him and begging him to fuck you. You reminded yourself were in his parent’s house and it was all kinds of wrong to be getting all hot and bothered here. It wasn’t respectful of you to desperately want the youngest Schumacher to slide his fingers into your panties or have you spread eagled on the bed while he made you scream with his tongue. But then that side of your brain couldn’t switch off and you pressed your thighs together to stop the deep burning for contact in you core.

You heard him call on you from the adjoining room and in a millisecond you pushed absolutely everything about being disrespectful out of your mind. You rid yourself of your top first. Then the jeans were quick to follow. Looking in the mirror you were certainly glad you wore pretty lace underwear today. Because after all, if you were going to hell for fucking Mick in his teenage bedroom then the devil would tell you you looked good.      

“Fuck…” Fell from Mick’s lips as soon as he saw you. You had strolled out from the en suite with unwavering confidence. The same confidence poured out of you when you went directly to him and got on the bed. Well, you didn’t just get on the bed. You straddled his lap. Your inner thighs burning deliciously as they opened widely across his hips Your dampening core grazed against his jeans clad crotch and the contact was enough for your stomach to flip with excitement. “You’re so innocent aren’t you?” You had established right from the first time you and Mick had slept together that he liked dirty talk. That it turned him on to no end and he fully admitted that he could get off on it without even being touched. And no time seemed better for you to give your brain a sexual work out than right now. Mick didn’t reply so you continued; “Hmmm….” You purred as you leaned down and brushed his shirt-covered chest with your bra-covered breasts. “You’re use to good, morally virtuous little girls aren’t you Mick? Not being corrupted by big bad girls like me.” Your hands pushed through his hair before trailing down to his neck. He loved his neck being kissed and you were more than happy to oblige him. His mouth fell open as you finally gave him the contact that he wanted. A breath caught in his throat as he struggled to whimper your name but you didn’t want to waste any time.

“I want you inside of me Mick.” It poured from you in whisper that caressed his ear. The words hitting him in synchronised time as your panty covered core ground against his crotch. He was unmistakably hard and you were unmistakably wet. A shaky breath left his mouth as you grabbed his hand, removing it from your hip, and without any hesitation you slipped it down and inside of your soaked panties. Exactly where you wanted his touch the most. “Do you feel how wet I am for you?” “Liebling, we can’t…” He tried to deny the inevitable but he couldn’t deny what his fingertips were feeling, or how painful his erection would be getting confined in his pants. You felt his index and middle finger caress you and it made a shudder run all over your body. “Please Mick, don’t make me beg.” It fell from your lips as his fingers rubbed up and down your folds before settling on your aching, sensitive little bud. It was your mouth that fell open when he started moving his fingers in teasing, torturous circles. “Right there…” Your words left you in a whimper. You were desperate for him to pick up his pace. To go faster and allow the feeling to build. You wanted him to make you cum and you didn’t mind if it was his fingers, mouth or cock that got you there. You were so lost in the moment – so lost in the thought of him bringing you to orgasm like this – that you almost completely missed the swear words that fell from his mouth before he pulled his hand out of your panties and ripped away the contact. Ready to protest your eyes flew open and mouth followed but then suddenly, without warning you were on your back.

Mick took back control and wasted no time in getting rid of his shirt and started on his pants. Your hands lazily trailed down his mouth-watering chest and abs, his eyes staring into yours and his you could feel the heat emanating from them. This was the Mick you knew. He wasn’t as sweet and innocent as his family (and the rest of the world) thought he was. Your eyes went down to his pants as he unbuckled his belt and your mouth salivated as he pulled out his huge engorged cock. Your teeth bit into your bottom lip as he roughly yanked your soaked panties down and off.

“Not so innocent now baby…” Mick’s pleasant scoff met your ears as his hand went under your thigh and pulled your leg up and around his waist as he toyed with you. He knew how much you wanted him inside of you and so he lazily ran the purple head of his cock up and down your folds while his mouth finally descended upon yours. You were in a situation of your own doing. He was going to drag this out now. But then he surprised you. As he slid his tongue over yours, he pushed in. He slid his whole, large cock into you and you moaned loudly into his mouth instinctively.

“Y/n, you’re going to have to stay quiet Liebling.” His hand closed around your throat as he began thrusting his cock in and out of you. Already setting a quick, non-wavering pace. He tried to hush you again but now, his hand moved from your throat to straight over your mouth. You desperately wanted him to know how good he felt. You wanted to show the appreciation to what he was making you feel.

“Why?” You mumbled against his large, imposing palm.

“Because you’ll make me cum before I can teach you a lesson.” He growled into your ear while he pulled out, gripped your skin and flipped you over so you could shove your face into a pillow and bite it instead of making any more noise.

“Good girl.”   

#mick shumacher #mick schumacher x reader #mick schumacher imagine #mick schumacher fanfic #mick Schumacher blurb #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 smut #f1 one shot #mick Schumacher x you #f1 driver x you #f1 driver x reader #f1 imagines #f1 x reader #f1 x you #imagines #fanfics

[delawaredetroit]

Are you still a dfo truther? If so, why?

I'm not counting it out just because the body that All for One was eventually planning on discarding anyway is dead. The naysayers are taking too early a victory lap on that one. That said, if it does happen, this Deku vs Shigaraki fight is the last place where it feasibly could happen. There's no way All for One's vestige isn't making another appearance regardless considering his plotlines with Yoichi and Shigaraki have not been resolved.

Why do I think it's still possible? Because Horikoshi usually carefully plans the names of his characters. And it's odd that an ordinary businessman would have a name meaning leader and "a long time"/"eternal" when that sure matches the goals of the manga's villain who basically wants to be reborn in a new body so he can rule the world (and have Yoichi under his thumb). It's weirder when the alleged son in this theory has a name that includes a character that can be read "to be born" and the exact same a long time/eternal character. (Especially when unlike any of his classmates, he is the only one with both parents' names introduced where his name only has influence from one parent)

Also, it's because the themes between Izuku and Shigaraki currently feel incomplete. And they would feel more complete if this fight was also about the villain born from heroic origins versus the hero born from villainous origins. Touya, the villain character Shigaraki has the most parallels with, already has one of these in Hawks. And like Izuku and Shigaraki, those two are some of the only ones that really play with the visuals of angelic looking villains versus demonic looking heroes. All for One said that heroes/villains used to receive their "names" based on what their enemy called them - so it would make sense if what remained of All for One was defeated once and for all by those he has named. Izuku is the odd one out in this fight if dfo theory isn't true if he didn't receive a name from All for One like Shigaraki and Yoichi.

The general impression I get from people who hate this theory is that they don't want Izuku to not be an ordinary person or intended for some special destiny. And I'm ????? about that because I think these people have bought Izuku's unreliable narrative about himself hook, line, and sinker. Again, that "ordinary" interpretation goes against the actual reading of Izuku's name. Second of all, I have no idea what people are smoking to have interpreted the guy who knowingly and repeatedly breaks his bones like they're glow sticks as the most normal guy. Even before One for All - Izuku wasn't "normal" - he was part of a minority group and faced discrimination for being quirkless.

The second impression I get from naysayers is that DFO theorists are wrong because their characterizations of All for One and Inko are way off. To that I say - the original Dabi=Touya theorists were almost all way off about Touya's personality/motivations - but their conclusion was still correct. There's also more potential evidence to back up DFO theory now than there was to support the Dabi is a Todoroki theory at the time of that reveal.

At a minimum, if this theory turns out not to be true, there's enough bread crumbs left by Horikoshi that he was clearly trying to steer people into thinking there was a connection here. So am I sure it will be canon: no. Is there still a good chance it could still happen: yes.

#dfo #dad for one #all for one #afo #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #shigaraki yoichi #todoroki touya #dabi #takami keigo #hawks #there you go: a potential reading of why dfo could be canon without ever mentioning star wars #mainly bc i've never seen star wars #asks #bnha manga spoilers

[cellarspider]

5/?? The pseudohistory of Prometheus

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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We return to a movie I wish to send on a journey down the Kola Superdeep Borehole, Prometheus.

And my insanity truly begins in this segment. We are only 1/10th of the way through the movie so far. Content warnings for discussion of racism in pseudoscience and historical anthropology, Spider getting hung up on logistics and space nerd stuff, and pictures of Yuri Knorozov, the most sour-faced man to ever live.

The cast sits down for a briefing. This is a scene with an easily identifiable narrative function: providing exposition to the theater audience. The act of doing a briefing makes sense. It is the last thing here that will.

We are introduced to a hologram of Peter Weyland, the financier of the expedition. The name means all sorts of Lore to the series, but what’s intensely distracting is that we seem to have caught Weyland halfway through applying his zombie makeup.

Weyland is played by Guy Pierce. As of the filming of this movie, he was somewhere around 45 years old. Yes, they smothered this Australian in old man drag so that he could play this character. This is a baffling decision, that only gets slightly less baffling if you know the production history of the movie, which I did not at the time.

Guy Pierce was hired to play a younger Peter Weyland. There’s a promo video out there of him giving a fictional TED Talk in the not-to-distant future of next Sunday AD 2023, there were various plans for him to appear in the movie proper. None of those scenes are actually in the movie. They refused to double-cast the role for some reason. While the practical effects in the movie are generally excellent and it does make the tiniest smidge of sense that a hypercapitalist asshole would be portrayed as a literal rubber-faced movie monster, this, like many things in Prometheus, made the movie a very weird sit. One where I was increasingly less open to going along with the movie’s fiction. You are telling me that this is an actual human man. I am not buying it. He looks far less human than David, the only non-human there.

Speaking of David, Weyland calls him “the closest thing to a son I will ever have”, and then immediately says David is an inhuman lesser being, who does not appreciate the specialness of his existence because he does not have a soul.

Which is funny, because I think you can see David’s soul leaving his body at this exact moment.

Weyland then tries to mash in some existential weight to the movie: they might finally get an answer for “why are we here?” and all that jazz! He also tries to explain why naming a ship Prometheus is totally not like calling it Titanic II: Don’t think about the part of the myth where Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his ever-regenerating liver eaten by an eagle every day! Think about the bit where he brought fire to mankind! We’re gonna bring back that bit!

And then the archaeologists take over the briefing, and this, THIS, is the bit where they entirely lost me. My suspension of disbelief had already been strained by multiple oddities up to this point. My skepticism about these characters in particular was already a bit elevated by their implied invocation of the ancient astronauts concept.

Turns out, only Vickers, Shaw, and Holloway know why they’re here. 

Two years away from Earth. On a massively expensive expedition that intends to make first contact with an alien culture, the first alien culture that humankind has ever found evidence of. Nobody has been briefed up until this point.

This is lunacy.

Explanations have been figured out by fans since then: this is a passion project by Weyland, an annoyance to the rest of the corporate structure that nobody else believes in. The movie eventually intimates this, through Vickers. 

Fans have thus speculated that Weyland was just quarantined off to do his little alien hunt, with no logistical support that would make it actually functional. He believed a crazy theory put forward by Shaw and Holloway, and everyone else wasn’t actually best-of-the-best, they were just whoever would take a big paycheck to do fuck-all for nearly five years of sleeping their way to and from their destination.

I am willing to consider that this was intentional. The movie possibly tries to confirm this with Mr. “I’m here for the money” Fifield, but none of the other characters have enough characterization to determine if this is the general trend.

How could we make a story that more clearly spells this out? Maybe Millburn the biologist could encounter more of the crew talking about the payout from taking the job, or reveal that he himself has some project he needs money for. It would also chip away at the dearth of character-building dialog for most of the cast.

As a result of those deficiencies in characterization, a lot of my discussion of plot points is going to be focused around what they do, rather than why. …Except when it is about the why, at which point the main commentary will be “WHY.”

In any case: while it makes sense, I'm still not certain the film meant for this character motivation. Prometheus is just so loudly explicit with so many of its plot points that it doesn’t seem like this is the case. The movie certainly believes in the sincerity and correctness of the archaeologists, though.

Unfortunately, it also immediately tells me that they’re a couple of wingnuts. I’m not sure if it intends to, for reasons I’ll get into after I foam at the mouth for a little while.

They present a series of artifacts to the crew: Egyptian, Mayan, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Hawaiian, and their Scottish cave painting. All of them feature “men worshiping giant beings”, who are pointing to what stargazer nerds call an asterism: a pattern of stars. Shaw and Holloway believe that these are aliens that engineered humans into their current state. Shaw literally says “it’s what I choose to believe” as the entirety of their justification for this.

Again: I knew the movie wanted me to take this as truth, within its universe. That’s the implicit deal the movie has made with the audience, this is truth. You are supposed to be contemplating the "whys" of it all. But the movie had also smacked me in the brain so many times in the past five minutes, that I, like Millburn the Biologist, was ready to call bullshit.

I appreciate him for doing so, and it shows he could have been a smart character, but sadly, he is in Prometheus.

Because he is a fictional biologist and I am an actual biologist, I will expand on his argument, as I descend into ranting for the rest of the post.

Millburn objects on the basis of evolutionary history, which the movie only partially succeeds in papering over: the implication is that evolution on Earth was directed with the deterministic outcome of creating something like humans.

This opens up a whole new can of worms that the movie doesn’t get into–when exactly did this engineering start? When great apes evolved? When mammals did? Tetrapods? Skeletons? DNA itself? After all, we know the aliens, now dubbed Engineers by the archaeologists, have DNA. Did they seed all life on Earth? How did they evolve? Our last universal common ancestor is believed to have already been using DNA 3-4 billion years ago, evolving out of a likely RNA-based genetic standard. Hominins diverged from other apes around 15-25 million years ago. What sort of culture would undertake a project that required at least 15 million years on the extreme low end?

All excellent questions! The movie is not concerned with them. I am, and that is part of why this movie still lives in a special, awful place in my head.

This isn’t actually what made me become actively hostile toward the archaeologists, though. What managed that, well! It was their archaeology. Anybody who had an Ancient Egypt Phase in their childhood should be able to articulate multiple reasons why the academic community would’ve laughed these guys out of the building.

Bigness in ancient egyptian art does not indicate literal size. It indicates importance. In fact, the artifacts the movie uses exclusively come from artistic traditions which feature hierarchical or non-literal scale. Do the Engineers turn out to actually be eight feet tall? Yes! Am I still annoyed by this? ABSOLUTELY.

You know what else is a big problem? Many of the cultures they reference here had written language! A LOT of written language! They include Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mayan art in their evidence, all of which not only wrote a LOT of things down, but had a habit of annotating a lot of their art with labels to tell you what was going on! You can actually see some on the props they used in this scene!

Beyond that, they had very prescribed formal styles, where you can follow the action entirely through gestures, held objects, attendant symbols, and clothing! If all these cultures, as implied, had actual, direct contact with aliens, recorded in the art presented here, we would know what they were told.

Skipping ahead of the movie for a minute: the Engineers were apparently not telling humans “we’re here in these stars, come find us”, they were telling humans “settle the fuck down or this is where the hurt’s going to come from”. 

Here's the thing. Ancient peoples weren't stupid. They wouldn't just not talk about this. If giant aliens came down from the sky and gave them a stern talking-to that contradicted their religion, that would be a big deal. And these characters specifically say the Engineers are being "worshiped" in these images! They're apparently taking onboard what's being said!

It is certainly possible for information to be lost. Over long time scales, that's unfortunately the rule, rather than the exception. But again: half the artifacts have writing on them!

I chose to believe that Shaw and Holloway simply did not attempt to read any available translations of attendant texts, and they were thus cursed for their foolishness by the ghosts of Mayan Studies pioneer Yuri Knorozov and EgyptologistJean-François Champollion, and the still-extant spirit of Assyriologist Irving Finkel.

Knorozov knows your sins against Mayan Studies. Knorozov is a vengeful god. Chapollion and Finkel are likewise very cross.

Two last things stood out to me in the theater. One of them was extremely petty but tied into some very serious issues with pseudoscience, and the other one was not.

Pettiness first: the asterism shown in the artifacts is a pattern of six stars. The movie wants you to believe that it is very spooky that the only asterism that precisely matches this pattern are six stars that are too faint to see with the naked eye. This is laughable, both because the asterism is so generic-looking that I can think of several very visible asterisms that are good matches for the pattern, but it also recapitulates a bunch of really fucking annoying shit from pseudoscientific bullshit. 

First: Pseudoscience and pseudohistory likes to make a big deal out of the fact that every culture has stories about the stars. Why? 

The sky is very important to every culture’s mythology, because every culture can see the sky. Like, that’s literally it. People can see the sky. They tell stories about it. There’s not much to do at night except look at the sky, when even keeping a fire lit can be an expensive prospect. It is not even the least bit weird when multiple cultures–all of them in the northern hemisphere in this case!–have stories about the same stars.

Second: Cultures vary in their ability to faithfully reproduce celestial landmarks in art and align their architecture is variable, and not as exact as modern techniques can manage. Pseudoscience will claim that they are exact, when it fits their pre-existing theory, or fudge the difference if they want something to fit their claims.

(This is a photoshopped image, by the way.)

Were the stone age temples of Malta secretly aligned with a particular star that foretold the doom of Atlantis, precisely tracking its location through the sky over thousands of years of Earth’s axial wobbling? No! They were roughly aligned with the sun. Sunlight is important when you don’t have electric lights. Were the Great Pyramids of Giza laid out ten thousand years ago to match the layout of the stars in Orion’s Belt, according to the designs of a legendary lost race of highly advanced non-African people? Were they tapping into the Earth’s magnetic field to generate energy? No! They were aligned with the cardinal directions, and they got them a bit wrong! 

Hell, if we want to play at that game, I found a decent match for the asterism in Stellarium's Egyptian constellation set. Just flip this 90 degrees clockwise and you'll see I'm totally right. Aliens confirmed.

I know the movie is trying to tell me that all the asterisms in the art are precise matches for each other and are thus impossible to explain without intercultural contact (or aliens!!), but it is also showing me that they are not that precise. So, it’s just showing me stars. At least in some of them. Their little charcoal lad from the Isle of Skye may be throwing fruit at his audience.

In fact, there's a further, probably unintentional link to pseudohistorical claims in the artifacts presented: the Maya artifact shown does not actually depict a "giant figure" being worshiped, in fact, it shows one instantly recognizable, known figure in Classical Maya history: It is an altered version of the ornately carved coffin lid of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (24 March 603 - 29 August 683), with the top quarter of the carving replaced with a star pattern that looks nothing like the ones on the other artifacts.

The carving shows Pakal in the pose of an infant, entering into death and being reborn. It is packed full of so many symbolic elements that can be easily recognized by those more familiar with the Classical Maya than I am.

Conspiracy theorist Erich von Däniken thought that it showed Pakal rocketing away on a spaceship. Däniken proposed this because he didn't understand the cultural symbolism, but he had seen pictures of astronauts before.

And on that note, 2,400 words into this rant, we get to the actually bad shit. Unfortunately, it ties into the issue I had with the premise to begin with: the real-world context of pseudoscientific claims of ancient alien contact. Specifically, the racism.

We’re going to unspool this more near the end of the movie, because there was further behind the scenes I was not aware of when I first saw Prometheus, and it just compounds this stuff. 

So, when I went on my first tangent on how unpleasant ancient alien theories are, one thing I highlighted is that the further from Western Civilization you get, the more these theories presuppose that fellow humans are incapable of building great works or imagining interesting things. No, they had to be guided, and explicitly shown things that they copied down to the best of their limited capability.

The only european example of alien contact they show is from the Upper Paleolithic, 37,000 years ago. All the examples around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia range from 5,500-3,700 years ago. The examples from the Classical Maya and Hawaiʻi are from 620 and 680 CE. 

During this period, Tang Dynasty merchants were creating the first paper money as the famous female emperor Wu Zetian was on her way to the throne. The Prophet Muhammad went to al-Aqsa mosque, and we’re only eight years before the birth of Charlemagne’s grandfather. We’re no longer talking ancient, it’s just old.

I want to emphasize that the movie is presenting these not as depictions of myths that have been passed down–though there are more problems with that I’ll get into shortly–these are implied to be contemporary depictions of events witnessed by the artists, who were quite possibly instructed by the Engineers to record a precise pattern of stars. An equivalency is being drawn between stone age Europe, bronze age Africa and the Middle East, and a couple of startlingly recent Mesoamerican and Polynesian cultures. 

But let’s be generous. Maybe these aren’t supposed to be contemporary accounts in these two outlier cases: the movie’s script will certainly indicate later that they have no idea what they’ve implied here. Perhaps these are story traditions that were handed down from the Olmecs and Melanesian precursors of the first to sail to Hawaiʻi. 

Unfortunately, this just recapitulates a different racist trope: that European and more “developed” civilizations invented so much cool and comfortable material culture and philosophy that they forgot the Mystical Religious Truths of the old ways, which were preserved only in Primitive Lands and among Uneducated Peoples, where they never found anything better to do with their time. Oh, if only we had heeded the warnings from those spiritually attuned non-white people!

(Look, I only remember Devil (2010), which has 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, because M Night Shyamalan wrote and produced it, and this was two years after The Happening came out, so I watched it out of morbid curiosity. It's not as unbelievably bad as The Happening, but as shown in the clip above, the spiritually attuned latino security guard Ramirez attributes toast landing jelly side down to Satan. That is an actual thing that happens in the movie. He is proven right.)

But let's be even more generous: someone probably realized that they'd focused near-exclusively on Middle Eastern cultures, and wanted to throw in a couple from elsewhere. Sitting here, having seen the movie in full, this is the most likely option: their inclusion creates a contradiction with a later scene, and was thus probably not checked for consistency. These cultures were thrown in as a bit of background flavor. I list this last, because in the theater, there was no way to know this at the time.

That answer's still not great. Still leaves us in the same position, where Europeans are pretty much given their own agency, while other cultures need to be led.

Oh, and to anyone else who’s made it this far and knows the production history of Prometheus: don’t worry! I know what Ridley Scott told that one interviewer, about a contact between a less-ancient European power and the Engineers. I’m saving that one. I like to save that one, because strategic deployment of that quote made some of my IRL friends scream.

Next time: the Prometheus descends to an alien world, and I descend further into madness. I am going to drag you all down with me.

(Pictured: Yuri Knorozov, and my present mood.)

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Citations for alt text ramblings:

https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/

#Prometheus (2012) #prometheus 2012 #The last time I watched this movie with a scientific colleague and friend #this scene took us twenty minutes to get through #because we were both biologists #plus me with the archaeology and a dash of space nerdery #and they knew mesopotamian history #so by the time we were done with this scene we were ginned up and ready to fight the movie

[sarucane]

OFMD Spiral Parallels 52: Weddings

Intro: What I love most about how season 2 builds on season 1 of OFMD is the spiral narrative structure. Ground is repeatedly and explicitly re-trod from season 1 to season 2, but in season 2 everything goes deeper than season 1. Meanings are shuffled, emotions are stronger and truer, and transformation is showcased above everything. The first season plucks certain notes, then the second season plucks the same ones--but louder, and then it weaves them together to create a symphony.

---

The first wedding on OFMD is a death sentence. Literally: the wedding gift is tombstones. The bride and groom are being forced to fixate in place, forever. They're being told what they will be, forever.

Neither Mary nor Stede want this. Neither see a way out. Both have been thoroughly beaten down by their families--but not beaten. Because even though both agree, even though Mary grabs Stede's hand at the wedding and she tried, even more than him, they're not broken by their wedding and the married life that proceeded from it. They aren't going to be buried under those tombstones.

But the reason Mary and Stede aren't forever trapped with each other isn't just that they weren't beaten by their wedding. They managed to go one better: they decided to set each other free. They used their wedding--and their resulting unwanted lives--to give each other access to the lives they wanted. Mary gained permanent security in her independence, right down to the finances when Stede gave up his wealth; Stede gained the freedom to live the life he wanted, with the people he wanted. A wedding is a symbol: a marriage can be what the individuals in it want it to be.

The next wedding we get is in episode 2. The bride and groom here are nameless. The only speakers at the wedding are Ed and the priest.

The S2 priest, like the priest in season 1 (he even looks similar), seeks to determine the meaning of marriage. It is something that "elevates," something that proves certain people are better than others.

And then Ed introduces himself as the devil. On the surface, this looks like a repudiation of this idea of some people as better than others, that (heterosexual) marriage and this high-class world are "better."

But while Ed is rejecting the significance of the wedding by raiding it, he's also validating the worldview behind it. He interrupts the ceremony at the appropriate place. He doesn't truly disagree with the priest that he's "demonic," he says the priest is just underestimating how evil he is.

Ed and gang proving that violence and darkness is more powerful than this false "light," in a zero-sum game where the winner gets to live. And Ed's caught in the middle with no will to shift: he's not participating in the violence, and he's not attending the wedding either. He's just looking at it, barely even here.

It's a trap, just like Stede's wedding to Mary last year. It is a trap with an exit--just not one Ed thinks he can take. He thinks he'll innately never be worthy of love or happiness.

For the next two episodes, Ed's longing for Stede, for a life he feels is worth living, is represented by his fixation on the groom figurine.

This detritus of a wedding that was meant to "elevate" is almost a replacement for the silk cloth he let fly away. It symbolizes a desire to be part of something else, something better than this base and vile life--and something more real than a life soaring above everything.

The wedding figurines are symbols that work similarly to Ed's silk in season 1, but they are somehow both less and more full realizations of that symbolic idea of being "a certain kind of person." On the one hand, they're more because they're two full bodies, one of which Ed modifies to reflect himself. To create a version of himself that could be loved. But on the other hand, they're also less because they're bits plaster made to look like people. Ed's silk endured unchanged for years, but within one episode the paint tones on the figurines are changing--hinting at the pure despair Ed is heading for, as even symbols of hope fall out of reach.

These wedding figurines show Ed's desire to be able to live with himself again, to find a version of himself he doesn't hate through Stede. He's half-trapped, and half wishing he were the kind of person who gets trapped. And when he's giving up on life ever getting better for him again, he throws the figurines into the sea. 'Cause all marrisges end in death; all love dies.

And then there's the last wedding of OFMD S2. It's technically not a wedding: it's a mateology, a semi-equivalent of gay marriage that was really practiced by pirates for a few decades.

This wedding is basically the same as the previous two straight weddings on the show: two people stand and listen to vows. But it's also completely and in every way different.

These are two people who have chosen each other, who have lost and found each other. There's no priest, instead three of their friends ask them questions.

There's no suggestion of something "higher" happening, or some sort of trap: the questions are about love for one another, what they'll promise for each other, what they'll choose to be to each other in life and in death.

And from the beginning to the end, it's individualized. Unlike in the other weddings, the "bride" and groom aren't silent here.

They don't say "I do" simultaneously as in most wedding scenes on TV. They give responses that reflect their characters. And though Lucius and Pete technically give different answers to several questions, their answers are also both in essence the same.

They're not trying to be something they think they should be, and fear they'll never be. They're not making a statement about society, or longing to escape a "base" life. They're not trapped. They've decided that this is the shape their lives will take.

Two weddings, and a marriage.

#ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #ed teach #stede bonnet #blackbonnet

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

😑😑😑

"Aang is a bad main character because the world has to adapt to his world view. Meanwhile I love Zuko for his brilliant arc that concludes with him making his nation to adapt to his world view now that he is in charge" fuck these people. "Younger generation fixes the problems the old ones created" is only bad as a theme when they don't like the kid in question.

"He has to save Katara, the weak damsel in distress" So we're really just gonna ignore all the times she saved his ass, and how she literally BROUGHT HIM BACK FROM THE DEAD just to pretend the show is sexist?

"He has to pretend the world isn't in agony" Are you high? Aang is constantly pushing himself to do things he doesn't wanna do (go with Zuko willingly, confront Hei Bai, go to the Fire Nation on the solstice, intentionally trigger the Avatar State, cross the serpent's pass despite having permission to go through a safer path, let go of Katara and risk losing her in the battle for Ba Sing Se, and even accepting he'll have to kill Ozai in the finale) just to innocent people won't suffer. For fuck's sake, he has plenty of compassion for the guy that SENT AN ASSASSIN AFTER HIM. Just because he's still holding onto whatever childhood innocence he can, doesn't mean he's blind to the issues around him.

"Zuko's arc is independent from Zuko's" They have a fuck ton of parallels, and entire EPISODES dedicated to said parallels. Zuko himself said chasing Aang fueld his fire - and he said that when he learned a higher form of firebending ALONGSIDE AANG, who had just saved his ass from being burned alive by the dragons by figuring out they were supposed to dance together.

Zuko was so obsessed with Aang he tried to engage in a conversation AFTER AANG'S SOUL LEFT HIS BODY, and he had a weird fever dream where he literally BECAME Aang. We get confirmation in book 3 that Zuko never forgot how Aang mentioned the possibility of them being friends if things were different, and the show ends with them as best friends in an obvious parallel to Roku and Sozin.

You know who had fuck all to do with Zuko's arc though? KATARA, yet these people keep insisting she's totally important to it.

"Episodes centered on Katara and Sokka are good because they ignore Aang" No they don't, he's just not front and center, same for Toph, or Zuko, because that's how FOCUS works.

Also, for all the shit "The Headband" gets for supposedly being "filler", it's shocking to me how people act like "Sokka's Master" was briliant and not at all rushed. It's honestly as irrelevant as "The Great Divide" for me.

"Aang had lots of Deus Ex Machinas" He had one, the lion turtle. The Avatar state is introduced right away, and explained in depth a whole season before the finale, AND it was not that easy to use.

Katara bringing him back from the dead is even less random. In the first episode of season two, we are introduced to the concept of "Aang can still be killed in the Avatar State and that is REALLY bad", to the the character that will kill him and how she'll do it (Azula with her lightining), and to the water of the spirit oasis - which the show goes out of it's way to remind us of before Aang is even dead. That's a fuck ton of foreshadowing and proper narrative set up.

"Deus Ex Machina" does not mean "Protagonist survives major battle" or "Hero defeats a super powerful villain", it means "Day is saved by a thing that had never been mentioned in the story before so the audience could have never guessed what would happen." These people want to talk shit, but only show they have no fucking clue how some REALLY basic storytelling stuff works.

#anti zutara #pro aang #aang defense squad #respect aang or die by my sword

[justapanda]

Choso - The Heart of Jujutsu Kaisen

Jujutsu Kaisen portrays a long list of interesting characters, each with important roles to play within the story, but amidst them all there is one character who lies in the very centre of the story’s core themes, and that is Choso.

Choso is introduced in Jujutsu Kaisen as a seemingly unimportant character with his only purpose to be a mere obstacle that the jujutsu sorcerers and Yuji need to overcome, very much like one of the many generic cursed spirits present in the story. This idea is driven further by his two brothers Eso and Kechizu, who were introduced only to be swiftly and unceremoniously killed off by Yuji and Nobara.

The natural path for Choso’s character at this point was simple and predictable, a basic revenge plot against Yuji for killing two of his younger brothers. However, the entire assumption of Choso’s purpose in the story was flipped on its head after the big twist that Choso is in fact a distant blood relative of Yuji. Choso’s innate cursed technique is blood connection, so upon being given the chance to finally kill Yuji after beating him in their fight, he decides on a whim to refuse as a result of his mind, body and soul sensing something wrong when he prepares to kill Yuji.

After walking away and spending time alone to ponder the meaning behind his unexpected connection to Yuji, he realises the truth that both he and Yuji are born experimentations of Kenjaku (known to him as Noritoshi Kamo at the time). After this, Choso’s alignments shift completely, deciding to ally not only with Yuji but all of the jujutsu sorcerers who were previously his enemies. He even goes so far as to completely forgive Yuji for killing his two brothers as he now understands that Yuji was simply ignorant of the truth, just like himself.

The whole purpose of Choso’s character is that despite the extremely unfortunate circumstances of his existence as a cursed human hybrid born from malicious experiments, with every reason to lash out at the world for causing his suffering, he still chooses to care for others. Choso currently being the only living cursed human hybrid in the story is also symbolic for him being the mentally healthiest character who understands both sides of the conflict.

Choso bears no ill will against humans, sorcerers or cursed spirits. This is implied early in the story while he was still aligned with the curse group as unlike the rest of them (Kenjaku, Mahito, Jogo, Hanami and Dagon), Choso was completely uninterested in killing as he had no personal investment. Choso chooses to fight only against the things that threaten him and the things he cares about, just like any other healthy minded person.

Despite his introduction as a background character who also possesses an unremarkable level of power within the context of the story, Choso is actually one of the most spotlighted characters in the story’s narrative. He has been shown in several long and intense fights where he pushes himself to the limit time and time again to fight for the things he cares for, often surprising much stronger characters in the story who belittle him. Choso parallels Yuji in this way for being his only distant blood relative to be shown in the story. Both of them are constantly looked down upon by their enemies including their own parent Kenjaku, as well as Sukuna.

Jujutsu Kaisen’s core themes revolve constantly around the struggle of making selfish or selfless decisions and Choso is the one character who is closest to achieving balance between these two extremes, being the only one who can’t be distinguished between a human or a cursed spirit. Choso is the character who wears his heart on his sleeve. Or in this case, his blood.

#jjk #jjk meta #choso #jjk choso #yuji itadori #kenjaku #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen meta #jjk 206 #so it's the first time i've posted in like 5 years or something #so that's cool

[lurkingshan]

There is a crucial aspect of La Pluie that has been slowly coming to the surface, and now at the halfway point of the story, is crystal clear to me: this story is an intentional subversion of the soulmate trope.

The show has told us prettily explicitly that the concept of soulmates in this universe is a social construct created to make meaning of a natural phenomenon people don’t understand. They opened the story with Tai telling us he no longer believes in the soulmate connection because of his parents’ divorce, which is why he intentionally left Patts hanging for two years. They introduced the skeptical point of view via Lomfon and directly invited us to consider whether the hearing loss phenomenon has anything to do with soulmates at all. So far, my read of the story they’re showing us tells me it probably doesn’t. Which is what makes this all so interesting.

In unpacking the backstory with Tai’s parents, @bengiyo put forth an interesting theory that Tai’s dad may be gay. Even if that doesn’t turn out to be the case, we have them as an example of “soulmates” that didn’t work out, and interestingly, the show hasn’t countered that with an example of a soulmate pair that did. We’ve only seen a soulmate story gone wrong, a lot of uncertainty from Tai, and a heavy dose of skepticism from Lomfon. As @chickenstrangers mentioned, the show seems to be directly interrogating this romance convention, rather than presenting a straightforward narrative about it.

And as @ginnymoonbeam mentioned here, we are now seeing that the “soulmate” connection between Patts and Tai is acting as a barrier to their love story and a conflict they have to work through, when typically you’d expect the opposite. We have now seen that Tai is something of a hopeless romantic at heart. He treasured his parents’ love story. He reads romance novels before bed (h/t to @syrena-del-mar for the excellent breakdown of his chosen reading material.) He likes to be courted and he wants to feel special to the person he is dating. He has never been in a relationship before because he takes it all so seriously. And crucially, he is very attracted to Patts and seems to like and trust him without reservation as soon as they’ve cleared up their misunderstandings.

So, why is Tai still hesitating? Because they are “soulmates.” Tai and Patts will always be connected via hearing loss. They will be in each other’s lives forever. That puts enormous pressure on their relationship, both externally - the way their friends and family are all immediately convinced it’s true love forever and pushing them to be together - and between the two of them - because they know if they fuck this up they will both suffer. They clearly want to be together but it’s all so fraught with meaning and they risk making the rest of their lives miserable if something goes wrong. Both of them seem keenly aware of that, which is why Tai is scared and Patts is cautious.

We can see that they like each other, that they have strong emotional and physical chemistry (always read @wen-kexing-apologist on body language) that they are well-matched. If they were not soulmates, they’d have started dating easily and maybe even be firmly committed to each other already. But because they are soulmates, they have to be a lot more cautious and think carefully about what they’re ready for. Rather than acting as an accelerant for the relationship, their soulmate bond is an obstacle they have to overcome. Isn’t that just fascinating?

#la pluie #thai bl #shan shouts into the void

[songoftrillium]

Meet The Writing Team

Hello Kinfolks! These last two months have been quiet for y'all in terms of updates, but BUSY in terms of the work being done by the sept of contributors to this project!

At the start of October I put out the call for help, saying that this project cannot succeed without the help and support of the Werewolf fandom. I'm happy to report that you as a fandom have responded phenomenally, and production on this series is now underway! These last few months have been dedicated to recruiting team members, and researching our book framework. We've about filled in the main core of the team, but are always looking for more help.

October through November has been dedicated entirely to research, both putting together a collection of citations we'll be using in this first book, and passing out initial writing assignments. This list is sure to grow in time, but for now we have plenty of work to do!

With that all said, I'd like to introduce you to the team that are showcasing the Gaians. Look under the cut to meet them!

Amy Waller (she/her)

Bluesky Page

Ms. Waller is a freelance writer and massage therapist based in not-quite Northern Virginia, and is a contributor to D.W.A.R.V.S. . Werewolf the Apocalypse was her first RPG, and she loves the themes of shapechanging as self-actualization and of trying to balance instinct and wisdom.

Amy has joined the team to depict the journals of Cryptobiologist Esme "Leaping Ghost".

Bek Andrew Evans (He/They)

Linktree Page

Mx. Evans is a freelance writer and illustrator from Jackson, Mississippi. He explores themes of mental illness, disability, abuse, poverty, queer themes and the intersection of these statuses. He uses body and psychological horror, meticulous attention to medical details, and deep character dives as some of his favorite methods to achieve those goals.

Bek has been indispensible in book research, and will be taking his experience with M20 Sorcerer and writing for the Hearthbound, and fictitious news article citations.

Excelgarou (She/Her)

Carrd Page

She's been described as a Werewolf: The Apocalypse academic, and wears this title proudly. She labors at all hours on resources for Werewolf fans - particularly as regards aggregating otherwise obscure information - such as the Build-a-Veteran tool or (especially) the Werewolf Index Project.

Excelgarou is our lead researcher, ensuring our book citations and narrative voices remain consistent through all editions. She has also been conscripted to write the introductory passage on the World of Darkness, and to redraft the Children of Gaia.

James "Jim" E. Deeley (He/Him)

Linktree Page

Jim has been playing, running, and writing for tabletop roleplaying games since he was first introduced to them over twenty years ago. Jim has presented on the subject of writing for games since 2010, and has been contracted to write mechanics and to do character design by the likes of High Level Games, Lostlorn Games, and Renegade Game Studios, but is equally skilled at writing lore and narrative, skills honed over two decades of running roleplaying games and medieval studies, lending a deep historical context to his writings.

Jim will write the Western Concordat, showcasing the Silver Fangs, Fianna, Get of Fenris, and Glass Walkers.

Mórag (it/its)

Mòrag is a writer and botanist from Te Wai Pounamu. It writes both botanical articles and horror stories, the former to raise awareness of ecological issues and the latter to explore what it means to be human, represent trans and autistic experiences, and addiction. It's horror writing is best recognized for its use of visceral first-person perspectives, body horror, and the grotesque. It is influenced heavily by works such as the Hellraiser films and the philosophies of Georges Bataille.

It has joined our team to write the story portions of the Song of Trillium, showcasing the legend of Tawatuy.

#world of darkness #werewolf: the apocalypse #werewolf the apocalypse #werewolves #world building #werewolf #indie ttrpg #storytellers vault #wta #stv #w5 #Diablos Minions grow stronger

[mlchaelwheeler]

once again, i'd like to point out that stranger things is a tv show. the characters are not real. why is this important? all scenes and narratives are written a specific way, they don't just happen by themselves. for example, this means:

in 1x03, the writers chose to emphasize mike's reaction to will's "body" being found in comparison to lucas and dustin's reactions. they easily could've shown all three of the boys' reactions, but instead mike was the focus and got multiple scenes of his shock and anger over will's "body" being found.

in 1x04, the writers chose to focus on mike being depressed over will's death. they didn't do this for dustin or lucas, even though all four of the boys are introduced as a group at the beginning of the season.

in 1x04, the writers chose to have mike shove troy in the gym for making homophobic comments about will. any one of the boys could've taken offense to that, but instead, mike is the focus while lucas and dustin stand off to the side.

in 1x04, the writers chose mike to be the one who recognized will's voice over the radio. they could've easily had the entire party there for that scene, but instead it was just mike who immediately knew will's voice.

in 2x01, the writers chose mike as the one to follow will out of the arcade and bring him back inside. it could've been any of the party members, but instead mike was singled out as having noticed will disappeared.

in 2x02, the writers chose to have mike be the one to comfort will after his "episode," even though the whole party is trick-or-treating together. it could've easily been written as group bonding where will tells everyone about his visions, but instead the writers gave us the crazy together scene.

in 2x03, the writers chose to focus on mike at school when will is acting weird. it was specifically chosen that mike was the only one to notice will was "quiet today" and that it was weird he missed class, while the rest of the party didn't notice anything was wrong.

in 2x08, the writers chose to have mike be in the shed with the rest of will's family. there could've been a cute scene of the whole party trying to reach will with stories of their dnd campaigns, but instead mike is the only non-family member present (not counting hopper because he didn't share any memories).

in 3x01, the writers chose to make the movie theater full enough that mike/will and lucas/max couldn't all sit together. this was directly after lucas implied going to the movies was the equivalent of "spending romantic time" together.

in 3x03, the writers chose to have mike and will get into an argument at the wheeler's house, even though lucas was also there. lucas didn't just happen to stay behind in the basement. it was a clear choice that mike and will got into a fight, just the two of them.

in 3x08, the writers chose to give will and mike an individual goodbye scene, even though the only other individual scenes were jancy and mlvn (two couples). there could've been a scene of the whole party saying goodbye but instead the writers specifically had a (flirty) goodbye scene between mike and will, directly contrasting the (extremely) awkward mlvn goodbye.

in 4x09, the writers chose to give mike and will another heart-to-heart in hopper's cabin right at the end of the season. will could've easily told everyone there that he still knows vecna is alive (this is probably what should've happened honestly), but instead only told mike-- when el was right there! the clear choice to give them a special talk right at the end of the season was very telling.

#anyways. just to point out that these narratives are all crafted a specific way for a reason #and there's SO many more examples but these are the few i could think of off the top of my head #bc like. that movie theater could've easily been empty. the group could've all sat together. but no. the writers made a clear choice to have #byler and lumax sit apart after just talking about how that was the equivalent of a date #just worth pointing out i think #byler #narrative tag #sarah.txt

[yarrayora]

personally im the type of person whose queer headcanon has to fit into the narrative already provided by canon, like for example if tsuna was trans instead of a transboy it makes more sense to be a transgirl because the environment in namimori wouldnt have allowed anyone any knowledge regarding identities other than cishet, so tsuna would grow up a boy who later realize "hey no im not" after being introduced to the world outside of his hometown (or born a girl and realized later on "hey no im not" you get what i mean)

but i don't really see anyone from namimori having any gender fuckery. you know who i can see being trans, though? the mist duo

you are a "boy" whose parents deem you a hassle, you grew your hair long and shaggy and dressed in shirts that are too big for you they looked almost like a dress and then one day you are dying and you can hear your parents arguing about how much of a hassle this is

and then you dream of a boy. he tells you you don't have to live like this that you are a god of your own body and he remakes the inside of you that is empty and gives you a new name.

you know a secret about mukuro-sama that not even ken and chikusa know.

he chose you because you are his mirror image.

you are a girl. your name is chrome. dokuro chrome

#katekyo hitman reborn #mukuro rokudo #rokudo mukuro #chrome dokuro #dokuro chrome