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#that’s a pretty prominent thing in the series that is interesting to me
thankskenpenders · 4 months
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Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?
Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.
But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.
A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.
Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.
Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.
There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.
(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
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The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.
As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.
Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:
You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.
You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.
You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)
You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.
You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.
You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao
You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.
All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.
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In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.
Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.
Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!
It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.
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It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.
All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.
I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.
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yumeka-sxf · 5 months
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Even though today's new chapter was pretty funny, it also reinforces how Damian's need to act indifferent and even hostile towards Anya stems from emotional baggage from his family - whether it's brainwashing, strict discipline, or something else, we see how he's so afraid to show even a minute trace of feelings towards a "commoner" that he has to go through hoops just to ensure no one else sees him give Anya a gift.
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What could the Desmond family have instilled in him that gives him such aversion to anyone of a lower social standing? I hope we find out someday. But at the same time, this chapter also gave me the impression that Damian doesn't like having to put on this jerk act in front of everyone. He seemed annoyed and exhausted that he had to do all this just to repay a debt, a debt which no one was demanding of him. Despite all the insults he hurls, the kid has morals and dignity. So it's a shame he feels such a strong need to supress that (he and Twilight have a lot in common in that regard. Twilight is simply better at hiding his real feelings since he's an adult and has been doing it much longer).
However, Damian seems okay with showing only Anya his softer side (when no one else is looking of course). Probably because, unlike all the other Eden kids, she's not from a high-class family with whom the Desmonds have to put on airs with.
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While I'm not nearly as into Damianya as Twiyor, I can appreciate them as a cute future couple when they're older, with the seeds of that future relationship slowly sprouting in the series (though nothing romantic now of course as they are only 1st graders). Endo brought back Damian's "shojo filter" in this chapter, which was at maximum strength! (Is Damian secretly a CLAMP fan? 😂)
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It's only at the end of the chapter, when the debt is repaid and Damian can finally relax, that he's able to see Anya's natural cuteness, without the shojo filter (his expression here looks like one of Twilight's...they really do have a lot in common!)
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What's also interesting is that, compared to some of their early confrontations, Anya never returned Damian's insults until recently, maybe around the end of the bus hijacking arc. In the beginning of the series, she seemed to not know how to act when faced with bullying and was just focused on getting Damian to be friends with her. Now she openly returns his jabs with her own.
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This could be because she's confident that they're friends now, so she doesn't have to hold back and can match his insults without worry. Or maybe she's just learning how to better deal with hostility her own way? Or she's just copying his bad manners...hard to say 😅
I like how Endo brought back Damian's promise to repay Anya for the handkerchief incident. From what I've gathered reading the manga fanbook, he tries hard not to leave plot points unaddressed. Which brings me to another highlight of this chapter - mention of Melinda again!
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I knew Endo wouldn't forget about her, but I've also been wondering when she would return as a prominent figure in the plot. This chapter raises the question of why she's so intent on Damian and Anya becoming friends...is it simply because Yor would like that, and she wants to be good friends with Yor? Or is there some ulterior motive behind the scenes?
Even though stories focused on the Eden kids aren't typically my favorites, I actually really enjoyed this chapter! It had the great SxF comedy I love of misunderstandings between the characters leading to hilarious moments - Emile and Ewen think Damian wants to duel Anya, Becky thinks Anya wants to spend alone time with him because she's in love, Damian just wants to give Anya the gift to clear his conscience, and Anya just wants to eat the cakes!
(I love how Endo made Anya's mouth slightly watering throughout the chapter whenever she's thinking of the cakes!)
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It's hard to tell if this was just a stand-alone chapter or if it will lead to a continuation of the "plan C" thing brought up a while back. I hope it does if it means we get to learn more about Melinda and the Desmond family overall!
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cyber-clown · 10 months
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zubat is one of my favourite pokémon and, because it is one of my favourite pokémon, i've used it in every single generation i've played where it's available. this has led me to notice that you can kind of use zubat to track game freak's evolving design ethos with the pokémon series allll the way from gen 1 through to gen 9.
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so if you don't know, zubat is a funny poison/flying bat pokémon. you can usually get it pretty early on in caves, usually sometime around the first gym. in gen 1 this is mt moon, gen 3 gives you zubats in granite cave right around the (mostly optional btw???) 2nd gym, gen 4 gives you them the moment you get to jubilife city, etc. it evolves into golbat at level 22, which doubles zubat's stats and lets it learn screech. golbat is a funny guy and i like him. don't know why they made him grow eyes though.
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point is, they're common and you get them early, so it's a pokémon that is very easy to slot into your team as a decent flying type with better utility and defenses (being a poison type) than your average earlygame bird shitter. they're also vaguely menacing if you're insane i guess so they're evil team fodder. ok. we know what zubat is now.
GEN 1: in gen 1, zubat's design is insane. early pokémon games are shocking well put together - for the bad rep they sometimes get for having a handful of prominent glitches, it's actually a testiment to the games that they just keep trucking through these insane edge cases rather than crashing. unfortunately, the design itself is... primitive. they had a smash hit but definitely hadn't fully found their footing. let's look at zubat's moveset.
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oh god! so, you would think this is a case of some kind of "first stage evolution syndrome" where zubat has a terrible, limited movepool that gets fixed when it evolves. gen 1 REALLY likes this gimmick: just off the top of my head this is the exact deal of abra and magikarp. unfortunately, no. the only damaging moves zubat learns before it evolves are leech life, a 20 base power (THIS IS LOW) move of a relatively weak offensive type, and bite. bite is fine. bite will hit most types except rock and ghost, and its power is fine. other than that, it just learns supersonic and a slightly less terrible version of supersonic.
then the insane thing: it learns wing attack at level 28. golbat learns it at level 32. it evolves at level 22. this creates an interesting dichotomy where on one hand you REALLY want to evolve zubat to golbat, given that it literally doubles its base stat total when evolving, but on the other that means you'll be waiting a full 10 levels from evolving to learn its only STAB move (in pokémon, pokémon get a 1.5x multipler to a move's damage if its the same type as that pokémon). said move only having 35 power. gen 1 is strange. i think this really shows the design philosophy of gen 1: everything is new, most things are weak, the balance is all over the place, you have to purposefully stop your funny bat from evolving for 6 levels just for it to learn a terrible flying type move that it can use for coverage. every other move it learns is either normal type or has <= 40 power. why.
GEN 2: gen 2 is the generation of "ok that was pretty good but had some pretty major flaws. let's try to fix them." gen 2 is kind of defined by how closely tied it is to gen 1. zubat is a great example of this. first of all the obvious thing: zubat gets a new evolution! if your golbat has high friendship and levels up, it will evolve into crobat. crobat gives the line about a hundred more stats (mostly to speed, with everything else getting a little peppering) and is maybe the funniest of all guys, his design being both cute, silly, and cool is maybe why i like the zubat line so much
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so what changes for zubat and its family in gen 2? three things of note! 1. more TMs to learn, giving it more tools to play with, including the new steel type move steel wing. 2. bite has been changed to a dark type move, giving the noble zubat more type coverage including the ability to hit ghost types and psychic types (who are normally strong against poison types) for double damage. 3. wing attack's power has been increased to 60 (almost doubled!) and it's level to be learnt lowered to... 27. 1 level!
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(from this point forward i'm not going to screenshot the TM learnset. i'll try to keep describing them, though)
also, the level requirement for bite has been moved to level 12, and it learns mean look at... level 36. ok so, yeah, not fixing the pokémon, but definitely some improvements here. you could actually reasonably recommend zubat to a friend or family member now if they particularly like its silly funny design
GEN 3: it's a new generation... literally. pokémon is now in FULL COLOUR and SYNTHESIZED SOUND on the GAMEBOY ADVANCE. pokémon is now fully establishing itself not just as a couple games and spinoffs, but a full on series that will ostensibly stick around between generations of games, generations of consoles, even generations of people.
so, yeah. this ain't your daddy's pokémon, he played pokémon red as a 7 year old but he's a full blown 13 year old now... much too cool to play these baby games. ...oh shit wait, every pokémon has an ability now? damn, nevermind, this rules! that's what i assume game companies think people will think when they do Big Spin Ups for a New Generation. i don't know if it DID convince a generation of millenium tweens that funny animal game is still cool, but the changes are appreciated anyway. steven stone is hot! i don't have anywhere else to say that. anyway, how did zubat change?
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our friend zubat gets lots of changes to keep up with the crowd now. bite has been moved back up to level 16, but zubat now gets astonish - a decent ghost type move that can flinch opponents, air cutter (this used to be TM only) - a slightly weaker and less accurate flying type move than wing attack, but one with an increased critical hit ratio AND it can hit multiple opponents in new-fangled double battles, and poison fang - finally allowing zubat to unlock its poison type STAB... if you either don't let your zubat evolve for 19 levels or, more realistically, teach it to your crobat at level 49... ouch! but, the biggest of them all: your zubat can now learn wing attack before it evolves! ...1 level before it evolves, but before it evolves!
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in addition, zubat's family got a new ability - inner focus: this lets them not get flinched. not that out there, but it's a welcome change! the line also gets a few more TMs unlocked, including coverage options like shadow ball, and the extremely powerful sludge bomb. you can really, finally, genuinely use zubat now! it's actually okay! it being a friendship-evolved pokémon is also ideal for one you pick up early game - you can usually evolve your zubat around the early level 30s, giving it a big stat boost earlier than a lot of other pokémon.
GEN 4: gen 4 is strange. it's a huge shift in the series, but it's also actually pretty similar to gen 3. it stays pretty true to the series roots, but also moves the ball in a way that would keep going and eventually mark what is effectively an entire change in identity for pokémon. steven stone is in heartgold and soul silver (yay!). gen 4 also cements gen 3 as the only generation of pokémon ever (so far) to be the only one on its console.
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we're making good progress here! wing attack can be learned even earlier, at level 17, meaning you should get it just in time for the grass type gym leader, bite has been reverted to being learned at level 13, and air cutter / poison fang have had the time you need to hold a zubat before they can be learned significantly turned down. if you do happen to hold your zubat until level 41, poison fang's spot has been usurped by air slash, a strong special move (gen 4 split all moves into physical and special, where before they were split between the attack / special attack stats by type) that has a 30% chance of flinching an opponent. zubat's physical stats may be better than its special stats, but only by a little bit, so this is a welcome option! zubat also gets a couple more good TMs, like U-Turn, a really strong move that lets zubat deal some damage and then swap with a teammate to hopefully avoid taking retaliation! anyway that's it really, just little steps!
GEN 5: here it is, the big one… the one that changed it all… just joking! infact, zubat didn't get a single move change in Pokémon Black and White, as it wasn't available to catch at all in that game! instead, it was replaced by the spiritual successors woobat and swoobat, cute fluffy psychic / flying types with little heart shaped noses - they even keep the theme of a closed pair of eyes opening up when evolved! i like swoobat's terrible, fleshy heart tail, too!
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anyway, zubat was revived in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, whereupon it did actually receive a moveset update. it's not a very big one, but it's appreciated!
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so, the pre-evolution options of astonish, bite, and wing attack have been moved a little further back, while players who wait a little bit are now able to learn the moves swift (a normal type move that never misses), and acrobatics (a move that has its damage doubled if your pokémon doesn't hold an item). cool stuff! air cutter, poison fang, and air slash have all been moved back a little bit. maybe this could be to disincentivise holding a pokémon that can evolve to learn moves, since this puts it much more in line with crobat:
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who knows? anyway! the other noticeable changes are the additions of a couple more TMs like venoshock (all TMs being infinite use now, so you don't have to worry about wasting a TM anymore!), a poison type move that doubles in damage if the target is poisoned (finally, more love for zubat's poison type!) and the hidden ability of infiltrator.
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what an unhelpful piece of flavour text! infiltrator is an ability that lets zubat ignore the effects of "barrier" type moves, which are moves that provide resistance or immunity to certain effects (such as physical damage, status effects, and debuffs). later on, this will be buffed to let zubats with infiltrator hit through substitutes, and even later will be buffed again to reduce wild encounters!
GEN 6: here's the real big one. gen 5 marked a distinct change in direction for pokémon as a series: a grander story, bold new characters, and a focus more on a journey that felt more like a hero's quest to prove themselves, rather than some random kid's uphill battle to get stronger. gen 6 took the new generation and made some bold decisions: now we have 3D models, and crazy plotlines, and fully arranged streamed music, and... much easier gameplay! well, easy is not the right word. pokemon games have always been kid friendly - but later games definitely try their best to streamline the experience. it feels a lot more like a power fantasy of a rise to glory, where previous games distinctly... did not. is this good or bad? well, it's all just taste! we all have our taste.
zubat received its major changes, again, in the second set of games of this generation: omega ruby and alpha sapphire. a step back to hoenn, including our good friend zubat!
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woah! can you believe this is even the same friend zubat we met all the way back in 1996? i'm so proud of him... well, what major changes are there? here's an easy two: venoshock is now a move zubat learns naturally, and almost every move has been substantially reduced in level up requirement! bite at level 11? wing attack at level 13? it feels like just yesterday we had to fight tooth and nail to keep bite at level 13! poison fang down by 12 levels to level 25, and so on. the big one here is that air cutter is now a move you can learn before even evolving zubat, giving you another flying type option! what could be awaiting us next, in the sunny alola region?
GEN 7: i like gen 7 :) i also don't know what preamble to give here. well, other than: gen 6 began the trend of adding a new "gimmick" every generation. these stick around for one generation, can only be used once per game, and provide some Big Flashy Effect. mega evolution was gen 6's, but that was restricted to a few specific pokémon (mainly fan favourites, no love for great pokémon like crobat... grr...) but gen 7 changed this: now any pokémon can use a Z-Power!!! once per game, a single move can be transformed into a powerful Z-Move, that does huge damage. this means our friend zubat can join the show. will it use a poison Z-Move, or a flying Z-Move, or maybe a random coverage move, like ghost or steel?
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um... what's going on here? zubat's lost leech life! well, look again. the iconic Zubat Move is still in its learnset, but it's now been QUADRUPLED in to 80 power, so it's been moved up and replaced with absorb as zubat's starting move. absorb is still stuck at 20 power. poor absorb. that's probably what it gets for being cousins with mega drain AND giga drain. crobat gets to learn cross poison on evolve now, a powerful poison type move that has an increased critical hit rate AND a chance to poison. other than these, zubat's learnset has not changed in any noticeable way. i guess that's a sign game freak has settled on a moveset to stay for our friend zubat!
GEN 8:
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what on earth happened here? where is zubat's iconic wing attack? leech life at level 55? well, generation 8, you see, represents a big shakeup for the pokémon series. the series has OFFICIALLY jumped from handhelds to the home console, and so naturally that leads to a very different design philosophy - including the removal of lots of moves from the game entirely, and the barring of some pokémon from entry to the region! zubat gets to stay, though, and its reward is an entirely retooled moveset. what can we make of this?
well, first of all, supersonic has been recognised as an Iconic Zubat Move after 20 years of proud service, being officially made a move zubat gets right out of the egg. it still sucks, but that's cool! wing attack and bite have been replaced with poison fang, retooling zubat to put the early focus on its poison typing: to this day zubat and its family are actually the only poison / flying type pokémon! air cutter has been pushed back above the "evolve threshold", where it joins a bunch of other iconic Zubat Moves. bite and leech life now languish, as moves that probably nobody will ever actually hold their zubat to learn, given it's only a couple extra levels for golbat / crobat to learn them. speaking of crobat, it's worth mentioning...
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crobat has a whole lot of tools to work with now! it's very clear they really wanted to play with crobat's unique role as a poison / flying type here by focusing a lot more on its Poisonous Traits - toxic, cross poison, and venoshock are all very fun tools you can play with that crobat gets access to with ease. what a treat! the number of TMs crobat can learn is also huge, with plenty of coverage across a bunch of types. now for gen 9!
GEN 9:
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oh zubat! you should have known that DUI would give you consequences. well, yes. this is zubat's journey so far. but i think that i've proven my point - you can distinctly see a shift from the early game pokémon design philosophy to newer games.
personally, i would describe this as going from the games being an "uphill battle to prove yourself" to a "journey across the land with your favourites". it's clear that, over time, there have been attempts to try and make a lot of pokémon more viable, so that if zubat is your favourite too you can pick it up and have it be useful almost right away, rather than its earlier role as a pokémon that takes a long time to get going but eventually gets tools that make it a lot more usable. i think this shows pokémon's shift to being more about the pokémon themselves rather than the journey, which is a safe decision that's probably made because every pokémon is somebody's favourite.
this has no real point by the way - i personally don't actually mind the newer direction of pokémon games (aside from the EXP share always being on...) and have enjoyed plenty of relatively modern pokémon games a lot - i really rememeber loving pokémon moon when it came out! but i do also enjoy the different "vibe" and experience of older pokémon games, and i think sometimes the best way to actually describe the differences is to just lay out them out, plain to see.
anyway, i hope you enjoyed and, next time you're in a dark cave, consider holding off on the repels. you might just meet your new best friend forever!
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stllmnstr · 3 months
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breathing room — a lee heeseung drabble
2.5k / enemies to lovers
⋆。゚☁︎。⋆。 ゚☾ ゚。⋆ ⋆。゚☁︎。⋆。 ゚☾ ゚。⋆
Lee Heeseung is having a hard time breathing.
Partly because he’s pretty sure he just got the wind knocked out of him. A little bit because of the year-old rib injury he had neither the time nor patience to let heal properly.
And mostly because there’s a blade being held to his throat.
Yours, to be exact.
It’s a nice one, all things considered. Despite its lethality, it’s small, delicate almost. From this angle, he can just make out the detailing on the hilt. A series of vines wrap around each other intricately, forming kaleidoscopic patterns that extend all the way from the blade to where your fingers are wrapped around the hilt, knuckles white from the way your hand is straining. 
Jesus, he thinks. If it takes that much concentrated effort for you to not let the knife press any harder against his skin, draw any blood, then maybe he should start taking the threats you throw his way like extra change a little more seriously. 
Lazily, he lets his eyes trace a line from your fingers to your face. Skipping over the rather boring details of the plain black training shirt you wear, he directs his attention to the way your brow furrows in concentration instead. 
Under usual circumstances, a knife to the throat would encourage all of his senses to narrow in on the sensation of metal against his pulse point. Would spur his brain to work a bit faster through all the biological fight or flight mechanisms in a last ditch attempt at survival. 
But these are not usual circumstances. In fact, ever since the two of you were split into separate training cohorts a handful of months ago, this has become a rarity. And the only thing Heeseung wants to do is enjoy it a little more. 
Without his self-preservation instincts kicking in, his brain has plenty of room for other things. The forgiving surface of a training mat beneath him, slightly soft where he lets his body relax into it. The unusually warm air of the training room, courtesy of a busted air conditioner that no one has gotten around to fixing just yet. 
The way your hair falls around your face as you lean over him, chest still heaving from your recent bout of exertion. Your eyes are pure fire, embers and ashes and every stage in between as you sit atop his ribcage, knees on either side of his torso where you pin him to the mat. 
But even as the lead trainer adds another tally underneath your name for another sparring match won, your gaze doesn’t soften. Doesn’t brighten in the afterglow of victory. After all, victory only tastes sweet when it’s earned. Judging by the way your lips twist above him, Heeseung thinks the victory he just handed you on a silver platter must be horribly bitter. 
Slowly, he raises his hands in mock surrender. There’s a half smile that looks a little too much like a smirk tugging at his lips when he says, “I concede.”
“No fucking shit.” You flick a strand of hair out of your face. Your knife presses a little tighter against his throat. “Did you even try?”
Heeseung maintains eye contact. “I think I’m doing us a both a favor by not answering that one.”
Narrowing your eyes, annoyance makes itself the most prominent of your visible emotions. “Interesting choice of words from someone with a knife to his throat.”
Heeseung all but rolls his eyes. “What are you gonna do? Kill me in front of everyone?” The way he wraps sarcasm up in every syllable is almost as infuriating as the way he just let you win without putting up any semblance of a fight. “You’ve got a mean streak, princess, but that’s a bit much, even for you.”
The pressure on your blade increases, and Heeseung fights a wince as he feels it break the barrier between his skin and blood. It’s a miniscule cut, surface level at most, but he hears the threat all the same. “It’s like you want to die,” you marvel. 
Heeseung’s eyes betray nothing, other than the fact that they can’t quite seem to stray from your own. Does he? No matter how deep inside himself he searches, the answer is always a resounding no. Despite the effort he put into this particular spar, or rather lack thereof, his survival instincts are still kicking. His pursuit of life is still alive and well. 
So no, he doesn’t want to die. Quite the opposite in fact. But if he were to explain in plain terms that he never feels quite as alive as he does in the moments when you’ve got a knife on his throat and hatred in your eyes, he has the distinct feeling you might well and truly make good on your frequent promise to send him to an early grave. 
And it’s not like he means to do it, not really. Heeseung might be a glutton for punishment these days, but there was a time when he tried to get your attention in all the regular ways. As he quickly found out, sweet words did nothing but make you roll your eyes and his skills on a sparring mat were only as impressive as they could be used to hone your own. 
He was a tool, in your eyes. A means to an end as you did your best to work your way up the ranks. 
You never looked at him, the person behind all the hand-to-hand combat training and advanced levels of weapon artistry. At least not until he started annoying the ever-living shit out of you. 
Back then, it had been easy. As new recruits, you were in the same training cohort, which meant you had the same daily schedules. As long as Heeseung had the chance to beat you to the last piece of toast in the dining hall at breakfast or tie the laces of your training boots together the night before an early morning, he was guaranteed at least one of your signature glares and a few choice words that would make his grandmother blush. 
Granted, he knows that one-sided hatred is not a very stable foundation to build anything solid on, but he thinks of it in the same way he thinks of sparring. 
He doesn’t need a knockout. He just needs an in. 
A little bit of breathing room. Something that will have his partner lowering their guard, weakening their defenses just enough for him to strike. Once. Twice. Again. Over and over until the match is won and victory rests on his square shoulders. 
Heeseung’s in this for the long haul, and he’s come to find that he doesn’t really care how many bruises he picks up along the way. 
Across the room, the lead trainer heaves a long sigh. 
“Alright, ___, that’s enough. You’ve earned your tally.” The most of anyone in today’s group. But you’re still glaring at him, and he knows it isn’t enough, not for you. “Heeseung, get it together. I expect better from you next time.”
You scoff. “Don’t hold your breath.” 
Expectations are only met when people are held to them, and you doubt Lee Heeseung has even become acquainted with the concept of a consequence. 
Releasing one final, sharp exhale, you pull your knife away from his throat, tucking it back into the sheath on your upper thigh in one fluid motion. Swinging your leg over his torso, you remove your body from his own, give your anger some space to breathe. Without looking back, you let your strides eat up the distance between you and the exit. 
Someone – you think it must be Jay, or maybe Jungwon, tries to catch your attention on the way out, asking about a maneuver you pulled in the middle of the match. A tricky bit of knife work you’ve been perfecting over the last few weeks. Something that looked stupid as Heeseung did nothing but stand there, as if your blade was nothing but decorative. Made you look stupid as he stood and watched with nothing but a mildly amused expression on his face. 
You hate him for it. Want to show him just how pretty your knife can be stained with the deep crimson he must bleed as surely as anyone else. 
Lips pulled in a taut line, you unsheath the blade at your thigh once again, this time sending it spinning with deadly accuracy towards the line of trees that skirt the outside of the training facility. 
You don’t miss. You never do. 
It still feels like defeat. 
…..
Heeseung notices when you’re not at dinner later that evening. Despite the fact that you no longer train together, the inter-cohort spars have shifted this week's schedule. You should be here, sitting next to Jay and Jungwon, probably, pointedly avoiding his gaze. 
But you’re not. And he can only think of one other place to find you. 
The training hall is dark when he arrives, but Heeseung is no fool. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but he sees you soon enough. Silhouette dark against the empty expanse, he has half a mind to intervene before you shred yet another punching bag to irreparable pieces. Instead, he just watches for a moment longer. He doesn’t know what to do with the feelings that start to simmer, that always linger. Doesn’t know if it’s admiration or longing or something far worse. But he wants to. Wants to examine them until he knows them as intimately as the back of his own hand, until he can recite them by name and express them in ways that don’t make you want to press a knife against his neck. 
And he wants to keep watching, keep looking, keep noticing. 
Even from a distance, even in the dark, he can read the frustration in the set of your shoulders, sense the exhaustion in the way your legs move just behind the rest of your body. 
You need a break. 
He needs an in. 
Across the room from you, Heeseung clears his throat. 
Startled, you nearly fall on your ass mid-kick before you turn to the source. It’s dark, but you know it’s him. Who else would it be? 
Chest rising and falling rapidly with exertion, you finally catch your breath well enough to tell him, “If you’re not here for a rematch, then you have exactly ten seconds to get out of this building.”
A beat passes. 
Another. 
Heeseung exhales. “And if I am?”
Bathed in the dying glow of moonlight, you go still. “Then you better put in your best fucking effort.”
Heeseung is across the room before you can release another breath. It’s ridiculous how quickly he disarms you. And you’re caught off guard, yes, but it doesn’t matter, not really. Your knife in his hands, he throws it to the corner of the room. And then it’s just the two of you. 
Heeseung spares neither time nor effort knocking your legs out from under you, sending you careening towards the mat. Screwing your eyes shut, you brace for the impact of a training mat that never comes, the back of your head cradled in a hand that serves as a barrier between you and the ground below. 
It’s a complete reversal of your earlier roles as he lets his legs fall to either side of you, face inches from your own. There’s no knife on your neck, and he was gracious enough to break your fall, but suddenly find your breath a difficult thing to catch regardless. 
Above you, his eyes are dark. Your noses nearly touch. “This is what you wanted?” he breathes, and you feel his words as much as you hear them. They dance across your cheekbone, your lips. Have your bones feeling molten, all your hard edges malleable. “You want me to fight you like I mean it? To really fucking spar with you?”
You’ve rehearsed your answer too long to deviate, even as your mind screams with sudden uncertainties. “Yes.”
Heeseung doesn’t spare it a second thought. “Too bad.”
“Why? You have no problem f–”
“I was there, you know.” Unbidden, the hand that doesn’t hold your head falls to the bottom edge of your black training shirt. Heeseung pauses there for a moment, lets his fingers trace the seam. Something in the air shifts, tightens, waits. Despite the way he has you caged, your hands are unbound. You could stop this, if you wanted to. Stop him. 
You don’t. 
Slowly, his hand begins to track an upward journey, taking your hem with it. The air of the room is warm, choked with summer heat and the odd sensations that simmer just beneath your skin, but you suppress a shiver anyway  as a sliver of skin is revealed. 
You know what he’s after, where his eyes fall to. It’s his fingers that hesitate. Dangle with uncertainty a hair's breadth from the scar that sits just above your hip bone. 
Heeseung inhales, eyes returning to your own for a moment. They’re searching for permission you won’t give and boundaries you won’t set. If he wants to walk this tightrope, he’ll have to navigate on his own. 
It’s a challenge he rises to. On his breath out, Heeseung lets his fingers find a home on the bare skin of your stomach, trace the jagged line that’s a shade paler than the surrounding area. 
It’s a scar you hardly think of, one you can’t believe he remembers. Gifted to you in your early days of training, when a fellow recruit thought the best way to better his ranking was to discard the strict sparring rules set by your superiors and draw blood as a last ditch attempt at victory.
You’d still won, even with a fresh stab wound on your lower abdomen. And he’d been shown the door, like all recruits that break protocol. 
“So what?” Your voice doesn’t come out nearly as biting as you intend it to. You curse the waver in your words. “I get one scar and suddenly I’m delicate?” 
Heeseung glances up, something sincere in his eyes when he matches your gaze. His hand is still on your skin. “We’re all delicate. And we all have the scars to prove it. I’ve just developed a particular… aversion to seeing evidence of it when it comes to you.”
You’re quick to school your features into neutrality. At least on the outside, you won’t give him the satisfaction of catching you off guard. “That sounds like a you problem.”
“Apparently not,” Heeseung counters. “Since I’m not the one begging for a fight.” He holds your gaze when he adds, “And I have to say, princess, if you wanted me to put you on your back, there are much easier ways to ask.”
It’s as if you’ve been submerged in hot water, as if you’ve been burned, when you push him off of you with a speed that’s almost comical. And from the way heat rises in your cheeks, you just might have been. 
Your voice is dangerously low when you tell him, “You have three seconds.”
“Until what?” Heeseung knows better than to be hopeful. 
“Until I find my knife and put it to good use.”
Heeseung doesn’t need to be told twice.
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apeekintothepantry · 1 month
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Meet Violet Fielding, my original historical character from 1918 Boston!
I've been doing some workshopping with my custom historical characters because I've been a little bored with AG's historical offerings of late, and because it's a fun excuse to dig into moments in time that interest me personally, but AG probably wouldn't produce a similar character themselves. (I say that, but my 1940's Hawaii character predates Nanea, so who knows! Maybe I'm manifesting some future stuff I can borrow for my gals.)
Violet is the youngest of three siblings. Her older sister Alice is in her early 20's and either a nurse or a Hello Girl, leaning towards nursing because I'm not sure I want her to go overseas and she could work at a hospital in Boston during the war. Her older brother James is 19 and enlists in the Marines once the US enters World War I. I think by Violet Saves the Day, he's returned home dealing with quite a bit of "shellshock" and that becomes a somewhat major theme.
Her parents are pretty wealthy, and the family lives in a brownstone on Beacon Hill in Boston. Her dad is a doctor and mom is a suffragist who also gets involved in causes supporting the war effort. Both parents are very supportive of their kids following their passions and getting themselves out there in this still relatively new century, which is why Alice has been allowed to go to school instead of immediately marrying some wealthy guy.
Vi herself is a precocious and creative kid. I think she likes to draw and paint and generally be crafty and creative, which comes in handy when brainstorming ways she can support her brother overseas and the war effort more broadly. While she's not afraid to get her hands dirty, she does like typically girly things like having teatime and looking at catalogs filled with new dresses. Her book series would theoretically cover 1917 through 1919 or so, and touch on the war, Women's Suffrage, the Spanish Flu, shellshock, and possibly the Boston Molasses Disaster.
Currently I'm trying to come up with a best friend character for her, as she really needs a Nellie or Ruthie in her life with the age difference and both siblings being off doing exciting and scary things without her. There are a lot of different directions I could go in with said friend - fellow wealthy-ish kid feels boring, Boston had a lot of new immigrant communities in the 1910's, some of whom did live in a specific part of Beacon Hill, Boston historically struggles with insidious covert racism but was still a city with a number of prominent Black and Jewish communities - and nothing's quite clicked as perfect just yet.
Violet is a Marie-Grace doll with a Nanea wig. Someone was selling her on a Facebook group a few years ago and I immediately felt like she was a Violet and needed to join my crew. Her last name was inspired by Lady Dorothie Fielding, a British woman who drove an ambulance during WWI and received several awards for bravery and service. Fielding's letters home were published after her death and are a really fascinating look at what it was like on the front lines doing this incredibly dangerous and important work. I used it as a major primary source for an educational interactive I helped develop in one of my previous jobs.
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yuriiofthevalley · 4 months
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basic info
♡ . my name's yuri but you can also call me himmel or law. i really like all three of these names so you can use them interchangeably (if you'd prefer to use one over the other that's fine too) (yuri is what i personally prefer)
♡ . i was born and raised a 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩GIRL👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 and my pronouns are mainly she/her but i don't mind they .
♡ . i am the lesbian of all time ever. female same sex attraction began with me. i'm also on the ace spectrum and heavily demi + idemromantic
♡ . i'm west african and i really like my hair
♡ . if friedrich nietzsche and franz kafka and fyodor dostoyevsky had a child it would be me
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interests & content
♡ . i am a huge fan of jojo's bizarre adventure,, madoka magica,, tbhk,, shadows house,, castlevania & so on
♡ . i play games a lot and my favorite game series of all time ever is the tales of series (i've only played two installments). i have a sideblog (@talesfairy111) dedicated to posting about tales of arise & berseria so you should totally follow me on there if you're into either of the games 🙈
♡ . i also play genshin. my NA UID is 621347121 and my EU is 717069979
♡ . i LOVE classical music i think it is so amazing to listen to and just such an experience. i don't have a fave composer right now as i mainly just listen to whatever sticks out to me
♡ . i like girls a lot and if you're a girl i think you should follow me and we can be mutuals
♡ . i also really like hearts (shocker) and pretty things // making things pretty
♡ . myself . i think it would've been really funny to leave this at one word but i need it to be known i am very deeply obsessed with myself and you will see proof of that very often
♡ . my less prominent interests are philosophy,, psychology,, astrology & astronomy. i'd like to learn more about these topics one day
♡ . i'm also a big fan of the obscure // unknown and anything ethereal. sometimes i like to pretend i exist only in nameless concept
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dni
♡ . basic dni criteria
♡ . i don't have a lot to say here actually. if you're a weirdo i will just laugh in your face and move on
♡ . if you're a man i'm not exactly going to chase you away but there really isn't anything here for you so
♡ . i mostly have nothing against religion but if you're a super dedicated follower of an organized religion or actively post about it there isn't anything here for you either
♡ . there isn't a super strict age limit so feel free to interact regardless of how old you are. i'm a lot more willing to be mutuals and possibly friends if you're 17 to 20 though
♡ . previously @hearts444wren & @m00nlitzen1th
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ending note
♡ . i might include my socials once i have something other than pinterest (yuriofthevalley). my tiktok is a mess so i will probably make a new one once i feel interest in that app again
♡ . it was really nice talking about myself. i should've written this sooner
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talesofadragon · 9 months
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𝐕𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬
Synopsis: The world was not created in colors to be lived seldom in white, black, or even gray. This is what Y/N believed, and she resolutely refuses to be told otherwise. But when a night at the city’s most prestigious nightclub triggers a series of misfortunate events, Y/N’s world of hues is thrown off balance, colliding with a stranger whose eyes may be blue but his world is a handful of shades too dark.  
Pairing: Mob Boss!Steve Rogers x Reader
Warnings: Mature scenes. Minors DNI.
Word Count: 3.3K
Chapter 2 - Morally Gray | Varicolored Schemes Masterlist
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𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐖𝐀𝐒 god’s hell on earth. 
Back in college, Y/N had to take a mandatory liberal arts elective. And up to this day, she still doesn’t understand why it’s called that when she didn’t elect to take it. Her professor at the time had the stupendous idea to focus on Renaissance drama as if this was the single most enthralling subject for a bunch of twenty-year-olds. 
While her memory retained nothing besides the fact that most of William Shakespeare's characters were speculated to be queer and The Spanish Tragedy seldom had an interesting plotline, she now recalled one particular quote she didn't know she remembered: "Hell's empty and all the devils are here."
Oh, William. Something true did come out of his mouth. 
"You look like someone murdered your cat," Yelena remarked as soon as Y/N stepped into her line of sight. The closer Y/N got to Yelena, the more prominent the scowl on the blonde’s face became.
Y/N glared at her best friend, throwing her bag harshly onto the coffee table, followed by her drenched notebook and coffee tumbler. Yelena's green eyes fixated on the chaotic mess, only momentarily straying when Y/N completed the picture with a heavy thud as she unceremoniously took a seat.
“Coffee,” she managed to let out. Yelena extended one of the cups to her side, but Y/N swatted it away in favor of the taller one. “You take the small one. I’m in urgent need of a pick-me-up.” 
Yelena arched her brow, pointing at the cup inches away from Y/N’s lips. “It’s a Nitro Cold Brew.” 
“Don’t care.” 
“You’ve never ordered it before.”
Y/N shrugged, taking her first sip. “I’m open to trying new things.” 
“Do you know how many shots of espresso are in there?” Yelena’s tone was borderline incredulous. Y/N didn’t care.
“Maybe I need the kick.” 
“It’s espresso, Y/N,” Yelena grumbled. She glanced at the discarded pumpkin-spice latte she had grabbed for her best friend, her nose scrunching in disgust at the thought of having to drink it herself. “It’s not tequila.” 
A loud huff reverberated across the back of the coffee shop they were sitting in. It was ludicrous of Y/N to think that her day would get any better with a cup of coffee when that horrendous drink made her want to empty her stomach. 
Begrudgingly, she slid the drink back to Yelena and snatched her own. “I’ve had a terrible day.” 
“You don’t say.” 
“Scratch that. A terrible week. And a half!” 
“What happened this time?” Yelena carefully asked. 
Inadvertently, Y/N’s brain decided it was more than adequate to remind her about the tragedies of the past week and a half. At first, it started alright. Great even. She didn't drink much when she went to Purgatory, so she woke up the next day without a single tingle in her head. Her day went about alright, and she even told Yelena—albeit briefly, given the hangover her best friend sported—about her interaction with Steve. 
That day was pretty uneventful, and so was the next one. But then, it was as though the floodgates of hell had opened, and Lucifer had prophesied her as the Chosen One, destined to endure the ultimate suffering.
Between a car splashing her with mud and having her get to her meeting looking and smelling like Ron Weasley’s great aunt Tessie, someone leaving a dent on her precious car, and a teenager in a Spider-Man mask trying to rob her only to throw her back her money and take her favorite purse... let’s just say she didn’t want to take a trek down that particular memory lane. 
“An old woman stole my umbrella.” 
And as if her being drenched from head to toe didn’t suffice, Yelena had to spit her espresso-loaded coffee directly on her juniper green shirt. Thank God she wasn’t wearing white this time. 
“I’m sorry, птичка,” Yelena enunciated in between chuckles. “I thought you said an old woman, who is supposed to be much less nimble than yourself, stole your umbrella.” 
“Laugh all you want, Yelena. But that woman was like a fucking torpedo when I told her I could only help her cross the street because the coffee shop was on the opposite side of wherever she had to go!” 
“Savage,” Yelena commented. Suddenly, and in a very uncharacteristic manner, she turned quiet. As Y/N sipped on her coffee, her eyes flicked up to catch her best friend’s pensive expression. She was tapping her fingers against the plastic coffee cup with her gaze idle on the rain. 
“What’s wrong?” 
There was silence at first, followed by a loud exhale. Then, after ten more seconds, Yelena placed her elbows on the table, shifting her body forward. “I have to tell you something.” 
“Oh no!” Y/N vigorously shook her head. “Don’t make my week even worse. Please.” 
Yelena's eyes held a rare empathy, a sight that Y/N seldom witnessed. It was evident that the forthcoming words were about to unveil something dreadful. Y/N just knew it. 
“Baron Zemo, the Sokovian investor I told you about, called me today. He wants to talk about the Red Room.” 
Y/N blinked twice. The despair she felt evaporated, replaced by a much more joyful sensation. "That's amazing!" she exclaimed, fully aware of the immense effort her best friend had put into creating the Red Room—a local dance studio that nurtured young girls' passion for dance.
But Yelena didn't seem too enthusiastic about the prospect. Her mouth twitched, transitioning from a scowl to a thin line. "He wants us to meet in person. The day after tomorrow," she revealed. She grabbed her coffee cup and took a rather long sip of her coffee—as if it served as her liquid courage. "He's in Romania."
“Romania!” Y/N hollered. Screw joy. She was confused as hell. Because while she wasn’t the most prodigious student in the world, nor did she have a modicum of aptitude in Geography, she did know that Romania was thousands of miles away. “Why didn’t you let me know before? And do not even attempt to tell me you didn’t have these plans before, and you just had them now!” 
Yelena winced. “You’re still hung up on that?”
“Yes!”
“I’m sorry, okay. My team has been in contact with him for months, and we’ve heard nothing. He called this morning and said he’d like to discuss the business along with expansion prospects. But he has an opening in three days or in seven months. That guy is an important investor. I couldn’t pass up on this opportunity.” 
Well, when you put it that way, Y/N thought. As much as she wanted to yell and hurl her pumpkin-spice latte at the wall, she couldn’t help but be happy for Yelena. Yes, bad news were pelting her mercilessly, but that wasn’t the case for her best friend. 
“At what time is your flight?” she asked in a steady voice. 
Yelena smiled appreciatively. “Midnight.” 
“I’ll drive you.” She rushed out of her seat, engulfing Yelena in a warm embrace. They held each other for a few seconds, but the touching moment soon melted when Y/N shifted to the right and felt something hit the floor with a thud. “Please tell me it’s not your drink.” 
“It’s not.” Y/N’s shoulders eased. “It’s yours.” 
A bad week and a half, she repeated in her head. 
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Luckily, Lucifer had decided to move on to the next unfortunate soul, leaving Y/N with two mundane days. Apart from her supervisor, Maria, grilling her about delivering the latest interior design schemes for the Odinson project, nothing exciting happened.
On the second day, Y/N drove Yelena to the airport and only departed after receiving a promise of a nice gift. She had dropped her off at nine in the evening and made it home around an hour later. 
Having nothing better to do, she changed into her pajamas, made herself some popcorn, and decided to treat herself to an episode or two of FRIENDS. Her enthusiasm was unrelenting as she continued watching episode after episode, surpassing the four-episode mark.
Little did she know that her streak of luck was finite. Just as Yelena texted that the plane was taking off and the clock struck midnight, Y/N's fairy godmother played the cruelest joke on her—the power cut off.
“Oh, come on!” Y/N whined exasperatedly. She kicked her legs against her rug, throwing a tantrum like a child who’s been denied candy. After a steady string of curses, she fished out her phone and turned on her flashlight. 
Since she was living in a house rather than an apartment, she peeked through her window to check if she was the only one facing a power outage. Most of the lights were off in the houses around them—it was midnight, after all. But the street lights were, in fact, on. 
Once outside, she located the panel and opened it. The switches appeared to be in the “on” position, but she noticed that some of the wires looked worse for wear. 
“Seriously, Lucifer. What do you want, you bastard? My soul in exchange for some peace!” Maybe that wasn't the wisest thing to say to the devil. Next thing she knew, the wires inside the electrical panel were cackling, and sparks began to fly. The sudden noise startled her, causing her to jump back in surprise. “That was a joke! Don’t they have those in hell?” 
Capriciously, the energy within the panel flared up. Y/N decided it was best to stop talking. 
Nervously, she started chewing on her nails. It was already midnight, with electricians available at this hour. In a situation like this, she would have called Yelena, but Yelena was already on a lengthy 8-hour flight to Sokovia. Seeking help from neighbors at this late hour wasn't a viable option either. And though she could consider sleeping in her car, the trembling in her fingers and her foggy breath reminded her of the biting cold.
Finding herself at a crossroads, Y/N pondered going inside and waiting for tomorrow to come. In the end, it’s not like her bad luck could possibly get any worse. But the crackling electricity was intensifying her anxiety and making it difficult to make a decision. Until she was suddenly reminded of something. 
Don’t hesitate to give me a call. Even if it’s at four in the morning, the voice inside her head echoed. 
Was it egotistic on her part to call Steve just because she needed help? Yes. Was it completely illogical to expect him to be awake at midnight? Uh-huh. Was she going to do it anyway? Absolutely. In fact, she was on the second ring now. And she just hoped Lucifer didn’t have any more tricks planned.
"Hello?" The first thing she noticed was the skepticism evident in the voice. The second realization was that it belonged to a woman.
Lucifer, Y/N called in her head. You can kill me now.
“Uhm, good evening.” Great. Now that the easy part was out of the way, she was left with one last dilemma. This woman could potentially be Steve's wife, and she's going to confuse Y/N for the mistress. Fun-fucking-tastic. “I’m sorry, but is this Steve Rogers’ number?” 
“Who is asking?” the woman fired back. 
Maybe it was time to end the call. “I’m Y/N. I, uh, kind of need some help.” 
"I'll inform Mr. Rogers that you called," the woman replied. A flicker of hope ignited in Y/N's chest, only to be extinguished as quickly as a discarded cigarette crushed on the pavement when the woman abruptly hung up the phone, leaving her stunned and disheartened.
Y/N clutched her phone tightly against her chest. She stomped her foot on the ground, tears of frustration beginning to well up in her eyes. These two weeks had been horrible, and there wasn’t the slightest sign that it was going to get any better. 
Y/N massaged her eyes with her thumb and index fingers, feeling the strain of the cold and the situation weighing upon her. As she started mentally searching for the correct placement of her flashlights and candles, her phone began to vibrate, her ringtone reverberating through the quiet and empty street.
Biting her cheek, Y/N fished it out. To her delight, it was Steve. She immediately pressed the accept button, anticipating to hear the woman from before. But a different voice greeted her instead. 
“Steve?” 
“Evening, Y/N.” His tone was placid and calm. Good, so Y/N hadn’t disturbed him with her unexpected call. “Everything alright?”
“I am so sorry to call you at this hour,” she hurriedly replied. Y/N barely took a breath before she continued, “I didn’t want to bother you so late, and I didn’t want to ask for a favor either. I know this makes me sound so selfish, but believe me, Steve. I had the most horrendous two weeks of my life, which is why I never texted you—”
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down, Y/N. I didn’t give you my number with any expectation that you might call or text me. It’s okay. And I don't think that you're selfish. You've obviously taken your time before calling me, so what's the issue? You're not in trouble, are you?"
He’s so sweet, Y/N thought. She hadn’t even realized she was smiling at his words until she had to clear her throat. 
“Something’s wrong with the power at my house. My best friend is out of the country and most of my neighbors are sleeping. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about it and wait till tomorrow, but my electrical panel is acting out. So, I don’t know what to do.” 
“You send me your location and wait for me to come,” he replied matter-of-factly with too much confidence and little to no hesitance. 
Y/N’s heart fluttered in her chest. The gentle heat in his words dispelled the coldness that had clung to her, leaving her feeling embraced by warmth.
“I don’t want to bother you.” 
“You’re no bother at all, Y/N. I’ll be waiting for your text.”
As soon as he hung up, Y/N immediately sent him her location. When she made sure he read it, she decided it was best to wait for him inside her house. It wasn’t like he was going to be there in the next twenty seconds. So, she sat by the window, grabbed a flashlight from her cupboard, and turned it on. 
She felt giddy for some reason—excited to see him again. There was a certain kindness to him, she supposed. A comforting aura that told her that when he was there, there was nothing to fear. Maybe it was the fact that he towered over her, and she was sure his whole body would engulf her if she ever found herself in his arms. Or maybe it was his blue eyes that consumed her whole. 
A car's headlights suddenly pierced through the darkness, grabbing Y/N's attention and pulling her out of her reverie. Startled, she glanced down at her phone, disbelief washing over her as she realized she had been lost in her thoughts for what felt like an eternity. To her surprise, only fifteen minutes had actually passed. A wave of relief and gratitude washed over her when the car parked by her house.
Y/N's heart raced with anticipation as she hastily bolted toward the door, unlocking it and eagerly stepping outside. Though her giddiness and excitement turned to confusion when she realized that Steve wasn't the one who emerged from the car.
“Miss Y/N?” a man called out. It was Sam, Steve’s best friend. When Y/N nodded, he continued, “I’m Sam Wilson, and this is Bucky Barnes. Steve sent us.” 
“I’m Y/N Y/L/N.” She shook their hands. “Thank you so much for coming. I'm sorry to have bothered you this late.” 
“Where’s the electrical panel?” Bucky cut to the chase. Now that he was close, he looked a bit intimidating. He stood at the same height as Steve, though slightly less physically built.
Y/N led him to the panel, taking a step back to allow him to work. He carefully examined it while she fidgeted with her hands, gazing at the car they had arrived in. 
“We were in the area,” Sam’s voice cut through. Y/N’s attention turned to him. She looked like a deer in the headlights. “Steve lives upstate. He figured it was faster to send us.” 
“And I really appreciate it,” Y/N responded. 
After Sam joined Bucky in examining the panel, silence filled the air for a while. The sound of electricity hissing intermittently persisted until both men finally stepped back.
“The bad news is, some of the fuses seem to have melted and need replacement,” Bucky explained. “The good news is, it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix. But, it’ll have to wait until morning.”
Y/N’s shoulders slumped slightly as she absorbed the information. What has she ever done to be rewarded with two terrible weeks?
“Alright. Thanks for the help. I’m sorry to have disturbed you at this hour,” she said, sounding apologetic.
Sam narrowed his eyes. “Hold on a minute,” he interjected, a touch of worry in his voice. “You can’t just go back to your house like this.”
Confused, Y/N asked, “Why not?”
“Because it’s freezing outside, and you’re gonna get hypothermia without any heat in your house. Not to mention it’s not safe.”
Y/N chuckled lightly, trying to brush off the concern. “I have quilts, you know,” she reassured him. “And a lock.”
Sam shook his head. He turned to Bucky, who licked his mouth before he spoke. “If you do that, doll. I have a feeling our boss will not be too happy about it,” Bucky admitted. “Let me call him.”
Bucky stepped away from the group, pulling out his phone to make the call. As he conversed with Steve, Y/N caught fragments of their conversation before the phone was handed to her.
“You’re not seriously going to sleep in your house?” Steve’s voice sounded both worried and protective.
Y/N responded with a soft hum, trying to downplay the situation. “I have quilts and a lock.”
“And I have a perfectly fine apartment nearby that I don’t use. It’s not too far from your place.”
Y/N hesitated for a moment, her eyes focused on the ground. She then looked up, biting her lower lip. “Steve,” she started, her voice wavering slightly.
He interrupted her gently, understanding the weight of the situation. “Look, I know we’ve barely met. But I can’t just let you sleep in your house under such circumstances. Especially after Bucky and Sam couldn’t help much. I don’t use that apartment, and if it makes you feel safer, you can text your friends your Live Location and take your own car there. I just want to help.”
Y/N was taken aback by Steve’s unwavering concern and kindness. She realized that his offer came from a genuine place of wanting to help, even though they were relative strangers. After a moment of contemplation, she nodded appreciatively.
“Alright, Steve. Thank you,” she finally responded, her voice filled with gratitude. “I’ll take you up on your offer.”
“Glad to hear it, Y/N. Could you pass Bucky the phone, please? We’ll make sure you’re safe and warm tonight.”
Y/N handed Bucky the phone. She quickly explained to Sam that she would be retrieving a few belongings from her apartment. On her way inside, Y/N shot Yelena a text, including her live location and a brief explanation. Just in case.
Taking a moment to gather her essentials, including pepper spray for added security, Y/N made sure to remember to take Steve's jacket, the one he’d offered her two weeks ago. With her belongings in hand, she set off on her way. If only she knew what she had gotten herself into. 
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Series Taglist: @crazyunsexycool @patzammit @wintasssoldier @themrsrogers
Steve seems like a knight in shining armor. Does he not?
: ̗̀➛ Read Chapter 3 | Star Command Blue
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bibibbon · 3 months
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What MHA lacks: proper world building
In a series like MHA world building is something that is very important. Sadly, a lot of the world building we have is inconsistent and all over the place.
In my opinion, the world building aspect of MHA was definitely introduced a bit too late and the stuff that we did have in earlier seasons is inconsistent and never really followed through properly. This is stuff like:
Quirkless discrimination - honestly, this one is SO INCONSISTENT that you can argue that it doesn't exist and that Izuku just suffered for the sake of suffering. We have little to no knowledge when it comes to the whole idea of quirklesness and how a quirkless person is treated. Also, Izuku is the only one who has really faced this type of behaviour since we don't see it with characters who were quirkless like mirio, shigaraki, all might and even yuuga.
heteromorphs discrimination - we definitely know this exists but it was only ever introduced and heavily focused on in the final arc. To be honest the plot point itself doesn't make sense as there are many heteromorphs heros and people in society who seem just fine. I think it could work but it definitely needs to be established and built on a whole lot more.
Quirk marriages - I honestly feel like this plot point was just introduced for the sake of the todoroki family and nothing else. I think it was stated that this is an old outdated practice and that it's been made illegal but shouldn't we see other victims of quirk marriages and not just the todoroki family.
Child hero's - this is mainly a focus on both hawks and lady nagant and while I think this is an interesting plot point it definitely should of been built and expanded on a whole lot more. You can argue that it doesn't truly make any sense considering that it was originally stated that Japan was oversaturated by heroes.
The hero safety commission - all we get when it comes to them is that they are bad people who end up getting destroyed at the end and exploit children with powerful quirks. We don't know many things like what's their job? How do they help hero's? What's their relations with the government? What are their motives? Etc etc
The laws and legislations in MHA - see in any other show this wouldn't be needed but considering that this is MHA where heros work for the government as glorified soldiers with costumes then we kind of need a link in laws and legislations in MHA. The most prominent law is the vigilantism one but thats it.
Other stuff like the foster care system or child protective services - honestly, this is one of my major problems with MHA because you're telling me with all of the situations that there are we never see eri have a social worker or something similar like it doesn't make sense. We know orphanages exist but that just about it really.
Crime and the underworld in MHA - this is pretty vague but what I mean by it is the exploration of what really goes on in the underworld which can show things like drug trafficking, quirk trafficking, mafias or gangs ( just like overhauls)
Quirk experimentation - This could of been so much more especially with the stuff that the doctor and overhaul both gave us. How overhaul was right about the origin of quirks and how the doctor has made it possible to pass on quirks and so many other things
Misogyny and sexism - I really don't know if this came by accident but there is a lot of misogyny in MHA literally can be seen in the sports festival and that could of been a great plot point of how unfairly woman are treated in day to day life and the hero industry horikoshi does almost NOTHING about it and just sexualises the characters even more
People and their quirks - it's acknowledged there are people who struggle to control their quirks and it's a problem that hori never explored in his society. Also why is it that only heros get to use their quirks what if you have a quirk suited for your job you should be able to get a permit to use your quirk right?
These are all missed opportunities when it comes to the world building of MHA and it's own society. I must admit that some points are explored but there really isn't much depth to it as it should have and it doesn't help at all that MHA is a series that NEEDS world building for it to work.
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prolix-yuy · 10 months
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Episode 1: Old Habits & New Beginnings
Pairing: Dieter Bravo x F!Reader "Snaps", Tim Rockford x OFC "Eden"
Summary: Rockford’s mask slips for a moment with Eden. Dieter and Snaps get to know each other.
Word Count: 4.2k
Warnings: Explicit, 18+ MINORS DNI, descriptions of male and female bodies, oral sex (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), grinding, mutual masturbation.
Notes: Welcome to the first episode of Midnight Alley! The response to Simulated was so overwhelming I had to continue their story. This series is going to have some fun playing with form and storytelling both in and out of the show. I hope you all enjoy it!
For anyone who missed Simulated and needs a quick refresher, Dieter's character in Midnight Alley is Tim Rockford, and our reader character Snaps will be playing Eden, Tim's love interest. Lots more will come out in further episodes, but until then enjoy the fun babes!
Cross-posted on AO3
Midnight Alley Series Masterlist
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A darkened room, moonlight filtering in through the blinds. The house breathes softly, expansively. No, not the house.
The couch shrouded in shadow moves. A hand reaches up, lined in silver light, and grabs the cushioned back. Knuckles prominent, but a feminine hand, twisting the upholstery in her fist. A car headlight rakes across the room, outlines of two bodies melting into the foreground before disappearing again. As the camera pans in, we hear whistling pants, and the rhythmic creak of the couch. A woman’s head is tossed back on the armrest, lips parted, eyes squeezed shut. A hulking figure presses her into the cushions, the dim light highlighting her legs braced on either side. As our eyes adjust her features come into focus, camera tight on her upper body. Her patterned blouse is open, draped in crumpled wrinkles across her heaving chest. She’s familiar, but we can’t quite place her. Her body shakes, back arching as a quiet, wet noise tickles our ears off camera. 
“Tim…” she croons, a rasp at the end as a large, blunt-fingered hand slides up her stomach to wrap under her breast. A pop, followed by a thick sigh. 
“Good to know you’re not mistaking me for God anymore,” a voice rumbles, thick with lust as we watch her smile and reach for him. When he shuffles up to kiss her, Tim Rockford’s broad shoulders stretch white cotton across the screen. He deepens the kiss but pulls away quickly, making her chase his smirk. She nips at his chin, smiling when he curls his fingers around her jaw and thumbs her lower lip. 
“God’s never touched me in the ways you do,” she retorts, voice like velvet and smoke curling through our ears. The camera holds on Tim’s face, a rare gentle smile carved in the darkness. We can’t recall the last time his cheeks weren’t cut with frown lines, the permanent wrinkle between his brows miraculously smoothed. 
“I’m grateful you let me into your garden of Eden,” he says, tracing her figure below him. She rolls her eyes, but it’s playful. Cupping his cheeks, his eyes flutter. We sit up, pay attention now. There’s something different about this one. Rockford always treats his women well, leaves them sated and glowing, but rarely gains more than a modicum of weight lifted. This is something new, something special.
“Pretty sure what you were just doing would get you kicked out of Paradise,” she shoots back, earning a huff from his parted lips. He shakes his head, a glint in his eye as he shifts back down her body.
“Good thing I’m not a God-fearing man,” he says, one expansive palm lifting her leg to drape over his shoulder. He dips down, keeping eye contact as her thigh obscures his scruff-dusted jaw, when…
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“Cut!” Adam calls, cameras whirring to a stop with a cacophony of shuffling shoes. Dieter sits back on his heels, rolling his shoulders as you stretch out your bent knees on either side of his hips.
“I still think he should have a wet face when he comes up for air,” Dieter says with an edge of petulance. It makes you smirk, turning your face into the couch to hide it from the director, but Dieter catches it.
“I told you it’s too much Di,” Adam says back, the exasperated tone of a parent telling their kid one last time he can’t have a cookie before bed. But in this case the cookie is a stroke to Dieter’s ego.
“Just saying, Rockford would be all up in there. He’s getting soaked. He’s not kitten licking her to completion, man is covered from nose to chin,” Dieter reasons, the hollow shout of, “Knock it off, Bravo,” coming from the back of the room where the intimacy coordinator sits.
“I’m fine, Molly,” you call back, settling into the couch as you roll your ankles and flex your knee. You’ve got one more scene in this position then it’s a set change, but your butt has started going numb and your legs are stiff after the constant faux gyrating. 
“Here, let me Snaps,” Dieter offers, scooting back to the end of the couch and wrapping his warm palms around your calf. You warm at the endearment, the playful moniker a result of Dieter catching you taking photos of everything on set. From the makeup trailer to the sweet lady who hands you sandwiches, you documented everything on your first day back. It’s still surreal, knowing that your name isn’t going to be a one-time showing in the credits. The photos serve as proof when you’re lying in bed and worried that you’re in some bizarre longform dream. 
Dieter presses a thick thumb into the meat of your calf, searching for a moment before a sharp pain races into your pelvis. “Got this tip from All Hands, my hips kept aching after shoots and Joji taught me this acupressure spot.” 
The sensation is like liquid fire running up your leg, but something is releasing around your hip joint. Dieter holds pressure there for a little while longer before slowly releasing, the pain subsiding. His hands don’t leave though, remaining spread and soothing on your calf. His left creeps slowly past your knee, thumb stroking the delicate skin of your inner thigh.
“Good trick,” you say back as casually as you can muster. No one else seems to have noticed, and you’d like to keep it that way.
It had only been one date. You didn’t want to get your hopes too high. Didn’t want to touch him like he’s touching you in front of too many people in case he’s done with you in a week.
Definitely didn’t want to touch him like that night.
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He’d picked you up from your apartment, and while you didn’t expect him to be wearing a gun holster or a ratty t-shirt-sweatpant combo, you were surprised at how nicely he cleaned up. A loud button-up that you’re sure is by Gucci or Versace or some other name brand, the top three buttons open to reveal his smoothly freckled chest. Devastatingly fitted dark jeans that made his already swoon-worthy thighs all the more gorgeous. Rings glittering on his fingers as he tucked his thumbs into his belt loops. The wild mane he’s known for, and that you covet, as tempting as ever. 
He was oddly demure when you came out to meet him. He gave you a hug, a whiskery kiss on the cheek, and ushered you into his car. It took two minutes of silent driving, your heart hammering in your chest, before he blurted out, “You look fucking amazing, I think my brain just vacated my body for a minute there. Am I driving?” The nervous giggles devolving into snorting laughter shook you both, fighting to regain composure at the stoplight.
It was easily the most fun date you’d ever been on. The place he took you was out of the way enough that paparazzi wouldn’t be hovering for photos, but not so intimate to assume it was a precursor to a quick fuck. The conversation hopped from past work to favorite hobbies and actor in-jokes. He complimented you on your theater training, you complimented him on his movie trivia knowledge. You shared tapas and white wine sangria, Dieter speaking to the servers and staff in Spanish with a warmth that hinted at a long-term friendship. You shared a caramel flan and he ghosted his fingers over your hand. 
It’s so different from what you thought Dieter might be like.
Sure, as he’d gotten older his escapades had faded several pages back into the tabloids, but he’d been wild for a time. A new scandal, a lover speaking out. Mostly things that inferred him being a wild partier, or an exhibitionist, or hedonistic to a point that made you blush. You half expected the date to be at a loud bar or a celebrity hot spot. The fact that it’s soft and quiet makes you reconsider how soft and quiet Dieter might be under all the bravado.
When he parked out front of your apartment you blurted out an invite up, which he accepted with a sly smile. The heat of Dieter’s presence tingled up your spine, but he only sat on your worn couch and accepted a glass of whiskey. So you talked. And talked. And laughed. And flirted. And you would have worried that he had a terrible time and was trying to let you down easy except for the fact that it was nearing one in the morning and he hadn’t left. 
When your anxieties bubbled to the surface and past your lips he pulled you into his lap and kissed you until your lungs burned and your head swam. “I wanted, for once, to take it slow. With you,” he admitted, sliding his hands up your spine with a sheepish smile. “Didn’t want you to think all I wanted was a one nighter.” When he cautiously looked up at you through his thick lashes your awe-struck smile smoothed the wrinkle between his brows.
Dieter didn’t fuck you that night. He deserved an Oscar for denying himself that, especially when you pressed so sweetly against his growing erection. Instead he guided your hips to roll against him, mouthing at your neck and telling you how good you felt, how pretty you were on top of him, how he couldn’t believe how sexy you are. A shuddering little orgasm flooded your brain, making you loose-limbed and heavy on his lap as he rocked you through it. The insistent lap of your tongue and scrape of your teeth against his mouth softened into indulgent kisses that dragged you closer to sleep. Dieter’s voice cut through the fog - “As much as I’d like to, I probably can’t carry you to bed with my shitty back,” - and he helped you stumble under the covers, leaving with a gentle kiss to your lips, another on your forehead.
That night would remain secret and special to only you. Something no one could syndicate. 
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“Better?” Dieter asks, his attention narrowed in on your face. His fingers still dance inside your thigh.
“Much. Thanks Di,” you say breezily, settling into your starting position again. Dieter repositions, read to dive back in (figuratively). His coffee eyes catch yours again, a little anxiety of his own coloring his usually confident smile.
“Dinner at my place tonight?” he asks quietly, and he probably doesn’t know how vulnerable his voice sounds. It pulls a soft smile to your lips.
“Yeah, sounds great.”
Adam’s voice cuts into your conversation.
“Quiet on set!”
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“Good thing I’m not a God-fearing man,” Rockford says, one expansive palm lifting her leg to drape over his shoulder. He dips down, keeping eye contact as her thigh obscures his scruff-dusted jaw, when…
The telephone rings.
They freeze, frustration etching deep into his face.
“I’m sorry, I have to…” he groans, untangling himself from her limbs. The camera cuts to the kitchen, an outdated corded phone hanging off the yellow wall. Rockford, dressed in dark slacks and an open button-down and undershirt, stalks in to stop the offensive ringing. He holds the phone to his ear, the steely expression melting into disappointment, and resignation. While he exchanges a few low questions with the person on the other end of the line, the woman emerges from the shadows. The brighter wash of light reveals that we do know her. She’s the one he picked up in the bar three episodes ago, now standing in a blouse she’s wrapped around her chest and a pair of white socks. She watches Rockford’s back, waiting a beat after he hangs up the phone to wrap her arms around him. He settles his hands over hers, head tilting back as she rests her forehead between his shoulder blades.
“They found something. It can’t wait,” he says simply, a weariness returning to his broad shoulders. “I can take you home on the way.” 
“I could stay,” she offers, Rockford turning in her arms. “So you don’t have to come back to an empty house.”
He cups her cheek, a grateful look quickly replaced with regret. She watches, nods. We all know that can’t happen. Not yet. There’s too much standing between them for him to accept. 
“I’ll get dressed,” she says, walking back into darkness. Rockford braces his hands on the door frame, hanging his head. He takes a breath, then follows.
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The ungodly moan you let out makes Dieter’s lips quirk up into a prideful smile.
“That good?” he asks.
“Fuck, Di, where did you learn to cook like this?” you say through a half-full mouth of the best pasta you’ve ever had. His cheeks flush prettily as he pushes his own around the bowl, another forkful already on its way to your lips.
“I’ve got a handful of home runs I save for special occasions,” he says, taking a sip of the red wine he decanted while you were walking in the door. “But outside of that? I’ll gladly order takeout.”
“It’s fantastic, thank you for making it,” you say, enjoying how he busies himself with his plate to smile into his chest. It makes your own smile tug at your cheeks. You know how hot he can be, how sexy and thoughtful and suave, but he’s also cute?
After a spirited discussion about some of the dialogue in recent seasons - nobody talks like that coming up against it’s a play on the trope - you help clear the table and loiter in the kitchen while Dieter puts the dishes in the sink. The immaculate marble countertop, plus a little of the wine thrumming in your veins, tempts you to hop up and sit on it as he rinses out the wine glasses and sets them on a drying rack. The dishes are sparse, only four bowls, a handful of cups. The kitchen is artfully, but not practically styled. You meant to ask if this was Dieter’s home or if he was renting it, the modern pristine aesthetic clashing against what you know of him, but before you can voice your thoughts Dieter is standing in front of you, hands on your knees.
“Would you like some dessert?” he asks, the dip in tone carrying the thrum of your heartbeat straight between your thighs. Heat creeps up your neck and blooms across your chest, but you hold to the words Dieter soothed you with last time.
Take it slow.
“What did you have in mind?” you ask, letting Dieter part your thighs to stand between them. One hand slips around your waist, the other skimming up your arm to cup your neck. He has to tilt his head up to look at you, and from this vantage you can admire the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the deep crease in his bottom lip, the little scar on the bridge of his nose from an old on-set injury. You can’t help melting into him, sliding your fingers into the unruly locks at the base of his neck and holding him precious in your hands. His eyes slip shut, and you swear you hear a low purr rumble in his chest.
“Something delicious,” he whispers before he pulls you down to meet him. 
It’s as intoxicating as the first time, his lips slotting between yours while he sighs like a man returned home. The tips of your noses brush as he tilts his head to better lick into your mouth, tannic laps as you savor each other. His hands pull you closer to the counter edge, your legs coming up to wrap around his waist. The plush flesh of his stomach presses against your core, and for a moment you imagine grinding against him, coating his skin in your slick. How he would look watching you writhe against him. Was he the kind of man to cast dark, demanding eyes along your skin, or watch you like a goddess with wonder?
A final sweep, and he parts from you with a little pant and shiny lips.
“Fuck, I said I was going to go slow and you’ve got me wanting to toss all that out the window,” he says, stealing a smaller kiss from your parted lips. 
“I like where this is going right now,” you say breathlessly, rolling your hips along his clothed stomach. He groans, pressing your foreheads together.
“I’d like to have dessert first,” he says, and you’re about to ask him how he can think of food at a time like this when two large, firm hands slide under your skirt and search for the hem of your panties. Once located, he drags them down your legs, aided by the lift of your hips. They’re a lacy pair, more substantial than a thong but not by much. He crumples them in his hand and slips them in his pocket.
“Can I eat your pussy, Snaps?” he breathes, ghosting his lips over the top of your thigh, dragging his nose along the stretch of your skirt hem. Your cunt is practically gushing, but you still have to laugh.
“I can’t believe you used that cliche-ass line,” you giggle, Dieter’s eyes snapping up to your mirth at his expense. 
“I think it worked,” he drawls out, and one hand slips between your legs to thumb at your soaked folds. “Made you fucking drenched, didn’t it?” Your tongue struck dumb, he steals a glance at your face. “Oh, yes it did. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” he says, smug smile giving way to the open-mouth kisses he trails down your thighs as he fists your skirt up over your hips. The shock of cool marble on your bare ass steals your breath before Dieter’s lips pressing a chaste kiss just above your clit suffocates you. One large hand spreads across your chest, gently pressing you back to lay on the expansive countertop. Your whole body thrums in anticipation as he lifts your leg over his shoulder, pressing your hip open so he can breathe you in.
“Fuck, Snaps, you’re not dessert, you’re a whole damn meal,” he groans. A retort dances behind your teeth before dissolving to nothing when Dieter’s tongue slides slowly over your clit, savoring your taste. He pulls back, staring at your silky pussy on display, then with a whispered, “fuck,” he dives in for more. 
The tenacity and fervor with which Dieter slurps and moans into your cunt clenches your walls and bows your spine. He grips your thighs, spilling flesh between his fingers as he swirls his tongue on your clit and sucks greedily. There’s nothing for you to hold onto on the smooth counter, so you bury your fingers in his hair to an approving growl that vibrates your core.
“Just like that, you tasty little thing, give it a good pull if I’m doing well,” Dieter rasps, sliding his tongue down to prod your entrance. Thighs tightening, hips rolling, you feel gloriously untethered to the world except for Dieter’s touch. After working his tongue inside you he presses deeper into your folds, hawkish nose sliding over your clit. He rocks his face against you, a mess of his pulsing tongue, hot puffs of air against your intimate flesh, and his dark eyes coaxing gush after gush of slick into his waiting mouth. 
Fuck ever faking it with him again, Dieter could rail you on set in front of craft services and you’d thank him for it.
The shudder of your impending orgasm raises your voice, hoarse gasps and whines as Dieter intensifies his technique, rubbing hard circles on your clit with the tip of his tongue and sliding one perfectly thick finger inside you. You throw an arm over your eyes, coherent enough to whimper and weakly wail when he presses into your g-spot and drags your clit along his tongue in a neverending roll. It’s right there, you’re going to cum on Dieter’s face, when…
A phone rings.
Dieter’s phone.
The harsh tones of Apple’s default ringer still your hips, Dieter’s mouth still moving against you. 
“Di…” you call out weakly, tapping your fingers against his temple to get him to look up at you. His mouth pops off, and true to his on-set assumption he’s coated from the bridge of his nose to the base of his chin with your slick. It glistens in his mustache, one silvery smear dragging up his cheek. His eyes are glassy and fucked-out when he meets yours.
“Wha’s wrong?” he slurs, licking his lips and suppressing a groan. Your cunt clenches hard, screaming to cum.
“Your phone,” you say, the glow across the room visible from the coffee table. He looks over at it for a moment, slow blinking when he returns to your face.
“And?” he asks, blankly taking in your nervous energy.
“It could be…something…important?” you squeak out, legs still splayed lewdly around him. He watches you for a moment more, puzzling through something, before understanding dawns on his face. 
“How much like Rockford do you think I am?” he asks, leaning down and pressing a sticky kiss just above your bellybutton. It makes your abdomen jump, the tickle of his mustache trailing as he slides your shirt up below your breasts. “Do you think anything at all is worth tearing myself away from your gorgeous fucking body?” He licks a line up to your bra, scraping his teeth on the supple skin. “You think a phone call could stop me from making you scream?” 
His hands and mouth still, prompting you to sit up to stare at his hungry face. Hair disheveled from your hands, a flush across his cheeks, and a devious smile all answer his questions, but you know he needs you to say it.
“No.”
His smile turns devilish.
“Good girl.”
With increased voracity he returns to your cunt, sucking his fingers into his mouth before strumming them quickly over your clit. The stimulation arches your back and snaps your thighs closed around his head, only stopped by one hand pressing you open mercilessly. The wrecked gasp he tears from your throat stops the onslaught, redirecting two fingers deep into your cunt to press hard into your g-spot, his hot tongue back on your clit with a pattern of quick circles and soft laps. You scrabble for his hair, the broad expanse of his shoulders, the fingers wrapped around your thighs. He finally gives you something, threading your fingers together so you can grip him while your orgasm burns you from the inside out. Your lungs scream, eyes screwed shut as Dieter pours molten pleasure into you, fire and ice and ecstasy. He growls into your cunt, refusing to stop until your spasming hips fall back to the counter and each breath ends on an overstimulated gasp. Only then does he lift up to gather you in his arms, pulling you around him so he can mouth at your neck and trail kisses back to your gasping mouth. He strokes long paths up and down your thighs, letting you drape over his broad shoulders and rest your head. Faintly you still hear ringing, but so far away that it could be a dream.
“That’s a good girl,” he purrs into your ear, earning a weak tug of his hair. “I knew you’d be fucking delicious.” 
“Shit, Di, did you suck my soul out?” you joke, laughter rumbling you both.
“Now you know how I felt when I first saw you,” he muses, stroking the back of your neck. You turn your face into his throat, savoring the warmth and masculine scent of his sweat. The ringing pauses for a few seconds, then starts back up again. 
“Do you need…” you ask, leaning back to smile down at Dieter. He rolls his eyes.
“On principle I’m not going to answer it for the rest of the night. Camille has my calendar, she should know better,” he says, dipping his head to scrape his teeth on your collarbone. Your thighs clench around his waist, his supple mouth dotting a kiss over his teeth marks.
“Unlike Rockford, I don’t put my work above my partners,” he says nonchalantly, as if that word doesn’t make you lightheaded. “I also don’t drown myself in drink and drugs as heavily, or engage in as much casual sex as I used to.” His hands splay wide over your back, brushing your noses together as you fight to meet his eyes. “My dark and brooding past is mostly full of self-loathing and coping mechanisms, not failed murder investigations.” Dieter draws you closer to the edge of the table, his hard cock grazing your core just enough to make you hum into his ear. “And I’ll make you cum three times tonight, not two.”
You take a playful nip at Dieter’s ear, the clink of his earring against your teeth thrilling.
“Is your technique as good as his?” you ask innocently, his hands suddenly possessive on your skin. 
“Better,” he promises. Then he takes you to his bed and proves it.
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cherrycherryking · 1 year
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Hi! I love your stuff with Wally!! I was wondering if you could do Wally (Or Eddie if you write for him) with a reader who likes to write and make up fun stories to share with friends? (You don’t have to but I think it’d be cute) Oki have a nice daaaay :))
sooo idk if you just wanted this to be just and x reader or a character ideas, so, i did both!! hope you like it <3
(+some drawings!)
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Wally Darling x Gen!Reader (platonic or romantic) Eddie Dearest x Gen!Reader (platonic or romantic)
Writer Character
✧We got ourselves a little writer!
✧Or maybe an author, or a librarian, or a poet- point is! You love to write and create this silly funny stories for all of your friends to see.
✧Some fun concepts for a character like this could be a bee cause spelling bee! Or a mouse because library mouse (or just whatever you like)
✧We know in the show there was storybook sections. I think a lot of these would be narrated and a lot of times even created by you!
✧I can picture your segment starting with the camera focusing on you reading or writing, then inviting the viewer to follow the story along. As you may imagine for a kids show they all had a neat message at the end.
✧Oh, and another resident smarty pants! I can think of some chapters or scenes where you teach spelling and grammar. "No, is not t-h-e-y-r-e, they're birthday, but t-h-e-i-r, their birthday!" (or maybe like me you suck at spelling, so ignore this lol)
✧For outfits i can suggest plaid pattern, glasses, a vest or maybe a cardigan! You can either go for a well put together smart little guy or a mess of a bookworm (that's like a scale on my head.)
✧Sally and you could be good friends now that i think about it! She loooves to make her friends perform her plays and you're just the perfect helper for that.
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(if you use this as a base credit me and tag me so i can see!!)
✧Maybe appear with Frank as well, I think he could borrow books if you have a library or even have a little book club with other neighbors :]
───────────.★..─╮ Eddie x Reader ─..★.───────────╯
✧Oh you appear to help when he's teaching arts and crafts!
✧If you're big into reading, or trying to publish a book or any other sort of thing then you would see Eddie pretty often because he would always have a package or letter for you.
✧He's a bit of a forgetful klutz so you always make sure to help him a little by organizing a calendar for him! Writing down stuff you know for sure he'll forget.
✧Yes it makes him a little bit embarrassed to say the least but he's infinitely grateful of your help.
✧Every single morning in his usual route if he has the time, he always goes past your house to say hello and catch up on what you have been writing! Eddie is interested in the story you have and always listens to it with so much focus, almost as if you were telling him the hottest latest gossip of them all.
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(help my poor soul im getting into an art block. eddie someday i will make you justice i promise.)
✧Or maybe you walk with him a little to accompany him. Just a heads up! Be ready to catch him when he inevitably falls because of some marbles julie forgot to pick up, a plastic duck (Barnaby- pick up your trash!) or just because!!
✧But is all worth it at the end of the day. Eddie always has time for you and your rambles. Only problem is he likes everything you write so he's not the best person if you're searching for criticism!
───────────.★..─╮ Wally x Reader ─..★.───────────╯
✧As the most prominent character of the series the plot follows Wally, and that's a way you two end up talking so much for a starters.
✧Any time Wally is staring at his canvas with no idea of what to draw he thinks "Well, they surely will have an idea" and go search for you (that is if you're not already there).
✧Thinking about how many chapters could follow the formula of you and Wally brainstorming ideas for a story, with him drawing what you narrate (and we come back to the storybook sections of the show!)
✧He would ask you "what are you doing today, neighbor?" to which you respond that you are writing about something! He asks what, you respond, he asks for more context of your story and- well now you're infodumping to him telling him all about what you have so far.
✧Oh but he would definitely be the type to draw your characters because "they are a lot of fun".
✧Picturing calm afternoons consisting of the two of you doing parallel play and every so often showing the other your progress <3
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by the end i kinda got into an artblock 😭😭 og plan was to make two rendered drawings, one for wally other for eddit yet it appears i flew too close to the sun. my god.
also this is my first time writing eddie so i'm not sure if i captured him correctly! in any case thank you so much for reading.
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panelshowsource · 7 months
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hi, sarah! i see you've watched a lot of british panel shows/comedians and i need a specific recommendation: where to start with dara o briain? he's right now my favourite taskmaster contestant ever and after listening to his episodes on the tm podcast and off menu, and watching him on wilty, i'm completely in love with his humor and manner of speech. what are the "must see" things he's done in the past? he's such a prominent figure in british tv but idk how to choose what to watch next
i have watched a lot of panel shows...you got that right hehehe...
i'm happy for you that you found someone you really like and get to explore a lot of new content! i gotta say, that doesn't happen often for someone quite so famous and prolific like dara, so it's fun for me to think back to all the stuff he's been in :')
he's a comedian, but he's also known for being mr big smarty pants, so he's done a lot of comedy programmes as well as smarty pants programmes & documentaries. you may choose to start in one of these distinct directions if there's a side of dara you like best! let me start with a few of my own faves...
he's probably best known — definitely by my followers, but also in general — for being the long-time host of the news-focused panel show mock the week, which JUST ended after 17 years. of the panel shows about news, of which there are many, this one is the most accessible and the most silly. dara is a GREAT host and has hilarious dynamics with the regular panelists, especially his literal best friend ed byrne (who we heavily stan). in fact, on mtw, you'll also see lots of other taskmaster contestants you may recognise, including panel captain and cult fave hugh dennis, frankie boyle, russell howard, and ed gamble. i know 17 years is A LOT, so if you've never seen the show and aren't sure where to start, i'm gonna recommend you give series 15 a go — as a new-er panel show fan, i think a more recent season like this one will be most accessible. also, this compilation of comedians roasting dara on mtw for half an hour is fucking hilarious lmaooo
dara has been on tons of panel shows as a panelist opposed to hosting, and you'd be amiss not to catch up on him on qi! one of stephen's smart lil boys and a clever laugh, he was made for that show. you can find dara's episodes here and i have all of qi linked on the masterpost! if you've never seen qi here's a silly clip that is mostly sean being one of stephen's naughty lil boys but it's a great example of the learning a lot/learning absolutely nothing dichotomy that can happen with a great panel (including dara!!)!
apart from that, i'd highly recommend you watch his stand-up! i put two specials on drive for you, 2012's craic dealer and 2015's crowd tickler (sorry for the mid quality — they're just dvd rips). these are pretty perfect for blossoming dara fans because they're funny, witty, clever, goofy — all the things we love about dara at once!!
as for my final personal recommendation, you should definitely check out dara & ed's great big adventure, a bbc two miniseries where the besties travel along the pan-american highway! they have top-tier wholesome bantz, ed is very fucking goofy (you will find quickly that being a fan of dara is being a fan of ed hahaha), and they explore some very beautiful cultures. i will work on getting decent rips of the show for my drive, but in the meantime you can watch this on dailymotion!
it would be amiss if i ended the recs here, because dara has hosted a lot of different series — but these series are based around very specific interests of his. some of the big ones include the following: go 8 bit, one of his most recent shows about classic and indie video games, very nostalgic with fun guests; science club (if you need full eps of this lmk, i should be able to get them but it will just take a lil time) and school of hard sums, nerds talking about science and maths, def have qi vibes; and the underrated stargazing live, broadcast every winter and when dr brian cox & our fave amateur astronomer mr ó briain talk about stars and shit! these are less necessary watching and more worth watching if the topics tickle your fancies~
okay i hope that helps!! there is obviously so much more to his career — including his many books — but i think this is overwhelming enough and i hope you don't mind the long post! feel free to catch us up on what you're enjoying down the line, we love dara and hearing what others love about him too :')
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egg-emperor · 3 months
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Eggman is pretty much fascism and unchecked capitalism in human form. He is a repersantion of it they way Sonic is the representation of freedom.
In the games we get to see glimpses of the world under Eggy's rule and it is not pretty. Even in the first game, Eggman's scrap brain zone is a polluted dystopian hellhole, smog and poison everywhere. Meanwhile green hill zone is a lush paradise full of greenery.
In Sonic CD, we can see even his own robots suffer in the bad futures. They looks broken , neglected and musty. He doesn't even care about his bots. So much for a robot kingdom 🤖👑
Don't get me started on Forces where he fully takes over the earth and turns it into a bleak, broken hellhole and spews propaganda everywhere. Everyone is miserable. He even made a propaganda vid where he encourages people to accept his robotomy treatment and become his robot slaves to make life bearable.(Robots don't need food , water or clean air to breathe. They don't even think)
Benevolent dictatorship it is not. I don't know where people get that from.
Exactly, for it being such a prominent theme in the series, I wish more people would get the message and not dismiss it/miss the point and try to say "Eggman is good, actually". It's much more interesting to look at it for what it is, it's what makes Sonic vs Eggman and Eggman's goals compelling to me to analyze. Eggman is a great representation of the terrible and harmful things humanity can be capable of but without completely blaming the entire human race.
He portrays the dangers of fascism, damage of the environment, and the dangerous destructive lengths one can go to in greed for power and control. There's been many examples of him attempting to captilize on harmful things, carelessly tearing the planet/other planets apart in selfish endeavors, and how dystopian the world would be if he succeeded in enforcing his order. They've explored propaganda, manipulation, war, and invasion with him.
Ignoring the message of Eggman's character also downplays, softens the impact of, and dismisses the meaning of Sonic's character. He's all about freedom and the only thing he hates is oppression, Eggman is the oppressor of the story and Sonic wants to stop him, that way people can live in peace and freedom without Eggman stripping that away from them and forcing them to be and do exactly and only what he wants in the world he wants it to be alone.
It's cool because Eggman is also like an example of if you take your own personal freedom and desires too far with greed and a lust for power and control. To the point that you value it and yourself so much above all else, you want to force everyone else to comply by your rules and fulfill your desires, no matter how much they don't want it and it damages them and the world around you. Meanwhile, Sonic's just happens to benefit the world and people around him.
And in a world where Sonic wins, it stays beautiful, bright, lively and free with nature, wildlife, man, and technology coexisting in harmony and peace. In a world where Eggman wins you get the opposite where it's ugly, dark, dead, and controlled with nature and wildlife suffocated until it's dead- replaced by technology and reshaped in Eggman's selfish image and twisted idea of what a "perfect" world is, one where only he decides what it's like.
It shows through their characteristics, actions and outlook, and their impact on the world and people around them and that's so fucking neat. I don't know why people act like that stopped being a theme when, as long as it's Sonic vs Eggman, it's definitely always present. But I feel that a part of it is absolutely the way that people try to make it seem like Eggman isn't so bad and suggest the idea that maybe he's actually really progressive and wants to do good.
It's very clear that he doesn't lol. Such is obvious by the lengths he's willing to go to get what he wants, knowingly and carelessly hurting many people and even finding sadistic enjoyment in it at other times, all the while acknowledging that he's evil and saying it himself and owning it. He knows he has to create propaganda, lie, and manipulate others into getting what he wants and further his plans which also proves full awareness that what he's doing isn't innocent.
And of course the most obvious is how the world under his control is most often depicted as a dark industrial dead and polluted dystopian hellhole where all suffer, even his own creations, and he doesn't care because he's in control and gets to rule over it and turn it into everything he wants. And their suffering is just part of the idea, which he makes clear with his own words with Eggmanland in Unleashed and the Interstellar Park in Colors, in that he wants people to suffer.
There are times this isn't shown visually in a places of his creation and under his control, such as the Interstellar Park and Ego City. But guess what? There's still tons of danger and death due to attractions in the Interstellar park that he acknowledged and intended as features, and the PAs in Ego City with the propaganda and lies about the intention and "benefits" of animals in robots and the hint that he doesn't actually take criticism- all prove his real sinister intent in it.
It shows that Eggman can also pretty things up and sugarcoat them with visually beautiful creations, sweet words and promises of great things through lies and propaganda. That's scary because it can lure people in, only for them to be subjected to great horrors once they arrive, even if nobody and maybe not even themselves can see and realize it's all a lie and the cost that is their suffering at first, until it's too late and they face it in the most terrible and painful of ways.
And the truth would show visually eventually anyway, evident in Eggmanland's darker polluted setting. Even to the point of further destruction and decay, like CD bad future where even his own creations are broken down and abandoned. He'll destroy the world to build his new one yet even that will rot due to his carelessness as long as it doesn't get in the way of his own enjoyment, he'll use things up and abandon them when they no longer serve him.
In Forces he wants to burn the world so it will be "nothing but ashes, from which a glorious Eggman Empire will rise," willing to cause great damage to get it. That's why he happily blew up Sunset Heights, let Green Hill be dehydrated and die, had forests carpet bombed, and was willing to drop the sun on people. Hell, in the Join the Eggman Empire propaganda video, he promotes further ruination and pollution of the world after he's taken over as a good appealing thing.
And the real reason why is because it will push anyone that's still unwilling after all his attempted lies and propaganda to give in and accept the robotomy treatment, so they don't have to suffer in it anymore because they won't have a choice because it'll be that or die. But with it they'll also have to give up all their freedom and never be able to eat, sleep, or think ever again and Eggman will tell them "that's what we call "living the good life!"
And again, him saying that loving it is mandatory in the video proves he doesn't care how much it hurts people and how much they'll really hate it. He knows full well but doesn't care because it's not about what they want, it's all about him and what he wants and they have no choice or say, they literally have to comply or die. And fuuuck it's so good and messed up. That perfectly represents how terrible and dangerous and harmful his dictatorship is.
Besides the whole "what if he actually cared and genuinely wanted to help people and the world though" which this all clearly disproves, I also see people say they'd like to become robots so they don't think it's so bad. And it's like well fascist dictatorship doesn't suddenly become a good thing just because some of it personally aligns with your desires lol. Authoritarianism doesn't suddenly become good just because it's enforcing your personal morals and values.
I highly doubt anyone would still be saying this if they it really happened and they realized how much they'd sacrifice in it and what they'd have to go through as Eggman clearly doesn't treat his creations well, whether it's through abusing them or just leaving them to decay like those seen in CD bad future. And let's say even if was good for you personally in some way, it wouldn't be for everyone and most people would still suffer because they don't want it.
And let's say your biggest dream came true through it. It's still being enforced through Eggman's fascism and oppression and many will suffer from it and have to abide by it against their will. It's like how Eggman tried to bribe Sonic in the great Super Sonic and Super Eggman Sonic Channel story by saying he could give him a world of chili dogs, no paradise is one that is forced, no matter how pretty and appealing one tries to make it seem.
And in Eggman's case it's not just that but the fact his "paradise" is everyone else's hell, his enjoyment is everyone else's pain, his desires are the antithesis of freedom. Because he's deeply selfish and intends and revels in much of the damage and suffering he causes. It's inherently sinister, harmful, and only his twisted definition of a perfect paradise that serves only himself with his selfishness and self-centeredness that he can't and doesn't care to see past.
He's one fucked up bastard and that makes him so interesting and threatening, he's the main villain of the series for a reason. 💜 It's really interesting to think about the themes he represents and the many different ways they've been portrayed and explored throughout the series and the message it sends just as much as Sonic's, I wish to see more acknowledgement and discussion of it so I try my best to bring light to it with my own contributions like this!
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lostcauses-noregrets · 5 months
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SnK Final Episode thoughts
A few thoughts about the final episode of SnK now the dust has started to settle.  Although it was the anime that first got me into the series, I’m really a manga first kinda fan, I enjoy the anime, but it’s always been a nice addition for me.  Also, while I was very ambivalent about the ending of the manga and had a LOT of things to say about it at the time, I’ve more or less made my peace with it.  All of which is to say that I went into the final episode without any particular expectations. I was excited to see the series draw to a close, hoped they wouldn’t mess up Levi’s ending, and was curious to see the much touted changes. 
I have to say, I really enjoyed it. The action sequences around the Attack Titan were breathtaking and the rumbling was genuinely horrifying. The pacing was good and it felt a lot shorter than the 90 minute running time. The voice acting was fabulous; Yuki Kaji, Yui Ishikawa, Marina Inoue and Hiroshi Kamiya really knocked it out of the park. 
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Jean and Connie were really touching.  I loved the way that they kept harking back to what it meant to be a Scout.  Reiner was fabulous too. I had a lot more sympathy for him by the end of the episode than I’ve had throughout the series.  The expression on his face when Jean said they were all Scouts was really moving. Pieck is my best girl, as always, but I’m afraid I still haven’t warmed to Annie, I guess I never will.  Gabi seemed to be a lot less prominent than I remembered from the manga, but her scenes with Falco and Levi were great.  It’s no secret that I’ve never been fond of Armin, however I thought he came across really well in the episode.  His conversation with Zeke in paths made a lot more sense and was actually really touching,  Kudos to Marina Inoue for her amazing voice acting. 
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Levi was perfect in every single frame.  You really got the impression that he was fighting with every last fibre of his being, despite his catastrophic injuries, and of course he never forgot his vow to Erwin.  The moment when he finally killed Zeke was *chef’s kiss*.
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Levi’s final salute was absolutely devastating. I completely choked up watching the subbed episode on CR, even though I’d already seen the raw and had been capping the scene all day.  The final image of Erwin and the Wings of Freedom fading into the mist had me in pieces.  The choice of theDOGS as the soundtrack for this scene just added to the pathos as Erwin’s character song, Hope of Mankind, is an arrangement of this track.  
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The change to Levi’s ending was very unexpected, but I really liked it.  I’d always wondered how that city at the end of the manga survived unscathed.  It seemed more realistic to see Levi, Onyankopon, Gabi and Falco in the refugee encampment.  It’s also fully in keeping with Levi’s compassionate character for him to be contributing to the reconstruction efforts, and of course it all ties in with what we’ve seen of Bad Boy. (It’s also pretty much exactly how I imagined Levi’s post war life in The Permanence of the Young Men.)  Seeing Levi handing out sweets to children who bear such a close resemblance to Ramzi and Halil was really touching.  I’ve seen some people complaining that the lollipop scene was a jarring note of humour that seemed out of place, but I didn’t see it like that.  I interpreted it as Levi remembering children like Ramzi, and perhaps even recalling the trauma of his own childhood.  I’ve seen some interesting discussion on twitter linking Levi’s reaction to the clown in Marley to the few sketchy panels of Bad Boy and suggesting that rather than being pissed at being mistaken for a child, Levi was triggered by something traumatic that happened in his own childhood. Isayama rarely draws anything unintentionally, so we’ll have to wait and see. 
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Having said all that...much as I enjoyed the episode, it didn’t change my opinion of the ending (which you can read here if you’re a real glutton for punishment).  I really appreciated the change to Armin’s dialogue when he confronted Eren in Paths.  The scene in the manga where he thanks Eren for becoming a mass murderer for their sakes still leaves a bad taste, so that change was greatly appreciated. I also liked the fact that Armin said they wouldn’t be the heroes Eren wanted them to be, though in actual fact this is the role they take on. The fact that Armin and the others were so quick to forgive Eren still really sticks in my craw, if anything, it was even more jarring in the anime after seeing how hard they had fought to stop him.  The same goes for Armin telling Mikasa to find a good place for Eren to rest quietly.  I’m sorry, but I’m not sure Eren deserves to rest in peace. 
Eren himself was pathetic in every sense of the word, just as he is in the manga, but I think he explains his fucked up rationale a bit more clearly in the anime.  I have seen some criticism that Eren is a poor villain because he lacks any coherent ideology, other than some vague nonsensical notion of “freedom”, but that’s the whole point. Eren isn’t a tragic villain or an evil genius with a masterplan, he really is just a kid who had too much power and didn’t know what to do with it.  
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There’s nothing I can really say about Mikasa, she was as dignified and tragic as she is in the manga.  However I thought the connection between the Founder Ymir and Mikasa was, if anything, even more obscure in the anime.  I can’t help wondering what anime only fans make of it. I’m also not sure I liked the way the anime handled the extra scenes at the end. It was quite clever to include them as the credits rolled, but it did rather lessen their impact. I think I’d have preferred to see them full screen. 
I know there’s been a lot of criticism with the way MAPPA animated the characters, particularly in comparison to JJK, but tbh I have little patience with that.  With the notable exception of Levi, SnK has never been a pretty boy anime so the comparison to JJK seems misplaced.  Although I will always prefer WIT’s style, I think MAPPA did a good job of incorporating some of Isayama’s art style in the animation, particularly the exaggerated facial expressions he sometimes draws. 
And finally on to that scene with Erwin.  The level of outrage at the way Erwin was drawn in the scene where Levi recalls his vow was quite something.  I have several Anons in my inbox claiming that MAPPA have a deliberate anti-Erwin bias, which is nonsense.  Admittedly MAPPA’s Erwin does suffer in comparison with WIT’s season 3 Erwin who was magnificent, however even WIT didn’t manage to draw Erwin consistently.  I think some fans have been quick to forget just how wonky Erwin sometimes looked in earlier seasons of the anime.  Also as I said in this post, it’s important to remember that Levi is in the depths of despair when he remembers Erwin at this point, as he has convinced himself that he has failed him.  Erwin always looks beautiful and serene when Levi remembers him; this is the one exception. The bleak expression on Erwin’s face is a reflection of Levi’s state of mind, not some hidden agenda on MAPPA’s part.  If we’d had soft shoujo Erwin in this scene, it wouldn’t really have conveyed Levi’s despair. The fact that we did get a close-up of the most beautiful soft shoujo Erwin at the end is hopefully enough to appease the critics. 
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So thems my thoughts. If you’ve had the patience to read to the end of this ramble, thank you.  However you look at it, it's been a wild ride and I'm very grateful to have been along for the trip. One last word for people who are concerned the fandom will die now the season has ended. Don't worry, it won't. It will change, but change is inevitable in fandoms. However the characters and story that Isayama has created are easily compelling enough to capture fans for years to come.
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naomilibicki · 1 month
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So a while back @mage-pie recommended Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier, and as I do when I hear about a book and it sounds vaguely interesting, I chucked it on my want-to-read shelf on goodreads and mostly forgot about it.
Somewhat more recently, I went scrolling through my want-to-read shelf looking for something to buy to tide me through a family function that I expected to be boring (it was) and I decided on Tuyo, and I started reading it, but it was going pretty slowly and it's a long book so I was mostly picking away at it.
Then, yesterday, due to a confluence of circumstances including computer troubles and being at my parents' house, I found myself with a lot of time to read, and I finished the last 80% or so of the book in one gulp.
Anyway! I really enjoyed it. It opens with the main character being left as, essentially, a sacrifice to the forces that defeated his people in battle; he expects to be killed, but the enemy commander, only passingly familiar with the custom, decides he has other uses for him.
It's a very slow burn (not burn in the sense of romance; there are some hints of (het) romance towards the end of the book which might possibly become more prominent in the later books in the series, but the focus is firmly on non-romantic relationships), very much interested in exploring the culture clash between Ryo's home culture and the one in which he finds himself. There are, inevitably, parallels to real-world cultures, but the author seems to be deliberately avoiding setting up anything 1:1, and rather letting the cultures (and different physical types of humans) be their own thing. The reasons behind the conflict that kicks off the book, and the resolution of it, what in some sense might be called the "plot", has to take a back seat. This suited me just fine, but I can imagine some readers getting frustrated with it.
I really enjoyed the subtle yet pervasive magic of the world itself. One review I happened to see on goodreads mentioned wondering how the physics works, which strikes me as beside the point--of course the physics doesn't work in a world where the moon is always full on one side of a river and has phases on the other side of it. But I eat that shit up, the sense that magic isn't just something that you can do if you're a wizard, but something inherent in a world, bigger and stranger than people can comprehend or hope to control.
Anyway! I have a bad habit of not continuing series even when I like the first book and am looking forward to the next ones, so who knows when or whether I will read the rest, but I also felt that this book doesn't really need the rest; it has a perfectly satisfying ending of its own. Would recommend.
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the5n00k · 6 days
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M*A*S*H and the power of pure unadulterated sorrow
(this series is marketed primarily as a comedy! :D what a scam! /hj)
⚠️long post⚠️
I want to point out one of my favorite aspects of this series which is how different it presents its drama compared to other shows marketed as dramas that I've seen. ESPECIALLY modern film
The last movie I can remember portraying this sheer level of raw grief and despair was Hereditary. Such a powerful film about how grief can tear a family apart, it's honestly uncomfortable to sit through because of how well written and acted some of the scenes with the family are. And that's the point; tragedy isn't pretty. So many times you will see characters die on screen and the actors around them reacting to it with a single tear or burying their face into their stone cold main protagonist's shoulder. I have been craving that Hereditary level of despair from something for a long time now. That raw emotional breakdown that completely shatters the mask of a usually well put together facade.
Then my friends recommended M*A*S*H to me.
Yes you can make all the "crying breakfast friends" jokes you want about how often I latch onto a heart wrenching emotional moment in a show but I can't help it when it's so well executed. I can see a million silly Disney sidekicks die and feel nothing but this show has made me cry even on rewatch. And that is RARE for me, usually it's a one and done thing but this show still manages to tear me to pieces.
Not saying the show doesn't have any fun in it, of course it does, that's how the emotional moments hit harder. If you never saw the characters at their highest highs, seeing them at their lowest would just become numbing and unengaging.
Spoilers ahead obviously, I'm going to be talking about a lot of really important character moments throughout the show please if you are at all interested watch the show and come back. It's 11 seasons but it's well worth your time
Something that has always been powerful to me has been grown men crying. Perhaps it's because I never really had a good emotional connection with any men in my life and always saw them as stronger (emotionally) than someone who is erratically emotional like myself. Especially during the timeframe this is set (the 50's) and shot in (70's-80's) I was not anticipating the level of raw acting talent from the guys in this show. Especially once you get past season 4 and shit really starts hitting the fan
To see these grown men who take so much pride in their important positions as doctors and men and who they are just break down weeping like a scared child. It never ceased to break something in me. I cried the hardest at the amnesiac soldier who lost his brother (FANTASTIC scene it should have won 60 awards) but the two characters that have always stood out to me with this particular subject have been Hawkeye and BJ
Clearly if you've watched the entire show you understand what I'm talking about and obviously the other cast members have their moments (Winchester my beloved one day I will put you under a microscope and pick you apart) but for this subject, I'm going to use the two of them as examples because I consider these moments the most prominent to me personally
I'll start with BJ because there's a lot to unpack with him and simultaneously not a lot at the same time. Because he's so closed off and disconnected from most things happening all the time, choosing to opt out of anything whenever he can unless provoked, characters don't really know that much about him. As an audience, you're forced to pick apart his little mannerisms and priorities to see where his head's at. Some people might not like that but frankly I love it. He's a simple character on the surface but underneath, he's a terrified father and husband trying to keep his head down long enough to snap out of the nightmare that is war and wake up at home. I relate to him in that way, just trying to stay in my own corner and occupy myself until I have to wake up and do it all over again. Coping with the monotony is slowly driving him crazy
Then in Period of Adjustment, he gets a letter from his wife about how she and their daughter Erin saw Radar at the airport when he got sent home. And his thin thread of stability finally snaps. He's pissy for the entire day and doesn't want to tell anyone why, he'd rather just go through the motions and repress it just like everything else. But it keeps outwardly affecting everything around him whether he likes it or not. Then, at his lowest, he physically assaults his best friend in their own tent and destroys their only lifeline, the still they use to (poorly) make gin, and runs out.
After getting so intoxicated he can't stand up, Hawkeye finally finds him again and laughs that he's wearing a helmet to see him, still trying to make light of how much he's suffering. He tells him he's sorry for punching him and Hawkeye sits down with him. He finally is completely and truly honest for probably the only time in the entire series. He is completely vulnerable and open and tells him what's been bothering him. His infant daughter mistakenly called Radar her dad. The first person she ever called dad wasn't him. And he breaks down. He barely got to see her when she was born before he got drafted, he missed so many milestones of parenthood with her already and she ends up calling someone else dad. BJ tells Hawkeye he is furious at Radar and knows it's not his fault but he's still jealous. He even mentions how he's envious of Trapper, Hawkeye's old bunkmate from before he got there, which is still a huge sore point for him because of how abrupt his departure was. But he doesn't reprimand him for speaking badly about two people he'd considered close friends. He holds him closer and lets him cry. This isn't a single tear cry, this is a full vulnerability twisted face cry of pure pain. He can't say anything to ease the pain either, nothing he could say right now could help his friend. He just has to let him work through it.
They rebuilt the still together but BJ still remains broken. This is sort of touched on in Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen when he tries to get sent home before Erin's second birthday and misses it. It's not held on but you can obviously tell that he's still barely holding onto mental stability whenever he brings up his family. If you go into this series thinking every conflict has a resolution or closure of some kind I have bad news for you lol it's safe to assume when he went home, there was a rough adjustment period reclaiming his place in the house since Peg took on so much responsibility by herself but we don't really know what happened after everyone went home.
My next example is from Bless You, Hawkeye and I always rag on this episode with my friends but the scene between him and Sidney physically shook me. Everybody probably talks about That One Scene with Hawkeye and Sidney from GFA so I'll refrain from using it as an example here, I think this one is more appropriate for the point I'm trying to make anyways.
Hawkeye has never been mature. At all. His entire character is built on being obnoxious and causing trouble. Unlike BJ, he will share nearly anything about him when asked. Except when it's serious.
In comes everyone's favorite coping mechanism, ✨ unconscious repression! ✨
Again, a part of his character that got used again in GFA, whenever something upsets him in a way he can't manage, he buries it. He rewrites the memory into something happy or positive. So when a wounded soldier soaked in dirty water smelling of mold and musty clothing triggered a psychosomatic response, nobody knew why.
Processing scenes like this is something I remember so vividly from my first watch. Seeing all the pieces fall into place until that sinking feeling fills you is something this show is so good at.
Hawkeye starts talking to Sidney about something from his childhood; being out on a lake with his cousin Billy when he was seven. He claims Billy saved his life by pulling him out of the water but the more he talks, the more his story changes. It gets to a point where even he realizes he wasn't saved. He was pushed. Billy had to have been around 13 at the time, old enough to know how mean pulling something like that is. The way he admits it is when the gravity really sank in for me. His voice breaks, he starts loudly and violently sobbing like a scared child, he's probably been holding in this breakdown for 20ish years. In any other show, I could see them trying to play this for laughs. Oh Hawkeye, you shouldn't be so upset by a silly prank from when you were a kid! Look at this grown man break down! What a baby! But they don't treat it like that. It's treated completely seriously, it's allowed to play out and he slowly works through grief for someone he idolized in his childhood, anger, and acknowledgement. It was a permanent scar that wasn't allowed to heal.
This wasn't the first time in the series Hawkeye has cried but it was the first time he truly let it out. Every other time he knew he'd have to pick himself up, dust himself off, and keep going. I'm not certain if he properly processed anything he went through in Korea because he kept (pardon my language here) drowning himself in alcohol and burying himself in work and antics. So his eventual breakdown just. Getting it all out in one gutteral, primal cry, borderline screaming was cathartic for both him as a character and myself personally. Very rarely do I ever get a moment to have an emotional release like this so I also bury myself further into my job and hobbies until I can't feel what's bothering me anymore. His man's father better have booked him therapy when he got home because I know for damn sure this jackass won't do it himself
Overall, I'll say it again, the actors in this show are insane. None of the emotions felt cheap and the way the characters are written feels accurate to how most people approached the horrors of war and the mental health crises that followed. I'm so happy this show exists. I'm a little disappointed in myself that it's taken me this long to give it a chance but I love it nonetheless. I'll make a post about the characters specifically sometime like I said I would, I just want to make sure I do everyone justice and I'm not just repeating what everyone already knows. I want to add to this wonderful community that I'm happy to see is still active on this app/site and I hope you all enjoy my ramblings lmao there is more where this came from
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mrbensonmum · 17 days
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TV Show - Dr. House | House M.D. IX
Over the weekend, I finished watching the fourth season, what a wild ride!
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The team breaks up and only House remains. Of course, one could say that he also needs a team because he is the top diagnostician, but that would be short-sighted. Without the constant brainstorming and influences of the others, the diagnoses would never come together. Unless he's at Wilson's and has a brainstorm again. Still, he needs the team or a team to go down this path, a lesson House doesn't really need to learn, but it seems Foreman does. He briefly has a team and behaves like House, but it's a completely different dynamic.
What's really interesting, though, is that the old team never really goes away. While the new team is very different, because it's familiar, you still get to see the old faces here and there, namely Chase and Cameron. Foreman is always around anyway. It's a bit like changing your diet, where you're eating completely different foods but still occasionally have a cheat day, so your head, not just your body, is on board with the whole thing.
I especially like that they've thought about the nerds with the new team. Kutner often waves this flag by bringing in pop culture topics, asking about Star Wars stuff, or just being a bit childishly naive. I don't mean that derogatorily; in such a serious series, I think it's pretty good and necessary.
Since the production of the fourth season falls during the writers' strike of that time (2007-2008), we have a very short season with only 16 episodes. This gives us relatively little time to process everything that's happening. First, there's the selection process for the new team, then Wilson's new relationship with Amber, and before we know it, we're first in "House's head" and then in "Wilson's heart". The impactful double feature at the end of the fourth season really throws the world around House out of whack, not to mention Wilson's world. This is also where the rift between the two begins, which lasts until House's father's funeral. I particularly like the reconciliation between them, or rather House's welcome back to Wilson. First a prank, then a donut and a carton of milk; that's true friendship and yes, also a bromance, for sure.
As I write, I always pause the current episode I'm watching. Right now, I see that I've already reached the tenth episode of the fifth season. The episodes themselves, I don't want to say are standard, but they don't have major implications for the overall House world, except for dealing with Amber's death (important topic!!!).
However, two important new story arcs are starting. First, we meet Lucas, the private detective hired by House to shadow Wilson. We'll see more of him in a prominent role later, but it's still quiet around him for now. But an even bigger impact is Cuddy's increasingly strong desire to have a child, which has been around for a while but is becoming more concrete until the episode where she's almost there but then gets disappointed by the mother of the child she was going to adopt. Kudos to Lisa Edelstein, because the pain she experienced in that scene, or rather her role, came across very convincingly, and she manages to carry that pain subtly through several episodes. And yes, I noticed the kiss between her and House, don't worry. But I also count that as part of this pain.
But the moment that impressed me the most was at the end of the fourth season when House is sitting on the white bus with Amber (what an incredibly good metaphor). Perhaps this is indeed the only scene where we get to know a House who is happy, and not just a part, a small piece, or a fragment, but 100%. His words that he wants to stay there because he has no pain hit me to the core because I also suffer from chronic pain. I don't mean to say that they are as severe as House's, but they are there, and I can relate to that so well. This has nothing to do with suicide or anything like that, please don't get me wrong. It's just the desire for a certain form of normalcy. To wake up in the morning and have no pain, not to worry about whether you'll make it through the day or have to take a step back somehow. I felt incredibly understood in that scene, and I think that, in turn, is an important point of the series. Showing people that they are not alone with their problems, that they are seen, and giving them a pleasant form of representation so that other people also notice that they exist. Especially because in my case, except for a slight limp, you can't tell, just like with House, for example.
So much evidence that this series is incredibly good and that on so many levels. I don't watch many medical series anymore, except for the first season of The Good Doctor, but I can't remember much beyond the first scene with the little boy. And unfortunately, I feel like it's the same with many of these series because they just don't have the impact that House does. I don't want to badmouth the other series, absolutely not. They have their place, no question, but they just don't have the scope that House does; they're more for pure entertainment and have chosen medicine or a hospital as a setting.
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