#hopefully the dialogue tags & context explain enough

[learningtolovesomethingnew]

Odontiasis

Arrgghhh! Something is wrong. Very, very wrong. The wrong is everywhere! “Otherme, help,” I beg, “help, NOW! Hurry!” Finally. Here we are. “Please, Otherme,” I whimper, “make the everywhere wrong go away!” the Warmth flooding as we rise up and relief- oh no! It isn’t gone, the wrong is still here. Otherme will fix it, I just have to explain that it’s still there.

“It is awful,” I begin as we enter the cozy, soothing rhythm of up, “there is a terrible, loud feeling in me. It’s cold and empty can we make it stop now, please?”

“Shhhhhhhhhh.Shhhhhhh,” breathes Otherme in our ear as the world becomes suddenly too, too bright. We hate the brightness. We break apart and one of our hands begins to fumble at our low part.

“Stop that,” I command, although none of our hands ever listens to us, especially when we’re upset. Maybe it’s time for a physical approach. We arch up. Bat at the hand with some other hands. We thrash our low part, it’s no use.

After an eternity, it is over. Yessss. The soft place gently catches us and we are pulling the sunshine into our mouth…

This can’t be happening! The wrong is worse! This has never happened before. The sunshine always makes everything better. There can be only one explanation: this is the new us. We will feel this way forever. The world must be notified of this gross injustice.

“No, no, noooooo! This. Is. Unacceptable,” just getting warmed up to air my grievances. “Make it stop, now”, I demand to whom I do not know. “The sunshine makes it worse. I cannot bear it.”

“Hmmm, hm, hmmm, hmm,” Otherme chimes in with a resigned murmur. “La, la, mmmmmhhmmm,” we harmonize, and the billowing vibrations lull us into an exhausted stupor.

Where is Otherme? We were just here. Why is there something in our mouth!? Ouch, its slick sharpness on our tongue. Here we go again. “Othermeeeeeeeeee!”

In case I didn’t convey it well, this is a first-person narration of a tooth cutting. Based on current research, I tried to include a six month old infant’s inability to extricate his identity from that of his primary care giver. I chose “Otherme” as my name (even though it’s a bit on the nose) because it has “mother” in it and I like the cadence of the fictitious word. I hope that “Otherme” provided some foreshadowing of the event and added context while building the narrator’s character and unique perspective. I know, that’s a lot to ask of a name.

First-person narration is challenging enough to write, and I decided to blur the pronouns on top of that. I stuck to “we, us”, unless I was using a dialogue tag where I thought “I” felt more immediate. I tried to maintain age/development appropriate concepts of self and situational awareness throughout the narration and switched to more sophisticated speech language. I utilized the symbol “sunshine” for breastmilk to (hopefully) portray the benevolent, life-giving necessity that it is. I wanted it’s ineffectiveness to raise the action while providing a clue to the ultimate outcome. The metaphorical “billowing vibrations” are what I’ve always imagined my son perceives when I hold him pressed to my chest while it is expanding and contracting with my singing breaths. I called our rocking, “the cozy, soothing rhythm of up” because my child demands motion while being held- I don’t think he recognizes that he’s okay until we are swaying. It also allowed the action to fall in my organic narrative, before the final plot shift. I intentionally left my vignette unresolved to communicate a realistic portrayal of early childhood: as soon as one issue is remedied, another arises- also inexplicable and brand new.

This story was important for me to attempt because my son cut his first tooth when he was six months old. I tried to put myself in his position of being unable to determine what was happening: incomprehensible to why his other half wasn’t in sync and convinced that this pain was a new and permanent aspect of his existence. I couldn’t do it. My powers of empathy utterly failed me, it was too large a leap. This is the closest I’ve come to understanding the abject horror of it.

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Out Tonight (Part 2)

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Papi

<- Part 1 | Part 3 ->

Summary: After a night of karaoke, Barba teaches you some Spanish, gives you some slightly patronizing advice, and follows you up to your hotel room. (Lo siento por mi español. Por favor dime si cometí algún error!)

Rafael Barba x female reader

Warning: NSFW/18+, Dub-con!! Everyone is enthusiastically willing, but also super drunk.

For @thatesqcrush​’s kink bingo!

6,089 words

“So… Rafael Barba,” you changed the subject away from today’s trial. His failure to get a conviction had sent him into such a steep emotional spiral he cried in your arms at the bar, despite having just met you an hour ago. “That’s Spanish, right?”

The vulnerability in his eyes flattened. “Cuban,” he said, already bracing for the “but you don’t look Latino” comments, or worse, something about rafts or cigars. Instead your eyes got wide like he just ripped off a mask and revealed himself to be David Bowie.

“Cool!”

“I… guess?” There were eighty thousand Cuban-Americans living in New York, but sure.

“Hablar… I mean, hablas español?”

“Sí, lo hablo,” he answered with wry amusement, pinching the bridge of his nose.

You chewed your lip in thought before slowly saying, “Aprendí un poco de español en la escuela, y lo me gusta mucho.”

His brow raised. You actually knew more than he expected, which is to say, you could string more than two words together. “Not bad. Toda mi familia es de Cuba, así que el español es mi lengua materna. Soy el primer estadounidense.”

He spoke faster, at a natural pace, expecting you to follow, but when your eyes glazed over and you awkwardly squeaked out, “...Qué?” it became clear you did not, in fact, speak Spanish.

“Let’s stick to English,” he grimaced.

You whined in disappointment. “But that was so hot! Please? Un poco más. Dime algo en español!”

“Algo.”

An unflattering snort erupted from your nostrils, and you started giggling like a manic school girl. Barba shook his head with second-hand embarrassment, though a smile crept over his lips as you continued struggling to contain yourself, pleased at how well his bad joke had gone over.

“Come on, teach me something,” you pouted, leaning towards him, pushing your chest out. “Por favor… papi?”

He choked on his drink so hard burning whisky shot up his nose. “Ay, dios!” He pounded his chest and ordered a water. “OK, OK, bueno,” he put up his hands in defeat. “Hablaré en español. Solo para ti, mamita. Te gusta?”

“Mucho, papi.” You were taking advantage of calling him that now that you’d seen his reaction. He didn’t nearly die this time, but a red blush was sweeping up his neck under his shirt collar. Emboldened, he leaned toward you, eyes heavily lidded as he flirtatiously held your gaze.

“Tienes novio?”

“A husband? Do I look married?” you flipped your ringless left hand back and front and worried about your age.

He laughed, raising a hand to his forehead with his palm shading his eyes. “That would be esposo.”

“Oh. Right.” Your face darkened. “No, yo soy… single.”

“Estás soltera,” he prompted.

“Ah, gracias. Estoy soltera. Y tú?” you tilted your face down shyly and looked up at him through your lashes. “Tienes esposo? O novia?”

“Nope,” he popped the p, staring into the empty bottom of his scotch glass and wishing he hadn’t decided to cut himself off. The sip of water he took was boring and not numbly soothing at all. He had been single for a depressingly long time, in fact.

“Muy bien,” you smiled with delight, and he suddenly realized his years of failure at relationships were, tonight, a positive. It was the answer a very beautiful woman was hoping for. He may have been suffering from a string of humiliating losses, but winning you over reawakened his cocky self-assurance.

“Acércate.” He curled his finger to beckon you closer, and you swung onto his lap. God, you were so close. Your body fit so perfectly in his arms and you smelled like strawberry lemonade from that cocktail. Before he could help it, he was kissing you again. Softer and a little less desperate this time. A little more… something else. He just met you, but the way you made him feel cared about was stronger than he had ever felt, depressing as that was to admit. The one time he had put his whole heart into a relationship, he’d had it shattered so badly he was still picking up the pieces. Since then, he chose relationships that were mutually guarded, partners he knew he would never connect with, and who didn’t expect anything back. Barba did not open up to people. He’d never let himself cry on anyone before, except his abuelita. He must have been extremely drunk to let his guard down so much, but he pushed the realization out of mind as your fingers curled through his hair around the back of his head and pulled him deeper, your strawberry tongue slipping between his bitter lips. He wanted this. He needed it. He felt so close to you, so right—that was all that mattered.

He started whispering to you in Spanish between kisses, phrases you couldn’t understand, some that you got the gist of. He cringed a little at your attempts to reply in his first language, but kissed you more softly each time. You were trying, at least. You were trying very hard to understand a piece of him. The phrases he murmured against your lips grew progressively more filthy, which your keen ears picked up on even if you weren’t entirely sure what they meant.

“Como se dice, ‘fuck me harder’?” you asked in a low voice full of lust, fingers tightening against his scalp.

“...damelo más duro,” he said with a shudder. His cock twitched and he wondered if you’d noticed the growing erection pressed against your thigh as you sat in his lap. What you would think. But you must have noticed, and you weren’t moving to get away from him.

“Damelo duro, papi,” you purred, leaning to say it into his ear, your breath warm and tickling.

He swallowed, heart hammering in his chest. Barba, always so eloquent under pressure in court, could barely form words to express a coherent thought. You were just joking. You must have been. To you it was a foreign language, and it didn’t sound like a real request to your ears. This was just a flirty game, teaching you naughty Spanish. “Y-you are… getting into dangerous territory here,” he tried to laugh jokingly, but his throat was dry. He swallowed again.

You lowered your voice and your eyelids. “I mean it,” you whispered against the shell of his ear. To punctuate your point, you rolled your hips, deliberately grinding your inner thigh against his forming erection. He was so wildly aroused with alcohol he thought he would come right there, but its effects were also preventing him from getting completely hard yet, something he should probably have been concerned about, but wasn’t.

“Would you like to go somewhere?” he said, voice strained with urgency. “I would very much like to go somewhere immediately and fuck your brains out, please. If that’s… alright with you.”

***

The streets of Midtown were as bright and crowded as they were during the day, just a little less hurried—except for two people. You held Barba’s large hand, long elegant fingers laced with yours, laughing giddily in the warm summer air as you raced toward your hotel, stopping only to desperately kiss each other, fingers in each other’s hair, reigniting the flames that pulled you together.

Barba broke away panting, his lips wet with your saliva. The fresh air had a sobering effect, and something serious occurred to him. He had been animated and outgoing all night at the bar, but he suddenly very much resembled the shrewd lawyer whose picture you had seen in a news article. You felt like you’d been called to the principal’s office under the severity of his gaze, waiting for whatever it was he had to say.

“Did you take any pictures of us together?”

“I… might have taken a few selfies,” you admitted, terrified you’d committed a heinous faux pas.

“Good,” he said. “Do you have location data enabled? You should send those to someone you trust, along with the time you left the bar, and where we’re going.”

Gears in your head turned slowly to put together an intelligible response. You opened your mouth and declared, “...whuh?”

“You’re out drinking alone, taking a stranger home!” he gripped your shoulders as if to shake you. “Do you know how many cases never get off the ground because there’s no ID, no proof the victim and assailant were ever in the same room? Those photos would establish a timeline and a suspect, and would be enough for a warrant. Do you know what I would give to have evidence like that in every case? A lot more rapists would go to jail.”

“Are you… saying you’re a rapist?” you said slowly, cocking your head.

He stiffened, mentally replaying his own words. His eyes darted to the side, up, down, and three other directions in rapid succession. “N-no… But you have no way of knowing that. You’re too trusting. No matter how charming someone seems, it’s better to be paranoid and take precautions.”

“Uh-huh. Real charming. You know, it’s creepy telling someone that right before you’re going to sleep with them. How do you say that in Spanish?”

He groaned and looked so crestfallen it impressed upon you how much horror he must deal with every day, prosecuting special victims cases in the big city. How much that weighed on him and made him see nothing but worst-case scenarios around every corner. It didn’t seem so strange now that he was single—it must be impossible to connect with anyone when you live like that.

“I just… want you to be safe,” he said quietly, eyes down. A swelling of sympathy flooded your heart, and formed a lump in your throat. Before you could think twice, you’d pulled him into your arms.

“I feel very safe with you, Rafael.” Your words drew a tiny, strangled noise from his chest, and his grip around you tightened.

The mood had shifted catastrophically, to the point that it seemed unlikely a one-night stand was in your future any longer. Barba walked slowly by your side, lost in reflective silence. Sex or no, you invited him up to your hotel room. You would never get enough of being around him, and couldn’t bear to say goodbye, even if you were only sitting up talking of somber issues late into the night.

But by the time the elevator doors closed, leaving you completely alone together for the first time, your libidos overpowered the gloom and his hands were all over your body, his mouth hot and fervent against your throat. You moaned wantonly, confident in the privacy the elevator afforded as it whisked you upward toward the eleventh floor. You slipped your hands inside his jacket, feeling his solid pectoral muscles stretching his shirt, and he cupped a hand between your legs, kneading the crotch of your pants. Even through your jeans, it sparked a fire that sizzled through your whole body. You pulled at his back, drawing more of his weight against you.

The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Several cleaning ladies stared unimpressed as you and Barba quickly unhanded each other, stood straighter, and tried to pretend you were dignified professionals just riding an elevator together and definitely not almost having sex in there.

They were far more used to seeing this sort of thing than you were, judging by their almost bored eye rolls, but as you passed them on your way into the hall, one of them muttered something in rapid Spanish that made the other women giggle and Barba trip over his feet, face neon red, and look down at the front of his pants which were sporting a very conspicuous tent.

“Madre de Dios,” he groaned.

Shoulders convulsing with laughter, you took his arm and led him to room, uh… You fumbled in your purse for your room key with the number written on it.

“This is my first time doing this,” you confessed as the magnetic lock clicked and the light on the door changed from red to green.

“Having sex?”

“With someone I just met. In a bar!” you teased, turning the handle.

Part of you wondered when both of you were going to wake up and realize you were acting like horny teenagers—that you shouldn’t be doing this. But you hoped you wouldn’t, at least not until morning. You weren’t nervous. If you had been introspective that night, that would have surprised you the most. The whole confident, sexy Mimi Márquez, Out Tonight act was just a character you put on for karaoke to get psyched up and out of your shell. If you had been questioning yourself, you would have wondered how a shy good girl was having a one-night stand with a handsome Manhattan lawyer wearing a suit that cost more than your mortgage and not having an anxiety attack. But you weren’t questioning yourself, and you weren’t nervous. You looked in his intelligent eyes that were as pale as the underside of a silver maple leaf or dark as a dense hemlock grove depending on the lighting, and you simply wanted him.

***

He followed you into the dark hotel room, which was disappointingly small and shoddy for how expensive it was, so you left the lights off to preserve some mystery. The city glowed through the window brighter than a full moon, anyway. Barba pulled off his suit jacket, tossing it recklessly aside as he prowled toward you. Almost immediately, he thought better of this and found the heap of designer fabric on the floor next to the sandals you had kicked off, picked it up, smoothed it out, and carefully folded it over the back of an office chair at the little desk. He removed his tie and did the same.

You grinned behind your hand. Changing tunes so quickly from ravenously horny to prim—it didn’t surprise you that a guy who dressed as sharply as he did would have his priorities on wrinkle-avoidance even in the heat of the moment. It might have rubbed you as snobbish if it wasn’t so funny.

When he returned to you, his back was to the window, so you couldn’t make out the expression on his shadowed face, but the silhouettes of his shoulders were tense and his voice sheepish as if expecting a rebuke. “Sorry. I couldn’t leave it there. It’s a Brioni and—”

You slid your fingers under the pink-striped suspenders at both shoulders, closed your fists around them, and tugged. He lurched forward, and you caught his lips with yours. Letting out a surprised moan, he closed his eyes, and wrapped his arms around you, grateful you weren’t accusing him of vanity. You held firm to the elastic bands like a leash on him, pulling him closer when you wanted to deepen the contact until he was so enraptured he needed no extra encouragement to shove his tongue between your lips as they parted, his hands roaming your sides, your hair, and over the swell of your bottom, grabbing a handful.

“You really do… have the best ass… below 14th street,” he said devilishly, in between crushing his hungry mouth against yours.

Running down the length of his suspenders, your hands took a tour of his entire torso, enjoying the firm bulk of his chest, and the softness of his belly. You liked that there was something to love there. Gym rats with nothing but hard muscle were painfully dull. His stomach twitched ticklishly at your probing touch and he broke away from your lips to protest, so you continued your suspender tour all the way to the bottom, where the leather straps attached the elastic bands to his pants. His hips rocked forward, and his clothed cock pressed into your thigh. You let out a sultry breath and pushed your own hips back against him, lining him up against your clit to ignite a burning, tempting pressure between you. You couldn’t even kiss him. Your mouth hung slack, and all you could focus on was the friction of his hard cock against your aching cunt. You had to get out of these clothes.

“Bed. Now,” you huffed.

“Yeah.”

As he toed off his leather shoes, you slipped his suspenders off his shoulders and were slightly disappointed this did not immediately make his pants fall off. He climbed on top of the blanket, and you climbed onto his lap, throwing a leg over his hips.

An impressively sized hand with a vein meandering across it curled around that tempting leg, palming the tight denim stretched over your thighs. The hand rode up, found the bottom hem of your blouse and dove under it. You shivered as warm fingertips crested over your jeans and found your waiting skin.

“Are you okay with this?” he rasped, eyes flicking across your face.

“Keep going,” you nodded, the prickles of your skin screaming in protest at the thought that he might stop. His hand worked up your side, exploring new territory under your shirt. Every point of contact sent warm waves vibrating out to your most intimate parts. You lowered your mouth to his and your lips melted against his, pussy soaking through your underwear as you felt his body respond beneath you. His clever fingers found the band of your bra and inched over the fabric.

“Is this alright?” he paused his advance to check in again.

You leaned close and whispered, “I want you to touch me, papi,” darting your tongue just below his ear, and rolling your hips over his cock again. “Touch me everywhere.”

He growled, deep and throaty and thick with lust, his own hips bucking up to grind himself against yours. With your carte blanche permission given, a switch flipped inside him and he dove in, roughly palming your breasts with both hands, rolling the fat and finding your hardened nipples through your bra cups. Even through the thicker fabric, his thumbs circled and pinched the sensitive peaks hard enough that you whimpered with every sensation. Your hips were moving without your leave, desperately driving against his cock while your hands quickly worked to unbutton the front of your shirt. He had become an animal, his eyes unfocused, breathing heavy, lost in voracious need.

“S-slow down,” you tried asking, wondering if he would—if he could at this point, despite all his earlier talk of consent.

His hands were off you in an instant, and he was apologizing and asking if you were OK.

“Just testing your off switch,” you smirked as you finished the final button, and your blouse opened up. Marveling at the man beneath your legs, you unhooked the front clasp of your bra and felt his cock stir at the naked sight of you. Any lingering uncertainty was gone—you managed to score the most principled lay in all of New York sitting by himself in a karaoke bar, and you trusted him completely. “Since I already know your on switch, don’t I papi?”

He swore in Spanish, some excitingly lusty expressions you would have to take note of later.

“What was it again? Cómo se dice...” you teased, tapping your index finger against your lips in thought. You watched his pupils widen as you pinched your finger between your teeth. “Oh yeah. Damelo, papi. Damelo duro.”

Hearing those words from your perfect sensuous lips drove him wild. Grabbing your hips, he rolled you onto your back, swapping positions. His fevered mouth pressed wet kisses all over your exposed skin, heated breath dancing over your neck as his tongue flicked out to taste you. You reached down to curl your fingers into his thick, dark hair. He pushed your breasts, which had fallen to the sides, back together and ran his tongue through the cleavage. You drew in a sharp breath. “Just like that, papi,” you moaned. He took a nipple in his mouth, sucking and circling his tongue over it until your cunt was pulsating and your breath coming out in hard, ragged whimpers, then pinched it between his teeth, drawing a yelp of pleasure mixed with pain. You yanked at his hair and your hips bucked jerkily. Your core ached with emptiness, longing to be filled by his cock. You wrapped your legs around his lower back and pulled his hips down against you to feel more of him. The strangled noises in his throat were practically feral as his clothed sex rutted up against you, valiantly striving to be inside you through your pants. His mouth sloppily devoured your breasts until they were burned raw from his stubble.

He released your nipple with a wet noise and sat up to free his straining erection from his pants. The latching mechanism didn’t seem particularly hard, but after nearly a minute of fumbling he had made very little progress, and you held up a hand and told him to stop.

He whined and gave you puppy dog eyes, but did as you asked. “Is this another test?”

“No. It’s just… those pants are not that complicated.”

His head tipped in confusion.

“You’re really drunk, aren’t you?” You were tipsy yourself, but considering you could at least manage buttons, you had a sudden, sinking realization that he was far more incapacitated than you. He was so well-spoken and thoughtful you hadn’t noticed, but he was a lawyer—staying controlled and eloquent was his job. You might have been drunk, but he was drunk drunk. “If we have sex right now I think that would make me a predator.”

He frowned, cock still straining against the binds of his pants. “Technically, in New York state, being intoxicated does not invalidate sexual consent.”

“Don’t you lawyer this! I don’t care what’s technically legal—you are way too drunk. And I don’t want you waking up with regrets.”

His shoulders fell, because he knew you were right. It was a law he considered a glaring loophole, and he admired you for doing the right thing, but ¡maldita sea! he wished you were just a little less ethical. Deep down he knew he wouldn’t be doing this if he were in full command of himself tonight. But that was why he was so desperate to do it now. He would never let himself go again, not for a long time, and he would miss out on experiencing an intense—if ultimately not real—connection with someone. He would miss out on getting to be with you.

“Well...” you hesitated, watching the disappointment in his eyes displace what had moments ago been confidence and excitement, and tormented by your own unsatisfied ache. “I mean, we can still fool around, right?”

He laid his body down alongside you, his breath still coming in hot, shallow pants. His comforting weight settling beside you on the soft hotel mattress stirred up the coiling insistent heat between your legs. “Is this OK?” he whispered, voice heavy with lust. Blood pounded in your ears as his hand slipped under your waistband.

“Y-yeah, that’s OK,” you nodded. A compromise. It wasn’t sex. Technically.

Trapped tightly between your skin and your jeans, his fingers reached your slit, spreading it with surprising deftness to find your clit. Waves of pleasure exploded through your body as he pressed an irresistible finger to it, making your thighs spasm and lift off the mattress as you bit back a sinful cry. You were almost screaming from just one touch. The sound of throbbing blood in your ears was deafening, and your cunt throbbed in time with it to an unbearable tempo. God, you wanted him to fuck you with his cock.

He drew in a shaking breath as he observed your response, his lust-clouded eyes boring into you with a hint of the keen perceptiveness he used in court. He risked probing deeper, pushing a long digit farther into your panties, dragging it through your pussylips as you squirmed beneath him, then drew it back, dripping, to circle your clit, and smiled as you clamped a hand over your mouth to keep a neighbor-waking vocalization in check. You were soaking wet for him, and it made his erection strain jealously against the closure of his slacks. It had been too long, since he’d allowed himself time for anything other than work. It was almost unbearable having someone moan for him and not be able to fuck them. But you said no, so he focused on what you would allow him to do—on giving you the most earthshaking orgasm you’d ever experienced.

The tightness of your jeans was too restrictive, and you quickly unbuttoned them and zipped them down. “My papi’s fingers feel so good,” you groaned. “I want more of them.”

“You feel… so good,” he answered, lowering his mouth to yours for a fervent, but surprisingly tender kiss as he moved his fingertips over your swollen, stimulated cunt. He traced over your dripping entrance, and pressed in just the tip of one finger, leaving you gasping for more. He withdrew from your pants and brought his fingers to his lips, sucking them clean, his eyes closing as he savored it. “You taste good, too,” he whispered low and gravelly, almost a growl, though not one you would describe as predatory. There was no danger lurking behind those perceptive eyes—the thrill he gave you had a different source. Your tongue darted over his, dipping into his mouth to taste yourself on his broad tongue.

“Is papi going to fuck me with those fingers?” you challenged, enjoying the way his breath hitched every time you called him that. You’d heard it in passing and knew it was something like calling him “daddy,” but you’d never expected it to have such a big effect.

He helped you pull your jeans down below the swell of you ass, not bothering to take them all the way off and interrupt your pleasure any longer. Once he had all the access he needed, he plunged his fingers into you. He observed carefully, gauging your reaction in the way the slick walls of your cunt gripped and twitched around him, and the tone and frequency of your pleading moans. When one finger wasn’t enough, he added a second, satisfied with his judgment as you cried out and arched against him, your hands gripping the blanket at the stretch. “Te gusta, mamita?” he purred, but you were too breathless to give an answer except a throaty carnal whimper.

Adapting himself to your responses, he alternated penetrating you with his fingers and teasing your clit, kissing you hot and fierce, ramping up his intensity to draw louder and louder cries, leaving a trail of wet bruises down your neck. Curling his fingers inside you, he hit a sweet spot that made your legs begin to tremble. You wailed uninhibited and raw, too overwhelmed with pleasure to try to rile him with another “papi.” He sucked your pulse point under your ear, savoring the feeling of your blood racing beneath his lips. Knowing how turned you were, how much he was affecting you was so deliciously invigorating to his ego. As easily as he could command a courtroom, he’d never had the same confidence in his body. Past lovers would say he had perfect technique, but no soul, no intuition for what a they needed—but here you were, cunt twitching on his fingers, moaning over and over for him.

Your eyes kept closing to focus on what he was doing between your thighs, but when they opened you saw how intensely he was watching you. The arousal on his face as he watched was intoxicating. You had never seen such anyone look at you with such wanton lust, and it heightened your excitement.

“Rafael… Raf—oh, fuck,” you hissed, jerking your hips up to deepen the penetration. “Keep going... deeper!”

“Dime, ‘más profundo,’” he ordered softly, but confidently.

“M-más profundo, papi.”

“Eres buena estudiante,” he praised, a smile lighting his eyes as he sank his fingers deeper with enthusiasm. You were getting close, the fire singing between your thighs blossoming outward through your entire body but always coiling tighter in your core, building an unbearable tension that threatened to break you. He rocked his hips, and the heat twisted tighter at the feeling of his iron-hard cock grinding against you.

You squeezed your hand between your two bodies, groping blindly down his stomach until you found his pants and the massive tent he was pushing into your leg. You grasped the hard outline of his cock, squeezing it and working it through his clothes. He drew a sharp breath and for a moment the rhythmic thrusting of his fingers stuttered and paused. His hemlock-green eyes were black with arousal as they examined you. Then he rocked his hips, thrusting into your palm with a low groan, and his fingers pumped into you again with renewed vigor.

“Que buena chica eres… Just like that,” he croaked. His breathing was growing ragged, he was starting to fall apart with your hand working his cock.

He adjusted his weight to free his other hand, stroking the side of your face as he pressed a passionate kiss to your lips. His thumb kneaded your cheeks as they smiled against his mouth and went slack with lust. His mouth wandered lower, teasing your collar bone with light nips to make you yelp and sigh, then bending to take a mouthful of breast. He withdrew his two slick fingers from the depths of your cunt and circled your clit slowly, gently—then fast and rough as he sucked at a hardened nipple, drawing a shattered gasp from your throat. You rubbed his cock frantically, trying to repay some small amount of the pleasure he was giving you. When he plunged his fingers back inside, he added a third, and you moaned at the added fullness—at being stuffed tight, almost too much for you to handle, an intense pleasure threaded through with pain.

“Oh, fuck,” you cried out, eyes rolling back as you felt your climax build, every nerve ending in your body on fire.

“Is that a good fuck, or a bad fuck?”

“Good,” you stammered, barely holding yourself together. “Don’t stop, papi, I’m almost there.” The hint of pain faded into pure bliss as you imagined it was his cock splitting you open.

His eyes gleamed wickedly as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, watching you come undone with every stroke. This horrible week, he had felt so helpless, useless. It made him doubt himself. But this—this he had control over. Your body. Your arousal. Everything that had fallen apart wasn’t his fault; it was because of circumstances outside his authority to influence. When he was given complete control, this was his effect. He could get any result he wanted, elicit any twitch of your cunt, any moan from your lips, and have you singing in ecstasy just from his fingers. Imagine if you let him fuck you, the songs he could have you singing then.

He angled his hand so his palm was rubbing against your clit as he thrust, and he could tell you were riding the edge of the precipice by the helpless mewling whimpers pouring from your lips with increased fervor, how your walls began to invite him deeper, taking more of him until he was buried three knuckles deep and you were still bucking your hips to intensify each thrust, starving for more. His own hips began rocking at a frantic pace into your hand.

“Rafael… Oh, Rafael,” you moaned. You loved the shape of his name in your mouth. It was like you weren’t even strangers, the more you said it. For him, it would have been too personal for a casual hookup most nights, but for some reason it turned him on even more than when you called him papi.

“Ven conmigo,” he urged softly, his hips stroking at a delirious pace that did not match his calm tone. You didn’t recognize what it meant, but the sound of Spanish rolling over his tongue mixed with the wet lewd noises of his fingers fucking you drove you to the edge.

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna...” Your voice broke.

He ducked his head back to your chest and drew a nipple between his teeth, sucking hard just as you came over the precipice and pushing you off it with a violent shove until you wailed out loud, careening into a free-fall steeper and farther than you’d prepared for, your back arching and your walls crashing around his fingers, clenching and convulsing around them.

“Open your eyes,” he said. “Look at me.” You could hear the lawyer in his voice—controlled, assertive. Not quite a command, but your eyes fluttered open obediently. Holding eye contact while your body was being rocked by wave upon wave of fierce climax was too intimate, but he repeated his request low and soft as a tiger’s purr. Your met his gaze and held it. The look of lust on his face, his lips softly parted, lower lip quivering, renewed the strength of your orgasm and sent another shockwave coursing through you.

He kept pumping into you through your orgasm, riding out the aftershocks, until your legs were shaking and weak. The sensation of you coming on his fingers turned him on so much, he only needed to rock into your hand once more, flick his tongue over your breast, and he lost control. He was not vocal as you were as his thighs trembled with his own release, but his hips slowed, and then stopped, their desperate thrusting, and you felt a warm, wet spot soak through the front of his pants. Your gasping cries were stochastic and desperate now, overstimulated—you pushed his hand out of your underwear to stop his relentless fingers, and he rolled off of you heavily.

Laying back on the soft pile of hotel pillows, he slowed his breathing, then sucked his fingers clean one by one with a lascivious growl of pleasure. You watched him, shivering with fascination, and he glanced back at you with a piercing gaze. “I want to fuck you next time. Por favor, déjame a cogerte.”

Next time. You turned away, your cheeks burning up. You never assumed there would be a next time to this, but your heart wouldn’t stop beating at the thought.

“Next time sounds good. That was…” You turned back to praise him, but his eyes were already closed, and a light snore was emanating from his nose. “...Amazing, you lightweight.”

The dizzying effect of all the booze was catching up alarmingly quickly now that you were spent. After the strenuous effort of tugging the blanket out from under Barba so you could tuck it over him, you were completely worn out, and within a minute you were fast asleep as well, cuddled under his arm, your chests rising and falling in unison.

#Rafael Barba #Rafael Barba x Reader #Raúl Esparza #SVU #smut #Barba x female reader #My writing #thatesqcrush kink bingo #I am curious how intelligible this is to someone who speaks zero spanish #hopefully the dialogue tags & context explain enough

[ammocharis]

Writing Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @cleverblackcat and @tejaswrites!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

12 as of now, though some of them are parts of the same story and I might weave them all in a single work one day, but I decided to split them due to time skips and changes in tone. I don’t know when I’ll be able to bridge all the gaps but I still wanted to share what I wrote, so I ended up creating a series with a couple of installments.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

140 699 words

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Watch the Skies - 125 kudos

Vatna of Two Falcon Hold as a companion in Dragon Age - 8 kudos

Mirrors and Braids ex aequo Rattle the bars if you like, but I chose to enter this cage - 7 kudos

Aval'var, it means - our journey ex aequo Avvar History Reconstruction - 5 kudos

4. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, I do respond to almost every comment and I really appreciate receiving them. When someone comments on certain aspects of the story, I usually try to explain some of my choices, like why I decided for that character to react in such a way, why I deviated from the canonical storyline, or why I included those lore tidbits. It allows me to share my perspective, my reasons for writing the story in the first place.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Well, I have started writing an alternative storyline for my Avvar Inquisitor, Vatna, in which she becomes a part of the Jaws of Hakkon, which ought to be super angsty, but it has no ending yet.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Do limericks count? They’re fun but each is five verses long.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I had, in fact, the first fic that I wrote was a crossover between Dragon Age and Puella Magi - it’s just not published on AO3 and probably never will. It's pretty crazy, that’s for sure, given how wildly different those two pieces of media are, though strangely, I found a few of thematic parallels that compelled me to explore them for a while.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, and I hope I’ll be spared from it. My writing is not perfect by any means, and I do welcome constructive criticism and corrections, but I probably wouldn’t deal well with hate comments. Mustering motivation to write fics is hard enough as it is.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

No, not really. I have written some scenes that focused on sexual interactions, but they weren’t quite smutty, if that makes sense, as the POV character is a sex-indifferent asexual.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. I write in English, even though it isn’t my native tongue, so I could probably translate my own fics if I wanted, but I didn’t feel like it so far. If someone approached me with an offer to translate my fic into a language I don’t speak, I’m not sure what my reaction would be, as I’d like to know how they present my characters in the translated version. Translation is a tricky craft, and there are many ways to express a single concept. Sometimes, a translated work has a completely different tone from the original.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah, I wrote Fool's Gold with Toshi Nama as a part of Discord server collaboration, in which her Warden, Farin Brosca, and my Inquisitor, Vatna Einarsdotten, meet up to investigate a red lyrium smuggling operation in the Frostback Mountains. It was a fun challenge!

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I’m not sure, I don’t focus on shipping that much.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I probably won’t get back to finish my unpublished crossover xD But I enjoyed thinking about the possibilities, and I did have the general storyline thought out, but I don’t think I could finish it. For one, it would take a lot of time and motivation that I don’t have, and if I ought to pick a project I would like to see till the end, it’s the story of my Avvar girl.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve been told my worldbuilding is well-thought out. I do have the benefit of writing fanfiction, so there’s no need to built a world from ground up, but I do expand upon what’s presented in the original work, and I greatly enjoy it. I wonder a lot about the unexplored details, like when I’m writing about the Avvar, I imagine what kind of holidays they could celebrate, what cultural taboos they might observe, what is their main source of food, how their families could be structured, little things like that, which, hopefully, create a compelling picture together.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

My pacing is probably not that great, when I think about what I’d like to write, I don’t really ensure that each story beat is nicely spaced out, that there are no sudden accelerations or decelarations of plot. I do have a general plotline in my head, for the most part, but when it comes to writing, I focus on individual chapters. 

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it has its time and place, but I believe it should be done sparingly. I wouldn’t be excited to read a super long dialogue in a language different from the one that the work is written in, and I won’t include such things in my fic. It disrupts the flow and doesn’t benefit the story very much, in my opinion. If it’s necessary for the plot or characterization to show that someone speaks in another language, I think it’s enough to use a foreign word or a phrase from time to time, hint at its meaning through context, and describe how the communication barrier affects the characters.

My main character, Vatna, does alternate between her native tongue (Avvar, which is I represent as Icelandic/Old Norse) and a second language (Common Tongue, which for all my intents and purposes is equivalent to English) so I do include some lines in a different language, but I keep them short. Usually, it’s just a single word whose meaning can be easily inferred from the surrounding text. More often than not, I signify the language barrier through other means. Sometimes, Vatna slips into her native tongue for a longer moment, and she may even have conversations with her fellow Avvar, but the actual dialogue remains in English (i.e. Common) - instead, I use the narration to show that the language barrier is ever present, like describing the reaction of accompanying characters.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

My favourite is Mirrors and Braids, a part of the Saga of the Avvar-Daughter series, which focuses on Vatna’s reaction to the loss of her arm. Though it’s not really a “fun” story by any means, I am quite fond of it. It was somewhat cathartic to write.

Tag list under the cut

@samuraisaucefrites @dreadfutures @crackinglamb

#tag game #writing tag game

[parachutingkitten]

Season 5 Analysis

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am going to be applying the concept of criticism to a TV show you presumably love and adore as much as I do. If you do not want your idea that the show is immaculate to be challenged, I would not advise reading past this point.

Additional Disclaimer: This includes criticism of Nya’s arc, so if you’re the type of person to get catty about this subject, turn back now.

Mood for this season: It’s spoopy time.

You don’t need to, but if you are interested, and haven’t seen my analysis of past seasons, you can find those here:

Pilot - Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - Season 4

You can also find all of these, and future installments, on my blog using the tag #analysis 

Hey everyone! I’m still doing these things! Let’s see, when was my last one? Over two years ago...? Yikes, I owe y’all an apology. I really didn’t mean to put these off that long. Anyway, get ready to hate me, cuz although (for the most part) this seems to be the fandom favorite season… I think it’s overhyped. I know, don’t kill me. I’ll explain myself. I don’t think it’s bad or anything, it’s very well structured, but I definitely wouldn’t rank it among my favorites. First, for a little context, I am making a one second of every ninjago episode video right now, so I’ve been binging the series and all it’s shorts back to back, so I think I’ll have a bit more to say about connective tissue between seasons, and hopefully you guys can look forward to more of these analyses between now and the new year when I’m releasing that video. I’m also officially a film major now so… sorry if I come of as extra pretentious or get too deep. Anyway, let’s jump into the thick of it, shall we? 

Plot

This is probably the area I have the fewest number of complaints about. This season has a breakneck pace and it keeps everyone busy. I think that’s why people like it. Everyone’s favorite has something to do. Which brings me to the question… which ninja’s season is this? Lloyd is on a lot of the promotional stuff, but he’s possessed and out of the picture for over half the season, so that can’t be right. Cole turns into a ghost, and the season is a ghost season, but that can’t be right cuz I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone claim it was his. Nya reaches her true potential, maybe it’s hers? Well, she does have a large b-plot, but she is consistently not a part of the a-plot. Kai has a whole thing with being protective of Lloyd, he has his fear of water, maybe it’s just another Kai season? Thing is, it’s no one’s. It is an ensemble season, and I think that’s a healthy thing for ninjago to keep doing. The more we label certain seasons for certain ninja, the more complaining we’ll get about who’s turn it is for screen time that we’ll miss out on telling a good story. Also, If the season is focused on a ninja you don’t like, you are less likely to like the season (see my next analysis for that can of worms). Again, this season tells it’s story really well. Morro directly ties into the ending of last season, and Nya’s getting water powers was foreshadowed the season before. That’s some cool connective tissue to start. The opening episode establishes the three different things the ninja will be looking for, and for once they’re actual tools instead of a series of weapons, blades, masks, whatever. I like that. Jay has some really good humor, Zane has his speech changes, Kai has his irrational fears and protective instincts, Cole has his ghost angst, Lloyd has to deal with his father’s passing, Nya is a new water ninja, Wu has a shop to run and a student to reconnect with, even Ronin has an arc about developing morals and gaining friends. There’s the mystery about how to deal with the ghosts, what the rules are, there’s the leader subplot, the ninja’s money situation, and lore of the different realms, they even worked in Skylor and Borg, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. This is a tightly woven script that manages to include a lot of new concepts that you get pretty quick. I don’t feel like there’s even that much fat to cut. The opening is a little slow and strange, and the cloud kingdom episode feels a little unnecessary, but I do like the idea of visiting a different realm early in the season so the audience isn’t caught off guard in the climax. Again, the plot all works for me, it’s the other stuff I find myself pretty meh on.

Characters

Ronin

I’m pretty sure Ronin is the only new (non villain) character introduced. I like him a lot. Ninjago needed a true wildcard to shake things up and be unpredictable. I also think he’s pretty nicely woven into the action of the plot. I think his introduction is a bit strange. Like, the ninja already know him, but we’ve never seen him before? Just the way they talk about him sounds like they’re quickly recapping who this guy is for those who missed previous episodes. It’s fine if the ninja already know him but either 1) Introduce or foreshadow him a season earlier or 2) Introduce their dynamic to the audience before it becomes plot relevant. Maybe the ninja are grumbling about him being a nuisance while tea shenanigans are going on or something. Or maybe you have a scene of him stealing the scroll and making snarky remarks about the ninja while he does it. Idk. just something so his sudden plot relevance isn’t out of nowhere. Also, I don’t hate his and Nya’s dynamic, but I know a lot of people love it, and I’m just not totally here for it. Is he supposed to be a father figure for her? Mentor? Frienemy? Just plain friend? (love interest???) it’s not super clear and I could have used some clarification. I also like his use and tie to the next season, so overall, well integrated character.

Nya

I’m adding in Nya here cuz she goes through a major character change, and how she’s handled is one of the things that rubs me the wrong way about the season. A lot of people will probably disagree and/or hate me for this section of the analysis so… here we go! The thing she has to get past to reach her true potential is fear of failure (supposedly) and the solution to that is to just… not care as much? First of all, I know this isn’t supper important, but the fun thing about the ninjago elements is that every elemental master matched up personality wise with their element. Jay is the energetic master of lightning, Kai is the hothead master of fire, Zane is the calm and calculating master of ice, Cole is the strong and dependable master of earth, Lloyd is the literal child master of energy. This especially goes for all the new season 4 masters. So what qualities are often associated with water personalities? Well, serenity, control, flexibility, elegance, patience… calm. You know, like a Zane type character (the element directly adjacent to hers). These are things that Nya isn’t - or at the very least don’t define her. (there’s also something to be said about water and its ties to more feminine qualities, which Nya has been actively shown to reject, but I won’t go into that rant here.) She was designed as the fire master’s sister, and when you try to fit a fire personality into a water shaped character mold… it doesn’t exactly mesh well. It doesn’t make sense. But, like I said, whatever. Maybe that’s the point? Like she has to change her personality to be more in tune with water? Sure. But let’s talk about this fear of failure thing. Because that’s the stated thing that dialogue tells us she needs to overcome. But when has Nya ever been afraid of failure? Fear of failure means avoiding doing something because of fear. Nya is ridiculously persistent, always has been (you know, fire personality). She tries training when no one tells her to, she makes her own alter ego to try and be a hero and save the people who would constantly tell her she wasn’t ready. Wu says she only wants things that come easy, but that’s never been her character before now, she has carried the team with her tech, research, and covert ops that no one forced her to do, all things which are not easy. Fear of failure is usually characterized by what if questions. If Nya is so afraid of failure, why don’t we hear her saying stuff like “but what if I’m not strong enough, what if I can’t save them in time, or worse, what if I lose control of my power and end up hurting people?” Cole shows much more of a fear of failure this season surrounding his insecurity about being a ghost. He wants to sit out from missions because he’s not sure he’ll be able to do it - he’s afraid of failure. But whatever, the writing isn’t clear at expressing her true setbacks, but she does display a real problem that a lot of people have and I think could have been well done if set up correctly. She shows an undying persistence that gets her too close, and makes her increasingly incapable. She lets her frustration hinder her progress (again, fire personality trait), and I think that’s interesting because I don’t think ninjago has done this character arc yet. The supposed solution to this problem is that she just needs to… care less? And yes, I kind of see where they were going with this, we sometimes cloud our natural potential by thinking about it too much, but saying “you need to stop caring” is the absolute wrong way to word it. Caring is not her problem, the problem is her control over the emotions that come from her caring. Caring is a good thing, and teaching kids that if you’re ambivalent about your problems, they’ll go away is not a good message. What she needs to do is take a step back. She needs to take a break, stop to think, and look at the big picture instead of hyper focusing on the roadblock directly in front of her. The usual and much better wording of the moral I think they were going for is “stop overthinking things”. Teaching kids to look at a problem from a different angle and give themselves time to cool down is a great thing. And just think of it, in the climax she could have this ah-ha moment where she steps back and looks at the bigger picture - the whole town, surrounded by the ocean - and gets the idea to sink the preeminent into the water, you could even easily tie that back into the bucket exercise, and that’s what triggers her true potential rather than the current… I’m honestly not sure what. Random flashbacks and the end of the season approaching quickly. Alternatively, you could tie it more directly into samurai x, and make her struggle with letting go of the past and allowing yourself to give up something good in your life to progress to something better. Anyway, I don’t think this was a bad decision long term, she needed to be solidified on the team as a full fledged ninja, I just think this season doesn’t handle the transition that well. Anyway, whatever, I’ll be waiting for your hate comments in the notes.

Romance

Um… there’s none this season? Like there’s a few Wusako moments that are still as weird as they were in season 2, but they’re really not prevalent. There’s also the Jay seeing the future thing which has some weird implications next season (again, some interesting connective tissue between seasons), but that’s about it. Maybe that’s part of why I don’t love this season? Like where’s the pixane? Lol, I’m kidding. But maybe that’s why a lot of people do like it. If you don’t like the canon ships… this is a nice little safe haven for you. Rare for a majority of the series.

Villains

So Morro is a good idea… in theory. I know he’s the fandom’s favorite edgy boy, but idk I think the brand of angsty teen they ended up with was more of an angsty 13 year old than 17 year old. His voice is really grating and I always want to yell at him to just… go get some cough drops. Stop throat screaming, use your diaphragm man! Also, everyone goes on about his last minute redemption, but as far as season 5 goes, he has like half a second of a change of heart. Literally, when Wu comes over and he’s drowning, he’s still being a persistent little idiot like “you never cared about me nooooo!” and it’s only at the last possible second that gives him the crystal, and even that he does it kind of saltily. The preeminent is pretty cool, I like her concept, her design, all that. All the other ghosts are fine I guess. Nothing super memorable out of them, although their aesthetic, especially when there’s a bunch of them swarming around is pretty cool. One last thing was I never understood how Morro “becoming the green ninja” worked and what exactly it was that… did for him? Like he didn’t actually get the power of energy, right? I don’t remember him using it. Did just him defeating Lloyd make him the green ninja? How does that transfer work? And why did he need it to take over the world or realms or whatever? Like I get that it’s supposed to give him more power and what not but idk, it wasn’t super clear. That’s a minor thing though.

Climax

Pretty cool. I like the ATMOSPHERE. Green light is a hard thing to use and justify correctly, but it works really well here, especially with the dark kinda gray blue sky complimenting it. When the preeminent starts walking into the ocean, it’s genuinely terrifying, but you understand exactly how it works and why she’s strong enough to do it. Nya’s true potential is again a little out of left field and could have had some better motivation put behind it. Like what is it Nya learned in that instant? To not be afraid to protect people? She’s… been doing that. Idk. I’ve hit on that enough for now. Overall, there was good variety. I like the green ninja fake out, I like the realm hopping, I even like the little Garmadon visit and Lloyd getting the robe. I feel like we didn’t need a part one and two, you could have had different titles. I mean come on. But hey, now we know, if Pix had only been there, the whole climax would have been wrapped up in like 10 minutes apparently. Pix for the win.

Humor

Really good. Like I’m surprised how much I laughed. Jay wasn’t annoying humor, it was good stuff, there were some good running gags, there’s a solid fourth wall joke about who the lead ninja is at the beginning of the season. Overall, I am pretty impressed. My favorite joke was perhaps the bit where Jay is sarcastically positive, the voice acting is just really solid. Then again, there’s also the whole Borg scene where he roasts half the ninja, that’s solid stuff right there. There’s just some really solid character interaction this season and the humor feels a lot more natural and less forced.

Drama

Okay, we’ve got a lot this season. Y’all know how I feel about Nya’s arc by now. It does not work for me. Ronin’s relationship with her is alright, but kind of comes out of nowhere. Ronin’s solo plot about kinda working for the ghosts works. Cole’s ghost angst works for the most part, although I wish he would have actually skipped a mission and then gone in to help save his friends once they can’t do it without him. That was probably the most solid drama of the season. The other main thing we have this season is Kai’s whole… fear/protective streak. This also doesn’t really work for me. Like, I get that Lloyd and Kai are friends and stuff, like his whole true potential was centered around Lloyd. But like, why does it have to be framed so weirdly? Sometimes in trying to make it seem like Kai is protective of him, it seems like the other ninja just like… don’t care about him? Not all the time, but there are some weird vibes. Also, it doesn’t really go anywhere. No one learns anything about themselves from this subplot, nothing comes of it, there isn’t really a payoff. Also, Kai has yet another irrational fear, this time of water, which really comes right the hell out of nowhere. They try to explain it away like “Oh, Kai feels powerless and so water can get to him” but like… what? That’s the exact situation he was in at the end of season 2 and he seemed perfectly content to literally swim across the ocean (which um… what do you mean the sworn protector of ninjago can’t swim?). Where is this coming from?! Again, it doesn’t really go anywhere, there’s not a point where he has to learn to confront it or he grows because of it. It’s just pointless stuff added cuz the writers like giving Kai vague trails to try and develop him. The cloud kingdom is kinda cool. That last minute twist about them working with Morro is… stupid and unnecessary though. 

Spotlight Episode

I really like the Spinjitzu master tomb episode. Some cool riddles, I like the first two rooms a lot. I do think the third room is a bit strange. Like, the clue was “don’t look ahead” and the solution was to look beneath them, which is the exact same solution as the previous room. Like, you already have magic ice that shows the future, why not play into that? Don’t look ahead could maybe mean don’t look to the future, the opposite of that being the past. Maybe they have to draw on their past adventures to solve it somehow? Learning from the past is a good lesson, right? But overall, I really like it. Some real solid humor this episode. This episode has the sarcastic Jay optimism, Kai totally stalling for time, Zane dealing a pretty sick burn on Cole, just a lot of fun stuff. I like it. It just has great energy and nothing feels like it’s drawn out for too long.

Misc

The aesthetic this season… can be inconsistent, but the main ghost vibe displayed in the opening theme is really solid and I really like it

Speaking of the opening, Ghost wip is great and the opening in on par with last season’s (which is my fav) for sure

Ice age references… okay.

Chima references…. OKAY...

Okay, but like Deepstone can… kill ghosts? Or not? Is it just something ghosts can touch? It’s supposed to be like water in weapon form, right? Like that’s how I understood it when they first introduced it. Wouldn’t the deepstone bars kill Ghoultar then? And then like, Cole’s bike is made of deepstone. He uses it as a weapon. Wouldn’t it kill him? It kills other ghosts when they touch it. How… how does it work?! I need answers!!!

The captain of the steam boat says they’re going as fast as possible, but later Ronin comes in and cranks it up like twice as fast… that always bothered me like, why would he lie about that? Who is this captain and why is he so chill about everyone’s lives?! And then later Wu cranks it up yet again, like the ship had slowed down to it’s previous speed. What the hell is happening with the controls of this ship???

So pissed that the nasty CGI nightmare cloud monster that chases the ninja is named Nimbus. Totally forgot about that. I have an OC with a cat named Nimbus… I promise, there is not going to be a stupid twist bout the cat being the monster thing in Mists of Fate. That would be very stupid.

I was all excited that season 13 gave us minecart chases, but I totally forgot season 5 gave us one first. I really like the return to the caves of despair btw, good reuse of a known location.

How many times this season did we do the: 

Kai: Oh, I don’t like water, I can’t do it uwu  Cole: ...You serious?

Thanks for reading! And if you got this far… I don’t know. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any! These are just my opinions, so don’t think too much of it if you disagree.

-Kitten

#ninjago #analysis #ns5 #ninjago possession #parachuterants

[sweet-curried-powder]

Walking the Sleepwalk

A while ago, I got nightmares after listening to a horror podcast. This episode of Supernatural Shenanigans is based off of that event!

Summary: When Chris starts sleepwalking right out of the blue, he decides to seek help before something bad happens.

Characters: Chris Jackson, Charlie Jackson, Drew and Nevin Jovel, Edward Quinton

IBVS belongs to @onebizarrekai

Warnings: swearing, very brief mentions of gore

Word Count: 2,433

Tagging @titanone1337 because they’re awesome! Rock on, dude!

Enjoy the latest installment!

“Woah. This is getting kinda intense, isn’t it?” Chris said in a whisper, listening intently.

“Yeah, but it’s getting interesting!” Charlie grinned. “These stories feel so real! It’s like we’re actually witnessing these firsthand!”

The podcast was interrupted by the shrill ringing of Chris’s phone. The contact name read “Error Quinton” in all capital letters. The monochromatic teen sighed in annoyance and answered the call. “What do you want, Error?”

“Are you busy right now?” Edward demanded over the phone.

“No. But I can’t leave, if that’s what you’re asking,” Chris replied. “It’s past my curfew, my dad is home, and even if those two weren’t true, I promised Charlie that I’d spend some time with him. You interrupted an episode of Eyes Wide Open.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a podcast of people reading horror stories inspired by real events. I found it online while looking for something for Charlie to listen to while I sleep, and now he’s hooked.”

“You’re starting to get pretty Yuri-like, aren’t you?” Edward mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Just come to the stage room tomorrow, okay?” And before Chris could say anything else, the school king hung up.

“Jeez, what’s with that nerd?” Charlie groaned. “Can’t we listen to Eyes Wide Open in peace?”

“Apparently not,” Chris yawned. “I’m gonna go to sleep. It’s getting late anyways.”

“Keep it on for a little bit. I wanna hear what happens next.”

“Alright.” Chris left the podcast on, crawled into bed, listening to the story as he drifted off.

“The rope was tied tightly around my neck, as if it were a noose. I clawed at it desperately, trying to get it off, but with no success. They dragged me along, and even though I had never smelt it before, I knew that the scent that was getting more prominent was the smell of rotten flesh…”

********************

“Chris! Chris, wake up!”

“CHRISTOPHER JACKSON!” Charlie’s scream rang loudly in Chris’s ears.

“Augh!” Chris woke up with a start. He glanced around, noticing that he was now in the bathroom. “Huh? How’d I get in here?”

“You walked in here in your sleep, that’s how!” Charlie said.

“Charlie, I don’t sleepwalk! Don’t be stupid!”

“You literally just did!”

“You’re sure you didn’t do anything?”

“Oh sure! I possessed you and made you walk all the way to the toilet because I thought it would be funny!” Charlie snapped in the most sarcastic tone someone could have.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Chris mused. “How could I just start sleepwalking right out of the blue like this?”

“Chris, it’s half past midnight,” Charlie pointed out. “You should go back to sleep. We can figure this out later.”

“Fine.”

Chris went back into his room and got back into bed, keeping Eyes Wide Open  on for Charlie as he fell asleep.

******************************

“CHRIS! Wake the heck up already!”

Chris’s eyes shot open, and then they widened when he saw he was standing in his backyard.

“Sleep!” he cried. “If I don’t sleep, I can’t sleepwalk!”

“Chris, that’s a bad idea and you know it,” Charlie pointed out.

“What’s the alternative? Tying myself to the bed?” Chris argued. Then his face lit up. “Actually, I think I know who can help!”

*****************************

Drew shuffled into the kitchen, still in the process of waking up. “Buenos dias, Nevin,” He yawned, heading over to the coffeemaker and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Buenos dias a usted tambien,” Nevin replied. “Grandma made some coffee before she left for work. Don’t go overboard, it isn’t decaf.”

“Good to know.”

There were two sharp knocks at the door. The two of them recognized the person at the door immediately as Chris, thanks to their emotion-sensing powers.

“Come on in, Chris!” Drew said. “Nevin’s making breakfast!”

The Jovel twins heard the front door open and close. Chris shuffled into the kitchen, looking completely exhausted. Without saying a word, he grabbed the coffeepot from Drew’s hand and started chugging coffee straight from it.

“Straight from the coffeepot, huh?” Nevin said. “Let me guess. You had trouble sleeping last night.”

“Sort of,” Chris sighed, setting the pot down onto the counter. “It’s more of a serious issue. I figured that you two could help.”

“A serious issue?” Nevin echoed.

“Yeah. Recently I’ve just started sleepwalking every time I fall asleep,” Chris explained. “You two are like, experts at decoding dreams and stuff, so I thought that you two might be able to help me out.”

“Sleepwalking, huh?” Nevin repeated. “Have you walked in your sleep before?”

“No, never! It just started last night!”

“Well, if this just started recently, it would be in our best interest to solve the problem now, so it doesn’t become a regular habit,” Drew advised.

“But how are we going to do that?” Chris asked. “This isn’t something you can fix with supernatural powers, after all.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” Nevin said. “Me and Drew will sleep over at your house tonight!”

“WHAT?!” Chris shouted.

“Yay! Slumber party!” Drew cheered briefly before sniffing the air. “Uh, do you guys smell that?”

“Oh shit! My French toast!”

*************************

“So, what are you guys going to do in the meantime?” Chris yawned, flopping onto his bed. He had been trying to keep himself awake all day, and he was completely exhausted. School was cancelled for the next day, so Mr. Jackson didn’t question anything when Chris asked if the Jovel twins could sleep over. “I feel kind of uncomfortable with you two just staring at me while I sleep.”

“I don’t know about Nevin, but I’m gonna play Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep!” Drew grinned, holding up his PSP.

“Again?” Nevin raised an eyebrow. “Drew, you’ve played that game so many times, I’m pretty sure the dialogue is practically burned into your brain by now.”

“Kingdom Hearts is a good franchise!” Drew argued.

“If you insist,” Nevin shrugged. “I’m just going to get some reading done.”

“Alright. I’m gonna go to sleep.” Chris reached underneath his bed and pulled out a case. He set it on his bedside table and opened it, revealing a large assortment of knives.

“You sleep with your knife collection out in the open?” Drew looked nervous.

“Mostly so Charlie has something to look at while I sleep,” Chris explained. “I put on a podcast for him, too.” He fiddled with his phone for a minute before setting it on the nightstand next to the knives, then got underneath the covers. It didn’t take long for Chris to fall asleep.

“Okay, now that Chris is asleep, all we have to do now is wait,” Drew said. “Hope you brought a really interesting book, Nev, because we might be here for a while.”

***************************

Several hours passed. Chris remained asleep in his bed, but Drew and Nevin still stayed awake, looking up every few minutes to watch Chris. Finally, sometime around midnight, Chris turned in his bed and fell onto the floor with a thud.

Drew and Nevin looked up from their activities. Chris got up and left the room, mumbling incoherently.

“After him!” Nevin shouted. The Jovel twins scrambled to their feet and rushed out into the hallway just in time to hear the front door close. “Oh God, did Chris leave the house?!”

“We gotta stop him before he gets hurt!” Drew cried. “C’mon Nev, hurry up!” He grabbed his brother’s hand and led him downstairs and out of the house. It was rather chilly that night, and the two of them stood there shivering in their PJs as they scanned the area.

“Chris couldn’t have gone far, could he?” Nevin asked, looking around.

“Look! There he is!” Drew pointed to the end of the block. Sure enough, there was Chris, walking to the next street. “Follow him!”

The Jovel twins ran after Chris, but for someone who was still asleep, he was walking at a fast pace. Chris turned at a street corner, shuffling towards Edward’s house.

“Is Chris heading towards Edward’s house?” Drew raised an eyebrow.

“At least he isn’t breaking in,” Nevin said hopefully.

As if right on cue, Chris slammed his body against the door, forcing it open before walking inside.

“...God fucking damn it.”

“This is no time to use the Lord’s name in vain! We gotta get in there!”

“Do we have to? I don’t exactly want to enter Error’s house at twelve in the morning…”

“Yes, we fucking have to!”

***********************

Edward flipped through his notebook, trying to read his notes as fast as he could. He had just woken up from a really strange dream, and he was convinced that it was connected to him and Isaac, since he noticed some...similarities.

“The glitching skeleton...could that one be me?” Edward mused. “It looks like we share the same powers, but what’s up with all of this multiverse stuff? Is there some context that I’m missing, or…”

Edward’s train of thought was interrupted by a loud crash coming from the kitchen, followed by some shouting, then some more crashing.

What was going on down there?

Moving very carefully, Edward crept out of his room and towards his kitchen, preparing his hands in case he had to strangle a potential robber. 

He peered into the room. There were pots and pans scattered all over the floor. Chris, Nevin, and Drew were standing right in the middle of it. Chris was eating peanut butter right out of the jar with his fingers, and Nevin was in the process of trying to pry the jar out of his hands.

“Jesus, he’s got a tight grip,” Nevin groaned.

“What the hell?!” Edward screeched.

The Jovel twins turned to look at the school king. Chris, however, remained unfazed.

“Ah, great,” Nevin facepalmed.

“Sorry, Edward,” Drew apologized. “This isn’t what it looks like, we swear!”

“It is completely what it looks like!” Edward yelled. “Why are you in my house, how did you get in here, and why is Chris eating my peanut butter?!”

“...He screamed at the top of his lungs as the hooded figure sawed away at his delicate flesh…” Chris deadpanned subconsciously before eating some more peanut butter. Everyone stared at him.

“Uh, what in Kai’s name is up with him?” Edward asked, a little shaken.

“He’s sleepwalking,” Nevin explained. “He came to us this morning and told us that he started sleepwalking last night, and we agreed to help him.”

“That’s why we’re here!” Drew added. “We followed him here, and he burst through your door!”

“Sounds like you guys have had quite the night.” Edward shook his head. “Just...tell him to stop eating the peanut butter.”

“You hear him, Chris?!” Drew told Chris. “Drop the peanut butter! Drop it!”

Chris let go of the jar, causing it to clatter onto the floor.

“Sorry for the mess,” Nevin apologizes, taking Chris by the hand. “C’mon, Drew. Let’s get Chris home before he breaks into Isaac’s apartment or something.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Edward picked up the nearly-empty peanut butter jar and threw it away. “I’ll be damned if I let you and Drew drag Chris home alone in the dark! I’m driving you guys home.”

“But-”

“No buts! Let me get my shoes.”

*************************

“We’ve got to wake him up,” Nevin sighed.

“Wake him up?” Drew repeated. “But I thought that it was dangerous to wake up a sleepwalker.”

“Drew, Chris broke into my house and ate half a jar of peanut butter!” Edward groaned. “Who knows what kind of trouble he could get into if we don’t wake him up! He could even get hurt!”

“You’re right,” Drew agreed. “But how do we wake him up?”

Edward looked in the direction of Chris’s closet. “I wonder…” He marched over and opened the closet doors and started looking around.

“Why are you digging through Chris’s closet?” Nevin asked.

“Ah! He still has it!” Edward reached up to the shelf and grabbed an airhorn. The Jovel twins exchanged a look, knowing where their friend was going with this, and stuck their fingers in their ears.

“Rise and shine, you peanut butter eating son of a bitch!” Edward yelled, and pushed the button. Drew and Nevin could still hear the loud noise, despite their ears being plugged.

“AH! Nani?!” Chris woke up immediately, eyes darting all around the room until they settled on Edward, Drew, and Nevin. “Edward? What are you doing here?”

“I had to drive all of you home after you broke into my house, made a mess of my kitchen, and ate all of my peanut butter!” Edward sighed, tossing the airhorn aside. “That was for Geno’s lunch, man!”

“I broke into Edward’s house?!” Chris shrieked. “Oh dear Kai, this is getting out of hand! At this rate, I’ll never be able to get a good night’s rest again!”

“You started muttering something in your sleep, too. It sounded like something out of a horror novel or some shit.”

“Wait a minute...Chris, can I see your phone?” Drew asked. Chris nodded, and handed Drew his cell phone. The podcast was paused, so Drew pressed play and turned up the volume.

“Before he could say anything, Andy hit the nail with the hammer as hard as he could. I screamed at the top of my lungs as the dirty metal tore through the flesh of my hand and pierced the bone. This man seemed to be oblivious to the tears running down my face-”

“Oh my God!” Drew cried, pausing the podcast. Nevin looked horrified. “What the hell?”

“Hold on! Chris, was that the horror podcast you told me about?” Edward asked.

“Yeah, it is,” Chris nodded. “According to their website, the podcast is known for their graphic content.”

“No wonder you’ve been sleepwalking!” Nevin exclaimed. “You’ve been listening to this bullshit at night!”

“I dunno...I don’t get that squeamish when it comes to gore.”

“Maybe not for you, but it might’ve been a little too much for your subconscious,” Drew pointed out.

“Dang it. Now I won’t have anything to listen to while Chris sleeps,” Charlie muttered.

“Who said you wouldn’t have anything to listen to?” Chris said. “We just have to find something that isn’t as...graphic.”

“All right!” The ghost cheered.

“I should probably get home. Someone’s got to clean up the kitchen, after all. Don’t worry, Chris, I’m not mad,” Edward chuckles. “See you guys tomorrow.” The school king left the room and headed down the stairs.

“So...now what?” Chris asked.

“Well, we don’t have school tomorrow,” Nevin said slowly. “And we’re already at your house…”

“Slumber party?!” Drew gasped. His twin nodded.

“SLUMBER PARTY!” The three of them cheered.

#sugar's writing #ibvs #ibvs: supernatural shenanigans #chris jackson #charlie jackson #nevin jovel #drew jovel #edward quinton #a tiny gore warning

[alpha-centari27]

The Thoughts and Reflections of Someone New to Reylo and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

This is a really, really long post and contains spoilers.

Please be polite and respectful if you choose to comment and / or reblog.

Ok, so before I get too heavy discussing my thoughts and reflections there are a few things I want to make absolutely clear.

- People can ship whoever they want.  And it is perfectly fine for people to disagree and have differing tastes and opinions.  Obviously some ships are better supported by canon than others.  And there are shipping relationships that are toxic, but people ship it anyway.  I think a great non-Star Wars example is Harley Quinn and Joker. 

- I have delved deep enough into the reylo tag and other related tags to get the sense that anti-reylo are claiming a moral high ground.  “As a ship reylo is wrong and therefore anyone who ships reylo is a horrible person.”  And my simple rebuttal to this is--no, that’s not how this works.  If someone ships reylo this by itself is not sufficient evidence that someone is a horrible person.

- Based on everything I have read about TROS Ben Solo’s story arc and character development could have been so much more than what it was on screen in TROS.

- Having said that a lot of other characters were short changed by whoever was pulling the strings and making the decisions: Rose Tico, Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey and arguably Leia, Luke and Han were short changed by some of the decisions made in TROS and earlier in TLJ and TFA.

- Being part of a fandom should be fun, so can we all agree to chill out, relax and be civil?

Moving on...now that hopefully I have cleared up any preconceived assumptions.

I am relatively new to reylo and the sequel trilogies.

The first time I watched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi was only a few weeks ago.  Some of the cable channels have been doing Star Wars marathons to get people pumped and nostalgic to pay for a movie ticket to The Rise of Skywalker.

One of the cable channels was doing yet another Star Wars marathon last night, so I again sat down to watch The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but this time I watched the films with more awareness of the various critiques, criticisms and elements that have been deemed problematic.

I also went to the trouble of jotting down some notes.

This post is kinda all over the place, but I am going to go over my notes and observations and a main topic I want to look at is:

How Rey’s relationships and interactions with Finn and Kylo Ren differ and what sort of implications does this have.

Since stepping my toe into the reylo tags and other related tags I have NOT been able to fully articulate where I stand on whether reylo is toxic, Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is abusive, whether Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is worthy of redemption and to what degree Kylo / Ben being abused and manipulated excuses his actions.

I have to confess that the more parallels and similarities I see between Kylo Ren and Anakin / Darth Vader the more uneasy I feel about shipping reylo.

Regardless of my opinion people are free to do what they want.  If shipping reylo makes you happy, who am I too badger you into doing otherwise?

Me, writing out this long post is an attempt to flush out my thoughts at the present.

Watching the movies again I was struck by how different Rey’s interactions were with Finn and Kylo Ren.  There is a sequence in The Force Awakens between Rey and Finn that reminds me of the throne room sequence between Kylo Ren and Rey when Kylo offers his hand and asks her to rule beside him.  ((Please pardon me for paraphrasing and not having all the lines of dialogue memorized.))

Rey and Finn

At Maz’s place when Han, Rey and Finn are trying to arrange transport for BB8 to the resistance and / or get another ship to avoid detection by the First Order.

Maz looks into Finn’s eyes and remarks that he looks like someone who wants to run away.  Maz tells Finn that there is a way out.  That there are some beings that will arrange transit to the outer rim and exchange for work.

Finn approaches the beings and tells them not to leave without him.

Rey is frustrated by this.  How can he just leave?  What about BB8?  What about the resistance?  I believe this is when Finn comes clean that he is not actually with the resistance.  That he is a stormtrooper and he is not going back to the First Order and wants to stay as far away from them as possible.

Finn asks Rey to come with him.  To join him.  Rey says no.  And I believe Finn tells Rey to take care of herself.

There are no hurt feelings on Finn’s part.  He doesn’t try to persuade or manipulate her to change her mind.  He simply wishes that she takes care of herself.

Here are a few other bullet point items I want to highlight.

- Kylo Ren force pushing Rey into a tree and Finn coming to her aid and kneeling beside her reminds me of Anakin choking out Padme on Mustafar and Obi-Wan Kenobi going to Padme.

- Finn’s main motivation for going to Starkiller base was to rescue Rey.

- Rey clutches & hugs an unconscious Finn who fought and lost to Kylo Ren.

- After Starkiller base is blown up and Rey, Finn and Chewbacca are in transit.  Rey plants a kiss on Finn’s forehead as he lies unconscious.

- When Finn wakes up in The Last Jedi the first thing he says is, “Where is Rey?“

- Finn’s motivation for trying to get away in an escape pod is basically keep Rey safe.  Finn thinks the fleet is doomed.  If Finn can to an escape pod and reach safety, Rey will be able to find him and she will be safe.

- I want to say that there is another time that Rey hugs Finn.  Maybe this is when Han, Finn and Rey first find each other on Starkiller?

Finn is not a perfect person.  He does lie to Rey about being part of the resistance.  In terms of being an honorable, moral and ethical person I think it is quite clear Finn is a better person than Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  

But in real life and in fiction people can be attracted to and fall in love with horrible people.  ((I suppose right here my own words are a damning statement against reylo.))

Some observations I made from watching The Last Jedi

- When Kylo Ren and Rey have their first force skype call.  Kylo’s first reaction is confusion.  And his second reaction is to reach out with the force to try to manipulate Rey to bring Luke Skywalker to him.

- When Rey pushes Kylo Ren to explain why he killed his father, Han Solo--I find it curious that Kylo deflects the question and starts talking about Rey’s parents and how they threw her away.  Given the plot twist in TROS this now makes Kylo look like a manipulator and a liar.  In the best case scenario Kylo was telling a version of the truth that is incomplete.  I suppose in a way Kylo does indirectly answer Rey’s question by saying, “Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to.  That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.“  This could be read as manipulative and an attempt to push Rey to the dark side by killing Luke.

- I’m still not sure what to make of the 2nd force bond scene.  The connection is terminated and Kylo Ren is wiping his face with a gloved hand and we see...water?  Kylo Ren’s tears on his glove?  There is a wave of water crashing against some rocks in front of Rey just before Kylo is seen wiping his face.

- When an unconscious Kylo Ren wakes up in the throne room.  It is just Kylo Ren and Hux.  It’s quick, but it looks like Hux reaches into his coat to draw a weapon and shoot Kylo Ren.

- What did Rey tell Chewbacca to tell Finn?  I’m sure someone knows, but I just need to do some more digging online.

- Kylo Ren vs Luke Skywalker.  Near the very end of the fight Kylo Ren says, “I’ll destroy her [Rey] and you and all of it.“

- Overall I’m just surprised how often Rey is brought to tears throughout these movies.  It’s understandable because of what she is going through and what she has been through.  Someone must have counted how many times Rey cries and how many times it was with X or Y character and what they were talking about. 

Rey and Kylo Ren: The Throne Room

Ok, so let’s sum up the events leading up to Kylo Ren’s proposal.

Rey is brought before Snoke who tortures her for information about Skywalker.

When Snoke gets the information he wants AND it becomes clear that Rey is a true Jedi who will not serve him, Snoke then orders Kylo Ren to kill Rey.

Kylo Ren spares Rey and kills Snoke.

Kylo Ren and Rey fight off the guards together.

Kylo gives his speech about letting old things die.  What stands out to me is Kylo does NOT specifically mention the First Order.  Snoke, Luke Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the resistance all need to die, but not the First Order.

Rey pleads with Ben not to do this.  Not to go down this path.  Which is reminiscent of what Padme said to Anakin on Mustafar.

Kylo / Ben says, “You’re still holding on!  Let go!”  ((Holding onto what exactly?  The resistance?  Hope?  The Jedi path?  The light side of the force?))  And once again Kylo / Ben talks about Rey’s parentage.

“You’re nothing, but not to me.  Please.”  For a while I have interpreted this as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo being honest and blunt to a fault, but seeing and listening to this again in it’s full context this does read as Kylo Ren being manipulative. Breaking Rey down, she comes from nothing, she is nothing, she has no place in this, but hey why don’t you join me and have a seat right next to me on the winning side. 

Final Thoughts:

- At the very least Kylo Ren’s conduct and behavior are red flags.  Regardless of the extent that Kylo Ren was manipulated and abused his behavior and his interactions with Rey in the TFA and TLJ are troubling to say the least.  There does come a point when someone cannot use the excuse of being abused to justify their abusive behavior.  “Ok, so you were abused and learned some bad habits and coping mechanisms, but here is the thing your actions are causing real harm to another person and that is not cool.”  It’s hard and it’s difficult to change those habits and people will slip up on the road to recovery.  I think we also need to recognize the complication that Rey and Kylo Ren are at war on opposite sides. 

- I think there was descent chemistry and a connection between Rey and Finn, but I feel like that gets de-railed at the end of TLJ when Finn is tending to Rose and Rey is interacting with Leia. 

- I think Rey and Finn is a lot less problematic than Rey and Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  Just compare the throne room scene to the interaction between Finn and Rey at Maz’s place.

- Do I still ship reylo?  Here is how I will answer the question for now.  As flawed as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is I do like him and find him to be a character I can relate to alongside Rey.  I have not seen TROS in theaters and don’t think I will waste my money going to see it.

I would have LOVED to see a happy ending for Ben Solo instead of a variant of Darth Vader’s redemption and death.  This has already been done, why not do something different?  Isn’t this ending more hopeful?  You know instead of Han, Luke, Leia dying in vain to save Ben. 

I would have LOVED if the people making TROS put more careful thought and consideration into Ben’s story arc and character development.

Fitting with the theme of: finding the balance, not everything is black and white, there are a lot of grey areas / ambiguity, etc.

I would have been fine with some sort of ending where Ben faces some sort of punishment for his crimes and he is neither condemned to death or is completely pardoned without consequences.

I am very curious to know what political scientists and psychologists would say about sentencing someone like Kylo Ren / Ben Solo for war crimes.  In the comics that have been released so far it seems like Ben Solo is much younger when he is turned to the dark side and taken in by the First Order.  I think in TROS it’s revealed that Ben’s current age is 30 and he was 23 when he joined Snoke and the First Order.  At age 23 Ben Solo is considered an adult, he is not a child soldier.  “But he was being manipulated before he was even born.“  I hear you...unfortunately I don’t know how or if that would factor into Ben Solo’s being charged with war crimes.

Right now, I am in favor of ignoring the mess that is TROS and replacing it with fanfiction where Rey and Ben Solo are able to live a health and happy life.  And perhaps some day they will rebuild a new Jedi order that strives to accept and learn from the mistakes of the past.

- Is Kylo Ren / Ben Solo worthy of redemption?  I think in order to answer this question we need to ask, what does it mean to be redeemed?  What does someone have to do in order to be redeemed or atone for their wrong doing? 

I think the short answer is it’s complicated and everyone has different opinions.  Some people are probably of the opinion that Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is beyond redemption.  There is nothing he can do.  He can never do enough to make up for what he has done.

I think the more complicated answer is it’s a long process and not everyone will forgive you--heck maybe no one will forgive you. 

And whether you are punished or not punished is an entirely different matter. 

There are things Kylo Ren / Ben Solo has done that he can never take back.  Kylo Ren cannot bring Han Solo back from the dead or any of the hundreds or thousands of people he has cut down.  The fact Kylo Ren has murdered even one person is probably reason enough in the eyes of some people for why he can never be redeemed.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo turned toward the light and toward Rey.  In my opinion I think this action could be considered an act of repentance, but falls short of redeeming / atoning for all his past sins.  I think full redemption / atonement is a much more lengthier process.

Ultimately, I think this is a question worth pondering for ourselves.

#reylo #the force awakens #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #ben solo #kylo ren #rey #rose tico #poe dameron #finn

[bloggish]

First Fic Lines Analysis Tag Meme

Tagged by @ofwickedlight​ <3

Rules: List the first lines of your last 10 published stories. See if there are any patterns yourself, or have other people say what they notice. Tag up to 10 friends! 

1. Jason doesn't know any of these people. He likes them well enough, but he doesn't know them. Well, he likes Mark and Howard. Gary seems very serious, and Rob seems very... young. But he doesn't have anything against either of them. But in any case, none of that's the point of it all, this is a way to use his dancing skills and whatever else he has going for him, to be something other than a painter and decorator, to help his mother and many siblings out as much as they need. They all seem nice enough he can put up with them for, well, as long as this lasts. (Madrigal, TT)

2. Jaime wishes that sword had never come back to King's Landing. (At the End of the Night, ASoIaF/GoT)

3. “Well, that was a funny thing to say.” (Bigger Is..., TT)

4. Gary does know him. (Opening Night, Closing Night, TT/1D)

5. Bran might have loved him once. (Beneath the Heart Tree, ASoIaF/GoT)

6. “Gaz, if you touch that stereo one more time, I'm going to tie you to the bed.” (When I Open My Eyes, TT)

7.  “Are you eating again?” (Cream, TT)

8. “It was brave of you to come back here.” (Lionheart, ASoIaF/GoT)

9. Sansa used to dream of a queen, with eyes like jewels and bright blonde hair shimmering in the against the sunlit snows, a queen who's every word dripped with power, and yet still looked as sweet as her lemon cakes. (Regina Rex, ASoIaF/GoT)

10. I'm going to break a fucking ankle. (Dress Code, TT)

So uh, with a couple of exceptions, my first lines to be short, pithy, and not make a lot of sense out of context. I think I’m working on the “hook the readers first, explain later” principle, whether or not it succeds, you will have to tell me. I’m also somewhat prone to starting with dialogue, particularly for smutty or somewhat smutty works. Perhaps that makes it easier to just start in the swing of things and go with it?

I generally hate tagging people because I’m shyyyyy~, but I will @owlsinathens. Hopefully she doesn’t mind. >.>

#writing #fanfic #doubles as cunning self-promotion #*puts on cunning face*

[elizabethrobertajones]

@destielonfire replied to your post “You've been around for a while in the SPN fandom, right? I was...”

i'm sorry about the chronic pain, I can understand how that doesn't leave much room for enthusiasm or writing or anything else..... I was wondering though, you say you got what you wanted from the characters, but is that also true about destiel? Or does that no longer matter to you in the sense that you'll just be happy to see it play out however the writers want? (not a wanky question, I am honestly curious)

Thanks :) And, yeah... Destiel too, but in a weird way where obviously I still want it to pay out MORE and BETTER and more easy to read as canon, but literally since I got invested I have been pretty much non-stop since season 9 convinced that I knew exactly what the last shot we'd ever see of those two together was:

- that was how it was gonna happen. Cas said he loved them, and then bam before Dean knew it, he's dead at his feet and that's a wrap, folks!

As you can see, with more canon to come and Cas returning along with it, I'm at a bit of a loss to process past my point of "welp that's going to happen one day" in my bitter grumpy "oh they'll make it canon alright" feeling here. I mean I'm not even THAT bitter about stuff in general on the show, but I sort of nurtured in my heart of hearts the grim acceptance this was my worst case but also 70-90% likely endgame scenario for making it canon, to keep my expectations sensible. And this model is not how Cas dies in general - this is the very specific "this is how canon happens" thought. If the show ended on this shot, we'd have had that to work off to yell forever about if it was canon or not, and maybe got a Korrasami-style explanation later but without the happy ending.

Breezing past the endgame before it was meant to happen is a bit confusing :P

And other stuff like the Sam and Dean development, or their personal growth - again, this season tidied things up in such a way the spoilers for next season about character development are like, "and then Sam carries on being chill and in charge" and I'm like, one, cool love it all aboard, two, who is this guy. Because the whole long painful Carver era grind through all the meta and spec was a grim hope that ONE DAY MAYBE the show would even get to MAKING its point instead of waffling around hinting while putting almost the opposite picture in the main text with only subtextual clues that it was all fucked up and meant to change. 

By the time it started getting to the point it was all going too fast - like, I should have braced myself to speculate beyond this point after Sam was like "it's called sublimation Dean" and Dean snarked about that's him alright. Like, seriously. Miscalculation on my part, and then we barrel into season 12 in full force and systematically work through entire checklists that have just been sitting around gathering dust on everyone. And even if we're not at the END of the checklist, it's like, Carver just wrote all the points on the checklist up for us and made us aware of everything that had to change. And even when little bits of character change came, they were still quite quiet, and not really addressed as solid changes that paid off, and then the end of season 11 was all crowded and messy trying to wipe the slate clean, and only with the last conversation with Amara and Chuck, and then the promise of Mary coming back, do we get an idea change is coming...

I mean I have been browsing old meta tags on and off this hiatus and we all made the required checklists for what we hoped Mary was going to do in the narrative, but something about Carver era just really wore me out like we could say all this needs to happen but would we just get more and more nonsense showing the problem without delivering the answer? And with no clue how it was supposed to look or could play out or, again, that anything could continue after it. Most spec was hedging bets on, well, we'll get some resolution with Mary but then they'll kill her off... and they're like hey we removed Mary from the board but she is SO not dead, she's kicking more ass than ever! Like... okay. Cool. Cool cool cool. What?

And no one's *fixed* and some of these things aren't exactly OVER, like, performing!Dean symbolically died and we had a whole rebirth followed by breaking down Mary's walls too thing, but I still expect Dean not to act magically cured, and he was wearing short shorts in 11x04 anyway so it's a fluid development that's been going on for ages, but tiny nods like the shorts that he might be feeling better and more comfortable were great but not playing a role in the narrative, while now it has BEEN the narrative and his entire conclusion to season 12 in his personal arc was this great coming together of his personal arc Carver set up and the new angle to attack his childhood trauma Mary brought to the table, and it's DEEP and actually getting to the heart of things and unpacking the characters and exploring how they feel and putting it all out there.

And I can't even explain Sam - just know that until this season I only had one thing I ever really cried about in this show, which was Bobby's death, and then somehow out of nowhere, Berens hit me so hard I SOBBED when Sam uncovered the Colt and looked at it in tears with his eyes, so clearly SOMETHING epic happened there in his characterisation and his own personal growth. (Sam's personal growth tends to hit me in hindsight about what it was all about... It's almost like I need to be 3 seasons clear to understand it properly >.>) And then 12x22 managed to completely beat me up on both Sam and Dean AND Mary's behalf and I cried a bunch more times, very confused about when the show changed to something I cried about the emotional stuff in... I cry very easily at OTHER things. I spent the last couple of days WEEPING about [static noises] in The Adventure Zone, and the Orphan Black finale, and I've got a low investment in OB, I just like watching it. I cried at its previous season finale as well. SPN just isn't a tear jerker for me, and it's not tuned that way in general? And this season the writing has changed to doing SOMETHING with the characters that puts it into the territory where they're wringing our investment in the characters in a GOOD way and I think it's to do with the changes and the sense of finally overcoming and growing and being free of the weights piled on them over the years. Even just the PROMISE that that might happen is shocking enough, really :P

Like long term 12x22 is probably going to lose some of its punch once we see where this development goes and HOPEFULLY we work our way to the real resolutions. But just in terms of emotional attrition from Carver era, it's just a massive RELIEF to have some things spoken out loud, and other things like the grenade launcher game they put in the subtext, to be acknowledged and played with in a way which really really WORKED to convey that they WANT to positively develop their characters and maybe it's a waiting game but they seem to want to actually DO it.

And I'm basically just in shock :P

And with the Destiel stuff, then, to go back to how it all makes me feel, I feel like there's maybe a very real possibility they're going to do some pretty amazing things with it, canonical ending or not, for a subtext gremlin like myself I can't even BEGIN to grapple what they might throw at us, because I can barely process what they already have given us, because it's almost completely unbelievable to me because I've lurked in fandom so long waiting for them to actually make a move? Practically, the meta I read at the end of season 9 still broadly applied at the start of season 12, but immediately and mercilessly got resolved or changed up or turned on its head and shaken all about, and I'm too tired to keep up :P

So I don't know, there's a large part of me that's now content to watch it play out, but mostly because I feel like the way it's pandered it's crossed a lot of lines with the stuff they have given us like mixtapes and an "i love you" and angel/human romance episodes and Dean being singled out to kneel at Cas's lifeless body... I mean 12x10's actual concept was like a ridiculous dream back when, reading meta about all these season 8 human/monster relationship episodes, and the interspecies romance in Bloodlines using 6x20's dialogue and so on. They explored it all obliquely, and some parallels like the one in the LARP episode or the Prometheus episode were pretty blatant Crypt Scene foreshadowing to the point people were speculating it before it happened in good detail, AND romantic AND interspecies romances at that. But an actual episode unpacking not just angels and humans and how they mix, but to tie it to Cas, and to tie Cas to Dean directly? If you dropped 12x10 in the middle of season 8, the meta writers would have literally exploded. No survivors :P

And that's the positive remains of the season 8 meta bubble I still read when I was there in season 9 and it was getting bitter, and then I weathered season 10 and with the plot accordion and the beginnings of putting Cas somewhere else to delay everything with Dean, getting back to it with 3 personal episodes and loads of other moments which explored how Cas REALLY felt and related to humanity and "humanity"? I mean... wow.

And there's a part of me desperately trying to keep everything in context, to remember this journey as it unfolded from right back in the days where it was all snide and borderline cruel gay jokes and now it's a narrative goliath... And even to remember how sparse and painful and scavenging for Destiel subtext scraps season 10 was or something... But that part of me that's trying to keep it all in context literally can't handle season 12's context because it defies all the previous ways you're supposed to handle it. It's too hot to hold onto and you have to drop it. Which I appear to have done, because in the sense of waiting and expectations and wondering wtf canon would look like or what the writers would dare to do... All the things like that, they've actually just ALREADY crossed all the lines my careful expectations were set to? Because I always tried to listen to the bitter, careful, don't get your hopes up side of things because it sounded much more healthy to take it all as a pleasant surprise... 

I don't know where it's all going and I can't take it as a promise of canon or even dare to raise and sort of hope that it's going to get more canon from here. But's going to get more INTERESTING from here, for sure :P And I feel like in season 13 I will be in business to write a LOT of meta. I just can't even begin to grapple with what they're going to throw at us before we see it...

#replies #destiel #season 13 speculation #ish #season 12 kicked my butt and it was Bobo's fault #12x22 #12x23 #riverboat gambling