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hazshit-hotel-hater · 4 days

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The way substance abuse has been handled on the show thus far genuinely upsets me and reeks of writers who either 1.) don't understand the subject matter they're presenting and haven't done even the bare minimum to research it or, worse, 2.) simply don't care.

Apologies for the slight rant incoming, your comment about how it has been mostly "handled" off-screen got me going because that's 100% true and in that truth is such a missed opportunity for the show. The way it has been handled winds up feeling incredibly shallow and juvenile at the end of the day, especially for a piece of media that is attempting to present itself as "adult" and navigate multiple incredibly sensitive topics. I'll try not to get into my own personal experiences and will speak broadly, but the show uses substance abuse more as a cheap character flaw to poke fun at or something to magically handwave away when it is inconvenient, rather than the life-altering, debilitating illness that it is.

Nothing about Angel's use is ever meaningfully explored. It's so (apparently) unimportant to his arc and development that one rude comment from Husk (a character who ALSO has a problem with gambling and alcohol that is never addressed) is all it takes for him to suddenly "resist temptation" and be shown as "recovered" (unless I'm misremembering). Or was he suddenly going to counseling off-screen too and its just another thing that will be told to us rather than shown? And how does Charlie even handle that at the Hotel (I'd be really interested in this as a moment for her character to have to grow/change too)? Does she even understand substance abuse and the many unaddressed systemic factors that can influence it? Or is the entire recovery process just shame based (because that works so well /s) combined with some more corny trust exercises? Why is this incredibly serious topic relegated to the background as if it's unimportant?

Recovery is hard. It is emotional and exhausting. Withdrawal (depending on what you're coming off of) can sometimes mean excruciating, unimaginable pain and in some cases people literally die. It is not a funny "ha-ha I take drugs because I'm chaotic and wild" quirk to be adored or glorified and it definitely should not be presented as something that can be wrapped up in a month or two off-screen without any development whatsoever. That's just insulting.

When you approach a topic like substance abuse and recovery, I personally feel you need to take in all sides of it. All the missteps that come with it (two steps forward one step back - mistakes are expected and okay), the self-loathing, the guilt and shame, the joy, the sense of freedom, the loss, and the best part of all: the incredibly difficult but liberating journey that is rebuilding your life and learning to love yourself and your body again, once you've chosen to be free and to live life.

Mad props to anyone who has ever battled this disease. You are strong, you are worth it and you are valued. Lol I am so sorry for going off here but I so appreciate you calling out the lack of exploration on this topic in the show. I guess I didn't even realize how annoyed and upset it was making me feel (praying this is coherent...).

This was absolutely coherent don’t worry!! Im really glad to see other people talking about this. I myself have not struggled with drug addiction but I have struggled with other kinds and as someone that studies a bunch of medical junk, I’d say I’m decently knowledgeable.

I’m mainly going to focus on Angel for this since he’s the main character I write for, but I assure you other characters addictions are also handled in my rewrite.

During the actual canon show, we don’t see Angel actually abusing substances that often; there’s a few times, most notably in episode 4, but from the rest of the show onward we hardly see anything. Yes in episode 6 they mentioned relapsing, which, mind you, was done horribly, but I digress. They touch on relapsing; Angel relapses, and then… what..??? What happened from that? I don’t feel upset or second hand guilt of any kind from this scene because we haven’t seen Angel’s attempts to stay sobre and off drugs.

His name is fucking Angel Dust. You don’t, I dunno, think that’d entail a higher dependency on drugs? Why do you think he named himself that?

About his name before anything else, the show has so much potential later on to talk about Angel picking out his drag name and why he chose that specifically. So much potential to explore how he views drugs and himself. He sees them as an escape and something “fun” to take his mind off of his actual life. When you die in a fucking coma and wake up in hell as a spider you’re going to want an escape. You will want to ignore reality. I am fully convinced Angel picked his name once he started performing because thats what he needed at the time. He needs to be like that to survive in hell. Angel is an incredibly mentally ill, troubled, traumatised, and unstable person, and being surrounded by so much intense negative influence only amplifies his current problems. I don’t mean to drag Vox in here but in my last redesign post I mentioned how very mildly bad people can become even worse people in hell because of the environment and this is no different for Angel. He’s been surrounded by crime and drugs his entire life and unable to live comfortably because of his sexuality. He has very likely been struggling with substances since he was a teen. Possibly even younger. He is not going to suddenly get over his addiction because of something like this. It could pave the way to him looking into dealing with it, but things like this can take years. I don’t remember when my addiction started; I’ve been clean for 2 1/2 years now I think, but the amount of relapsing and anguish I experienced while working towards that isn’t something that can be done in a few days or months. I still struggle with feeling like I deserve to say I’m recovering.

I’m hoping they tactfully handle this as they should, but my hopes are low. It’s okay to show a character relapsing. It’s okay to show a character feeling guilty. What matters is that the struggle is there to signify they’re trying. For a character with a song called “Addict” you really don’t see much of it. Drug and alcohol addiction is not a silly thing to just twiddle your fingers with and be like “well I guess thats over!” It’s incredibly insensitive to do so.

Whenever I write about Angel’s struggles with addictions, I focus on how small they can feel until you realise what’s actually happening. Just me talking about my rewrite again, but to get my ideas out here: Angel smokes often. He smokes at the studio when he’s stressed, he smokes at the hotel when he’s stressed, he smokes at in alleyways when he’s bored, there’s almost no location he won’t, but sometimes he tries to smoke less. His lungs aren’t the same as humans and technically he has 2 pairs of lungs, but smoking causes him to cough. This is painful in general and especially painful for Angel since he has barbs going down the back of his throat. Imagine choking on sandpaper, kind of like that. It’s painful, he doesn’t like the sound, Fat Nuggets REALLY doesn’t like the sound, and it’s an overall inconvenience, so he tries to stop smoking as much. Periods like this usually go fine for him until the stress returns or he starts to feel the withdrawal. Withdrawal from any sort of addiction is terrible, and in Angel’s case, just from not smoking it worsens his mental state further. He becomes irritable and stressed and that stress leads to wanting to smoke again to calm down. He may resist a few times and those times should be praised, but he gives in eventually. One cigarette to calm down becomes two, then three, and before he can process himself getting carried away, the entire pack is gone. It’s things like this that make addiction horrible. It’s something that deeply scared me when I was struggling. When I was struggling I was still in the mindset of “I can stop when I want to” and then being so suddenly hit in the face with the realisation that I’m not longer in control of this is terrifying. I could not stop when I wanted to. There were even points where I didn’t want to stop. Even just getting the smallest glimpse of this in an incredibly serious manner with Angel Dust would surprise me. To think the bar is this low on a show that seemingly prides itself on tackling such sensitive topics like you said is appalling. Your show shouldn’t have to be told how to write itself.

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loxxxlay · 6 years

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If someone wrote you grandthorki, what sort of things would you most want in the fic? Like got any tropes, kinks, themes, scenarios, plot bunnies you desperately wanna see written for them? What about things you definitely DONT want?

EEE, first of all, thank so much for this ask!!!! Second, holy hell, I’d be so happy to read any grandthorki fic. Literally my motto for grandthorki is “beggars can’t be choosers” XD And jeez, I’m just so excited about the fact that you’re even considering writing one, anon!! ^_^

Here’s a link to some ideas I had back before the ship was even namedd ahh!!! All of that is stuff I’d love to see in a fic. Otherwise, here’s some more:

Things I’d Want (in no particular order):

In terms of themes/scenarios/ideas/etc…

One of them deciding for the other person what’s “best.” For example, let’s say the Grandmaster threatens to punish Loki in some horrific way if Thor doesn’t fuck him. Loki actually prefers the horrific punishment (maybe Thor even knows this!!), but Thor can’t handle the thought of Loki being punished like that, so he decides to fuck him anyway. OR VICE VERSA. This is something I’ve wanted for a long time. I’d fucking scream for 4 hours straight if a fic did something like that holy shit.

Lots of fighting –> Lots of comfort. Basically I want Thor and Loki to be magnificently upset about all the dubcon/noncon to the point where they take their anger out on each other… but then later, when they’ve calmed down, they become fiercely gentle with each other. Like aftercare after an earlier fight between them, mmmm A++++++

Grandmaster fucking Thor, especially if it’s to get a rise out of Loki or punish him somehow. Idk, I just really like Thor whump, and I’m always scared to write it too much myself, and I’m just dying to read it

Anything pushing the boundaries of consent omg. So like, in Brothers of Habit, I had Thor and Loki consensually have sex at the end of their own free will because they wanted to. I personally still consider it dubcon, because those feelings arose from trauma, but pushing it into that gray area was super fun. Similarly, in Figment of Choice **spoiler** I’m gonna have Thor and Loki choose to have sex in the Grandmaster’s absence for Reasons™. Anything that can get it close to consensual while still being dubcon (or starting as dubcon) is so cool o.o

Grandmaster gets Thor and Loki discussing their feelings. Here’s a link to a fic prompt that I’d just love to see someone write!! But in general, just anything that tugs at the roots of Thor and Loki’s damaged relationship is something I think the Grandmaster would find really fascinating&fun (which would be fascinating&fun to read too XD).

Mega Angst. literally all angst is great, but if it gets to the point where one (or both) of them is suicidal, holy fuck, that’d be amazing. In some other stuff I’ve written/planned, I have them having serious discussions about whether it’d be better if they actively got themselves killed, rather than continue to be nonconned. I love me some good trauma-bonding suicidal ideationnn

In terms of kinksss/tropes…

magical drugs that make one of them or both of them super horny

dubious/nonconsensual drug use in general omg (like esp if it’s addictive)

one of them (OR BOTH OF THEM) being pimped out as a prostitute, holy fucking hottttttttt. especially if the setting is super, like… space-underworld type of vibe (ooh like in veliseraptor’s fics cast me down where the devil won’t go and bruised my needs getting down to pray). That’s exactly the vibe i’d love in a fic like this. Also here’s a link for some other ideas I had on that

watersports, DON’T JUDGE ME, IT’S MY HUGEST AND MOST SHAMEFUL KINK lol, and i wish more ppl wrote itttt bc i’m too scared to lol T__T

public humilation…. any humiliation… please humiliate one or both of them in every way possible

sensory overload, whether it be because of forced&repetitive orgasming or multiple dicks in the multiple holes or just generally lots of touching or anything else u can think of, i’ll dig it

Things I Don’t Want:

Like I said, I’m honestly fine with anything in a grandthorki fic, literally beggars CANNOT be choosers. But my biggest turnoffs would be:

if either of them had romantic and/or sexual feelings towards each other before the grandthorki experience… (it’s fine if they develop feelings afterwards though). I’d still read it and love it if you wrote them as secretly attracted to each other this whole time, but it wouldn’t count as grandthorki to me. (I know I’ve said this 500 times, but idk, it’s important enough that i always feel a need XD)

if it was fully consensual for the bros… like they can pretend like they’re into it, they can be physically aroused and into it, they can slowly come to a point where they’re even genuinely into it, but a part of them, however small, had to have not wanted this in the beginning. Soft!Frostmaster (or soft!thundermaster) just isn’t my thing

daddy kink, ageplay, etc. this is not a dealbreaker, but it’s definitely not Ideal™ lol. The word “daddy” in particular makes me nauseous in sex scenes. (not shaming though, it’s just my preference)

lots of blood. I mean if one of them is just bleeding because they were fucked too roughly, that’s cool with me and can be hot. Or if it’s just cuts that need to be tended to or something. but idk if one of them’s being tortured to the point of bleeding everywhere… or one of them has to ingest the other’s blood… or something sexual like that… I’m less into it… (will still read tho lol)

(this is extremely unlikely to come up, but just in case.. I’m triggered by animal death/harm, even if only briefly mentioned. it’s the only thing that truly triggers me.. so that would likely be a turnoff lol)

Anyway…. this post got pretty long, so I’ma leave it there.. there’s probably some other stuff I like that I forgot to mention so if I think of anything, I’ll make a post later!! :D I actually just made a tag “Grandthorki insp” for such purposes!!!

#anon #lox replies #grandthorki #grandthorki insp #grandthorki for ts #cw dubcon #cw noncon #cw drug noncon #they're magical drugs but i mentioned addictive ones too so just in case #cw suicidal ideation #so many triggerssss lol #thor #loki #grandmaster #marvel #long post

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