#but if while I’m reading I see a character described as dark and therefore I fancast someone who LOOKS and only LOOKS

[lettersfromaphrodite]

[3.42]

― pairing : Yunho x Fem! Reader ― genre : fluff + smut ― content warnings: grease! au - therefore it's the 50's, Yunho smokes weed and has a motorbike, mentions of a car accident but it’s superficial and no one of the main characters is involved, thigh riding, unprotected sex, idk how to describe it?? acrobatic sex??? idk you’ll read it, kinkshaming will not be allowed, inspo for that came from an italian song' MV ― word count : 7.830

― notes : this fic looks familiar?it is! I’m reposting ALL my works on this brand new blog and therefore please, bear with me! as always, askbox is always open and feedbacks are always welcome 💌

«I swear, if I hear that song another time, I’m gonna scream bloody murder.» you addressed your colleague with an annoyed groan as you both were busy cleaning one of the now empty tables of the Frosty Palace, the local diner where you worked. She sighed in silent agreement, both of you wondering why your boss decided to let customers choose what to play from the jukebox even during Saturday nights, when the diner was really busy and crowded with people.

«Here comes trouble,» she announced with an amused smile on her face, as she took the plates you were busy balancing on your forearm, before nodding towards a group of guys which just arrived, busy taking their seats. «they’re all yours.» she chanted, quickly leading back into the kitchen with an amused smile.

«That traitor.» you mumbled, before taking your small notebook from your apron’s pocket and taking a deep sigh. Of course you perfectly knew the loud group that just arrived, since you’ve had a crush on Seonghwa since you could remember. His dark and mysterious aura always charmed you, and you could not help but to grow interested in him. 

However, your mother’s advice not to get involved with bad guys always resonated in your head anytime you caught a glimpse of them and their leather jacket or motorbikes, and therefore, you’ve never tried to approach any of them beside work related matters. Their table was incredibly loud but also incredibly polite to you, and if you were to be honest, they probably were the best and most polite customers of the entire evening. Your only interaction with Seonghwa consisted of your eyes briefly meeting, before eventually, you went back to your previous working hurried pace. Low-key, you were glad that you couldn’t stay at their table for more than the essential time needed to take their orders, because you knew that you probably looked like a mess: you’ve been working for nine hours straight, your hair was a mess – even if tied up in a ponytail, and you were sure you had bags under your eyes due to how tired you were. You just wanted to go home and sleep.

«Are you coming to Jisung’s party?» your colleague – and friend, asked you, handing you a glass of water as you were both spending your first shift break leaning against the counter – few steps away from Seonghwa’s table. You quickly hummed, shaking your head while swallowing the water, silently wondering if that was how god’s nectar tasted like. 

«When is it? I’ll probably have to work.» you asked her, unaware that your small talk had caught the attention of both the boy you had a crush on and one of his friends’.

«Next Friday!» she enthusiastically said, her eyes glancing at the diner’s entrance door every now and then in order to check up if some new customers arrived, while yours kept glancing across the room, to see if anyone needed anything else. «Please, come with me! I promise I’ll cover your shifts anytime you want!» she quickly added, as if she managed to read in your mind the fact that you were once again about to say no. 

Perhaps, you agreed because you were extremely tired. Perhaps, you agreed because as your eyes were quickly scanning the room, you shortly locked your gaze with the boy with faded pink hair that was casually sitting next to Seonghwa, with his back leaned against the wall and his black leather jacket draped over his wide shoulders as he uninterestedly rolled a cigarette while occasionally glancing at you. 

«Don’t look at their table, but,» you lowered the tone of your voice, getting closer to your friend and pretending she had something in her hair. «who’s the one sitting next to Seonghwa?» «Yunho.» she immediately whispered back, without blinking or thinking about it. Then, with a surprised gasp, she simply stared at you with wide amused eyes and her mouth slightly open, the sudden action making you giggle. «I can’t believe you’re not asking about Seonghwa!» she whispered, and just like that, new customers arrived and both of you went immediately back to work.

Seonghwa and his friends left around midnight, and as you were cleaning their table, the bright green bill neatly placed under Yunho’s coaster caught your attention; your eyes widened slightly and you immediately looked around just in case it was a joke, but nothing seemed out of place. You folded the banknote, placing it in your apron’s pocket, and as you were collecting the dishes, you saw Seonghwa and his friends talking right outside the diner’s windows, illuminated by the street lamps.

Surprisingly enough, instead of focusing on Seonghwa, your eyes were curiously looking at Yunho, the tall boy that earlier was looking at you; he was quietly chuckling at something his friends said while casually sitting on top of his motorbike, the cigarette he previously rolled was carefully balanced between his lips as he looked for a lighter in his leather jacket’s right pocket. You felt strangely hypnotized by the small action of him lighting up his cigarette before blowing out a puff of smoke while his head was thrown back, but you quickly snapped out of it as soon as one of your colleagues called your name, asking for help.

The walk back home was quick and mostly made by inertia, due to how tired you were feeling; you mindlessly unlocked the door and closed it with a yawn, before taking off your shoes and collapsing on the couch – since your bed was too far away. «Come on,» you weakly encouraged yourself, trying to ignore the numb feeling of exhaustion spreading from your legs all the way to your body. «take a shower and then go to sleep.» you mumbled, «In five minutes…» you were about to drift off, when Yunho’s piercing gaze flashed behind your closed eyelids; your eyes snapped open, and you immediately reached in the back pocked of your jeans, taking out the 10 bucks tip.

A small smile unexpectedly made way on your lips, wondering if he left the tip because he saw you working your ass off or because he had other reasons to do so.  Funny how a banknote helped waking you up, but you placed it on the coffee table in front of your couch, and headed towards the shower. 

Of course, your colleague knew about your crush on Seonghwa and of course, she wouldn’t shut up about Yunho for the most part of the week. 

«I can’t blame you,» she said, cleaning the counter as you were about to close the diner. «He’s hot. And he seems so strong, I bet he can fuck you against-» your colleague’s – and friend, words were immediately stopped by your hand on her mouth, reducing the remaining of her sentence into an inaudible mess of muffled words. 

«Not a word, or I won’t come to the party.» you said, blushing about the intrusive thoughts that thanks to her, were now vivid and oh, so realistic in your head. 

«Are you a virgin?» she whispered, even if no one else beside the two of you were in there; you shook your head, explaining her that beside your first boyfriend in high school, you’ve never had any other experience, nor romantically, nor sexually. 

«I just completely focused on studying, and now here I am: the best waitress in town.» you joked with a sad smile, mentally going through all the future life plans you had which you eventually had to reconsider, and she immediately let go of the glass she was cleaning in order to walk towards you.

«Come on!» she cooed, «It’s the 50’s, love. Fall in love, live a little.» she smiled, her slim arms snaking around your waist. 

«It’s not like-» as you were about to retort that you weren’t that interested in romance since all you managed to have crushes on were obviously bad boys who carried a concerning amount of red flags everywhere they went, she was quick to silence you, once again.

«I bet we’re gonna have fun, trust me, I’m the expert here.» she winked at you, and you nodded with an amused, exasperated sigh.

Jisung’s party was chaotic, and you deduced that it couldn’t be otherwise since he was the most popular and richest kid in town; he spent the evening next to his girlfriend, and you wondered if you would ever be as lucky as her since, judging by Jisung’s looks, he seemed pretty much head over heels for her.

An elbow delicately nudging against yours quickly made you turn your attention back to your friend, which had her head tilted towards the backdoor and she was pointing towards it with her eyes; she looked quite funny, but as soon as you saw what she was desperately trying to point at, you felt your knees go weak.

Seonghwa was standing with his friends, looking as good as always but once again, you felt your eyes naturally drift towards Yunho’s figure, casually leaning against the wall with a red plastic cup probably filled with punch as he was talking with one of his friends – a little shorter with raven black hair. You honestly tried to prevent your eyes from scanning his body from his chest, to his long legs - which looked sinful in high waisted skinny jeans, and as your gazes met, you quickly looked away as quickly as a wild flame has just burnt you. You felt a blush creeping on your cheeks, your heart picking up speed in embarrassment by the fact that Yunho had basically caught you ogling at him, but also secretly turned on by the sudden smirk that he had plastered on his face.

From there, the night went by rather quickly. Surprisingly enough, you managed to have fun, even if it was probably thanks to the few cups of alcohol you drank during the night; you were tipsy – drunk enough to laugh about almost everything but sober enough to still stand without falling on your face, and so that’s how you found yourself in Jisung’s wide garden, sitting next to your friend, listening to two random boys blabbering and flirting with the two of you.

Despite the fact that you were sitting in front of your friend’s crush with the promise of somehow help her out, you never tried to hide the fact that you were absolutely uninterested in his friend’s obnoxious advances, and your eyes kept glancing at Yunho, which much to your shame, caught you the most of times.

Yunho was incredibly beautiful, and he absolutely had no reason to affect you like that; especially, he had absolutely no reason to look so hot as his lips closed on the filter of the joint that him and his friends were passing around. As they were laughing together, you figured that you probably would have wanted to try it, too.

«It’s your turn.» the boy in front of you said, and your eyes immediately fell on the joint that he was carefully handing to you, the filter pointed towards you and the smell of weed invading your nostrils. You politely shook your head, refusing the offer, aware that there was only one particular person that you wanted to try smoking weed with.

You knew Yunho was approaching you, even if you were not looking at him anymore. You could feel his gaze on you since the moment you excused yourself from the conversation you were having with your friend, and all you could feel was anticipation. If you were to be honest, you didn’t do it in order to get his attention – not entirely, but you really needed a break from hearing your friend and her crush flirting with each other and his friend obnoxiously trying his luck with you; so this is why you walked past Yunho and his friends heading to the backyard, where a significant less number of people were chatting.

With a sigh, you closed your eyes, your back and your head delicately pressed against the wall as you waited; you waited both for your incoming headache not to ruin the little party time you had left, and both for something – anything, to happen right before you had to go back home. Your silent wishes must have been heard from some kind of celestial entity, since few minutes later, Yunho was casually standing in front of you, one hand placed on the wall next to your head, and the other still holding what remained of the joint that him and his friends were previously smoking.

«You’re not very subtle at stealing glances.» Yunho smirked, and you felt your knees go weak since it was the first time you were hearing his voice, and you definitely didn’t expect for it to be so deep and melodic.

«Maybe I didn’t want to be.» you answered, your voice coming out weaker than you wanted, and the alcohol mixed to the weed you breathed made you act a little bolder than you really were. Yunho’s smirk was all you could think about, the cologne he wore still managed to intoxicate your senses even if he was holding a joint between your bodies; everything you wanted was to kiss him, to feel his skin against yours even if deep down, you knew that boys like him inevitably lead to a heartbreak. Yunho looked like everything you were not, and at the same time, he looked like everything you wanted.

«So, angel face,» Yunho said, his voice a little bit deeper than before, he slowly raised the joint’s filter few centimetres in front of your lips, while his eyes hungrily and repeatedly glanced from your eyes to your lips, «do you want to try this,» he added, nodding to the joint before leaning a bit closer, so that your noses were almost touching and you could feel his soft breath against your skin as he spoke, «or do you want to try me?» your breath hitched at that final question and Yunho probably noticed but, being the gentleman he actually is, he settled for not saying anything and just wait for your answer, a smug smirk plastered on his lips as he made you feel almost naked under his gaze; you had to restrain yourself in order not to grab his leather jacket and close the small distance between you, and you wondered what was wrong with you.

“Am I really that drunk or am I just incredibly horny?” you thought, licking your lips and feeling almost suffocated by the tension that was surrounding both your bodies as the two of you were in your own small bubble.

«Mommy said boys like you are bad news.» you answered with a quiet mumble, knowing he would have heard nonetheless, thanks to the almost non-existent space between you.

«Oh, really?» Yunho cooed, tilting his head, action that you slightly mirrored in the opposite direction while waiting – hoping, for him to kiss you. «Why don’t you find out if that’s the truth?»  you were about to kiss him, you desperately wanted to kiss him, to feel his lips against yours and for him to completely push you against the wall while making out and feel his body pressed flush against yours but of course, your friend had to unintentionally ruin the moment by calling for you, but despite your name being called, neither you nor Yunho looked away.

Yunho grabbed your chin in his hand in a gentle but firm action, the filter of the cigarette pressing against your cheek, and you swore your heart was about to climb its way out of your body as Yunho hinted the action of bringing your face closer to his, but eventually stopped as your lips were few millimetres apart.

«Feel free to come looking for me, when you have an answer.» he mumbled, and you were sure that your lips brushed against each other few times, the faint sensation lingering on your lips from the same moment when Yunho detached himself from you, winking at you while taking a step back and innocently smiling as if he wasn’t about to kiss you in the backyard of Han Jisung’s mansion during one of his parties. You walked towards your friend with a hammering heart, and occasionally touching your lips in order to quench the lust you were feeling; you spent your way back home wondering if you could get drunk on another person’s cologne, because all your senses were focused on the feeling of throbbing desire you felt towards Yunho.

Despite your efforts of avoiding thinking about the party and completely focus on work, you still found your thoughts wildly wandering towards that night every time you had a break. Although your friend kept encouraging you to go talk to him, you always said no, hiding yourself behind the most stupid excuses, hinting that obviously, someone like Yunho could never like - let alone desire, someone like you.

«I’m too inexperienced for him.» you told your friend, which simply scoffed, looking at you like you just randomly grew another head.

«I don’t even know where to start in order to explain how dumb that statement is.» she muttered, going back into the kitchen while she kept mumbling other unintelligible things.

The diner’s entrance bells rang loudly, echoing in the almost empty room on a Wednesday night, and you shortly panicked as soon as you recognized Yunho casually walking towards the counter. It was the first time you’ve seen him since the party, and you didn’t know both how to react and how to greet him; did you have to pretend nothing happened?

«Hi, angel.» Yunho’s endearing smile most definitely caused your heart to skip a beat, and you timidly greeted him back with a smile.

«Are you by yourself, tonight?» you dared to ask, in the attempt of making a small conversation as you were busy preparing his coffee while he sat directly behind you on one of the red leather stools in front of the counter.

«I am. Were you waiting for someone else?» even if you weren’t looking at him, you could hear the smug grin that was dancing on his lips; you immediately shook your head, your eyes locked on the coffee machine in front of you, and you heard Yunho hum, as if he was pleased with your answer.

Contrarily to your expectations, you and Yunho fell into a peaceful and relaxing small talk, and he also listened to you blabbering about how rude and unkind customers have been lately without complaining about you talking too much. Even if he had finished his coffee long ago, he settled for keeping the conversation going, finding you insanely entertaining and attractive to just walk away.

Gradually, you loosened yourself a bit, thanks to Yunho’s natural kindness and his way of talking which made you feel at ease; you slightly leaned on the counter while talking, as Yunho rolled a cigarette in the desperate attempt to keep his mind busy and prevent intrusive thoughts about all the ways he wanted to ruin you from popping up in his mind and suggest things you both might have regretted. As much as you thought that Yunho was a charming and interesting boy, he thought the same about you and so, for the first time in his life, he settled for making things right, following your pace.

«I guess you’re on closing shift,» Yunho said, licking along a stripe that would seal his cigarette, and you nodded as you were busy following the action. «Are you walking home by yourself?» «No, I’m-» «Yes! She is!» your friend immediately chimed in, and you suddenly remembered that you were not alone with Yunho, and she probably had to stand there and suffer from second hand embarrassment since who knows when. Yunho clearly understood that your friend cancelled on you last minute in order to leave the two of you alone and quietly chuckled at your small interaction, the cigarette he had previously rolled now placed behind his left ear. «I can walk you home, if you want.» he said, his gaze never faltering from yours.

Few hours later, you were both sitting on a bench at the now deserted skater park, the full moon watching over you as a pleasing spring breeze occasionally dishevelled both your hair.

«I still have to thank you for the tip you left me.» you said, focusing your attention on your hands, and Yunho simply shrugged.

Of course, the both of you engaged a conversation composed by the most infinite number of topics and of course, you ended up asking him about smoking and Yunho simply looked back at you, rising an eyebrow in surprise by the fact that the request escaped your lips out of nowhere, but also secretly pleased with the fact that you were not acting as if nothing happened few days earlier.

Yunho patiently taught you how to smoke without feeling like you were suffocating, occasionally rubbing your back as he waited for you to stop coughing.

«I can’t die like this, not before I get my monthly salary.» you cleared your voice, wiping the lone tear that escaped your eyes, and Yunho chuckled, his hand moving your hair from your face, so that now your neck was completely exposed to him, like a white canvas that he couldn’t wait to draw on. In order to stop coughing, you tried to focus about the fact that at this point, you and Yunho indirectly kissed through the filter of the cigarette, but it never really helped you, leaving you a bit flustered than you were before.

Somehow, you managed to learn the trick, and as you felt your body relaxing, you also felt becoming incredibly giggly; you knew that you were stupidly giggling at some jokes Yunho said while looking at him with rosy cheeks and a wide smile, but you couldn’t help yourself.

A large quantitative of praises towards Yunho were about to escape your lips but you managed to stop yourself just in time, losing yourself in the boy’s magnetic gaze which made you want more, aware that you wouldn’t even be able to quantify how much was that.

Once again, the thought about boys like him ending up breaking your heart popped up in your mind, but you ignored it.

“It’s the 50’s, love. Fall in love, live a little,” your friend had said, and you decided that, at least for tonight, you could have ignored the part of you which was always and only thinking about work.

Only when the bell tower signalled it was almost three in the morning, Yunho decided it was probably time to go back home.

«But we were having fun!» you whined, taking Yunho’s outstretched hand, which both helped you standing up but also pulled you flush against his body in a swift movement.

«Now,» Yunho smiled, and you had to beg your brain in order to stop the instinct that wanted for you to nuzzle against his chest and breathe in his alluring scent. «but you’re gonna hate me tomorrow, if you don’t get enough sleep.» even if you whined once again, you agreed with him and you both started to walk towards your apartment’s direction.

«Yes!» you giggled, quickly walking towards Yunho’s motorbike. «We’re gonna ride it?» you asked him, stopping next to his bike in order to tilt your head to look at him. Yunho thought that there was no way someone could look so cute after smoking weed for an hour, but yet, there you were, looking at him like you were the most innocent girl on the planet.

«No, angel face.» he said, affectionately ruffling your hair and making you pout. «I don’t have a spare helmet.»

«Next time?» you immediately asked, lifting your pinky finger in the air in an instinctive manner, and the hand which was furrowing your hair a moment earlier, was now lifting your chin while Yunho’s face came dangerously closer to yours.

«Are you sure that’s the only thing you’re gonna ride?» Yunho’s words seemed to spark the fuel that was smeared on your soul, since you were sure that the blush covering your cheeks could be seen from space. As you embarrassedly stuttered while coming up with an answer, Yunho laughed loudly – the sound making your heart do somersaults in your chest, while his long pinky finger gently intertwined with yours, sealing your promise. The both of you managed to arrive at your apartment while you kept giggling about the most random things, occasionally pouting about the fact that Yunho had been smoking too, but he completely seemed unaffected by it.

«Experience.» he simply answered as you unlocked your apartment’s door, immediately turning on the lights and heading for the couch while loudly calling for him to get in as well. Yunho followed you into your small living room, and sighed loudly at the sight of you laying down on the couch, with your arms thrown over your head while the shirt you were wearing was now showing part of your stomach.  

«Yunho.» you called for him in a serious voice, quickly sitting up and waiting for him to crouch down between your legs while sitting on the coffee table. You quickly shook your head as he asked you if you weren’t feeling okay while he carefully brushed  your hair out of your face, and you quietly gripped his jacket, looking at him in the eyes with the most serious expression you could muster. Yunho tilted his head, confused but your action but also intrigued about what you had up in your sleeve, when you definitely managed to surprise him another time.

«I’m so hungry.» you whispered as you were confessing a sin, and Yunho had to cover his mouth with his hand not to laugh too loudly. «But it’s almost four in the morning.»

«What do you want to eat?» Yunho asked back in a whisper, playing along, as if he was implying that your secrets were safe with him.

«I want a cheeseburger,» you smiled, counting on your fingers as you started to list a concerning amount of junk food, «and then, milk and cereal, and then…» Yunho let you finish while looking at you with an incredulous smile, before meticulously asking if you had any cereal in your house.

Less than five minutes later, you were happily munching to your night snack, trying to quench your chemical hunger. You didn’t expect for weed to have such a disastrous effect on you, but you managed to drift off – only after successfully feeding Yunho a couple of times, and eventually, hecarried you to your bedroom and left, not sure whether you’d like to see him first thing in the morning.

Later that night, you woke up with a headache and a bitter taste in your mouth; the fact that you were still wearing yesterday’s clothes was the proof that you did not have a fever dream and last night really happened. Your cheeks flared up in embarrassment, and you rubbed your temples before making up your mind and heading towards the kitchen  to drink some water and have some breakfast.

“I made a fool out of myself,” you thought, completely sure that you’ve blown off all the chances you had to get to know him better, “He’ll never want to see me again.” As you mindlessly grabbed a bowl from your cupboard, you noticed a small yellow paper neatly placed on your kitchen table.

“Hope you slept well, call me.” the paper said, and unexpectedly, there was Yunho’s phone number.

The note with Yunho’s number written on it was carefully taped on your fridge, but you still didn’t call him; four days quickly went by, and you still couldn’t find enough courage to dial his phone number and talk to him. At this point, you had the sensation that, in the back of your mind, the small yellow paper started to lighten up anytime you walked in front of it, only to become more evident and making you feel even guiltier. 

Yunho didn’t show up at the diner, and you took it as his personal way of letting you know that he was respecting your pace, a thing you were glad for.

An almost deafening noise of tires braking on the asphalt and a sudden crash noise made you immediately wake up clutching your chest in fear, sitting up straight in your bed as you tried to understand what just happened. Your heart was hammering in your chest due to the sudden fright, and you scanned the dark room in the desperate attempt to individuate any other noises which could help you identify what happened; as you walked to your bedroom’s window, you also heard the sound of multiple sirens approaching, and your eyes locked with the two cars that crashed against each other almost in front of your condominium. Both the police and an ambulance were quick to show up and take one of the two man back to the hospital, but even if the situation had calmed down and only the police remained with the other man to investigate the dynamics of the car crash, you couldn’t bring yourself to calm down. Work had been particularly busy those days, and the fact that you were stressed was undeniable.  

Perhaps, you were too zoned out to realize what you were doing; perhaps, your brain acknowledged the fact that in that moment, there was only one voice that you wanted to hear in order to feel better.

Therefore, you turned on the lights of your apartment all the way to the kitchen in order to collect that yellow post-it and listen to your brain which, at the moment, was suggesting to do the best thing.

«Hello?» Yunho's raspy voice mumbled from the other line; for a split second, you wondered how cute he looked with his hair messy and pointing in every direction due to sleep.

«Hey.» you mumbled, your voice a little more unstable than you originally planned, wondering if he would have been able to recognize you, and wondering if he would have got angry at you, since you were basically calling him in the middle of the night.

As your eyes glanced to the clock nailed to the wall right on top of your landline, you mentally cursed yourself, since it was literally 3.42 in the morning.

«Hey, angel.» Yunho mumbled again, the sound now a little muffled since he was probably rubbing the palm of his hand on his face in order to somehow get rid of all remaining traces of sleep. «Did anything happen?»

Although you wanted to tell him the truth, that you were okay but a car crash woke you up and you just wanted to hear his voice, you didn't; you spent few more seconds in silence, wondering how could you phrase all the waves of emotions you were feeling.

«Can you come over?» you finally whispered, aware that for sure he didn't manage to hear you, for your voice was almost inaudible; you quickly cleared your voice, ready to repeat your sentence a little louder when Yunho's voice made you close your mouth once again.

«Okay,» you heard him sigh, «I'll be there.» Yunho hung up and still, you stood there, listening to the robotic and redundant sound of the other line being hung up, while staring at the wall as if it was the most entertaining thing ever.

Yunho arrived more or less twenty minutes after your call, the loud rumble of his motorbike announcing his arrival. «I don't know why, but they're not letting anyone in, unless they live here,» Yunho's groggy voice greeted you as he closed the front door behind himself. «If the police officers come and ask, we're living together.» As if you were in autopilot, you quickly walked towards him, snaking your arms around his waist and trying to calm yourself down with his presence. You knew you were acting like an idiot for being scared like that but you couldn't help yourself, the pent up stress made you overreact and you were glad that Yunho still decided to show up after you basically ghosted him because you decided to shy up and act like a coward.

«Come on, let's go back to sleep.» Yunho was taller than you, therefore he easily towered over your frame and so, as he gently hugged you close to his body while placing his chin on the top of your hand, you felt safe.

It was funny how you were standing in your apartment in the middle of the night, clinging to the stereotypical boy your mom always warned you about, as if he was the only way you had to feel better. Inexplicably, Yunho's strong arms made you feel like you wanted to build a home in there; like those wooden houses built on trees some little kids had, where they hid when they wanted to have their personal space and live safely in their own world for some time.

Secretly, you wished you could stop time in order to live this moment for eternity, but deep down, you couldn't help but wish for these moments to become your new, daily routine.

Obviously, you didn't know yet, but Yunho wanted pretty much the same as you did. In his eyes, in that very moment, you looked so small and helpless that he felt the desire of protecting you from everything.

Yunho hanged his leather jacket before the two of you eventually ended up cuddling on your bed, facing each other while laying on your sides; Yunho's right leg was slightly between yours while your left leg was resting over his thigh, your naked skin pressed against the rough fabric of Yunho's denim jeans while his fingertips gently caressed the expanse of your exposed thigh.

Before he arrived, you wondered if the perspective of sleeping with a boy while being so underdressed – a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, was the right choice but you didn't really want to change your pyjamas. Now, Yunho's warm hands made you want to completely feel his natural warm skin against yours.

«Thank you.» you whispered some time later, a faint and tranquil murmur into the comfortable silence you were sharing.

«It's okay, angel.» Yunho sighed, holding you a little closer to his chest. «Anytime you need me, you holler, and I'll appear.» his words were nothing but sweet, and of course, you believed him.

«Don't go away this time.» you mumbled right against Yunho's collarbone, your breath ticking the skin that the wide collar of his shirt exposed. Yunho's answer came in the form of kissing your forehead, and you slowly drifted off to sleep, lulled by the other's slow rhythmic breathing and the feeling of his warm body enveloping yours.

The sound of your alarm woke up the both of you in the middle of the morning. Yunho – now almost completely laying under you, groaned in protest before effortlessly turning the both of you around in a swift and quick movement.

«Five more minutes.» he whined, his voice unexpectedly deep and hoarse. As much as you wanted to chuckle since that action was incredibly cute, you stayed there, almost petrified, as Yunho was now laying with his head on your chest and his legs between yours; he manhandled you so easily you had to close your eyes in order not to give in to the sensation of the heat that was pooling into your panties and consequently to the thought of searching for relief on his firm thigh.

«Why is your heart beating so fast?» Yunho asked, rubbing his eyes as he propped himself on his elbow, now almost completely awake. If you thought that Yunho looked handsome on a daily basis, now you were completely sure that he just earned the status of "breathtaking": his lips were plump and rosy because of sleep, and his cheeks were painted by a faint blush, his hair were dishevelled and looked pretty much untameable. You were used to seeing him surrounded by the "bad boy" aura, you'd never expect to find him so cute you'd want to squish his cheeks.

«Do I make you nervous?» he asked, a mischievous grin on his lips as his cheek was now placed on the palm of his hand while he kept hovering above you. «Well, yes.» you admitted, your glance quickly drifting away from his. «You're... you.» at this point, not only you lost all the ability to think properly, but you were also sure that Yunho thought you were completely dumb.

However, he simply hummed, his long fingertips hovering above your lips which naturally parted; as you unconsciously licked your lips, the fact that Yunho was following the action didn't go unnoticed.

«You'd probably want to be careful, angel.» Yunho's voice made you imperceptibly close your legs around his thigh. «Just because I like you doesn't mean you should try your luck.» his fingers were now under your chin, the feeling of the cold ring he wore on his index finger making your head spin with different scenarios which ended up in the same sinful way. «Otherwise, I won't hold back.» Yunho's words were all it took for you to tangle your hand in the front of his shirt; you weren't pulling him closer nor away from you, you just needed another conformation that this was happening for real. Yunho just admitted he liked you, feeling which definitely was reciprocated; anticipation was clouding your senses, and Yunho prevented you from daydreaming any further by purposely tensing up the muscle of his thigh just to tease you, but it simply ended up in you trying to suppress a needy whine.

«Then don't.» your voice trembled as your eyes locked with his, happy and relieved about the fact that the lust and the passion you found there were matching yours.

«Remember, angel,» Yunho shook his head with an amused grin. «That you asked for it.» you didn't have time to question his words, since his lips immediately found yours in a needy, passionate kiss. You completely submitted to him; you didn't dare to try and take control, you didn't want to. All you wanted to do was to lose yourself on the feeling of Yunho's lips moulding with yours, his teeth nibbling your lower lip and his tongue moving with yours in a messy and passionate pace. You felt the mattress dip under his knee as he balanced his weight on his arms, action which made his thigh press a little more roughly against your heat; instinctively, you groaned, arching your back in the desperate attempt to press yourself even more against the rough fabric of his denim jeans.

That action wasn't nor casual, nor innocent, and you felt Yunho's smug smile against your lips, before he leaned down to kiss your jaw and eventually, leave a trail of kisses for as much as the collar of your shirt allowed. Your mind has already flown on cloud nine long ago; during these years you never really missed sexual contact nor you ever felt the need for a relationship but there was something unexplainable about Yunho's touch that made you feel like you wanted to make up for all the time you lost. And of course, you wanted to do it with him.

«Yunho,» your voice was somewhere in-between from a whine and a surprised squeal as his right hand roughly pulled your waist upwards and towards him; he simply hummed, lost in the feeling of enjoying all the reactions your sensitive body had.

Despite you were most definitely loving how good Yunho was making you feel, you felt the desire of making him feel good as well and so, your fingers gradually loosened from the grip they had on Yunho's hair and gradually lowered until the palm of your hand was completely placed on his half hard length. A wave of pride washed over you as he instinctively jerked his hips forward in your hand, burying for a moment his head in the crook of your neck with a loud groan – which worked wonders for the situation in your now completely wet panties.

«You'll have plenty of time to make me feel good,» Yunho eventually swatted your hand away, pinning it against the mattress. «Today is about you.» he added, proving his point by digging his knee against the mattress so that the friction between your legs would increase. Yunho's sentence somehow boosted your confidence and if his right hand were guiding the movement of your hips for a brief fraction of time, now it settled for hoisting your thigh a little higher, his nails sinking in your soft skin as you grinded against his thigh while your lips were occasionally moulding against each other. Your shorts now completely exposed your inner thighs and the sensation of the rough fabric of Yunho's jeans made your skin almost feel sore, but anytime he tensed the muscle of his thigh, you stopped thinking about it, since the sensation of your orgasm building up thanks to someone else and not your own fingers were all you could focus on.

Yunho, on the other hand, was focusing as much as he could in order not to come at the sight of you falling apart so rapidly under him and because of him. It would have been embarrassing for him to come untouched, but the way you were repeatedly whining against his lips while frantically gripping at his shirt or his hair just to anchor yourself at something made him want you even more.

Yunho's thoughts got interrupted by a sinful loud moan escaping your lips and your body tensing up before relaxing once again, collapsing on the bed with your eyes closed while you were trying to focus on slowing down your breath. As you came, your thighs squeezed Yunho's in a brief but tight hold, brushing against his length in the process, and Yunho was sure that precome was now staining his boxers.

Feeling your heart hammering in your chest for two completely different reasons, you reached out to peck Yunho's lips in a silent and affectionate “thank you”, and he smiled before repeating the gesture. «Are you sure you-» «Yes,» Yunho answered with a small nod. «I could use the bathroom, and then we could cook breakfast?» Yunho somehow answered in a questioning tone, unsure whether you wanted to spend more time with him. You simply nodded, checking the watch on your nightstand before giggling. «More like lunch.» «Brunch?» Yunho answered as, following your gaze, noticed what time it was.

«Just so you know,» Yunho casually addressed you, pointing at you with his index finger as he was still holding his glass of water. «I bought a spare helmet, so I might just let you ride with me.» You nodded, eagerly, happy that Yunho wasn't backing down on the pinky promise you made.

Few days later, you told everything to your friend, which had to stop drinking because she was somehow managing to squeal while doing so. «Yunho has never let anyone ride his bike,» she said in an excited voice, «not even his friends.»

Not only Yunho took you on an insane amount of dates but also, every time his work shifts allowed him to, he'd pick you up from work because he didn't want to let you walk back by yourself. Spending your free days together had become a habit and so, three months later, there was a little corner in your wardrobe only for Yunho's spare clothes. Yunho managed to make you feel the happiest girl in the world, to make you feel desired and loved, and the night Yunho confessed you that his feelings were the same as yours, you felt do happy you swore you could become the sun of a whole new solar system.

Yunho also confirmed your friend’s words: you were indeed the first one he ever let on his bike, and you both loved this privilege but most importantly, you loved to cling to his back to your heart’s contents and enjoyed the little forms of affections he still managed to show. Anytime you were waiting for the traffic lights to turn green once again, he’d mindlessly caress your leg, all the way from your ankle to your thigh; sometimes he’d just trace with his thumb over the top of your hands which were intertwined on his abdomen.

You never thought – probably not even in your wildest fantasies, that one day, you’d be sitting right in front of Yunho on top of his Harley Davidson – your back pressed against the fuel tank and your legs around his waist, as his length rhythmically disappeared inside you.  Obviously, you never suspected he could hide some kinky meaning behind the sentence: “probably you’d be more comfortable wearing a skirt”, but still, there you were, trusting Yunho and letting him fuck you on top of his motorbike while both your helmets were safely placed on the floor and you had the perfect view of the sun setting in the sky due to being on a non particularly popular hill and therefore, completely alone.

«What if someone sees us?» you whined, the sensation of Yunho filling you up so perfectly and roughly – even if his pace was slow and teasing, momentarily clouding your senses and making you think that you probably wouldn’t have actually cared, not when you were so close to your release and Yunho looked like Apollo himself as the lights of the setting sun were dancing behind his back.

«Why, would you care?» Yunho asked back with a groan, a smug smile on his lips and his hands tightly gripping your waist under your high-waisted skirt; the chuckle you wanted to answer with died in your throat as he changed pace in the same moment you decided to sit up a little bit straighter, holding his shoulders to balance yourself. It was undoubtedly messy, and the fact that Yunho was strong enough to effortlessly fuck you in those circumstances made the warm sensation of an approaching orgasm pool even faster in your lower stomach. 

Both you and Yunho managed to almost come together, between breathless chuckles – due to the fact that you were more than willing to try new things as long as you were together, strained moans and passionate kisses. 

«My legs are numb.» you breathed, leaning once again your back on the fuel tank as Yunho was looking at you as you were a work of art, «I can’t get down.» you added, smiling before randomly erupting into a series of giggles, toying with the sleeves of Yunho’s leather jacket. 

«That’s my favourite thing to hear, angel.» Yunho smiled at you with a mischievous wink as he was gently running his fingertips on the expanse of your thighs.

Yunho loved how willing you were to be bad for him, just as much as you loved how willing he was to be good for you.

all works © lettersfromaphrodite

Do not modify, repost, translate or plagiarize my stories. I only publish my works on tumblr & AO3.

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#fanfics #yunho x you #yunho x y/n #yunho x reader #ateez scenarios #yunho scenarios #yunho fanfic #ateez fanfic #ateez smut #ateez fluff #ateez ff #ateez grease au #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez x y/n #yunho smut #kpop fanfic #kpop x reader #kpop smut

[communistkenobi]

i don’t know if you have seen the TOS movies so i will try to be as vague about this as possible so to not spoil them for you. i think a large portion (or at least a portion) of the issues presented in TOS are because starfleet sucks, to put it in the best words. this is not including the issues and harm it has done on real people, im talking about the in-universe starfleet and how it presents itself and its rules (example: colonization (encouraging its captains to colonize, encouraging its captains to make other planets and civilizations join their “american” federation)). a larger and more prominent explanation is how its, as described in VI, a “homosapiens-only club”. the klingon who says this also goes on to say that the federation is racist. and this is shown after both kirk and spock say they believe that the federation is peaceful. and obviously they think that because that’s what it presents itself as to it’s employees. another example is in TSFS when a higher authority from the federation tells kirk that he doesn’t believe in vulcan rituals, therefore, if kirk does this ritual, he will be fired. i know this is shown in the show as well but the more obvious examples are from the movies; to me it feels like they’re outright saying it in the films

i know this is not how it was intended to be perceived but this is what the show presents it as. i could be missing something or misunderstanding but this is how i see it, and from what i’ve heard, this is talked about in ds9

also starfleet coincidentally decides that the dark skinned aliens are enemies (this is more of a writing choice and the writers (and character designers) are at fault for this but it presents itself as an obvious issue, in universe, in V & VI)

I’ve seen the first four movies! My recall on canon and the intricacies of starfleet etc are not so precise, so I appreciate the context and some of that sounds familiar. I’m assuming you’re responding to my bitching about the politics of tos and how disconnected it is (in my view) with the fandom’s perception of tos as a progressive cultural text. 

I think those examples are good highlights of a lot of the in-universe problems with Starfleet. To go a step further, I think even absent Starfleet’s racist or discriminatory history in-universe, the show itself (at least tos, I haven’t seen the others) operates on a colonial imaginary, by which I mean, its basic narrative premises and assumptions are colonial (and therefore racist) in character.

Like okay, the premise of tos is that the Enterprise, as an ambassador of Starfleet/the Federation, is seeking out new alien life to study. The Prime Directive prohibits the Enterprise crew from interfering with the development of any alien culture or people while they do this, so the research they collect needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. I think this is the first point at which people balk at the charge that tos is colonial - the Enterprise’s mission is premised on non-interference, and I think when people hear ‘colonial’ as a descriptor they (understandably, obviously) assume it is describing active conquest, genocide, and dispossession. Even setting aside all the times where Kirk does directly interfere with the “development” of a people or culture (usually because they’ve “stagnated” culturally, because a culture without conflict cannot evolve or “develop” beyond its current presumed capacity - he is pretty explicitly imposing his own values onto another culture in order to force them to change in a particular way), or the times when the Enterprise is actually looking to extract resources from a given planet or people, I’m not exactly making this claim, or rather, that’s not the only thing I’m describing when calling tos colonial.

Its presentation of scientific discovery and inquiry is anthropological - the “object” of analysis is alien/foreign culture, meaning that when the Enterprise crew comes into contact with a new being or person, this person is always read first and foremost through the level of (the Enterprise’s understanding of) culture. Their behaviour, beliefs, dress, way of speaking, appearance, and so on are always reflective of (and represent a microcosm of) their culture as a whole, and more importantly, that their racial or phenotypic characteristics define the boundaries of their culture, ie, culture is interpreted, navigated, and bound racially. Because of this, Kirk and Co are never really interacting with individuals, they are interacting with components of a (foreign, exotic, fundamentally different) culture. And when they interact with these cultures, they very frequently measure them using a universalized scale of development - they have an evolutionary view of culture, ie, that all cultures go from savage to rational, primitive to advanced, economically marginal to economically dominant (ie, to capitalism). And the metrics they are judging these cultures by are fundamentally Western ones, always emphasising to the audience that the final destination of all cultures (that are worthy of advancing beyond their current limited/“primitive” stages) is a culture identical to the Federation, a culture that can itself engage in this anthropological mission to catalogue all life as fitting within a universal set of practices and racial similarities they call “culture.”

This is a western, colonial understanding of culture - racially and spatially homogenous people comprise the organs of a social totality, ie, a society, which can then be analysed as an “object,” as a “phenomenon,” by the scientists in order to extract information from them to produce and advance state (ie Federation) knowledge. The Enterprise crew are allowed to be individuals, are allowed to be subjects with a capacity for reason, contradiction, emotion, compassion, and even moments of savagery or violence, without those things being assigned to their “race” or “culture” as a whole, but the people they interact with are only components of a whole which are “discovered” by the Enterprise as opportunities to expand and refine the Federation’s body of knowledge.

And on the flip side you have the Klingons, which you brought up - a “race” that is uniformly savage, backward, violent, and dangerous. In the episode Day of the Dove, where Klingons board the Enterprise along with an alien cloud that makes everyone very aggressive and racist (this show is insane lol), the Enterprise crew begins acting violent and racist, but the Klingons don’t change. They aren’t more violent than before (because they already were fundamentally violent and racist), and they don’t become less violent when the cloud eventually leaves (because they are never able to emerge from their violence and savagery as a social condition or external imposition - they simply are that way). Klingons are racially, behaviourally, psychologically, and culturally homogenous, universally violent and immune to reason, and their racial characteristics are both physical manifestations of this universal violence as well as the origin of it. The writers and creators of tos are consciously invoking the orientalist idea of the “Mongolian horde,” representing both the American fear of Soviet global takeover as well as blatantly racist fears about “asiatics” (a word used in the show, particularly in The Omega Glory where a fear of racialised communist takeover is made explicit) dominating the world.

This is colonial thinking! Like, fundamentally, at its core, this is colonial white supremacist thinking. Now this is not the fault of tos as an individual show, this is a problem with western science in general, and I am not expecting a television show to navigate its way outside of this current colonial paradigm of scientific knowledge. I’m also not expecting an average person watching this to pick out all the intricacies of this and link it to the colonial history of Europe or the colonial history of western science. But this base premise of Star Trek is why the show is fundamentally colonial - even if the crew never intervened in any alien conflict, never extracted any material resources from other people, and even if the Federation did not have all these explicitly racist practices that you outlined, this would still be colonial logic and colonial thinking. The show has a fundamentally colonial imagination when it comes to exploration, discovery, and culture.

And so my problem, which is maybe where I need to adjust expectations for tumblr fandom, is when people call this show socialist or durably progressive in any way. This is not because socialist societies can’t be colonial or can’t be racist, obviously they can be those things, but because people are bundling “post-racist, post-bigotry, post-discrimination” in their labelling of tos as “socialist media.” When I hear someone call a piece of media socialist I am also bringing my own assumptions into those things, ie, I am expecting this claim to be actually reflective of the politics within the show to some degree. There can of course be debates about the exact nature and quality of those socialistic politics (see conversations about the politics of Disco Elysium, a contemporary canonical example of actual “socialist art”), but I’m at least expecting there to by a whiff of them in there! And I don’t think tos stands up to basic scrutiny in this regard. I genuinely do not even buy that it’s progressive, for reasons I’ve outlined above. Again that’s a genre problem, I think all sci-fi has to contend with this, but tos is certainly not a progressive exception to the political norms of sci-fi as a genre. 

And THIS IS OBVIOUSLY not me saying you can’t like tos or that you’re racist for doing so, I deeply enjoy the show on its own terms, and its politics (good and bad) are part of that enjoyment. I’m also someone who is in university & complicit in all of these colonial scientific assumptions and practices, I’m not positioning myself as morally superior in this discussion. But when people package their enjoyment of the show with their analysis of it as socialist, as progressive, I think that is pretty fucking stupid and leads to a lot of handwaving of its fundamentally racist narrative premises. Hence my bitching 

#pulling from Edward Said’s Orientalism + Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth + Aníbal Quijano’s Coloniality of Power for these points btw #sorry I know I’m citing academic texts in a tumblr post about tv show but those are largely the sources of my opinions #oh as well as Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism. everyone needs to read that #tos.txt #anyway if this wasn’t what you were responding to then sorry lol

[twistedtummies2]

The Price May Be Right - NUMBER ONE

Welcome to the final installment of “The Price May Be Right!” I’ve been counting down My Top 31 Favorite Vincent Price Performances & Appearances! The countdown has covered movies, TV productions, and many more forms of media…and now, it’s time for the finale. My All-Time Favorite Vincent Price Performance! NUMBER ONE IS…Tim Burton’s “Vincent.”

If you haven’t seen this short stop-motion film, you should. It’s interesting and important for a LOT of reasons. This short film was the official cinematic debut of Tim Burton; at the time, Burton was working as a concept artist and in-betweener for the Disney studios. While his work was never really used, some people on the administrative staff felt there was potential in the young animator, and decided to throw him a bone, so to speak, and see what he could do. This led to the production of a simple six-minute animated piece entitled “Vincent,” based on a poem Burton had written. “Vincent” is a strange piece, in that it is both very simple and very ambiguous. The poem tells the story of a young lad named Vincent Malloy: “for a boy his age, he’s considerate and nice…but he wants to be just like Vincent Price.” The youth imagines himself as a mad scientist, going on dark adventures inspired by multiple Vincent Price movies, including “House of Usher,” “Pit and the Pendulum,” and “House of Wax.” It seems to be a humorously Gothic piece…up until the ending. I won’t give away what the ending is, but it’s a very odd and unusual way for the story to end, as you can’t really tell what’s going on. But that’s also part of what makes it so impactful: it leaves things open to interpretation, and any answer you come up with is interesting. Burton was – and still is – a lifelong fan of Vincent Price. The poem, and the short, were a tribute to the actor and his career. It was fitting, therefore, that Price himself be asked to perform the reading of the poem, as narrator for the short. Price said that the short was one of the greatest tributes he ever received as a performer, and that the experience was “gratifying” beyond compare: “It was immortality – better than a star on Hollywood Boulevard!” (It should be noted that Price had no less than TWO stars on Hollywood Boulevard, so that is saying a lot.) It might seem odd that I’d place something like this at number one, but for me, “Vincent” is just something so rare and beautiful: it’s a tribute to a great actor being performed BY that same actor, and it’s something that feels deeply personal to all parties involved as a result. Tim Burton made no secret of the fact that the character of Vincent Malloy was sort of meant to be a stand-in for himself, to the point where the character is actually meant to resemble both Burton and Vincent Price put together. However, I’m tempted to say Vincent must have seen something of himself as a child in the character. Even if he did not, you can feel the honesty in his performance of the narration, as his own sense of sardonic with and dark elegance permeates every frame. And the fact it was something so intrinsically connected to his life and his work only adds to the power of the result. Like the short itself, the overall result is both humble and grandiose at the same time; something so simple and yet so complex to describe. Bottom line…for me, “Vincent” is SYNONYMOUS with Vincent Price: when I think of one, I think of the other. That is all the reason I need to name this short subject as My Favorite Vincent Price Performance. Thank you all for joining me! And Happy Birthday once again to the great Mr. Price! I hope that you, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee are having a blast putting on that marvelous mystery movie in the sky.

#list #countdown #best #favorites #top 31 vincent price performances #the price may be right #vincent price #actors #acting #animation #tv #stop-motion animation #vincent #tim burton #vincent malloy #number 1 #horror #comedy

[mallowstep]

Not sure if I’m sending this in the right place but, as someone who identifies as “centrist” in this whole anti pro thing (I don’t like either side, harassment and overzealous hatred over fictional characters bordering on obsession is unhealthy and definitely really harmful to minors in those spaces but a majority of proship shit I’ve come in contact with during my attempts to kinda figure myself out were also very black and white when it came to arguments over fictional depictions of certain topics, consumption of media and honestly at times reminded me of the fandom culture I was groomed in) I agree with you the most and genuinely enjoy a lot of what you write, and it’s refreshing to see someone else who has similar opinions and ways of handling these topics in their works with a nuance that people lack when looking at any of this stuff which infuriates me. I’d send this off anon but I do kind of fear backlash from outing my stance on this stuff — this whole controversy is dumb, I do wish people who could handle your approach on dark subjects gave your writing more of a chance, your mosspelt story was a very well put together piece on grooming and it’s effects while not being too graphic and focusing on an emotional journey and i really loved it, I wish people in general could use more nuance when looking at fiction and interactions with said fiction because these black and white arguments get us nowhere

[this ask was initially sent jan 31]

thank you so much for this ask.

(cw: i do not discuss any details of what certain fics contain, but i do discuss that i have written fics dealing with various kinds of abuse with some being graphic.)

the mosspelt piece is one of my proudest works, and i think it definitely...goes down the easiest? (in contrast with, say, no one held me to the flame, a concept i didn't expect any amount of support for or engagement with.)

i would like to take this moment to remind everyone that you don't have to engage with everything i write, just in case anyone needs to hear that today. if something is upsetting to you, don't read it. love to everyone.

anyway. as someone whose stance is tax paying adult/whatever is funniest/whatever people have decided today, i don't really like to acknowledge shipcourse. i've got friends who bear both labels, and they both agree with me. so. i think that pretty accurately describes how nonsensical this whole thing is, that two people on supposedly opposite sides can have the same opinions.

i was talking with one of my friends who has the same stance as me (altho, if forced to label ourselves, we would pick differently), and we were talking about how it ultimately comes down to how do we actually stop harm.

banning topics from ao3 doesn't stop harm. things will happen no matter what. you don't have to like it, but that's the reality. (for a tangible example of this happening, look into how FOSTA/SESTA made it harder for law enforcement to do their jobs.)

as some of y'all know, i was most engaged in this discourse when i was at a deep low point. (or high point, as it were, seeing as i was trending towards mania.) it's been a while since i've spoken on it because i needed a good long time out.

ultimately, characters on a screen or in a book do not matter and cannot be harmed. real people can. what matters to me is therefore the normalization of abuse.

a talking point that continues to bother me is the idea that just acknowledging something exists and happens is normalizing abuse. i think anyone who's read some of my fics can agree with that. i think if you read no one held me to the flame and manage to get off to it, or otherwise think it's normalizing abuse, then i'm a much worse writer than i thought. (i name nohmttf specifically because it goes as far as deliberately depicting the acts.)

i don't know where i'm going with this, just...it's all pretty senseless. if the super dark stuff like nohmttf isn't your cup of tea, i don't want you to read it. i want you to enjoy your time reading my fics.

#ask #anon #mine #shipcourse #discourse #kitten pics are back!! #anyway as a reminder i'm just a little guy

[minniepetals]

I just finished reading cry me a river chapter 16 and it was a lot to process.

My heart breaks for the boys given that they actually loved her and namjoon put them in the position that was like between a rock and a hard place. It was a painful read seeing as how he fell out of love simply because he wanted the deep dark secrets but I feel his concern for her in that time that he was in love was over shadowed by a jealousy because he thought she had such a good upbringing and therefore he had less patience when it came to her because of his perception of her life when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Poor hobi got the short end of the stick where she tried to protect him while they broke her but in then end he was also broken because of all of them, and you can see he still cares based on how he acts in previous chapters.

Y/n is such a broken character, I’m waiting for the ball to drop where they find out what she actually lived through and feel like shit because even now, she’s still broken over them, namjoon’s words hurt her and they chose him over her, and she’s so terrified of being abandoned and them finding everything out that she’d rather lie about killing jungwon because then namjoon hates her and can’t leave her again. But she needs to learn you can’t run from your problems and killing people who hurt you only creates a bigger list of enemies because those people don’t care that they hurt her.

all chaos is mixed into one single bowl and everything's so complicated lmao.

an anon pointed out namjoon's feelings in a way that i felt described him very well -- in terms of being valid in how he thought (his approach was wrong but he wasn't at fault for everything). in a relationship where he was able to open up and show her his vulnerability, broke down his walls, cried and relied on her, y/n in turn couldn't do that for him. and that wasn't her fault either, but because namjoon was left in the dark, he felt as if perhaps what he was giving her wasn't enough, and questioned whether his own love for her was right and whether she was actually happy with them or not -- because remember, the boys were the first to fall in love and when she joined the relationship, she was still figuring things out and trying out how it felt to accept love.

in all honesty, y/n wasn't ready for love because that anon was right. relationship goes both ways and because she wasn't able to accept their love in full, their (namjoon's) insecurities came out in a larger context and eventually, he just stopped.

love was a strange word in her vocabulary, because while she did have her mister butler, he was ripped away from her, and he was the only one who taught her what it felt to be loved in turn but at a young age. y/n's been surrounded with hate and disrespect and people looking down on her and she's always been rejected when she loved (her mother, her father, even the people the worked under her), so to be brought into a different environment doesn't mean she can easily accept that. the boys loved her unconditionally but she didn't know how to open up, how to speak up, to accept what it was they were offering to her, and returned to shutting herself away from them, just as she's been taught to her whole entire life.

even towards the reapers that cares a lot for her, she's unable to accept all of them -- their love. she refuses to see it and barely utters a word about anything about her and when she does, they're always in vague terms. in the reaper's case, they were with her during a lot of the abuse her father had put her through but if anyone else were to look at her from afar, they would see her as nothing but this powerful woman who killed her father for the throne, not understanding at all where she came from

#xtayxx #fics 🤍 #cmar asks #luna asks #cmar: 16

[littlerockerao3]

You guys know fancasting exists because the fancasted actors/whatever’s “acting” is in my head only right? It’s not even a matter of acting, it’s a matter of looks and similarity to the description in the books. It really has nothing to do with the series inspired by the books.

#I’m just saying this cause I’ve read some notes under the fancast gif set of Theon #and there were people that went like #who’s this bad imitation of Alfie Allen #or #why do you need a fancast if the actor already did an amazing job? #okay first of all YES Alfie Allen was amazing like seriously #he’s so amazing he managed to bring his own justice to a character in spite of d&d’s bad writing #and yes I do get that maybe if you watched the show first (but even if you didn’t it doesn’t change a thing) you still see him as Theon #cause that’s fine too I mean that is YOUR imagination while reading the book or fics #but if while I’m reading I see a character described as dark and therefore I fancast someone who LOOKS and only LOOKS #like the actual book description it doesn’t mean I’m saying the actor who played it is a bad actor especially if that actor is ALFIE ALLEN #I do admit I hate Kit as Jon cause imo not only he didn’t look like Jon but he didn’t even understand how Jon was like #blame it on the bad writing or whatever I just don’t see him as Jon #while Alfie DID understand Theon #but if while I’m reading I tend and WANT TO imagine the characters as they’re described I CAN #cause the BOOK and the SHOW are two whole different things. #I ADORE Alfie he was the best actor in the series but he’s not my Theon fancast (he used to be but now not anymore) #cause he doesn’t LOOK like Theon but yes I get it he IS Theon #but since I’m no producer and I don’t work in movies or tv series and it’s my imagination only I’m talking about #let me imagine Theon to be how the fuck I like.

[stresswriterblog]

BAB:TQFTIM Fan Continuation

Howdy, Y’all!

If you recognise the absolute keyboard slam of an acronym in the title, I’d say I’ve found my target audience!

So this is a project that I think will be a fun little thing to do on the side as some writing practice, nothing too serious, and will hopefully bring joy to fellow BABTQFTIM enjoyers :)

Disclaimer

I am no longer a fan or supporter of Rouge herself. As I’m sure many of you have heard the drama surrounding her Undertale art, there are many things she has done wrong which I simply cannot ignore.. When I was younger, I did not realise the weight of some of these things, but now that I’ve reviewed it after a few years, I no longer support her. This is why, while I will still credit her for her creation of BAB:TQFTIM, my likeness for the SERIES is separate to her. Her Undertale work was tainted with a lot of what caused this controversy, but thankfully BAB:TQFTIM has not had these themes. There WAS a ‘Stripper AU’, but it was quickly taken down by Rouge herself and was separate from the original series. Therefore I am still comfortable with this series, but Rouge and her Undertale art crossed many lines.

Before I get right into this, allow me to introduce myself.

I am (or will go by) Stress, I’m a guy (he/him), aaand I am something of a writer. When I was like 13, I used to adore Rouge’s work, and especially her series, BAB:TQFTIM.

I decided to go on a bit of a nostalgia trip recently, and found the series again. I was quite disappointed to realise it was over, until I decided.. Hey, why not continue it myself?

So here I am! A socially inept, stage-frightful disaster, deciding to continue a story which once had a huge following. While I am terrified of such an audience, and do not know if anyone will see this anyways, I also want to bring the continuation and eventual conclusion to a story that was not only dear to my heart, but to many others as well.

I never really used Tumblr much except to read the story, and admittedly this site is pretty dead, but hopefully it can still be a nice place for old fans to reconnect over this series.

Now, to focus on the actual story itself.

First things first, I am NOT an artist. I am a writer... Or rather, attempting to become one. I’ve got many novels in the works, but thanks to ADHD--this is now the only thing I can focus on writing.

While I will not be able to draw like Rouge did, if any other artists out there would be willing to do so, feel completely free!

I’d also like to touch on some aspects of the story:

- Regarding the gay aspects of the series, namely Felix questioning his sexuality and Bendy’s crush on Felix, will still be kept but may be portrayed slightly differently. In 2017, it was still less accepted to show, but now I would like to include it in a better light. It seems Bendy has some slight internalised homophobia, while Felix has never allowed himself to explore his sexuality and is now having some internal conflict. As a gay person myself, I do not want to see anyone fetishizing these aspects of the story, or being homophobic.

- This story featured a lot of dark subjects, such as abuse (Vanny and Brute), suicide/self-harm (Cuphead), and slight alcoholism (Bendy). I would like to put trigger warnings before any of these subjects show, whether actually written, or just generally referenced.

- Bendy’s Inkness is often also used as shock-factor, angst, bad-timing for intense moments, or just general character development, as he does not often show vulnerability except when being affected by his Inkness. For anyone with emetaphobia or general discomfort towards description of this character being in pain, I may also put trigger warnings before it. This will be just as present as it was in the original series, once per day, and possibly more if I choose to make it ‘get worse’.

- Though this will not be drawn (at least by me), there will be graphic content described, like Boris’ current injury from the Boulder-Spiders, Mugman’s injury in the earlier parts, etc. I probably will not put trigger warnings before this UNLESS you guys ask me too. I would be 100% willing to if that is the case.

- Continuing from the last three points; this story is generally very angsty. If it ain’t Bendy’s Inkness, it’s Cuphead’s fear of his own power, or Oswald’s grief, etc. Obviously so it can actually be a good story, I will be having fluff and generally enjoyable scenes in between. But to stay true to the original, this angst will still be present. It’s good for shock factor, for plot progression (OR to slow down the plot), and to get readers more reactive and emotionally invested in the characters. So... Yeah. Angst will return!

- I would like to continue this story in the same format as Rouge did, minus the art. Basically, I will begin posting some continuations, and if there are any askers, I will respond to those asks with more story (MOST of the time). I loved how it was almost an interactive story, where askers could check on certain characters, or interact with the characters to inform them of something, etc. So I would like to try that, if anyone shows interest in this. Askers will be portrayed as:

- Voices in one of the character’s head, or multiple if it is addressing more than one person.

- An actual person, an Anon, such as when an Anon kissed Bendy in the earlier parts of the story.

- Not actually present, but rather just gives me an idea of where to take the story in a direction to the asker’s request.

- One of the other characters. E.g. if an asker asks if Bendy is alright, Boris will actually be the one to ask if he’s alright.

- Underage characters will NOT be put into any inappropriate scenario, for example Boris, who is canonically 12. This was a huge controversy regarding Rouge for some sexual content she drew of underage Undertale fanon characters, which seems to have been one of the reasons Rouge discontinued the series and pretty much left Tumblr.

- Continuing from that point, sexual content will be kept to little to none. At the most, sexual flirts, innuendos, etc. MAY be included, but any actual explicit content will not be shown. There is a chance I may create a second account for more sexual content, if you guys show interest in that kind of thing, but this is not 100% certain and probably will not happen anytime soon.

- Regarding the main plot. Depending on how this continuation goes, I may do one of three things:

- If many people show interest in this: Write a continuation with the ask-box open, plenty of filler for everyone to enjoy, and the main plot will only happen occasionally so that this does not end super quickly.

- If very few people show interest in this: Write a continuation with minimal filler, just enough for the story to be enjoyable but it will end quickly. That way people receive an ending, without me trying to beat a dead horse.

- If no one shows interest in this: I’ll probably just delete this account lmao. I can just write it for myself, no need to share it if no one cares.

So... Yeah, that was a lot to read. But if you’re still here, hang in there! We’re almost done!

Buuuut back to me for a second here, because ~creator boundaries~!

All of these boundaries are stated in the case of this continuation actually gaining traction. I just figured I’d say it beforehand instead of having to state it in every point.

- Please do not spam the ask-box. I am adult and have a life outside of this, so if I am taking a while, that is most likely why.

- Please do not try to find out my real name, face, etc. My personal life is none of your business, and I will share what I want to, when I want to.

- Please understand that I am completely new to creating for an audience, and my content will not be the most professional, skilled, and confidently-created work. This is just for fun!

And finally, credit

I plan to give credit after every post to both Rouge and the original creators of the characters, but here I would just like to list out everyone.

Obviously, credit to @/Blogthegreatrouge ( @/thebbros ) for the characters and stories.

And of course, I must give credit to the original ORIGINAL creators of the characters in Bendy and Boris: The Quest for the Ink Machine. Those being:

Bendy, Boris, Alice: Credit to Joey Drew Studios and TheMeatly Games, developers of the original Bendy and the Ink Machine horror game.

Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Donald Duck, Goofy, Max Goof, Ortensia the Cat, etc.: Credit to Disney.

Felix the Cat: Credit to Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer.

Cuphead and Mugman: Credit to Studio MDHR, developer of the Cuphead game.

Black Hat, Flug, etc:  Alan Ituriel, creator of the Villainous TV Show

#BATIM #Bendy #Boris #BABTQFTIM #BATQFTIM #Thebbros #BendyandBoris #Cuphead #Mugman #Bendyandboristhequestfortheinkmachine #fancontinuation

[linkspooky]

Kamo and Megumi is the same... 

I’ve always read the Kyoto vs Tokyo arc as a breakdown of communication.The Kyoto kids want understanding, but  due to everyone being teenagers the Kyoto Kids cannot explain and the Tokyo Kids cannot understand. One of the stand out moments is when Kamo insists they are the same, and Megumi just says no. 

They are both dark haired, quiet, introverts. They were both born outsiders. Toji and Kamo’s mother the prostitute. People that the clan looked down on. However, the clan will take in their children because they were born with a strong cursed technique. They’re both strategists, who act like they’re logical, but tend to be swayed by emotions instead. They’re both trying to protect someone, Megumi his sister, and Kamo his mother and both only became jujutsu sorcerers to protect these people. 

But yeah, they’re totally not the same at all... More under the cut. 

So, why does Megumi reject Kamo so utterly? 

Well, on the surface level it’s simply because Kamo is wrong.

To explain complicated morality a bit. 

Killing one child, even if it’s to protect the peace of everybody else is ethically wrong. 

However, the position Kamo is trying to explain to Megumi is utilitarian. He’s saying, the best way to handle this situation is to do what’s best for everybody, kill one person out of a hundred to save ninety nine. 

He then also adds that, because they’re both heirs to political families they are pressured to think that way. Kamo is thinking in a utilitarian sense, because, he’s saying that as a family with major political power they have to make their decisions on the scope of society as a whole. 

So adding onto that,  Kamo is acting like there is a higher order of reasoning. He says they are expected to think in strictly numerical terms like this, they have to be utilitarian, they have to make their decisions without personal bias, because that’s what is expected of them as the future heads of clan. Kamo is also trying to elaborate, he’s not really allowed, to let personal feelings get in the way of his judgement, because from such a young age he’s always been forced to act responsible in every situation. 

So basically.  Kamo is saying. I’m not allowed to do what I think is right because I’m the son of the Kamo clan, I have to do what the clan thinks is right and fall into line with their utilitarian thinking. 

Megumi’s response to this is, I don’t care about that, I decide things based on what I think is right.

So on one level Megumi is right. Kamo is not actually doing what he thinks is right, he’s doing what the clan thinks is right and claiming he has no choice. Megumi is saying “I don’t care about your cicrumstances or what’s pressuring you, I still believe it’s wrong for you to try to kill my friend.” 

He also, is right in calling that most people are just following their own conscience and just trying to do what they think is right. Kamo’s repressed motivation this entire time is, he’s not really thinking of the whole clan, he’s just trying to do right by his mother. Megumi, is trying to save Tsumiki and Yuji, Kamo is trying to save his mother, however they go about it in different ways, Megumi by saving people selfishly, and Kamo by pretending to be the dutiful and loyal son. 

Megumi’s callout works. Both Megumi and Kamo are just doing what they feel is right in this situation. Kamo is the one pretending like he has a higher reasoning. He’s using the clan’s control over him as a way to excuse himself for what he knows is wrong. 

However, on another level Megumi is wrong.

Megumi is saying, you are doing a bad thing. Therefore, you are a bad person and I don’t have to listen to you. 

When it’s really that Kamo is in a bad family situation. It’s true Kamo’s choices are his own, and he can still make bad decisions and held to responsible for them, however, it’s impossible not to look at Kamo’s family situation, because one it influences his decisions so much (the constant flashbacks to his mother, he’s trying to do what will protect his mom), and two because it resembles Megumi’s own family situation so much (Megumi is also, someone who became a Jujutsu Sorcerer to save his sister). 

“We have no choice but to curse each other.” 

In other words. 

“I don’t care to hear what your reasons are, I’m just going to fight you.” 

It’s never a good thing when you’re quoting Geto. 

This is a bad end. This is where the talks break down. The thing is, both Megumi and Kamo are wrong because they are both kids. Yes, Kamo shouldn’t have ever agreed to the order to kill Yuji but at the same time, Kamo never should have been put in that situation. It’s the adults that are making these kids fight, it’s the adults that create the situations where these kids fight. 

Megumi is using a simplified morality here. Megumi unconsciously divies people into good or bad people and judges them based upon that. We’ve seen them do this countless times, he sees the bad people as not worth saving, and then puts the good ones on a pedestal where they can do no wrong. 

His sister is a “good person” therefore she’s always a good person. Yuji is a “good person” therefore no matter what he does he’s always a good person and worth saving. The problem with this sort of black and white morality is that it doesn’t apply to a life that is a very, messy, gray. The thing is, the way Megumi sees the world the only people who ever do bad things are bad people. 

Well, this guy must have been bad because he hit someone while driving without a liscense.

Megumi says while not knowing the circumstances at all.  Maybe he was driving to work without a license because his mom needed the money and he was still in high school and couldn’t get one? Maybe, he actually felt sorry about it. 

The thing is, the guy was arrested, and was already actively serving penance for his crime. And yet, Megumi is like, “Nah he’s not worth saving. I was planning on letting him die.” 

That’s like, an awful thing to think, because crimminals are no longer human and therefore no longer worth saving. That’s how simplified Megumi’s view on morality is, it’s downright childish, once you’ve done a bad thing you’re labeled as bad for life. People can’t improve, or repent or feel sorry for what they’ve done. 

The thing is people do bad things all the time without meaning too, or for understandable reasons, or because they’re people. Megumi’s primary fear is what if the person I save, turns out to be a bad person?

However, that doesn’t come from a place of hating crimminals per se. 

It comes from Megumi’s tenderness, his kindness, his fear of hurting people. Childish is the best way to describe it. Megumi’s primary character trait is that he was abandoned by both parents, he doesn’t really know how to survive in the world but he has to pretend that he does because no one else is there to take care of him. Add onto that the idea that he was sort of forced into becoming a jujutsu sorcerer first by his dad selling him, then by Gojo only intervening on the premise that he come to work for him instead. Second, on the fact that he was completely powerless to stop whatever was happening to Tsumiki. 

It makes perfect sense that Megumi has a really childish morality, he is a child, and it doesn’t come from a place of wanting to punish bad people so much as he’s afraid of other people getting hurt by his actions, and he’s afraid that he might be at fault, that he might be the reason that people like Toji, and Tsumiki left his life. Megumi is so careful with choosing his actions, because he’s so afraid that he’s the reason everyone else around him left him, and if he screws up he’ll lose other people again, or he’ll hurt people. It comes from Megumi genuinely being a soft guy towards almost everyone he meets, just like Yuji. 

The problem is, Kamo is the same.

Kamo is also someone coping really badly with circumstances just like Megumi is. However, when it comes to judge Kamo Megumi just ignores those circumstances. 

The difference between Kamo and Megumi is that one of them is good, or one of them is bad, they’re not better than the other, their fight even got interrupted and ended in a tie. They are both children.

The difference is their circumstances. Basically at this time, Kamo had already been placed as the next head of the Kamo clan, whereas Megumi was still being protected by Gojo. Megumi doesn’t stop to think about how their circumstances might be different, because he doesn’t think of circumstances at all he’s still hung up on good people vs. bad people. 

The reason that Kamo decided to turn against Yuji is that he was being pressured too, he thought he had to choose between doing the thing he thought would help his mother, or saving a random stranger. He made a bad choice, but people make bad choices in bad circumstances. 

The problem with Megumi’s reasoning is that he assumes because he’s deciding things based on his own conscience, that he’ll just somehow be stronger in those circumstances. Megumi assumes that he would still make the right choice, even if put into Kamo’s cricumstances. However, how would Megumi react if he was forced to choose between Yuji and Tsumiki. If he had to decide which one to save? 

Now, Megumi is being pushed into similiar circumstances that Kamo once faced. 

Tsumiki, who Megumi always held up as his gold standard of a good person might do something bad. Geto says he’s going to release all the new cursed energy users he created and make them fight, Tsumiki might hurt someone. 

Yuji, who also was what Megumi decided was a good person also has hurt a lot of people now. 

Yuji and Tsumiki are both victims of circumstance the same way Kamo was once. Yuji never wanted to do anything bad, his only intention the whole way was to save people. Yuji ended up hurting a lot of people in Tokyo. It wasn’t even his fault, but the undeniable reality is it’s still something that happened. 

This is why dividing people into good or bad doesn’t work, good people can still hurt other people, good people make mistakes, good people are capable of doing wrong. 

You could say that Yuji should have always known about the possibility that Sukuna would rampage, but it didn’t occur to him, that one he’d ever be in a situation where Gojo wouldn’t be around to stop him, and two he didn’t think he’d be fed ten or so fingers at once. It’s true Yuji wasn’t acting responsibly as Sukuna’s host, but Yuji is, just a kid. He’s like seventeen. There’s no way he can be held responsible in every single situation. 

If you wanted to be pedantic you could even go back and say that Kamo’s decision was the right one. That Megumi should have killed Yuji all along, because the threat was always there that Yuji might let Sukuna rampage and kill hundreds of people.

However, even that is missing the point. The point being that, Kamo, Yuji and Megumi are all just kids. It’s unreasonable to expect any of them to be well adjusted in these circumstances. By expecting these kids to act like rational adults in situations that most adults couldn’t handle, then blaming the kids for their reactions, all you’re ensuring really is that the kids pay for the adults mistakes. 

Now, Megumi is being put into the exact same position as Kamo. He’s a child, being forced to now act like the heir to the Zen’in clan because Gojo is no longer around to protect him. He’s going to become a piece to be manipulated by the adults around him. 

Megumi probably won’t do very well in this situation, because he’s just a kid. If anything that’s the strength of Jujutsu Kaisen as a manga. Characters don’t ever like heroically overcome circumstances with sheer willpower alone. Yuji isn’t acting heroic like now, he’s horrified by what Sukuna used his body to do, he doesn’t feel like he can go back home right now because his friends wouldn’t accept him anymore, and he would just hurt them. It’s almost etter to see Yuji falter with circumstances instead of heroically overcome them, because now Yuji feels like a real kid. He feels what any kid would feel in that situation, he struggles with it. 

Kamo and Megumi are the same, because they’re just kids. I wish Megumi would see that too, because he might learn to be more forgiving towards himself. It’s not his fault that Toji and Tsumiki left because he wasn’t good enough. 

The strange thing is Yuji thinks that Megumi might blame him for what happened in Tokyo and think he is a bad person now, but Megumi is much more likely to blame himself. He’ll think it was his choice to save Yuji that led to Sukuna rampaging and he has to bear all the respnosibility alone without Yuji. When the truth is it’s neither of their faults, because both Megumi and Yuji are just kids. 

#kamo noritoshi #megumi fushigoro #itadori yuji #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen theory #jjk 138 #jjk 138 spoilers #jujutsu kaisen 138 #jujutsu kaisen 138 spoilers

[rantrambles]

Ever get so upset you make a Tumblr account to vent?

I haven’t even listened to The Penumbra Podcast yet but it’s on my list because it’s insanely popular and the cosplays I’ve seen are hot as hell (A+ to all the cosplayers I’ve seen you’ve done great work). Now, with the recent news surrounding the podcast, I’ll wait till it’s done if I ever do get into it. I’m Asian and part of the LGBT community but I’m not nonbinary so I can’t say much about the trans represention in the art but I wanted to add my two cents on the matter as a person of color and someone examining the situation from the outside. Also, before I get deeply into it, I’m not the only person of color with opinions on this matter so if people have their own frustrations and criticism with the racism in The Penumbra Podcast and/or the new artist they hired, definitely listen to them too. These are my own personal opinions, and I’m sure other people will disagree and that’s fine. We’re all going to have different views on this so bear that in mind. Also, feel free to correct me or add anything if I’ve missed some information. Here’s a great breakdown of the whole situation for those that don’t know what happened. Finally, I was very hesitant to post this, but I felt it was important because I make a statement at the end on how race should be presented in a podcast format so if you are interested in making a podcast and want to have a diverse range of characters, please skip to the end to read those thoughts.

I’ll start off by saying, I’m not even that upset with the new artist that The Penumbra Podcast hired. I know that statement alone is controversial but I don't personally know them, and I’m not going to judge who they are as a person by a few pieces of art they’ve made. They are the least of the problems that I have here. Since the announcement and the backlash, I’ve been scrolling through the artist’s Instagram account and I can tell why people find the designs offensive, but I’m also comparing the designs to the artist’s other work, and I honestly believe that’s just their style. They’ve exaggerated the features of just about every character they’ve made, regardless of race or gender. From what I’ve seen the sharp angles and overly round curves in the anatomy that make some of the character’s features more jarring are how they prefer to draw. I’m sure they’re capable of drawing more realistic proportions but for the most part they’re art aims to call attention, be bold, and create distinguished features. Not inherently a bad thing on its own.

And yeah I’d understand the issue if this were a scenario where the artist heard how these characters acted in the podcast and thought “hey, obviously this character is a black woman because they are super strong and therefore must have big muscles, no other woman could look like that” or “hey, this character has to be Asian because they act super seductive sometimes better draw them as such.” But from my understanding the race was already decided by previous official artists and a general description of the characters were already generated by the audience, similar to how The Magnus Archives leaned towards drawing scrawny Jon with black, greying hair and dark skin. The new artists couldn’t really change those features even if those features aren’t described in canon because a depiction that strayed too far from popular fandom interpretation would make the character’s unrecognizable to the fanbase. 

I think the reason this became such a big issue for most people is because the new Penumbra artist used their exaggerated art style when making these characters and people of color and nonbinary folks already see themselves drawn as these exaggerated caricatures all the time (with those images being used to further discriminate against them). I’m sure the artist didn’t mean for their art to be offensive, but that of course doesn’t change how it was received. 

According to some, the poses and expressions the artists chose did not fully represent the characters entirely and only served to further perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and I’ll have to take their word for it because I still haven’t listened to the podcast so I have no idea how the characters act. But again much of the criticism is based on the one line-up and doing a deeper dive into the artist’s work I managed to find artwork that was much less offensive. Here some art where Vespa is depicted in a non-violent pose and one where Vespa is in a threatening pose but not an overly violent one. Here is Peter drawn in a non-seductive pose. Hopefully, the artist truly does keep the criticisms in mind as they work on the new official art. I’m just not the type of person that wants to get the pitchforks out and cause this particular person to lose a job they seemed really excited about over their old character line-up, especially when that person is also part of a marginalized group.

Again, that’s just my opinion on that particular artist. Those who are offended by their art are still valid in how they feel, and the artist should absolutely take their criticism to heart to better how they represent the characters.

What I’m more upset about is that I think The Penumbra Podcast should never have released official art for their characters in the first place and that’s their mistake that they refuse to own up about. They have made it clear that the story was never meant to portray characters of colors, a fact emphasized by the fact they hired mostly white actors from the start. They only started releasing art of the characters to get a profit. And the thing is they know what they did was wrong. All I had to do was search Penumbra Podcast racism and there is a note on their website saying that they archived some old official art.

“We have discontinued all Penumbra merchandise that uses the original character designs, and in the meantime, any profits on the sales of that merchandise will go to the For The Gworls project. We also realize that the depiction of these characters as POC, while not appropriate for us to use in our marketing and merchandise, has nonetheless become personally meaningful to many POC listeners. For that reason, and because we do not wish to distance ourselves from our mistake, we are keeping these images on our website for archival purposes. Though we do want to make it clear that many of the main/featured voice actors are white and that we did not write the characters to represent any specific POC experience, you are, as always, free to imagine these characters in any way that you like.”

I went to their shop and they still sell posters and pins with the character’s faces on them, but they are donating it to a good cause so hopefully that stays the same. However, I still find it a little uncomfortable that they are still selling character merch and have plans to continue selling character merch. They have no right to dissuade the fans that already found representation in the characters, but they also have no right to profit off the representation that was built, regardless if they made the story. 

Let’s compare this to another piece of popular media. I love Avatar the Last Airbender and, I liked the ATLA voice actors just fine but there should have been more people of color doing voice acting behind the screen too. The voice actors for that show were mainly white too, however, the creators knew that they would be making poc characters. That’s what makes the difference. Did they still choose to go with mostly white voice actors? Yes. Could they have done better and pay more people of color? Also yes. But I’m not as furious at them because they did their research on the cultures they were basing the ATLA world off of and intentionally gave us a show where Asians could see characters that looked like them represented on the screen. The Penumbra Podcast did not do any of that. Again, they openly admitted that it was never their intention to make the character’s people of color when they made the podcast so that goes to show no research was made to properly represent specific cultures. The color of the character’s skin in their official designs therefore became more of aesthetic choice rather than representation, and it wasn’t even their aesthetic choice to begin with!

Race isn’t a color you can just throw onto the character because you feel like it. So I want this to be a lesson to anyone that wants to make a podcast: if you want to include poc characters please do some research into the cultures you plan to represent the way you would with any other form of media. Just because the audience can’t see the characters and just because it’s harder to smoothly introduce the character’s appearance doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be lazy on how you present the characters. Do research before you start writing the first episode and take the time to hire poc actors. Hiring poc actors is actually the least that can be done to show representation. Also, since the audience cannot visually see the race of the characters on a podcast and it can’t typically be described the way you would in a book, you’ll have to be creative. It’s not my job to say how, but my suggestions would be, before the fans come up with their own image of the character, you need to establish race in the first few episodes or release character profiles on a website so that the fans know you canonically intended the characters to be of a certain race even if you aren’t able to mention it in the actual podcast. If you are unwilling to do any of these then the best route is to avoid stating race at all and allow the audience to build their own representation into your form of media. However, once this happens, you are not allowed to profit off popular fan interpretations. You lose all rights to create official art or images of the characters. You cannot use “we have a diverse cast of characters” when you market your story. It doesn’t matter whether you created the content or not, you did not create the representation for those minority groups.

It’s one thing for fans to build their own inclusivity into a form of art like a podcast, but it’s another thing for the creators who never worked to make the representation happen to take advantage of the representation that the listeners built for themselves. Thank you for attending my TedTalk.

#the penumbra podcast #podcast #race #the magnus archives #diversity in podcasts #diversity #tpp #tpp fanart

[galemalio]

3 Examples of Racial Bias in Animation Storytelling

It’s not hard to grasp that a white person, while not explicitly or consciously racist in the sense we might usually imagine, is still inherently racially biased because they benefit from and grow up used to white supremacy.” - Scottishwobbly, Tumblr

This is nothing new. This is something POC (People of Color) have been talking about in separate fandoms. Nevertheless, it needs to be acknowledged by those unaware.

This article is not made to say that some of the animations that I will use as examples are bad. But in the hopes that we, as consumers and creators, will do better in the future in handling characters that are POC. 

Most often, racial bias in storytelling is when the narrative treats white or light skin toned characters better than darker skin toned characters. The darker skin toned characters are often POC-coded or actual POC.

White creators often do not notice their racial bias in their storytelling as they benefit from and grow up with white privileges and white supremacy. This can also apply to light-skinned POC who have light skin priviliges. 

Some of us don’t often see it but real people who relate to the characters of color do. Especially when it reflects from their experiences with racial bias, microaggressions, colorism and flat out racism.

So when they speak up, it’s important to listen to them to unlearn the racial bias we may have in ourselves. 

I will be emphasizing “the narrative” for I am criticizing how the story treats its dark-skinned characters and not because I am criticizing the characters themselves.

This article is critiqued by @visibilityofcolor​ as a sensitivity reader once and then additions were made before publishing. If you’re looking for a Black sensitivity reader, you can contact her. 

This article is a 14-minute read at average speed so buckle up. Unless you want to skip to your show mentioned below. External Tumblr Resources will be put in the reblog.

Here are three examples that I was made aware of. 

Example #1: The Narrative Treats the Light-Skinned Character at the Expense of the Dark-Skinned Character

Steven Universe was one of the animations that pushed lgbt+ representation in cartoon media. However, there are narratives here and there that showed racial bias. 

SU creator Rebecca Sugar was raised with "Jewish sensibilities" and both siblings observe the lighting of Hanukkah candles with their parents through Skype.[1] Rebecca Sugar also talked about being non-binary.[2] 

But as a white person, she (and the rest of the SU crew) is not aware of the inherently biased values from growing up and benefiting from white privilege. 

One example is the human zoo. There are people that have spoken up about this such as @jellyfax​​ of Tumblr who pointed out that the Crewniverse mishandled a loaded topic and reinforced a white colonist propaganda where the captive humans of mostly black/brown people are naive, docile and childlike in order to subjugate the people that they colonized. .

What I’m here is how a character of color from the main cast is more obligated to the lighter-skinned character. 

In the episode, Friend Ship, one fan had spoken out about how Garnet, who had been validly angry at Pearl, was compelled by a dangerous situation to forgive Pearl. Garnet is a Black-coded character. While Pearl is a light-skinned character.  

Garnet was mad at Pearl for tricking her into always fusing with her. Then they were trapped in a chamber that was going to crush them. In this situation, they have to fuse in order to save themselves but Garnet refuses to because she was still angry at her. 

In the end, they were forced to talk it out, for Garnet to understand Pearl’s reason for wanting to fuse with her and everything worked out well.

The narrative focused so much on Pearl’s self-worth issues at the expense of Garnet’s right to be angry. 

Yes, it showed that Pearl is trying her best to make up for it but Garnet should have been allowed to work at her own anger at her own pace instead of being obligated to consider Pearl’s feelings over her own. 

I wouldn’t have noticed it until someone had mentioned it. Because it was never my experience. 

But it’s there, continuing the message that it’s okay to put the emotional labor on Black people and disregard their own feelings for the sake of the non-Black people who have hurt them -particularly light-skinned women. 

White Fragility and Being Silenced White Woman Tears

Again, racial bias in animation storytelling is often not intentional because white creators do not experience it due to white privilege. 

Without meaning to, that scene alone shows Garnet as the Angry Black woman trope that is ungrateful and rude to Pearl who then ends up in tears. Without meaning to, Pearl with her light skin, became the tearful white girl trope that had to be sympathized over.

The Angry Black Woman trope is a combination of the worst negative stereotypes of a Black woman: overly aggressive, domineering, emasculating, loud, disagreeable and uppity.[13] 

The Tearful white girl trope comes from the combination of the stereotypes of white women being morally upstanding and delicate and therefore should be protected.[13] 

Which, unfortunately, many white women have taken advantage of.

These two tropes are harmful to WOC (Women of Color) because they experience the "weary weaponizing of white women's tears". This tactic employed by many white women incites sympathy and avoids accountability for their actions, turning the tables to their accuser and forcing their accuser to understand them instead.

(Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay)

In "Weapon of lass destruction: The tears of a white woman", Author Shay described that white tears turns a white woman into the priority of whatever space she's in. "It doesn't matter if you're right, once her tears are activated, you cease to exist." [11] 

White woman tears have gotten Black people beaten and lynched such as Emmett Till. Carolyn Bryant who had accused 14 year old Emmett Till of sexually harassing her in 1955, admitted she lied about those claims years later in 2007.[15]

In Awesomely Luvvie's "About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women Tears", she states that the innocent white woman is a caricature many subconsciously embrace because it hides them from consequences. [10]

In The Guardian’s article, "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour", Ruby Hamad shares her experience:

"Often, when I have attempted to speak to or confront a white woman about something she has said or done that has impacted me adversely, I am met with tearful denials and indignant accusations that I am hurting her. My confidence diminished and second-guessing myself, I either flare up in frustration at not being heard (which only seems to prove her point) or I back down immediately, apologising and consoling the very person causing me harm."[4]

This is not to say that all crying white women are insincere. But as activist Rachel Cargle said:

“I refuse to listen to white women cry about something. When women have come up to me crying, I say, ‘Let me know when you feel a little better, then maybe we can talk.’”[3]

One of the most quoted words in “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.” is this:

“It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”[3]  

When white women cry in defense, instead of taking accountability, People of Color are then gaslighted into thinking they’re the bad guy. This is emotional abuse and a manipulation tactic. 

People of Color shouldn’t have to bend backwards to accommodate discomfited white or light-skinned people who have hurt them. 

How She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (SPOP) Did It Right

Despite SPOP having good lgbtq+ representations, there are other biases in the show. Such as Mara, a WOC whose only purpose was to sacrifice herself for the white protagonist. There was also the insensitive joke in their stream regarding Bow’s sibling that perpetuated an Anti-Black stereotype which Noelle Stevenson has apologized for.[14]

But the scene I have encountered where the Black character was validly angry and his feelings were treated well by the narrative, came from SPOP.

Bow, a black character, was validly angry at Glimmer, a lighter skinned character. Glimmer made a lot of bad decisions, one of them was using Adora and their friends as bait, without their knowledge, to lure out and capture Catra.  

Glimmer tearfully apologized in Season 5, Episode 4. Adora readily forgave her. But Bow didn't. 

They faced dangers along the way but the story didn't put them in a dangerous situation where Bow has to forgive Glimmer in order to get out of it. 

This was Glimmer's words of apology:

"Look, I know you're still mad at me. Maybe you'll be mad at me for a really long time. I deserved it. And maybe... maybe we'll never be friends like we used to be. But I'm not going to stop trying to make it better. I made a mistake with the heart of Etheria. I should've listened to you and I'm sorry. You get to be mad. For as long as you need to be. But I'm not going anywhere. And when you're ready, I'll be here."

In short, Bow was allowed to take the time to be mad and not just get over it for someone else’s sake. The story validates his feelings and he was allowed to take his own pace. That is emotional respect the story gave to him.

Example #2: The Narrative Gives Better Endings or Portrayals to Colonizers than Their Victims

Avatar: The Last Airbender has handled dark themes well such as genocide, war, PTSD, disability and redemption with great worldbuilding.

However, I never noticed the racial bias in ATLA until people spoke up of the double standards in ATLA’s treatment of light-skinned colonizers compared to their dark-skinned victims-turned-villains.

The characters in question -Iroh, Azula, Jet and Hama- are all flawed and well-rounded in a believable way. But how the narrative treats them is unequal.

General Iroh is an ex-colonizer who gets to redeem himself and not answer for his past war crimes, living a peaceful life as a tea shop owner. The only reason Iroh changed was when he was personally affected by the negativity of their military subjugation -his son’s death. It wasn’t the harm of the Fire nation ravaging Earth kingdom villages or cities and affecting millions of people that opened his eyes.

Azula, the tyrannical daughter, had closure of her mother's rejection when she was a child and was able to escape imprisonment.

Jet and Hama, victims of colonization who have done bad things, did not get similar conclusions to their stories OR compensation for what they have gone through from the Fire Nation's colonization. 

Jet was given a second chance but was arrested for trying to expose Zuko and Iroh being firebenders -firebenders who were their enemies for conquering their villages. Then he died from the injuries of the person who had brainwashed and mind-controlled him. 

Hama was imprisoned for life. 

Compared to the sins of the light-skinned colonizers, the narrative didn’t give Jet and Hama the development where they could heal from their trauma, receive compensation for what happened to them and really have a chance in life. 

The dark-skinned victims of colonization just became a lesson to the viewers how they shouldn’t hold grudges for being colonized. The end. They have received consequences for their actions but there is no continuation to their stories after that. 

It almost seems like the narrative is saying that because they have harmed colonizers who have no part in their trauma (and in Jet’s case, some Earth kingdom villagers), they are therefore unworthy to be given an actual chance in life. 

While Azula and Iroh, who have actively participated in conquering, colonizing and attacking the Earth Kingdom itself, were.   

Someone once said that if indigenous people have control over Hama’s story, it would have been done differently. But the ATLA crew are white, non-indigenous people who prioritized redeeming colonizers instead.

The narrative has also affected how the ATLA fandom thinks. If most fans are asked who they would want to be redeemed, the popular option would be Azula over Jet or Hama.

Once again, I don’t think the ATLA crew noticed it due to their racial bias. But still, the harm is done and the racially biased message is continued: 

The colonizers and their descendants don’t have to make amends for the colonizers’ crimes. Or if they do, only lightly since it’s in the past (no matter how recent that past is). 

The colonized who rebel will tend to hurt innocent people and then get a grisly end for getting in way over their heads.  

I would venture as far as to say that the narrative may have the  added subconscious desire to quiet their white anxiety on the vengeance of the colonized. As I have learned when writing about Vodou stereotypes and how they have stemmed from the history of white anxiety of Black vengeance, of Black fetishization and of dissolution of the white race through intermarriages.

In @visibilityofcolor’s blog, someone asked:

 “So I saw some of the really heated debates on here and on twitter about how if Iroh and Azula can be portrayed sympathetically despite their actions then characters like Jet and Hama should've been given a chance too. Do you think that the writers understood the implications of only redeeming characters from the colonizer/fascist nation but not giving the characters who suffered because of their fascism a second chance too?”

To which VisibilityOfColor replied:

“No, because at the end of the day, the writers are white. When it comes to stuff like this, it’s no surprise when we see white writers redeem problematic characters before they actually redeem victims of those racist problematic characters. For instance, Dave Filioni, who worked on both avatar and star wars rebels, did the same thing when redeeming agent kallus who was an soldiers in the imperial army and took credit for a genocide. where as victims of the empire were still painted in negative lights. i really don’t think they understand.

They have this ‘be the better person’ view on things, which is what a lot of white people tend to emulate when it comes to people of color standing up to their oppressors. and unfortunately, these are ideas passed on to children, esp minorities. that they should forgive people and communities who hurt them and ‘be the better person’. this is why white ppl don’t need to write narratives for people of color.”

Example #3: The Narrative Favors the Light Skinned Character Than Dark Skinned Character in Similar Situations

I would like to reiterate that racial bias in storytelling is often not intentional. I am not saying the creators and the people who support them are bad people. No.

However, I encourage that once a racial bias is made known in our work, it is our responsibility to change them to stop the perpetuation of its harmful message.

Hazbin Hotel is a popular cartoon with whimsical designs and its concept opens the conversation about redemption. The creator, Vivziepop may not have noticed the racial bias in her cartoon as a white Latina [5] that grew up with and benefits from white privileges, along with the Hazbin crew. 

In the Youtbe video, "Hazbin Hotel - How Art took over Writing", Staxlotl states:

“I understand that there was a lot of time and effort put into this pilot, almost three years worth of effort. But I think most of that time was spent into the art and visuals when it should’ve gone into polishing the writing in the characters.”[6]

Once again, I’m not here to critique the characters but how the narrative treats its dark-skinned characters.

The story treats Charlie, the white-skinned, “Disney-esque” protagonist princess differently from how it treats Vaggie, the dark-skinned, more outspoken and protective Latina girlfriend of Charlie who supports the princess’ cause. 

In its pilot episode, both girls experience humiliation. While Charlie is portrayed by the story as someone the viewers have to feel sorry for...

...Vaggie is portrayed in her humiliation as the butt of the joke for the viewers.

While they both didn’t like what Angel Dust did, Charlie was sympathized over in the narrative as a moment... 

...while Vaggie’s angry but valid callouts were dismissed and ignored as part of the comedy.

While Charlie was someone that needs to be protected in the narrative... 

...Vaggie is left to fend for herself. 

Again, I don’t think the creators noticed the racial bias of their cartoon. However, this racial bias is reflected in the harmful perceptions that dark-skinned women, particularly Black women and Black girls, are more mature, tougher and need less protection at a young age.[7] 

This adultification bias perceives them as challenging authority when they express strong or contrary views and are then given harsher discipline than white girls who misbehave.[8] And this continues when they grow up.

In a 2017 study, Black women and girls aged 12-60 years old confirmed they are treated harsher by their white peers and are accused of being aggressive when they would defend themselves or explain their point of view to authority figures.[8] 

This bias also coincides with the Spicy Latina trope of a brown-skinned, hot-blooded, quick-tempered and passionate woman.

Everyday Feminism described this trope as "Although objects of desire for many, the spicy Latina may have too much personality to handle. So much so that she is often viewed as domineering or emasculating." [16]

Sounds familiar? (Look at Angry Black Woman trope above.)

Why is it that a light-skinned character, Charlie, is allowed to be vulnerable and be sympathized while the dark-skinned Latina character, Vaggie, is mocked, dismissed and expected to tough it out?

Severina Ware had to remind the world in her article that relates to the bias against dark skinned characters:

“Black women are not offered the protection and gentleness of our white counterparts. We are not given permission to be soft and delicate. We are required to exhibit strength and fortitude not only because our lives depend on it, but because so many others depend on us. Black women should not be charged with the responsibility of saving everyone when nobody is here to save us.”[12] 

As @cullenvhenan​ of Tumblr has said in her post:

“if you're a white creator and your brown/black characters are always sassy, reckless, aggressive or cold and your white characters are always soft, demure, shy and introverted you should think about maybe why you did that”

(Image above from Iowa Law Reviews’ “Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing the Trope of the Angry Black Woman”)

Detecting Your Own Racial Bias

It would be hard. No matter how much you edit and create, you may miss it because it was never your experience. 

So how do we prevent our racial bias from creeping into our creations?

Listen to POC and their feedback.

As @charishjb from Instagram has shared, here is one of the things that we can do (tumblr link here) [9]:

Consider POC voices. Listen to their experiences. Hire sensitivity POC readers. Put multiple POC voices in positions of leadership in creative projects.

Then we can stop the racial bias that perpetuates again and again in the media. I hope for that future.

#racial bias #racism #colorism #animation #steven universe #su #pearl #garnet #atla #azula #general iroh #jet #hama #hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #lynching mention #lynching tw #writeblr #artblr

[sodamnradd]

After reading ACOSF I have an unpopular ship prediction for Nesta *SPOILERS BELOW*

Okay so I just finished ACOSF and I don’t think Nesta x Cassian are endgame... 

Long-winded explanation with quotes for proof below!

I think Nesta and Eris are going to happen.

Here are the reasons why (my opinions of course and I could be totally wrong but):

Maas is the queen of jumping ship and Cassian was the perfect set-off for Nesta. She needed to train and heal, just as Dorian and Chaol filled that void for Aelin in Throne of Glass. 

Nesta’s mother always told her she’d end up with a prince. If Feyre’s mate is the most powerful High Lord, does it really make sense for someone as powerful and badass as Nesta to end up with a General? I love Cassian-- but is he epic enough for Nesta? PLUS Lanthys’s vision showed Nesta on a throne, ruling a kingdom. Foreshadowing?  

Which leads me to when Az and Cassian tell Rhys he should be High King but he refuses. What if it’s not Rhys’s place? What if there should be a High Queen and it’s Nesta? 

Besides making Cassian jealous what was the point of Nesta dancing with Eris? It’s a waste of a scene solely for the purpose of Cassian’s jealousy. The reader is well aware he’s into her at this point you don’t need a jealous scene to prove it. (See quotes below to show all the details jammed into Nesta and Eris’s dances for proof). 

I suspect Rhys is aware of the possibility of Nesta and Eris, which is perhaps why he is so weary of Nesta in the first place. She may very well crush Cassian’s heart

In Azriel’s bonus chapter, he mentions that it doesn’t make sense for Elain to be mated to Lucien while Nesta and Feyre’s mates are in the Night Court. But, what if Nesta’s place is also in Autumn? The Cauldron Made Nesta more than a High Fae, it’s not out of the question for her to have more than one mate. Especially because Elain was also Made and is Lucien’s mate. 

At the end of the book, Cassian and Nesta don’t do the mating ceremony yet which means there’s a chance it won’t happen. OR if it does, it’s not to say Nesta doesn’t have the fiery spirit to walk away from her mate. 

BESIDES so much can be done with Eris’s character! He is misunderstood, just like Nesta. She is constantly telling herself that Cassian is too good for her, would she feel that way with someone like Eris? Is it healthy to feel that way about your partner? I think Eris and Nesta have a lot of commonalities and will ultimately bond on a far more emotional level. Nesta and Cassian’s relationship is mainly physical, I think Nesta needs a deeper emotional connection. 

Quotes Worth Mentioning 

Chapter Forty-Three, Eris tells Nesta “When you get tired of the animal, come find me, I’ll show you how a future High Lord plays.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven, “She held his eyes throughout each step, let him feel her supple body, how pliant it was as she arched into a cluster of notes. His hand tightened on her, fingers digging into the groove of her spine, and she let a small smile rise to her red-painted lips. She had never worn such a color on her mouth. It looked like sin personified.” -- what is the colour you automatically associate with Eris and the Autumn Court? Red, red, red! Also, this scene is hot. Too hot and descriptive for the purpose of simple jealousy.

Chapter Fifty-Seven, Nesta’s inner-monologue, “She’d seen a Queen of the Night. As merciless and beautiful as the god Lanthys had wanted to make her.” -- comparison to a Queen again, why mention it so much if it isn’t going to happen?

Chapter Fifty-Seven, “[Nesta’s] gaze locking back to [Eris] exactly as the music returned to the melody. Flame simmered in his eyes, and he spun her again.” -- they are dual flames, one is fire and the other is ice.

Chapter Fifty-Seven, “Eris had her hand again, spinning her three more times, his red hair glinting like fire as if in echo to the unchecked, dark joy bursting from her.” --Mention of red again, only a few paragraphs after describing Nesta’s red lips. Unchecked joy bursting from Nesta as she dances with Eris? My oh my. 

Chapter Fifty-Seven, “Nesta’s mother had wanted a prince for her. Cassian now thought she’d undervalued her daughter. Only a king or an emperor would do for someone with that level of skill.” -- Ding, ding, ding! Even Cassian has put it together. ALSO Nesta associated with a crown again. 

Chapter Fifty-Seven, “Eris dropped to a knee before [Nesta] and held up a hand” -- he is literally on his knee for her. A parallel with Rhys and Feyre?

Chapter Fifty-Seven, Eris tells Nesta, “Don’t believe the lies they tell you about me.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven, “Nesta’s mouth twitched to one side. ‘And you? Who do you love?’ His smile sharpened. ‘Are you inquiring about my eligibility?’ ‘I’m merely saying it’s hard to find a good dance partner these days.’ Eris laughed, the sound like silk over her skin. She shivered.” --ummm if that’s not chemistry idk what is

Chapter Fifty-Seven, Eris tells Nesta, “You’re wasted at the Night Court... absolutely wasted.” -- He’s right, Nesta should be ruling her own kingdom, not living in Feyre’s Court. 

Chapter Fifty-Seven, Rhys and Eris discussing Nesta becoming Eris’s bride. “‘And it seems foolish for you to offer me anything I want in exchange for her, anyway.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I have my reasons.’” --Cassian assumes Eris wants Nesta because of her power, but what if it’s deeper than that? So deep he’s willing to offer almost anything for her, except his firstborn. 

THEREFORE, I’m convinced Eris x Nesta is going to happen-- or another character that is a prince/king/something epic of some kind for her. 

Cassian is hot af, don’t get me wrong. I love him. But he’s not enough for a glorious woman like Nesta who needs to be pushed further so she can conquer much, much bigger things. 

Eris or not, I don’t think Nessian is endgame. 

#nesta #nesta archeron #a court of silver flames #acosf #eris #eris vanserra #nesta x eris #eris x nesta #predictions #sarah j maas #book review #neris #cassian #anti cassian #acotar

[dykevillanelle]

Okay so, maybe this will be a big question, but after season 3 especially villanelle background episode and the fact she doesn't want to kill anymore, I feel like it formed a question "Is she really a psycopath or the circumstances make her like this?" and I would love to read your opinion about it.

[your disclaimer that i don’t claim to be an expert on psychopathy/ASPD though i have read a lot of research, and that psychology writ large is a deeply flawed and complicated field despite me signing my entire life and career over to it]

TLDR: killing eve, like pretty much every tv show in the entire world, reduced “psychopathy” to a set of media tropes and tried clumsily to do a “nature versus nurture” conflict that, in my opinion, fell flat. in this post: me bagging on psychologists from the 40s, overanalysis of pre-eve villanelle, and quotes from my reluctantly-owned copy of the DSM-5.

the fundamental assertion of villanelle as psychopath has never sat right with me. she certainly exhibits many of the traits that would be considered within the “dark triad” (yes, it’s really called that, i hate psych scholarship), and she technically meets the criteria for ASPD, but she violates many of the core tenets of “psychopathy” as it’s currently understood. she is, of course, a fictional character and therefore a creation of people who were working off of popular tropes of psychopathy. but i’m going to overanalyze her anyway and YOU CAN’T STOP ME.

(an aside: you can’t be diagnosed with psychopathy, you get diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder or ASPD, and the criteria are influenced by the paradigmatic text of psychopathy scholarship written by legendary homophobe and freudian disaster hervey m. cleckley in the 40s. literally, i’ve read this guy’s book, and it’s 500 pages of absolute wildness. further, the whole section on personality disorders in the DSM is highly controversial and by a lot of beliefs, mostly useless.)

(another aside: that dude they brought in for s2 to give a presentation on psychopathy said literally nothing correct. while you are free to disagree with my opinions, do NOT use that as a refutation!!!)

if we take the diagnostic criteria as at face value, one of the commonalities of those with ASPD who act criminally is that they will typically do so in absence of any significant external reward. villanelle’s first kill (to our knowledge, besides whoever might have died in the fire she set at the orphanage) was anna’s husband..and y’all, villanelle was sixteen and having sex with an adult teacher. you really think anna had no part to play in all that? anyway, after that, villanelle has very CLEAR external rewards for criminality--she’s literally bankrolled by murder. so her criminal behavior in connection to the twelve isn’t necessarily evidence of psychopathy.

“impulsivity and failure to plan ahead” is another important criteria, which villanelle does NOT show at all--we see her obsessively planning, adjusting and readjusting on a dime, learning skills and languages to do her job, etc. “reckless disregard for safety of self or others” also doesn’t really describe her--before she meets eve, she actually has pretty admirable self control (we don’t see her drink or use drugs to excess except in connection with eve, she has a very strong sense of self-preservation). “consistent irresponsibility” also isn’t quite there--though she goes off the rails (again after meeting eve), she’s shown to be relied on by the twelve to get her jobs done and done well.

however, villanelle also isn’t just a product of her circumstances. she’s shown a predilection for violence from a young age, but having a terrible mother and growing up in an orphanage after being abandoned isn’t prescriptive of becoming a career criminal. she has trauma in spades and that certainly contributes to the choices that she makes, but it feels completely reductive to her intelligence and character to just say “the circumstances made her do it.” which is why i found the shift in season 3 pretty jarring, and it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

my preferred interpretation of villanelle is that she’s a hot evil lady who is assumed by some to be an emotionless killing machine and to others as a pathetic victim of circumstance, and who is actually neither of those things. she knows how to play both parts, and she does it to her advantage. she loves deeply, shows it in the most fucked-up ways imaginable, is traumatized and anxious, and also incredibly intelligent and motivated.

#i really did want someone to ask me this LMAO #killing eve #villanelle #villaneve #angelic asks #morerevenge

[lynkhart]

MAJOR spoilers for the C2 finale of Critical Role so read at your own risk of you haven’t caught up!

I have so many feelings regarding Caleb and Essek’s intertwining character arcs I needed to explore, so strap in folks, you’re in for a bit of a ride! (But seriously though, this is like 4000 words long, I basically wrote an essay 😂)

At the start of the campaign, Caleb Widogast was dripping in guilt and self loathing and refused to believe he could ever absolve himself of his sins. Essek Thelyss was a cold, aloof individual who betrayed his people for selfish goals, and their differing yet mirrored narratives have been an absolute delight to watch unfold.

In the beginning Caleb truly hated himself. He shot down any attempt at a compliment, described himself as a ‘disgusting person’, outright rejected the idea that he was worthy of love, and never let the blame shift from him for what he’d done. When Beauregard and Veth/Nott pointed out that he was coerced and manipulated into killing his parents, he reacts in an incredibly visceral way, and I’ve seen several comments likening it to a victim of child abuse who was groomed into believing they were as responsible as their abuser, and I think that’s exactly how it was meant to be read. He doesn’t see himself as a victim, only a murderer, and punishes himself for it every day. We see this in the way he presents himself, dirty and unkempt because in his mind he doesn’t deserve to feel good about himself in any way. Other than Nott/Veth and Beau to a certain degree, he purposefully isolates himself from the rest of the group and it’s a long time until he feels relaxed enough in their company to drop his defences a little.

(Speaking from a purely meta point of view, Liam did an absolutely phenomenal job of showing this through body language and I’d love to see someone do a compilation video of it. He starts off very hunched and guarded, leaning his body away from the closest person to him and avoiding eye contact and physical touch; but by the end stands tall and sure of himself.)

Early on there were a few moments where he had the option to do some pretty dark shit, and I’m sure there’s a possible timeline where he gave into his desire for revenge and really lost his way, but I’m glad he stuck it out and worked through his trauma in the way he did. His PTSD and disassociation when casting with fire was tragic, but over time he was able to work through it thanks to the constant love and support of his friends who kept him from going off at the deep end.

Molly’s death was the catalyst for change in a lot of the party, and Caleb is no exception. On the verge of leaving the group prior to his death, the grief they shared, combined with their frantic attempt to rescue the other half of their party put things in perspective and gradually he learned how to be a person again, to care.

Altering time to save his family had been Caleb’s only goal in life, and so when Essek and by extension, dunamancy was introduced, you could see his eyes light up at the possibilities.

A huge turning point for him is aligned so closely with Essek’s redemption arc which feels quite apt I think. When Essek confesses to his crimes, Caleb delivers a beautifully iconic piece of dialogue where he acknowledges their similarities and how much he himself has changed as a person since meeting the Mighty Nein. (Source - CR wiki)

‘You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you. Was. I know what a fool I have been for years. You didn't account for us. Good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life and no one is prepared. No one is ready. These people changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it.’

This is not the same Caleb we met back in the Nestled Nook inn way back in the first episode. While not yet fulfilled or entirely convinced of his own worth, he knows he’s on the right path. That alone is progress enough, but that he uses his own experiences to help another escape those same chains of guilt says such a lot for his development. When he tells Essek that his ‘venom’ was learned, he’s also talking about himself and his own history of being manipulated and gaslit, with the implication being that it can be un-learned just as efficiently.

Caleb Widogast is selfish no more, or at the very least, doesn’t let his goals undermine anyone else’s anymore. Contrary to what he himself might still think, he is in no way a bad person. He loves fiercely and cannot abide seeing those he cares about in pain.

Early game Essek is what Caleb could have been if he’d rejected his friends and focused solely on his own selfish goal to undo his mistakes. Both are impassive at first and see the Mighty Nein as means to an end...until they get to know them and then their fate is sealed. The Power of Friendship wins once again!

At the beginning Caleb said he wanted to ‘bend reality to my will’ (sic) and in the end he does just that, though not in the way he originally intended. Destroying the T-Dock, and by extension the one thing he’d been building towards from the start, the chance to go back and change time, for me personally was the absolute peak of his journey. I rewatched the scene where Caleb revealed the truth about his parents death today, and it was really jarring to see just how far he’d come since then. It made me oddly proud actually.

I always felt like his plan to save his parents was the one thing holding him back from truly accepting their deaths, which is why the final scene of him in the cemetery with the letters for them hit so hard. He never truly gave up hope that they’d be reunited, but ultimately he realised he was merely postponing the inevitable and never allowing himself to live his own life. While time travel shenanigans would have been incredibly interesting to explore in game, choosing to let the past lie and not go back for them finally allows him to grieve and move on, and perhaps most importantly of all, to forgive himself at last.

I know some people were annoyed by Caleb’s decision in the finale to spend the rest of his life teaching rather than continuing to adventure, but I see it as the natural conclusion to his whole arc and his own personal victory.

He looked Trent Ikithon in the eyes, a man who he’d spent years wanting to kill and run from in equal measure, stripped him of his power and his voice (and ultimately his ability to harm anyone else) and finally spared his life so he had to live with the indignity of his defeat for the rest of his miserable existence. You couldn’t have asked for a more damning rejection of everything he’d been brainwashed into believing as a child. His dismissal of Trent’s position in the Assembly played into that as well. He never really wanted power for the sake of it; he had no desire for politics, he just wanted his family back, and while he didn’t get the one he started with, he made a new one for himself in the end.

As Caduceus once very wisely said:

‘Pain doesn’t make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them.’

Caleb gets to break the cycle of abuse and teach a new generation of mages the way he should have been, with kindness and respect, and I’m pretty sure he’d have introduced a handsome drow as a guest lecturer from time to time. 😉

Speaking of...

Essek described himself as selfish and as a coward, forever putting his own wants and desires first, yet over the course of his journey with the Nein we see his priorities change drastically.

Having friends gives him people to care about, something he’s never had before, and it changes his outlook on life completely. For me, the first time we really see this is when he joins them for dinner in the Xorhaus and stops levitating. It’s a subtle thing, but meaningful. He explains that it had become an expectation of him, a quirk he’s known for, and so to feel comfortable enough around the Nein to drop that pretence is quite bold I think.

Much later, when he chooses to destroy the mini beacon they discover in Aeor in order to give everyone a long rest before the final confrontation with Lucian, he’s essentially giving up everything he betrayed his people for, just to keep his friends safe. The existence and context of that single artefact could have had an earthshattering impact on the Dynasty’s entire culture, forcing them to reevaluate their entire belief system and attitude to the Luxon, something he’d wanted from the start, something he helped start a war for, but he offered it up as a sacrifice without a second thought.

I’d say that’s a pretty big morality shift, and I’m super interested to see if Matt reveals if his alignment changed in the post campaign Q&A. I have a feeling he set him up as a potential BBEG but the party was like ‘no, you can’t have him, he’s ours now’ and that was the end of that. 😂

I think it says so much about the other characters too, that they befriended this person they barely knew, and when he was revealed to have done such terrible things, their first reaction was to give him comfort and an opportunity to atone. Jester held his hand while he confessed, and afterwards, while they didn’t immediately forgive him, they saw the good in him and wanted him to be better, which ultimately feels like what the entire campaign was about, leaving places (and people) better than they found them. It’s obvious that he’s never really had many friends before and has therefore never had the opportunity to be emotionally open with anyone, so seeing him gradually warm up to the Nein and allow himself to soften around them was really lovely to watch.

(Obviously, from a realistic moral perspective, he still fucked up big time. He’s still a godsdamned war criminal and really should have been put on trial for what he did, but I think from a narrative and personal point of view, his redemption arc was far more satisfying, so I’m glad it happened the way it did. (And not to derail but the rest of the gang have done some pretty horrific stuff as well, though perhaps not quite on the same scale)

He has a few moments towards the end that I absolutely love because they show that beneath the guilt and anguish, there’s an incredibly sweet and sensitive soul in there, just wanting acceptance. His dry jokes which often don’t quite hit, (the ‘I will punish the bakery’ line is such an under-appreciated one 😂) his simple joy at learning to garden in the Blooming Grove, and realising that he’d never been asked what his favourite food was before was actually kind of heartbreaking, because it highlighted how lonely his life must have been until that time. There was a moment pretty early on I think when he cast disguise on the party and Jester asked if he could cast it again to change the look of her outfit a bit and while he seemed to find it amusing, he refused, not wanting to waste a spell on such a frivolous request. Cut to their time in Aeor where he burns a fly spell just so he and Caleb can flirtatiously swoop around each other for a couple of minutes, all the while trying to beat Lucian to the city.

His breakdown when Molly’s resurrection failed really cemented to me how much he’d grown as a character. He never met Molly, his only knowledge of him was secondhand, through the eyes of his friends, but seeing it fail just broke him because he knew how much it hurt them to go through it all over again.

His comment to Caleb about not admitting defeat and wishing he could do more did get me wondering at the time if he was going to try and do something crazy, perhaps sacrificing himself via the Temporal Dock to make amends or somehow forcing another reroll, but I’m glad he didn’t. The conversation following that with Fjord was one of my favourites- he shows him acceptance and belief in his potential for the future, something he’s lacked for a long time, and when Caleb bluntly affirms afterwards that he is indeed an official member of the Mighty Nein, it’s the start of the rest of his life, and something he’s exceptionally grateful for.

It all leads to that final moment in Aeor with Caleb, when, presented with the opportunity to alter time and undo everything, he chooses to accept his decisions and carry the weight of his sins for the rest of his long life. That’s...huge.

He’s essentially choosing to live the rest of his existence as a fugitive, forever on the run, with no guaranteed peace or safety. He chooses to spend his life making up for his deeds, rather than looking for an easy way out.

I think that may have had a big impact on why Caleb ultimately made the same decision, as if Essek had been up for altering his timeline I think he’d have struggled to resist it himself. The conversation they had earlier in Aeor about their priorities and resisting temptation really comes to mind as well.

Now, to the relationship.

It was subtle, and not as ‘in your face’ obvious as the other characters, but I’ve been watching and hoping for a long time and I must say, it feels good to be vindicated.

(And if you have any doubt, both Matt and Liam confirmed on Twitter that their post finale relationship was 100% romantic)

I’d been hoping that Shadowgast would be a canon endgame relationship for a while, so the finale, and the aforementioned T-Dock scene in particular had me quite literally shaking with emotion as I watched live. Here you have two men, both damaged and guilt-stricken in their own ways, who find in each other a kindred spirit and a path to redemption.

They’re both very guarded and closed off people, but Essek in particular has a definite shift in the last arc of the campaign especially when it came to his interactions with Caleb. At the start he was quite aloof and stoic, though charming, and they had an instant connection through their shared love of the arcane, (anyone who couldn’t see them making heart eyes at each other when Essek was describing the different types of magic he could teach Caleb was clearly blind) but by the end he was incredibly open to showing his vulnerabilities and that takes a lot, especially for someone whose primary focus was to stay in control of every aspect of his life. The ‘Caleb, I’m scared’ moment during the Trent fight in particular made my heart ache.

No, we didn’t get a dramatic declaration of love or a cinematic mid-battle kiss, but I’d argue that their relationship was just as, if not more intimate than any of the other main characters were. They understood each other in a way the others didn’t, their shared guilt, feelings of inadequacy and their obsession with magic forged a deep connection from the get-go. Neither of them are big fans of PDA I think, though Caleb is tactile as hell (forehead touches and kisses, oh man, I’m so weak for those 😩👌) and some of their most iconic moments have them putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the other. Essek shaking off his forced guilt trip immediately after the now infamous forehead touch in ep140 was beautifully poetic, as was using his fortune’s favour to pull Caleb out of the rubble moments before. Caleb trying to include him in his Sphere of Invulnerability in the finale and Essek staying close to him the whole fight despite being obviously terrified of Trent was the icing on the cake. It’s clear that they care for each other a great deal; whether by the finale they’d consider it love is up for debate, but we know that’s eventually where it ended up and honestly, I love that. I deeply appreciated the fact Matt and Liam both emphasised that they took their time with their relationship, letting each other heal in their own way before they took the next step. All too often in media, and real life too sadly, a romantic relationship is seen as some kind of quick fix, and that a lover will somehow complete you or make all your problems vanish. They knew this wasn’t the case here, and that made it all the better.

While I would have *loved* to have seen them together as a couple right to the very end, the change in their relationship felt right, if bittersweet. I doubt they ever stopped loving each other, and if anything, choosing to shift to a deep and lifelong friendship over a romance that would cause them both so much pain is one of the kindest things you could do for someone you love. After all, friendship isn’t a downgrade, just another way of experiencing that same love, and it wasn’t as though they broke up and never saw each other again, it was pretty strongly implied that they remained a major feature in each other’s lives, they just changed their label slightly. Caleb would hate to have forced Essek to watch him wither away, and although his eventual passing would hurt Essek regardless, incompatible lifespans being what they are, having a period of time to adjust to it, to give them a buffer between the inevitable heartbreak was actually really sweet.

Their romance was no accident, they knew going in that it had a time limit, that it wasn’t going to be forever for one of them, and the fact they did it anyway says so much. They began their adventure wholeheartedly believing that they were both, in their own way incapable of love, only to later find it with each other. Whether their relationship lasted for a couple of years or multiple decades is irrelevant, what matters is that while it did they had a happy and fulfilled life together.

I know some folk wanted Caleb to use the transmogrification spell on himself so he could live on with Essek as another elf, or make him human instead, but that would have been way out of character for both I think. If they could have backwards engineered one of the rejuvenation stations in Aeor and used it to extend Caleb’s life by a hundred years or so, so he’d have a similar lifespan to Veth, now, I could have seen him possibly doing that, so he could spend more time with his best friend too, but nothing further I think. He longed to be reunited with his parents too much to postpone death unnaturally like that.

That both Caleb and Essek ultimately chose to live with their mistakes and make peace with themselves was incredibly cathartic, and I couldn’t imagine it playing out any better.

The fact Matt has explicitly stated Essek is Demi too means so much to me personally because the latter is a label I’ve been identifying with a lot recently, and it’s so rare for aspec relationships to get any representation! It has honestly given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and I really appreciate it.

To conclude, here’s a bit of shameless self promotion. I wrote this after watching the finale and honestly feel like it sums up my feelings on the nature of their relationship pretty well.

‘A casual hand on a shoulder, a waist, a wrist; a gentle kiss placed on a forehead is common between them now, an intimacy born of trust and mutual affection. Over time it grows, like a fire born of seasoned timber; gradual and steady, no spluttering kindling that flares and sparks, but a slow burn, one which lasts.

Their love is embroidered into every aspect of their lives together. Acts of service, of comfort, of understanding.

Sometimes a kiss leads to more than a kiss, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they are content.‘

So yeah, I love these two wizard boys so very much and I couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of their stories. ❤️

#Critical Role #Critical Role Spoilers #CR Spoilers #shadowgast #Essek thelyss #Caleb Widogast #C2ep141 #C2ep141 spoilers #critical role finale

[swanhookheart]

Angry Grishaverse book review time!

After watching and LOVING s1 of Shadow and Bone, I read the trilogy! I was not impressed. 

Spoilers incoming for Grishaverse stuff, so if you don’t want those, don’t read on!

Watching Shadow and Bone this past weekend, I was hooked : Darklina, the lore behind the amplifiers, the Aleksander backstory… I was really impressed and hoped that this was it--that at last, I’d found a fantasy series that was going somewhere big, something I could really, thoroughly sink my teeth into. 

*Sigh* 

Then I read the books.

The reader / viewer enters the Grishaverse associating darkness with pure evil. The Fold, described early on, is shown to be this bleak, awful, ruinous place where people go to be eaten alive by volcra and hope goes to die. We therefore, naturally, associate the Darkling--who possesses the power of shadow--with that evil from the off. I’m speaking as someone who only got into the Grishaverse last Saturday. My initial thoughts were, “oh, he’s being set up to be viewed as dark and scary; this is the expectation Bardugo wants us to have so that we’ll be blown away by some great twist later. Count me in!”

But that twist never came. He was set up as evil, and he stayed evil. Surprise, he’s the Black Heretic! Surprise, he’s an abomination effectively created by Morezova’s greed! Surprise, he’s ruthless and horrible and does cruel things! Except none of those things are actually surprising, given he was SET UP from the beginning to be viewed that way. He did bad things, walked a bad walk, and talked a bad talk. I kept thinking “ah, so he’s gonna get a sweeeet redemption arc,” and then he just never did. That element of the story was predictable to a nauseating degree, and that predictability made the entire universe feel a bit flat. If the reader saw more of his backstory, had more real, logical, sound justification for why he does the things he does (like in the show, where they at least tried to paint his actions as borne of some misplaced sense of servitude / protection for the Grisha or where we saw him actively struggling at points to grapple with the darkness inside him), then maybe the trilogy wouldn’t have been such a letdown. And yes, I know about his sacrifice or whatever later on. It’s not enough.

In villains, I and probably plenty of others like to see humanity. We want to empathize with our villains to a certain extent--to understand them just a little bit--so we can fully commit to hating them when they violate our trust. The Darkling didn’t have that human, redeeming quality, though--at least, not in the books. In the books, he was just a power-hungry jackass who simultaneously didn’t want to be alone and kept trying to kill his only opportunity not to be alone. His single-mindedness, his lack of human empathy, the simplicity with which he pursued this made him seem almost stupid to me as a reader. For someone who’s lived hundreds of years, he’s kind of an idiot when it comes to other people--which, itself, almost seems incongruous with his having lived for so long. If he’d maybe had more backstory or more in his story to justify his actions, maybe he’d feel like a better villain. But atm, all I’m doing is rolling my eyes with him. I couldn’t love him because he didn’t put in any work toward being a better person. Even in the end, he doesn’t actually do the work or repent. But I also can’t hate him because the source material hasn’t given me enough actual human qualities to hate or to feel betrayed. His character just… missed the mark for me. 

As did Mal’s. Fucking MAL, oh my GOD! This dude’s literal only personality trait was loving Alina. Cool, he could track--for Alina, mostly. He could fight--for Alina. “I am become a blade”? Sir, you got a whole-ass tattoo announcing that you’re an object in this woman’s service? No WAP is worth that, and I’m speaking as a very bisexual woman. My dude, it’s weird, it’s extra, it’s just too much. I’ll go back to the Darkling for two seconds to say that, ofc, his actions were painted as problematic and misogynistic and gross. But, like, the possessiveness Mal displays with Alina kinda feels on that same level? Why are we pretending he’s better when he actively tries to keep her low, keep her powerless, and keep her his? Again, dude got a tattoo of her sigil. He was fully prepared to be the leader of her guard even if she married Nikolai just for the opportunity for some sexytimes. I know that YA is about really intense emotion, the fire of teenage hormones and stuff, but that all just felt a bit toxic. The way that his entire life revolved around her while she tried to balance the role of saint, hero, orphan, and all the things she was just felt goofy and like a wildly unhealthy dynamic. 

Their whole relationship also felt really obvious, as I guess the Darkling being revealed as the trilogy’s big bad did. It was predictable, set up to be that way from the start. There were no surprises. It was Mal, and then it was still Mal, and in the end, it was also Mal. We weren’t really shown any of what made them so drawn to each other, we were just kind of told and expected to be fine with the intensity of it. But it read as being way too much for me, and god, it kept getting worse. Again, this one felt like low-hanging fruit--low effort, lazy writing. Nothing about it actually read to me as romantic, just as too much. They didn’t so much as fall in love as just start out that way, and reading that was somewhere between boring and uncomfortable. At least with the Darkling or hell--even Nikolai--we saw some of that chemistry unfold on the page. We were shown some of what made them work the way they did. There was something underpinning their relationship, and not just “oh, they’re supposed to be together”. I mean, after all JKR’s bullshit, I feel totally fine saying fuck authorial intent. If you can’t even be bothered to actually put your shit on the page, don’t ask me to blindly accept your version canon as gospel truth. 

We could have had Deckerstar vibes, Beauty and the Beast vibes, seen light and dark come together and surprise us by actually working well together. But no, we saw a special girl lose everything that made her special and settle for some mediocre fuckboy from her hometown. We get characters that actually have the potential to be dynamic and make for a good story, but she still ends up with this bland, vanilla, trick-ass bitch? It’s a major letdown when you’ve actually been exposed to decent fictional couples, tbh.

OOF! And the ending? Oh jesus fuck, that ending. Darkling just… dies. Just like that. I read three whole books for that? I know he comes back and dies again and all, but the whole trilogy felt like it was building up to something more, something deeper and greater and more profound. He was horrible for the things he did, sure, and he deserved defeat as long as he refused to waver from his power-hungry, destructive path. But his death brought about no closure. He and Alina never actually had the fight they needed to or reached an understanding with each other. Everything is left undone, unsaid, unexplored. The ending just felt super anticlimactic on the page, and so, the trilogy as a whole fell completely short of any mark I hoped it might hit.

Did I hope Darklina would be endgame? Sure. But I’d also have been A-okay with a tragic ending if it had been done right. Did I think it would have been a lot more interesting to see a redemption arc for Darkling than just… more of the same? Or maybe Mal develop a personality outside of Alina? Absolutely. There was so much potential, and it really feels like Bardugo squandered all of it. And for what? This was nearly as disappointing as the eighth season of Game of Thrones. I probably won’t be watching future seasons if they follow the books, but I guess I’m glad for the day or so of fleeting pleasure I got when I still had hope for a properly told story. 

#Shadow and bone #anti-mal #darklina #shadow and bone spoilers #grishaverse

[sabugabr]

Why the Clone problem in Star Wars animated media is also a Mandalorian problem, and why we have to talk about it (PART 2)

Hi! I finally finished wrapping this up, so here’s part 2 of what has already become a mini article (you can find Part 1 here, if you like!)

And for this part, it won’t be as much as a critic as part 1 was, but instead I’d like to focus more on what I consider to be a wasted potential regarding the representation of the Clones in the Star Wars animated media, from the first season of The Clone Wars till now, and why I believe it to be an extension of the Mandalorian problem I discussed in part 1 —  the good old colonialism.

Sources used, as always, will be linked at the end of this post!

PART 2: THE CLONES

Cody will never know peace

So I’d like to state that I won’t focus as much on the blatantly whitewashing aspect, for I believe it to be very clear by now. If you aren’t familiar with it, I highly recommend you search around tumblr and the internet, there are a lot of interesting articles and posts about it that explain things very didactically and in detail. The only thing you need to know to get this started is that even at the first seasons of Clone Wars (when the troopers still had this somewhat darker skin complexion and all) they were still a whitewashed version of Temuera Morrison (Jango’s actor). And from then, as we all know, they only got whiter and whiter till we get where we are now, in rage.

Look at this very ambiguously non-white but still westernized men fiercely guarding their pin-up space poster

Now look at this still westernized but slightly (sarcasm) whiter men who for some reason now have different tanning levels among them (See how Rex now has a lighter skin tone? WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN KKKKKKK) Anyway you got the idea. So without further ado...

2.1 THE FANTASY METAPHOR

As I mentioned before in Part 1, one thing that has to be very clear if you want to follow my train of thought is that it’s impossible to consume something without attributing cultural meanings to it, or without making cultural associations. This things will naturally happen and it often can improve our connection to certain narratives, especially fantastic ones. Even if a story takes place in a fantastic/sci fi universe, with all fictional species and people and worlds and cultures, they never come from nowhere, and almost always they have some or a lot of basing in real people and cultures. And when done properly, this can help making these stories resonate in a very beautifull, meaningfull way. I actually believe this intrisic cultural associations are the things that make these stories work at all. As the brilliant american speculative/science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin says in the introduction (added in 1976) of her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, and that I was not able to chopp much because it’s absolutely genious and i’ll be leaving the link to the full text right here,

“The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future — indeed Schrodinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the ‘future,’ on the quantum level, cannot be predicted — but to describe reality, the present world.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.”

[...] “Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth!

They may use all kinds of facts to support their tissue of lies. They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Borodino, which really was fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane —bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with  them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.”

[...] “ In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find — if it's a good novel — that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.

The artist whose medium is fiction does this within words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage. [...]  All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life — science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.

A metaphor for what?” [1]

A metaphor for what indeed. I won’t be going into what Star Wars as a whole is a metaphor for, because I am certain that it varies from person to person, and everyone can and has the total right to take whatever they want from this story, and understand it as they see fit. That’s why it’s called the modern myth. And therefore, all I’ll be saying here is playinly my take not only on what I understand the Clones to be, but what I believe they could have meant.

2.2 SO, BOBA IS A CLONE

I don’t want to get too repetitive, but I wanted to adress it because even though I by no means intend to put Boba and the Clones in the same bag, there is one aspect about them that I find very similar and interesting, that is the persue of individuality. While the Clones have this very intrinsically connected to their narratives, in Boba’s case this appears more in his concept design. As I mentioned in Part 1, one of the things the CW staff had in mind while designing the mandalorians is that they wanted to make Boba seem unique and distinguishable from them, and honestly even in the original trilogy he stands out a lot. He is unique and memorable and that’s one of the things that draws us to him.

And as we all know, both Boba and Jango and the Clones are played by Temuera Morrison — and occasionally by the wonderful Bodie Taylor and Daniel Logan. And Temuera Morrison comes from the Maori people. And differently from the mandalorian case, where we were talking about a whole planet, in this situation we’re talking about portraying one single person, so there’s nowhere to go around his appearance and phenotypes, right? I mean, you are literally representing an actual individual, so there’s no way you could alter their looks, right?

(hahahaha wrong)

And besides that, I think that is in situations like that (when we are talking about individuals) that the actor’s perspective could really have a place to shine (just the same as how Lea was mostly written by Carrie Fisher). In this very heart-warming interview for The New York Times (which you can read full signing up for their 5-free-articles-per-month policy), Temuera Morrison talks a little bit about how he incorporated his cultural background to Boba Fett in The Mandalorian:

“I come from the Maori nation of New Zealand, the Indigenous people — we’re the Down Under Polynesians — and I wanted to bring that kind of spirit and energy, which we call wairua. I’ve been trained in my cultural dance, which we call the haka. I’ve also been trained in some of our weapons, so that’s how I was able to manipulate some of the weapons in my fight scenes and work with the gaffi stick, which my character has.” [2]

The Gaffi stick (or Gaderffii), btw, is the weapon used by the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine, and according to oceanic art expert Bruno Claessens it’s design was inspired by wooden Fijian war clubs called totokia. [3]

And I think is very clear how this background can influence one’s performance and approach to a character, and majorly how much more alive this character will feel like. Beyond that, having an actor from your culture to play and add elements to a character will higly improve your sense of connection with them (besides all the impact of seeying yourself on screen, and seeying yourself portrayed with respect). It would only make sense if the cultural elements that the actor brought when giving life to a fictional individual would’ve been kept and even deepened while expanding this role. And if you’re familiar with Star Wars Legends you’ll probably rememeber that in Legends Jango would train and raise all Clone troopers in the Mandalorian culture, so that the Clones would sing traditional war chants before battles, be fluent in Mando’a (Mandalore’s language) and some would proudly take mandalorian names for themselves. So why didn’t Filoni Inc. take that into account when they went to delve into the clones in The Clone Wars?

2.3 THE WHITE MINORITY

First of all I’d like to state that all this is 100% me conjecturing, and by no means at all I’m saying that this is what really happened. But while I was re-watching CW before The Bad Batch premiere, something came to my mind regarding the whitewashing of the Clones, and I’d like to leave that on the table.

So, you know this kind of recent movies and series that depicted like, fairies in this fictional world where fairies were very opressed, but there would be a lot of fairies played by white actors? Just like Bright and Carnival Row. If you’ve watched some of these and have some racial conscience, you’ll probably know where I’m going here. And the issue with it is that often this medias will portray real situations of racism and opression and prejudice, but all applied to white people. Like in Carnival Row, when going to work as a maid in a rich human house, our girl Cara Delevingne had to fight not to have her braids (which held a lot of significance in her culture) cut by her intolerant human mistress, because the braids were not “appropriate”. Got it? hahahaha what a joy

Look at her ethnic braids!!!

One of the reasons this happens might be to relieve a white audience of the burden of watching these stories and feeling what I like to call “white guilt”. Because, as we all know, white people were never very oppressed.  Historically speaking, white people have always been in privileged social positions, and in an exploitative relationship between two ethnic groups, white people very usually would be the exploiters  —  the opressors. So while watching situations (that every minority would know to be very real) of opression in fiction, if these situations were lived by a white actor, there would be no real-life associations, because we have no historical parameter to associate this situation with anything in real life — if you are white. Thus, there is less chance that, when consuming one of these narratives, whoever is watching will question the "truthfulness" of these situations (because it's not "real racism", see, "they're just fairies"). It's easier for a person to watch without having to step out of their comfort zone, or confront the reality of real people who actually go through things like that. There's even a chance that this might diminish empathy for these people.

Once again, not saying this is specifically the case of the Clones, majorly because one of the main feelings you have when watching CW is exactly empathy for the troopers (at least for me, honestly, the galaxy could explode, I just wanted those poor men to be happy for God’s sake). But I’ll talk more about it later.

The thing is, the whole thing with the Clones, if you think about it, it’s not pretty. If you step on little tiny bit outside the bubble of “fictional fantasy”, the concept is very outrageous. They are kept in conditions analogous to slavery, to say the least. To say the more, they were literally made in an on-demand lab to serve a purpose they are personally not a part of, for which they will neither receive any reward nor share any part of the gains. On the contrary, as we saw in The Bad Batch, as soon as the war was over and the clones were no longer useful as cannonballs, they were discarded. In the (wonderful) episode 6 of the third season of (the almost flawless) Rebels, “The Last Battle”, we're even personally introduced to the analogy that there really wasn't much difference in value between clones and droids, something that was pretty clear in Clone Wars but hadn't been said explicitly yet.

In fact, technically the Separatists can be considered to be more human than the Republic. But that's just my opinion.

So, you had this whole army of pretty much slaves. I know this is a heavy term, but these were people who were originally stripped of any sense of humanity or individuality, made literally to go to war and die in it, doing so purely in exchange for food and lodging, under the false pretense that they belonged to a glorious purpose (yes, Loki me taught that term, that was the only thing I absorbed from this series). Doing all this under extremely precarious conditions from which they had no chance of getting out, actually, getting out was tantamount to the death penalty. They were slaves. In milder terms, an oppressed minority. And again, I don't know if that was the case, but I can understand why Filoni Inc would be apprehensive about representing phenotically indigenous people in this situation. Especially since we in theory should see Anakin and Obi-Wan as the good guys.

(and here I’d like to leave a little disclaimer that I believe the whole Anakin-was-a-slave-once plot was HUGELY misused (and honestly just badly done) both in the prequels and in the animeted series  — maybe for the best, since he was, you know, white and all that, and I don’t know how the writers would have handled it, but ANYWAY — I believe this could have been further explored, particularly regarding his relationship with the Clones, and how it could have influenced his revolt against the Jedi, and manipulated to add to his anger and all that. I mean, we already HAD the fact that Anakin shared a deeper conection with his troopers than usual)

Yes, Rex, you have common trauma experiences to share. But anyway, backing to my track

As I was saying, we are to see them as good guys, and maybe that could’ve been tricky if we saw them hooping up on slavery practices. Like, idk, a “nice” sugar plantation owner? (I don’t know the correct word for it in english, but in portuguese they were called senhores de engenho) Like this guy from 12 Years a Slave?

You know, the slave owner who was “nice”. IDK, anyway  

No one will ever watch Clone Wars and make this association (I believe not, at least), of course not. But if we were to see how CW deepened the clone arcs, and see them as phenotypically indigenous, subjected to certain situations that occur in CW (yes, like Umbara), maybe some kind of association would’ve been easier to make.

I mean, come onnnn I can’t be the only one seeing it

You see, maybe not the whole 12 Years a Slave association one, but I don’t think it’s hard to see there was something there. And maybe this could’ve been even more evident if they looked non-white. Because historically, both black peoples and indigenous peoples went through processes of slavery, from which we as a society are still impacted today. And to slave a people, the first thing you have to do is strip them from their humanity. So it might be easier to see this situation and apply it to real life. And maybe that could lead to a whole lot of other questions regarding the Clones, the Republic, the Jedi, and even how chill Obi-Wan was about all this. We might come out of it, as lady Ursula Le Guin stated in the fragment above, a bit different from what we were before we watch it.

Maybe even unconsciously, Filoni Inc thought we would be more confortable watching if they just looked white (and because of colonialism and all that, but I’m adding thoughts here).

And of course I don’t like the idea of, idk, looking at Obi-Wan and thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch in 12 Years a Slave or something like that. Of course that, if the Clones were to play the same role as they did in the prequels, to obediently serve the Jedi and quietly die for them, that would have been bad, and hurtfull, and pejorative if added to all that I said here. But the thing is that Clone Wars, consciously or not, already solved that. At least to my point of view, they already managed to approach this situation in an incredible competent way, that is giving them agency.

2.4 AGENCY AND INDIVIDUALITY

So, one of the things I love most in Clone Wars is how it really feels like it’s about the Clones. Like, we have the bigger scene of Palpatine taking over, Ahsoka’s growth arc, Anakin’s turn to The Dark Side, the dawn of the Jedi and rise of the Empire and all that, but it also has this idk, vibe, of there’s actually something going on that no one in scene is talking about? And this something is the Clones. We have these episodes spread throughout the seasons, even out of chronological order, which when watched together tell a parallel story to the war, to everything I mentioned. Which is a story about individuals. Clone Wars manages to, in a (at least to me) very touching way, make the Clones be the heros. 

Can you really look me in the eye and say that Five’s story didn’t CRASH you like a full-speed train???? He may not have the same amount of screen-time as the protagonists, but his story is just as important as theirs (and to me, it might be the most meaningful one). Because he is the first to break free from the opression cicle all the Clones were trapped into. 

His story can be divided into 6 phases.

1 - First, the construction of his individuality, in other words, the reclaiming of his humanity. 

2 - Then the assimilation of understanding yourself as an individual of value, and then extending this to all his brothers, not as a unit, but as a set of individuals collectively having this same newly discovered value.

3 - This makes him realize that in the situation they find themselves in, they are not being recognized as such. This makes him question the reality of their situation.

4 - Freed from the illusion of his state, he seeks the truth about it.

5 - This then leads him to seek liberation not just for himself, but for all the Clones (it's basically Plato's Cave, and I'm not exaggerating here).

6 - And finally, precisely because he has assimilated his individuality and sought freedom for himself and his brothers, he is punished for it.

His story is all about agency. Agency, according to the Wikipedia page that is the first to appear if you type “agency” on Google, is that agency is “the abstract principle that autonomous beings, agents, are capable of acting by themselves” [4], and this abstract principle can be dissected in 7 segments:

Law - a person acting on behalf of another person

Religious -  "the privilege of choice... introduced by God"

Moral -  capacity for making moral judgments

Philosophical -  the capacity of an autonomous agent to act, relating to action theory in philosophy

Psychological -  the ability to recognize or attribute agency in humans and non-human animals

Sociological -  the ability of social actors to make independent choices, relating to action theory in sociology

Structural - ability of an individual to organize future situations and resource distribution

All of them apply here. And this is just the story of one Clone. We know there are many others throughout the series. 

Agency is what can make the world of a difference when you are telling a story about an opressed minority. Because opressed minorities do exist, and opression exists, and if you are insecure about consuming a fictional media about opressed minorities, see if they have agency might be a good place to start. So that’s why I think that everything I said before in 2.3 falls short. Because the solution already existed, and was indeed done. Honestly, making the non-agency representation of the Clones (the one we see in the prequels) to be the one played by Temuera Morrison, and then giving them agency in the version where they appear to be white, just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

And honestly, if they were to make the Clones look like Temuera Morrison, and by that mean, take more inspiration in the Māori culture, maybe they wouldn’t even have to change much of their representation besides their facial features. As I said in part 1, I am not by any means an expert in polynesian cultures, but there was something that really got me while I was researching about it. And is the facial tattoos. More precisely, the tā moko. 

2.5  TĀ MOKO

Once again I’ll be using the Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand as source, and you can find the articles used linked at the end of this post. 

Etymologically speaking,

“The term moko traditionally applied to male facial tattooing, while kauae referred to moko on the chins of women. There were other specific terms for tattooing on other parts of the body. Eventually ‘moko’ came to be used for Māori tattooing in general.” [5]

So moko is the correct name for the characteristic tattoos we often see when we look for Māori culture. 

These ones ^. Please also look this book up, it’s beautiful. It’s written by  Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist. She’s wonderful. 

According to the Tourism NewZealand website, 

“In Māori culture, it [moko] reflects the individual's whakapapa (ancestry) and personal history. In earlier times it was an important signifier of social rank, knowledge, skill and eligibility to marry.”

“Traditionally men received moko on their faces, buttocks and thighs. Māori face tattoos are the ultimate expression of Māori identity. Māori believe the head is the most sacred part of the body, so facial tattoos have special significance.”

[...] “The main lines in a Māori tattoo are called manawa, which is the Māori word for heart.” [6]

Therefore, in the Māori culture, there’s this incredibly deep meaning attributed to the (specific of their culture) tattooing of the face. The act of tattooing the body, any part of the body, is incredibly powerful in many cultures around the globe. The adornment of the body can have different meanings for these different cultures, but all of which I've come into contact with do mean a lot. It’s one of the oldest and most beautiful human expressions of individuality and identity. 

And in the Star Wars universe, the Clones are the group that has the deeper connection to, and the best narrative regarding, tattoos. In fact, besides Hera’s father, Cham Syndulla, the Clones are the only individuals to have tattooed skin, at least that I can recall of. And they do share a deep connection to it. 

For the Clones, the tattoos (added to hairstyles) are the most meaningful way in which they can express themselves. Is what makes them distinguishable from each other to other people. Tattoos are one of the things that represent them as individuals.

And I’m not BY ANY MEANS sayin that the Clones facial tattoos = Moko. That’s not my point. But that’s one of the things I meant when I said earlier about the wasted potential of the representation of the Clones (in my point of view). Because maybe if it were their intention to base the culture of the clones after the polynesian culture, maybe if it were their intention to make the Clones actually look like Temuera Morrison, this could have meant a whole deal. More than it’d appear looking to it from outside this culture. Maybe if there were actual polynesian people in the team that designed the Clones and wrote them (or at least indigenous people, something), who knows what we could’ve had. 

Even in Hunter’s design, I noticed that if you take for example this frame of Temuera from the movie River Queen (2005), where we can have a closer look at the design of his tā moko

Speaking purely plastically (because I don’t want to get into the movie itself, just using it as example because then I can use Temuera himself as a comparison), see the lines around the contours of his mouth? Now look at Hunter’s. 

I find it interesting that they choose to design this lines coming from around his nose like that. But at this point I am stretching A LOT into plastic and semiotics, so this comparison is just a little thing that got my attention. I know that his tattoo is a skull and etc etc, I’m just poiting this out. And it even makes me a little frustrated, because they could have taken so many interesting paths in the Bad Batch designs. But instead they choose to pay homage to Rambo. And I mean, I like Rambo, I think he’s cool and all that.

Look at him doing Filipino martial arts

But then, as we say in Brasil, they had the knife and the cheese in their hands (all they had to do was cut the cheese, but they didn’t). Istead, it seems like in order to make Hunter look like Rambo, they made him even whiter??? 

2.6 SO...

Look, I love The Clone Wars. I’m crazy about it. I love the Clones, I love their stories and plots. They are great characters and one of the greatest addings ever made in the Star Wars universe. They even have, in my opinion, the best soundtrack piece to feature in a Star Wars media since John Williams’ wonderful score. It just feels to me as if their narrative core is full of bagage, and meanings, and associations that were just wiped under the carpet when they suddenly became white. It just feels to me as if, once again, they were trying to erase the person behing the trooper mask, and the people they were to represent, and the history they should evoke.

I don’t know why they were whitewashed. Maybe it was just the old due racism and colonialism. Maybe it was meant for us to not question the Jedi, or our good guys, or the real morality of this fictional universe where we were immersed. But then, was it meant for what?

The Clones were a metaphor for what? 

(spoiler: the answer still contains colonialism)

Thank you so much for reading !!!! (and congratulations for getting this far, you are a true hero)

SOURCES USED IN THIS:

[1] Ursulla K. Le Guin, 'The Left Hand of Darkness', 14th ACE print run of June, 1977

[2] Dave Itzkoff, 'Being Boba Fett: Temuera Morrison Discusses ‘The Mandalorian’', The New York Times, published Dec. 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/television/the-mandalorian-boba-fett-temuera-morrison.html (accessed 15 September 2021)

[3] Bruno Claessens, 'George Lucas' "Star Wars" and Oceanic art' , Archived from the original on December 5, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201205114353/http://brunoclaessens.com/2015/07/george-lucas-star-wars-and-oceanic-art/#.YEiJ-p37RhF (accessed 15 September 2021)

[4]  Wikipedia contributors, "Agency," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agency&oldid=1037924611 (accessed September 17, 2021)

[5] Rawinia Higgins, 'Tā moko – Māori tattooing - Origins of tā moko', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ta-moko-maori-tattooing/page-1 (accessed 17 September 2021)

[6] Tourism New Zealand, ‘The meaning of tā moko, traditional Māori tattoos’,  The Tourism New Zealand website, https://www.newzealand.com/us/feature/ta-moko-maori-tattoo/ (accessed 17 September 2021)

#THE CLONES DESERVED BETTER WE ALL KNOW IT #star wars #star wars animated series #the bad batch #clone troopers #tbb #mandalorian #colonialism #whitewashing #UnwhitewashTBB #semiotics #visual culture #cw #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #rex #hunter #the bad batch hunter #dave filoni #temuera morrison #maori culture #moko #anakin skywalker #star wars rebels #obi wan #capitan rex #cody

[animated-antagonist]

Qibli has a terrible arc

HEAR ME OUT.

Before you attack me for this, I genuinely don’t care if you like or hate him. I never loved him, but he wasn’t as bad as moon. Sometimes he’s funny, I like his interactions with winter, but I never really cared about him. But the way his mind was described in moon rising made me excited for his pov in book 10.

Then I read it and realized that he’s a boring, whiny, obsessive character who I was immediately sick of.

Darkness of dragons as a whole is a fucking mess from start to finish. And because I have nothing better to do right now, im going to explain why.

This is all my opinion, and it is based on story structure and character arc guidelines and stuff that I have learned recently. Feel free to disagree. Qibli is a decent character with his charm and humour, but he has the worst character arc out of all wof books. Yes that includes the hive queen and dragonslayer.

 Ok so first, what I like about qibli: like two things: his relationship with winter, and his sense of humour. I like his playful banter with the shiny ice dragon prince. It’s entertaining. And he does have the occasional joke that manages to somewhat amuse me.

 Literally everything else about him is awful. So let’s talk about that.

 Memorable characters are driven by three main things: desire, fear, and misbelief.

 Winter’s misbelief is that his life’s worth is determined by a ranking on a wall and what his tribe thinks of him. This also results in him believing that working with others and expressing love and trust are signs of weakness. He’s afraid of being a disappointment to his tribe because he’s experienced that feeling in his past already, and never wants to face it again. And yet … he does want more. He’s more open and caring than the rest of his family, and in the two backstory scenes we get, it’s clear he’s far more willing to bend the rules to be even a little more free.

 Peril’s misbelief is that she’s too dangerous to make her own decisions. Therefore, she’s instantly loyal to anyone who expresses a hint of interest or affection to her. This leads to her being easy to manipulate, and Scarlet does just that. She’s afraid of displeasing the people she’s loyal to, but she does want to be free. But her backstory and eight years of living by Scarlet’s orders and not having a single thought of her own has lead her to subconsciously believe that she constantly has to have someone make all her choices for her. She doesn’t go after Scarlet for her own benefit, it never crosses her mind once. She’s doing it because she knows it will make Clay happy, and not herself.

 Turtle always wanted to be a hero. That’s literally in the book blurb. But the Snapper incident in his backstory makes him doubt that he will ever be anything more than just another SeaWing prince. Thanks to his mother’s stories, he believes that in order to be a real hero, he has to do great, epic things like slaying whole armies by himself. He wants to be a hero, but his misbelief and fear of being noticed get in the way of his wants.

 And they all grow and overcome their fears and misbeliefs. Winter realizes that his friends would never hurt him the same way his family would. He realizes that it’s okay to love and be loved, to trust and be trusted. He goes back to his friends because he knows that, even if they can be annoying some times, it’s so much better than having his worth determined by a family and tribe that never approved of him and probably never will. Peril discovers that her misbelief is leading her to make the wrong decisions. Her growth is so strong that she can take off an animus touched object. She knows she’s right. She can make her own choices, and she’s done letting others use her as a toy. Turtle saves his sister, not by taking down an army, but by tossing her his enchanted stick to keep her hidden from Darkstalker. In doing that, he’s proven that he’s evolved and changed as a character. They all still have doubts at times, but that’s normal. These three characters have some of the best arcs I’ve ever seen.

 Now back to Qibli.

 His family told him he was worthless and couldn’t do anything as an ordinary dragon. This sparked the misbelief that he has to have power, or in this world animus magic, to have worth. He’s afraid of being worthless, and wants to feel valuable. That’s a great setup for a great character. Qibli could have, and should have, been one of the best wof characters of all time.

 But no he fucking sucks.

 I’m going to focus on him as a character here. The Vulture stuff is boring as hell and I don’t care to talk about it. The whole book is shit and I will never read it again, so let’s continue.

 Again, Qibli is set up to be an excellent character. When he goes to find Ostrich, he brings with him Anemone’s bracelets, which makes perfect sense. He doesn’t want to be powerless, so of course he’s going to bring that magic, that power, with him. More setup that goes no where, because when he uses them, he doesn’t even face consequences.

 Pausing here because I hate it so much.

 CONSEQUENCES ARE WHAT MAKE CHARACTERS GROW. If they face ZERO consequences for their actions, they won’t LEARN anything. Qibli using the bracelets works for his character, but I just cannot believe that Thorn would just let him walk away after burying the ENTIRE FUCKING KINGDOM in sand. I hate it so much. Qibli just getting a free pass and facing no consequences is so bad. He doesn’t even express that much remorse or guilt. That could work for a negative character arc (which I genuinely would have preferred from Qibli but I’ll get to that later) but for a positive arc? The magic and power he craves so deeply just got his entire kingdom buried. He should have so much more internal conflict now, because the thing he wants so badly just did more harm than good.

 Okay. Next part. This one isnt’ really related to his character arc, just more of him being a kinda jerk for a few seconds. Winter expresses great concern over travelling over Darkstalker’s teeth, and Qibli just teases him about it. Winter has known about Darkstalker’s malice his whole life, was brainwashed by him, and is truly terrified of him. If Qibli had teased him about anything else I wouldn’t have an issue, but Winter was scared for his life in this moment and Qibli just completely ignores it. Or maybe I’m wrong I haven’t touched the book in years because I hate it that much.

 Back to his ‘arc’.

 Wait no this is an issue I have with the book: the cliffhanger of book 9 was Turtle losing his animus magic and they just kinda fixed it in two seconds here. It’s very upsetting and kinda comical that they fixed it so effortlessly lmao.

 Back to Qibli.

 Uh nothing happens for a while. Just boring Moonbli WHICH, might I add, is the worst wof ship (excluding problematic ones ofc). They have zero chemistry and honestly I find Qibli a bit obsessive. He always thinks ‘what would Moon do’ or ‘will Moon love me if I do this?’ which yeah it ties into his ‘I want to be loved and have value’ motivation but it still feels a bit excessive and annoying at times. Pair that with his constant nagging about how ‘oh no if only I had that gosh darn scroll!’ or ‘how can moon ever choose meeee when she has winterrrr’. Moon described his mind to be fast and full of commotion, but we never see any of that in this book. It’s just constant whining and complaining.

 Then he goes another step further and blames Winter for getting angry at Moon for??? being friends with the dragon who just tried to murder his whole tribe???? Moon’s a fucking idiot for continuing to be friends with Darkstalker after everyone keeps telling her how bad he is. KINKAJOU, HER SUPPOSED BEST FRIEND, tells her all about what Darkstalker did to Turtle, and Moon’s just okay with it??? And then when Winter confronts her about still trusting Darkstalker after everything he’s done not just to the IceWings, but her friends as well, that Darkstalker brainwashed Winter and he’s not okay with it, Qibli calls him self-righteous for exploding with fury. What else do you expect?? This moment killed all three ships for me. It was an unnecessary event that’s only purpose was to give Tui a reason to make Moonbli canon instead of Winterwatcher.

 Onto the climax (which by the way is like the only semi decent part of this whole book). Qibli again uses his power to save the day. SERIOUSLY??? Ok fine it makes sense because this book has zero structure whatsoever. Qibli doesn’t have to make the impossible choice at the end of act one. He doesn’t face a goal shift at the midpoint. He doesn’t look a disaster right in the face. You cannot convince me that he’s changed at all over the course of this book.

 Because he doesn’t. He uses magic at the climax and boom everything is fixed. I like the concept of the empathy spell but it just doesn’t fit with this kind of character arc, unless it comes before the dark moment and fits into the supposed victory plot-point (thinking again now I think it sort of does but I’m too lazy to go change things so deal with it).

 And then oh no we get the temptation plot point! This is often my favourite plot point in stories that have it because we get to see the protagonist drop their misbelief and refuse the offer because they’ve changed! Reading this and thinking, oh wow he’s going to refuse it because he’s gone through a super dynamic character journey and arc!’ … then realizing no he’s not, because Tui forgot to include that and now makes Qibli refuse the offer for completely different reasons.

 See in a book with a good character arc, the character will refuse this offer because they’ve outgrown it. They no longer see value in it because they now have something greater to live for. I like this plot point much more than darkest moment if I’m being honest. So Darkstalker offers Qibli all he’s ever wanted: animus magic. Will Qibli accept, or decline? And why?

 He declines. But not for the right reasons.

 Qibli doesn’t refuse Darkstalker’s offer because he’s changed or grown. He doesn’t refuse it because he now sees no value in this because he’s seen happiness anywhere else. He refuses because he knows he can’t trust Darkstalker.

 … wow.

 i hate this book so much istg

 If Qibli had gone through a dynamic arc, he would have refused for better reasons.

 It’s just so disappointing. He has no reason to refuse that other than the fact that Darkstalker is untrustworthy. Holy shit.

 I take character arcs and story structure very seriously, and Qibli is just AWFUL when it comes to this.

 After three books that had such epic, emotional character arcs, DoD feels like a downgrade. And that’s why I think Qibli is a terrible character.

 But hey you know what COULD have worked?? Giving Qibli a NEGATIVE arc instead!

 I know he’s Darkstalker’s foil. That’s cool I don’t care. GIVE HIM A NEGATIVE ARC!! I would have LOVED IT SO MUCH MORE if Qibli accepted Darkstalker’s offer and arc 3 was all about all the other protagonists coming together to stop him and Darkstalker. That would have made a much better third arc. And you can bring in the other tribes if you want to I don’t care just find a way to make it work.

 It would have made so much more sense and fit the story so much more if Qibli accepted Darkstalker’s offer and became an evil animus alongside him. It also could have given Moonbli more time and chemistry! I still would have shipped Winterwatcher because well, Winter, but I probably wouldn’t hate Moonbli if this was the way the story went. Or maybe Qinter could be a thing. Imagine like a really emotional moment where Qibli is about to kill Winter and Winter just talks to him or something idk something romantic and sad. Would be great because there’s zero mlm rep in wof.

 Fuck it I’m gonna make an au about this.

 Yeeah that’s my rant over. I don’t hate Qibli as a character and I think he had so much potential but the way the story is written, I honestly thought he would have a negative arc instead. Wow I really want that au now I can’t stop thinking about it haha. But yeah Qibli is charismatic at times and a bit fun but his arc is terrible. Moon had a better arc than Qibli. MOON.

Sorry if this came off as aggressive at times I just wanted to voice my opinion. If you like him, that’s cool! I just don’t. He’s not one of my favourites although he could have been. Missed potential in my opinion. This is a very long rant so if you’re still reading this … thanks lol.

 Have a good day/night. Im gonna make that au now lmao.

#rant post