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#you just mentioned them in a relevant situation.
thatthirstyweirdo · 5 months
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Thinking about Maverick’s lore makes me wonder… I feel like him accidentally killing a fellow actor would be played for laughs as a dramatic gag. Like “OooOoO the guy from the radio has a secret ooOoOOoo” idk… It just makes me think: did he actually do it? As in was it something that was written into the script, into his backstory, or did it actually happen in the world of Welcome home? I’m not sure if this little thought of mine is making any sense, but it’s something I thought about 😔😔
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karmaphone · 1 year
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90000% of me quitting my therapist is because of three reasons: trying to force a patient to be happy (especially a patient who comes from a broken home and whose issues largely stem from forcing themselves to be or appear to be happy) despite the fact that they're living in a bad situation and have no control over their life, and because she kept blaming my problems on astrology or my astral body or what might have happened to my grandmother or my mother in the womb instead of listening to what I was saying about my situation, and also blaming my disabilities on my trauma/astral body like sorry but my joint pain & exhaustion come from the fact that they're constantly dislocating not because I haven't processed whatever trauma happened to me in the womb disjdbskdbfsjsnd
#was talking to someone for an hour about my problems nice? yes#but not nice enough to pay a hundred dollars a session for when we have no money#I'd start getting into an issue and she'd interrupt and lead me down a weird rabbit hole when I just wanted to talk about how like#my MIL makes my world smaller by constantly being on the couch and she'd try to have me be like 'wau maybe I can use Astral Energy to#fill up my Energy Meter because I'm disabled and don't fucking have any'#like how is my mom getting heat exhaustion when she was five months pregnant with me more relevant than how often my time loss blackouts are#literally the only thing I got out of MONTHS of sessions with her is to chill the fuck out abt what my brain and other parts are doing#'ohhhhhh so you can't change anything about your situation? sounds like you need to CHOOSE to be happy :)' like Satya I've been on lexapro#since I was like 15 if I could just fucking choose to be happy instead of a depressed fuck then I would#also?? I'm not the kind of system where I can pick and choose who gets to be out! I don't have a gatekeeper! I can't just magically decide#that the 'happier' parts of me can get called to front or whatever I literally have no control over that what the fuck#like yeah I know I mentioned ONE TIME that I had a younger part who's happy but I also told you THEYRE NOT AROUND OFTEN & I CANT SUMMON THEM#THERE NOT INDEX CARDS I CAN PULL FROM A BOX ITS MY BRAIN HITTING SHUFFLE WHEN SOMETHING STRESSFUL HAPPENS
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annabelle--cane · 3 months
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this is a difficult thing to have conversations about because it provokes really strong reactions in people for completely valid and understandable reasons, so please feel free to hit da bricks on this post whenever you want, but I do want to try and analyse the jonmartin slaps. we get three across 160, 169, and 172, and a line addressing it in 173, and then it never happens or comes up again. none of them come out of nowhere, and they mostly fly under the radar until 173 because they all broadly fit the "slapping someone out of a trance in an emergency" trope, but each of them slowly decreases in urgency.
the first time, the apocalypse starts up and martin comes back to find a passed out jon, can't wake him by making noise, and strikes him in a panic. this makes sense, this is a man who has entered a supernatural coma before and martin had no idea what was going on, so of course he'd jump to something desperate.
the second time, they're in a burning building, jude arrives while jon is still mid-statement, and when making noise doesn't work martin slaps him out of it. this makes sense, they were there for jude and if jon didn't come back to himself then she likely would have hurt them, though martin knew that her powers against them were limited.
the third time, jon is getting pulled into into a repeating statement instead of coming out on his own like usual, so martin speaks once or twice to try and get his attention, and then slaps him out of it. this... again, it makes sense, jon was getting trapped, but there was no immediate peril like before, martin just got freaked out and wanted to leave quickly. he seems to get that it was harsh because he apologizes for it, but they don't linger at all, martin just starts in on them having to leave immediately.
the last time it's mentioned is when they're on night street, during what is one of their most intense arguments. jon tries to talk about the suffering of the children there for longer than he needs to in order to make a point, martin cuts him off, and he pointedly says, "thank you for not hitting me this time." it never happens or is brought up again.
to our knowledge, jon doesn't say anything about the slapping until 173. he's not a guy who's known for speaking up when things upset him, he was amiably working with daisy within about a week of her trying to kill him, so it makes sense that he would just sit with this comparatively more minor thing. however, I do think it's relevant to note that, at this point in their relationship, martin will sometimes voice his feelings and boundaries (not listening to statements, not consenting to mind reading, worrying when jon expresses discomfort with his body), while jon doesn't. from the couple of times he does talk about his feelings this season, I think that tendency comes a few places: he has a hard time being aware of his emotions at all, he doesn't know how to evaluate his emotions' importance in comparison to others', he assumes his emotions are obvious and thus people already act with full knowledge of them, and the topic is just hard to make himself talk about. from what he says in 173, I think the slaps bothered him the entire time, but he made himself be fine with it until he was upset with martin for unrelated reasons and finally let it out.
as for martin's side, I do not think the slaps came from any kind of suppressed desire to hurt or wield power over jon. we've seen him when he's angry at jon, this isn't how he acts, he gets shouty and indignant but never violent. I'd even go as far as to say he doesn't do it in 173 because he's genuinely upset at jon and the situation they're in, and it would never occur to him to deliberately inflict pain on someone he cares about to assert control over them. the connecting line between all of them is fear from something that he wants jon to help him handle. the apocalypse starts, he is stuck inside one of his worst nightmares, and he's paranoid that the web took control of him. he's someone who is "always following, never leading" (170), and he gets tunnel vision when something scares him and his "leader" isn't there.
jon did need to be pulled out of all three of those situations, and words proved insufficient, and maybe a quick jolt of pain was the only thing that could have worked, but martin doesn't seem to consider what that would feel like from jon's pov. in my experience of relationships, if there's ever an unavoidable emergency where you do actually need to cross a line that you never would otherwise, you talk about it afterwards. you do a debrief where you say "I'm really sorry about that, I didn't see another way, I'll try and be better prepared next time." they do this for problems they have later on (177, 198), but martin doesn't do that here. jon's point-of-view just doesn't seem to occur to him. when jon expresses discomfort, he drops the tactic without a word; later, when he needs to anchor jon in the panopticon, he talks him through it before it can get too far. so, it's not about a lack of care for jon's feelings.
I think it comes down to a few things: a) his occasional tendency to treat people as a means to an ends and not think about their perspective. he's so glued to putting others first most of the time that when he stops, he can't find a middle ground and forgets that other people can have feelings about his actions. b) his problems with conceiving of himself as a person of any importance who is capable of doing anything, especially of doing harm. as a concept, "hurting jon" is the thing he would least like to do in the whole world, it is his nightmare scenario and literally the culminating moment of his tragedy. he finds it almost unthinkable, so the idea that he does it casually when he's scared doesn't cross his mind. one of his central worries at this point is that jon is now so powerful that he no longer needs martin, how could he hurt someone like that? he's not anywhere near a comparable level of importance, it's not like he has his own domain that he's not aware of because jon told him about it and he immediately rejected the information. he's powerless and could never bring himself to hurt the man he loves.
I just. think it's an interesting microcosm of some of the lows of their relationship. once the problem is discovered martin instantly takes the note and doesn't put it on jon to explain himself further or assuage his guilt, they are willing and able to adapt, but it still comes from some of their bedrock flaws. martin doesn't understand that he can hurt people, and jon has such an inflated understanding of his capacity to hurt people that it sabotages his self-worth and his ability to respond to pain and displeasure.
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schtrawberry · 19 days
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[3] personal astrology observations
[!] this is mostly an introspective view into my chart; in no way, shape, or form am i saying that any of this is fact or set in stone, nor am i saying that i am a professional astrologer. these are just presences that exist within my chart that i've felt manifest themselves in real life. simply put, take what resonates and leave what doesn't :)
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— the observation that venus in the 9th house and sagittarius mars natives are far more likely to be attracted to foreigners and/or meet their future partner/s in a foreign country is true!
[nothing, just felt like confirming, esp as someone w both these placements 🤭 like, i honestly am more likely to be approached (in a romantic setting) by a foreigner both in-person and online!]
═ sun square neptune is the aspect of daydreamers. they're always thinking about an idealized version of the future or dwelling on the past. rarely do they ever think in the present. it is often easier for them to drift off into a daze either thinking about what could have been or everything that could be.
☰ chiron in fifth house indicates pain associated with creative passions and self-expression. one may have had negative experiences that have led them to feel insecure about these aspects of life; thus leading them to distance themselves from openly expressing themselves creatively. they may take great care to keep their works of art private, tone down certain parts of their personality, and may even feel ashamed to explain themselves when others ask them about certain aspects of their creative and self-expression because of negative feedback they could have gotten in the past.
but with such pain comes empathy and understanding. once developed, these natives are the first to take notice and are the fastest to lend a sensitive ear as well as a supportive hand as soon as they see others going through the same struggle.
☱ sun-lilith in harsh aspects might have been told to cover up more by both peers and grown-ups, even when wearing "acceptable" clothing when they were kids. this placement can indicate an individual that was more sexualized from a young age, which can lead to them either being hypersexual or overly-reserved sexually in adulthood.
☲ lilith in the 7th house can indicate an individual that struggles to commit and open up about who they are to their partner/s. people with lilith in this house may have had bad experiences with marriage (perhaps witnessing bad divorces or tumultuous long-term relationships between their parents) and therefore might be turned off by the thought of marriage and/or long-term partnerships.
and though this doesn't mean that the native will be a lone soul forever, it does make one more likely to have these sort of relationships at a significantly older age in comparison to other signs.
[tw: mention of domestic violence in my personal experience, i have witnessed my parents go through an incredibly bad separation (tons of emotional abuse, infidelity, and a situation actually involving domestic violence) which has honestly made me quite hesitant to get married, even as i approach my mid-20s.]
☴ the cancer rising urge to cry when someone you care about is crying or in distress in general.
☴ a few asteroid notes:
note: asteroids are less impactful to one's personality, physicality, etc. compared to personal planets. they tend to only be relevant to one's chart if they are either in a tight orb (0-1°) or have major aspects to personal planets, preferably conjunctions or oppositions.
✢ messalina (545) known as the most promiscuous woman in rome, empress messalina is still recognized today as a symbol of uncontrolled, violent, irrational, and impulsive behavior. this asteroid reminds me very much of lilith in that it is representative of dark feminine energy and having this prominent in one's chart can be indicative of an individual that is not afraid to use their sexuality to their advantage or to create harm unto others in different aspects of their lives, but especially in terms of romantic and sexual relationships.
✢ anagolay (3757) is an potentially hazardous asteroid named after anagolay, the tagalog goddess of lost things and the daughter of the hermaphroditic goddess of seasons, lakapati. she is culturally-recognized for her ability to find not only physical objects but also abstract possessions like lost opportunities and faded memories. having this prominent in one's chart can suggest an individual that is very in-tune with cycle of nature and the subsequent passage of time. they may be more sensitive to bouts of nostalgia where they dwell on things that could have been and the way that things were. may also just indicate a person that is hypersensitive to losing physical things, though.
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[`] film: go (2001) dir. isao yukisada
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glitterquadricorn · 11 days
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spilled tea and hot gossip - f1 grid
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+summary: there's nothing she loves more than spilled tea and hot gossip. +pairing: f1 grid x female!driver +warnings: cheating, mentions pregnancy, gossip.
a/n: this is just an idea that popped into my head.
I do not give my permission to have my work reposted. I do not give my permission to have my work translated. If I'm notified that you've stolen my work or claim it as your own, you'll be asked to take it down before I'll report you. End of discussion.
Any drama, gossip, or tea that is spilled on a formula one paddock, you best believe she's going to know about it because she's got eyes and ears everywhere. Like for example, the whole situation with Oscar, Daniel and Mclaren. Or how Fernando signed with Aston Martin and didn't tell anyone much less Alpine. Pierre wonders where, or who she's getting this information from, but she'd never reveal her source for they wish to remain anonymous.
"Thanks so much for helping, y/n. You've made our job a lot easier," Jon, a member of her pit crew, smiled and tapped her shoulder.
"I'm always happy to help!" she said. " Do you guys need anything else? If not, I'm going to head out."
"We should be all good to go. Again, thanks for the help."
"You guys have a good day!" she left out the back of the garage and walked down a relatively empty paddock with the exception of other teams' staff here and there.
She was almost at the entrance when from the corner of her eye; she spotted a man wearing a black and red Haas shirt. Whoever he was talking to she didn't know, and it wasn't her business. But what he told to said person on the phone shocked her.
"I messed up, man. I shouldn't have even slept with her," the man paused, running his hand down his face. "Oh, the girlfriend of a mechanic over at Alpha Tauri. But that's not even the worst part of it. She's pregnant and doesn't know who the father is."
The sound that came out of her mouth wasn't human, and she quickly had to pretend she saw something shocking on her phone because the man looked in her direction. Man, she couldn't wait to tell the boys.
The following day after scanning her id, she strutted down the paddock like a woman on a mission.
Spotting the dutchman, who conveniently was standing with Daniel, Charles and Pierre outside the redbull garage, she excitedly walked right over. "You'll never guess what I heard yesterday."
"Judging by your excitement, I assume it's something juicy." Pierre replied. Just by the excitement alone, he knew that whatever she was about to say was going to be good.
"Yesterday, I stayed back after qualifying to help my pit crew clean up and put things away. When I was done, I left and walked down a relatively empty paddock, but stopped when I overheard somebody from Haas talking on the phone. I don't know who he was talking to, because it's not relevant, but what is, is what he told them."
"Get to the point, y/n."
"I was getting there, Max," she paused. "He told them he slept with a girlfriend of a mechanic over at Alpha Tauri. That alone is pretty juicy, but what he followed it up with had my jaw on the floor. And he followed it up with and she's pregnant and doesn't know who the father is."
Gasps leave their mouth as their jaws drop just like hers did from the day before. Behind Charles, her pr manager, Tracy, waved her over.
"Enjoy the tea, boys." she smirked, patted Charles on the shoulder as she walked away.
---
I know Visa Cash App RB team name isn't Alpha Tauri anymore, but I hate the name Visa Cash App RB with a passion.
tagging:
@letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @patzammit @tinycyber @keenmarvellover @mrspeacem1nusone @lendeluxe @alexxavicry @allenajade-ite @catswag22 @eugene-emt-roe @wcnorris @bibissparkles @cherry-piee @khaylin27 @evie-119
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blossomthepinkbunny · 1 month
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Vivzepops fetishization of queer men and the lack of Sapphic content in HH and HB
I found it a bit dissapointing that Charlie and Vaggie had very little interactions that could be read as romantic or sexual, especially since they are the supposedly the main couple of Hazbin Hotel and have been together the longest out of most of the couples in HH and HB.
Of course having more casual representation is also fine but the most memorable thing about their relationship was the quickly resolved argument they had when Charlie found out about Vaggies past. I've seen different opinions about how they were handled as a pair.
I understand when someone says that they enjoyed a more relaxed couple with subtle, realistic interactions, interactions that are often overlooked just because both characters are female.
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But I can also agree, that they were really not a stand-out couple (wich is weird since Charlie is the main Character) and that it was a bit dissapointing to not see a lot of content for them.
Now the main issue I found with this is that in Vivzepops stories there is a definitive lack of sapphic content. It sometimes seems like women are sexless unless they are with a man. But two men can be sexual and openly affectionate (romantically too). At first I didn't really understand why I felt weird about Chaggie as a couple, so I looked at all the implied/canon ships in Helluva and Hazbin (including past relationships).
Implied/canon couples between a man and a woman:
-Millie and Moxxie
-Blitzø and Verosika
-Stolas and Stella
-Millie and Chaz
-Beelzebub and Vortex
-Sir Pentious and Cherry Bomb
-Adam and Lute
-Lucifer and Lilith
Implied/canon couples between two men:
-Stolas and Blitzø
-Asmodeus and Fizzarolli
-Moxxie and Chaz
-Angel Dust and Husk
-Vox and Valentino
Implied/canon couples between two women:
-Charlie and Vaggie
Now please tell me if I missed any, but these were the ones I could think of.
Honorable mentions include Loona & Vortex, Blitzø & Striker, Blitzø & Chaz and Blitzø & Fizzarolli. But I didn't put these on there because they're either one-sided or don't have enough romantic content.
Now it's very easy to see the difference between representation for queer men in comparison to queer women in these shows. The only relevant (im not counting Background characters) Sapphic relationship there is, is Chaggie. And it's completely underrepresented when compared to the content the man x woman or man x man ships get (not to mention the total absence of gender-queer characters).
One of Millie's and Moxxie's jokes is that they're so in love, that they're almost always cuddling, holding hands, talking sweet or just straight up making out with eachother (I'll talk about Millie a bit later). Sir Pentious had multiple scenes dedicated to him trying to confess to Cherry Bomb or just crushing on her in general.
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Stolas' and Blitzø's relationship has become one of the main topics of Helluva Boss and they get a Backstory and explicit aswell as dramatic scenes for them as a couple. The same goes for Asmodeus and Fizzarolli (except that their love isn't as important). Angel Dust and Husk get a song and part of an episode for their relationship to develop.
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Here i'd also have to mention that by the list I made Vivzepop's fetish for queer men is very prevalent. Most of the couples between men and women are either past relationships or they get very little attention to them. The only ships that often get special focus, development or explicitly romantic/sexual focus are ships with two men (no matter if their dynamics are even good, healthy etc.).
Now for Millie there are different ways you could talk about her situation with relationships. In general I think that everyone can agree that Millie lacks Character and is a good representation for the neglect of the female characters. Most of her moments revolve around Moxxie in a way and she hasn't had precise characterization so far.
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Millie's relationship with Moxxie is sweet and simple and is generally one of the better things about Helluva Boss (if you ignore Millies lack of personality wich really pulls the couple down for me). Now the Episode "Exes and Oohs" shows the mutual Ex of Millie and Moxxie. Chaz dated both of them and as we see in the episode affected both of them very negatively. At the start we literally see Millie freak out and destroy a bunch of stuff, just because she saw Chaz on the street.
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Yet Millie's relationship with him is never explored further. All we know is that she dislikes him and that he's a giant asshole. Whereas Moxxie get's a whole Backstory and episode plot about him and Chaz. No focus is given to Millie at all even though Chaz is the ex of BOTH of them.
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Another thing that I wanna point out is Millie's possible Bisexuality. Now im not so sure for this point because I couldn't find genuine confirmation on wether Millie is actually confirmed to be Bisexual or if it's just a headcannon. So take this with a grain of salt BUT if Millie is Bisexual then she perfectly shows how little Vivzepop cares about Sapphic representation. What does Moxxie get to confirm him as Bisexual? An ex of the same gender (also multiple explicit flashbacks with him), a whole discussion about his queer identity and a scene where he literally says that he's Bisexual. Moxxie is pretty good Bisexual representation in that regard.
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What does Millie get? Nothing. Again I don't know if she's genuinely also Bisexual or if it's ever been confirmed but it'd also be pretty weird if Vivzepop apparently cares so much about queer representation and then doesn't confirm any female characters as actually queer.
I think a lot of people have talked about her blatant fetishization of queer men and I think that that's also mainly why I feel weird by the lack of attention on Vaggie and Charlie as a couple.
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I sorta wish I could enjoy a more toned-down and realistic couple in these shows, but when I see that a ship like Vox and Alastor (wich isn't canon nor would it even happen since Alastor is Aroace) is talked about more than the actual main character's relationship I just don't like it.
There's so much more you could say about poor queer representation by Vivzepop (like the fact that she's fine with people ignoring Alastors Aroace identity, and the stereotypes etc) I mainly wanted to talk about the neglect of her female cast in terms of sexuality.
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torpedopickle · 1 year
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I want to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves is an excellent use of meta humor applied seamlessly to a story without ever breaking immersion.
Mild spoilers. I'll keep it vague so nothing will be spoiled if you choose to read on
This movie integrates many things that someone familiar with D&D would recognize from the narrative structure of a campaign.
There are some things in particular that demonstrate this particularly well
At one point, the party is joined temporarily by the character Xenk. But he really feels like he'd be an NPC party member controlled by the GM rather than a player. So when the other characters banter and quip, this character doesn't really join in or get their jokes cuz he simply wouldn't have the agency to. More examples of this would be how he's much more capable than the others, but he doesn't overshadow them. He provides aid if it's desperately needed, and will sometimes bail rhe party out of situations they can't manage on their own, just like how a GM should utilize an NPC companion. He even has a quote that perfectly reflects this. "I've given you the tools. Now you have to be the ones to use them". There's even a more direct joke about his NPC behavior. When he leaves the story, he walks off in a random direction, going straight forward, even stepping over obstacles and terrain unnecessarily. This all amounts to him feeling like a very clear GM controlled NPC, however he is presented in a way that still makes him feel entirely faithfull to his own world and does not break immersion
Other ways the movie plays around with the GM campaign structure would be the approach to backstory. The only time a character outright explains what their backstory is, in full, directly to us, is at the very start, to give context for the story going forward, as the character even puts it himself. Backstory later in the movie is told to us whenever it's relevant. Characters will toss in another fact or two about themselves in situations where mentioning a past experience would fit in. Much like how players usually prefer to build their characters.
And one of my favorite instances of being meta about D&D campaign structures comes in the second act.
the characters are faced with a complex and dangerous obstacle. The GM's stand in, xenk, explains the method of progressing through this obstacle correctly. But in true D&D fashion, the party immediately does it wrong and now the campaign has been derailed and the GM's setup squandered. So now they straight up don't have a way forward in the narrative. Logically, it should end there. But that'd be a shit campaign, so the GM would naturally bend the rules to get things back on track. So after the party fails the obstacle, one of them goes; "Hang on, that stick we've had with us the entire time isn't a stick after all! It's actually a magic staff that solves our EXACT predicament at this EXACT time". That is such a clear cut meta joke about GM's having to get things back on track cuz players are all chaotic evil. Is it a plot contrivance? Absolutely. One of the biggest ever. But it's what D&D is built on
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ereawrites · 5 months
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Hey gurl✨ I’m in my wife era rn so maybe some Shisui and/or Tobirama husband/jealous husband hcs?🫣 I loooovee your writing and tbh your thoughts are my thoughts so no pressure😩 If you not feeling it feel free to ignore me babe🧚🏻‍♀️
YOU HAVE FED ME SO GOOD MISS GIRL! under the cut for length
shisui
this isn't too relevant but I have to include it. it's too cute. I definitely see shisui getting married pretty young, like early 20s. if he finds his person he's going for it. probably gets a lot of shit for it from his family, but he doesn't care
loooong honeymoon period. in part because they're still a young couple but also... shisui is just a really devoted husband. he loves the married life. insists on kissing her goodbye every morning, eating together every night, stuff like that
LOVES DECORATING THEIR HOUSE are u kidding me. let's say they get a kinda shitty place right after they get married, and put a tonne of work into doing it up. he gets so into painting, building the furniture, even starts up a little herb garden in their kitchen
finds so many ways to drop his wife into conversation lol. he's down bad even after the honeymoon period ends, so he wants to show her off. his FAV is when she swings by his workplace to bring him his 'forgotten' lunch. he turns around to the rest of the guys like. yeah. that's my WIFE. isn't she hot.
very much a believer in keeping the romance alive. he wants to keep making the effort with her until the day he dies. veryyyy good at remembering anniversaries, scheduling regular date nights, etc. always makes sure she has fresh flowers in the house
obviously it isn't all perfect though. especially while they're young (and presumably both still active, high-ranking shinobi) their schedules keep them apart a lot. and this hits shisui really hard tbh. he hates coming back to an empty home after a long mission, knowing he might not even see his wife before he has to leave again
work is probably where most of their arguments stem from, actually. I don't see it being a regular thing, but it's easy for resentment to build in those kinds of situations. shisui is very torn between his love for his village, and his love for his wife, and the fact he can't prioritise both. thankfully shisui is a good communicator so they make things work.
in terms of jealousy... I don't see it being a common thing. maybe before they get married he tends towards it a bit more, but once she's his wife, why would he worry? she's his entire world and he knows she loves him just as much
the only way I rly see him getting jealous at all is if they're going through a bit of a rough patch for the reasons mentioned above. maybe they haven't seen each other in weeks, and they both get back from a mission on the same day. and there's some kind of event/function that evening that they have to attend
so they barely have a chance to acknowledge each other, before they're pulled apart again by the crowd. so if shisui sees some random guy getting a little too close and flirty with her, he gets more annoyed than he'd like to admit
even then though.. he's not necessarily jealous as much as he is upset. like goddamn just let this poor man have his beloved wife to himself for a night. in this situation he's more likely to behave more rashly than usual, and he might just make some excuses and take her home lol. he gets a little bit pouty until she gives him some attention
overall, though, he's very chill. he trusts her implicitly, and expects the same from her. they need to have a very honest, respectful relationship if he's going to wife her up
god okay and in old age they're so cute together. I bet they have a bunch of kids (probably accidentally tbh lol) so then they end up with a whole squadron of grandchildren. he's that fun grandpa who sneaks them sweets when the parents aren't looking. all the grandbabies want to sleep over at their house. and they LOVE it.
to sum up: very good husband. very relaxed, communicates well, makes her feel loved every day. why did he have to die I want to throw myself off a bridge.
tobirama
first of all. good job to this woman. wrangling tobirama into marriage is not an easy job. he's so fucking ANNOYING. it probably takes him years to confess he even has feelings for her, let alone ask for her hand in marriage
but once he gets there. it's pretty cute. he doesn't really act very differently for the most part - he'd already decided his heart belonged to her well before they married, and wholly committed. so his behaviour doesn't change much, and there isn't much of a honeymoon period. sorry. he's like marriage is just a contractual agreement why would it change anything between us
he does make a few little indulgences though. he gets this smug little look every time he introduces her as his wife. he's actually just a lot more prone to 'showing her off' in general, and more likely to show some physical affection in public. for tobirama that's maybe a peck on the cheek lol. but it's progress
he's definitely a lot.... gentler?idk. with her once they're married as well. he makes an effort to be more patient and less snippy, and shows his appreciation for her in a lot of quiet little ways. for example, he'll be sure to leave work on time no matter how busy it is if he knows she's putting a lot of effort into dinner that night. or if she spends a second too long looking at a new dress in the store, he's buying it for her
on that note. tobirama is such a provider once they're married. he does have that traditional idea of providing for his wife. he'll probably ask her if she wants to become a stay at home wife tbh. if she says yes, he still expects her to get out in the community of course. he'd love if she did volunteering work, maybe at the hospital or with kids or something. but he's also equally happy for her to keep working. power couple vibes very strong
they have a nice, quiet little house away from the village where no one bothers then and they loooove it. especially tobirama, his wife and their home are his sanctuary. everyone else gtfo
other than that, not much is really different from before their marriage. they probably actually lead quite independent lives, to the point where people don't even know they're married until tobirama drops it into conversation a few months later. they're very private and lowkey.
unfortunately for her, tobirama's paranoia also persists. he's a bit delulu sometimes lol and she knows this going in. but it does inevitably cause some issues, especially if she's headstrong (which is definitely the type of woman he ends up with)
he trusts his wife more than anything. he would never doubt her for a second. but other men? the enemy. not to be trusted. they're all dogs. it drives him absolutely batshit crazy to watch them ogling her, or god forbid trying to flirt with her. which is actually kinda common bc they're such a lowkey couple, so people assume she's single
tobirama isn't one to make a scene per se, but this definitely leads to a few awkward situations in public, and she probably ends up embarrassed a few times. and there's 10000% arguments behind closed doors. I don't see either of them being good with this lol. he acts like she's his political enemy he's ridiculous
but because he loves her so much, and he actually really wants to put work into the longevity of their marriage, he'll come around. he's a lot softer and more willing to compromise when it comes to her. but she can't point that out because he's mortified
over time, he chills out a lot more. they're one of those couples that just get stronger and better with time. they grow a lot together, and although they probably continue to disagree a lot throughout their marriage, it's always in a way that leaves their relationship stronger. and he only gets softer for her. people (hashirama) even start to point out how devoted he is and he can't even deny it. cute
overall a kind of difficult husband, because he is an exceptionally difficult man, but my god he loves her so much. he would do anything to make her happy.
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Squirrel Girl, from Marvel comics.
Pros: - Proportional speed, strength, and endurance of a squirrel, which is more than you would expect. - Talks to squirrels. Do squirrels count as vermin like rats do? - Tail (don't know if it would be relevant) - Ridiculously good at climbing - Super polite and would accept the crucifix, though I'm not sure if she'd wear it - Friends with Galactus Cons: - Drinkable
You mean the unbeatable Squirrel Girl? I do not know much about comic books but I do know that Squirrel Girl cannot be defeated. Can she be contained?
I think Squirrel Girl would be very easy for Dracula to underestimate. She's small and cute and cheery - she's going to be fun for him to break. What will he do when he realizes he just can't get to her? Will he admit defeat or try harder?
I honestly don't know if Dracula has dominion over squirrels. They're diurnal I think so possibly not. Do Squirrel Girl's powers extend to other small mammals, such as bats? If it were not for the fact that Castle Dracula supports no life, it would be very funny for them to have a Squirrel Off, where Dracula can't understand why the squirrels no longer obey his will. Of course, if he figures out that it's Squirrel Girl doing it, he'll be Big Mad.
You mention her being an excellent climber which makes sense with the whole Squirrel thing. It might even mean that the window is her preferred point of egress. Squirrels don't need doors (pshaw!)
Dracula likes to hear himself talk, and Squirrels are famous chatterers. Will he find ger a welcome conversationalist? ... or just deeply, deeply irritating? No, you said she was super polite. I... don't see Dracula being invested enough to rescue her from the Girlies though. Would she get herself into that situation in the first place?
You mentioned she was friends with Galactus. How small of nibbled can he take? Would he eat Castle Dracula (and just Castle Dracula) if she asked?
Squirrels being diurnal, she might suffer under this strange nocturnal existence. But with the endurance of a squirrel she should pull through. And it sounds like she can just leave whenever, and once back in Squirrel territory (that is, outside the castle) I don't think either wolves or vampires would prove much of a problem for her.
I really only know the unbeatable Squirrel Girl by reputation, but that reputation is that she can absolutely survive Castle Dracula
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catsvrsdogscatswin · 11 months
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Since there’s a bit of a hiatus in Dracula Daily right now, I thought I’d take the opportunity to ramble about what I know of vampiric folklore and history in Europe because I cannot contain my infodump and it’s actually really interesting.
Painting it in very broad strokes, the earliest folkloric creature we would recognize as a vampire was acknowledged in Europe in the 1100s and earlier as a human corpse that physically rose from their grave and returned to their former home/village to drink blood. (A 12th-century English text, The Life and Miracles of St. Modwenna, mentions two examples of this type of vampire.) These vampires’ victims did not become vampires as well, but sickened and died, usually from wasting diseases. What caused the original person to become a vampire was variable, but usually involved being, just, an absolute jerk when they were alive, or an increasingly convoluted series of ways in which they attracted bad luck/evil while they lived, after they died, or as they were buried.
This is where the traditions of stuffing a stone in the potential vampire’s mouth, decapitating them and putting the head in the grave between their knees, burying them facedown, cutting off their hands or feet, burying them in a too-small grave, piling stones atop the grave, or burying them with broken legs came from. All of these are regional or historical variations on ways to quite literally prevent the presumed vampire from digging their way out of the grave and causing trouble: an “And stay down there!” maneuver that we’ll see survive into modern pop culture in the form of a stake through the heart.
This was the predominant form of vampirism up until roughly the 1700s: someone nasty in the village died, and after a while, would start reappearing to their family or loved ones at night, slowly draining their lives away as they fell to a wasting disease like tuberculosis or leprosy. Once the villagers caught on, they would exhume the body, find it suspiciously preserved and with blood trickling from its mouth, and then take steps to neutralize the vampiric threat by beheading, staking it through the heart to literally pin it in the grave, stuff a stone in its mouth, or a combination of all three. 
(You may have heard of the Venetian mass-burial plague pit an archeological team discovered: one of the skeletons had a brick shoved in her mouth. She was the only body treated in such a way, implying that she was thought to have been a vampire: hypothetically even the vampire that caused this local upswing of the plague.)
A cultural shift happened in the 18th century, however, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire gained territory in Serbia and other portions of the Balkans. Since they were neighbors with the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarians kept a heavy military presence in these new territories, and the emperor of the time (Charles VI, I believe) asked the occupying forces to collect reports on the local customs and folklore and send them back.
A number of the reports they sent back included vampire stories.
Now, this was the Age of Enlightenment: many countries were pulling away from old superstitions and following the new methods of science. Belief in vampirism was a rural thing, and widespread plague situations had faded enough that they really weren’t relevant anymore and had fallen out of a lot of people’s memory. 
But the thing was... science was still new, and this whole vampirism thing sounded just plausible enough to be extremely interesting. The Austro-Hungarians sent all sorts of scientists, doctors, and clergy members to collect and dissect and discuss these stories, and for a short spate of time vampirism was the hot new discussion topic in esoteric circles. And for then and a while after, if you wanted case studies, debates, and just about any reference material on vampires, you knew you’d find it in Austro-Hungary’s library.
Eventually the scientific community all concluded that this vampirism thing was just silly peasants not understanding the process of decay, but the arts crowd -particularly the Sturm und Drang folks in Germany- remained very interested in this exotic new creature steeped in mystery and death. Sturm und Drang translates to “storm and stress” and if I had to describe their style in modern terms, I would say (roughly, and with affection) “a love of edgy tragedies.”
There were a number of poems and works spawned from this flurry of interest, but this Austrian version of the vampire still shared a common theme: more like a revenant than anything else, coming for their loved ones first, and a lot of their horror was tied up in how blasphemous and unChristian their very existence was. Less emphasis was placed on getting rid of the vampire and more was placed on the artistic allure of vengeance from beyond the grave and the vampire’s inherent exotic mysticism and threat.
Stoker, in fact, directly references an example of this in Dracula! On May 5th, when Dracula’s telling the coach driver that he knew they were trying to get Jonathan out of there before he showed up, because he himself drove fast enough to intercept them, one of the other passengers whispers to his friend “Denn die Todten reiten schnell,” which translates roughly to “For the dead ride fast,” a quote from Burger’s Lenore.
Lenore is a poem about a young woman whose fiancé died in the Seven Years’ War (connection with Austro-Hungary). In her despair, she curses god (old-school invitation for vampirism), and the following night, her lover knocks on her door to take her on horseback to their marriage bed (vampires attack their loved ones first). He takes her on an increasingly terrifying ride through the night, prompting the above quote, which ends in a graveyard, where he is revealed to be a skeleton and Lenore dies.  
Lenore was written in 1774, and although William is not technically a vampire, the poem is an example of the old-school vampire type. The vampire is a physical reanimated corpse that does not create more of its kind, but causes the people around them to die/waste away, and attacks their loved ones before anyone else. The transition to what we finally would recognize as a modern vampire started with Carmilla and was solidified in Dracula.
Written in 1872, Carmilla is a blending of both old and modern vampiric tropes. It uses the then-expected setting of the Austrian Empire, all of the titular vampire’s victims wasted away and died rather than rising as vampires themselves, and Carmilla’s coffin was filled with blood when she was unearthed. However, she was also able to shapeshift into a cat and walk through walls -no longer just a revenant- and she could walk around during the day without harm. She also does not target the people she knew and loved in life first: Carmilla is a vampire centuries old and her current victims are chosen indiscriminately. The vampire as a folkloric creature was evolving.
And, side note, while it was used partially as a narrative device to show how evil and unnatural Carmilla was, she was also gay. Gay as fuck. People who lost their shit at 
“Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper: ‘Yes, I too can love’” 
will go absolutely mental at Laura going
“It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, ‘You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever.’"
Anyway. Queerness is baked into the concept of the modern vampire from the very beginning, what of it.
With Carmilla as the springboard, though, Stoker was free to finally create Dracula, which was essentially the turning point between modern and archaic vampire depictions. He took all of the old stuff and reworked, revamped (heh), or added to it to get the foundation of the stereotypical vampire we know today.
He shifted the geographic vampire hotspot further over from Austria-Hungary, landing it in neighboring Transylvania. Dracula’s victims weaken and die and seem to be inflicted with a strange wasting disease, but can also turn into vampires themselves. Driving a stake through his heart and cutting off his head is no longer an attempt to pin him in his grave and keep him from rising, but merely to destroy him. He was dead, yes, and very unholy, but he also had powers beyond merely being a risen corpse, and his power set became the standard for future vampire media.
Hence, Dracula becomes the foundation for the modern concept of a vampire, which is why pop culture usually treats it as the beginning point of vampirism in general.
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fortuna-et-cataclysmos · 10 months
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S5 finale: wrapping up the "running out of time" theme
So I have been mentioning frequently that there is a theme of "running out of time" in season 5, but I wasn't able to make out the meaning of it, until now.
We can say that there are three situations where the theme explicitely manifests:
Gabriel: After receiving a cataclysm wound in Destruction, we often hear Gabriel repeat that he is running out of time. The entire Intuition episode is based on that premise.
Ladynoir: This is the most obvious manifestation of this theme. In Jubilation, Ladybug and Chat Noir live a dream just to be constantly reminded that their perfect life together will end when they wake up to reality. I call it Ladynoir, but actually it is Maribug's love and romantic relationship with Chat in general.
Adrinette: This is the most subtle one, but it is there. Notice how Marinette needs to ease into a relationship with Adrien, and Adrien is doing his best to cut her slack, so much so that he says in Derision, and I quote: "We've got time." Soon after, Adrien is sent to London.
If you think I have forgotten other strings of running out of time, feel free to let me know!
Now let's look at these three strings individually:
Gabriel running out of time
This one is the simplest one as it starts very early on in the season, with the episode Destruction where he gets the cataclym wound, and ends in Recreation with his "sacrifice." Also worthy noting the names of the episodes. What starts as Gabriel running out of time in Destruction is concluded in Recreation with him making his wish, accomplishing his wish, and dying. We can consider this thread concluded.
2. Ladynoir running out of time
Of course, the first episode that comes to mind is Jubilation. In Jubilation we (and the blorbos) learn that they actually desire to be together, romantically. And indeed they get to live a perfect little life in their dream, ignoring the increasingly bigger alarm clocks that are trying to wake them up. Except that at the end Ladybug realises that they must wake up (duty calls!), and she abandons Chat Noir in the dream universe, broken.
From here on, nearly every episode is a warning for Marinette against being romantically together with Chat Noir:
Determination: Marinette accepts that she has feelings for Chat Noir, her reaction to that is crying
Passion: Ladybug's crush on Chat Noir leads to her being distracted and making many critical mistakes in their fight
Reunion: is a cautionary tale about Ladybug and Cat Miraculous holders falling in love
Illusion: (I haven't watched this in a while but I think nothing relevant happens here)
Elation: Marinette is nearly akumatised because of her love to and rejection by Chat Noir
The overarching message from Jubilation to Elation is that: if Maribug ends up with Chat Noir, it'll be a disaster.
So Marinette decides to close up her heart to anyone, and after a brief depression, Adrien finally convinces her to be with him and they become an official couple. From this point onwards, the key ship becomes Adrinette.
Does that mean that Ladynoir has run out of time? Not necessarily. They just decided to love each other in a different way. I should remind here that even though we tend to polarise the sides of the square as fandom, the creators have repeatedly told that the love square is one, there is one love.
The Ladynoir relationship has a direct connection to the Adrinette dynamics because after all, they're the same two people.
3. Adrinette running out of time
Now that Adrinette is finally together, they should have all the time in the world, right? Right? It's what Adrien says, after all.
But I couldn't shake this sense of urgency throughout this season. Every time they said that they had time, it made me feel like they actually don't and they don't know it. And it was exactly what they wanted to make us feel: with Adrien's move to London, it turns out they didn't have time. Worse is that, Adrien actually knew that he'd need to move to London but he couldn't tell it to Marinette, he kept it a secret all the way till he was shipped off to London.
And there is a parallel between Jubilation and Revolution here: in both episodes, their dream is shattered, they share one last dramatic kiss, and they are torn apart from one and other (@asukiess had a big brain time and pointed this out back when Revolution aired).
But now, in Recreation, Gabriel is gone. Everything is fixed? Everyone will be happy, right?
Well... No.
As I pointed out in a previous post, the world that Gabriel creates is a bit too bright, too perfect. The show is notorious for associating the sun with fake happiness at this point, while the "real" moments are rainy and/or dark. And let's see the colour palette in the end:
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Another detail that makes me put on my tinfoil hat:
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They're not very visible on the static image, but there are white butterflies flying over the flower arch. Those could be symbolising the end, as a reference to how Ladybug releases the purified akuma at the end of each episode. But it might also have a second meaning, a reference to how this world was in fact created upon the ideals of Gabriel.
And that can't be good for anyone. I explain more the consequences and aftermath of this episode in the post I mention above, but basically this world is Gabriel's ideal, and it is far from being a good place for neither Marinette, nor Adrien.
One main reason why: Gabriel has left Marinette with the truth about the Monarch, and she agreed to keep it a secret from Adrien. But we know that it will eventually come out. Either she tells it to Chat Noir, or maybe Lila plots something, but it won't remain a secret forever. And when it does... it will have tremendous impact on not only Adrinette, but also Ladynoir.
This world is a fantasy world where Marinette and Adrien have ended up together, just like in: Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, Oblivio, Jubilation. And at one point the alarm clock will ring, the hammer will drop, and both Ladynoir and Adrinette will run out of time. Except that this time, we may not be able to revert back to the status quo.
Gabriel has left them with a tickling time bomb.
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imsobadatnicknames2 · 2 months
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What's OSR? I've seen you mention it several times in your RPG posts. Is it like a genre of rpg or...?
Hey, sorry I took so long to reply to this lol you probably already just googled it by now.
But like. Anyway.
OSR (Old-School Revival, Old-School Renaissance, and more uncommonly Old-School Rules or Old-School Revolution, no one can really agree on what the R means) is less like a genre and more like a movement or a loosely connected community that seeks to capture the tone, feel and/or playstyle of 70's and 80's fantasy roleplaying games (with a particular emphasis on old-school editions of Dungeons and Dragons, particularly the Basic D&D line but pretty much anything before 3e falls under this umbrella), or at least an idealized version of what people remember those games felt like to play.
There isn't exactly a consensus on what makes a game OSR but here's my personal list of things that I find to be common motifs in OSR game design and GM philosophy. Not every game in the movement features all of these things, but must certainly feature a few of them.
Rulings over rules: most OSR games lack mechanically codified rules for a lot of the actions that in modern D&D (and games influenced by it) would be covered by a skill system. Rather that try to have rules applicable for every situation, these games often have somewhat barebones rules, with the expectation that when a player tries to do something not covered by them the GM will have to make a ruling about it or negotiate a dice roll that feels fair (a common resolution system for this type of situation is d20 roll-under vs a stat that feels relevant, a d6 roll with x-in-6 chance to succeed, or just adjudicating the outcome based on how the player describes their actions)
"The solution is not on your character sheet": Related to the point above, the lack of character skills means that very few problems can be solved by saying "I roll [skill]". E.g. Looking for traps in an OSR game will look less like "I rolled 18 on my perception check" and more like "I poke the flagstones ahead with a stick to check if they're pressure plates" with maybe the GM asking for a roll or a saving throw if you do end up triggering a trap.
High lethality: Characters are squishy, and generally die much more easily. But conversely, character creation is often very quick, so if your character dies you can usually be playing again in minutes as long as there's a decent chance to integrate your new PC into the game.
Lack of emphasis on encounter balance: It's not uncommon for the PCs to find themselves way out of their depth, with encounters where they're almost guaranteed to lose unless they run away or find a creative way to stack the deck in their favor.
Combat as a failure state: Due to the two points above, not every encounter is meant to be fought, as doing so is generally not worth the risk and likely to end up badly. Players a generally better off finding ways to circumvent encounters through sneaking around them, outsmarting them, or out-maneauvering them, fighting only when there's no other option or when they've taken steps to make sure the battle is fought on their terms (e.g. luring enemies into traps or environmental hazards, stuff like that)
Emphasis on inventory and items: As skills, class features and character builds are less significant than in modern D&D (or sometimes outright nonexistent), a large part of the way the players engage with the world instead revolves around what they carry and how they use it. A lot of these games have you randomly roll your starting inventory, and often this will become as much a significant part of your character as your class is, even with seemingly useless clutter items. E.g. a hand mirror can become an invaluable tool for peeping around corners and doorways. This kind of gameplay techncially possible on modern D&D but in OSR games it's often vital.
Gold for XP: somewhat related to the above, in many of these games your XP will be determined by how much treasure you gather, casting players in the role and mindset of trasure hutners, grave robbers, etc.
Situations, not plots: This is more of a GM culture thing than an intrinsic feature of the games, but OSR campaigns will often eschew the long-form GM-authored Epic narrative that has become the norm since the late AD&D 2e era, in favor of a more sandbox-y "here's an initial situation, it's up to you what you do with it" style. This means that you probably won't be getting elaborate scenes plotted out sessions in advance to tie into your backstory and character arc, but it also means increased player agency, casting the GM in the role of less of a plot writer or narrator and more of a referee.
Like I said, these are not universal, and a lot of games that fall under the OSR umbrella will eschew some or most of these (it's very common for a lot of games to drop the gold-for-xp thing in favor of a different reawrd structure), but IMO they're a good baseline for understanding common features of the movement as a whole.
Of course, the OSR movement covers A LOT of different games, which I'd classify in the following categories by how much they deviate from their source of inspiration:
Retroclones are basically recreations of the ruleset of older D&D editions but without the D&D trademark, sometimes with a new coat of paint. E.g. OSRIC and For Gold and Glory are clones of AD&D (1e and 2e respectively); Whitebox and Fantastic Medieval Campaigns are recreations of the original 1974 white box D&D release; Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord are clones of the 1981 B/X D&D set. Some of these recreate the original rules as-is, editing the text or reorganizing the information to be clearer but otherwise leaving the meachnics unchanged, while others will make slight rules changes to remove quirks that have come to be considered annoying in hindsight, some of them might mix and match features from different editions, but otherwise they're mostly straight up recreations of old-school D&D releases.
There are games that I would call "old-school compatible", that feature significant enough mechanical changes from old-school D&D to be considered a different game, but try to maintain mechanical compatibility with materials made for it. Games like The Black Hack, Knave, Macchiato Monsters, Dungeon Reavers, Whitehack, etc. play very differently from old-school D&D, and from each other, but you generally can grab any module made for any pre-3e D&D edition and run it with any of them with very little to no effort needed in conversion.
There's a third category that I wouldn't know how to call. Some people call then Nu-OSR or NSR (short for New School revolution) while a small minority of people argue that they aren't really part of the OSR movement but instead their own thing. I've personally taken to calling them "Old School Baroque". These are games that try to replicate different aspects of the tone and feel of old-school fantasy roleplaying games while borrowing few to none mechanics from them and not making any particular attempts to be mechanically compatible. Games like Into the Odd, Mörk Borg, Troika!, a dungeon game, FLEE, DURF, Songbirds, Mausritter, bastards, Cairn, Sledgehammer, and too many more to name. In my opinion this subsection of the OSR space is where it gets interesting, as there's so many different ways people try to recreate that old-school flavor with different mechanics.
(Of course, not everything fits neatly into these, e.g. I would consider stuff like Dungeon Crawl Classics to be somewhere inbetween category 1 and 2, and stuff like GloG or RELIC to be somewhere imbetween categories 2 and 3)
The OSR movement does have its ugly side, as it's to be expected by the fact that a huge part of the driving force behind it is nostalgia. Some people might be in it because it harkens back to a spirit of DIY and player agency that has been lost in traditional fantasy roleplaying games, but it's udneniable that some people are also in it because for them it harkens back to a time before "D&D went woke" when tabletop roleplaying was considered a hobby primarily for and by white men. That being said... generally those types of guys keep to themselves in their own little circlejerk, and it's pretty easy to find OSR spaces that are progressive and have a sinificant number of queer, POC, and marginalized creators.
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swiftispunk · 2 months
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the AI situation
hello hello hello
i'm sure many of you saw the posts yesterday surrounding the ethics of AI and fanfic, chatbots, and a particular poe.com account (poe.com being an online AI chatbot aggregator, which gives users access to a wide range of AI chatbots, including the option to create custom bots).
for anyone who missed these posts or who is still maybe looking for a little more clarity regarding what exactly happened, i thought i'd write up my best attempt at a full explanation here, outlining what all went down, and how, in the end, the account creating these fanfic-inspired chatbots ended up getting deleted.
*disclaimer: i am not an expert on AI. i am still learning about it, just as many of us are. i am simply a fanfic writer with concerns.
yesterday afternoon, i was informed by a mutual that my fic, your summer dream, was being used as the basis of a custom chatbot called "DBFVacayJoel" on poe.com.
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i immediately went to check it out for myself and upon a scroll through the account of the user who made this bot, it became clear that YSD was not the only fic this user's chatbots had been "inspired" by. i saw two other one shots of mine that had been turned into chatbots, as well as countless fics by many of my friends. i recognized details from fics by @joelscruff, @atticrissfinch, @hier--soir, @5oh5, @kiwisbell @toxicanonymity, and @bageldaddy, just to name a few.
the account even mentioned toxic by name in their bio, saying many of their chatbots were inspired by toxic's work. toxic has publicly stated she did not give permission for them to do this.
at this point, i began reaching out to the affected authors to try and work out where we could go from there. there was a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, and a lot of frustration in those conversations. none of the authors i spoke to had consented to having their fics used to make chatbots. unfortunately, because AI is so unregulated, reporting the account or attempting to have it taken down without the account-holder's cooperation would have been virtually impossible. technically, there is nothing stopping people from doing this.
across the board, our main hope was that we could try to reach out to the account-holder and ask them to remove the chatbots, if not their entire account.
this was about when the tumblr posts started flying. many of the affected authors - myself included - began speaking up about our stance on this matter, clearly stating that we did not consent to having our fics fed to AI for any reason. i included a link to the poe.com account responsible in one of my posts, asking if anyone knew the person behind it or how to contact them. there is no messaging feature on poe.com, so we were trying to find potential other avenues with which reach out.
several keen eyes noted that the user had their tiktok account mentioned in one of their poe.com posts, and this was how one of the affected authors was able to directly message them and voice their concerns about the chatbots.
THIS NEXT PART IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!
the account-holder was immediately apologetic and expressed their genuine remorse for creating the chatbots without our consent. they admitted, in a message to me here on tumblr, that they did not realize there was a problem with what they were doing. as soon as they were made aware, they volunteered to deactivate their account. as it will take 14 days for the account to be fully deactivated, they even made an effort to manually delete all the chatbots in the mean time.
*NOTE: please do not attack, harass, or bully this person, whether that be directly or in the comments of this post. they said they were sorry, deleted all the bots, and the account will be gone soon. they have listened and they have learned, and we cannot ask more than that of them.
what exactly was stolen?
now, if you're already familiar with how chatbots are created, this part might not be relevant to you - but it was important to me to understand. so i spoke with the account-holder to learn more about the process of how they created their chatbots, and learned that none of the authors had their entire fics fed to the AI to create the bots.
however, according to the account-holder, when creating the 'starting message,' they did use the premises of the fics and copied some specific lines, while cutting out others. this is why many of the starting messages (like the one based on YSD above) very closely resembled sections of our fics.
so, if you're worried about whether or not your entire fic was fed to AI - in this case, it was not. this does make any of this ok, but i know for me, it was a comfort to learn this.
the takeaway
SIGH. well. as i previously mentioned, the sad reality is that there really is nothing stopping anyone from doing this. nothing to stop people from taking our stories and reducing them to a premise for some automated chatbot, or feeding them to some other text-based AI so it can churn out an ending for our unfinished fics. our works are voluntarily published to the internet, which unfortunately makes them fair game.
for myself - and many other online creators - that's cause for concern. we share our writing with our communities, pour pieces of ourselves into everything we create. we give our stories away to all of you - even if it's terrifying sometimes - because, at the end of the day, it's what we love to do. part of the magic of fanfic and fandom is the sharing, the community, the trust. when things like this happen, without our consent, it breaks that trust. it feels like a betrayal.
i can't speak for all authors, but i know for me, seeing my fics being used this way made me feel...distinctly icky. it made me feel like a content farm, just a source of ideas for someone else to turn into something impersonal and soulless. and i've spoken to other fic authors who've been struggling with this feeling a lot, always feeling like there is some kind of expectation for us to produce, produce, produce constantly. but...if this is what you are doing with what we produce - why would we ever continue?
i hope, if you are seeing this and still do not see the issues with feeding fanfics to AI, that the response you saw from this fandom yesterday will change your mind. i hope you will read the notes on my original post and see all the writers in the tags saying how this situation has "made them never want to write again."
i hope, at the very least, if you really want to use these chatbot services, that you ask an author's permission before using their brilliant ideas and their beautiful words just so you can "chat" with a robotic version of the characters they worked so hard on. and if they say no, fucking LISTEN TO THEM.
what sucks is this will likely happen again, and it will likely start to happen more. i truly hope we can all keep looking out for each other. if you see more of these accounts in the wild - please, let us writers know. through conversation and education, we were able to get this account-holder to see the problem with their actions, and ultimately, take the account down. that's really all we can do at this point.
i want to finish by saying thank you to everyone who helped bring this to light. everyone who helped figure it all out and spread the word about what was happening. and i also very much want to thank the account-holder - for hearing us out, apologizing so profusely, and agreeing to delete the bots without argument.
in spite of the circumstances, it was pretty genuinely cool to see this fandom come together over such an important issue. i love ya'll.
sincerely,
han <3
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sukuna-dees-nuts · 3 months
Text
rizzless sukuna pt. 2 (find part 1 here!)
Part of an ongoing series basically now dedicated to @nessieartss and their jjk sibling au!!
Hope you guys enjoy awkward Sukuna as much as I do!
---
Fuck it. Let's do this, Sukuna says to himself as he crosses the courtyard to catch up with Megumi. There's a little voice in the back of his mind that's telling him that this is a stupid idea, what the hell is he doing. If this went poorly, Yuuji would never let him live it down.
Honestly, Sukuna wouldn't let himself live it down. He's never been one for dating; it's never really appealed to him.
It's never really been relevant. His own words ring in his mind. “Yeah, until now,” he mutters to himself.
It isn't until he's caught up with Megumi that he realizes he isn't even sure what to say. His feet had started moving in their own accord, carrying him across the way in long strides. Maki had said to simply 'ask him out', as if it's that simple, as if Sukuna didn't already mention that he's never done this before.
Yeah, he's definitely never asking Maki for advice ever again, and when this inevitably fails, he's absolutely blaming her for it.
“Hey, Fushiguro!”
Megumi looks up from his phone and his eyebrows raise in surprise when his gaze lands on Sukuna. He looks around, as if expecting someone else to be with him, but there’s no one. It’s only Sukuna, which increases his intrigue more.
“Oh, hey, Sukuna,” he greets, pocketing his phone. “Yuuji went that way.” His head jerks in the opposite direction.
The older boy gives a noncommittal hum. “Well, that’s cool, but I wanted to talk to you.”
Megumi arches an eyebrow curiously and stays quiet, waiting for Sukuna to continue. A long pause draws out between them; Sukuna realizes that his heartbeat has picked up and his palms feel clammy, his fingers fidgeting.
Am I nervous?
No. Sukuna shakes his head; he doesn't get nervous. He can be confident, arrogant, cocky, but never nervous. So then why are all of his thoughts a jumbled mess and he feels like an idiot with his mouth opening and closing like a fucking fish.
“Oh…kay, what about?” Megumi presses.
Clearing his throat, Sukuna eloquently responds with, “Uh—” He mentally facepalms himself, unable to ignore the way the corner of Megumi’s mouth quirks up in amusement. It makes his stomach do a summersault. “Do you like dates? Well how about a raisin—wait, fuck!”
Sukuna runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head, irritated with himself. He can’t help but glance at Megumi and sees Megumi's tucked his face into the collar of his school uniform. His shoulders shake with laughter, and in that moment, Sukuna wishes to cause mass destruction to escape the humiliation that engulfs his entire being.
He opens his mouth, about to demand Megumi to pretend this whole thing never happened—
“Did you just ask me on a date?” Megumi asks.
Relief floods Sukuna’s system and his shoulders sag. He swallows against the lump in his throat, and he huffs humorlessly. “Uh, yeah. Kinda? I meant to.”
Megumi is silent for another moment, eyeing Sukuna as he tries to see if the older boy is genuine or not. For once, Sukuna doesn't have anything to say, and he awkwardly scratches the back of his head. Maybe Sukuna should've prepared himself more before diving headfirst into this sort of situation; but when had Sukuna not been impulsive?
“Okay,” Megumi agrees, and Sukuna blinks, shaking his head a little.
“Wait, seriously?”
The shorter boy snorts. He pulls his phone from his pocket and taps on the screen. “Yeah. I'd have to be stupid not to say yes after that terrible attempt at a pickup line.”
Sukuna groans. When he looks back to Megumi, there's a hint of a smile on his face and he holds his phone out, telling Sukuna to put his number in. Sukuna grabs his own phone and hands it over so the two can exchange numbers.
“Are you free after school today?”
A hint of a smile comes to Sukuna's face. “Alright.”
Megumi thinks for a second before nodding. “Yeah, just text me where you want to meet up.”
They look at each other for a moment, Megumi shifting on his feet and Sukuna running a hand through his hair.
Megumi’s phone rings and they both jolt. He rolls his eyes when he sees who's calling and clicks the screen off. Looking back at Sukuna he says, “Gojo is wondering where I am, so I gotta go.”
“Oh, right, yeah.” Sukuna nods, returning Megumi’s wave goodbye.
“See you later, Date Man,” Megumi chuckles.
Sukuna lets the comment slide, too busy dwelling on the fact that he has his first ever date.
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firelxdykatara · 1 month
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I too ship Zutara and think they should have been canon. Although for me it's important to know how such a rewrite would go down. I tried to think, and I'm lost.
After Mai betrayed Azula for him, will he just go "sorry, not interested"? He isn't obligated to date her because of this, but her redemption hinges on Zuko and I don't see it being satisfying if he ends up rejecting her after this.
I thought the solution would be to rewrite her arc in boiling rock to make her have a moral realization, but then the problem with Maiko is practically solved. Their relationship wasn't salvaged by her redemption because last time they talked, Mai still didn't understand what's wrong with the Fire Nation and only changed because she loved Zuko. So how do you make it both satisfying & logical?
With Kataang the problem is the Chakras. The problem with the original (in my opinion) is that after he opened his chakra, letting go of his attachment to Katara, he's still attached (forcing a kiss on eip). Should TCoD get rewritten so that Azula shoots him before he opens it? Then why wouldn't he just open it later? Maybe the chakra would be locked so he feels as though he doesn't need to overcome his attachment just yet. In that situation, how would his chakra even unlock? The stone thing felt like nonsense, so how would I do it?
So yeah I have no idea how to approach this. How would you? (Thanks)
I've been rotating this ask in the back of my head like a rotisserie chicken for a few days--it's interesting because I don't generally stop to think like, how would I write them out of these relationships, I either ignore the relationships completely (which isn't hard, they were barely footnotes in the cartoon) or play a little bit with jealous exes or something. Thinking about like, In A Perfect World where Bryke wasn't in charge of ATLA post-canon (because if zutara had been canon, you can be sure they would've made us regret it) is interesting, and I do have thoughts on how I'd handle their relationships in a rewrite.
(this got long, so the rest is beneath the cut)
Assuming you mostly want to keep canon intact, I think maiko would be the easiest to work around, given how little relevance their relationship has in canon. The problem with maiko as an endgame ship is that it was not set up that way--if it had been, it would not have begun entirely off-screen and their whole relationship would not have been a study in misery and utter inability to connect emotionally. His relationship with Mai was there to showcase just how much he had changed and how little he fit into the life he had been so sure he wanted more than anything since his banishment. It worked very well to highlight Zuko's growth--how that contrasted to Mai's lack of it and why she could not understand him even at his most open and vulnerable--and did not work nearly so well when she was shoved back with him in the epilogue, after he'd quite literally forgotten her existence (he never mentions her again after Boiling Rock, not even to say a word of mourning, considering he'd have every reason to believe she was killed for defying his sister).
I don't think you can fix this by giving Mai some moral realization, because there simply is no room for it. As @araeph says in the essay I linked:
As a character, Mai is very useful to the story during Zuko’s return, because she represents everything that Zuko gains by sticking by his father. A girl who cares about him; the ability to indulge her; the authority he has over others at the palace; we see it all in his interactions with Mai. But this makes Mai a tether to a life he has long outgrown. Her function is not to advance Zuko’s character development, but to obstruct it, which also unfortunately means that Mai gaining a full understanding of Zuko’s trials would be disadvantageous to the story. If she knew everything about him and still wanted him to stay, it would give Zuko more cause than he should have to remain in the Fire Nation, but if she knew and encouraged him to leave and join the Avatar, it would rob Zuko of the triumph of making this decision on his own. In other words, there are good narrative reasons for keeping Mai in the dark; it just doesn’t make their relationship any stronger.
The seeds of a genuine redemption arc (one that includes some sort of moral realization and change to her moral framework) for Mai would have to have been planted far earlier than five episodes from the end of the series, but doing so would have of necessity detracted from Zuko's own character arc and the realizations that he makes despite his attachment to Mai (or more specifically to their relationship, which I feel like he was clinging to more out of a sense of abject loneliness he couldn't shake rather than genuine feelings and emotional connection).
So, in my mind, since we're tackling this with an eye towards getting rid of maiko with the fewest ripples to the overall story anyway, the easiest way to do this would be make one slight change to the end of the Boiling Rock two-parter--have Ty Lee (who had always been the least gung-ho of the trio about bowing to Azula's whims and had to be textually threatened into joining her in the first place) save Zuko's life, and then have Mai (who showed the most genuine affection for Ty Lee anyway) save Ty Lee. I love Zuko more than I fear you always fell flat for me as some epic declaration of love, anyway, since a) Zuko is not around to hear it, and b) unlike Ty Lee, she never showed much fear of Azula to begin with, so it wasn't a very high bar to clear. It was a cool line that was entirely unearned, and I don't think it would be missed, there would be some cute mailee crumbs this way, and a throwaway line of getting them released from the prison after the war ended could wrap up their presence in the story pretty nicely.
Now, kataang is a little trickier, if only because the last leg of Aang's character arc is almost completely derailed by his refusal to let go of his possessive attachment to Katara, to the point where he never naturally reopens his chakras, he has to have the Rock of Destiny hit him in just the right place, and the deus ex lionturtle there to give him a way out of having to make a hard moral choice. (I've maintained for years that if you work the final act of your main character's overall arc in such a way that it could have been solved by one good session with a chiropractor, something got fucked along the way.)
The thing about Aang's chakras is that, narratively, his whole thing with Guru Pathik and leaving his training early to save his friends was basically his version of Luke running away from his training with Yoda on Degobah because of his Force vision, only to find out that his friends were in the process of rescuing themselves and then losing his hand because he hadn't completed the most crucial part of his training. What's missing, therefore, from the last act of Aang's character arc, is the return.
See, in Star Wars, Luke pretty explicitly makes the wrong choice when he chooses to prioritize saving his friends over attaining enlightenment and fully mastering the Force. It was the only choice he could have made, but it was still the wrong one--because, like Aang, his friends did not actually need him to save them, he actually almost makes it harder for them to get away by requiring them to save him because, like Aang, he loses a battle in a very critical way. This was a lesson he desperately needed to learn, and it is clear he has learned it by the time he makes it back to Degobah and witnesses the end of Yoda's life, his own enlightenment having already been reached.
But Aang never goes back to the Guru.
And the text refuses to allow us to sit with the fact that he made the wrong choice in prioritizing his attachment to Katara over his ability to master the Avatar State. He is actually narratively vindicated about it, because the plot bends itself into a pretzel so that he doesn't have to spend any time during the last book trying to reopen his chakras and regain access to the Avatar State, handed both in the final battle with no excess effort on his part, and handed the girl into the bargain. (The girl who never even wanted him, so far as we can tell from all the lack of cues she gave him that she actually returned his feelings.)
And I think this could have been solved with a few scattered scenes. Let Katara actually have some agency in her own romantic relationship (or lack thereof), insofar as noticing Aang's advances and clueing the audience in to how she actually feels. Let Aang struggle with the fact that he can't reach the Avatar State, that his mastery of the elements is in limbo because he can't access his full power, rather than ignoring all of this until the end of the show. If we're trying to keep the shape of the last season roughly the same, let Katara confront Aang about the invasion kiss.
This would have been the perfect time to establish that Katara actually does feel some type of way about Aang prior to the epilogue, and it could have saved us from the exceedingly cringey EIP kiss that Aang never apologized for. How it comes across now, of course, is that Katara basically pretends it never even happened, to the point where she doesn't even know what Aang is talking about during EIP until he reminds her--the death knell for any shot their relationship had at looking requited, because I can tell you, as someone who's been a teenage girl, if someone I had conflicted but burgeoning romantic feelings for had kissed me, I would not have completely forgotten about it only a few weeks later--and we never get any indication as to what she actually felt about the kiss (which was not mutual, despite what Aang's dialogue in the EIP scene implies) except for the fact that she looked away and frowned afterwards. (A change mandated by Bryke, who wanted to leave her feelings completely ambiguous; the original storyboards had her smiling to herself.)
So, with an eye towards wrapping up Aang's puppy love crush and establishing Katara's distinct lack of romantic feelings for him, have her talk to him about the kiss. A good frame of reference for this would be Meng's conversation with Aang in "The Fortuneteller", where she finally realizes that he doesn't like her in the same way she likes him. Katara and Aang's conversation about the invasion kiss could be a callback to this, with Aang having some important realizations--that just because Katara doesn't share his feelings doesn't mean she loves him any less, and just because he can't have her the way he wanted doesn't mean he has to love her any less, that she doesn't belong to him but that's ok, because she's still his family and they'll always have each other's backs. Which could have functioned well in helping him take another step towards unblocking his chakras. Going back to the Guru directly may not have worked, since by this point in the story we're hurtling towards the final confrontation and Sozin's Comet, but let Aang reflect on what the Guru told him with new understanding granted him by his experiences throughout the first half of the season.
To keep the stakes high and up the suspense, obviously, he shouldn't have fully unlocked his chakras and the AS before the final fight, but the seeds could be planted--little moments like a talk with Katara about the invasion kiss, maybe a little more empathy and understanding from him about why Katara needs closure in TSR, etc--and then, during the final fight, rather than hand him all the answers on a silver platter, have him almost lose. He still can't go full Avatar, he's out of time, he still doesn't know exactly what to do about Ozai given his own pacifism and desire to preserve that part of his culture--he tries to fight but he's pretty quickly overpowered. Idk how I would've animated this, and maybe it wouldn't have looked as cool for the final fight, but the true climax of the finale was the Zuko and Azula agni kai anyway, so it hardly matters--I'm picturing him doing the rock-shield thing and going into a brief meditative state, where he finally achieves the enlightenment necessary to unlock the AS on his own, no rock of chiropracty necessary. And at this point, I'd give Ozai a Disney Death, since leaving him alive causes more problems than it solves and it's not necessary for Aang to kill him for him to die--they're fighting on a mountain ffs--but if you don't want to change that part then him figuring out energy bending as part of becoming a fully realized Avatar would at least feel more earned than the lionturtle just handing it to him. (And that could've been foreshadowed better by seeding the idea for it earlier in the season.)
After all of that, particularly if you up the emotions during the agni kai and have Zuko and Katara kiss there (or something less explicitly romantic but still tender, like a brief forehead touch), it'd feel pretty natural to have a just friends ending for Aang and Katara. Maybe a brief, slightly awkward but ultimately amiable conversation if Zuko and Katara had a ~thing at their final fight, and then the final shot of the series could be the gaang all together, maybe zutara holding hands or Katara resting her head on his shoulder or something, but since they already kissed there wouldn't feel like a need to end the whole show on romance, something which I've always felt missed the point of the series.
And then, y'know, after that, the world's your oyster! This is how I'd do it if I were trying to keep the bulk of the final season intact. Of course, breaking it all down to its component pieces and rebuilding from the ground up is also an option, but that'd probably be a longer post lol.
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xdirtyxlittlexgirl · 1 year
Text
Hurting & Healing
Pairing: Henry Cavill X Reader
Summary: You get into a terrible accident while Henry's away on shoot
Warning: Super angsty, fluff, mentions of death
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Henry finally got a five minute break from his shoot and decided to finally give you a call. He had missed you terribly for the past two months as he was away shooting, and you both got very little time together between shoots. He had requested the director to take some time off so he can finally be with you again and his wish was granted, and he was excited yet relieved to know that he will be seeing you again in a few days. He sat in his chair, sipping his coffee trying to call you but your phone went to voicemail. This was unusual. You had a habit of always picking up his calls in a few seconds. Henry's heart was racing as he tried calling you again and again, but your phone was repeatedly going straight to the voicemail. He couldn't shake off the feeling of unease that was now gnawing on him.
He was about to call you once more when the director called him back to resume the shoot. Reluctantly, he made his way back, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of you. Safe to say he was worried at this point. He decided to ask his managers to try and connect with you while he was working. "Please just keep trying. My mind is thinking things, and I am not feeling good about this. I need to speak with her as soon as possible. You get it? Please." He said sternly to one of his managers, finally making his way back to the set.
But as the shoot went on, his anxiety grew by every ticking second, and he couldn't focus on anything except you. He was on edge and snapping at everyone around him in frustration. He had a temper problem, and it aggravated when he was worried and helpless. He was in the middle of the scene which he was already finding very hard to focus on, when he heard the director say cut. His managers interrupted the shoot and asked him to come to the vanity van. Henry could sense their unease, and his temper flared further. "What's going on? Why the hell are you guys not telling me?" he snapped.
Finally, one of his managers sighed and reluctantly handed him the phone, making him almost snatch it out of the others hand, which displayed a picture of you, bruised and battered laying in a hospital bed. Henry's heart sank. "She got in an accident this morning, and is now being treated in the City hospital. We have called and requested to have the best team of doctors work on her case..." His mind went blank as he kept staring at the pictures and his manager's voice faded in the background replacing it with pure silence.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he struggled to process what he was seeing. After a few good minutes he was pulled from his thoughts as he looked red eyed at his managers. "What the hell happened? Why didn't anyone tell me this before? Fuck!" he yelled punching the wall next to him in pure frustration as he bruised his hands. His managers were shaken and scared seeing him like this. One of them calmly explained that the hospital staff tried to reach them, but didn't have any relevant contacts. It wasn't until one of the nurses recognised her and contacted them. They explained that they had arranged for a charter flight to take him to her immediately.
Henry couldn't believe what was happening. He had never felt this helpless in his life. You were his world, and seeing you like this tore him apart. He felt like he had failed you. He wanted to be around you. He knew how much you were missing him. He was now blaming himself for your situation. "Fuck! I wish I was there with her sooner! I wish I was there with her to protect her. It was my fucking job. It is all my fucking fault. Fuck!" He said through gritted teeth as he again punched his hand this time in the car door creating an evident dent. His managers were doing everything to calm him down, but it was all in vain.
Trembling with fear and anguish, Henry packed his bags and rushed to the airport. The flight felt like an eternity, and his mind was consumed with thoughts of you. He couldn't bear the thought of losing you, and he couldn't help but think the worst, which pained him even more. He sat in the plane, his mind in a haze. The world around him seemed distorted, like a funhouse mirror that distorted and twisted everything into a grotesque caricature. He couldn't believe that you were just fine last night, all smiling and beautiful, and now you laid in a hospital bed, bruised and broken, while he had been away. You meant everything to him, and the thought of losing you was making him lose his sanity. He didn't know he loved you this much, that every second felt like eternity knowing he could lose you.
He closed his eyes and tried to take deep breaths, but his chest felt tight, and the air seemed to escape him. He could feel his temper rising, his frustration mounting with every passing moment. He pounded his fists on the armrest, feeling a surge of anger that he couldn't control. "Why did this have to happen?" he muttered to himself. "Why her? Why now?" The plane hit turbulence, and Henry jolted in his seat, the sudden movement breaking through his thoughts. He looked around, his eyes falling on the bottle and glass that lay on the table in front of him. Without thinking, he reached out and knocked them off the table, the sound of shattering glass filling the cabin. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but it was no use. The anger was still there, simmering just below the surface, threatening to boil over at any moment.
The flight attendant approached him, concerned etched on her face. "Sir, is everything okay?" she asked softly. He shook his head, unable to speak, and the flight attendant nodded sympathetically before walking away. He was afraid. Terribly scared to lose you. The words by his managers from before, finally echoed in his head. They mentioned you were in a critical condition, although they followed it up with a lot of hope, he couldn't shake away the sight of you, which made his fear grow stronger.
"God, please let her be okay," he whispered, tears streaming down his face. "I can't bear to see her like this." Finally his anger started to leave his body, replacing it with intense pain, guilt, fear, and hurt. He was alone with his thoughts, trapped in a prison of his own making. He couldn't escape the pain, no matter how hard he tried. He felt like he was drowning, suffocating under the weight of his own emotions, and the only way out of it, was to finally see you.
"I love you, princess" he whispered, the words barely audible over the roar of the plane's engines. "Please be okay." He said looking at the wallpaper of the two of you on his mobile, his throat tightening and choking with pain.
As the plane landed, Henry's heart was beating out of his chest. He could feel his anxiety and stress levels skyrocketing. His managers were already arranging for a safe passage through the airport, but as they stepped outside, a mob of fans surrounded him, all clamoring for his attention.
"Mr. Cavill, can we have a picture with you?"
"Please sign me an autograph, Henry!"
Henry tried to sign a few of them off politely, begging them to let him leave, but as he pushed through the crowd, he heard a fan talking about you. "I'm not (y/n), but I deserve some attention too!" His frustration boiled over, and he turned around, scolding her almost tearing up talking about you. "She's in the hospital fighting for her life, and all you care about is a damn autograph? Get some perspective woman!" Finally, he broke free from the crowd and drove towards the hospital. His heart sank as he saw the sign "Intensive Care Unit" in bold letters. He asked the receptionist for your whereabouts, and the receptionist recognized him immediately.
"Oh my god, you're Henry Cavill! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you at first. Follow me, Mr Cavill, I'll take you to her doctor." As they entered the doctor's cabin, Henry could feel his frustration, pain, and rage building up inside of him. The doctor gave him a somber look and spoke in a serious tone. "Mr. Cavill, I'm sorry to say that (y/n) has suffered severe head trauma, and the chances of her recovery are low. She is at a high risk of amnesia or worse, of slipping into coma. We are doing everything we can to keep her stable, but we need to prepare you for the worst." Henry felt like his world was crumbling around him. The doctor's words were like a punch in the gut, and he felt his eyes welling up with tears. He couldn't bear the thought of losing you, losing the whole of his heart.
"Please, doctor, do everything in your power to save her. I can't lose her. I just can't." He spoke between tears trying to get the words out of his throat, although they came barely over a whisper. The doctor gave him a sympathetic look, knowing that there was only so much they could do. He was shattered into a million pieces, and he felt like he was drowning in his own pain and despair. All he could do was hold onto hope and pray for a miracle.
He sat in the waiting area, his eyes glued to the door of the ICU room. His mind is racing, and he can feel his heart pounding in his chest. He has been waiting there for hours, hoping and praying that the doctors will give him some good news. Finally, the door opens, and the doctor steps out. Henry stands up, his fear plastered on his face as he approaches the doctor. "How is she?" he asks, his voice trembling with emotion.
The doctor takes a deep breath and looks Henry in the eye. "She's stable," he says. "But she still hasn't regained consciousness. We're doing everything we can, but the next few hours are critical." He nods, he felt his heart sinking. He felt like he's been hit by a truck. He can't believe that this was happening. He's never felt so powerless in his life. All he can do is sit and wait and hope. He was finally here, but he still couldn't do anything to fix you, to save you, to protect you...
He had begged the doctor to let him see her but he refused. The doctor explained how they're still treating your wounds and he will be able to see you later today. He nodded and patiently, yet impatiently waited outside the ICU. Hours pass, and finally, the doctor comes back to him. "Although she's still unconscious, we have shifted her to a room, and you can go see her now." he says. His heart leaps into his throat as he follows the doctor into the room. He sees you lying there, pale and still, hooked up to all sorts of machines. His heart breaks at the sight.
He takes her hand in his, feeling the coldness of your skin. Tears well up in his eyes once again, as he leans down to whisper in your ear. "Baby girl, I'm here," he says, his voice cracking. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there. Please, come back to me. I need you." He said, finally breaking into a sob that he had been holding for hours.
He sits by your side, holding your hand and talking to you, telling you all the things he's been holding back for so long. He tells you how much he loves you, how he can't imagine his life without you, how he'll do anything to make you better. He tells you all the things he's sorry for, all the things he wishes he could have done differently. His trying his best to make you feel his presence and bring you to life again. He needed you to speak back to him. As he talks, tears roll down his cheeks, and he can feel the pain and sorrow inside him grow. He's never felt so vulnerable in his life, and he knows that if you won't make it, he'll never be the same again. He tries to shake these negative thoughts and for now, all he can do is hope and pray and be by your side, holding your hand.
Hours passed as he didn't realise and fell asleep, curled up in a chair beside your bed, holding your hand tightly. He was exhausted, emotionally drained, and his body ached from sitting in the same position for so long, but he didn't care. All he wanted was to be there for you, to be the first thing you see when you wake up. As the night passed, he was into a deep slumber, but he was quickly awoken by a faint voice calling his name. He jerked upright, his heart pounding in his chest, as looked at you in shock. Yoy were awake.
"Baby?" he said, his voice choked with emotion. "Oh my God, you're awake. Are you okay? How do you feel?" He asked everything without a breath. He then immediately rang the bell to call the nurses and the doctor. "How is she now?" He asked impatiently to the doctor. "She's surprisingly much better Mr Cavill, looks like you were what she needed to heal." The doctor said finally leaving the two of you alone.
"How are you feeling princess? You scared me so much. I'm so glad you're okay. Fuck." He said with tears running down his face as he held her hand right continuously kissing your hand. You smiled weakly, your voice barely above a whisper. "I feel...okay. A little sore. But I'm glad to see you. I thought I'd never see you again" His eyes filled with tears as he leaned in and lifted you gently into his arms, holding you close to him. "Oh, baby don't say that. I would never let anything happen to you." he said, his voice cracking. "I'm so sorry. I should have been here. I should have been there to protect you. I can't believe this happened." You stroked his cheek and smiled reassuringly. "It's not your fault, Henry. It was an accident. I'm just glad you're here now." He just held you like his life depended on it. You could feel how scared he was and how he was holding onto you like a little baby. You ran your hand gently through his hair and you can already feel yourself healing. He was your medicine. He was your relief. You couldn't imagine you were holding him after almost two months and now you didn't want to let go.
Henry took a deep breath and kissed your lips, feeling overwhelmed with relief and love. "I was so scared," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't know what to do. I thought I was going to lose you." Your eyes filled with tears as you looked up at him. "You're not going to lose me," she said, your voice soft but firm. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. I love you, Henry and you're stuck with me." You said giggling a little through your tears. His heart swelled with love and emotion as he looked down at you. "I love you so much more my princess. God I love you so much more..." he said, his voice thick with emotion. For a few moments, you just held each other, lost in your love and relief. You can feel how his heart has now picked a softer pace. He needed you as much as you needed him.
Later, he pulled back a little, looking at you with concern. "What happened?" he asked. "How did this happen?" You knew you were gonna get in trouble if you answered this. You just smiled weakly but he asked again as you sighed. "I remember losing control of the car...and then hitting the tree. After that, everything is a blur. But I'm okay now and so much better with you here." You said trying to glaze everything with hope and happiness, in hopes that he won't get mad at you. He hated your age old secondhand car and had strictly asked you to take the new ones he has parked up for you. He even offered to drive his Aston Martin around. But you loved this car, it was the first thing you bought with your own money. Although he was right, this car had served you enough, and now just something you should be keeping for sentimental value.
He looked at you with narrowed eyes. "How many times have I asked you to stay away from this junk? What if I had lost you today? Hun?" He snapped. He was now angry but you expected this. He was worried for you and he was right, this car almost took your life today. "I'm sorry Henry. I won't do it again" You say politely pulling him in a hug as he immediately melts down and nuzzles his head in your hair. "I know baby, I'm sorry to get mad at you, but I almost thought I lost you today. I was so scared, and I have told you so many times to dump that car. I just.. I wanted to save your from exactly this." He said softly now gently rubbing your back and kissing your head and shoulders. "I'm so sorry baby, I promise I won't do it again. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. I love you." You say stroking his cheek and leaning in to kiss him.
You were kissing him after two months and it felt like tasting heaven. He was your medicine. His words, his touch, his kisses, everything healed you. He healed you and you wanted nothing more. Henry smiled through the kiss and hugged you tightly, feeling like the luckiest man in the world. "I love you too, my princess," he said. "I love you more than anything. And I'm never going to let anything happen to you again."
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A/N: Please send in your fic requests! Asks Open!
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