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melanieph321 · 4 months

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Ruben Dias x Reader - A House Is Not A Home Part 7/8

This chapter makes me 😤 but it had to be written.

Ruben's wife dies during childbirth along with their son. Ruben hasn't been in a relationship since. Y/N is a single mother to a four year old boy. She buys a house in the small town that Ruben lives in. The house needs alot of fixing which Ruben helps with, resulting in him slowly falling in love with Y/N. However, falling in love with Y/N makes Ruben feel like he is betraying his dead wife.

Enjoy!

A memorial for Gina was held at your house on the 25th. Katarina helped you with the food and David made sure to solve any logistics so that Ruben wouldn't have to. Alot of people in town had known Gina and most of them came to honor her memory. You had never imagined your house being this full of people. Especially people you didn't know.

"Hi."

"Hey."

You found Ruben alone on the porch, a bottle of beer in his hand. It was his third one for the day. You felt guilty for keeping count.

"Food's ready if you want to head inside?" You said.

Ruben took a slow chug of his beer. "Nah, I'm good thanks."

"I could make you a plate, bring it out here if you like?"

Ruben tilted his head to look at you, a crooked smile on his lips. "It's okay Y/N, I'm not hungry."

You nodded, but did not leave the porch. "Mind if I join you?" You didn't think he would mind anyway and prepared to sit down. As you bent your knees Ruben's arm brought you down to sit between his legs on the step below where he was sitting. He tucked you in by wrapping his arms around your body, letting you relax with your back against his chest. There was a minute of silence as the sound of nature around you took over. Birds sang in the trees above your heads and a cricket lurked somewhere in the tall grass. You found it difficult to see beyond the property. There was fog in the distance. Not even the barn could be spotted amongst the evaporating clouds.

"Do you miss her?" You asked. Perhaps the question wasn't justified in a time like this, but you wanted Ruben to feel comfortable talking about Gina with you, somthing you knew he wasn't.

"Every day." He sighed, his chin resting on the top of your head.

"What do you miss the most about her?"

Ruben had to ponder for a moment, perhaps let the memories of his wife resurface in his mind. "Her smile." He smiled. "And her kindness. Gina always wanted the best for everyone and would go out of the way for people, expecting nothing back. It's where we differ."

You tilted your head up, letting Ruben see the frown on your face. He raised a brow as to ask 'did I say somthing wrong?'

"You helping me with the house, was that not you showing your kindness?"

He nodded. "Yes, but I had my reasons."

"What reasons?" You sat up, wanting to face him.

"Like I said Y/N, that house had been haunting me for years. I was glad to sell it to you, but I wasn't gonna let you stay in a house with no roof. Helping you clear the house after the storm was not me being kind, it was strictly business."

You wanted to argue further, ask if Ruben kissing you had been strictly business as well? However, your questions silenced within you since Ruben was probably hurting. You settled down between his legs again and let his rough hands outline the contours of your face. Behind you the front door came ajar. Both you and Ruben turned around to see David, with Johnny bouncing in his arms.

"Has any of you seen Emily? Kat says she's missing."

Ruben got up almost immediately, forcing you to do the same. "I'll check upstairs." He said.

"Alright. Johnny and myself will check the basement, but I doubt it she's down there." This left you on the porch, feeling ill willed that you had no interest in looking for Gina's sister Emily. Nevertheless you grabbed a coat from inside and stepped out again. You might as well cover some ground as to say that you participated in the search. You came as far as to the fields where the fog was as thickest. But as you stood near the fence you could see the outline of the barn, it's door swaying with the wind.

"Emily?"

Light rain had begun to fall when you reached the barn. You hurried to take cover under its high roof.

"You threw all of it away?"

You turned as a shadow swept behind you. It was Emily, wearing nothing but a black dress and a pair of gummiboots.

"My god Emily, what are you doing in here? Aren't you cold?"

Emily gave you one of her fretful glares. You had gotten quite used to them since she stepped into your house. She made it seem like everything you did was wrong or insulting, weather that would be clearing a plate from a table or hand Johnny his juice. For some reason Emily seemed to constantly judge you. Obviously disliking you.

"You threw all of it away, all of her things." Emily hissed, ignoring your question.

"What things?" Emily was older than you, but only by a couple of years. Along with Gina she had studied law in Manchester, now serving as a divorce attorney at a law firm in the city. Compared to her you felt so unacomplished with your nursing degree.

"My sister things, all of her belongs. They used to be here in this barn." She said, clearly upset not to have found them there.

"They were given to charity." You said. "It was Ruben's idea actually."

"He would never." She chuckled. "What else have you brainwashed him to do, huh?"

"Pardon?" You frowned.

"You've forced Ruben to give away all the last memories of my sister, what else have you done? Tricked him to thinking that your son could ever replace the child he lost?"

You caught yourself wanting to say something that you would regret, but quickly redeemed yourself. Just like Ruben this must be a very difficult day for Emily as well. "I know you're hurting Emily." You said, your voice low and reasonable. "But making others around you hurt too, won't make the pain go away."

"Who are you to...." Emily flinched, but you interrupted her. "Ruben hasn't done anything to deserve this." You said. "But there is nothing wrong with moving on. Surley it's what Gina would have wanted."

"What do you know?" Emily's face trembled with rage as tears slid down her cheeks. "What Gina would have wanted, Ruben and I are going to make that happen, sooner than you think."

Your eyebrows furrowed, unsure what she was indicating.

"He hasn't told you I see." Emily looked amused. "I suppose he wanted to spare the time you had left together."

"What are you talking about Emily?" You couldn't stand her fretful glare. The way Ruben described Gina, she would have been nothing like her sister.

"Gina always wanted a house in the country."

"Yes, so I have heard." Katarina and David told you this some time ago.

"But she also wanted a house in the sun. Ruben suggested his home country, Portugal. The sun there definitely shines more than it does here. All he needed to do was get rid of the house. Luckily he found you."

You were beginning to understand.

"Upon my arrival I was given the green light from the land owners in Madeira, and what would be greater than me delivering the news to Ruben personally. Turns out he and you had gotten a little too familiar during the treaty of the property. A distraction, I think he called you."

"You're lying!" You exclaimed, by now you really were pissed. Emily's uneven stans also suggested that she has had a little too much to drink to cope with her emotions. What she was saying to you couldn't possibly be the truth.

"Ask him yourself." She laughed. "Am I not telling your little friend the truth Ruben?"

You turned around as Emily's gaze was focus somewhere over your shoulder. Because of the increasing rain you hadn't heard him come up behind you. Ruben, standing in the rain, looked both guilty and innocent at the same time.

"Y/N...let me explain."

He had overheard your conversation and these were his first choice of words.

"It's true?" You frowned.

"Yes ." Emily spoke behind you, but your eyes were only on Ruben.

"Yes and no." He said. "I was planing on selling the house and use the money to build a new one in Portugal, but...."

"But?" You chuckled as it was absurd. How come he hadn't told you?

"But then I met you." He nodded. "And I couldn't decide."

"So you're still contemplating it, moving to Portugal?" You were quite stunned. Ruben's answer was slilence which was enough for you.

"Y/N, don't."

You stepped outside, the rain showering you in seconds. You turned back to the barn where Ruben stood in the doorway. Emily had shied away in the back, perhaps too difficult for her to remain standing.

"For once in my life I need someone to choose me." You said.

"Y/N, please, come inside. We can talk about this inside. " He stretched out his hand, offering it to you.

You shook your head. "There is nothing for us to talk about, I have a son Ruben and like always, I choose him. But for once...." Your voice trailed off. You thought about Johnny's father and how much this reminded you of the day you told him that you were pregnant. "For once..." You said, wiping your eyes. From rain not tears. "For once I wish someone would choose me. I was stupid to think that that someone would be you."

"Y/N, wait!" Ruben stepped out into the rain, chasing after you. He didn't chase for long, of course. Emily was left in the barn, drunk and unable to return to the house by herself. And so Ruben made a choice. He chose her.

#fanfiction #football imagine #ruben dias #man city #manchester city #ruben dias x reader #ruben dias imagine #footballer imagine #footballer x reader #football angst

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softlyspector · 1 year

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You’re the sweetest 🥹

"wait, don't go, please.." + "is this okay?" "it's more than okay." + one leaning their head onto the other's shoulder suddenly and they just freeze. With Jake Lockley, please?

I feel like he’s the most touch-starved out of the three and has a hard time sharing and accepting that he wants and needs physical touch. I have many thoughts, but I’ll stop there.

Jake Lockley + being touch starved

Jake reminds you of a cat.

He's skittish. He craves attention. He craves your attention.

But actually giving him the touch and care he wants, is a little more complicated.

You can get away with holding his hand, tracing the lines in his hand, but if your touch skims too high, he tenses up. He locks himself up tight, and you aren't sure what makes him freeze, so you leave it. You never mention it, even though you come close a couple of times, and once even consider asking Marc or Steven.

Instead, when his shoulders stiffen and his spine goes taut, you remove your hand, the gentle touch you tried to pass onto him. You never mention it, just accept it for what it is.

Jake breezes through your flat one evening with takeout from your favorite place, promises that you can pick whatever movie you want, even though you know the second you sit down he'll rib you about whatever you pick out.

You let him kiss you when he walks through the door.

It's brief, but welcome all the same.

You eat on your couch, plucking out your bites directly from the carton until you're stuffed and sleepy.

You have one leg thrown over Jake's, but other than that, he's not touching you.

For a long moment, you watch him from the corner of your eye. He's not minding you at all, his attention focused on the chick flick he'd claimed he didn't want to watch.

He's handsome, and somehow in a different way than Marc or Jake are.

Marc is stoic, locked down, even when he's enjoying something. His only giveaway the happy twitch of his hands. Steven wears everything on his face, every once of joy or sorrow he feels.

Jake falls somewhere in the middle, a guarded kind of vulnerability settled around him, that casts over his features like a shadow. Some things he openly displays - anger, joy. Other things he'd rather eat his hat than let you see - need, sorrow, worry.

In a similar way, Steven and Marc have a much easier time with touch. Steven craves it, and is open about wanting it. Marc did too, he's just a bit more reserved in how much he asks for it.

Jake, well, you think he doesn't think he deserves it. The kindness of touch isn't necessary, after all, to be useful.

He's invested in the movie, laughing along to whatever joke had just unfolded. He's pretty and you're very tired.

Maybe he wouldn't notice if you rested your head against his shoulder. You close your eyes and tilt gently into him, bodies brushing together.

His body freezes the second you touch him, shoulders hiking up around his ears.

You wait a beat to see if he'll relax.

When he doesn't you start to straighten again, willing to overlook it and pretend it hadn't happened. "Wait, querida," his hand folds into yours, his grip tight. "Just wait. Don't go."

You nod and gently rest against him again, patiently waiting for him to relax. A minute passes in silence, and Jake is still stiff beneath you. "Are you sure this is okay?"

Slowly, he sinks back into your couch, hand squeezing yours. "It's more than okay, mi amor." He says, leaning into you in turn.

"Okay," you murmur, closing your eyes.

You aren't going to question it. You aren't going to ask why today is different. Maybe today is just the day it finally feels okay.

Jake is the one with a complex about how much he should be in, not only Marc and Steven's lives, but yours too. If something wasn't strictly necessary, to protect or help in some way, he had a hard time justifying it to himself.

So, you don't ask.

You leave him be.

You let yourself enjoy the line of your body pressed into his, the warm cut of his shoulder beneath your cheek.

Sleep tugs on your consciousness again, and Jake goes back to watching the film.

He doesn't flinch when you tug your hand out of his and trace the veins in his forearm.

In fact, you think you hear him hum when he presses a kiss to your temple.

#jake lockley x reader #jake lockley x you #moon knight fanfiction #moon knight x reader

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ghostflowerhotpotch · 10 months

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Something that I found kind of cute but also hilarious, is during Hobie’s presentation.

Gwen has established already that she believes Hobie and Miles would get along great, also she wasn't too keen in Pavitr comment implying something else.

(Is this is because she and Hobie are NOT like that, or doesn't want Miles to get the wrong idea, beats me. Personally I think is both.)

Miles reaction to Hobie is to quickly get jealous, which considering his past reaction when Gwen mentioned isn't surprising.

A lot of people tend to have issues with jealousy plot lines but in this case I think they balanced well; Miles never gets to the point of being annoying about it or doing something detrimental out of jealousy.

However this analysis is about Gwen because if Miles's feelings shine through this scene she doesn't fall behind at all.

When Hobie mentions that she left her sweater, is casual, he isn't trying to start anything. In my mind he just sees his relationship with Gwen strictly platonic and doesn't get why other people would think is anything else.

In my hc, part of this is because he has heard Gwen talk A LOT about Miles and doesn't think anyone would miss her giant crush to misinterpret the situation.

Going back on track Miles, says to her “How many sweaters do you have?” (Partially in reference for Rio already needing to give back Gwen’s sweater earlier probably, but also, jealousy again.)

Again, we had established Miles feelings, this isn't surprising.

And let’s be honest, Gwen doesn’t need to explain anything here. She and Hobie are friends, she has already told that much to Miles (including how she feels her relationship with him is different than Hobie,) and she didn't do anything wrong either. She could just brush it off or something.

Instead, what does she do?

She looks at him, POINT BLANK, and denies it.

This is not even to Hobie (that is the only person who should get at response since he just told her she left her stuff on his place,) or Pavitr who if he is paying attention DEFINITELY would not shut up about their romantic tension again.

No, she tries to justify this to Miles, which she already tried to shut down a chance to being something else.

(I will probably analyze that scene too later, even if it has been talked to death already.)

Because even now, she doesn't want him to get the wrong idea.

Then Hobie mentions the toothbrush (again, he is saying this as a matter-of-fact, not for any particular reason.) To which Miles is obviously surprised.

And when Hobie says "Are those my chucks?" This is the face Gwen makes, while laughing nervously I may add.

Honestly I wonder how Spot would had felt if he knew not only Miles thought he was a villain of the week, but the other Spider tasked to stop him repeatedly ignored him in favour of making puppy eyes to the other spider.

#ghostflower #gwiles #gwen stacy #miles morales #across the spiderverse spoilers #atsv spoilers #across the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse #ghostflower files

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writing-for-life · 6 months

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Give me your head-canons:

How do you solve the Orpheus problem?

[And as always: Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!]

As in: It’s the elephant in the room in so many canon-compliant or -adjacent fanfics I read (we obviously don’t need to talk about coffee shop AUs) and Orpheus either keeps on existing somehow (and no one cares, because Dream and whatever love interest just literally fuck off into the sunset and pretend everything’s okay), or he gets killed by someone else who quite strictly wouldn’t be able to kill him.

Is it a solvable problem?

If he keeps existing as a severed head, it’s honestly a bit shite for him, isn’t it? So these are the fics where we keep on visiting severed heads. I don’t know, I find that… dissatisfying.

If Dream kills him, it’s over. Unless he stays in the Dreaming and lets the storm blow over. Will it though? I mean yeah, he could sit there for all eternity (groan), not take Death’s hand and make sure he doesn’t conveniently leave so the Kindly Ones get in and start ripping the Dreaming to shreds. But that doesn’t really sound like a solution to me either, because the problem won’t go away. Also: Probably no meetings in the waking world with you-know-who ever again. Plot hole, people, it doesn’t work that way.

If someone else kills him: Who? Please don’t say Hob, I know he’s immortal (so was Murphy), but the very idea is that no one can kill the poor kid because he made a deal with Death, which she apparently can’t revoke. Is there an entity who could? Which links in to the question: Why could Dream (somewhat rhetorical question)? Could any similar entity do it if they also had to grant him a boon? But don’t forget: Can’t be one of the Endless, they’re all family. Unless one sacrifices themselves. I mean, I think I’ve seen Death doing that in a fic somewhere, I think the assumption was she’s okay with dying a mortal death, but I also felt that’s not quite right, since it’s just not the same (also: in her mortal form, she wouldn’t have those powers). Does it have to be The Presence/Glory? Why would they care?

Yeah, he could use the Saeculum I guess, but really? If the problem never existed, it would also feel… wrong? Plus, we all know that changing the past always has implications on the future that go far beyond the thing we want to change. Plus plus: I honestly think it would be a bit OOC for him because he’d feel there’s not enough at stake (like a whole universe imploding) to ever justify that. So no, that’s, IMHO, making him into someone he really isn’t (can of course be an option in fanfic I guess).

Same goes for the Dream of a Thousand Cats Spiel. Someone who is so wrapped up in his duty just wouldn’t do that for his own personal gain, and not even for one loved one (he also wouldn’t be allowed to kick it off by telling anyone, and what 1,000 dreamers would dream that? I mean, WE all would, but that’s a bit… meta?😂). I said what I said.

Or is it some sort of magic? Like, he’s still a severed head, but we make him *think* he isn’t, give him back a body (in his own mind, or maybe even for real)? But that’s also… not great and feels like gaslighting him. Really not keen.

So what say you?

Is this just a case of: Unsolvable problem, hence we might as well pretend we solve it in some ridiculous way or pretend it doesn’t exist in the first place?

#the sandman #dream of the endless #morpheus #orpheus #sandman meta #<<<sort of but not really #the sandman spoilers #sandman spoilers #sandman headcanons #how do you solve a problem like orpheus #<<<that’s a sound of music reference #just in case-you never know these days

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sydmarch · 1 year

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for a couple days i've been wanting to post about the coin operated viewers & my thoughts there but kept getting distracted by other writing until earlier today @frogean asked me about my thoughts on the fishing village wrt; why would evrart gentrify a village full of people who can't afford to live elsewhere when he seems to genuinely care about martinaise, is the thing with the signatures just a ploy to see if harry's trustworthy, etc. & since thoughts on the fishing village tie back into my thoughts on the coin operated viewer i'm just gonna make one big post on both topics.

quick note before i start rambling here: the point of this post is NOT to come to a "evrart's actions w the fishing village good" or "evrart's actions with the fishing village bad" conclusion or to justify said actions. i'm strictly interested in digging into evrart's motivations behind it all & what i imagine was going on in his head while making these decisions.

first - to discuss why evrart involves harry in this whole thing. yeah i do think it's pretty likely that it IS primarily a test of his trustworthiness. I get the feeling that if the signatures were really as central to evrart's plans as he makes them out to be he would NOT leave it to harry to take care of it (even if we assume the most cooperative w evrart version of harry) just wouldn't see him him truly trusting a cop with a task like that ESPECIALLY not when kim's involved and evrart is very obviously aware that kim does not trust him. & harry is very well aware of the possibility that evrart is playing him:

as for why evrart chose this errand specifically as a test for harry, i can't say definitively. maybe this task was chosen because in addition to being a good general test of harry's trustworthiness, evrart wanted to get a real idea of what harry's opinions on this plan are? maybe the signatures really aren't actually important in the grand scheme of things like logic suggests? maybe the signatures are only unimportant because evrart has the letter intercepted? he does explicitly state he's friends with the mail man

so it could very well be the case that if you forge the letter he DOES know about it but doesn't let on that he knows (i feel like it's very likely he knows about the forgery especially, if doom spiral signs it out in the open rather than harry passing the forgery check & doing it in private??). also worth considering where you're mailing it to:

like it's going to evrart's account, not some neutral third party. so any of those things could factor into why he sends harry on this errand. I think it's more likely that if he REALLY just needed the signatures that evrart would've had some of his union guys get on it - although there's also the possibility evrart decided having rcm officer ask for the signatures on his behalf could be advantageous to getting the documents signed. another possibility is that evrart picked up on harry's can opening abilities & thought that having not just an rcm officer but HARRY specifically on the task might be advantageous, in addition to being a good test of his loyalty with those failsafes in place for if harry betrayed him on this one. so yeah i do suspect it WAS at least partly/primarily a test but don't feel like i can say FOR SURE if that's all there is to it & would be interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on this topic.

second - to get into the village situation itself & the coin operated viewer. throwing this screenshot up for some context:

I think it's really interesting how kim disapproves of evrart interfering with this "revitalization project" while also disapproving of evrart's actions with the village (again it all comes back to kim just implicitly distrusting evrart but i find the above especially interesting):

not going to rehash my thoughts on evrart's feelings about/intents for martinaise as a whole here even tho it's relevant to bear in mind but one aspect of that topic i DO think is worth mentioning specifically when it comes to discussing evrart's plans for the fishing village is that (if we take him at face value with the following, & for the purposes of this analysis i'm going to go with that interpretation) yes, evrart IS planning to use the construction noise to push the residents out of the village, but he isn't doing so thoughtlessly or without a plan on where they will end up:

& i DO believe this is his genuine intent because it's in line with his characterization when you consider how he keeps rene, gaston, & leo on the payroll. especially rene where he doesn't just keep him on the payroll where so that he can get by without his pride being wounded too much - he had the guard booth built specifically for rene. it wouldn't make sense for someone who DOES look out for members of his community to this extent to not extend similar consideration to the villagers.

i don't think evrart views his actions with the youth center as gentrification (again i will not be discussing if it actually IS or not - all of this is just my speculation on evrart's own interpretation of things) at least not in the same way that i imagine he viewed the revitalization project in '49. from evrart's perspective he grew up in martinaise, knows everything about the district, has the best interest of the people at heart etc, so why WOULD he allow some design studio to come in and start putting up tourist attractions?

i mean, they're putting up coin operated viewers & that horse statue meanwhile people are living in buildings on the verge of collapse? that kind of revitalization in all likelihood WOULD lead to gentrification and displacement. evrart doesn't want the people living in the village displaced - he wants them properly housed, to have prospects, to live in a district that's more than just a post war ruin. now whether he's actually going about achieving that the right way or not & if the villagers would agree with him here is a whole different topic but yeah.

#SORRY THIS IS SO LONG LOL like i said earlier when you asked about this. i have a lot of thoughts on the subject #texticles #de #disco elysium #evrart claire

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bearfrosts · 9 days

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okay i have reached needletail's death and suffice to say i'm disappointed with her nonexistent character arc and complete lack of dimension. so much wasted potential on her for fucking real. i feel so conflicted about her because i do think i could've actually liked her as a character if she was literally any amount better written but the way she exists in canon is just so flat and unappealing that it makes me strongly dislike her.

needletail had two character traits (rebellious + selfish) and a selfish, manipulative, take-without-return relationship with violetpaw—and absolutely no background, development, context, or conflict to justify any of it. her one singular "change" was just realizing Darktail Bad which i refuse to even call character development because it doesn't take any development of character to realize someone is bad once you have more information about them—it's clear that if she'd known how darktail acted prior to joining the kin, she never would've done it in the first place. ergo, no character development occurred to make her change her mind about it.

her sacrifice was meaningless because it was entirely out of character for her. she may have loved violetpaw to some degree, but at no point in their relationship did needletail make a single small sacrifice to her own comfort for violetpaw. she snuck out of camp with violetkit, sure, but needletail was sneaking out of camp anyway so she wasn't taking risks she wasn't already comfortable taking. she was a major reason why violetkit and twigkit were separated, she is the reason violetkit/paw got involved with the kin instead of going to be safe in thunderclan with her sister, etc. violetpaw got literally nothing in return for her love of needletail. so, back to the original point: needletail's sacrifice for violetpaw was a major, unprecedented shift in their dynamic. there was no leadup to it that showed she was starting to give more in the relationship in smaller ways that would've indicated she was becoming less selfish and more interested in a mutual relationship.

in my opinion, a better decision for her arc at that point would've been for her to listen to darktail and attempt to kill violetpaw. she hesitates, though, giving violetpaw a chance to run. needletail attempts to chase her down, but isn't fast enough, and darktail is interrupted by the attack on the kin's camp in riverclan and needletail skirts by under less suspicion since she did attempt to kill violetpaw.

i haven't read far past her death yet, but since she's dead canonically and there's nothing else left in her arc to work with, i'll offer a possibility for the continuation of this: eventually, she is reunited with violetpaw and claims that she never wanted to kill her and was just trying to help her escape and that they both made it out fine, so it's okay, right? and violetpaw, having been groomed by needletail's emotional manipulation since she was a kit, hesitantly forgives her. at that point, there would be time for needletail's character arc to continue, and for further conflict with violetpaw once she becomes a warrior and comes to realize all that needletail did to her. we could see needletail have an actual character arc in which violetshine eventually confronts her about their toxic relationship (and i want to be clear i'm speaking in a strictly platonic sense, in case that wasn't glaringly obvious), and needletail rejects the idea that she manipulated violetshine since she was a kit at first—then slowly realizes all that she did. but there are a ton of different roads her character could have taken if the sacrifice hadn't happened and this is just one potential path out of dozens.

i love these kinds of toxic relationships where one character is (potentially unknowingly) taking advantage of and manipulating a younger character who doesn't know better than to attend to the emotional needs of the older character. there's so much opportunity for conflict, betrayal, feelings of isolation within the relationship, recovering from trauma, realizing what exactly the older character did, eventually coming to be on equal standing when they're both mature adults and the older character having to face the consequences of what they've done. there was a lot of potential in their relationship and having needletail sacrifice herself out of nowhere did nothing but give a false idea of what their relationship looked like up to that point.

it would have also been majorly beneficial to give more background on how she came to be so opposed to living in the clans + following the rules besides just "idk she's just like that" and perhaps more details on why she so strongly desired a familial relationship with violetpaw (when she had two very much alive parents that she's never shown interacting with in the slightest?).

uhhh tl;dr i think i do actually like needletail as a character but the erins can only write a proper character arc like once in a blue moon and this was not one of those instances. justice for the narrative or whatever. these cats deserved better (or worse. in the characters' perspective at least.)

#wc meta #wc #warrior cats #needletail #violetshine #needletail and violetshine #violetshine and needletail #meta analysis #i could write this series better i swear

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huntunderironskies · 3 months

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A Call to Action

Hi all.

I wish I had better news to give. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should share this because I will be functionally doxxing myself when I do. But I've had several days to sleep on it and think about what to do. I've come to the conclusion that this is more important than me. This will be a long post but I urge you to read all of it. I'm afraid I have to be thorough here given the situation.

I think everyone who has been following me for more than a week knows how much I love religious studies as a field. It is my single greatest passion in life.

Unfortunately my school, UNC Greensboro, is trying to eliminate our department under claims of it being "not financially justifiable," among others (including anthropology and all Korean language classes.) These claims are highly spurious. Debunking this in full will take some time but I'll try to cover as much ground as I can in the relatively short space I am given and provide some sources. If anyone needs further elaboration, I'll report to the best of my abilities.

This is all to lead into the fact that I would like to provide some opportunities for people to help us out over here, which I will cover at the end. The shortest possible version is: please signal boost this. I do urge you to read it in full, though.

With the first introduction out of the way...

A Second But Very Brief Introduction to Religious Studies and a Justification of Its Presence in Academia (Given the Natural Bent of this Site is Sometimes Towards Antitheism)

Feel free to skip this if you have any familiarity with religious studies as a discipline, I'm putting it here because I find that it's often confounded with theology and every time I talk about it someone asks me if I'm going to be a priest (no.)

To be clear, religious studies is not theology. It does not purport the existence of any higher spiritual powers or presences. It is strictly the study of religion and spirituality as a force in human culture. This falls under both negative and positive effects, and covers everything from historical impact to individual psychology to macrosociological effects of religion to the simple understanding and study of mythology and folklore.

While internalized cultural norms are of course an issue that must be overcome by any scholar, for a religious studies scholar the Catholic Worker, the Sikh ragi, and the long-dead Sumerian ašipu should all have their beliefs and inner lives treated with the exact same sort of gravity and understanding, no matter how far their own beliefs might be from our own. It is, in my subjective opinion, the most humanizing of all the humanities because we are forced to operate on a deeply personal, vulnerable level.

I wish I didn't have to explain why these sorts of skills are important, especially given the current climate of intolerance that has been growing across the world and the growth of anti-intellectualism. I recognize that I might have to but I don't want to linger on that given everything else I have to cover in this post. Go ahead and ask as I do love talking about my field but I might take some time to answer.

A Brief Summary of Events Beforehand

My school has hired a firm known as rpk Group (lack of capitalization true to actual title) to restructure school funding financially with a focus on eliminating programs deemed to not earn enough for the school. Here is a brief explanation from the source itself. I apologize if the school website's CSS is still broken and it's difficult to read due to the social media icons being about thirty times the size they should be. Apparently they couldn't find the funding to pay a web designer instead of an expensive financing firm.

Those of you who have kept up with news in American academia may recognize this as the same group that forced cuts at West Virginia University. Please keep that in mind as we go forward.

Here are the high points:

Religious studies attained a passing grade under the rubric set out by the school. There have been active attempts to hide the scoring system from anyone but faculty. The spreadsheet in which the data was published has been password protected (source, which also contains several other refutations to the chancellor's talking points.)

For those who wish to keep score, anthropology did as well and our anthropology program is known for being quite good. This is without going into the other benefits the anthropology program provides the school with, which include such things as a community garden.

There were lower scoring programs that were kept. In other words, the decision-making process has been entirely inscrutable.

This is supported by the fact that the administration has been giving out incorrect numbers regarding program attendance to both news outlets and students, with some programs proposed to be cut having their student enrollment off by several factors.

Religious studies had over five times as many students as was originally reported. The Chinese language minor was reported to have zero students when there were thirty-six. To operate with this level of error from alleged professionals beggars belief and undermines any faith I would've had in this process.

The administration has claimed that they used the correct numbers in their rubrics. As they will not publish further data to myself nor the public, I have no evidence this is actually true.

They were going to cut Korean language as a minor. We don't have a Korean language minor. We do have a track of Korean language and I am given to understand as of this semester, culture courses. Which are operated solely by one professor and are consistently full or close to capacity due to popularity. There is no evidence they are losing the school money and I have several testimonials that the Korean culture-related programs have drawn students to UNCG as it is a unique niche the school gives not just over other UNC schools but over other colleges and universities.

Faculty and students were given information about what programs would be cut at precisely the same time, through an email sent schoolwide. Many students and faculty were in class at the time this was sent and had to proceed as if they weren't about to have their programs eliminated.

The administration alleges that current students will be able to finish their degrees. I have little faith this is the case for reasons that will take a while to get into but, to summarize as briefly as possible, completion of a degree here requires certain high-level classes that may be difficult to obtain with faculty cuts.

The chancellor alleges that Jewish Studies and Islamic Studies will not be affected by the elimination of religious studies, despite the fact that they are hosted under the department and Islamic Studies uses the same funding. As such, I believe that the highly technical and academic category used to refer to this sort of thing is "a blatant lie."

The administration has tried to quietly edit out any errors in original reporting. I am pleased to report that, as many of us intensely online people know, the Wayback Machine exists. Here is the original statistically incorrect press release that was given, which they have tried to bury.

While they have held forums, these have largely been ceremonial gestures rather than serious attempts at communication. At the one I went to, all non-administration speakers were given only two minutes to speak while the chancellor and dean were given as much time as possible to respond. Their responses to concerns were often dismissive and rarely addressed the necessary issues. I believe any person present will back me up on this, though I am not currently in possession of a voice recording.

I must operate within the evidence I am given. The best-faith interpretation of their actions is that the metrics they were using to determine what cuts should be made are incorrect and must be re-done before going through with any sort of program cuts, and that the administration's collaboration process with the group they employed is poor to nonexistent given the scattershot information provided. There is very, very clearly a communications breakdown somewhere along the line that raises this entire procedure into question.

I think it goes without saying it's all downhill from there. The level of arbitrariness with regards to cuts, lack of professionalism, and total lack of transparency would lead a reasonable person to believe there are heavy political motivations involved here and not simple brute facts. You are welcome to draw your own conclusions anywhere along this spectrum, of course. I encourage you to be skeptical.

Lastly, if I can't convince you that it's worth stopping this process to save religious studies, think about the anthropology department. Think about the languages that are getting cut. Think about physics or mathematics. A large-scale public university without a physics program is quite frankly unreal and the fact it's primarily humanities being targeted runs parallel with some sinister trends within American education. This process should, at the very least, be halted for time being.

What You (the Reader) Can Do

Firstly, be aware that we have until February 1st before decisions are finalized. I apologize for the short time limit. Myself and other members of the community were taken completely by surprise as well, and once again as I mentioned above it has caused some level of cynicism around the motivations of the administration.

With that out of the way...make noise about this. The school administration is making all efforts to keep this quiet. I can say the good news is that according to other people on the ground, they are beginning to lose control of their narrative that they are making difficult financial decisions to keep the school financially solvent.

Believe it or not, the farther removed you are, the better. If this hits a national scale then the school may be finally forced to acknowledge they are rapidly causing the otherwise prestigious UNC system, typically considered to be one of the best public university systems in the US, to be a national laughingstock and that they will lose money as their reputation declines in a way that they would not have if they'd simply carried out this process in a more reasonable way.

You can sign our petitions here and here. Easy enough, takes about three minutes, self-explanatory.

Finally, reach out to an academic or any passionate learner in a specialized field today. A lot of us feel understandably threatened and demoralized. Again, this is not just about me or even about my school. This is about trends within the American education system. Explaining the hows and whys in full detail is not within the scope of this post, but I think a reasonable person can conclude after looking at the current evidence that there is a dismantling of American schools in favor of a corporatized existence. For those of us who love knowledge and learning, this is incredibly sinister. Knowledge should not have a price tag put on it.

A Final Word

I and several other people have Chancellor Gilliam on record saying that he has dedicated his life to working at the collegiate level and towards students. While he and the administration have tried to ensure that their statements outside of highly controlled environments are not easily accessible, I should be able to provide a clip if needed given that this statement was livestreamed and North Carolina is a one-party-consent state in regards to recordings.

They have consistently characterized this process as having to make hard decisions to keep the university afloat. The chancellor is currently the highest-paid employee within UNCG itself and the fourth highest-paid member of administration within the UNC system as a whole (source.) Please be aware this does not include other benefits, which in 2022 put his salary above $500,000 (source.) As others have, I must ask why these "difficult decisions" within the school have not included a salary cut for himself if he is so dedicated to improving the lives of students.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you've gotten this far, you've already listened more than anyone outside of the academic departments have and that means a lot to me in and of itself.

#religious studies #mythology #college #studyblr #college life #university #north carolina #theology #religion #unc #tagging in as much stuff as i can think of lol #anything is worth a shot at this point #academia

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dingodad · 3 months

Text

trolls sleep in sopor slime to help with nightmares, but the text is not really explicit about the meaning or origin of these nightmares so i guess it makes sense that there is some confusion about their nature. but the way i see it there are two main ways of looking at it.

a) the "terrible visions of blood and carnage that plague the dark subconscious of [trolls]" do not occur through some supernatural means. they are just the natural result of trolls being forced to take part in a baby arena as soon as they are born and then being subjected to unrelenting retraumatisation throughout their whole lives. this has always been the answer i have found the most compelling, and though i think it is perhaps the answer that is the least beholden to homestuck's themes, i don't necessarily think it is mutually exclusive with any of the other answers, particularly on a symbolic level.

b) the "terrible visions of blood and carnage" are "because of" something. generally this answer is related to the idea that was popular some years ago (but whose origin i do not really understand) that "trolls being violent is a myth" or "doc scratch (supernaturally) made the trolls violent", and itself has two main arguments.

first and by far the most popular is the horrorterror explanation. this has some merit as a widely held belief because it is fundamentally based on stuff that is in the text. we know - or can at the very least surmise - that horrorterrors are the source of nightmares, and that although they are not strictly malevolent their messages tend to be frightening thanks to their 1) forms which are hard for a mortal mind to comprehend (i would not strictly call this a 'vision of blood and carnage') and 2) ongoing slaughter at the hands of lord english (which i would consider to be such). we also know doc scratch provided alternia with its own personal emissary to the horrorterrors as part of his own design, and gl'bgolyb was known to provide feferi with cautions about trollkind's oncoming extinction, in a way which would seem to mirror the noble circle's own warnings. gl'bgolyb needs to fed to keep her voice at a whisper, because anything louder than a whisper results in widespread psychic death; it makes sense, to an extent, that a much more subdued version of this glub might result in horrifying nightmares.

but i am not convinced this is the main reason trolls suffer nightmares in their sleep, for two key reasons. first is karkat's reaction to the nightmares he experiences after his dream self dies, causing him to bump up against the horrorterrors for the first time:

KARKAT: THE BOTTOM LINE IS, EVERYONE HERE IS FORBIDDEN FROM GOING TO SLEEP. [...] KARKAT: YES, AS YOUR LEADER, I AM ORDERING ALL PROSPIT DREAMERS TO STAY AWAKE, NO MATTER HOW TIRED YOU GET.

what is markedly lacking, here, is any sense of recognition or callback from karkat. though there is a logic to assuming this new onset of nightmares is related to the nightmares experienced by trolls back on their home planet, karkat never draws the connection, instead speaking as if these nightmares are actually news to the trolls and not something they are already familiar with. and there is a key reason for this: at least half of the trolls, including karkat, have some kind of natural buffer between themselves and the horrorterrors, that being that they dream on prospit, with proximity to skaia, rather than derse in proximity to the void. and feferi's negotiation of more stable dream bubbles becomes yet another buffer between dreamers and nightmares, even for the dead; so having nightmares caused by the horrorterrors is something that happens under very particular circumstances, and these circumstances do not seem widespread enough to justify a whole race sleeping in slime to stem them.

the second reason i veer away from the horrorterror explanation is related to the second supernatural source these dark visions may stem from, which is the one hussie himself seems to endorse thanks to its appearance in the text:

For the subjugglators in their small numbers to keep such a large population under their control, it would be very useful to have the ability to psychically amplify fears through dreams. They may have directed their chucklevoodoos on every susceptible mind in the population. Each lowblood may have a little highblood voodoo doll lurking in their subconscious, making them too terrified to organize any sort of rebellion.

this commentary is from 2011, so it's close enough to the time the text was written that I can be pretty confident it was authorial intent; and it's also something we know for sure can cause nightmares even among prospit's dreamers. a fear of jesters psychically debilitated john for years, even where he was safe from the horrorterrors. it makes perfect sense that a bath of soothing slime might assuage the urge to crawl out of bed and deface your room with the visage of your deepest fears.

but i think this option does raise a really interesting question that perhaps opens up a third way of looking at why the recuperacoon exists... presumably it's the same alternian authority that both forces trolls to sleep with clown-related nightmares, and then makes them sleep in the same drugged cocoons that dim these nightmares. the alternian machine is seemingly both causing and solving its own problem to net zero effect. why?

we need to dispense, for a second, with the idea that trolls sleep in cocoons because slime helps them with their nightmares, and look at the more obvious justification. trolls sleep in cocoons because a cocoon is the troll version of a bed. beds are where humans go to sleep/die (in the case of a Quest Bed - but in homestuck, dying and going to sleep are symbolically the same act), receive spiritual knowledge in the realm of sleep/death, and then wake up enlightened. and for an insect, the cocoon performs the exact same function of death and rebirth.

so my theory is that the slime's purpose isn't really to help trolls feel better about their nightmares at all. i think its very purpose is to cut off the connection between the sleeping troll and the dreaming world entirely, suppressing their spiritual enlightenment. it's a buffer between trolls and the horrorterrors just like prospit is - not because the horrorterrors are somehow psychically detrimental, but precisely because they are the enemies of lord english. in the same way a lick of the trickster lollipop obscures the meat of reality with a veneer of reality, the soporific - i.e. drugged - slime obscures the frightening truth which horrorterrors represent. no doubt the chucklevoodoo puppets in every trolls' dreams are real, but they're just pretense; scare trolls away from their own dreams enough to make them reliant on the slime that will ensure they never dream any deeper.

this relates to the "computer beds" idea i reference regularly on my theory blog, but without going into too much detail: i think recuperacoons have slime in them because they're supposed to visually evoke the computers trolls use, which are also cocoon-like and filled with slime; which, in turn, is supposed to evoke jade harley's computer bed, which created a buffer between her waking self and her dreaming self in the form of the dreambot.

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writing-for-marvel · 2 years

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He is here for you 🥰

And my legs are open for him

Yearning For You

Ari Levinson x Fem!Reader

Summary: Ari makes a surprise return home.

Warnings: strictly 18+ only, NSFW, smut with the tiniest bit of plot, unprotected sex, creampie, established relationship

Word count: 1.3k (this was meant to be a drabble but I got carried away as usual)

A/N: this is only my second time writing smut and my first time writing for Ari so please be gentle with feedback

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It had never been a secret that with Ari’s job you’d spend many nights in a cold bed by yourself.

He apologised profusely every time for leaving you, but at the end of the day his assignment was overseas and he had been upfront about that since you met him. But that knowledge didn’t stop the searing pain in your chest as your heart cleaved in two every time you were fated to watch him leave.

He loved you, but people needed his help.

The pure torture of it all was that you knew you would feel this way every time he left, that the pain would yet again carve a hollow crater in your chest upon his departure; that he would take a piece of you with him wherever he went, and you wouldn’t be quite whole again until he returned.

But you knew the pure euphoria you felt when he arrived home again justified the months of yearning and emptiness in his absence.

The wait was agonising, but his homecoming was pure bliss.

A knock at the front door makes you groan, positive that it’s one of your nosy neighbours wanting something when all you want is to be left alone. Choosing to ignore them, you continue watching the episode of your favourite show until an incessant knocking comes from the door.

Swearing under your breath, you pause the show, ready to give the person bothering you a piece of your mind. However, when you fling the door open it’s not a pestering neighbour you find.

“Ari?” Your tone is pure shock, your beefy boyfriend, who fills out almost the entire doorframe, was not meant to be home for another month, yet he stands before you with that gorgeous smile of his curved on his lips.

“Surprise!” He essentially throws his bags into the apartment, not caring where they land, as he cups your face and doesn’t hesitate to place a luscious kiss to your lips.

“You missed me, baby?” He asks when he pulls back after a moment, however, he doesn’t give you enough time to answer as his lips are back on yours again, his hands pulling your body impossibly close to him.

“So… much… Ari.” You say between fervent kisses, relishing the familiar scratch of his beard against your soft skin.

“Jerking off to your pictures just doesn’t compare. I need the real thing.” He mumbles against your lips, his cold hands snaking under your shirt to caress the soft curves of your waist, sending a shiver down your spine.

“I’m all yours, Ari.” You watch the smirk grow on Ari’s lips as his hips grind against yours, the excitement he feels at finally arriving home to you obvious through the thin material of his trousers.

“All mine.” His voice deepens once he pulls away to tug your shirt over your head. With normally being so far away from each other, you can forget how possessive Ari gets over you when he returns home.

Ari starts walking you backwards towards your bedroom as you hungrily rip clothes off one another, hands roaming every bare inch, so desperate to feel as much of the other that you had been deprived of for so long. He uses his foot to close the door behind him, whispering sweet words of praise and affection as he gently lays you down on your bed.

Sucking on your neck, Ari’s hand easily finds the sensitive nub between your legs, teasing you over your soaking panties before moving them to the side to glide the pads of his fingers through your wet folds and circling your clit.

“So wet for me babygirl.” He mumbls against your skin. The sensation of Ari touching you exactly the way he knows drives you crazy after such a long time completely overwhelms all your senses, and you’re almost embarrassed at how close you are to coming undone already.

“Stop teasing, I need you inside me.” You plead through breathy gasps, your hand slipping below the elastic of his boxers, using your thumb to spread his precum over the tip of his rock hard cock.

You can tell Ari needs this as much as you do by how he responds to your touch, how painfully stiff his erection is and how frenzied he is to feel every inch of you. Warmth blossoms in your chest at the thought that it’s you that has that effect on him. You’re the one making him that hard.

After stripping himself of his underwear, Ari gives you a heated, yet quick kiss as he traps you beneath him. Lining himself up with your entrance, his long hair falls into his eyes but he never breaks his gaze from you.

He quickly presses the whole way into you, knocking the breath from your lungs as your soft, wet walls stretch to accommodate his large cock. His arms frame your head and your fingers dig into his shoulders as he begins to rock into you, a deep, erotic moan reverberating from his chest.

“Fuck, you’re so tight baby.” He grunts as his hips relentlessly snap into yours, his dick hitting deeper each time. “Missed my pussy so much. Gripping me like she missed me too.”

The downright filthy squelch of Ari pounding into your wetness fills the room as he absorbs your moans in a kiss. The lust and intimacy of the scene, added to the waves of pleasure you can only feel with Ari inside you is simply mind-blowing.

You know the first time when he returns never lasts very long, you’re both so desperate and needy from months apart that your release hurtles towards you at lightning pace, but neither of you care, all you’re focussed on is reuniting with each other.

You incoherently moan a combination of curses and Ari’s name with each unabated stroke, too caught up in the cloud of bliss you’re floating on to notice how much affection is currently in Ari’s gaze, watching his girl fall apart for him.

“Look at my beautiful girl, stuffed so full of me you can’t even speak.” A whine slips from your mouth in response, only proving Ari right. He moves his hand to where your bodies join, using the pad of his thumb to rub swift, tight circles over your clit, pushing you right to the edge of ecstasy. “You gonna be a good girl cum on this big cock, hmm?” He asks knowing full well you can only respond with whimpers.

Your head rolls back and your legs start shaking uncontrollably as pure pleasure overtakes your body, your hands grabbing onto whatever’s closest, which just so happens to be fists full of his hair. The salacious moans falling from your lips only spurs Ari on as he continues his attack on your clit, whispering praises into your ear as your clenching walls bring him closer to his own orgasm.

“Fuck baby, I’m gonna cum.” Ari grunts as his frantic thrusts stagger, but never stop. Pride bursts in your chest at the look of ecstasy overtaking his features, that you are the person who has him coming undone like this.

“Fill me up, Ari.” You manage to whimper before Ari stills, all the muscles in his body tensing as he spills deep inside you with a hoarse groan.

“I love you,” Ari grins, placing a tender kiss to your lips, rolling you over so that you rest snuggly on his chest as he remains inside you. “And I missed you so fucking much, the thought of coming home to you kept me going. Always does.”

You brush his long hair out of his eyes with your forefinger, now appreciating the fondness flooding his stare even though you’re still catching your breath.

“I love you too, Ari.” You reciprocate as you scratch his beard devotedly, an action which never fails to elicit a smile from him. “Your returns are always my favourite.”

I will be scrapping my taglists soon. To be notified of all fic updates, please follow and turn on notifications for my library blog

Everything taglist: @imagining-harrypotter @tripletstephaniescp @asgardwinter @demonpoxballad @nagygreta @libbymouse @mayasreadingnook @thecraziestcrayon @hallecarey1 @sea040561 @smallmercies33 @buckysbirdie @moongoddessmox @coolbeans32 @foreverindreamlandd @pitifulbaby @seitmai @emi11ie @princessphilly @daydreaming-lightly @440mxs-wife @brasspistol

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maccreadysbaby · 1 year

Note

companions react to sole hugging them. Who would like it and who wouldn’t?

Okay!

Companions React to Hugs

Cait: She isn’t really one for hugs unless she and Sole are super duper close. Most of the time it’s a simple side hug, arm slung around the shoulder kind of thing. Usually won’t get a full hug out of her unless Sole is very emotional (during which she’ll be brutally uncomfy) or they’re romanced and alone. Let’s face it — Cait grew up fighting, literally, and being restrained by another person (even with good intentions) still isn’t a very comfortable position for her to be in. If Sole can weasel a real hug out of her, it is tense and stiff.

Curie: Hugs, hugs, all the time! Curie loves hugs! She was never able to give them before Sole, and now she’s dutifully making up for the 200 lost years of hugs. Will hug if someone’s excited, sad, sick, leaving, coming home, or if they just seem like they need one. (Don’t we all?) Her hugs are very tight and she is an avid rock-back-and-forth-er. Unless they’re sad. Then she’s more of a rub-their-back-er.

Codsworth: He can’t really hug, but he’ll take what he can get! He likes the idea of hugs and, even if it isn’t the most practical thing, wouldn’t mind getting more. The spherical shape of his body makes it easy for Sole to wrap their arms around, even if it is a little awkward. But you wont hear him complaining!

Danse: He leans more toward other displays of affection for the soldiers under his command, like pats on the shoulders. He would either have to be, a) pretty close to Sole, or b) in the presence of someone justifiably upset to get him to break out a real hug. It is a display of vulnerability, and vulnerability is often a sign of weakness. And he doesn’t want that. If he’s romanced, he’ll do it more behind closed doors. His hugs are warm, like hugging a radiator, and totally massive bear hugs.

Deacon: Deacon is sort of a hit or miss kind of hugger. He isn’t super comfortable with real affection yet, not after Barbara. He will jokingly give hugs that don’t warrant actual emotion — the sweep Sole off the ground, spin four times and drop them on their head kind of hug. Real hugs are harder to come by, usually only if Sole and him are very close. He won’t initiate them on his own (unless Sole really needs one) so Sole will have to do it. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like them. Deacon’s hugs are either quick and fun or gentle and long. No inbetween.

Gage: Sole just won’t get a hug from him unless they’re romanced, sorry. He’s too old and too hardened for all that fluffy crap. He won’t even hug if Sole’s sobbing. Maybe a hand on the back, but no hugs. They are strictly reserved for when he fully and completely entrusts his life into a person. And even then, he isn’t very good at them. He grew up in a tight knit family but it’s all been stripped out of him — he’ll have to re-learn how to be a good hugger. They’re always short, stiff, and followed by a sarcastic remark about how hugging is stupid, probably. (Even though he secretly loves it.)

Hancock: He loves hugs, too! He’ll give them to Sole whenever, romanced or not. Sometimes a side hug, sometimes a full hug, sometimes a tackle hug, sometimes clinging to them like a koala. Could be a split second or ten minutes if he needs to ground himself. He doesn’t care. They’re always, not necessarily warm, but… way too inviting to pass up. Hancock loves having somebody he can share hugs with that isn’t actually going anywhere anytime soon, like most people and short lived friends that only wanted him for parties and party shenanigans. Sole will get at least two hugs a day from him, at least.

MacCready: He likes hugs he’s just awkward about it sometimes. Will hug platonically or romantically. He’s twenty-two, with the stress of his son’s life looming over his head, so he needs one every now and then, and he’s sure Sole does, too. He usually uses other acts of affection when he’s happy, nudges or fun shoved, hugs are usually just when him or Sole are upset or drained. If he’s romanced, he’ll do them more often. His hugs are warm and snuggly. C’mon, he’s a dad, so he knows just the way to make someone feel safe within a single embrace. He’s a huge head on the shoulder person, and his hugs are typically long and very comforting. Can and will coax Sole to sleep at least once just by hugging them.

Nick: He’s never really been a huge fan of hugs just because of his synthetic body. He’s afraid of them being uncomfortable, but they are quite the contrary. Nick’s hugs are cool, as opposed to the warm machine everyone thinks he is, and the soft whirring and buzzing of his internal systems are very calming. He usually tries to overcompensate during hugs by using his (not exposed) hand to stroke their hair or rub their back, anything he really can to make up for his… well, lack of warm and cuddliness. He is used to initiating hugs in his line of work, and even more used to getting shoved away or mocked, so he doesn’t initiate anymore. He might start to again, just with Sole.

Piper: She likes hugs and will initiate and take them romanced or not! She’s an older sister so she’s used to them, and she’s had to whip them out before when people got emotional during interviews. She loves hugging Sole and will do it a lot like the stereotypical best friend she is. She does it pretty much anytime Sole is excited or sad. Her hugs range from tight and rocking back and forth to loose and tired, depending on the circumstances. She, like Hancock, is just happy to have someone she can share them with because, frankly, not many people like her.

Preston: He, canonically, isn’t a hugger, but will suck it up if Sole needs one. He tries (and fails miserably) not to get attached to people after Quincy and he figures hugs into that. But, despite that, his hugs are arguably the best, maybe only bested by MacCready’s. He is a total bear hugger and his hugs are undeniably warm and comforting. He will, once he gets closer to Sole, get more comfortable with giving and receiving them.

X6-88: Does not hug. Resists the urge to throttle Sole across the room if they do. Why are they touching him? He knew the emotional implication but honestly, didn’t care. If Sole was crying, he’d probably just stand stiff as a board and let them, then scold them later. Otherwise he’s going to push them away and scold them right then. Don’t touch him.

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olreid · 11 months

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So I want to preface this with the fact that I’m being completely genuine here, there’s no gotcha, and that I’ve been an artist of some flavor basically my whole life but mostly I’m a writer of fiction. And. You have your against representation tag. And I’m coming around on the idea that Representation Doesn’t matter all that much, Actually, but jaws and birth of a nation and other works like them are still extant and have/had a measurable effect on our culture. So, that said, combined with that Kurt Vonnegut quote about the Vietnam War and the pie, is there any conclusion I can come to other than “art can’t help, it can only harm”? Is art at best irrelevant to societal struggles, and at worst, can only set us back?

help not birth of a nation AND kurt vonnegut!!

hashtag against representation is definitely not arguing that art is inherently either irrelevant or antithetical to social change; it is not even primarily making a claim about art so much as it is posting against a particular mode of critical reception which posits that art is only successful or acceptable insofar as it portrays a world which is either a mirror to ours and/or aspirational in some way. within this framework, art is pretty strictly utilitarian, and that only insofar as it manages to either reveal something already extant about our world or, more saliently, to set a moral example for how we ought to behave. i really disagree with the idea that art needs to accomplish either of those goals in order to adequately justify its existence, and i think that idea ends up retroactively making some claims about the relationship between art and life that i also disagree with.

namely, i would push back on the implicit claim that audiences can't be trusted with work that is dark or complex or portrays people behaving in ways that are unpalatable, that such work if left to proliferate unchecked would somehow exert nefarious influence over viewers or readers to the point of causing people to confuse depiction or exploration or critical inquiry for straightforward endorsement which of course they would be powerless to resist. idk it goes back to earlier posts about the idea that consuming #problematic media corrupts your soul and rubs off its problematicness on you whereas consuming moral media that has #positive representation conversely purifies you and serves as concrete evidence of your fundamentally good character. which in and of itself is just the latest iteration of the ever-recurring moral panic about the power of art to exert undue influence over us and bypass our ability to reason; see my pinned post for an example from an earlier historical period lol.

i think the vonnegut point you reference is helpful here insofar as he reminds us that while politically charged art can and does influence hearts and minds, it is also not a substitute for taking political action in other forms; representation paradigms and politics would have us conflate the two, such that just watching the right kinds of shows comes to stand in for being politically engaged. and while it may be meaningful or moving for people to see fictional worlds that are diverse along a variety of axes, i don't buy the idea that that automatically translates into structural change in the world we live in, where people can't afford rent or access healthcare or etc.

the point, at least as i see it, is that like. pushing for fictional diversity in and of itself is not going to save us; it blurs the lines between fiction and reality such that people begin to needlessly try and police or purify others' fiction consumption and production habits because they think it tells them something about those same people's political commitments, and imo is also often a drain on collective energy that could be more effectively deployed elsewhere. it's less that Representation Doesn't Matter and more that representation is literally just representation, no more and no less, and certainly not the lever by which we can most effectively bring about social change.

again that's not to say that art has no place in politics or political movements, but i think the relationship is much more complicated than make art where people are good to each other -> people will be good to each other in real life. and even if that WERE the case, it still wouldn’t obligate people to exclusively produce positive or progressive art.

#just one melatonin haver's opinion. 👍#asks #anon #against representation

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chronurgy · 1 month

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⭐️for Would You Give the Devil This Dance? (Would You be a Part of His Plans?) !!!!!

thanks for the ask!! This is definitely a fic that I have a lot of off screen things to talk about since it was an exercise in unreliable narration (or maybe a better way to put it would be an exercise in hewing strictly to a very limited point of view and all that person's assumptions). Anway I'm sort of rambling and including things as I remember them.

I actually had two little lists from the beginning of the fic that laid out three things Wyll got wrong about Vesper and Gortash's relationship and three things he got right. Those lists acted as guides for me as I wrote and helped me focus on what he would see, what he wouldn't see, and how he would interpret all of it.

This fic was partially inspired by the fact that Vesper had super high approval with Wyll even though they're. Yknow. A pretty terrible person. So some of this fic was based around asking why that happened. And the answer is at least partially because they're not your traditional monster. They're much more calm, much more collected, much better at using their intellect to justify things, much more machiavellian and I think Wyll struggles to see them for what they are because of it. The knowledge is clearly creeping in around the edges but he's fighting it. Some of it is a struggle with black and white thinking - if they're good then they're my friend, if they're bad then they're a monster I need to hunt. Some of it is because he believes they saved him from making the worst mistake of his life with karlach and can't square that with them being a monster. Yet another piece is a sort of psychological safety for him - in order to save his father and the world he needs them, so admitting they aren't what he thought they were would shake that foundation he needs right now. But the cracks are starting to show and he's not going to be able to keep ignoring them for long (I have plans for another Wyll pov fic set during the exploration of the steel watch foundry).

Early on, Wyll talks about how their dancing is clearly "a triumph of trust" and how the two of them must clearly trust one another - this idea that you need to trust your partner will be there to meet you during the dance. Gortash wouldn't call it trust, he would call it knowledge. He doesn't trust that Vesper will be there to meet him, he knows they will from years of experience. Trust is an ephemeral, fuzzy thing and dies upon contact with the cold, hard truth of knowledge. You don't "trust" the properties of steel, you know them. And it is much the same with people (gortash is such a freak, it's fantastic)

"It's as though they are but one beast, sharing the same body and mind" - this is meant to be a very slantwise Shakespeare reference, specifically to the "beast with two backs" line in Othello

Wyll thinks about his father often, sharing stories and anecdotes about him. I wanted Ulder to feel present even in his absence because he's such a focal point in wyll's life and story. I also had him tell these stories because Wyll is such a story focused character and he often seems to interact with the world through the lens of stories. That's also why he makes monster references throughout - monster hunting was a big part of his life, of course it would crop up in his speech!

Also Wyll references Vesper looking tired and assumes it was because they had been up all night struggling with the revelations about their past. We, however, know that they were actually out late playing mind games with Gortash. I wanted to highlight that Wyll isn't stupid to miss these things, he just doesn't know and also filters his knowledge through his understanding of the world which is so influenced by his own goodness.

The major tension Wyll struggles with in this piece is obviously his understanding of Vesper, their relationship to Gortash, and whether or not they're a "good" person. But there's another more minor tension that Wyll struggles with on occasion. Wyll is living through the back half of a coming of age story in act three. He's returned home to find that he has been fundamentally changed by his time away and the growth he experienced during it and now he can't look at things the same way anymore. He's struggling to reconcile the version of him that grew up wealthy in the upper city wearing beautiful clothes and the version of him that's lived on the road for seven years and knows how little most people get by on. Of course he didn't think of it at 17, but now he can't stop seeing it. It's not that things aren't the same anymore, it's that he's not the same anymore.

Another of Wyll's traits is that he's kind of a romantic. So that influences the way he sees people and relationships, including Vesper and Gortash. That's why he thinks it's worse if they just "knew" the other would wear black because that's, to him, more proof that they belong together or were meant to be.

He does not want to break bread and make small talk with a man so cruel he might as well be a monster and he especially does not want to spend the night watching his friend dance so prettily with that selfsame monster while he twists his brain into knots attempting to guess at the man’s motives. It could be all of those things, it could be none of them, but Wyll doesn’t want to be the sort of person who could know those things, could pick apart the workings of that man’s twisted mind, could play his horrific games just as well as he does. He wouldn’t want to know any person who could – they would have to be just as much a monster as him to predict his every move so perfectly.

Ah this part. It's preceeded by a paragraph of Wyll attempting to guess at Gortash's motives and plots and plans and giving himself a headache. I wanted to contrast Vesper and Gortash here, who just spent a night playing mind games with each other and guessing at each other's motives and lying and pretending to lie and weaponizing the truth while very clearly having the time of their lives. I wanted to contrast these two freaks basically getting off on it with a much more normal response to that sort of thing from Wyll. He's not having fun! And then, of course, the stinger. I love dramatic irony. It's also a big hint that Wyll doesn't understand Vesper at all, wants to paint them as more good and noble than they are, and people should be skeptical of his descriptions of them.

I could honestly ramble on about this fic for ages because there are so many little details to bring up but I'm cutting myself off for now! Thanks for the ask I had so much fun talking about this fic!

#ask games #my fic

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konfizry · 9 months

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dirk dad

words cannot describe how appreciative i am of Shady Dirk. the man makes counterfeit relics!! granted the one example of this we’re provided is not some dodgy black market stuff, the relic actually goes to the Church but. still. you’re helping someone cover up a lie by making a fake, Mr Dirk!!! what about dwarven vow number 11 mister dirk??? But hey, he’s got a kid to keep fed and clothed. goodness and love in the end! Like. I love it. For all his hammering the dwarven vows as this ubiquitous moral code, he doesn’t mind bending the rules a little if he has to. (And i do think that rubs off on Lloyd as well. lloyd’s not above deceiving, playing mind games and using a little bit of trickery if he feels it’s justified)

That’s how i love to draw the parallel between kratos and dirk tho like. Dirk abides by his moral code very strictly except when he doesn’t. He has no qualms about overlooking the very rules he likes to quote at the drop of a hat for the greater good (and like that’s not necessarily a dichotomy. maybe dwarven vow number 7 transcends all the others and it’s ok to disregard a vow or two if you do it for love and justice. also tbh it seems the dwarven vows are numerous enough that you can probably find some that contradict one another anyway. and i would argue that’s by design). So that’s why he keeps some things from Lloyd and makes fake spiritual statues. he has his own way of solving the moral dilemmas that come his way, i think. Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy for him every time, but he knows to trust himself and create flexibility when need be. Kratos on the other hand, doesn’t. He wants to be loyal to his friend and his friend’s ideals. That’s what guides him, period. And so long as said friend remains faithful to his ideals, that’s all well and good, but the moment Friend starts acting counter to his own ideals, Kratos BSODs. he’ll stay in denial for a couple decades or centuries, then he’ll abandon ship and and wander around aimlessly for a couple extra decades not truly committing one way or another, until he finally meets Someone who can (knowingly or not) answer the question: “is it ok to turn against my mass-enslaver genocidal shadow-of-his-former-self of a friend (i did say i would always be by his side so idk)??”. (and then when that Someone goes bye-bye, he’s back to square one, we know the drill)

this would be a no-brainer for dirk i think? idk. anyway

dirk knowingly crafts counterfeit objects of worship that are subsequently used to trick hundreds upon hundreds of people so he can put food on the table and i think that makes him interesting (and fun) (do you think a part of him enjoys doing it. do you think he takes pride knowing that his statue might fool even the most zealous devouts. i dont have the answer to that question)

#tales of symphonia #tos spoilers #make no mistake kratos is a shady character too #look at him constantly sneaking around #never making his true intentions known #my point is both lloyds dads are shady #i like to think anna was too when the situation called for it #they're all deceitful #despite probably despising deceit but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do #also this uuhhh #this is a very narrow reading of both characters #there are other dynamics at play #kratos is just really indecisive like at his core #but it's funny tho bc #like #he IS capable of going against the rules like really #dude stood up to the King of Tethe'alla (His King That He Was A Knight Of And Also Maybe Banging His Daughter)#to defend two random half elves he met 2 days prior or something #because his gut told him to listen #what happened to that kratos what happened to trusting your gut when you see someone you're loyal to acting like a clown #aaaarrrggghhh #for the record ive said it before i'll say it again i'll say it everyday of my life:#i am a kratos enjoyer #all slander directed towards kratos on this blog comes from a place of true fondness #he is my baby i love him but also all who hate him are 100% justified and correct in their hatred #'s how it is #enough about kratos #anyway idk if thats the consensus or not but i do enjoy seeing lloyd and dirk's relationship as conflictual #and like that doesnt make it any less valuable #nor does it erase the fact that they're family

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clonehub · 11 months

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The risk of being forcibly labeled as pro or anti something is why discussions on racism in works on both of a character and meta and textual and literal level get shafted so easily.

Also personally i do despise pro/anti divides for every damn thing, it juvenile as nick said, it's needlessly polarizing, and in all honesty what the fuck does it mean to be "pro" a show ship or character or "anti" a show ship or character? Those labels make sense for being pro and anti abortion, for instance, because that is a real phenomena with real impacts and material harms and means of being actionable about them. If you're pro abortion you march, you legislate, you organize in favor of abortion rights. It's a legitimate position with legitimate philosophy to back it up.

But when people apply something like that to fandom, it becomes not about ideology but about frankly very trivial things like ships or characters or groups in a tv show. The neverending pro/anti Jedi debate comes to mind, along with a worrying lack of nuance and painfully obvious lack of a "solution" to the stance that doesn't negatively affect the interpretation of every other event in Star Wars or outright justify/deny genocide (or that doesn't baselessly accuse the "other side" of believing the Jedis genocide to be okay).

Now that basically any and all critiques about fandom get shoved into oversimplified positions of being pro or anti fandom (or the things within fandom), people (especially Black people) get forcibly labeled as activists of varying types, especially by racist white people who then want to criticize our activist actions as if they're in any position to be doing so. What also happens is that people think critique for something = outright hatred for the thing, to the point where if hypothetically given the power, the assumption is that the "anti" would zap the thing they don't like from existence.

Ive had this issue with tbb stans who take my critiques of it's racism as a personal issue that can only be resolved by destroying the show -- basically, I'm "anti tbb" even though I think that's a weird way to position anyone's opinion about a text when the critique in question is about racism. I've joked about just cancelling the show before of course, but I've also quite plainly stated that if the series wasn't super whitewashed and wasn't ableist and wasn't antisemitic, I'd be a fan of it (mediocre writing aside). For years my position hasn't been "cancel the show" it's been "change the show".

This difference isn't taken into account by people who can only view any opinion through strictly black and white lenses of supporting everything something has to offer (and thus seeing no issues in it, at least not serious ones) and hating everything something has to offer, and thus thinking it needs to be scrubbed from memory rather than fixed. This has led to even hardcore tbb stans being terrified of critiquing the writing in the show (not the racism) because people so frequently leave no room for critical analysis of any kind that doesn't reaffirm and support what's being presented in the series (or what's support by the fandom, even if not by canon).

I've been flipping back and forth between racism and gen critiques. For the record, me personally I'm not pro or anti anything. I have my opinions, i understand nuance, and there's definitely shit that i hate that I'd rather not see. I've never once subscribed to that model of fandom interaction outside of maybe (MAYBE) tagging something anti tbb, and that was more for engagement and for the sake of the tbb stans who somehow keep following me.

#ch posts #its all over the place but itll do

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tozettastone · 1 year

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Akatsuki, by who you'd want on your apocalypse team

Tobi: His skills would arguably be useful, but he's a sack of cats and he'd sacrifice the safety of himself, you and everyone else around him for 3 seconds of amusement and a hot chip, and then he'd dimensional shift out at the last second. I do not think he'd make a good apocalypse team buddy.

Zetsu: His ability to sink into and out of the scenery and watch what's going on would be extremely handy in any situation where it became hard to get vital news, but his motives for cooperation are weak at best. Zetsu might be a good apocalypse buddy... depending on what kind of apocalypse and what you need. Otherwise, he might just be a liability.

Kakuzu: Well, he's over 90 and probably knows how to do the laundry with boiling water and a stick, so he might be a useful repository of knowledge and low-tech hacks. He would also be really hard to damage, so if the apocalypse scenario is a violent one you can stand behind him in front of anything. However, his personality is a massive downside (how relatable), he resorts to violence against his own in-group very quickly, and when we think about the limited population that may now be available to him, it is worth noting that you would never want to be the only person around when one of Kakuzu's hearts wears out.

Hidan: In very short term/immediate apocalypse scenarios, Hidan could be really useful because he's crazy and immortal but he also relies on food (according to the word of god info that he would starve, eventually, dismembered in his pit), and dislikes being uncomfortable, so he would be motivated to seek out places of shelter and resources. There's still a risk that he'll change his mind two hours in and kill you, too—but this might be less of a risk than the apocalypse scenario in which you find yourself already. In the long term, though, Hidan would become difficult to manage. Strictly a temporary apocalypse buddy, for a short term survival scenario only.

Itachi: This one is tricky because I would have said Itachi was an ideal apocalypse team buddy due to his penchant for batshit plans that somehow go how he planned them and his ability to genjutsu people into doing what he wants, combined with his relatively steadier temperament than many of these alternatives. But Itachi 100% would join your apocalypse team with unstated ulterior motives that he believes are more important than anyone's survival, and he'd also be infuriatingly impossible to sway because he's smart enough to justify whatever he wants to himself and he'll argue circles around you regardless of whether or not he makes sense. So I think if you can be sure that the apocalypse scenario is long term, and you're sure Sasuke is also with you or already dead, you might benefit from Itachi on your team. Otherwise, maintain distance.

Deidara: He has the ability to fly, and attack targets from a really long distance away, and I think in a short term and immediate apocalypse scenario, Deidara could be really helpful. In the longer term, though, his personality would get in his way—he isn't built for a life of patrolling camp perimeters or counting food stores or meticulous process. He'd feel trapped, and then isolated by the pragmatism of everyone trying to stay alive and eventually he'd blow everything up and leave in an impassioned temper. However, being able to scramble aboard a giant clay bird and get out of any given situation, as well as the ability to do massive damage from such a distance, is such a tremendous advantage that I think it would depend on the kind of apocalypse scenario and you might want him on your team.

Pein/Nagato: Many hands. Many, many hands. And most of them are already dead and don't need safety, feeding or shelter, either, and they don't disappear when damaged like shadow clones. Somehow he also knows everything that goes on when it's raining. Could be useful? He's not very mentally stable, but I really think you should consider Pein for any long term apocalypse team for the free labour alone.

Kisame: He's aggressive, but he can keep a lid on it as long as nobody shatters any self delusions for him. Kisame has a poor track record for making decisions under stress. There's no evidence of his particular apocalypse skills, but Kisame would be at least as useful as Hidan in a short term scenario, and significantly more useful in a long term one. Importantly, he can summon vast quantities of water, which may then potentially be filtered and boiled for general use. Depending on your scenario, this could be very useful. He gets on with nearly everyone, and the people with whom he does not must nevertheless acknowledge that he's huge. On the balance of your actual options here, Kisame is probably a good choice for most apocalypse teams.

Sasori: His temper is bad, but he has shown the ability to get on with people at least. I think you'll need Sasori for any longer-term apocalypse scenario—he can make an entire human body into a mechanical one that runs on chakra, so when the fridge stops working two days into a long hot summer while you're scavenging the post apocalyptic wastelands for rats to eat or whatever, Sasori is the guy you want, for practical reasons. He's not the guy you want for company, but then who here is? ...Sorry.

Konan: She doesn't have particular apocalypse skills, to be sure, but she has two hands and something most of the others on this list lack, which is a steady temper. I don't think we see Konan really get violently angry in canon, although we do see her grieve. That's why she's the strongest candidate—she's temperamentally aligned with the requirements of any apocalypse scenario, and doesn't immediately resort to murder when stressed. I think Konan would be a valuable addition to any apocalypse team simply because she doesn't bring all the downsides of the whack-jobs on this list. And, she also has an apparently endless supply of paper for taking notes on the unfolding apocalypse. How nice!

#akatsuki #naruto #list #tozette.txt

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