#because if they could make it in an era where everything was even harder than me then I could too
Note
can you plz write something where reader squirts alot during sex with harry. maybe its their first time having sex together and it surprises him and maybe she tries to apologize but he isn't having that and tells her to not apologize about something like that. thank you.
-🍇
A Really Wet Mess (SMUT) /blurb/
AN: so i've never personally squirted so i have no clue how accurate this may be but i hope you enjoy it. please make sure to leave your feedback. thank you!!!
This story contains: sex, female receiving oral, squirting during sex
{ boyfriendrry - softrry - any harry era of your choice }
word count: 665
As you're having sex, you realize you should have warned Harry you're a squirter because you get him and everything around you soaked.
Right about now is when you're starting to regret not mentioning to Harry that well, you're a squirter. See, you're having sex for the first time in your relationship. You've been dating for about three months and tonight just kind of felt like the perfect moment to finally have sex.
It starts off with with some light making out which then turned to heavy making out. Then that turned into Harry dragging you up to his bedroom where he yanked your pants off, consensually of course, and had begun to eat you out for the first time. And damn was he good at it.
Harry knew exactly what to do with his tongue. Flicking your swollen clit back and forth, up and down. To creating a suction over your clit with his mouth. After about five minutes, you moan out, "Finger, please Harry, add some fingers." You weren't one who craved having your g-spot stimulated to come because you mostly came clitorally anyways but it did add to the sensations.
Without removing his mouth from your pussy, he carefully begins to insert not one but two fingers. You gasp at how thick they are. Then Harry starts to curl them upwards which in turn massages your g-spot perfectly. After this, it only takes a minute more for you to orgasm. But you don't just orgasm, you fucking squirt everywhere.
Clear fluids gush around Harry's fingers as well as fill his mouth. Not to mention soaking his bedding. At first you thought he might get upset because you didn't have time to warn him you were gonna squirt, it just kind of happened. But after coaxing you through your orgasm, he pulls away and mutters, "Fuckin' hell y/n, that was the hottest thing I've ever experienced."
Now Harry has been with one or two other women who were squirters but typically they could only squirt one time during one session of foreplay or sex. So when he finally inserts his cock into your soaked cunt, he's in disbelief when not even five thrusts in you start to squirt again. You're not coming per say and the squirting isn't as much as the first time, but little by little small gushes of liquid gush around his cock.
All you could think about was how sorry you were that you've ruined Harry's duvet and sheets. Well and also the great amount of pleasure you're in. When you come close to actually coming again, this time you warn out, "Har... Harry, think I'm gonna come. And squirt, I'm sorry."
If Harry wasn't on the cusp of his own orgasm, he would have stopped you as soon as you said sorry. But he lets it slide for now and begins to thrust harder while bringing his fingers down to rub over your clit. As soon as he starts stimulating your clitors, you come again. You were just that sensitive at the moment. And as you come you can't stop the amount of liquid gushing from your pussy. It just keeps coming and coming.
Once you've both came and are laying there side by side, out of breath and in a post orgasm haze, Harry heaves out, "Y/n, hey, don't ever, and I mean ever apologize for getting me so, wet. I'd rather have super wet and messy sex than dry sex. Plus it was hot. And I feel honored to make you get that soaked."
You tiredly giggle and reply, "Guess you're right. But I feel like I should have warned you that I'm a squirter. So you could have laid some towels down or something."
"Nope," Harry retorts, "I wouldn't have it any other way. You were perfect tonight." He then leans forward, wrapping your naked body around his equally naked body and kisses you gently on the lips. You nearly melt into his bed. God how did you score the most sexiest, funny, bright, caring, thoughtful, boyfriend? You don't know but you'd rather not ask questions.
(PLEASE REBLOG BECAUSE WRITING IS NOT EASY AND IT'S FREE SO JUST DO IT)
(no more tags are allowed because i've hit my number limit. sorry : ( )
tag list: @one-sweet-gubler // @harryscherrysugar // @hsfanficsrecss // @lollypopsx // @harrycanyonmoonn // @itfeelslikemytherapisthatesme // @damnasstyles // @mrsstylesharry // @softmullet // @meetmyblondemuffins // @thegirlnextdoorssister // @stanleystyles // @haarrrys // @michellekstyles // @skyangel57 // @the-gardener-31 // @lhharrylilpumpkin // @yousunshine-youtemptress // @clairestylessss // @kissmyaxe140 // @goldenmelonsugar-hi // @kaitieskidmore97 // @florencepughily // @alienorknight //@dancearoundthelivingroom // @swiftmendeshoran
// @luv-flor7777 // @alohastyles-x // @tenaciousperfectionunknown // @sleutherclaw // @siredtohybrid // @whoscamila // @a-strange-familiar // @golden-elodie // @mrspeacem1nusone // @goldenkhae // @lntwithhrry // @shadowygladiatorlight // @manifestrry //@mendesblurb // @sunshinemoonsposts // @depersonalizationsucks // @academiaghost // @zendayassimp // @reveriehs // @vsnnstuff // @dancinsunflowerkiwi // @quinnsgrapejuice // @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite // @justlemmeholdyou // @hsonlyangelxo // @luvonstyles // @howdey
______________
My Masterlist Masterpost
#harry styles#harry styles fic rec#harry styles fan fiction#boyfriend!harry boyfriendrry#soft!harry#softrry#harry styles smut#smutty#smut#harry styles x reader#harry styles blurb#blurb
486 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm a little confused by the left's repeated assertion that they're "trying to hold Biden accountable" and push him left, things they've been talking about since before he was elected, and the ramifications of that at this point in time. I do think we need to be calling out things we disagree with and making our feelings known, but seeing people like Nina Turner complain about student loan forgiveness when it's been made abundantly clear Biden is doing all he can and he can't actually cancel anything as just the President (without being sued or having it reversed by Republicans - please correct me if I'm wrong and there's more he could do here?) doesn't feel like it's that? I just don't understand the logic behind people on the left adding to this narrative that he isn't trying hard enough on what we want, rather than the Republicans are preventing things from being done. We need to not sit back and get complacent, yes, sure, but I feel like the line where it goes from helpful and necessary to harmful and more beneficial to the right was crossed a while ago.
The thing is, you're confused by it because it's a bad-faith argument. Actually "holding someone accountable" means honestly assessing what they can do, what they have done, what they can be expected to do in the future, and if they haven't done it, what's stopping them (i.e. have they just not done it or are they being actively stopped from doing it by factors beyond their control)? It doesn't mean "constantly moving the goalposts to constantly criticize someone if they don't magically get everything done immediately, regardless of reality." The way Online Leftists use it, "holding Biden accountable" means "relentlessly criticize him every instant he doesn't magically transform into the Socialist Messiah overnight, the end." That's not actually a useful, honest, reliable, or constructive metric.
This is also the case because their version of good policy is "someone thinks the Correct Thoughts all the time and any failures to achieve it means they are not thinking the Correct Thoughts hard enough." I'm not sure how anyone could have missed what SCOTUS is doing right now, but Online Leftists remain determined to discount, minimize, or otherwise totally ignore its role, because that would mean a) there is in fact a difference between the parties, b) Hillary Clinton would not have made the same appointments Trump did, and c) they might therefore have some responsibility in not voting for her, none of which can be countenanced. As such, if Biden has failed to wave a magic wand and get all student debt erased for everyone overnight, He Is Just Not Trying Hard Enough. SCOTUS very notably outlawed his first forgiveness program? BIDEN'S FAULT!
Even though Biden extended the Covid-era payment pauses as long as he could (it was Congress that passed the law mandating an end to them, because THE PRESIDENT IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE MONARCH!), and even though he's now rejiggered the entire repayment program so that your monthly payments can get lowered to $0, these count as payments, and no interest accumulates as long as you "make" them, which in practice adds up to full forgiveness -- this still isn't good enough for the Online Leftists, because it happened after trial and error, is a partial solution, doesn't snap its fingers and erase everything, and relies on slow and careful policy work. And yet, it's going to be a lot harder for SCOTUS to overturn than just "the president forgives your debt," which was the first thing he tried to do and it didn't work! With a different SCOTUS, it might have! But we have this nightmare court BECAUSE OF TRUMP, and all the Pure Thoughts in the world won't get rid of it!
Biden is the most liberal president we have ever had, period, full stop. It's not sexy and it's not exciting and it's not something the Online Leftists will ever acknowledge, but it's the truth. And whenever he is actually and extensively pushed, he goes more left, not less. I suspect at least part of the recent negative press barrage he's gotten is because he's openly come out with a plan to raise the tax rate on billionaires to 25%, and the corporations and oligarchs that own the mainstream media Really Don't Like That. (They've always been unfair to Democrats, but look for it to be especially so.) That would be, BY FAR, the highest the top-rate tax bracket has been since Reagan. Biden is the first president ever to actually address the scam of "Reaganomics" and take credit for "Bidenomics," which actually does represent a major rearrangement of the way capital is envisioned and distributed in this country for the first time in the 40+ years since Reagan wrecked it. That's why the capitalist media is really, REALLY determined to muckrake him as much as possible, and to do Kamala even dirtier than they did to HRC in 2016.
Anyway also: Holding someone accountable also implies that you're working with them and will reward them (i.e. voting for them, engaging with them) if they do the things you expect, which is another thing the Online Leftists won't do. So yes. This. The end.
492 notes
·
View notes
Text
part two of 'two times hob ran into dream outside their regular meetings and one time dream called on him intentionally'
WWI era, discussions of war, and past loss of children
--
Hob is in a somber mood. Funerals will do that. Hob may never be taken by death himself, but that does not mean he is not touched by it—if anything, death sometimes seems to sting harder for knowing he is fortunate enough to avoid it.
Especially the death of a young person.
He steps out of the church, steps slower and quieter than normal. The heavy church air slips off him like a cloak dropped to the floor, the scent of incense gives way to motor oil, to horses, to nearby bakeries’ yeast and flour. The father of the young man killed—a work associate of Hob’s—hurries off with his wife to a waiting car, hat held low to avoid the show of tears. Hob doesn’t follow, but he’ll drop by later or some time tomorrow, see how they’re doing. Commiserate.
There wasn’t even a body to bury, the boy blown to pieces over in France. Hob can’t imagine it.
He’s making his quiet way down the bustling London street, hands in his pockets, trying to pay attention to everything around him to avoid remembering, when a man strides briskly out of a passing doorway and nearly collides with him.
Hob catches him by the arm to steady him. “Easy there, mate.”
The man whirls to look at him, and Hob finds himself staring into the face of his stranger. He startles back, dropping his arm.
He’s spent the last two-and-a-half decades wondering if he’d ever see the stranger again, after the way things had fallen apart at their last meeting. Hob doesn’t know if he’s still angry with him, still hurt, if he intended to show up at their next meeting or not—but Hob can’t be unhappy to see him now. He’s never unhappy to see him. And he’d gladly take another look, any look, over never seeing him again.
“Hob Gadling,” says his stranger, seeming taken aback. But he doesn’t immediately sneer down at Hob or storm off, so Hob will take that as a win.
“Stranger,” Hob greets. Normally, he can’t resist a smile upon seeing him, but it’s hard to muster one today. Whether because of their fight, or the somber circumstances of Hob’s presence here, is hard to say. “Fate seems to keep throwing us together.”
His stranger frowns, looking up and down at Hob’s all-black attire, his no doubt drawn expression. It is, admittedly, out of character for him—more the stranger’s style than Hob’s own. “You appear troubled.”
Hob grimaces. “Funeral,” he explains. “Young boy killed at the front.”
“Ah.” His stranger’s face tightens. “Yes, there have been many deaths of late.”
Hob finally takes note of where he’d been coming from—the entrance to a hospital. He gestures to the doorway. “You alright?”
“Merely accompanying my sister in her work,” explains his stranger. “She is skillful and resilient, but these times have been trying.”
“She a nurse?” Hob asks. It seems too mundane a profession; any sister of his stranger must share some of his supernatural powers, whatever those are. But perhaps her talents lie in healing? It would explain the hospital.
His stranger’s lips tip up in a wry smile. “Something of the sort.”
Silence stretches between them for a moment. Hob summons his courage, buoying himself on the fact that his stranger hasn’t run off. “If it’s not too presumptuous, could I ask you to join me for tea? I… think I might have some apologizing to do.”
It’s hardly the day for this, but like hell is Hob going to waste the chance.
His stranger deliberates, his light eyes catching the weak London sun as they search Hob’s for… something.
Then he says, “Very well.
--
The café is light and airy in jarring contrast to the serious mood hanging over London these past many months. Hob has hope, he knows the wartime will pass eventually—hopefully without the utter destruction of all combatants—but sometimes it feels that each war is only worse than the last. More horrific, more vicious—and the steady stream of news in the papers, reminding them all every day, hardly helps. Hob remembers a time when any news beyond the most local of happenings was sparse. He never thought he might think that was better.
They get tea while, hundreds of miles away, countless young boys die in trenches far from home.
Hob kind of wishes he had something stronger than tea.
“You are troubled,” says his stranger, again, the tiniest line creasing his brow. Is he worried about Hob? That would be funny considering how he behaved when Hob merely tried to say they were friends.
The thought sparks something hopeful inside him, though. Lord knows Hob spends enough time worrying about his stranger, ridiculous though it feels to do so. He worries about him being alone. He worries about him feeling the loneliness Hob himself is sometimes struck by, stuck in time as he is while others age and die. Only it must be magnified a hundredfold for his stranger—Hob, at least, is still human. His stranger is other. Who does he have to keep him company across the centuries?
It's sort of a nice thought, to get a bit of that worry in return.
Hob raises his hands in surrender. “Fear not, dear stranger. I haven’t been disabused of my love of life. It’s just a sad day, is all. We all have them. Reminds us to be grateful for the life we do have, eh?”
His stranger relaxes, slightly, into his chair. “Not all share your outlook.”
Hob sighs. “Eh, can’t blame ‘em really. It’s not exactly been the best year. People are losing kids, lovers… and for what, more pointless squabbling? Not everyone has several centuries of life experience to put things into perspective, either.”
“I recall you saying to me that you did not think you had changed,” says his stranger, consideration in his tone, and wow, he’s really going to bring that up, huh? Even remembering what Hob had said right after? “But I do believe you’ve become quite wise.”
Hob can’t help but preen internally at the compliment, but he grimaces and says, “Yeah, about that, I’m not so sure it was wisdom on display last time we spoke. I’m sorry for, well, how I approached that.”
“But not for your words?” questions his stranger, seeming more curious than angry.
Hob’s never been able to lie to him, nor would he want to—his stranger is the only person he knows he doesn’t have to lie to to stay safe. “I don’t believe I spoke falsely, no. But nor was it right of me to— to put you on the spot. To put words in your mouth. For that, I am sorry.”
His stranger studies him. He looks very handsome today, his suit simple and dark but perfectly cut as always, hair a bit longer than last they’d met and ruffled up by his hat. The appreciation is not quite at the forefront of Hob’s mind as it might usually be, given everything going on, but he never fails to notice. Not that noticing will lead to anything—well, not for another two thousand years, at a minimum, given how they’ve gotten along so far.
At last, his stranger says, “I forgive you.”
Hob lets out a long breath, carefully held for years. Now are you going to apologize for storming off instead of talking things out? he thinks drily, but of course he won’t. Hob has long accepted the fact that he cannot expect normal human behavior from his stranger—his friend, he will be so bold as to say in the safety of his own head—who is so very inhuman.
“This funeral,” his stranger continues, changing the topic before Hob can decide whether he wants to continue or close that conversation. His eyes narrow on Hob, considering and… sympathetic? “It has reminded you of your son.”
Hob leans back in his chair, breath catching raggedly in his chest. He’s been trying so hard not to think it, but of course the thoughts have been there, anyway.
“You see everything, don’t you?” he observes, and his stranger merely inclines his head. “Even if you don’t speak it. Yes. You’re right. I think of Robyn whenever I see a young man die. I think of him when I see a father standing over the casket of his son who was lost to senseless, stupid violence, yes.”
“It is not a loss… that one gets over,” says his stranger, haltingly. Hob thinks that for all his friend is oblivious about normal human life most of the time, sometimes, sometimes, he understands it better than anyone else. It’s like he draws from a deep well of feeling greater than his body.
Or.
Wait.
The weariness of his shoulders as he says that. The look in his eyes, that banked, ancient loss that ages a man fifty years in a day.
Hob recognizes that look from his own mirror.
“You—” he starts, then forcibly stops himself. Instead he tries to convey, the way his stranger does, through looks, through implication and feelings shared outside of words. Speaking from experience, my dear, sad stranger?
His subtlety is rewarded by the barest tilt of his stranger’s head, the brush of his lashes over his cheeks as he looks down. And, well.
God.
“It’s not,” Hob says. “No.”
His stranger taps the side of his teacup with a slim finger. Thinking. “You are resilient, Hob,” he says at last, “to continue on so boldly after such a thing.”
“I was brought low by it,” Hob admits, “but loss also puts things into perspective. At one point, I had lost everything—everything, but my own life. Why would I give that last thing up? That, and the opportunity for better, which is ever present.”
“I repeat that you are uniquely resilient,” says his stranger. “I am glad of it.”
Hob smiles, then, despite the cold loss of the day. “You always ask me if I would give up my immortality. There was only one time when I thought of it.”
His stranger looks at him sharply, tension creeping into his shoulders, but Hob continues, in the same, soft tone—
“Not because I had grown tired of my own life. No, it was when Robyn was born. I held him and I thought that I would give it to him if I could, to spare him the touch of death, to let him see the long beauty of life that I had seen. Then, again, after he died, I thought, if I had given it to him, I would have saved him. Would that it were possible.” He still thinks it, sometimes, on certain days. “It is what fathers do for their sons, is it not?”
“Some, perhaps,” murmurs his stranger, watching him fixedly. “You did not ask, upon our meeting in 1589.”
Hob rubs at the back of his neck. “Is it a request you would have granted if I had?”
“That is not my request to grant,” says his stranger. Not quite regretfully, but not happily, either. A neutrality born of conflicting feelings rather than indifference.
Whose, then? Hob wonders. So you truly are not the devil, then? You are not Death?
“I do not know if it will help you to know,” continues his stranger, “but I will say that I do not believe it would have been granted. Not for lack of sympathy, however. Not at all.”
Hob offers him a pained smile. “Who am I to understand matters of life and death?” he says. “I wouldn’t claim to. Thank you, though. It is a kindness, I think, to know that it was not in my power to save, or to fail him in that way.”
His stranger nods.
“I suppose when I think about it,” Hob continues, “immortality that could be so easily passed around may invite more danger than protection.”
“Indeed. Humans do love to pursue it, for all that it is a foolhardy pursuit.” He tilts his head and looks at Hob slyly. “For most, anyway.”
“You just have to be stupid enough to do it,” Hob says, and his stranger hums with amusement. “And have a chance meeting in a tavern, hm?”
“Chance, yes,” says his stranger. “Speaking of. I’m afraid I must depart. I have elsewhere I must be today.”
“I won’t keep you,” Hob says, though with disappointment. He reminds himself that he was never meant to have this time with his stranger anyway, it’s a gift— a chance.
His stranger’s lips twist, just slightly, as if he himself is not so happy to leave either— and that itself is a gift, too.
“But I would see you in ’89, if you still meant to come,” Hob adds.
“I believe I did,” says his stranger, meeting Hob’s gaze. And what a better parting than their last. “I will meet you then.”
--
As Hob lets him go at the door to the café, his stranger hesitates on the threshold. “I am… glad that I ran into you today, Hob,” he says, the words foreign in how personable they are. The closest, perhaps, that Hob’s stranger has come to speaking to him like a friend. “It is good not to let another seven decades elapse on such terms as we last left them.”
Hob tucks his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels, the warmth he feels at such a small, but meaningful thing breaking out on his face despite his best attempts at moderation. “I feel the same, stranger.”
His stranger hesitates again, deliberating on something. Then he says, “Dream.”
Dream of… what? Hob thinks, perplexed, and his stranger keeps looking at him with that bottomless expression of his.
Then the order of the conversation hits. “Wait— is that your name?”
His friend—Dream—nods once. “Friends should know how to call each other.” A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Or so I have heard.”
“Well met, then,” Hob says, holding out his hand to shake, a proper grin on his face now, no moderation about it, “Dream.”
Dream takes his hand, squeezes it with that same tiny, almost shy smile on his face; they have never properly touched before, and oh, Hob is grateful for this moment.
“Until we meet next,” Dream says. And between one blink and the next, he’s gone.
#dreamling#hob gadling#dream of the endless#my writing#dream so proud of himself accepting friendship in 1915 and then getting kidnapped a year later lmao rip#literally i wrote this chapter a year ago. u know when you have THOSE wips 😂
295 notes
·
View notes
Text
So like, there's some really shitty video that this toy saw a while back about QoL mods in Terraria and how if you install all of them and then crank all of their settings up to the maximum, then the game basically plays itself. The whole video was weirdly hostile and vindictive and effectively just made fun of the concept of QoL features/mods as a whole. But it stuck in this toy's mind, not because the video itself holds any value, but because the core topic of how quality of life & accessibility features have a tangible impact on a game's design is really interesting and nobody talks about it with any kind of nuance.
So like, Terraria is obviously a very different game from what it used to be. But all of the raw content (hardmode, bosses, biomes, weapons, NPCs, etc.) that always gets the spotlight in updates only makes up a relatively-small portion of that outside of, like, the tinkerer’s workshop from 1.1, and damage classes being added in 1.0.6, both being relatively-early additions. The plethora of things that were changed/added to make the game look nicer also aren't the core thing responsible, obviously. So what is the biggest reason modern Terraria feels so alien when compared to 1.0.X versions, or even 1.1?
It's the quality of life features. Inventory management got exponentially easier/more efficient, you have a minimap at all times, smart cursor lets you expend far less effort mining and dealing with backwalls, there are special equipment slots for grappling hooks and light pets, grappling hooks are bound to a hotkey instead of being an item that you need to manually select and use, you can use items directly from your inventory instead of needing to place them in your hotbar and then select that hotbar slot, you automatically walk up 1-block inclines and open/close doors as you walk through them, there’s a plethora of features to make getting around the world trivial, the start of the game moves way faster due to the player getting access to better equipment faster, block-swapping exists… This toy posits that this is all why Terraria feels like a fundamentally different game. In old versions, it felt like you had to fight tooth and nail to get anything accomplished, but nowadays, everything feels all buttery-smooth. The main friction you encounter in progressing through the game is with boss fights, as Re-Logic obviously intends.
Now, obviously, it would be insane and stupid to claim that Terraria is a worse game, right now, than it was all the way back in the 1.0.X era, and it would be even stupider to claim that it’s worse because it has QoL features. However, this toy does not believe that every single QoL feature added to the game was inherently objectively positive or correct from the game's inception. Rather, they were natural, smart conclusions for Re-Logic to come to with the direction they decided to take the game in as it continued development. But this was not the only direction Terraria’s development could have taken.
There’s a very unique feeling to old-ass Terraria versions, and it sucks that tracking down and playing these versions is so goddamn hard. You only ever have a vague idea of where you are because there’s no map to use as reference so you’re heavily encouraged to keep most of your stuff on the surface, and to build infrastructure to connect important things underground/in the sky so you don’t get lost. Everything is so unwieldy that building a simple house and making it look remotely nice feels like a herculean effort, enemies kick your ass way harder earlygame due to decent gear being much harder to access, and there’s a lot more gravity to the choices you make in what gear you use, because it’s a lot harder to hot-swap your armor and accessories when you're not actually at your base, which is harder to get to/from due to the world being far more difficult to navigate, as a whole.
This all leads to an exponentially slower game than modern-day Terraria is, where every single thing you do needs to be deliberate and well-thought-out, and everything takes a much longer time to do. This toy remembers spending weeks as a kid building housing for the meager number of NPCs that were in the game back then, alongside farms for all of the potion-making herbs and a big obsidian generator, and all of that could be accomplished in a single play session in 1.4.X.
There is a universe in which Terraria saw minimal QoL updates and instead leaned really hard into this direction, making a slow, exploratory game where the player’s power level very slowly increments upwards and you’re encouraged to build largescale infrastructure rather than the (relatively) fast-paced boss rush where your power balloons out of control immediately and your infrastructure is a fast-travel teleportation network that takes minimal effort to set up that the game currently is, and that version of the game would not have been wrong, inherently. It would’ve been more niche, for sure, but it wouldn’t have necessarily been bad, or even worse than the current game is.
This is what makes this toy sad that old Terraria versions are so difficult to get ahold of, as well as what fascinates it so much about the retro Minecraft community. Speaking of, let’s switch gears and talk about Minecraft for a bit.
Minecraft, as it’s sure most of the people reading this are well-aware, has recently been having something of a renaissance in its retro community, the people who prefer alpha and/or beta versions of the game to the modern game. A handful of complete overhaul mods have come out for these versions (notably, Better Than Adventure and ReIndev) that put interesting spins on the game’s design, basically asking the question, “What if Mojang decided on a different direction for Minecraft to take from this point in time?”
A lot of these mods cast aside the instant-gratification convenience and linear progression of modern Minecraft in favor of slower-paced, more survival-ey gameplay, placing more emphasis on the act of exploring your world and gathering resources as the core gameplay loop as opposed to… Well, modern Minecraft really doesn’t have much of a core gameplay loop to speak of, and that’s sort of the problem, now isn’t it? This toy doesn’t want to get too far into all of this, though, as its thoughts on Minecraft’s game design are not the focus of this essay. Rather, it wants to put the spotlight onto Minecraft’s community.
An ever-increasing number of people have been growing more and more critical of Minecraft over the last 5 or so years. It’s obviously always had its detractors, but in recent time, there have been more of them that have gotten more vocal, and it’s become pretty normal to have the take that Minecraft has been getting worse lately. And a big culprit that people keep pointing to is QoL. One of the most common criticisms of Minecraft online is that quality of life features have made it way too easy to trivialize the process of blasting through the game’s content, getting obnoxiously overpowered enchanted diamond (or netherite) gear, reaching the End, and getting access to elytra and shulker boxes.
Despite both being excessively popular games that have been made far easier through their QoL changes and overall polish, that have both been in constant development for over a decade at this point, the critical responses to those features in Terraria and Minecraft could not be more different. This is amusing, and gets at something deeper with regards to game design that this toy doesn’t know it’s ever heard anyone actually say: Quality of life features are fantastic tools for reducing the noise that gets in the way of a game’s vision, but when you add them haphazardly and/or with no real vision for what you want your game to be in the end, you can very easily wind up accidentally removing a large portion of what could’ve otherwise become compelling parts of your gameplay loop. They need to be used intelligently, or they can, in fact, harm your game and make a significant contingent of your playerbase enjoy it less.
75 notes
·
View notes
Text
@kitestarry Thought I'd answer this comment in its own post. :)
Ghira and Kali are very much so stereotypical "Mom and Dad" characters imo, where Kali is kind of nosy and she's comforting and she's given that "no she can hit people with pans too" thing that people give Supermoms since like 2000 so they can say they're strong women without having to do any work, and Ghira is like overprotective and tells Blake she isn't wearing enough clothes and hates Sun because he's a boy who's interested in his daughter. And I don't like the stereotypical "Mom and Dad" characterization in any setting really, but since they're only featured in two seasons and are honestly not even sort of the focus of Blake's 4-5 arc (which is much more about her, Sun, and Ilia,) they're very paper thin characters I feel like. So there isn't much else to them. But on top of that, the RWBY writers do this thing where they'll make the teenage characters do dangerous stuff but do not care to write the "caring" parental figures in their life to actually do anything about it. Like, with Willow you can at least be like "well she's an alcoholic who had an abusive husband" which doesn't mean that her complete lack of presence until V7 and her lack of action in protecting her children is fine, but it makes more sense. And when then sixteen year old Ruby left home to go after Cinder and supposedly like a year later Tai still is completely not around, we could at least say "well, he knows she's with Qrow and he might not have known how serious everything was" which isn't a good excuse, but it's at least something. But, I believe Blake ran away from home five years before the start of the show, which means she was like twelve! And she ran away to be part of a group Ghira thought was dangerous and morally wrong (which is why he left in the first place.) Like, we don't know if Blake had a good place to stay for that whole time, if she ever went hungry, and the show fully tells us she was in a bad and unsafe relationship for part of it. And where were her parents? And then the Fall of Beacon happens after Blake is on TV during the Vytal Festival, and the whole thing just makes them feel like very uncaring bad parents. There's also Ghira's whole peaceful protest 'be nice to your oppressors and they might like you' 'we need to stop faunus violence' thing. Like many Faunus characters, Ghira's a mouthpiece for the severely badly handled fantasy racism plot. It's bad on Blake, but since she has a lot more character and role outside of that, it's easy enough to just clip it out for her for me. But because Ghira has been such a small role, it's a lot harder to dismiss for him. Like if you removed that sort of thing from Ghira's character, all that you'd have left is 'over-protective dad who doesn't care about finding his twelve year old runaway but will comment on her belly shirt when she comes home."
But also, I don't write for them to be honest. Writing for characters oftentimes makes me like them more because it helps me dive into the character concept more than the oftentimes lackluster execution. There are a lot of characters I didn't like that much, but then when I write for them, I find myself really enjoying them. But my sister and I first started writing for RWBY after volume six with a fanfiction that was an AU branch off starting at the end of V5. And the only fanfictions I've written either are branches off of that branch off or are Team STRQ era fics. So... Ghira and Kali aren't really part of things in my fics ever.
So yeah, it's a combination of them being thin stereotypical parents with very little interest to them, their apparent lack of care when their twelve year old ran away, and just never writing for them so they don't get the same treatment of me fleshing them out myself that other characters who are just as thin in canon might get that make me like them more.
36 notes
·
View notes
Text
‘Chandler Bing,” wrote Matthew Perry in his puckish, self-mocking memoir, “changed the way that America spoke”. The actor’s bold words were true – but only up to a point. Yes, there was a period in the late 1990s when people overemphasised the verb to comic effect: “Could that be any more annoying?” But that was really more of a verbal tic. The Matthew Perry/Chandler Bing paradox was that he demanded not to be taken seriously, and in doing so, became the ego ideal of generation X, which is a pretty serious job. So even though he had – no question – the best lines in Friends, he was never what he would have been in an earlier era: the sidekick.
So much of the plot structure rested on Chandler being the second string: the maladroit loser to Joey’s lothario, the joker skating beneath Ross’s romantic gravity. He was never intended as the leading man. He and Monica were never story-arced to get married. The One With Ross’s Wedding: Part 2 was meant to just be a one-night stand. Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman said years later: “We thought it was going to be funny, then we were going to get rid of it.” In the event, they actually had to stop taping because people in the delighted audience were screaming.
Of course Chandler was the romantic lead. His was the spirit of the age: self-deprecating, metrosexual, all ironic distance, no ambition. It had a gravitational pull. It’s the classic stuff of romance, the Emma plot: the guy who creeps up on you, because, duh, he’s everything. Except Chandler did that to his own creators. Incidentally, he’s a way better character before he gets together with Monica. And he’s a way better character when he hates his job. The unfolding of adulthood was like kicking two legs off a stool. Gen X is a shadow of itself when it grows up.
Perry always said how much like his character he was, to the extent that when he auditioned for the role, he went completely off script and just started delivering more material: he wrote 10 jokes for every episode, and reliably got two in. His particulars were telling: an only child whose parents divorced when he was one. His real-life dad was an alcoholic, later recovered, an actor, but small-time. His mother was press aide to Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister. Before Perry developed acting ambitions he was an obsessive tennis player, nationally ranked in Canada by the age of 14. He discovered drinking around the same time and was, he wrote, “a broken human being” by 15, when he moved to Hollywood.
The great mystery of Friends is why none of its players made much cinematic impact beyond its enormous influence – and this was truer of Perry than of anyone. He turned in completely fine performances in unremarkable films: Fools Rush In, Almost Heroes, The Ron Clark Story. He co-created and co-wrote the TV series Mr Sunshine in the early 2010s, but it lasted only a year before low ratings killed it. It is possible that the residuals model sapped everyone’s ambition: Warner makes a billion dollars a year from syndication reruns, of which the cast get 2% each. That’s $20m (£16.5m) apiece.
More important but harder to quantify was the cultural effect of Friends: people really fell for those characters, hard. All six of the actors had the world at their feet, but nobody really wanted to see them step out of role – because it broke the spell. It is impossible to overstate how seriously we all took it, when Jennifer Aniston married Brad Pitt. It was as if Rachel herself had achieved the unthinkable, a Little Mermaid move where she crashed out of the ocean and brought the fairytale into real life.
Perry’s romantic history was, of course, chequered, which is to say, eventful, but nothing lasted. The details of his relationship with Julia Roberts are so 1990s, it is unreal: he wooed her by fax (yes, kids, this was a thing). And Perry dumped Roberts to avoid getting dumped himself, he said later, relaying deliciously: “I can’t begin to describe the look of confusion on her face.” It was a move that had all the logic of Chandler Bing himself.
Back then, we would have called Perry a commitment-phobe, but what he actually was was a drug addict. The story of his dependency is told through his changing appearance in the passing seasons of the show: “heavier” when he was drinking, thin when he was on drugs, thin with a goatee when he was on a lot of drugs. The rest of the cast protected him when he was too gone to deliver his lines, and tried to intervene many times, having guessed at only a tiny fraction of his substance abuse.
It is incredible, really, how long he survived, plausibly playing this character who may have started life so similarly to Perry himself, but diverged in one critical way: like all the Friends characters, his was almost impossibly clean-living. It never really made sense, all the high jinks they got up to, powered only by coffee. It was very much generation X, the US edition: such a show in the UK would have had at least one very heavy drinker, and Central Perk would have been a pub. Perry was its guilty secret, the One Who Wasn’t Really Very Like His Character at All Any More, and he was powerfully aware of that.
That 2022 memoir, called Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, concluded with a thankful utterance that was no less credible for being obligatory in a recovering addict: “At this point in my life,” he wrote, “the words of gratitude pour out of me because I should be dead, and yet somehow, I am not.”
Perry’s entire adult life was plagued by addiction. Telling his story in numbers, he estimated that he had been in twice-weekly therapy for 30 years, checked into rehab 15 times, and attended more than 6,000 AA meetings. He had numerous other health crises, including a perforated colon in 2019 that put him in a two-week coma. “So full of shit it nearly killed me,” he said of the event.
But in a pre-opioid world, he would have just got clean, eventually. Maybe he wouldn’t have made old bones, but he wouldn’t have died this young, not at 54. He should have had a longer sunset. His death feels tragically discordant – an unjust end to a life lived in the service of the punchline.
Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?
77 notes
·
View notes
Text
Roses - Lucifer
Crown Prince! Lucifer x GN!Reader
[✧] ー Just a short scenario with soft Luci <3 set in victorian era. Reader is GN because my man doesn't care about gender. Let's imagine love between the same sex wasn't taboo, alright? Danke :3
[✧] ー Reader is also innocent and of course, adhered to the society's beliefs and etiquette. (Did I use the word 'adhere' correctly? My first time doing it and it's so late already goodness me.)
Summary: Lucifer wishes to give his lovely betrothed a sweet little kiss. But it seems like they're not really up for it. Oh well, his beloved has a very endearing idea to solve this problem.
The two of you had been courting for a while now, and had yet to share any intimate moment. It was given of course. The both of you had decided to keep everything until your wedding. That way, it would be more special. It would hold much more meaning than something either of you could get anytime they wished.
Being engaged to the crown prince seemed perfect from afar, but it was harder than what it looked. Eyes were on you n matter where you went, and danger lurked around anywhere you stepped at. It was only natural for the crown to have enemies too, no matter how silent they were. But at the end of the day, the stress was worth it. Both for you, and your Lucifer.
"Is it appropriate for us to be alone like this, dearest?" You asked, gazing around at the private garden of his castle. You had heard from many of those servants just how mesmerizing the garden was, designed and cared after by Lucifer himself, but you had never seen it on your own. At least, not until now. The garden was truly a sight, with black and red flowers filling the ground, and the trees full of colorful blossoms. Even the rest of decoration, such as the marble fountain and the vases added to the garden's beauty.
Still, it was no appropriate for an engaged couple to be alone together without the supervision of an elder. You looked back at Lucifer, awaiting his reply. You didn't want to get on his nerves, but you knew that he cared about etiquette a lot too.
"Do not worry yourself, precious." He spoke calmly, putting an arm around your waist with a hint of possessiveness as he guided you to the center and near the fountain. "I just wished to have a private moment with my lovely betrothed."
You nodded, not that calmed down by his way of reassuring you. It wasn't long before you had let go of his arm and began admiring all the different and magical kinds of flowers in his garden. Of course, you didn’t expect any less of a private garden that was only for Lucifer, your beloved fiance. A certain rose caught your eyes in the midst of black roses and flowers. It had fallen down from its place, not having the natural glow of other roses but having its own kind of messages. Like a deep story hidden within those red petals. You bent down, picking it up and staring at it lovingly.
Lucifer couldn’t help but gaze at you as you stared at the fallen rose, wondering what you were thinking that had you so deep in thought. He stepped a little closer, peering at the rose. He saw nothing special with the fallen rose, unlike you.
“Your eyes.” You looked up from the rose and towards him, handing the rose to him. Fallen, like your fallen star. Red, like his ruby eyes. And magnifying, even at its worst. “It is the same shade as your eyes, Lucifer.”
Lucifer’s eyebrows lifted up as he took the rose from you. Although he couldn’t help but smile when you said that. You were such a lovely little creature, always thinking of him before everything else. His eyes moved from the rose towards you, stepping even closer. Close enough to make you just slightly uncomfortable. You wouldn’t push him away, though, as you did crave his touch as much as he craved yours. “How very observant, beloved. Would you like me to speak of my own observations?”
He then put the rose behind your ear, making sure the thorns wouldn’t hurt you. He couldn’t help but find your innocent smile lovely, in that moment.The Elegant prince cupped your cheeks, the pair of red roses residing in his eyes looking into your own gems. "You look so precious, love. Did you know that?”
You knew where this was headed. He wanted to tease you, make you blush, and have you a stuttering mess. You then noticed his loving gaze on your lips and not your eyes. He continued. “May I kiss you, my sweet?”
"But... it is not appropriate..." You whispered softly. But you had an idea how to do it, not to disappoint your fiance. You wanted that kiss too, after all, even if you would never admit it. You brought the rose out of your hair and put it on your lips, looking into his eyes softly. “Let us do it this way for now, until the day the bells of matrimony ring above us.”
Lucifer opened his eyes in surprise, as he saw the red rose on your lips. It was something he never expected and he was both surprised and pleased to see that you still cared for your innocence and proper etiquette, even so much so that you wouldn't let just anyone get a taste of your lips, not even your soon to be spouse. Lucifer then smiled warmly, while still caressing your cheek. "Thank you, my beloved. You are right, this isn't appropriate, but a rose like yourself deserves a kiss nonetheless."
Lucifer then pressed his lips gently against the rose, his hands holding yours as you held on the rose’s stem.
A sweet and innocent kiss, for his true love. For his beloved betrothed, and the one he chose to share his life with. As soon as he pulled away, he put the rose back on your hair like a hairpin. You were truly his, and he was glad to have such a caring little betrothed on his side. He grasped both of your hands and brought them to his lips, planting a soft kiss on the back of them.
“Until the bells of matrimony ring above us, my darling. I shall only wait and dream of that day.”
Check it out! [cursed records] [sweet dreams] [heavenless]
#obey me#obey me shall we date#obey me nightbringer#nightbringer#shall we date#lucifer obey me#obey me lucifer#lucifer#lucifer shall we date#lucifer x reader#obm lucifer#prince lucifer#mc#x reader#obey me x reader#Om! lucifer#om lucifer#obm! lucifer#lucifer kiss#soft lucifer#soft lucifer obey me#obey me lucifer soft#soft om lucifer#lucifer x you#lucifer obey me shall we date#lucifer obmswd#obey me shall we date lucifer
117 notes
·
View notes
Note
I literally leaped 10 feet in the air when i saw u were gonna try mlm💞
The thought of Dilf Dave rubbing your bulge with his boot while degrading you is literally taking over my mind aaggghh *explodes*
OH MY GOD YES YE SYES YES HES YES ANON REVEAL YOURSELF NEOWWW (I think I kneo who u are)
AHHHHHH I LOVE THIS i can't really imagine 2000s dave but more like 90s???? yk cus he's young n experimentive... but ofc ill still do 2000s cus dilf Dave is my fav era
getting on your knees to make him feel good is such a dream. maybe a bit of a nightmare for you though, because Dave's a cocky little fuck. he'd have his hands fisted in your hair before you go down on him, making him even harder if that was possible.
he would throw his head back, him trying his best not to stand up and fuck your throat, but he wanted you to go at your own pace, for now atleast.
"god- yeah, taking this cock so well, huh? why don't you take the whole thing for me, pretty boy?"
he groaned once you licked around his tip, him shuddering inside your mouth, tip pressed against the inside of your plush cheek.
"yes sir-" you tried to say with a handful of dick in your mouth, which the vibrations only made him let out louder noises.
"if you don't hurry, im gonna use your mouth and won't stop until i cum, hm? please baby, go faster and take it all for daddy?"
you obeyed as you started jerking him off and sucking him at the same time, his length being bigger than normal, choking on it slightly.
"aaaaattta boy. fuckin' obedient little slut."
he groaned out, him involuntarily thrusting his hips up. you moved your body up and down, trying to get some friction for yourself, the bones in your boxers getting uncomfortable now, needing attention.
Dave noticed your struggles, him looking a little confused before he laughed.
"oh baby.. you need some help? i got ya, handsome."
he put his foot down, the tip of his boot pointing up before he glared down at you.
"don't fucking look at me like that and take it."
his tone was more and more demanding sounding, him biting his lip once you started riding his foot, grinding down on it slowly so you wouldn't over stimulate yourself, but Dave just nudged himself against your heat.
"mmh- sir-"
"hm? feels good don' it, slut?"
you nodded softly before you tried to reach a hand down your pants to touch yourself more, but Dave flicked it away with him hitting it with his knee.
"did i say you could touch yourself, baby boy?"
you pouted, tears starting to form in your eyes.
"awh... what's the matter? too needy for daddy that you can't hold off? too bad."
he had a shit eating smirk plastered on his face. he was going to have his release before you did.
"make daddy cum, then we'll see if my baby deserves it."
you immediately quickened your pace, sucking his dick like your life depended on it and riding his boot along with that.
there was saliva escaping your lips, rolling down his cock and onto the floor, everything getting messier and messier.
"oh...fuck! im gonna cum in this fuckin' mouth handsome.. you ready?"
you just stared up at him with doe eyes, swirling your tongue around the tip before he grabbed your hair tighter and started face fucking the life out of you.
his balls were clapping against your chin, tip reaching the back of your throat and... fuck you already came from the intensity. a wet spot shown on your bulge.
"cumming.. cumming!"
he groaned before shooting it down your throat. he was out of breath, pulling out before some dribbling down your lip, trying your best to swallow before you wiped your mouth.
Dave helped you stand up, pulling you into his lap, resting his chin on your shoulder.
"fuck, i think this good boy deserves something now- huh? whatcha think, baby?"
he kissed up your neck, feeling up your body before his hand grazed over your bulge, feeling the wet spot.
"what's this, slut?"
he groaned into your ear, unbuttoning your jeans and letting your dick spring out.
"i didn't say you could, did i?"
you where whining, not wanting to make him angry, but you just couldn't help yourself.
"sorry, sir.. but-"
you were cut off once he started jerking you off fast and rough, making sure to cover your slit so you didn't cum again.
"Dave! shit- please.. need to-"
"no."
"nonono please?? i- im so sorry just-"
"no."
you were squirmed around in his lap, shaking from your needed release.
"please.."
your dick was twitching in his calloused hand, trying to hold off but it was so hard to have any self control around Dave Mustaine.
"if you do, im gonna fuck that pretty ass when you're finished. daddy deserves a second release if you're getting one, right, pretty boy?"
you nodded frantically, needing this release more than anything right now, precum dribbling down your shaft.
"wanna cum?"
"mm- uh huh! please-"
"so fuckin' eager for me. say my name baby.."
he sped up until all he heard were loud inaudible moans and wet noises coming from your dick.
"f-fuck! 'm cumming.. i-im cumming! daddy.. fuck!"
you painted his hand before he flipped your positions, shoving you on your stomach on the bed, getting behind you and lining up.
"gonna make you cum so many more times, baby. you're gonna take it so well for daddy, right?"
you nodded, mumbling before gripping onto the sheets.
"yeah.. atta boy, all mine."
------------------‐-----------‐-
STOPPPP THIS JS SO BAD (im good at mlm but i usually do member x member 😭😭)
56 notes
·
View notes
Text
A Libra NNT Analysis: Meliodas' Demon Secret
Masterlist
Part 1: The Start of a Millennia Long Secret (pre-season 1)
Okay, time to finally get this started. And I want to do that by saying what I've said before, and probably will say again: The Seven Deadly Sins is an anime that needs to be watched (at least) twice. It's like Zaratras says:
Looking back, especially at the earlier seasons, so many things get another meaning when you know the whole story. Meliodas' demon secret is no different. The first time around you get to learn about it along with the characters. The second time around you can see the nuances of it, the symbolism and relation between it and the rest of the story. This is why I wanted to do this analysis series in the first place, to look at the earliest episodes with the perspective of knowing exactly who and what Meliodas is, and see how his demon secret is developed - or rather, how it's revealed. This means that yes, there will be angsty ramblings similar to my previous posts on the subject. I mean how could there not, because a) it's me (and if you know me, you know I love angst), and b) Meliodas really hid who he really was from the people closest to him for so long...
But! Before we get into how Meliodas' secret is revealed I want to take a look at how it was formed. Starting with the why.
Actually, first I'm gonna put a read-more because this got long :)
Continue reading for: the reason behind Meliodas' secret, 3,000 years of history, the fall of Danafor, and the Seven Deadly Sins knows... what?
Meliodas' demon secret doesn't actually become a secret until after the end of the First Holy War. Before the end of the war, he has no reason to try to hide it. Everybody already knows what and who he is. For those who don't, well, they soon figure it out. He doesn't hide it; he openly uses his demonic powers and shows himself as a demon, because again, he has no reason not to, and he even admits to being a demon when asked about it. This, to me, is especially noteworthy since this is something we're shown repeatedly that he doesn't do after the end of the war.
After Meliodas and Elizabeth's confrontation with their parents, and the following death and cursing, Meliodas wakes up to a new Britannia. A demon-free Britannia. The war has by then ended, leaving the demons sealed away and the goddesses having lost their physical forms. A new era has started in Britannia. An era where the demons are becoming nothing more than a great evil sealed away by the goddesses. The more years that pass, the more solidified this view becomes. The humans who once had encountered demons, all die or are already dead. By the time of the first season, the demons are just monsters of myth. While there are still some people who know about demons, like Gerheade (who lived through the war) and Elaine, we're also shown that most people don't. They struggle with the idea that such beings even exist, or have a very limited knowledge of demons. We can probably also safely assume that nobody is exactly considering the possibility of a "good" demon. After all, that was already a foreign idea back before they were sealed.
So, given everything we know about this new Britannia and how it came to be, it makes sense why Meliodas would choose to hide the fact that he is a demon. He has no reason to believe anyone would accept this about him. While the world before was also filled with hate and fear towards demons, back then he at least had Elizabeth. And his entire race, even if they did hate him too (but not for being a demon). Now he is all alone, stuck trying (and failing) to protect Elizabeth in a world that doesn't understand demons. People knowing he is a demon would also make it a lot harder for him to live among the humans, which we know he has done repeatedly during in his attempts to keep Elizabeth safe and in his search for a way to break the curse. So, yeah, it's easy to see why Meliodas' demon secret would come to be.
At the same time, I think it's really interesting to point out that while Meliodas does hide that he is a demon and won't even answer the question when directly asked about, he doesn't really lie about it either. He doesn't say he is a demon, but he also doesn't say he isn't a demon or that he is human.
We don't get to see lot of what happens to Meliodas over the 3,000 years between the start of the curse and his arrival in Liones. What we do see is Meliodas, repeatedly, living human lives with Elizabeth's numerous reincarnations. Because of this, the most significant moment we get during those years in regard to his demon secret is the fall of Danafor.
Danafor is an example of a human life we see Meliodas living with Elizabeth, or Liz in this case. From the flashbacks of his times there, provided by the druids' trial, and his interactions with Cain, it's safe to assume that the people of Danafor saw Meliodas as a fellow human - a stupidly overpowerful human perhaps, but a human nonetheless. When Cain learns that Meliodas is in fact Meliodas (and not his son) he is, understandably, shocked. After all, he clearly expected Meliodas to age like a human would and not still look as young. Danafor, or rather the fall of Danafor, marks the beginning of the unraveling of Meliodas' demon secret. This is the first time in who knows how long that Meliodas uses his demonic powers. It's also the first time he's faced with someone who knows who and what he really is (not counting Merlin and Elizabeth with her memories regained) with the appearance of Fraudrin. Even disregarding Fraudrin's future possession of Dreyfus, the events in Danafor (Meliodas' destruction of it and the Coffin of Eternal Darkness) have significant repercussions for Meliodas going forward.
After Danafor, Meliodas life becomes different. Back in Danafor, he was greatly respected as the leader of the Holy Knights. In Liones, he still has respect and status as the captain of the Seven Deadly Sins, but he (along with the other Sins) is also seen as a criminal and sinner. By then, rumors have also spread about what happened in Danafor and Meliodas' part in its destruction. We don't really know for sure what exactly those rumors entailed or how close to the truth they were (they most likely did not involve "demon" or "demonic powers"), they still told a story of Meliodas being the one, not only to destroy Danafor completely, but also kill its citizens.
So, from what we can see, Meliodas' arrival in Liones comes with a new life and a different role. While he is still mostly seen as human, he is also seen as more of a "monster" than before. Both Zaratras and Hendrickson admit to having sense Meliodas' true identity during some of their earliest encounters with him.
That brings us to another interesting thing to look at before I get into analyzing the individual episodes: the extent of Meliodas' demon secret. Meliodas is generally seen as a human, but his secret isn't a complete secret. It's not a situation of nobody knows nothing, as seen above. Of course, how much is known depends on who's perspective we are talking about. So, since it's kind of important for these breakdowns, and it intrigues me to talk about, let's end this part with looking at what the fuck do each of the Seven Deadly Sins actually know about Meliodas in regards to his demon secret?
The most obvious (and also easiest) to start with is Merlin. She is the one who knows the most about Meliodas, seeing as she first met him 3,000 years ago before he even betrayed the demons. To her, there isn't really a "demon secret", only a secret he is keeping from everyone else. Merlin knows Meliodas is a demon. She knows what kind of demon he is and was, his past with the demons and Stigma, even about the curse at the hands of the Demon King and Supreme Deity and what it means for him.
I'm gonna try to do these in order of who knows most, so next up is Gowther, who - well, who the hell knows what he actually knows? But he is the one, next after Merlin, who is the most knowledgeable about Meliodas. Technically, he met Meliodas before even Merlin did, since he was (as his creator's proxy) in the Ten Commandments alongside him. It has also been revealed that the original Gowther was one of Meliodas best friends (Q245, Q&A Corner of chapter 234 in the manga). But Gowther also did erase his own memories prior to season 1, after Nadja's death. Despite this, Gowther is still shown to know more about Meliodas' secret than the others. When the group is first reunited with Gowther, he points out to Meliodas that none of them are of the same race, hinting that he knows Meliodas is not human. Though given his powers, to me at least, it's hard telling exactly how much Gowther knows about Meliodas.
Merlin and Gowther are more or less the only Sins with any real knowledge about Meliodas' secret, but that doesn't mean the others don't know anything. In fact, most of them have gotten some hint prior to the events of season 1, proving that Meliodas' demons secret isn't absolute. Among the remaining Sins, Escanor is the one with the biggest reason, I think, to suspect something. Escanor has, after all, seen Meliodas in his demon form. He might not know exactly what Meliodas is, but he should definitely suspect that Meliodas isn't human. The moment I'm talking about happens during the battle between Escanor and Meliodas, when Meliodas is trying to convince him to join the Seven Deadly Sins. During that battle, Meliodas easily defeats Escanor by releasing his Assault Mode. This means that Escanor saw him with his black eyes and demon mark. Like I said, Escanor probably didn't know what it meant at the time, seeing as he hadn't actually met another demon by then, but at the same time, it stands to reason, that Escanor shouldn't be seeing Meliodas as quite as human as the rest of Liones did.
Now let's talk about Ban. The interesting thing about him is that while, out of the last three Sins, Ban is the one who knows the most about demons, he is also probably the last one who would (willingly) suspect Meliodas of being one - something that he shows later in the first season. Ban's knowledge of the demons comes from him encountering and fighting the Red Demon during its attack on the Fairy King's Forest. This means that his knowledge of the demons as a race is very limited compared to Merlin (though to be fair, most people's knowledge is limited compared to Merlin, especially about demons since, well, very few people seem to know what the demons really are anymore). The Red Demon is also a huge part of Ban's struggles with the idea of Meliodas being one, as he obviously can't let himself put Meliodas equal in any way to the monster who killed Elaine. Still, even if he doesn't want to, Ban has reason to suspect it even before season 1, given what happened with Meliodas' dragon handle. When Ban tried to take the dragon handle, Meliodas cuts him with black flames. This is also the one and only time something has managed to leave a permanent scar on Ban's body since becoming immortal. Both of these indicate, if nothing else, that Meliodas isn't as human as he first appears to be.
Between Diane and King it's a little hard to tell who knows most, because let's face it, neither has much knowledge about Meliodas' secret at this point. Though I would probably have to say Diane does - mostly because I've got an issue with King's knowledge, but more about that later, let's talk about Diane first. Diane doesn't have much knowledge about neither demons nor Meliodas' secret, but, like the others, she has some reason to suspect him not being human. Diane was there and saw Meliodas scar Ban, meaning she saw Meliodas with the black flames just as Ban did. Later, during the events of the Vaizel Fighting Festival, she also admits to having seen "that look" on Meliodas, referring to how he looked while defeating Ban. So, yeah, not much knowing but still some hints.
Now then, last but not least, King. Okay, to be fair, he is one of the Sins with the least knowledge about Meliodas' secret. He also, like Diane, lacks the knowledge of demons in general. He wasn't there during the Red Demon's attack in the Fairy King's Forest and has shown himself to not share Elaine's knowledge about demons, given his reaction to seeing the Red Demon's corpse. He even expresses shock that beings like the Red Demon have actually existed in Britannia. As for Meliodas' secret, when King first meet him in the manga, he literally calls him human. By the time of the first season, King is seemingly still holding this view, later expressing his surprise that Meliodas looks exactly the same despite 10 years having passed.
But I did say I had an issue with King's knowledge, didn't I? Well, unfortunately, I do. It comes with that first meeting between King and Meliodas. As much as I love it, it provides some... inconsistencies, especially in regard to the reveal of Meliodas' demon secret - and since that is what this post is about, it's only fair that we address it. Okay, so here's the thing. King was captured 200 years ago. In the manga page above (first panel, lower left corner) you can even see Helbram's dead body still lying on the ground, proving that it was 200 years ago. Now, Meliodas being there when King is arrested by unnamed knights 200 years before he and Merlin decide to form the Seven Deadly Sins, while a coincidence, is not that unimaginable. But King remembers that moment. He references it to Meliodas in the druids' cave and thinks back to it in the fight against Chandler, which means he clearly remembers the Meliodas 200 years ago as Meliodas and not just some random knight. But then when they are reunited after only 10 years he suddenly thinks it's weird that Meliodas remains unchanged? I just- that is what is happening, right?? Anyway, let's just... drop it for now.
Okay!
So what do we start of with when the fist season begins? Meliodas, who has kept the fact that he is a demon a secret for 3,000 years because Britannia is now "demon-free" and demons are seen as ancient evil monsters; Merlin, who knows everything; Gowther, who knows he is not human; and the rest of the Seven Deadly Sins, who still think of him as human(?). At the same time, the events of Danafor's destruction has set the wheels in motion regarding Meliodas' demon secret finally being revealed to everybody.
Coming soon - Part 2: Cracks in the Mask (season 1 part 1)
---
Taglist: @zorria
#suddenly got very nervous about posting this but here we go#finally got started with this which means i can finally start my rewatch which i have been holding off for the sake of this series#also this actually got longer that i thought it would gonna be interesting to see how the other parts end up#fun fact: this post holds 30 images which is the max amount allowed lol#gonna stop talking in the tags and just post this now...#but let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist for this analysis series#okay wtf is going on with the photos... if you see them one by one that's not how they're supposed to be#a libra nnt analysis#nanatsu no taizai#seven deadly sins#nnt analysis#meliodas' demon secret#meliodas nnt#merlin nnt#gowther nnt#escanor nnt#ban nnt#diane nnt#fairy king harlequin
73 notes
·
View notes
Text
My Personal Opinions on Minsung's Dynamic (2022)
Disclaimer: I am not trying to pass off my opinions as facts. This is my personal interpretation of what is laid out right in front of us. I could be completely off base because I don’t know these guys personally, so take this with a grain of salt and feel free to disagree!
UHHH???
WHAT THE HELL IS IN THE AIR THIS YEAR??
I kept on saying that to myself as I kept collecting more and more clips to add to the video. They’re so sweet and gross and flirty, it’s adorable.
If you’ve watched the previous years, think for a second and compare their interactions from 2018-2021 to 2022. Whenever the two of them would be on screen at times I'd be like “Am I interrupting something??”. At times you’d see them in the background and they’d be doing their own little thing. I can’t even describe it, but the way they look at and naturally gravitate towards each other is something else (there's an insane amount of this during the Maniac tour). They have so much fun with each other.
I think at this point, most of the self-consciousness has dwindled away. They are older, more experienced, and they are probably more than aware of what they can or can’t get away with on camera at this point.
I’ve also said before in my 2018 video that Lee Know was easy to read, but that kind of tapered off in subsequent years. However, I think “open-book” Lee Know makes a swift return this year. He has the worst poker face when it comes to Han lmfao. LK is as “cat” as a human can get, but he has such puppy/golden-retriever energy around Han.
There’s so many moments throughout this year where he’s like 😊 🥰. I can’t possibly talk about all of them. If I took a shot every time it happened, I wouldn’t be here to type this out. The man is so bad at hiding it. The SKZ Talker where Han sings with the flower in his hair and the way LK is caught staring at him as he sings along gets me in shambles.
Lee Know is also caught "slipping up". A moment that comes to mind is when he stuttered out “sexy” as Han was fighting the back pain demons on the concert floor. Yay intrusive thoughts.
Also, the SKZ talker episode with the MAMA awards. THE FACE LK makes for a split second when he finds out Han is rooming with Felix before he basically “interrogates” him about it during the “interview” they have.
Han is caught "slipping up" too. I've noticed he doesn't do it as much. He seems more careful and harder to read, while Lee "Your Body Moves First Before You Think" Know is more (carefree?) about things.
The “In Your eyes” POV video and the Studio Choom behind from Maxident era come to mind.
Then in one of their step-out videos (LK had the pink/light purple hair and they were announcing the world tour). Han places his hand on LK’s butt and starts doing…something to it (that’s between him and God). LK starts smiling for a bit before forcefully removing Han’s arm. Then Han literally bites his lip. IN A STEP OUT VIDEO??? They’re so shameless dskjhskdjfhk
Subtle moments like these are the most telling and eyebrow raising things in my opinion, cause you can’t really explain them away. And these are just a few of them. There’s a lot more this year, but I’d be writing this forever if I mentioned them all.
My personal opinion:
I think they became more than platonic this year, post-Oddinary era and pre-Maniac tour (the beginning of it at latest). If someone asked me to guess a specific time, it would probably be April to May-ish. There’s a noticeable shift in their behavior from then on if you watch everything sequentially.
As for their two-kids room. I have a lot of opinions on that.
They are soooo much more confident here than in their 2018 one.
Like…watch them back-to-back. They’ve come so far.
Imagine “Feelings” Lee Know from 2018 getting to see his 2022 self and 2022 Han interact.
This might be reaching, but I think the other members (and themselves) sometimes allude to these two having feelings that go beyond platonic without having to explicitly state it for obvious reasons. Like they are trying to skirt around that, but at the same time imply that “yes, these two are very special to each other”. The language and analogies they use throughout the 2KR episode really make me raise my eyebrows.
As I’ve learned more about Minsung’s dynamic/as well as making this video, I think these two have a lot of parallels to MeI B and Geri from the Spice GirIs. If you know, you know. I vaguely remember someone (who personally knew the group) implying almost the same type of thing about them years ago (something along the lines of them having a very "interesting"/special bond).
I’ve also found it interesting how they mention (multiple times!) although LK is the Hyung, Han is able to rein him back in. Whenever that happens, LK immediately just…becomes pliant?? Like???? What????
You can actually see some instances of that in previous years (the 2021 car Vlive where LK has the napkin on his face comes to mind. He immediately takes it off after Han tells him to), but it's more noticeable this year. (I.e: LK immediately wanting to let go of Changbin’s hand as soon as Han expresses his displeasure when before LK was perfectly okay doing it?? ????? Another actual eyebrow raising moment for me.) This is a guy who comes across as a more dominant type of personality so this really threw me off lmfaooo. This is one of the reasons why I find their dynamic so interesting, but I feel like it’s not talked about enough????
Plus, LK looking at Han like he grew two heads before Han has to specifically clarify that he sees him as an “older person” rather than an “older brother”. LK has absolutely no problem with other members (i.e: Felix) seeing him as an older brother figure (in fact he welcomes it), but God forbid Han does. Interesting. 😉
(accidental parallel to 2018 LK saying “where?” when 2018 Han says “you have one right here”)
And Seungmin saying “They’re both free spirited. They have to do what they want to do.” is kinda 💡 💡 💡. It kind of goes back to Han and LK in their 2019 2KR: them saying that they both don’t care about what others think. Thinking about that, their behavior this year doesn’t surprise me one bit and almost everything else in prior years leading up to it.
2023 is where things get more blatant. I feel like that’s the year where the two want to tell us that “Hey, you guys are right. There is something going on between us.” I feel like they are taking full advantage of the shipping culture that’s abundant in K pop and FS to a smaller degree to say as much as they can possibly say without compromising their careers. As someone who’s been into K pop since 2nd gen, I’ll explain why I think this in the 2023 video.
35 notes
·
View notes
Text
2023 top five!
@preseriesdean thought it would be fun for artists/authors/creators to post their favorite five creations this year, and i agree! it can be anything: your favorite posts, fics, art, edits, fanvids, anything!
i saw some folks turning this into a tag game, so here are some tags! @deanwinchesterpregnant @dyed-red @mercette @crucifysam @weirdbrothers @togethertogethersoulmates @pookeenpie
if you end up doing it, pls tag me! i'd love to see y'all's works! :)
-lizzy
so in no particular order, here are the five fics i liked the best/am the most proud of!
considering that everything i’ve written on this account (240k words of it good lord) was published since february 23rd, i’ve got a lot to work with!
i was in the fandom back in 2012-2013 until 2016-2017, and when i rewatched it recently with some friends, i realized just how many words and feelings had been broiling since. i wrote a LOT for spn back in the day (not published, just for the pure joie de vivre), but everything on the ao3 is completely new since feb!
1. tell me, why are you still so afraid?
or, the "what do you want, sam?" fic. this one might be a surprise! it did moderately well, but i'm really happy with it! i love writing weechesters/pre-series, and i hope this fic did them justice! it hit a lot of points i liked, and i had so much fun writing it!! i'm proud of it! :)
2. you're pretty when you don't speak
or, sam's wife pov. i was shocked!!! aghast!!! frankly agog!!! at how much folks loved this one! i had the idea in the shower of all places, lmao, just the idea that wait, being sam's wife must be so lonely. it was not the usual fare (and written in second-person pov), so i was expecting it to gently and quietly flop. but no! i wrote this fic in two sittings at one a.m. the night before a paleopathology exam, so i'm shocked any of it was coherent in the morning. thank you, dear reader, if you interacted w it at all! :)
3. romans 3:10-11
ahh, romans. to other folks that write, this was one of those fics that scratched in my bones until i sat down and wrote it all out. does that sound pretentious? it was stifling; it was all i could think about. even now, i look back on it and feel like there are things that are missing, extended scenes and extra themes that i wished i had teased out. the response was overwhelming and positive and i'm so glad you lot liked it! if you ever want more...idk...lemme know...
4. we didn't get it right, but love we did our best
or, the Heaven fic! this one took awhile to make, and a lot out of me to do! it's the longest fic i've made this year, by a lot! the planning process was a lot of fun (even though charlotte was mostly asleep), and i even colour-coded themes and turning points i wanted to include. the sense of accomplishment when it was done was a great part of this year!
5. there's no such thing as a clean break, when your heart starts bleeding out
or, the stanford!era fic where dean bleeds out on the highway and decides to not tell sam about it. one of my favorite things to write is a character getting more and more out of it as they lose control (or blood), and this one was a fun challenge! i love stanford!era dean, because he's so mangled and angry and sad. i feel like that one tweet that william shatner posted where he said ELECTROCUTE HIM!!! this also feels the most like the things i wrote back in 2014, so it brings nostalgia :,)
this was WAY harder than i thought! i loved and was so proud of so much of my work this year! a top ten would be easier, but i'm happy with this list!
thank YOU for reading! :)
we are holding hands now and there's nothing you can do to stop it. y'all keep this up and we might even have to stare lovingly into each other's eyes.
#spn fanfic#spn fic#sam and dean#samdean#wincest fanfiction#wincest#wincest wednesday#2023 top five list#tag game
16 notes
·
View notes
Note
Sometimes I find it deeply and darkly hilarious about the moment magneto must have found that twins are his children. Like he must have thought -shit!!! They can't be mine, they won't likely accept me!!! Even he knows somewhere deep down, he majorly majorly screwed up and they won't accept him as their father. And I don't think he has majorly tried to repair relations from his side, he actually killed pietro!!?!! And when pietro was actually right and wanted to save wanda!
Like how can he expect their love when he was the one who abused his power to terrorize them in brotherhood Era. Even though he didn't know that wanda and pietro were his kids, he did, however deeply hurt them. I mean, the relationship between them was going to dysfunctional from start. Maybe that is why editorial is not showing magda as alive, and marya connected with twins- they both would have killed magneto several times over.
I can't believe people (and marvel editors) who want to see wanda as pure daddy's girl. Like atleast, show the growth how they patched up their relation, they could even start with the convo that how their children have been raised by other people-it can be a good introspective and bonding topic. And we need more pietro Lorna moments again, I feel she is at the moment more supportive than wanda. Poor Pietro is always the villain in Wanda's story. He also should be at x men related teams- I feel he gets more good character arc there.
Marvel doesn't do complex families well, I've said this before and will probably engrave it on my headstone. Marvel literally erases everything that makes people interested in the characters to have this generic take that's so bland and boring.
I don't think Erik ever really expected their acceptance or forgiveness, because the highlight of the issue where he reveals his connection to them isn't "I'm your father" it's "I'm Luna's grandfather"
Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982) #4
Which again to me speaks volumes about how broken Erik's relationship between himself and his children are before he even knew them for who they were. And personally I feel that Erik tries harder to foster a relationship with his grandkids than his actual children because he's grandkids are still young enough for him to shape himself in their minds/lives but also they are a generation removed from him, there's space there for him to attempt an actual relationship without the constant reminder of his past, especially the loss of his first daughter.
This is why he viewed Luna as a fresh new step on his path towards redemption, at least in his grandkids eyes, and why marvel constantly cutting Luna out of the narrative only harms the family dynamic. Even Pietro thinks it's all a trick, that's his first thought when Erik reveals their connection, because of their tumultuous past with the Brotherhood. There could be so much interpersonal introspection and character dynamics if Marvel would JUST LET SOMEONE COMPETENT WRITE THEM.
Instead all we get is some half assed "Lorna and Wanda are his daddy's girls and pietro is the screw up" found family bullshit. Found family does not work with them. Their blood/biological connection was the only tie holding them together because of their past. There's no way the in character writing would any of them have anything to do with Erik if they weren't his bio kids.
We were actually discussing this in the Magnet Family discord the other week how close Pietro is with Lorna, and how good their dynamic is and how it differs from Wanda's. Also how the three of them never actually get good on panel time together. I definitely agree that Pietro is better off on the X-Men adjacent teams than on the Avengers.
#pietro maximoff#quicksilver#wanda maximoff#scarlet witch#lorna dane#polaris#luna maximoff#erik lehnsherr#magneto#magnet family#imp answers
42 notes
·
View notes
Text
I headcannon Avatar Korra as a lesbian
Ik the fandom largely recognizes her as bi, and idt the creators knew about comphet so they probs didn't even know they could make her a lesbian after everything with Mako, but her romantic journey feels ridiculously similar to my experience as a lesbian who dealt with deeply rooted comphet (compulsory heterosexuality) and I want to explain why and how this character means to much to me in this respect
(Don't come for me; it's a f***ing headcannon and I acknowledge that it's not anything more than that)
Background: Comphet
So comphet is ultimately borne from a lack of representation. When you're a little kid in a society that only allows heterosexual-passing love stories to exist (and queer rep is made through a hetero lens), you often don't even realize that you can feel same-sex love and attraction; that it's even an option. So when you do feel those feelings you chalk it up to something else.
It technically affects everyone, but it disproportionally affects lesbians (which is why many lesbians get up in arms about other groups of people using the term to describe non-lesbian experiences) because when this happens in a patriarchal society--one that centers men and men's stories--being a girl/woman who doesn't like men is astoundingly difficult to wrap your brain around because everything is pushing you at men.
It can be even harder to wrap your brain around than being asexual (note: i say can be), because at least with pure asexuality you aren't attracted to anyone, whereas lesbians not only don't feel the "right" feelings for men, they feel them towards other women. And as women themselves who (1) may never have truly wanted to receive those feelings from men but (2) have been raised to expect that sort of attention from only men, getting over that those feelings are okay to feel for women (that it's not inherently predatory as men's attraction to women is made out to be and can really feel like when you're not attracted to men at all) It's a clusterfuck basket of feelings to sort through. And this leads to a lot of tension as you struggle against your own self-expectations in multiple areas.
Why I See Korra As A Lesbian:
1. What we know about her upbringing.
The Avatarverse is queerphobic. We learn about that in the comics when Korra tells her parents about her relationship with Asami, and from her later conversation with Kya. Same-sex relationships are taboo in the Avatar world, a topic of conversation best not shared, and best experienced on the DL so right away we have a representation issue. And
We learn pretty early in Korra's story that she's been isolated from peers her whole life. She's spent her whole life training at the compound and Naga is her only friend. This level of isolation means her only experiences of romantic relationships are going to be from witnessing her parents, coupled White Lotus members/guards/etc, and what she hears from mainstream stories--which again, as we learned from the comics, were likely not queer as queer relationships are taboo.
We don't see the same level of outright misogyny from Korra's era like we saw from Aang's era, but the centering of men was still there baked into the familial gender roles and expectations--meaning the centering of men in women's lives was probably-definitely also there.
All of those points together means that Korra's upbringing most likely gave her a heterosexual expectation for herself and lends itself to a situation where a young lesbian would definitely have some comphet to work through.
2. Her relationship with Mako.
Often, lesbians dealing with comphet will "choose" guys to have crushes on based on their perceived social value (often it's the mainstream safe option or "the underdog") and sometimes lesbians know they're choosing this guy, and sometimes it's more subconscious, often experienced getting oddly obsessive only to discover they're not into him once he reciprocates or the relationship is established ("getting a boyfriend has been achieved. societal validation unlocked. but wait, why don't I like the reality of having a boyfriend?").
That "oh she likes him" music played for Korra after Mako pulled impressive stuff at the Pro Bending arena and was waving to the crowd. And like, yes, people can become more attractive based on their actions and achievements, but a lesbian under comphet would definitely see Mako prove himself to be an impressive guy (loved by an entire cheering audience) and go "I choose that one." I myself used to scan a room, pick the most conventionally attractive guy, and go "i want that one to like me" and then genuinely thought I liked him. This behavior is not about actual attraction, it's about a subconscious understanding of social dynamics and what you need to be valuable to a community--emphasis on the subconscious.
She gets pretty obsessive about him, which makes total sense if he's her first crush and she's been isolated her whole life, but also lines up with the comphet lesbian.
That line in her confession, too, "I really like you and I think we were meant for each other." Like, girl, what soulmate romance novels have you been reading between training sessions?? And this doesn't mean she couldn't have actually been attracted to Mako, but it does mean she really built him up in her head (and what she should expect from a chosen guy).
Then they get together, and you know how long that lasted for? Like, two episodes. This was where I started to think she never actually liked Mako. Immediately Korra starts picking fights with him and then quickly physically separates herself from him. And she does this to him almost every time they're in a scene together after they start dating. Meanwhile, Mako was just being a relatively supportive, attentive boyfriend so clearly her own feelings were the trigger. This wasn't a problem of personalities clashing, it really seemed like Korra didn't like the reality of being in a relationship with Mako.
In the end Mako takes it on that he's just not equipped to handle being the support-partner to the Avatar and Korra agrees that they're better off as friends, I even seem to remember her being the one to verbalize that they made better friends than gf/bf all after she worked so hard to convince him to be with her. And why I ask you? Possibly because as soon as she had the boyfriend, she realized she didn't actually want a boyfriend. Emphasis on the boy.
She took like zero social cues from him: He says he's confused, she jumps in and kisses him. He's uncomfortable with her grabbing his arm, she tells him to play along (translation: "suck it up, this is happening"). And then there was that scene where she kissed him out of nowhere in the locker room. (And Korra picks up on social cues from everyone else, so it's not an autism thing or something.) This is actually behavior you'll see frequently from people who are more into the idea of a person than the actual person. Liking an actual person requires acknowledging their personhood (not just how great they are), and Korra does way less of that than she does of deciding how things with Mako can or should go all, the way up to their mutual decision to just be friends. And lesbians under comphet? Yeah, liking the idea of a guy is the closest they usually get to actually liking a guy.
I don't doubt that Korra doesn't care for Mako, later seasons definitely proved that time and time again, but: a lesbian under comphet could very easily mistake that care for different feelings and lead to a relationship like what Korra had with Mako.
3. Her Intro to Bolin
It's such a small thing, but that first moment she has with him in the gym, the way she bristles at his "implication" that they were "together" screams bby lesbian to me. Because I did this. Often times I was looking out for such implications. And I've been a bby lesbian so I would know (technically still am).
4. Apart from her intense and then very short-lived feelings for Mako, we never see her express interest in a guy again.
And four seasons does not translate to a lifetime of examples, but several guys are shown to express interest in Korra over those four seasons (I'm including Prince Wu hitting on her in their first encounters) and meanwhile we only see Korra interested in two people: a guy and a gal. And one of them, I think, can be really well explained by comphet.
5. What Her Relationship with Asami Tells Us
The way Korra acted toward Asami when she had feelings for her was completely different from the way she expressed her feelings for Mako. And, like, yes, she's been through at least two seasons of trauma since she first thought she liked Mako so she's changed, and this was a show on Nickelodeon so they wanted the queer to be as subtle/nonexistent as possible, but still:
The way Korra acts while liking Asami is c o m p l e t e l y different from how she acted when she was in her Mako phase.
Even after they get together in the comics, the way Korra expresses her interest in Asami is still completely different from her interest in Mako. Her interest in Mako was obsessive and forceful and after they got together it was very platonically comfortable in small moments before she consistently turned combative. Her interest in Asami was receptive and emotional, and then when they got together it was secure, protective, and fierce. And I'm not saying bisexuals can't experience this difference between two partners of different genders, but as a lesbian who dealt with comphet and then started dating the actual correct gender for her sexuality, her relationship with Mako screams of forcing something she thought she wanted. Especially when compared to her relationship with Asami.
In Conclusion
Arguments could be made for ace umbrella rep in Korra, and certainly the fandom's consensus is that she's bisexual rep, but I wanted to express a different possibility; one that never gets fully explored in media.
In the end: she's a cartoon character, so any aspect of her personhood is completely dependent on her creators (like what stan lee said about people who ask him which superhero would win in a fight, the answer is "whoever I want to win.") and while I super doubt the creators knew they could go this route to explain Korra (meaning it's probably not in the cards for actual cannon) I still hold this headcannon dear to me because I see so much of my own (misguided) romantic history reflected in it.
Thanks for reading.
91 notes
·
View notes
Text
trial and error - nishimura riki
TMI with yuri !
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ synopsis : after breaking up with his ex, niki was going through everything a normal heart broken teenager would go through… except a certain someone keeps catching his eye~ will y/n be able to help niki get over his ex despite the efforts of his ex ?
a/n: and it has officially officially ended ! thank you for reading trial and error ! hope this chapter didn’t disappoint but if you have any more questions that weren’t answered here, feel free to comment or send an ask ~ tap here to read encore !
word count : 1.5k
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ how it started
being very real rn, as mentioned before this entire smau was based on ONE chapter itself ( the perilla leaves chapter). the original plot of trial and error was supposed to be for niki to unconsciously cheat on hyerin emotionally but this would result in the smau being more than 40 chapters long and i didnt intend to drag this smau out for too long. i wanted the smaus plot length to be just right so the readers wont get sick of it <3
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ haenas sudden appearance
it mustve been surprising for a character to suddenly be added towards the end but yet still play such a big role in moving the story forward. if you read closely, you would realise that niki was supposed to be the one that catches hyerin defaming yn. the reason for haenas existence was simply because 1. i realised yn didnt have any friends in the smau that was a girl and #girlpower 2. at the start of the smau, sunghoons fangirls were mentioned so i wanted to show how fans would always be willing to help out their role models/ people they look up to. 3. i didnt want to make it a thing whereby hyerin is only painted as the bad guy (by nikis group) simply because they broke up, i think thats wayyy too petty, so i had to give yall a reason to see that hyerin isnt just hated because of a petty reason but rather because she doesn’t react well to anything and that theres only that many people she could fool. (she be lacking critical thinking me think )
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ haehoon
ngl, it was never that serious. originally, haena’s love for sunghoon was never supposed to surpass fangirl level ( kind of to show our para social relationship with our favourite idols) but since there are people who are #teamhaehoon, i shall drop some unplanned scenes of haehoon that never made it to the series !
haena and sunghoon’s dynamics remained that way ( as seen in the spinoff ) however, sunghoon did end up asking haena out once the year ended ! their dynamics still stayed the same ( crack level ) except they are dating ! they never ended up breaking up because who would want to lose someone like haena right ?
sunghoon even managed to get into the same university as haena after haena forced him into revising with her on almost every single one of their dates ( he hates the last hour of their dates since haena would always test him to see if he did revise ) but i guess the fruits of their labour did show !
thanks to sunghoon and niki, haena was able to get close to yn and they are now besties ~
if you think about it , haehoon would definitely be a case where she fell first and he fell harder ! she definitely started liking him first for his personality (we love loud introvert hoonhoon ) but once sunghoon noticed her, he can never go a day without interacting with her once ( this includes staring from a distance ). it took him a lot of convincing and screaming into his pillow to gather enough courage to ask haena out. once they started dating, his simp era started too.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ how ynki started
the smau started with niki just getting out of a relationship with hyerin a few days prior, so how did he move on so quickly to yn ? the answer is curiosity. as mentioned previously, yn looks slightly similar to hyerin which was what caught nikis attention initially. when he found out that yn was his classmate it deepens his curiosity as one would wonder why they never noticed someone who looks similar to their significant other. moving on, yn originally never had feelings for niki. she only interacted with him because it was fun to tease him but well that definitely led to something.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ ot7
the whole friend group concept is basically built like this :
yn + sunwon
jaywon
hyung line + maknae
so if you add them together, ot7 happened ! ot7 were mainly acting as nikis wingman tho 💀💀💀
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ ynsunwon
how did they meet ? jungwon was the reason why this trio exists ! jungwon was friends with yn then met sunoo shortly after, forming our three main slayers. in chapter 22, it was mentioned that the friendship between ynwon blossomed because of the classes he had to miss due to competitions and yn helping him out ! naturally, since yn is jungwons friend and so is sunoo, the two became very good friends as well !
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ did won have feelings for yn
the answer is no. their friendship was purely platonic with no feelings involved ( although sometimes their actions might make it seem otherwise) jungwon just really cares about yn, thats all
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ amusement park (ch 9)
there was so many details missing right ? well i did it on purpose el o el. wondering what happened ? everything cliché happened. they held onto each other for their dear lives on every ride and bought matching headbands as souvenirs ( niki paid ) , yn was feeling too good because of all the hyerin texts and niki ddi realise ( he just didnt know the reason ) hence he bought yn an ice cream and a drink but when yn couldnt finish the strawberry ice cream, it landed in his hands ( look at one of the posts from that chap ! )
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ wrinkley ( rinki)
we were all mad niki let her back into his life lets be real. but the method hyerin used is actually a method that could be used irl ! if you ask someone that doesn’t like you for a favour, it is very likely ( not 100%) they will change their mind about you and dislike you less ! this was the method i was trying to show by having hyerin borrow nikis art set ~
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ broken up
rinkis back story ? you got it. these were supposed to be included but it would make the smau wayyyy to long and boring so it is appearing here ! hyerin and niki got together after meeting each other in art academy then realising the year after that they were going to be classmates (yes yn was there </3) ! hyerin was the one that confessed and was also the one who broke up with niki, simply because theres this theory where a relationship (boy girl rs ) would rarely work out if the female likes the male more. as seen in the smau, niki can be really caring but also really moody at times and hyerin isnt the type that can stand attention not being on them, hence the end of their relationship. hyerin regretted it shortly after because after breaking up with niki, she got even lesser attention than before !! hyerin never officially became friends with ot7 unlike yn ( thats why #standforyn ) anyways, hyerin was pretty salty that yn got the attention she craved for and tried so hard to earn so thats where everything spiralled.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ nikis letter (chap 18)
“ yn, my love !
its niki ! im writing down all the things i wish to say to you but cant get the proper words out without being a blushy mess. im not sure what happened and truthfully, i dont have to know, all i need to know is how you feel and how to cheer you up so i can always support you when youre feeling down. after doing some digging and sacrificing my wallet to jungwon hyung, i was given the secret weapon to making you smile again ! im no cook but i did try my absolute best making these dishes ~ ill admit i didnt actually make the cake from scratch BUT i did decorate it !! im so glad my mum birthed me with skills hehe <3 i heard you like handwritten letters so here is one specially from the one and only riki !
yn, youre never alone. please never struggle alone. your friends, me , my hyungs, we are all here for you. please dont shut us out. ever since you entered my life, i dont think i can go a day without you :( i genuinely like you so much i think i might just go crazy. i will work hard to become someone reliable so that whenever you’re tired, you can always take a rest and lean on me. lets get along well and spend the rest of our lives happy ~ when you’re ready to let me into your world, i will always be ready to join you on your journey and help you walk a flowery path ! take your time to heal but dont forget about me !
i love you yn ! you heard it from me first !
riki ”
that’s about all i can think of for now, thank you for reading trial and error ! dont forget to check out the spinoffs and my next smau encore ! if you love my works so far, do consider joining my permanent masterlist ! - yuri
<prev > <masterlist > <special > <encore ! >
taglist ! @soobin-chois @aksemy @ja4hyvn @enhacolor @abdiitcryy @ahnneyong @ineedaherosavemeenow @meiiiwa @softiegukk @yuhjoeyuh @cookiehaos @sd211 @yenqa @kittyeij @l1lac-dreamer @kim-liv @luva1y @viagumi @luvkait @tr-wemoon @annoyingbitch83 @pw00kkat @jayujus @tya0 @ihoonbrry @sunoosunshxne @j-wyoung @luvhooniez @yangkie @ixomiyu @stepout-09-15 @homelycat @curly-fr13s @beatr2x @s0ye0nswife @littlewolfieposts @herefornamu @llllllllama @totoroblop @loveliii @mafukissu @whippedforbeomgyu @bikpop @pkjay @lcv3lies @txtbrainrot @yvrikoo @officiallyjaehyuns @xtra-cheese @bnnyniky @jungwonsgfnameyukie @xiaoderrrr
#enhypen jungwon#enhypen angst#enhypen heeseung#enhypen niki#enhypen sunoo#enhypen sunghoon#enhypen jay#enhypen#enhypen fluff#enhypen jake#enhypen smau#enha jungwon#enha angst#enha#enha smau#enha jay#enha sunghoon#enha sunoo#enha fluff#enha jake#enha heeseung#enha niki#yang jungwon#lee heeseung#jake sim#park sunghoon#kim sunoo#nishimura riki#niki angst#niki fluff
53 notes
·
View notes
Note
Wall of ramblings incoming
The whole debacle around Shadow, to me at least, is basically one of the signs of the generational shift in the fandom. Except now instead of people saying that everything after the classic games sucks, its everything after the adventure games that does, because adventure games was the golden time when Sega meant SRS BZNSS and was so DARK and so MATURE, and nowadays its all just babby games for babbys and not true fans. And what better character to use as a glorified example than who's pretty much the face of that era? At least from what I managed to understand among all the headcannons, it's that some people seem to believe that overamping of Shadow's angst will somehow outweigh the "kiddiness" of current Sonic and restore the universal balance or something that will remind the blind sheep how truly good and SERIOUS Sonic used to be. Yes, some are doing it just for angst's sake or because they just discovered what angst is and they learned that it makes them feel things so they want more of it, but with the supposedly serious fans I'm more inclined to think that what I described could be at least partially the reason. Why else would, for example, you have Shadow manipulated by illusions of Maria, have him blindly believe her and have an "emotional" boss fight with her afterwards like in Omens, if not to make people go "oh wow that is so not like the current Sonic games".
To me, it speaks of a lack of imagination. People like to act as though Big Bad Sega is putting him under lock and key with all these fictitious mandates, but really, at this point he's the one with the most carte blanche because there's very little actually tying him down. He's moved on from his past, he can't be manipulated by villains anymore, and he may or may not even be a part of GUN atm considering Eggman decimated them in Forces. Where do you go from there? Anywhere you can think of.
You (general you) could take Shadow in literally any direction, do anything with him, have any number of stories and character arcs. You could do a lot with "seeks strong foes" as a motivation, provided you, you know, build a solid story around it. And yet, somehow, the only thing you can think to do is to drag him back to his past, over and over again.
And, well. Definition of insanity, and all that.
Obviously I'm not opposed to the general idea of revisiting his time on the ARK - otherwise I'd be a huge hypocrite in making a VN with that exact setting, lol - but I feel like ST has the best idea out of anyone by showing us Shadow's happy moments rather than any suffering he may have experienced there. The contrast makes the tragedy hit harder.
The insistence on seeing Shadow suffer in just this one specific context feels weird. It makes it seem like the only thing he does of note is suffer, just like how Maria's only apparent contribution is to die.
Folks want muh deep dark Sonics, but then overlook the context behind that suffering. The games don't include dark content without reason. There's usually a parable or message of some kind attached, typically a hopeful one.
---
At least from what I managed to understand among all the headcannons, it's that some people seem to believe that overamping of Shadow's angst will somehow outweigh the "kiddiness" of current Sonic and restore the universal balance or something that will remind the blind sheep how truly good and SERIOUS Sonic used to be.
Why else would, for example, you have Shadow manipulated by illusions of Maria, have him blindly believe her and have an "emotional" boss fight with her afterwards like in Omens, if not to make people go "oh wow that is so not like the current Sonic games".
What gets me is, okay, even if Shadow has to suffer, even if that part is non-negotiable... why does it have to be related to the ARK? What about the ARK raid was so special that something else couldn't make just as big an impact on his character? Maria's death? Yes, it impacted him greatly, but that doesn't mean he can't still suffer.
Forces made him suffer when Infinite stuck him in Virtual Reality, but apparently making Omega and Rouge's visages mock him wasn't good enough. Those illusions needed to be Maria or otherwise they wouldn't be seen as legitimate.
And that's not even getting into the logistics of how Infinite managed to learn about Maria in the first place. Not to mention, "Do you really think Shadow is stupid enough to fall for the illusion of someone he knows for a stone-cold fact is dead?"
Like. It's almost as though they expect a Pavlovian response, like Shadow's supposed to suffer flashbacks on the spot or something. Actually kind of vaguely gross if you think about it.
The real irony underpinning all this is how Forces offered to deliver a Return to Form to those Serious Games with a story about the horrors of war, but because it wasn't the flavor they wanted, people snubbed their noses and threw it in with the rest of the discards.
If SA2 were remade today and no changes were made to the story and dialogue, people would probably be like "omg Shadow threatens Rouge's life wtf is this Segaaaa why aren't they besties right off the bat" or "why is Shadow smirking so much" because they have this idea in their heads of how Shadow Should Be(tm) that's based more on nebulous vibes and fanon than anything else.
This isn't even getting into how regressive it would be to push Shadow back to his SA2 portrayal when he was essentially brainwashed for most of the game. Nor how '06!Shadow and SA2!Shadow aren't even the same character. The latter is the result of the former having gone through three games' worth of character development and finally deciding to move on and not be manipulated by assholes anymore.
I feel like what people are trying to say is they want a certain vibe from Shadow, this... idk, chiller version of him? That doesn't have any discernible rough edges.
In reality, Shadow's always had rough edges. He's always been a little competititive, a little arrogant, a little violent, a little bit of a petty bitch, a little misanthropic.
But, again, he has multiplicity of character, and it's the context which matters in terms of whether those traits appear and to what degree.
9 notes
·
View notes
Note
I might have pitied this deformed woman
With all due respect ACD why is everyone calling someone with a limp deformed... Also to be honest I would have felt more horror from the story if Gilroy found her attractive and/or charming and enjoyed her company and work relationship but also did not love her for whatever (non-physical) reason, because then there could have been a potential inner conflict and guilt, instead of ''this is out of my hands she is icky-looking and a crone (Gilroy you are 35) so I have no self-doubts about being in love involved on top of it all yay''. Having him vehemently dislike her all the time minus during hypnosis removes those layers.
It isn't 'everyone' in the story who calls her deformed, though. It's just Gilroy. No one else is mentioned deriding her for her disability or her looks or anything else beyond Penelosa's talent.
Considering ACD's comparatively progressive track record with the Sherlock Holmes stories--a series notable for how often it takes the side of oppressed parties, including abused or preyed-upon women--I can't see Gilroy's ageist and ableist views as anything but an intentional setup for the narrative payoff of his disgust as well as his anger and fear.
The story does feel slightly karmic at the start and, to give ACD the benefit of the doubt, I agree with you that having Penelosa not be an attractive hypno-dominatrix likely played a part in Gilroy's initial revulsion at her controlling him into playing paramour. I think this was intentional for the character's buildup, but also for the audience's. Even in the present day, there's no ignoring that there are demographics out there who are Highly Interested in the erotic implications of hypnosis. BDSM for the brain, puppet master kinks, et cetera.
If Miss Penelosa had been hot, or even just pretty, I wouldn't have been surprised if the horror story ACD was trying to put together would lose much of its punch in his era's audience. Sure, it's still icky that Gilroy's a man being Controlled By a Woman (!!!), but having her be attractive would 'soften' it for them. Still, all this is only in play if ACD was really truly adamant about selling the horror of 'A Stranger Now Owns My Free Will and Is Planning to Violate My Life in Intimate Ways.'
It could also have just been intended as an eerie scientific*** what-if adventure applied to a then-popular (and wildly overestimated) practice of the time. Or maybe he meant it as a straight-up supernatural escapade in the vein of vampiric mesmerism from a psychic monster. I don't know, I can't ask him.
All of that said, the horror is soured a bit by Gilroy being a haughty skeptic snob who had some comeuppance heading his way in the first place. Similar setups are common in horror flicks today, where we get to cheer at least once in a movie when the Big Villain takes down a more commonplace bad guy. There's no scare there, just vindication.
And me being me, that's not enough. Because I am all about two things.
One, adding more horror to everything, always, forever.
Two, making life harder for Jonathan Harker.
Jonathan 'Holiest Love means I Will Walk Backwards into Hell to Protect/Stay with My Wife Whether She's Mortal or a Literal Monster' Harker is not about to shit on anyone for a bad leg or some crow's feet.
More importantly, we've already seen his reaction to sexy sexy undead ladies trying to hypnotize him into compliance so they can take certain bloody/eternally conscripting liberties with him.
To judge by the 1000+ Dracula adaptations that show the directors' fetishes in full view, Jonathan being preyed on by the hot vampire Brides is seen by many people as...you know. Hot. Enough to rewrite and bastardize his character every time to make him seem like he was genuinely tempted by them.
But He Was Not.
He was being hypnotized into artificial attraction and paralysis so the ladies could take their turns with him without his fighting back or trying to run. Which he does later! More than once! Every time this voluptuous trio tries to hypnotize or corner him again, Jonathan catches on and sprints in the other direction. He is not into that shit no matter how pretty you are, ladies.
Specifically because, as I and Bramothy Stoker cannot stress enough, Jonathan Harker is strictly Minasexual. All Mina all the time. 24/7 Mina lockdown 365 days of the year. Mina, Mina, Mina. Mina? Mina. (I personally headcanon him as demisexual with shades of biromanticism and ace, but that's beside the point.)
The point is, even if Penelosa was a knockout, Jonathan wouldn't notice. He wouldn't care. Just as his love would not have been stopped by Mina turning into an actual monster; he would rather be damned and in love than slay her and be holy. You can bet your ass if Mina suddenly had a handicap he'd still be enraptured with her to the point of blasphemy. You know he's going to still be heart-eyed as they grow older. Jonathan Harker is made of unconditional and extremely focused love. It is all-encompassing and yet it belongs to a single person. It's the kind of love we all wish we had for ourselves.
It's the kind of love that someone like Penelosa--who latched onto a random handsome prick of a professor after she had known him LESS THAN AN HOUR and started plotting to groom him into her personal Ken doll--would do anything to have for herself; Jonathan Harker, the true Prince Charming, the gallant beloved, the guileless charmer who holds the One He Loves above himself, above God and Devil and the world itself...being wasted on some pretty young thing who hardly needs such a treasure.
It isn't fair. Mrs. Harker will never appreciate dear Jonathan like other, more deserving women would. Not like her. She would show him. Help him through the motions until he learned better; learned to love in the right direction.
Her direction.
Only if given the opportunity, of course.
(👁)
In short, yeah, Gilroy was not the best option for a sympathetic horror story protagonist who we could feel real fear and empathy for. We only really get a glimpse of that toward the end, when Penelosa escalates enough to start injuring innocents and tries to make Gilroy throw acid in his fiancée's face. A big scary leap, but also too late in the game for a proper punch. Especially with the abrupt copout of the ending. Bleh.
I think we can do better than that. Say, with a protagonist who can balance on the pro-and-con line of keeping the supernatural puppet master of their life happy enough to not act rashly, who knows the value of dancing on eggshells in a tight spot, who could tug the heartstrings of villain and audience just enough to let fuller and far more frightening machinations come to light as time goes by.
Especially with certain other powers lurking in the shadows, which might make a trifle like death a far less permanent end to their ~romance~ than it ought to be.
Don't you agree, Mr. Harker? ❤
P.S. Gilroy's still absolutely getting his ass handed to him in this take, don't you worry. He's been demoted from crush to chew toy to minion. RIP sir, but you're not off the hook just because Jonathan's distracting her with his dreaminess. Get to work.
#I got an ask a while ago that was really focused on whether or not I was 'going to keep Penelosa ugly'#not long after I went into a whole other ramble about how she was Not Described As Ugly#just middle-aged a bit plain and having a limp#a ramble where I also pointed out that Gilroy was the only person who was shown being insulting about her appearance#to be clear: While there will be (unpleasantly) intimate predatory scenes#this is not a kinkfic I'm writing#this isn't 'Jonathan Gets Hypno-Dommed By Sexy Psychic Lady XXX'#it's meant to be taken as a story directly following Dracula's events and happening a third of the way into 'The Parasite'#while also taking some liberties with the amount of time involved rather than killing the story (and Penelosa) unceremoniously#barely a month into the interesting bits#the fact that Jonathan is careful enough to play the long game without pissing off (X) bogeyman/bogeywoman is grounds to let things go on#for much Much longer than Gilroy allowed with his temper getting the better of him and setting Penelosa on vengeance#more time = more dread = Penelosa getting to show exactly how far she's willing to go to own her target's life/love#I don't plan to throw any ageist or ableist shit in the mix#just fleshing out character points we never got to see in focus before#and highlighting the Actual Menace of the premise that Gilroy's plight/personality didn't really sell#'Someone owns your brain and is taking steps to cut you out of your life and make you into their personal doll.'#which is scary! fucked up! absolute nightmare and a half!#regardless if the person making you into a puppet is sexy~ or not#but again: I am not sexifying this story or its characters. Period.#they are who they are and anything I might add to the story will have its roots in the original works#so to any future anons wanting to know: No. No Sexy Penelosa for you. No hot Harker love triangle. The End.#anyway#the parasite#arthur conan doyle#dracula#bram stoker#jonathan harker#helen penelosa#austin gilroy
44 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
topgun2fullreplaydubthai
ท็อปกัน 2 มาเวอริค(2022)Top Gun 2
strettonfox
Stretton Fox
kriticalsituations
Kya Yaar Kriti
unicornsoft
Tyrant, The Unicorn Lannister.
4ryll
Untitled