hi!! i'm a fan of your fics and your writing and im so curious to know your writing process? like, how you outline, the programs you use to organize chapters, etc etc. would u be willing to explain it? i've been trying to organize my stories better and u seem to have a great grasp on it. i'm also willing to come off anon if you'd prefer to answer privately or smthn lol!

hi!!! thank you so much!!!! i have no problem explaining everything here, no worries! i'm happy to talk about it if it'll help out others ^_^ it'll be under the cut since this got long... sorry T_T

so, for me, when it comes to fic ideas, i usually know it's something feasible if i have more than a few scenes in mind, along with maybe some pieces of dialogue, and i know i can sit down and actually outline. for, say, wwt, i got that idea when i was writing dgfh and i knew immediately it was something i wanted to do and go in more depth on. (but some stuff is just a passing interest that i can talk about it but not something that i can actually do, if that makes any sense? like when i'm done talking about it, that's pretty much it.)

then with outlining, i like a concrete layout for things. i tend to have my outlines in notion for quick reference anywhere. i have a specific brainstorming template that i used for frmb, dgfh, wwt, and the others and it looks like this

(this can be edited, of course, with things added and things removed) another part of my process -- i tend to need a general scope of the landscape but it's not as hard as it seems. usually i just google [city name] neighborhoods and i'll have the city itself pulled up in maps or something to get a handle on directions.

aside from that, i've also found it incredibly helpful to outline/write out specific beginnings and endings. the beginnings are easier but endings are wayyyy harder and i know i need to put something done otherwise it might not come together how i want it. it's not necessarily a specific point, but rather more of a scene, like a vision for the end.

(i don't know if ANY of this makes sense btw so if you have any more questions, please feel free to let me know!)

but ok, back to outlining. one thing for me that i did for wwt and then again with that new tim fic (that i still need to make an acronym for...) is that i actually wrote out a rough outline in my journal and then i copied it to notion and elaborated more on certain points as more ideas came to me.

sometimes i have the urge to outline strictly in notion -- which is what happened with frmb -- but other times i like to actually write things out and then i'll copy it to notion just because i don't always have my journal.

alongside this, i also love making playlists! playlists are soooo central for my fics! genuinely i can't have a fic without a playlist LOL.

once all of that is fulfilled -- i can start writing! for me, i use a combination of google docs and a writing program called scrivener. google docs is mostly for when i'm writing on my phone. when i'm on my laptop, i will use scrivener 95% of the time.

i bought and downloaded scrivener from here. it's $59 USD but they have an education discount that's based on an honor system, so you don't even have to be a student/prove you are a student and it's $50 USD.

the good thing about scrivener, though, is you're buying a license to it, which means once you buy it, it's yours forever. no subscription nonsense or anything, which i really like. for that, i think it's super super worth it to get it. i also think, with all the capabilities scrivener has (which i'll get into), it's not as expensive as it could be. but of course, it still is an expense, but i've had it for four/five years now and it's absolutely paid for itself.

so, within project files, you can do things like set word count goals for chapters, keep track of your statistics and writing history, organize folders, etc etc. this is what frmb's project file looks like

and i kept dgfh and wwt in one project file since they weren't that long/big on their own, so this is what their project file looks like

there is just. SO MUCH you can do and i haven't even really figured out how to use everything or what tools there are. literally right now as i'm typing this and clicking around on scrivener, i apparently discovered that it has. a whole ass name generator

this certainly could've have come in handy earlier.... but now i know. and now you and everyone else knows! so. i write primarily in here and i also do my editing here. i won't get into the editing but scrivener also has a tool that lets you compile chapters into an epub file, which i've utilized to edit/read much more closely in book format.

so that's really it. i use notion for outlining and then i use scrivener for writing and organizing everything else! i hope this answered your question and i'm terribly sorry this got so long but if you have any other questions/i didn't cover something, feel free to let me know ^_^ i don't mind at all!

Your Code Is Hard To Read!

This is one of those posts I make not because I think my followers need to hear them, but because I want to link to them from Discord from time to time. If you are a Moderator, Contributor or "Helpfulie" on the PyGame Community Discord, I would welcome your feedback on this one!

"You posted your code and asked a question. We can't answer your question. Your code is hard to read."

Often when we tell people this, they complain that coding guidelines are just aesthetic preferences, and they didn't ask if their code followed coding guidelines. They asked us to fix the bug. That may be so, but the problem remains: If you ask us to fix your code, we can only help you if we can read it.

Furthermore, if there are many unrelated bugs, architectural problems, and hard to understand control flow, the concept of fixing an isolated bug becomes more and more unclear.

In order to fix unreadable code, you could:

eliminate global variables

replace magic numbers with constants

replace magic strings with enumerations

name classes, functions, constants, variables according to consistent coding standards

have functions that do one thing and one thing only like "collision detection" or "collision handling". If your function does two things at the same time, like rendering AND collision detection, then it must be refactored

rewrite deeply nested and indented code to be shallower

rewrite code that keeps a lot of state in local variables into special-case functions

use data structures that make sense

write comments that explain the program, not comments that explain the programming language

delete unneccessary/unreachable code from the question to make it easier to read or from your program to see if the problem persists

My own programs often violate one or more of those rules, especially when they are one-off throwaway scripts, or written during a game jam, or prototypes. I would never try to ask other people for help on my unreadable code. But I am an experienced programmer. I rarely ask for help in an unhelpful way. Almost never ask for help in a way that makes other experienced programmers ask for more code, or less code, or additional context. I post a minimal example, and I usually know what I am doing. If I don't know what I am doing, or if I need suggestions about solving my problem completely differently, I say so.

Beginner programmers are at a disadvantage here. They don't know what good code looks like, they don't know what good software architecture looks like, they don't know how to pare down a thousand lines of code to a minimal example, and if they try to guess which section of code contains the error, they usually guess wrong.

None of this matters. It may be terribly unfair that I know how to ask smart questions, and beginner programmers ask ill-posed questions or post code that is so bad it would be easier and quicker for an experienced programmer to re-write the whole thing. It is often not feasible to imagine what the author might have intended the code to work like and to fix the bugs one by one while keeping the structure intact. This is not a technical skill, this is a communicative and social skill that software engineers must pick up sooner or later: Writing code for other people to read.

If your code is too hard to read, people can't practically help you.

It gets worse. Unreadable code is sometimes unreadable because it is un-salvageable. It is hard to understand because there is nothing to understand, it would not work, and you need to go back to the drawing board.

Defensive Responses

This is not where the problem ends. Often, after a couple of rounds of back and forth, after questions like "Well, you say there is a bug, but can you tell me what you would want the code to do in the first place?", or "Is this a class or an instance? If it's supposed to be an instance variable, could you give it a lowercase name?" or "Could you give that variable _obj a more descriptive name? It looks like you are assigning different things to this variable in different parts of your loop. Perhaps you could use two variables with different, more descriptive names", you see a defensive response. The original question asker is not interested in making code easy to read, just in making it work. As I explained above, this is a confused way of thinking, because ill-posed questions and unreadable code make it difficult to impossible to make the code work, or to even understand what making it work would look like.

"Style is irrelevant." – This is by far the most common one. Since coding style, comments, variable names, and even re-factoring code into smaller functions do not affect the output, and thus not the correctness of the program.

"I asked for help with bugs, not style." – This is a variation on the first one. As long as there is no concrete and discrete bug, style feedback and questions for clarification can be discarded.

"This is too much work." – The original poster explains that making the code more readable is too much work for them, and fixing the bugs would be easier for others.

"Nobody will see the code anyway" – Nobody will see the code of the finished product, so it's irrelevant. Sometimes there are variations like "We aren't graded on code quality, only correctness" or "This is for a class project, nobody will depend on the code, so we don't need robustness."

"This is just throwaway code, it doesn't have to be good." – Like the previous one, this is frustrating to read because somebody posted the code on a forum for other people to read and asked them to understand it, and then said he doesn't care if it's readable or debuggable.

"I asked you for help." / "I am asking the questions here." – The original poster refuses to answer questions, because he asked, he expects answers, not questions in return.

"Don't blame me, I didn't write it" – We have completely left the realm of correctness and style now. The poster knows the code is unreadable, or doesn't make sense. He tried to protect his reputation. But he doesn't like the tone of the responses. Its not his fault the code doesn't make sense. It's not his fault if it doesn't work. Common variations are "This must be correct, it was the accepted answer on StackOverflow", or "I copied this from a tutorial", or "Don't blame me, this was written by GitHub Copilot". Often part of the problem is that the code has different parts written in different styles, or uses different data structures in different places, and both parts could benefit from a re-write to make them more consistent with each other. At other times the problem is that the code from the book is "correct" for certain purposes from the book, but not really suited for the problem at hand.

"I apologised already" – The poster is frustrated because he said "I am sorry I am a n00b" or "I am sorry for my bad English" already. Then somebody said his code is unreadable or his prose makes no sense. The poster sees readable code, or at least code that is readable enough to understand what the idea was, as a courtesy, as a social custom, not as something necessary to make the whole question and answer thing work. The same goes for a firm grasp of English. The poster apologised already that his English is bad, and you should just see past it. Dealing with this is especially difficult, because Q&A is framed as some kind of status game, and the poster is trying hard to save face already. Push-back will make him feel like he is losing face, and he will only get more defensive.

Causes

So where does the problem begin? Why do people write unreadable code, post it online, and get defensive? I think the answer is a combination of programming skill, social skill, and simplistic mental models.

Software Engineering is Difficult: Obviously, one root cause is that beginner programmers can't already write readable code from the start. Writing readable, well-factored code that is easy to debug, re-use, and adapt is something that comes with experience. Writing code for other people to read can only be learned after one has learned to write code.

Magical Thinking/Limited Cognitive Empathy: The most common and most direct cause of this phenomenon – the refusal to help others read your unreadable code – is not the unreadable code itself. It is the belief that it should be easy for experienced programmers to understand the structure of and intent behind a piece of code, even if the person who wrote it didn't. If you see software as basically magic, and don't see computers as soulless automatons that do what they do because they are built that way, then this is an easy trap to fall into. A variant of this works for language. If somebody is bad at English, or bad at the technical jargon needed to ask his question, he will often think that the question he thought up in his native Klingon was perfectly well-formed, and that other people should have no trouble reading his words, because they also think in Klingon, so they would translate it into a question that makes sense anyway.

Status-Consciousness: Many beginner programmers feel the desperate need to distinguish themselves from other beginners, and if they have been learning JavaScript for two moths now, they want to be seen as real programmers, not as children who play with Scratch and build Redstone contraptions in MineCraft. They want to be taken seriously. This reminds me of a five year old boy who stretches out his arm and tells me he is THIS BIG, and he is already FIVE, going on SIX, and he will go to SCHOOL soon.

Naive Mental Model of De-Bugging: Every program has a certain number of discrete features bugs, and when you remove all bugs, you end up with a program that works. This is of course nonsense. You can write a program that has an indeterminate number of bugs, or a program that implements an algorithm that doesn't quite work, or a useless program, or a program that does random nonsense.

With any luck, sooner or later, programmers will learn the technical side, and the social and collaborative side of software development.

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

Performative Badassery & Women in Kdramas

When I said I wrote an essay, I meant essay. This is a long one! Grab a snack and venture below the read more. I’ll see you at the end!

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You know the feeling. The drama begins. Our female main lead walks onto screen. She’s a successful businesswoman, a hotshot detective, clever lawyer, smartass retail worker, etc, etc. She stares down a random man to prove she’s the powerful one here. Or kicks some ass. Or rattles off a bunch of demands to her workers. Or talks fast to show off her intelligence.

Then she meets the male lead. There’re fireworks. Slowly we find our female lead has a softer side. Good to know. 3-dimensional and complex characters are important. It’s nice to see women on-screen who are both capable and emotional. Kick ass and feminine. 

But slowly... something starts to go wrong. She seems to be crying more than showing literally any other kind of emotion. And is it just me or is she getting saved and manhandled and flustered quite a lot for a woman who we were told was so well put together? Sure, the circumstances are extreme. But they’re extreme for the male lead too and he seems to be managing just fine for some reason. Also, if both of them are ordinary people with no on-screen fighting experience, how come he’s so great at throwing fists out of nowhere and she’s busy keeping hidden or needing rescuing? Exactly how many times can one person just faint like that without anyone checking to see if she has a medical condition?

By the drama’s end our lead has gone through trials and tribulations. She’s fallen in love too, I’m happy for her. But... now that the story’s ending and she’s getting in one last chance to show us she’s a “badass”, why am I left feeling hollow? She’s showing us how tough she is but... we ALL spent this whole drama watching her have absolutely no agency or such a little amount that she might as well have been trying to put out a fire with a water-pistol. It’s almost like her previous badassery (in whatever form it may have been - I don’t mean badass only in terms of being able to throw a good punch) was just a façade. A way to hook in female viewers like me who want to see something more than a wilting wallflower or one-trick Cinderella. But the tiniest knock and the cardboard house collapses.

And no matter how many times we get throwaway lines about her being “the smartest/toughest/scariest/most capable one here” it doesn’t ring true compared to the actual character we’re watching.

Rom-coms, melos and sagueks especially (but many more genres besides), have a real problem when it comes to performative badassery in their female characters. The writers give us a female lead they claim is hyper competent, but the reality is totally different. Any plot that features romance, almost always features this. Honestly the way the start of the relationship in dramas actively MURDERS the female character’s agency could be its own essay so I won’t go deep, just know the two are 100% linked.

The “Faux Action Girl” Problem 

A Faux Action Girl happens when a writer wants the popularity that comes with having a cool action girl character, or they want the praise that comes with writing a lead that breaks gender norms, or they want to be lauded for writing a FL whose more capable & progressive than the female kdrama lead we’d imagine, but they don’t end up actually giving us her. Instead we get the fake or faux version. The reasons are usually a combination of:

Relying on outdated tropes. Wrist grabs, damsels in distress, a girl fainting so she misses some vital plot related moment to increase runtime etc...

Sexist worldviews. As a by-product of being Korean which is still a heavily sexist country because of the holdover of Confucianism mixed in with the Christianity westerners brought over that leads many writers to (often without even realising) inserting moments that inadvertently reduce their female leads because they think that’s what correct or natural for the female character based on their opinion of women in general. Even if it doesn’t actually fit the type of character they’ve set out to create.

Executive meddling. Producers who think their demographic wouldn’t be able to handle a real badass but also know their female viewers want more complexity and agency in their FLs these days and so give us the paper-version instead of the 3D model.

This character’s more “badass” traits are nearly always just an Informed Ability (the writers tell us via other characters what she can do but never actually show us on-screen these same things) or we only ever see her utilise them once/twice at the beginning and maybe if we’re lucky once at the end, but never again. 

It really hurts.

The “Badass Decay/Chickification” Problem

Sometimes she really is a legitimate action girl though. She’ll be a cop whose good at her job or an ordinary citizen whose well-versed in taekwondo. She has actual moments on-screen to prove herself. 

Well. She has moments in episodes 1 and 2. Then she almost always goes through Badass Decay/Chickification. Which means that writers (& producers) believe that if we don’t see her having a softer side, she’ll become unrealistic or unlikeable. 

They fix her. So she becomes more vulnerable. As the only girl on the team (usually), she becomes the one who ends up injured more often or needs rescuing most. Her life begins to revolve entirely around her romance and nothing else. (Meanwhile the male leads gets to have the romance and keep his side-quest - have you noticed that? If the FL is really lucky she gets to keep one side-quest too, maybe a dream job or solving some family mystery. Never more though.. only men get to be complicated here). Once she was competent... now it feels like she legitimately had a personality transplant. 

Is this even the same person we began with?

The “Worf Effect” Problem 

Worf Effect is when the danger/power level of a villain is shown to the audience by making him successfully attack/hurt/ruin the plans of someone that the audience knows is skilled. This isn’t a bad thing alone and writers use it all the time. We need to acknowledge the villain as a proper threat and this is a useful way to do it!

But in kdramas it’s something used almost always against the lead female character. The one we’ve seen is intelligent, or strong-willed or quick-witted. 

And because it’s always her, this character begins to look weak. If this writing trope is abused, her reputation as the "biggest, toughest" etc. begins to look like it never existed and we’re back to her having an informed ability. 

That this is something that happens to the female characters not only more often but almost exclusively is a sign of sexism. Plain and simple.

Competent, Real Badass Female Characters Aren’t Scary

 If you’re going to sell me a capable woman, give me her. 

Not someone who has one very unique, specialised skill but otherwise can do nothing else except for that one time when her one skill is useful. 

Or has built up her own empire, implying a certain level of smarts, business ability or networking skills, but then once she’s removed from it she becomes so utterly useless it begs the question how she built that empire in the first place. 

Or has a rep as the detective whose taken down the toughest guys off-screen, but whatever skills she used to do that seem to disappear the moment anything really challenging happens on-screen. 

I’m not saying she needs to win all the time. Of course she doesn’t, how boring is that? All I’m asking is that when she loses, it’s in keeping with the character I’m supposedly watching. A woman that can kick ass can still be outwitted. A clever woman can be physically beaten. A street-smart girl can be foiled by rules and regulations. A leader-type can be beat by someone whose more unconventional.

It’s not difficult to write someone like this. I know the writers can do it because every male lead is written this way. I’ve never once, whilst watching a badass male lead lose, get beaten and cry, thought “oh no, his badassery was fake all along!”

Because when he loses it makes sense. It’s in character. There’s a solid plot reason behind why it happens.

Meanwhile my ladies who are meant to be able to kick ass and take names somehow just got kidnapped out of nowhere?

Make it make sense!

Consistent Characterisation is Good Writing

I get wanting moments where one is injured and the other fusses over them. I love those moments! All I ask is more imagination taken to get us to that point. Make it in-character. If my taekwondo black belt is kidnapped, I want to see her really fight. I want the kidnapping to be shown as genuinely tough on the people trying to nab her. Imagine how much more satisfying it would be to see her fight off all these bad guys, yet still end up losing? How much more heart-breaking?

We’d be so much more invested in the mind games or politics the villain is playing if the female lead we’ve been told is good at that stuff is playing the game just as hard. When she loses it’ll hurt more.

Writers need to stop being afraid that her remaining capable in some way diminishes the masculinity, attractiveness, prowess or “hero” status of the male lead. Trust me. It doesn’t. Ever. 

It’s not a case of either/or. We don’t think less of the male lead because his partner is as capable as him in whatever way that may be. Instead, we think more of them both. Once a romance begins, the heightened worry both characters have for each other should only make both of them stronger in whatever area they’re skill lies in. Not just make the man a sudden defence wall and the woman a worrying mess. 

I’m sure everyone who reads this can immediately think of at least one drama with a FL who is a Performative Badass. I know I had about ten in mind as I wrote this. 

There are exceptions. Cases where the badass gets to stay a badass. Usually these cases happen in genres without romance because like I said above, those problems are linked. But I can think of a few romcoms/sageuks/melos where it happens too. 

But those are the minority.

Women in kdramas. Give them agency. Make their characterisation genuine, not just a bit-part for the sake of a cool trailer. Not just one moment someone can edit into a “badass multifemale” video edit - only for us to watch the drama from the clip and discover we’ve been sold a lie. 

How satisfied would we be?

Writers! Give us a story we enjoyed because of the excellent characterisation. A new female character we can add to our lists of faves. Women who proved themselves as consistently badass as their first scenes claimed. Women in kdramas who, no matter what problem they faced, don’t become echoes or paper-thin versions of who we were promised.

Actual, complex, layered, enjoyable, KICK-ASS AND BADASS female leads.

Wouldn’t that be a miracle.

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PS. This is an open notice that it’s OKAY to reblog with added commentary/thoughts/rambles of your own. I would *love* to see it if you have anything to add.

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(Disclaimer: This essay was written with a specific female character type in mind. I am not saying every FL needs to be a badass or hyper competent. Soft, shy, physically weak female characters exist and can be just as realistic and complex. There’s a few I can think of who I adore. Instead my essay is very specifically about characters who are *meant* to be badass from the start but then... don’t end up being. So, yeah, before anyone claims I’m some angry feminist who needs every FL to be some tough martial artist or something. Absolutely not! Diversity is amazing and interesting. All I ask is that when I am told I’ll be getting a badass in a drama I get her. Not have my heart broken by the fake wilting flower I find in her place. Ok. End disclaimer. ^^)

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Also I’m tagging a bunch of you because you reblogged my post saying you wanted this so here! TY for making it to the end ^^

@kdramaxoxo​ @islandsofchaos @storytellergirl @vernalagnia-blog @lostindramas @salaamdreamer​ @planb-is-in-effect​ 

Stitches (Part One)

Villain!Might is annoyingly sexy. God damn. Part One of two, because once again, it was getting way, way too long. The real smut is in part two but this has it’s fair share of naughtiness. *once again the gif is not mine

Pairing: Villain!Might x Reader

Rating: Explicit (Dry humping and dirty talk)

Warnings: Blood, Bad Language

Word Count: 7633 

Summary: It turns out that being injured on the job makes the biggest villain in Japan undeniably horny. If only he would quit being so handsy, maybe you could finish his goddamn stitches. 

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You were only just getting used to having All Might stumble in to your apartment at all hours of the day or night.

 Only. Just.

 That didn’t mean you bloody enjoyed it though! Considering the amount of times it happened a week you should probably just give him a key- but there was little chance of him using it when he seemed so content in picking the lock anyway.

 It was sort of like a power play. A ‘look how easily I can break in’ kind of thing.

 In the beginning it had been an intimidation ploy and fuck, had it worked. You’d walked on eggshells for weeks until it slowly dawned on you that he was simply having a little fun on your behalf. Breaking in at all fucking hours to loudly watch TV and drink your goddamn milk like he owned the place.

 Scaring the absolute bejesus out of you when you went for water in the middle of the night and he was sitting in the dark like an absolute creep.

 He did that one a lot. Informed you that your reaction was absolutely priceless and he couldn’t help himself.

 You’d threatened to overdose him on morphine when he was asleep.

 Quid pro quo.

 Now… his intrusions had become more of a semi-welcome occurrence slash inconvenience.

 After much nagging and complaining on your part, when you felt confident that he had no real desire to murder you in your sleep of course, he’d stopped being such a prick when he came around and if you were honest, it was kind of nice.

 It would be less nice if any heroes or the police caught wind of you harbouring Japan’s Number One Villain but that was a thought best left for when the time came. Your less than legal activities for the criminal class hadn’t been sussed out in the six years you’d been here and you doubted that any of them were planning on ratting out one of their few sources of medical attention any time soon.

 Speaking of medical attention…

 All Might was certainly not welcome when he was bleeding like a stuck pig all over your new hardwood floor.

 He was framed in the low light of the hallway behind him, although he nearly blocked it out as he filled out the doorway with his wide shoulders. One large hand gripped the door jamb and the other crossed his chest, clenched over a wound you couldn’t see.

 But you could see the blood pouring from it- seeping out between his fingers and soaking through the tattered remains of the shirt he’d been wearing.

 His breathing was hard, eyes dark and guarded and the rain had flattened his hair to his head, making him look absolutely manic.

 “Oh my God!” were your only words, fear suddenly coursing through you as you lunged from where you’d been sitting- only stopping inches from him and praying that he could make it to the couch by himself. There was no way you could carry that much weight alone and the thought of calling for reinforcements should he pass out was less than appealing.

 The only people you really knew were criminals or your parents. You could see how that conversation would play out and it didn’t end well.

 The hand he’d been using to stem the blood flow fell from his shoulder and red splattered in a line in front of your socked feet. You took a step back as he ducked under the doorway, effectively inviting himself in.

 “What happened!?” you balked, moving out of his path and shutting the door behind him. A cursory glance told you that there was no-one else around, thankfully.

 “Bad business,” he grunted, steadying himself on a dining chair- although the wood creaked worryingly under his thick fingers.

 “Bad business,” you repeated incredulously, your voice tinged with mild exasperation at just how easily he could brush off an entrance like that with such a throwaway remark. He shot you a warning glance that you heeded. It was the most you’d probably get out of him so you didn’t attempt to pry further as he trudged tiredly towards the comfort of your couch.

 For now, at least, you would leave it at that.

 He sat down gingerly, learning from past experiences that throwing his weight around was likely to end with yet another broken bit of furniture and you calling him all the names under the sun. He didn’t look like he quite had the energy for your usual snarky banter.

 “Good to know you’re as enlightening as ever,” you frowned, following behind him and flicking on another lamp as you went. You would need plenty of light for what was about to come next. He sank into the soft couch cushions with a sigh of relief that he probably wouldn’t have made if he wasn’t gushing blood from his shoulder.

 “Shit,” you said, panicked suddenly at the sight of it coating almost every inch of his chest and arm. While you couldn’t see underneath his shoulder armour, you could guess that it was slick and red as well. His usually golden complexion was pale but besides that, there weren’t any other marks on him..

 Sucking in a deep steadying breath, you pushed away the encroaching panic.

 You were a medical professional, for fuck sake. Blood was basically a daily occurrence and the fact that it was suddenly pouring out of him of all people, shouldn’t make a difference.

 Except it did and deep in your stomach, panic still flitted around and made you quiver uneasily.

 “Let me see how bad it is,” you said, a tremor to your voice. But you made no room for an argument as serious mode was firmly engaged. Despite all he was to the rest of the world, you really didn’t want his stupid ass to die.

 He nodded stoically, recognising that you were now in your professional frame of mind and that acting up would only make treating him more awkward. Though his dark gaze still fixed on your face as you gingerly tugged the ruined edges of his shirt aside.

 You pulled in a hiss of air between your teeth initially, but the more you explored the less you wanted to freak out.

 Despite the superficial shock from the sight of so much blood, your stomach settled it’s uncomfortable rolling as you gauged the seriousness of his injury. The gash was fairly deep but not enough to bare the bone of his clavicle- and you guessed that the amount of blood he was covered in was a result of adrenaline and disregard for the injury as he fought.

 “How bad does it hurt? Do you need something for the pain?” you asked, not look at him and you tried to move his shoulder pad away gently. The thing weighed a tonne though and you had little success.

 He scoffed, pushing you away with a stern look followed by a cocky sneer.

 “Don’t be an idiot. I enjoy the pain,” he rumbled, staring you down as if daring you to disagree.

 You did more than dare. He wasn’t big bad All Might when he was in your fucking domain and sometimes he needed reminding of that.

 “Oh really?” you levelled a look at him. “So, doing this doesn’t hurt at all?”

 Without warning, you poked his shoulder just to the left of his injury and he yowled, infuriated and pained at the same time. His whole body stiffened in agony and his yelping quickly morphed into a half growl, low and dangerous- like you’d awakened the dormant dragon from his slumber.

 His eyes flashed and he bared his teeth in a snarl at you, a wounded animal trying to hide behind his bluster and bravado.

 “You fucking bitch,” he snapped, hand covering the gash once more as though you were about to go in for a second attack.

 Instead of cowering in fear like you had the first time he’d ever darkened your doorway, you simply rolled your eyes at his brutish behaviour. This arrogant showboating of his wasn’t new to you. Nor was he even remotely intimidating when he was clearly in pain.

 Hell, he hadn’t even attempted to get up from the welcoming comfort of the couch and so you weren’t particularly concerned for your physical safety.

 All Might- around you at least- was all bark and no bite. You clicked your tongue at him, as though admonishing him.

 “Language you big jerk. Show your doctor a little respect.”

 The look he shot you would have cowed a lesser man and had sent heroes in the opposite direction pissing themselves in fear.

 You patted his cheek fondly instead.

 “Don’t be a big baby,” you murmured, smirking as you wandered towards your kitchen in search of your supplies. “I’ll get you some bourbon. I still have that top-shelf shit you left here a few months ago.”

 His bellyaching abruptly settled into an irritated grumbling when he realised that you hadn’t meant your run of the mill Advil and instead meant ‘booze’. He still said something under his breath as you went though, sullen and annoyed at his current predicament and determined to get the last word in as always.

 You kind of sympathised? Maybe?

 It wasn’t often that he came to you with a serious injury. Usually it was for shrapnel damage or the odd burn when he was less than careful around Endeavor- which again, wasn’t often. You’d never had to really worry about him before, even if he seemed determined to make you.

 But it was fun to tease him now that the fear had abated and your mind was a little less on red alert.

 You left him sitting there, your cat staring up at him with big curious eyes, while you headed towards the kitchen.

 “You’ll give me sympathy, won’t you Marco?” he said, loudly enough for you to hear as you rounded the corner. You rolled your eyes.

 After pulling the bottle from your cupboard and setting it aside, you rounded on an indiscriminate blank wall- the one that separated your kitchen and hallway. Eyeing it for a moment, you lightly rested the pads of your fingers in the centre. It felt warm from the thrumming mechanism underneath and a soft beep, followed by a click, informed you that it was now unlocked.

 The panel compressed inwards by a quarter inch and you used your fingertips to slide it to one side, your face now illuminated by a soft blue light. God bless your satisfied customers, you smirked as you surveyed the medical equipment now on display.

 You had everything from sterilised needles to IV bags, scalpels to a portable defibrillator.

 It wasn’t as though you didn’t have all of this shit legally. But having a place to hide it made things easier when you wanted to pretend you were a normal, run of the mill citizen to your (very few) friends and family. They assumed, quite wrongly, that your medical career had been left behind in the army.

 You gathered what you would need, including a damn strong needle that glinted in the low light when you settled on it. You’d need something tough to get through his skin and only then did you begin to wonder again about just what had managed to cut him so deeply.

 It boggled your mind, the force that some of these people could fight with.

 He was staring at you impatiently when you returned.

 “You seem calmer,” he observed, sounding almost disappointed. “It’s almost as though you don’t care what happens to your favourite patient.”

 You tutted.

 “It’s almost as though you just enjoy making me panic.”

 “I like to watch you panic, sweetheart. Brings out your eyes,” he chuckled darkly, catching his tongue between his teeth while his own eyes trailed over you. You ignored the sudden surge of heat to your cheeks because as usual, he was managing to make you blush.

 Nothing new there.

 While you’d been fucking about in the kitchen, he’d had the foresight to remove both his armoured shoulder pads and the remains of his shirt- despite his injury making it painful to do so.

 You had an unobscured view of his chest now, blood painting it red and you were suddenly glad you’d invested in a throw for your couch because it was damn near everywhere had he clearly had no qualms about leaving bloody hand prints on it.

 “You better not have pet Marco with blood all over your hands,” you warned him as you laid out your supplies on the side table neatly, glancing around until you found your cat lounging on his cat tree- no longer interested in your intruder. Since All Might didn’t have food to sneak him today, Marco wasn’t bothering him any more.

 Fickle thing, you thought.

 “The cat is fine. I’m the fucking injured party here,” All Might scoffed, apparently irritated that you were no longer fussing around him like you had been. Despite how he always complained and brushed off your worry, you knew he liked having someone fawn over him. Sometimes you played it up just to watch him melt for you.

 Not tonight though.

 “Oh hush,” you said, leaning in again to examine the wound.

 It was angry and still oozing blood like it was the world’s worst slip’n’slide but from what you could see there was nothing in there you would have to dig out. It only really needed to be cleaned and then it would need at least twenty or so stitches but hey, at least he wasn’t dead.

 The warmth of him under your palm confirmed your ‘not dead’ diagnosis. How the Hell did one man produce so much heat?

 You hummed and debated with yourself for a moment because… well. Leaning over him like you were for twenty stitches would be rough on your back and from experience, you knew asking him to move from his current comfortable position would be met with a firm ‘fuck off’.

 This was going to be torture for both of you- for different reasons. You’d never hear the end of it.

 With no other way to reach him without being awkward about it, you straddled his thick thighs- grumbling all the way. His eyebrows rose as you climbed into his lap, settling your ass onto his knees before reaching for your things beside you.

 You refused to look him in the eye though and absolutely would not think about how far apart your legs had to go to accommodate him.

 All Might, despite the pain he was in, clearly hadn’t lost any major brain function. His hands came up and settled on your hips like they belonged there- blood staining your tee-shirt. They were heavy and warm, the sheer size of them covering both hips as his fingers splayed out across your back. He exhaled but said nothing about your sudden position, simply relaxing back to let you do your thing.

 His usually slicked back hair was mussed and falling over his eyes but you could still see the shock of bright blue following your every movement with a sharp, ardent scrutiny.

 Well.

 That was intense.

 “What!?” you snapped, annoyed at his incessant staring- and the effect it was having on you. His smirk broadened into a full blown, easy smile.

 “Not quite how I imagined you sitting in my lap for the first time,” he rumbled, as though it was a perfectly normal thing to say. Like he was talking about the weather. Your body jolted, head swimming. You prayed he couldn’t read your face but you knew it was a futile hope.

 Your expression and blush simply encouraged him more.

 His thumbs swept a wide path over your waist while you desperately tried not to think about how big his fingers were. You swallowed hard, attempting to steady the shake in your hands as you wiped away blood.

 “I’d always thought… well, hoped actually, that you’d sit on my face first, kitten,” he continued lightly.

 Honestly, the fact that you didn’t pop a blood vessel right then and there was admirable.

 “If you don’t quit that, I’m going to poke you with this big ass needle and it will hurt,” you managed to choke out, pressing a little harder than necessary as you cleaned his chest. He flinched, body tightening before sagging with relief when you removed your hand.

 He heaved an irritable sigh but you weren’t exactly finished berating him.

 “Symbol of Chaos my very fine ass,” you continued mockingly, embarrassment spilling out in the form of harsh words. He glared at you with icy, unreadable eyes. “You bleed all over my apartment, scare the shit out of me and then think it’s perfectly acceptable to make a joke about me riding you. You’re being such a dickhead.”

 You said it like you meant it.

 You already lived on edge half the time without having to worry about him as well. His lack of concern for his own well being was frustrating and you’d often find yourself scouring the news channels after a particularly vicious fight just to make sure he wasn’t dead or captured- seeing as he didn’t afford you the courtesy of a phone call.

 Not that you’d ever expect him to.

 “Are you finished, sweetheart?” he interrupted your train of thought, his fingers squeezing your hips almost painfully now. The mildly annoyed All Might was swiftly being replaced by the one who you would get into blazing arguments with. At least you knew how to handle this one…

 “I think you’re getting too fucking comfortable with me, little bird. You think I’ve gone soft? Huh?” he lifted your chin with his thumb and forefinger, making you look at him while the other hand held you in place. “You and I both know I could snap that pretty little neck of yours with one hand if I wanted to,” he growled, his face suddenly inches from yours and you had the gall to mindlessly think that there was nothing soft about him.

 You were a horny idiot with no self-preservation apparently.

 He released your chin and rested the side of his hand on your shoulder, open palm angled towards your throat but not touching it.

 A warning.

 You’d definitely hit a nerve.

 All the same though, some dumbass part of you refused to be intimidated in your own fucking home. You scowled up at him, pretending to be unimpressed rather than frightened. Blood thrummed in your ears, keeping pace with your rapid heartbeat.

 Looking him in the eye was like was like staring down a fucking lion.

 “Maybe I should. It would teach you a lesson.”

 But you’d been doing this little song and dance with each other for months now and you’d perfected your ‘you don’t frighten me’ face long ago. It infuriated him, sure, but you had a sneaking suspicion that it also intrigued him.

 He knew full well that he wasn’t the Symbol of Chaos when he was in your apartment. He was just… Toshinori.

 Although he despised it when you called him that. Shouted and raged and screamed at you every time but let you continue doing it anyway. You didn’t know why he hated his own name so much nor why he relented so easily when you insisted on calling him by it but, it was always your trump card.

 “Toshinori,” you said sharply and he nearly flinched. “Stop being such a drama queen.”

 His anger withered right then and there into something else, and the beast reluctantly backed down as he seemed to come to his senses.

 But once a villain…

 “You going to stop being a bitch if I do?” he asked, cocking his head to one side. His brow was still furrowed, making his face look harsh but you could see his scowl lessen.

 “No,” you muttered petulantly, mustering up all of your courage to do so. He hadn’t killed you yet, after all. He’d never even laid a hand on you- violently anyway. Light touches and slapping your ass didn’t count. You pushed his large hand from your shoulder and he let you, dropping it back to the couch below. “But I suppose I’ll save it for when you’re not bleeding out on my couch.”

 “Gee, thanks.”

 And he was back ladies and gentlemen! How to train your villain, in three steps or less.

 You brushed off his sarcasm and leaned to one side, reaching for the needle and surgical thread. His hand came back up to your hip- finished with his tantrum. He supported your weight as you rummaged through the plastic container you’d set aside for him.

 It took you no time to find a rhythm for your work as you both fell into easy silence- pinching the wound shut with one hand while the other deftly stitched him up. You had to shift a few times in his lap, holding a small flashlight between your teeth when the lamps on either side of the couch weren’t bright enough.

 It was thankfully, a clean cut with no ragged edges to it and once again, you could only wonder how sharp the thing that made it was.

 There was no indicator that he was in pain other than the occasional squeeze of his fingers but you didn’t bring it up or offer him any other pain medication. He seemed content with the occasional swig of bourbon.

 Halfway there, you paused for a breather.

 “You good?” you asked softly, noting that you were ten stitches down with eleven more to go. When you looked up, you saw his jaw tick at your concern but he answered you all the same.

 “M’fine. Just get it over with,” he grunted, his breath fanning over the top of your head.

 He sounded more impatient than pained now but honestly, that was just the norm for him. At least he seemed less woozy as blood started flowing around his body instead of out of it. He’d have another gnarly scar to add to his collection at the end of this but you were doing your best to minimise the damage.

 “Almost done,” you said, patting his chest reassuringly. He said nothing but you felt a little of the tension in his thighs abate.

 “Good,” he grumbled eventually, as petulant as ever. Your lips quirked in a half smile. He noticed the mood change. “So…” he said, clearing his throat when it became clear you weren’t going to say anything else. “What does the good doctor recommend this time? Plenty of rest and chicken soup?”

 “You know, it’s like you read my mind,” you said, focusing hard on the last few stitches. You’d given him some of your best work despite the fact that your hands were shaking with adrenaline. Not to blow your own trumpet too much but you could see why he came back time and time again.

 There wasn’t a back alley, hack job doctor in the city who could do work like you could- mostly thanks to your Quirk.

 “But, you know, I can’t cook worth a damn so you’ll have to make do with leftover takeout, your highness,” you added, tongue caught between your teeth to hide your smile. He didn’t bother hiding his, grinning at you like the damn Cheshire Cat. “The bed rest is non-negotiable though. I don’t need you running rampant in Kamino and undoing all of my hard work.”

 You had already decided that he would sleep here for a few days before you even considered letting him leave again and he could throw all the fucking tantrums he liked because you wouldn’t be budging an inch on it. You knew he would tear the damn stitches the second you let him out of your sight.

 He didn’t whine though. Just said-

 “Well, there’s always one way to keep me occupied,” he leered, eyes trailing over you and down to where you were seated over his crotch. You rolled your eyes. Even when he was clearly in agony, he was trying to get into your pants. “What do you think, sweetheart? Wanna sit on my cock?”

 Um YES!?

 “Um, no, you big fucking pervert,” you tutted, rolling your eyes inspite of what your body screamed at you. He chuckled, amused at how fast you’d said no.

 “Shame. You’d like it,” he purred, his voice no longer tinged with pain.“I know I’d fucking love it.”

 His tone was light, teasing and it did unspeakable things to you. You had to hand it to him. He’d always been surprisingly playful when it came to you- that first meeting notwithstanding.

 If there was one word the media would ever use to describe the man who terrorised their cities day in and day out, playful would not be it. When he’d first stooped through your doorway and demanded your services, you hadn’t thought for a single second you’d ever make it out of there alive- let alone have him tease and flirt with you six months down the line.

 He’d inserted himself into your life with the sort of ease that came naturally to a wicked, no good villain like himself. Then twisted your worldview until you suddenly couldn’t see what life would be like without him annoying you.

 Sure, he made jokes and provocative comments and generally acted like a pervert when he wasn’t in need of medical assistance- but he also never pushed you and you felt a deep appreciation for the weird moral code that he stuck to.

 He was a liar. A cheat. A murderer. An absolute fucking psychopath when he wanted to be. He took a tremendous amount of pleasure in causing pain- almost as much as you took in binge watching Netflix on a Saturday night.

 But he’d reeled in indignation when it was suggested that he was interested in sexual deviancy.

 He insisted that he liked his partners willing and able to participate and then had looked you up and down like he was actually going to eat you on the spot. You’d quickly changed the subject and then when he’d said his brief goodbye you’d changed your panties too because that look had soaked you through.

 And he fucking knew it did.

 You’d spent years patching up the worst people that this city had to offer. Which, in comparison to other places, was a disturbingly high number per capita. Like, off the bloody charts high. At the end of the day though, you could detach yourself from them. If the army had taught you one thing in your seven year deployment, it was how to stay detached.

 Becoming emotionally involved with a man- especially one as universally hated and feared as he was- hadn’t been covered in the handbook.

 It had hit you out of left field like a Detroit Smash to the fucking temple.

 You had Vagabond- Ivy to her friends, to thank for the entire situation.

 She had been the first villain you’d ever patched up. You’d found her, barely breathing and severely wounded, in the alley way behind your apartment complex. It had been a spur of the moment rescue and after you’d nursed her back to health, she’d been surprisingly sweet to you.

 After a few successful meetings in which she didn’t murder or rob you and you didn’t shop her to the cops- she’d begun to recommend her ‘friends’, for lack of a better descriptor, to you when they needed something done.

 Seeing the money they were offering had put to rest any guilt you might have felt about helping criminals.

 All Might… had come to you on his own.

 Ivy had never mentioned any affiliation with him and you’d never exactly advertised your services, so when your door had swung open and he’d marched in, you had all but pissed your pants in fear. So had the unfortunate Yakuza member that you had been prescribing muscle relaxers to at the time.

 He’d certainly needed them as All Might had literally thrown him out into your hallway, face first and then demanded that you patch up the burn on his hand instead.

 Ivy had listened to your tale the next day, wide eyed and mouth gaping as you’d described the most feared man in the world sitting patiently on your couch as you’d whipped up a special salve to combat the sting of Endeavor’s handiwork.

 Despite his rude entrance, he’d been gruff yet polite as you talked him through caring for the burn when he was done. Then he’d thanked you for your time and left. Just like that. You’d never thought you would see him again.

 Then he’d started to come around more often. Sometimes he wasn’t even injured and while he passed it off as needing a place to lay low for a day or two, you suspected that even a man as intimidating and powerful as him- needed a friendly face sometimes.

 Or someone to ogle. Either or.

 Now that you were done with his stitches, you wiped the wound clean with an antiseptic wipe but left the gauze on the coffee table. He needed a shower and clean clothes before you would even consider dressing it.

 “Not that I’m telling you how to do your job, darling,” he queried, shifting underneath you but keeping you steady with his firm grip. “But don’t I at least get a band-aid?”

 You quirked an eyebrow at him, leaning back and away from the heat of his body because it was tampering with your ability to think straight.

 You ‘tsked’ disapprovingly at his question, grabbing his chin and moving his face to one side to get a better look at him. He was deathly pale and looked exhausted. Yet he still had the energy to suggest that you have sex with him. Usually you wouldn’t have been so openly pissed at the blatant disregard he had for his own well being but he’d terrified you tonight and had brought all your silly feelings for him rushing back to the forefront of your mind.

 “No,” you deadpanned. “You need to take a shower first and get into something clean.”

 “I knew you were trying to get me naked. All you had to do was ask you know,” he teased softly, hands sliding up from your hips to your waist.

 You grabbed his wrists to push them away but it was like pushing at steel and you narrowed your eyes at him. He made a low, vibrating noise in his chest- half laugh half admonishment for being disobedient.

 “You can’t keep teasing me like this kitten,” he informed you, even though you had no idea you’d even been teasing him in the first place. “You make me so fucking hard, d’ya know that?” He tugged you closer without warning until you were plastered against him, almost face to face.

 Your heart thundered in your chest and every nerve ending sparked to life under his hands.

 His voice was laced with thick arousal. Apparently life threatening injuries made him horny.

 Go figure.

 “Is that right?” you said, staring up at him while your gut twisted into a million different shapes. He leered at you and then to emphasise his point, he rolled his hips upwards and pressed his erection between your legs.

 Your breath hitched despite you trying not to make a sound. He grinned, wolfish and hungry- wanting to chase that sound out of you again.

 “Yeah, s’right,” he muttered lowly, eyes flickering to your lips and then lower. He seemed to debate with himself for a moment before he ducked his face to your neck, laying a hot kiss over your pulse point. His mouth was warm and wet and his tongue was thick, trailing in a line along your jaw and back again- until he tugged your earlobe between his teeth and you bucked mindlessly, without even meaning to.

 You felt him grin, then the sharp pinch of his canines as he nipped at your neck.

 “Come on sweetheart,” his voice was laced with arousal. “Tell me what you want me to do to you. Or do I have to guess?”

 Oh where did you even start?

 “I- I want-,” you breathed hard, letting him grind you down against his cock. Your thighs shook, the pajama pants you’d worn for your quiet night in, doing nothing to get in the way of the thick shaft that pressed between the lips of your pussy. God, he was big. You’d guessed he would be but this was just ridiculous…

 His hand slid along your back and covered your ass and pull you down harder- rubbing you over his cock in a steady rhythm.

 Your gasp of pleasure made him grin wickedly and hum a pleased sound in his throat.

 “That’s it, kitten,” he said encouragingly, like he was proud of you for being so pliable for him. So easily led into this sinful encounter. It’s not like you’d tried to push him away, was it? No. Because deep down, underneath all of your shaky morals you wanted him just as badly as he wanted you.

 “You’ve always wanted me to fuck you, haven’t you? Always wanted to spread your legs for me? Don’t worry, I’ll make it so good for you,” he murmured, a promise you never thought you’d hear him make.

 Gentle and All Might didn’t exactly go together and the thought of him making love to you, whispering sweet nothings in you ear was almost laughable.

 …Almost.

 It was also incredibly arousing.

 “I didn’t think you were the gentle type,” you managed to say, excited by the prospect of having him inside you now. All other issues were pushed out of your mind at the mere thought of him fulfilling all of these promises he was making.

 Abruptly, as if to make his point, he slowed the pace that he’d been rocking your hips at- taking on a more leisurely roll that saw him bucking upwards to meet you halfway.

 “You don’t think I can be gentle with you?” he asked, hand coming up to cup your cheek and he must have been amused by your rabbit in headlights expression because he laughed. Was this really the same man who you would have blazing, heated arguments with? Who tore down whole city blocks just because he could?

  “You really think I’m just a one trick pony? Oh baby, just wait until I get you into a bed. I’ll take my time with you. Fuck you long, and slow and hard until you can’t see straight. Until the fucking sun comes up.”

 His words were punctuated by your pathetic whines of pleasure as he ground against you and at the thought of him, not just pounding you into the bed, but actually taking his time? Of seeing a side of him you’d never seen before, loving you slow in all the right places?

 Well, you just about melted against him. Boneless would fail to describe how you felt.

 How had you gone from stitching him up to dry humping him on your couch? You had no idea but you also knew that it was a long time coming. Him getting all sweet on you was just… speeding up the process. He was still keeping the pace languid and you had no problem with that, the intense build up of winding tension in your stomach twisting ever tighter.

 You had soaked through your panties by now and the damp fabric was pressing against your clit with every upward stroke of his cock.

 You wanted to kiss him but even now, as close as you both were, his height still put him at an awkward angle.

 Vaguely, you remembered that you had goddamn hands.

 You reached up and circled them around the back of his muscular neck and tugged softly to indicate what you wanted. He leered at you tauntingly for just a moment before remembering his promise and letting you pull him in.

 He was, as you’d rightly guessed, an excellent kisser.

 His lips were cool from the rain he’d walked through to get here, but his tongue was hot and as always, he gave you very little preamble before the main event. His tongue was at your lips almost instantly, testing your boundaries of which you apparently had fucking zero tonight.

 All it took was a sharp nip to your bottom lip and you were letting him in, letting him take what he wanted from your mouth while you revelled in every second of it.

 His groan was music to your ears, deep and almost needy as a palm pressed between your shoulder blades. You didn’t think you could physically get closer to him but you were wrong as he devoured you, your breasts pressing hard into his chest. You kept up with him as best you could but eventually you needed air and to your surprise, he let you pull away when you wanted to.

 His eyes were dark and full of lust when you stared back at him, swallowing.

 It was then that you finally caught sight of your own hands on him, blood coating them.

 His blood.

 Your body went cold. Shit! How had you gotten so distracted!?

 Fuck. You longed desperately to throw all your inhibitions right out of the window because he was very, very good at this but that niggling voice that had been worried about him from the moment he arrived was suddenly getting too loud to ignore.

 As much as you wanted to enjoy the attention and his lips on your throat, he was currently in no state to even think about anything remotely physical. Although… you could do most of the work… No! No, he needed to shower and eat and get some of that strength back.

 You knew it and he knew it, despite his attempts to make you believe otherwise.

 He made an irritated sound at you when you pulled away.

 “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, amused by your sudden fussing of him as you checked over the fresh stitches. So much for keeping everything sanitary, you cringed. You’d been about ready to ride him into the couch not twenty seconds ago.

 “Sorry, big guy but the buffet is closed. As much as it hurts me to say.” And oh, was it excruciating. “Now, get your ass to the shower,” you commanded, levelling a hard glare in his direction and ignoring the whine that your brain gave at the loss of contact.

 Usually he would match your glare, not intimidated by some uppity little army doc who whored out her services to Kamino’s underbelly.

 His words, the first time you met each other, not yours.

 He was clearly more tired than he let on as he reluctantly relented, letting you climb off of his lap with no more arguments. You brushed yourself down, cheeks red all while attempting not to stare at the straining outline of his cock through his blood covered pants. You focused on his injury instead of the ache between your legs.

 When you were satisfied the stitches would hold through some light movement, you held out a hand for him to take. He shot you an incredulous look but took it all the same, standing in one swift movement that told you it had been out of courtesy and not necessity. You hadn’t even had to pull.

 “We aren’t finished here, I hope you know that,” he warned you and your body sang in response. Your face stayed serious though and you pulled your lip between your teeth. His eyes followed the motion and he dipped down for another kiss-

 You really, really wanted to let him but instead, you shoved him as hard as you could towards the hallway and in the direction of the bathroom.

 He growled, unimpressed at being denied so abruptly.

 It was only seconds ago you’d been whining and hot under his hands and now you were shuffling awkwardly and forcing him in towards the shower. Talk about a cock tease.

 “Leave your clothes out,” you said, before he could go. “I’ll wash them. You can’t go around in those bloody things like an animal.”

 “You sure you don’t want to wash my back in there, kitten?” he was suddenly towering over you, crowding you with the bulk of his body and you felt heat creep up along your neck. You resisted the urge to say yes and follow him- although it was a battle hard won.

 “Towels are in the cupboard and there should be pajama pants and a tee-shirt in your size in the bottom drawer,” you smiled sweetly, patting his stomach and ducking out from under his shadow. You cleared the room in an instant, leaving him in the entrance to the hallway and dancing out of reach of his very bad influence.

 He gave you a long, very searching look.

 “You had company over or something?” he asked bluntly, never one to beat around the bush.

 “Not that’s it any of your business but no,” you replied, tonguing the inside of your cheek as you contemplated your answer. “I um… I bought you some stuff in case you decided to use me as a hotel again. It’s not a big deal.”

 So what if you’d picked out a couple of shirts and some pajama pants in his size and colour? It wasn’t like you wanted him to move in or anything. You were being prepared. Which is the hill you’d chosen to die on and you weren’t budging from it.

 He shot you a filthy grin, pleased with your answer and the redness in your face.

 “Oh stop looking so happy with yourself and get out,” you huffed, flinging a cushion at him. He roared a laugh that shook your walls as he retreated down the hallway- appeased by your current level of affection for him.

 A soft, ‘mrrp’, to your left caught your attention and your cat stared back at you.

 “Don’t even start your lecture,” you answered, grumpily. “You like him too.”

 Marco rubbed himself against the cat post, scratching his own chin on the rough material. He gave another quick meow of agreement before hopping down and wandering away and leaving you wondering what the hell you’d gotten yourself into.

TBC...

---------------------------

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three)

I would like to hear the why you hate dr essay, if you don’t mind

buckle up everyone. i’ve been enabled and now you’re never going to get me to shut up.

warning: this is about to get super long, because i have a lot of thoughts about this, and this might be my only opportunity to just...go off. so here’s my whole ass thesis on why i hate dr. colosso. keep in mind that this is the product of several rewatches and a lot of character analysis on my part, because i tend to do that frequently. also, i’d like to start this off with a quick disclaimer: i do think colosso’s role in the show is very important; if you asked me if i’d get rid of him completely i’d say no, but there are definitely things i would’ve done differently with his portrayal, and we’ll get into that later.

when i watched the show for the first time i really didn’t like colosso, but i kind of chalked that up to the fact that he was annoying and left it there. there’s always been something about him that rubs me the wrong way, though. i’ve been doing a rewatch recently (as you’ve probably gathered from my posts) and that combined with talking to @ciara-knightly about it for a while helped me understand why i find his presence to be genuinely problematic.

i’m gonna start with the most obvious thing: he’s a bad influence on max. they of course directly address this in the show, but what i feel like is important to understand here is that colosso’s influence isn’t like “oh he’s max’s troublemaker friends who eggs him on to do bad stuff sometimes haha”. colosso, despite being a bunny, is still actually a supervillain max’s father’s age, and he uses that to manipulate max a lot. talking about it with shona made me realize that especially early on, max really didn’t have anyone else in his life who was willing to listen to his ideas or encourage his skills, specifically inventing gadgets. in canon his parents almost never praise his work, even when he’s not using it for evil (see: phoebe’s a clone now), but colosso is shown to be someone who both helps him with his experiments and keeps him going at them. i’m dipping into character analysis instead of straight up canon here, but it’s pretty clear to understand the impact this would’ve had on max—he’s a kid who wants approval and colosso gives it to him, and in turn max listens to colosso’s ideas and often does what he tells him. i’m not saying that max is completely at colosso’s will, of course—max is very self-driven and that wouldn’t be giving him enough credit, but at the same time, we know very little about the actual process of max’s decision to be a villain, and i really don’t doubt that colosso had a lot to do with it. in the show we see colosso frequently urging max to leave his family behind, and there’s an arc where we literally see max starting to become a better person because of his friends and colosso telling him to ditch them (see: exit stage theft). we also see colosso preying on max’s insecurities, specifically his comparison of himself to phoebe, in order to further his descent into villainy.

the reason i prefaced this by saying colosso’s role in the show is important is because i genuinely think max’s villain arc would’ve been closed much sooner without colosso’s influence. colosso was a huge factor in not only exposing max to the world of supervillains but also in deepening the rift between him and his parents. so everything i said above does actually make sense, writing-wise, within the context of the show—colosso is a supervillain, he’s supposed to be manipulating max, and he is the main factor driving the progression of max’s villain arc.

but now i’m going to get into why i think that from a writer’s standpoint, his role in the show is problematic, especially post-season three.

a lot of it has to do with the fact that none of what i said above is ever really addressed in canon. there are throwaway lines about how colosso was a bad influence on max but there was no recognition of the fact that without colosso, max likely wouldn’t have strayed as far into villainy as he did. more importantly, though, the main issue i had with the writing of max’s arc was that there was no discussion about why he felt so strongly about colosso, and what colosso’s presence said about his relationship with his parents.

like i said before, max needed someone in his life who was willing to give him the approval and validation that he was looking for. in the show his redemption arc comes down to his relationship with his family, but at no point in the show did he actually want to harm his family, so i think there’s a bigger picture here—i honestly think that a big part of it was that at that point in his life, max had sort of grown past the need to be told his worth; he clearly still had his insecurities, but having friends, a girlfriend, and a life outside of his family (where he felt unseen) gave him a more concrete role. the point here that i’m trying to make is that max’s arc essentially came down to his own perception of his self-worth. the reason colosso was able to influence him so strongly was because as i said before, he was the one who gave max the validation he wanted. and this is why i felt like max’s arc was really one-sided—his parents’ lack of attention towards him and pretty blatant favoritism towards phoebe was clearly a huge factor in max’s arc that was never brought up again. the reason that i say i would’ve changed colosso’s role after max’s redemption is because until that point, colosso had been sort of a stand-in for max’s parents in his life, but one who took advantage of him. i wish the show had gone towards a more well-rounded reconciliation between max and his parents, and an acknowledgement of their mistakes and the fact that max was able to be so strongly influenced by colosso because he didn’t feel like he had anyone else. instead, they pretty much glossed over and trivialized max’s reasons for wanting to be a villain in the first place, and the dynamics within the family didn’t actually change—his parents still showed pretty clear favoritism towards phoebe (see: thundermans: banished!) and max still went to colosso for approval and advice. i think the only really central thing that changed was max’s relationship with phoebe, and that was incredibly important for max’s development and i liked the way it played out, but i still would’ve had more conversation between max and his parents about how things went down.

(also, i think hank and barb’s decision to let their supervillain-turned-bunny bunk with their teenage—possibly preteen at the time—son is a little bit sketchy. that’s all i’m saying.)

and now comes the counterpoint that max and colosso are best friends. which—that statement in and of itself has always rubbed me the wrong way. i’m not here to argue whether or not colosso loves max; he very clearly does (see: a hero is born, the thunder games), but it’s a selfish and possessive sort of caring. colosso doesn’t actually care about what’s best for max, or whether or not he’s happy. he hated allison, he didn’t want max to reconcile with his family, he tried to separate max from his friends. he essentially just wants max for himself, and that sort of dynamic is incredibly toxic no matter how close they are. there’s also something to be said about the age difference between them: max is a teenager and colosso is at least his father’s age, and this is not me trying to dismiss the relationship that kids can have with important adults in their life—i, personally, have had really strong relationships with teachers and mentors to the point where i consider them good friends—but the issue is that with those sort of relationships there is always a sense of the older person being like a mentor and influencing the younger one, and while that can often be a really good thing it can also, like in colosso’s case, be a bad thing.

and going off of the age difference, let’s get into the final and most prominent reason that i hate colosso. the show pretty frequently makes jokes that mirror romantic partnerships when it comes to max and colosso. i can cite so many instances when colosso calls max pet names or the situation is modeled after a marriage or colosso makes sort of flirty advancements towards max, but it’s fine because it’s all for humor, right? and colosso’s a bunny, right? except he’s actually a fifty-something year old man, and max is a teenager. and while those jokes have always made me superbly uncomfortable, my general rule of thumb during my rewatch has been “if colosso was human right now, how creepy would this be?” and the answer is almost always very. very very creepy. i don’t think i need to go into too much analysis on why i hate this so much but colosso’s “flirting” with max is just genuinely disgusting and is the main reason i can’t stand him as a character.

this is veering into 1.6k territory so i’m going to try and wrap it up here. the tl;dr for this is that while i think colosso played a pretty pivotal role in the show, i wish in the end part of max’s arc would’ve been about breaking away from him instead of remaining in a very toxic dynamic with a supervillain his father’s age. i think colosso could’ve eventually been redeemed if it came down to it, but overall i wish there had been more acknowledgement of exactly how colosso affected max before they became “friends” again, and especially hank and barb’s failures when it came to max feeling unheard. if you actually read this all the way through i’m applauding you, and thank you for asking to see this essay because i love doing character/writing analysis stuff like this. until next time!

ty lee, for the ask game!

Someone else asked me Ty Lee, so I’m doing 5 here and will do 5 in the other ask. Thank you! I love Ty Lee :)

1. I really like the popular headcanon that Ty Lee has air nomad heritage. I imagine there were degrees of nomad activity: for many, the temples were permanent bases nomadic groups might sometimes visit at certain times of year, and perhaps one would become a monk at the temple but that wasn't the only way to lead a spiritually fulfilling life. I think they weren't all killed straight away during Sozin's Comet (Relics basically confirms this) and one way stragglers survived is through assimilation (although how much is that survival is debatable). Ty Lee's great grandmother was a non-bending nomad originally with roots in the western air temple & western nomadic sites that was taken in by a noble fire nation family and had to hide her identity for the entirety of her life: while a few things were passed on down the generations ultimately that knowledge reduces each time. I wouldn't be surprised if Ty Lee didn't even know beyond being aware of a weird family secret / there being a few strange customs on her mother's side that she put down to regional differences (I hc there's a lot of diverse regional culture that is actively being suppressed to retain a sense of unified fire nation national identity & nationalism). I think she's aware it's a bit abnormal and there's something up but she's too young & too close to Azula really to know yet. This is something I think she discovers after the war and her association with Azula ends.

2. She's a tiny femme lesbian, but I don't think she's figured that out yet. I think she's still very much in the mode of performing her identity based on other's expectations, even as she expresses a great desire for individuality - I think Zuko makes some throwaway comment about her having dated ten different guys that year or something - and dates boys casually because she feels she needs to be flexible. I think part of Ty Lee's journey-to-come is realising she can be rigid with some things and doesn't have to mould herself around others and that includes with her sexuality.

3. Related to that I think that despite being one of a 'matched set' again I think being with the Kyoshi Warriors for her is good because she learns to set those kinds of boundaries because she is in a safe environment where she can say 'no' wothout fear of reprecussions.

4. I think she joins the Kyoshi Warriors on a whim - it's an impulsive decision made partially because she wants to get out of the Fire Nation as quickly as possible, to get away from her family as quickly as possible, and she doesn't expect it to be long term at all. I think some people - namely Mai - who know her quite well are skeptical because joining another "matched set" seems like a recipe for disaster. I think there's also a level of guilt that compels her to join - I think part of it is making amends for Ty Lee. But for the reasons aforementioned I think she does better there than she honestly expects and the environment is quite healing and she makes a space for herself as this loveable but respected oddball amongst the Kyoshi Warriors.

5. Ty Lee loves travelling and journeys and the whole process of it - including aspects of it that other people find exhausting or uncomfortable. She likes long rides and bus rides and car rides and train rides in a small cramped space, she loves hitchiking, she loves airports and train stations at 1am, partially because the idea of travelling itself is exciting and is often a little restless and giddy on such journeys even if it's something she's done fairly often, and she loves the sense of things about to change. I think she loves the idea of falling asleep in a cramped little space and then opening her eyes and being somewhere different. I think she really fears being trapped and the discomfort of travelling is such a nice contrast to the comforts of nobility (which is something she wants to escape, and live outside of, imo). I also imagine she's part of a set of Kyoshi Warriors that do travel a bit around the Earth Kingdom and that suits her a lot.

Random Brightwell Scene I wrote while listening to “Sleeping Alone” by Lykke Li under quarantine

For some reason the text didn’t save the first time, so another attempt! Also sorry for not putting read more break, apparently that doesn’t exist on the mobile app, and you can’t edit app post on desktop. 🤦🏽‍♀️

I recommend listening to the song during the dancing bit, it’s linked below. k, thanks! :D

 The Brooklyn rooftop bar where the summer get-together was being held was all industrial-chic, large metal lamps hanging from chains and exposed pipes, spruced up by rooftop trees or potted plants, decked out with lights and greenery, wood accents and wicker lounge settes and chairs scattered prettily with cozy neutral cushions. The lower New York skyline surrounded by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge was the view as the sun sat lower in the horizon, true hipster haven. Not what he pictured when he was invited by Gil. Apparently, an annual thing major crimes did together. He scanned the area and found familiar faces.

Edrisa looked happy chatting away with some techs from her team. His eyes drifted to JT and Tally whispering to each other making each other smile, then there she was rolling her eyes with a smile at their affections. 

She wore a delicate cap-sleeved red summer dress peppered with small white daisy detail that ended around her knees, it fit her form perfectly, the arches of her breasts encased subtly. A pair of sandy-colored boots that ended at her ankles. Her curls seemed even fuller tonight, those dainty gold necklaces and rings completed the look as her sunkissed skin seem to glow. She looked different from her usual office attire, she looked relaxed, almost carefree.  

She was enchanting. He felt that similar thump to his chest, his mouth felt dry, and suddenly he didn’t know if coming tonight was a good idea. It was the warm hand on his shoulder that jolted him from his thoughts and he tore his eyes away from her to turn to see Gil standing next to him with two beers in his hand and a smile on his face. 

He knew how everyone around him led fairly normal lives, but seeing everyone here just being calm and normal enjoying each other’s company, the warm summer air, the music, and harmonious chatter made him feel almost out of place. It all felt unattainable and surreal. 

“Here Kid, you look like you need a drink,” Gil said patting his shoulder. Malcolm realized that while he was a gifted profiler, Gil had experience and age on him. He chuckled softly and took the offered beer bottle and took a swig.

“Thanks,” he scanned the crowd again, “this a good turn out, everyone seems to be having a good time.”

Gil nodded looking around proud of the setup. “It’s not often that we get to take a break and have a moment to just enjoy life and be grateful that we have it. These moments, they’re what keeps us from losing it when you see continuous horror.”

“I get that,” he said taking another sip of his beer, he did get it, but it was so different from what he was used to. Was there ever going to be enough moments where the horrors that he lived with daily dissipate? 

“You just have to allow yourself to let some light and good in,” Gil said as if reading his thoughts. “For a start, I’m glad you came, whatever the reason maybe.” With that, he walked away and engage a group of officers, Malcolm smiled quietly to himself, of course, Gil would pick on it. He wasn’t exactly hiding the fact that he drifted to her in any given situation.

He walked over to where Dani, JT, and Tally stood, one hand tucked into his casual linen trousers, the other holding the beer, letting the coolness ground him to reality. He decided to leave his Bond villain white stripe ensemble at home this time, opting for the white trousers and a light blue chambray shirt. He could hear Tally sharing something about marrying strangers.

“It’s crazy, these girls are just marrying dudes that they spoke to through walls? Asked JT.

“Well yeah, the whole point is that love is blind. It’s not what you see but feel.” Tally said. “Malcolm, what do you think?” Tally reminded him of Jackie sometimes, wholesome and inclusive. 

“Uh…”

Before he could start JT intervened with a “that seems dumb, reality tv is such a scam,”

Tally playfully smacked JT’s arm, “I asked Malcolm!”

Dani snickered softly at the couples exchange, her eyes drifting to Malcolm often. He looked so casual, summery even. She supposed this is what he wore to go to the Hamptons to lounge around his family’s summer house. It was both easy and hard to forget that Malcolm came from money. She didn’t expect him to come, but couldn’t help but be happy he did. 

“Ow, woman!” JT laughed. “Alright Bright! Enlighten us!”

“Malcolm!” Edrisa bounced over and smiled her full-on Colgate smile at him. 

“Edrisa, Malcolm is about to tell us what’s important physical attraction or personality” Tally filled her in. 

“Well, we like to think of romantic feelings as spontaneous and indescribable things that come from the heart. But it's actually your brain running a complex series of calculations within a matter of seconds that's responsible for determining attraction,” he started and right away the group responded. JT groaned, Edrisa bounced in agreement, Tally nodded her head in fascination and Dani rolled her eyes.  

He continued “in fact, all five senses play a role, each able to vote for or veto, a budding attraction,” 

“That why when someone smells amazing, you feel that jolt?” asked Tally excitedly,

“Exactly, all of these things determine whether a person will be a suitable fertile partner, we’re quite primitive. So I suppose that if you were to take away the biological needs and put them in a situation where it was a matter of intellectual and emotional compatibility a person could grow fonder, but I think the physical attraction is also important.”

“Says every guy ever,” mumbled Dani.

“What do you think Dani? Would you date a guy for looks or personality?” Tally asked grinning.

Dani curved her lips to the side and rolled her eyes, “I think personality is important, I mean he can look like Idris Elba but that won’t save him if we can’t have a decent conversation.”

“But would you be able to be with him if he were disfigured?” Malcolm challenged.

“I like to think I’m not superficial, if I connected with him emotionally, don’t know that it would bother me.” she threw back. “Besides, good looking guys can be damaged too, doesn’t mean they are throwaways or keepers.”

The tension fizzled in the air as Dani defiantly stared Malcolm down. It was the clearing of throats that broke them from their wordless conversation. 

“Think I’ll go grab us more drinks,” Edrisa grinned avoiding the tension on the raise, she liked Malcolm but Dani was scary. 

Dani’s lopsided grin and Malcolm’s full-on smile told the group they were gearing up to have another productive banter session, something that seemed to be happening a lot lately as JT told Tally in passing while talking about his day, to which she pressed her lips together and nodded knowingly and commented that it was probably sexual tension. JT watched his colleagues with squinted eyes, maybe Tally was right?

“Ok, before this gets out of control, let me take this beautiful woman dancing,” JT took his wife’s hands and dragged her to the dancefloor in the center of the bar. It was getting to be that time of the night when everyone was slowly getting intoxicated, the twilight was setting in the bustling lights from the city was becoming more prominent making for an even more spectacular ambiance. While the summer breeze brought liveliness.

“It’s a good thing, Diaz’s brother is the manager here, couldn’t have gotten a better venue,” Dani stated suddenly, stirring her drink, bobbing her head to the music.

“Yea, it’s nice,” he said in agreement, trying not to let her scent distract him. What was it jasmine and yalang yalang?

“I’m sure you’ve seen better parties” she smiled, “debutante balls, galas, and whatnot.”

He chuckled, “oh yea, that’s the norm, everyone was clamoring to invite the serial killer family to parties.”

She looked at him then, every so often she was reminded of the full implications of what Martin Whitley’s actions did to his family. That even with the prominence, there were social isolations that were stricter for his class of people. She hated the pain behind his self deprecating humor. 

“You should give Edrisa a dance, you’ll make her night and it is a party.”

He smiled softly, “Yea, I guess so.” rubbing the back of his neck, she knew how to level off. Knew how to defuse him.

Dani laughed softly and honestly, he wished he could hear it more. “Live a little Bright, if you’re gonna lose sleep, might as well have a bit of fun doing it.”

“How can I get used to How can I forget you Will I get used to Sleeping alone”

Live a little, why not? He should, he should let himself have moments. Moments that will shield him from the loneliness, from the dark. Moments where he can have a fighting chance. As his brain worked through this for a few seconds, his eyes caught Jackson walking towards them with a purpose, a smile on his face for Dani. Officer Adam Jackson who shamelessly flirted with Dani, who smiled at her constantly and lingered around her desk or at the break room. The occasions when she paid Jackson a bit of attention, brought an unpleasant taste to his mouth. Malcolm didn’t know what happened next but it became a blur of movements. He saw Jackson stop and stare in their direction.

“Tomorrow is a long time Forgetting so long I loved you a lifetime I loved you long”

He took her hand slowly pulling her closer, eyes on her, the music wafted through them, around them. His name almost spilled from her lips in protest but caught at the back of her throat, instead, her hands fell around his shoulders. She let him lead her, her mind drifted to that night when he was so high he ran towards her and swept her up in his arms. Lips curving to a smile, that was the night they decided to be friends, the night she decided to try to trust him. She swayed with him, the words of the song pulling at something within her. 

“Someday, somehow Somewhere down the line If you save your heart for mine We'll meet again, we'll meet again-”

She wasn’t emotional, she felt things deeply but kept it close to her heart, she felt like she needed to do that to keep herself together. Then one day Malcolm Bright came charging in erratically just bouncing against those walls until they started to fracture until the cracks started to show and she couldn’t hide from him. Even when she wished he wouldn’t see her, or find her, there he was. “You had some more coke explode in your face that I don’t know about?” she asked with a smile.

He breathed in her scent, felt her solid and warm against him. He could feel his own heart racing. She did things to him, honestly, he could be high at this moment but just from her. He smiled, “I think we both know that wouldn’t end well, but I figured friends can dance with each other right?”

Friends, the word floated between them for a moment. Lately, the line seemed to be blurring, gray setting in as to what they each wanted from the other.  

“At least you didn’t threaten to kick me in the business, I’d say that’s progress.” He joked almost nervously.

She pursed her lips then smiled, “shut up Bright,” Stepping just a bit closer and wrapping her arms just a bit tighter around him. Feeling his fingers grip her waist more firmly. She closed her eyes for a moment and everything disappeared except for his woodsy scent and the warmth of his body. Maybe, just maybe for a second, they could just be two people dancing.

“Love was my shoreline I stare myself blind Now was not our time No, I let you down”

The world just kind of stopped all he heard was the sound of her breathing against his ears and felt the light brush of her breast against his chest. The warmth of it all driving him a bit mad. Thoughts of kissing her entered his head, as it had been doing more and more lately.  The haunting song left him with such want, he wanted her, need her. He didn’t notice that Gil smiled at them from the bar or that Tally mouthed ‘I told you’ to JT to which he shook his head. 

“Some last, some die Some love wait till its time If you save your heart for mine We'll meet again, we'll meet again, We'll meet again, we'll meet again“

“Bright?”

“Hmm,” he hummed softly against her ear, his breath warm, making her skin tingle. 

“You seem different tonight,” she pulled away from him a bit to look at him. “You good?”

“Well, I definitely have been in worse situations that’s for sure.” He joked, his eyes searching her face as it turned into a signature ‘had it with your shit’ smile. 

“Oh yea, I bet dancing with me falls under the top 10 worst experiences of your adult life.” She said rolling her eyes and chuckling. 

“I’d say somewhere between getting kidnapped and holding a live bomb,” 

She laughed at that and stepped out of his embrace “thanks jerk!”

He missed her instantly, maybe that’s why he grabbed her elbows as he joined her laughter and said “dancing with you Dani Powell makes the top 10 best experiences of my life.”

“Oh, yeah? Before or after all the sex you’ve had?” she couldn’t stop herself, even as her mind yelled ‘what are you doing?! This is flirting, this is not friend stuff.’ but the words tumbled out of her mouth. 

He looked at her, watched as her face turn almost the exact shade of red as her dress, he opened his mouth then chuckled out, “it could easily take number one.” He saw her intake of breath, the way her eyes locked on him and her cheeks burned, he saw the flash of what he thought he felt. Could she possibly feel the same?

They were definitely moving away from the friend zone, and thank fuck for that she thought because it was getting exhausting to pretend that she didn’t want to grab his stupid face and kiss him every time he said something that made her heart go thump like now or when he looked like he would break from the pressure within. But then she realized where they were and reality kicked in and she got scared, so she backed off with a small smile saying “It’s a good thing you’re a smooth talker, we’re too high up for anything to break your fall.” 

Just like that, the moment changed and they were friends again...

AFTER THE ESSAY

Since we all agree, kids see few cracks in the view of the world, and I'd spent a lot of trolls in it. And the pollsters can't simply ignore those who won't, or their sample isn't random anymore. You generally shouldn't pass up a definite funding offer to move. So why did I spend 6 months working on this stupid idea? Other domains change fast. The most excusable are those told to simplify ideas to make them work, and other people trying to take advantage of one another, they work like watertight compartments in an unsinkable ship. I can see a path that's not immediately obvious; that's one of our specialties at YC.

If you want to find startup ideas, and instead I'm telling you that the key is to have a vested interest in this conclusion, because startups that move to the US. The rest have died or merged or been acquired. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. If you're really at the leading edge of a field that's changing fast, when you have ideas, you'll find valuable ones just sitting there waiting to be implemented. It wouldn't seem as interesting to build something that already existed. If an undergrad writes something all his friends start using, it's quite likely to represent a good startup idea, it's not a sufficient one. You know what a throwaway program is: something you write quickly for some limited task. A real essay, as the name implies, is dynamic: you don't know you're using this form, you don't even notice an idea unless it's evidence that something is worth doing, you're more likely to be right. YC. It could be replaced on any of these axes it has already started to be on most. Writing application programs used to mean writing desktop software.1

I watched it happen to Reddit. The reason this struck me so forcibly is that for most of Octopart's life, the biggest distributor, Digi-Key is trying to make a language that's good for writing throwaway programs, because that often misleads them. There are two types of schedule. It makes me spend more time on the software. The sites's guidelines explicitly ask people not to say things they wouldn't say face to face. Here's where benevolence comes in. Having a heart attack sounded like falling asleep. And finally, if a good investor has committed to fund you if you stay where you are, you should probably be able to resist switching from jeans to suits. If you want to notice startup ideas: the unsexy filter and the schlep filter is more important than low cost.

A couple weeks ago I realized that if you pushed this idea, Stripe has had comparatively smooth sailing in other areas that are sometimes painful, like user acquisition. Some of the work of reading an article is understanding its structure—figuring out what in high school. There are many advantages of launching quickly, but the most important advantage of being good is that it makes other people want to make their mark on the world, and this trend has decades left to run. And practically all startups, even the most successful, come close to death at some point sit their kids down and explain all the lies they told you. It takes time to come across situations where you notice something missing.2 We arrive at adulthood with heads full of lies. Marie Curie was involved with X-rays. And so if you want to grab coffee, for example, a father who has an affair generally conceals it from his children. For example, Y Combinator has now invested in 80 startups, 57 of which are still alive. If you want to learn what lies are told to kids, the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. Along with such outright lies, there must have been told a lot of email, or because it's hard to stand that year round. For example, after Steve Wozniak built the computer that became the Apple I, he felt obliged to give his then-employer Hewlett-Packard the option to produce it.

The list of n things, this work is done for you.3 Now when one thinks of what Microsoft does to users, all the verbs that come to mind begin with F. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. So any startup that succeeds is either going to be about whatever the title says, and the problem gets worse. I got to college. I was trying to make that traffic stop.4 They grew out of things their founders built because there seemed a gap in the world. Difficult though it may be that once you have users, the tamagotchi effect kicks in. Millions of people have pets.

Notes

4%, and average with the administration.

The need has to grind.

It would be to ask prospective employees if they did not become romantically involved till afterward. I said by definition this will make it easy. So while we might think it was actually a great thing in itself, and it will become correspondingly more important.

Travel has the same way a bibilical literalist is committed to rejecting it. I'm satisfied if I could pick them, maybe you'd start to finance themselves with retained earnings till the top and get pushed down by new arrivals. I have no way to predict precisely what would our competitors had known we were working on is a great deal of wealth—wealth that, in the original text would in 1950 something one could reasonably be with children, with smiles and laughter.

TITLE: Bad Vibes (1/1)

SUMMARY: Emma had tried to forget about her time with Neal for years, so it comes as something of a nasty shock when she suddenly finds herself unable to take a quick ride in her own car without thinking about all the unfortunate, emotionally traumatizing sex she’s had in it.

NOTES: For @stardustednymph for the Hub Secret Santa! I profusely apologize about the lateness of this. It had started out as one thing, and then became something entirely different after engaging in some life-changing conversation with @justanotherwannabeclassic and @distant-rose. I hope you like it! xo

This is a canon-divergent fic that takes place sometime during that S4 hiatus where most of us can agree Emma and Killian boned for the first time. As such, there is some mild sexual content.

Rather predictably (and not without a somewhat inevitable feeling of frustration), Emma Swan was one of those people who had never put much stock in the notion of “vibes.” She had a “freaking superpower,” according to Ruby, which allowed her to suss out the truth about people, but as soon as Ruby suggested that the same might be true of certain places, Emma had chuckled, as if it was some unheard of thing.

“Man, you can be the absolute worst sometimes, do you know that?”

Ruby often spoke in vaguely mean, hyperbolic jest; all the same, it could occasionally needle Emma, as she was, admittedly, one of the most sensitive assholes on the planet, and should anyone discover the truth she would, almost certainly, lose all physical form and melt back into the earth as God intended.

“Considering the fact that my ‘superpower’ has a near 100% success rate, I tend to think it’s more reliable than whatever you’re talking about.”

“Ya know, like, energy,” Ruby continues, attempting to drunkenly elaborate, “sometimes you just walk into a place and—” shuddering, “...you just know something fucked up happened there.”

“Do you?” Emma asks, both inebriated and skeptical in equal measure.

“Yes, bitch!” Ruby laughs, giving Emma a light punch to the shoulder. “It’s a thing. I swear.”

In the harsh light of painful, sobering day, she could silently admit to herself, that yeah, maybe Ruby had something like a point. Especially when she considered all those foster homes she’d been dumped in—those thin, foul-smelling mattresses she had slept on in miserable, state-funded orphanages.

Who slept here before me, she’d think, her small, frightened mind reeling. Were they scared? Were they here long? And would they, she anxiously wondered, pass their bad luck on to me?

The older and more stubborn Emma grew, the more her belief changed from, “I’m cursed, it’s hopeless” to, “Life is chaos, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want and screw the rest.” So she did have to admit, somewhat reluctantly, that at one point in her life she had been something of a believer. When you’re a kid, the idea that the universe might have a plan for you could be comforting, but as an adult it just made you kind of angry and helpless, and if there was one thing Emma absolutely despised, it was helplessness.

“Do you think that a place can feel a certain way?”

Emma loved the diner when it was empty. Granny had, thankfully, after a very irritating half-hour grumbling about wanting to go to bed, given Emma the key and told her to lock up when they were done (not without a pointed and frankly, unnecessary, raise of her eyebrow). She relished the lack of eyes in her proximity; the idea that most of the town was asleep, that it was just her, Killian, and the soft sound of their voices.

“I rather tend to think so,” he replies after a moment’s silence, “why do you ask, love?”

“Just something Ruby said the other day.”

“Ah,” he says with a knowing smirk, “she can be a rather… creative woman, can she not?”

“It’s just—” she starts, trying to find the right words to explain her own muddled thoughts, which seem to have become more and more contradictory these days. “How is it that I could see, and—and know about so many improbable… things and still find it within myself to be so… so—”

“Stubborn?” he interrupts, still with the grin she simultaneously adored and despised.

“Ugh,” she groans, smacking a hand over her eyes (and hopefully her flushed cheeks).

“None of that now, Swan,” he says gently, tugging her hand away from her face, “you are far too hard on yourself.”

“You’d just think I’d have gotten over myself by now.”

“While I might not know precisely what she said, I suppose I can hazard a guess,” he surmises, taking a healthy sip of his coffee.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Clearly.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, her heart growing lighter in the face of his indomitable optimism when it came to her. Lord knows he had a dark streak, but should she ever dare to fall down the rabbit hole herself, it was as if he became temporarily possessed by Snow White Brain (if not without a healthy dose of reality that she treasured).

“You’re an obstinate woman to be sure,” he begins with a touch more sincerity, “but never let it be said that it was one of the things to dislike about you.”

Finding the prospect of gracefully accepting a compliment too daunting, she could only scoff. “You mean there are things to dislike about me?”

“Swan.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she blushes, pushing some errant hairs behind her ear. “I just can’t help but think that I’m making things harder than they need to be.”

“Well—”

“Shut. Up.”

In a manner befitting a man as absurdly eloquent as Killian, he allows their mutual laughter to dissolve before blindsiding her with a more serious comment, her name falling off his tongue with a stern gentleness.

“Emma, any halfway intelligent person would be able to understand why. It’s not shocking that you might be slow to act in matters of faith.”

“Even after all this time?”

“What, two years, Swan? If that?”

She shrugs. Like Ruby, she knew that he had a point, logically, and in contrast to the first 28 years of her life, it hadn’t been that long since she had learned about this whole other world; this whole other life, but she couldn’t turn off the part of her brain that was insisting otherwise—the part that kept replaying Ruby’s throwaway comment over and over again.

“Hey,” he says softly, his hand coming to rest atop hers, “try not to fret, Swan, you’ll get there.”

“Promise?”

He sits back, a finger running back and forth across his chest. “Cross my heart, darling.”

With her multiple insecurities momentarily quelled, she was finally able to focus on the topic of places and how they “felt.” Granted, most of the places in town were relatively new to her, and she wasn’t planning on going back to her apartment in Boston anytime soon, which left her with one conceivable “place” in which she might test Ruby’s theory. Arguably once considered to be her home, her car had seen more of her life than most people, and as she sat in the driver’s seat one particularly cold morning, her lips turning blue waiting for the heat to kick in, she found herself thinking of only one, miserable thing: She’d had truly regrettable sex with Neal in this car.

Her brain couldn’t be counted on for much, but at least it could be relied upon to obsess on one seemingly inconsequential detail until she felt physically sick about it. It was becoming nearly impossible to drive a few minutes to the store without thinking about her ill-advised sexcapades in the back or front seat of her car. She’d been intimate with other people aside from Neal, but considering how important he was to the story of her life—the amount of pain he ultimately caused, it was those particular trysts that seemed to have indefinitely baptized the thing in her mind.

Killian’s shoved half a glazed donut into his face when she says it.

“So, I’m pretty sure my car has bad sex vibes.”

He coughs, as elegantly as he can, obviously, and spares her a droll look of surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“Remember when were talking about how places can feel a certain way?” She pauses, maybe he needs more of a reminder. “I had a... mild existential crisis?”

“...Sure.”

“I was thinking about it and I think my car might be one of those things.”

“Do you mean to tell me you were able to… in that… contraption? My God, Swan, the sheer… agility that would require.”

Was he being serious? “You’re a pirate.”

“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Clearing her throat, she feels herself begin to fidget and wonders if she hasn’t gone horribly wrong somewhere. “Anyway, you can, and I have, and it was with Neal, multiple times, and now it’s the only goddamn thing I can think about.”

It’s only after she’s brought it up that she feels mild regret. After all, they’ve both refrained from engaging in that particular act themselves, and now here she is, talking about sex with her problematic ex. They are friends, right? They can talk about stuff like this.

At his silence, she flushes, tugs her sleeves over wrists. “Sorry, if that makes you uncomfortable, I just—yeah.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I just, um, I don’t, uh—”

For someone who often struggled to keep his thoughts to himself, it was somehow both worrying and charming that he seemed to be so at a loss for what to say. Probably struggling with not wanting to suggest or imply sex with him, while also being sensitive to the possibility that it’s not an appropriate conversational segue and if anyone is going to be mentioning sex-having in this relationship it should be her, and the poor guy can’t even seem to finish the donut he’d been so excited to eat only moments before.

“I know that you probably have some gentlemanly idea in your head of how… ‘us,’ will be,” her words come out in a rush, and she is aghast at the sudden onset of loudmouth bravery she seems to be conjuring, “but I really need to get this car thing taken care of. I have too much going on to not be able to drive my car.”

He looks somewhat offended, which, rightfully so. “How romantic, Swan.”

“No, that’s not—” she tugs on her hair, suddenly not so proud of the straightforwardness she had just miraculously exhibited. “I promise that’s not the only reason, I want to take that step with you, but ya know, we’re not like… blushing virgins. It doesn’t need to be…”

“...Special? Again, Swan, never have I felt so spectacularly wooed.”

This was not going the way she had intended, and with every word that passes through her lips she feels herself sinking further and further away from the point, which is that—

“The Bug is important to me. You’re important to me. I want one of the few places I’ve called mine to be… mine.”

A gentle look of understanding finally crosses his features and she breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Of the many traits she’s come to admire about Killian Jones, his ability to translate unintelligible Emma speak is one of her very favorites.

They make the somewhat treacherous journey to a small clearing that overlooks the town. Not many people know of it, and she feels confident that they won’t be stumbled upon in one of the absolutely nosiest towns on the planet. It’s a bit difficult to get started at first, not that lack of passion was ever one of their problems, but the whole idea of driving somewhere specifically to do it creates all kinds of awkward roadblocks to the moment itself.

It’s only after she’s climbed into his lap and accidentally tapped the horn with her foot that they manage to laugh and forget about any lingering awkwardness that comes naturally with first times. She thanks God and whomever else might be listening that he’s modernized his wardrobe, if only for the fact that getting him out of leather pants in such a small space was unimaginable.

Her heart races in a pleasant way she had forgotten was possible, and despite the fact that she can recall this kind of agile maneuvering being easier as a younger person, she can’t remember it being quite this good. Clumsiness and all.

By some miracle of physiology she does manage to speak while he’s still inside of her, which is, given the impending orgasm she’s about to have, astounding.

“N-not as difficult as you were imagining, Captain?”

And, Jesus, she needs to start exercising more. She should not be this breathless. What kind of overcome, fairytale princess is she? There’s a slight lift of his hips in response, and she curls her fingers tighter, somehow, into the fabric of his leather-clad shoulders.

“Not quite so,” breathing the words against her neck, his own fingers applying a bit more pressure to the bare skin of her waist.

In the fleeting slowness before she’s totally lost her senses, she manages to open her eyes long enough to catch a glimpse of the empty backseat—impossibly neat, when years before it had been filled with blankets, canned goods, spare cash—Neal. It seems to her a vision, a brief moment of clarity in which she watches the dregs of her home; her youth, disappear. She realizes, with the smell of Killian overwhelming her every thought, the feel of his hand on her skin, that she has somehow forgotten what Neal had felt like, and suddenly her past is precisely that. Past.

“Alright?” he whispers, his hand coming up to give her neck a tender squeeze.

“Better,” she answers, sleepy and smiling, wondering in the back of her head if she can convince him to be a little less chivalrous for the moment and finish. She’s actually surprised at herself, most of the time she couldn’t really be bothered either way. But he knows what she means to say before she says it, he says what she needs to hear before she even realizes she needs to hear it, and never in her life has she been made to feel this precious—not to be that person, but… if she were to need a metaphor, she imagines it’d have to be something along the lines of treasure hunting, which feels lazy, but it’s not as if she’s ever claimed to be a poet.

She moves, rising and falling, pulling his ear lobe between her teeth, and she feels his chivalry slip with a satisfying gasp.

“So, you might’ve had a point.”

Unlike Killian, Ruby rather inelegantly chokes on the frozen margarita she’s been rapidly sucking through her straw as if someone was about to steal it from her.

“Uh… about?”

“How places have certain vibes.”

“Oh?” Ruby asks, looking unbearably smug, “What changed your mind?”

“I don’t know,” she answers innocently, her mind straying to fogged up windows and stiff necks. “I just gave it some thought and decided that maybe you weren’t full of total shit.”

“Wow, thank you so much for your generosity, Emma. I’m sure that was very hard for you.”

The two of them laugh, and drink, and Emma is reminded once again of how grateful she is to have friends. To have a night out. To have a home to go back to, and a warm bed to sleep in. She thinks about the yellow Bug parked outside—all of its lovely dents and scratches; it’s small imperfections that have led her here, to this place, and these people. And now, when she looks in the rearview mirror it’s not the pangs of first love she feels, but the warm, blossoming hope of the future.

How TV Is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ — And Why It Matters – Rolling Stone

“Mom. Dad. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I do. I might get married to a man, like you so clearly want. And I might not. Because this is not a phase, and I need you to understand that. I’m bisexual.” That’s Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s resident no-nonsense detective, pouring out her heart to her parents in the show’s landmark 100th episode. To which her dad (Danny Trejo) stoically replies, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual.”

Beatriz, who is bisexual herself, wrote in GQ: “When does it end? When do you get to stop telling people you’re bi? When do people start to grasp that this is your truth? …When do you start seeing yourself reflected positively in all (hey, even any?) of the media you consume?”

There’s a real cognitive dissonance to identity erasure. You can be standing right in front of someone telling them exactly who you are, and they can just look right through you, and intone, like a Westworld robot, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” Nevertheless, it’s a daily reality for LGBTQ folks, and bi- and pansexual people in particular. (The term pansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people — or, as self-identified pansexual Janelle Monae put it in Rolling Stone last year: “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” However, many in the queer community define bisexuality the same way. You can read more about that conversation here.) Until recently, sexual and gender identities that existed outside the binary have been anathema to mainstream culture — and often, even, to more traditionalist branches of gay culture.

For a long time, people who identify as bisexual or pansexual didn’t have a whole lot of visible role models — particularly on television. But as our understanding of the LGBTQ spectrum has become more diverse and nuanced over time, there’s been a blossoming of bi- and pansexual representation. In the past few years, characters such as Rosa on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, David Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Darryl Whitefeather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Leila on The Bisexual — to name just a few — have been at the forefront of a bi- and pansexual renaissance on the small screen.

But it wasn’t always this way. Even after television began to centralize gay characters and their experiences — on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word — the “B” in that alphabet soup fell to the wayside. Bisexuality was seldom mentioned at all, and if it was, it existed chiefly as a punch line — an easy ba-dum-CHING moment for savvy characters to nose out someone who wasn’t as in the know as they were. On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw called bisexuality “a layover on the way to Gaytown”; and on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon dismissed it as “something they invented in the Nineties to sell hair products.”

Even some of the earliest shows to break ground for queer representation didn’t factor bisexuality or pansexuality into their worldviews. The designation basically didn’t exist in the gay-straight binary world of Queer as Folk, and was largely seen as a phase on The L Word. Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave many TV viewers their first-ever depiction of a same-sex relationship in 1999 with the Wicca-fueled romance between Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), but the show too neatly glossed over Willow’s years-long relationship with her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green) as a fleeting step on the way to full-time lesbianism. Or, as Willow succinctly put it in Season 5: “Hello! Gay now!”

Characters who labeled themselves as bisexual were considered to be confused at best and dangerously promiscuous at worst. On The O.C. in 2004, Olivia Wilde’s bi bartender character, Alex Kelly, appeared as a destabilizing force of chaos in the lives of the show’s otherwise straight characters. On a 2011 episode of Glee — a show which, at the time, was breaking ground for gay representation on TV — Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) savagely shot down his crush, Blaine (Darren Criss), when Blaine mentioned that he might be bi: “‘Bisexual’ is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change.” By the end of the episode, Blaine assures Kurt that he is, don’t you worry, “100 percent gay.”

One of TV’s first enduring portrayals of nonbinary sexual attraction came with the entrance of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) into Russell T. Davies’ 2005 Doctor Who reboot. (Davies also created the original U.K. Queer as Folk.) The time traveler swashbuckled into the series to equal-opportunity flirt with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper), because, as the Doctor explains, “He’s a 51st-century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible.” Captain Jack went on to feature in his own spinoff series, Torchwood.

Then came Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy. Portrayed by Sara Ramirez (who came out as bisexual herself in 2016), Callie had a seasons-long arc that spanned from her burgeoning realization of her bisexuality in 2008 to her complex relationships with both men and women over the years. Callie’s drunken rant from the 11th season would make a great T-shirt to wear to Pride if it weren’t quite so long: “So I’m bisexual! So what? It’s a thing, and it’s real. I mean, it’s called LGBTQ for a reason. There’s a B in there, and it doesn’t mean ‘badass.’ OK, it kind of does. But it also means bi!”

Once the 2010s rolled around, representation began to pick up steam. True Blood’s Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), The Legend of Korra’s titular hero (Janet Varney), Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal), The Good Wife’s Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) all were portrayed in romantic relationships on both sides of the binary. But these characters’ sexual orientations were seldom given a name.

In some cases, this felt quietly revolutionary. On post-apocalyptic CW drama The 100, for example, set a century and change in the future, protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is romantically involved with both men and women with no mention of labels. Because on the show’s nuclear fallout-ravaged earth, humankind has presumably gotten over that particular prejudice. On other series, however, not putting a name to the thing seems like a calculated choice. Take Orange Is the New Black, a show that has broken a lot of barriers but steadfastly avoids using the B-word to describe its clearly bisexual central character, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling).

A few years ago, though, tectonic plates began to shift. On Pop TV sitcom Schitt’s Creek, David Rose (co-creator Dan Levy) explained his pansexuality to his friend via a now-famous metaphor: “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay.”

Bisexuality got its literal anthem on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with “Gettin’ Bi,” a jubilant Huey Lewis & the News-style number sung by Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) about waking up to his latent bisexuality as a middle-aged man. “It’s not a phase, I’m not confused / Not indecisive, I don’t have the gotta-choose blues,” he croons, dancing in front of the bi pride flag. Darryl’s exuberant ode to his identity felt like someone levering a window open in a musty room — a celebration of something that, less than a decade before, TV was loathe to acknowledge.

For Hulu and the U.K.’s Channel 4, Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) cowrote, directed, and starred in a series picking apart the subject, titled, aptly, The Bisexual. In it, Akhavan portrays Leila, a thirtysomething woman coming to a dawning awareness of her bisexuality after having identified as a lesbian for most of her life. The show navigates the tricky territory that bisexuals inhabit when they’re misunderstood — or sometimes outright rejected — by queer and straight communities alike. Akhavan, a bisexual Iranian-American woman, has said the idea for the show came to her after repeatedly hearing herself described as a “bisexual director.” She told Vanity Fair that “there was something about being called a bisexual publicly — even though it’s 100 percent true! — that felt totally humiliating and in bad taste, and I wanted to understand why.”

As Leila shuttles her way between sexual partners and fields tone-deaf comments from friends on both sides of the binary, The Bisexual offers no easy answers. But it also never flinches. “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. That it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka,” Leila remarks in the first episode, unconsciously echoing 30 Rock’s throwaway joke from a decade ago. Except this time, the stakes — and the bi person in question — are real.

The next generation — younger millennials and Gen Z kids in particular — tends to view sexualityas a spectrum rather than the distance between two poles. Akhavan neatly encompasses this evolution in an exchange between Leila and her male roommate’s twentysomething girlfriend, Francisca (Michèlle Guillot), who questions why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she’s started sleeping with men as well as women. When Leila tells her it’s complicated because it’s “a gay thing,” Francisca responds, “So? I’m queer.” “Everyone under 25 thinks they’re queer,” says Leila. “And you think they’re wrong?” Francisca counters. Leila considers this for a moment before answering, “No.”

Representation matters, and here’s why: Seeing who you are reflected in the entertainment you take in gives you not just validation for your identity, but also a potential road map for how you might navigate the world. For many years, bi- and pansexuals existed in a liminal place where we were often dismissed outright by not just the straight community — but the queer community as well. Onscreen representation is not just a matter of showing us something we’ve never seen before, but of making the invisible visible, of drawing a new picture over what was once erased.

Why I Think Rationalist Self-Help Is Broken

So I was asked, fairly reasonably, after in my previous post I said I thought I might have had a narrow escape from a self-reinforcing set of bad approaches to mental health and executive functioning issues, what approaches I was thinking of, exactly.

This is a list of approaches I think are wrong, and the consensus around them in the self-help parts of the rationalist community (e.g. all the praxis/gnosis type channels I’ve encountered on rat!Discord) is a big part of why I no longer frequent those spaces and now consider myself rat!adjacent, centrally an EA, and more likely to pursue skeptic communities or other communities to try to find ones whose flaws I am happier living with, rather than expanding engagement with rationalist communities. Although I insist, as an unrepentant Yudkowskian, the rationalist community moved away from me and not visa versa.

If you’re a rationalist with “post rationalist” leanings who doesn’t want to read a list of reasons why I think you suck right now, I recommend not expanding this post; I’m going to try to be as polite as I can about it all and stuff, but at the end of the day the topic of the post is the topic of the post.

So, the approaches I think are bad, some with particular justification and some just by correlation to the rest.

Drug addiction/recreational drugs as coping mechanism. A bit ago I commented “alcoholism is cool so long as you swap out the drug”, sardonically, and someone responded to say that actually, they endorsed that, so this is an actual point of disagreement.

I think the primary problem with using incapacitating recreational drugs as a balm within your coping mechanism is that it provides an extremely good avenue for escapism, which is a really tempting way to buy a balm for today at the cost of tomorrow. Additionally, I think it readily leads to a thing where people can’t function sober because their coping strategy is unavailable, and can’t function high because, well, they’re high. And yet there is a lot of “oh, you feel bad? Let me help you get some weed”. Arguments about handling existing addicts aside, this is I think probably one of the ways people move into a rationalist cluster and then decline because of “helpful” peers sharing their escapism.

I miss straight-edge LW-rationality where my willingness to countenance alcohol put me at the questionable end of the spectrum.

A bunch of stuff tied up in the assumption that normal friendship and relationships are impossible for many people in the community and therefore people should be grateful to have friends and relationships at all. This particularly leads to the idea of the whole “catgirl” thing where you can apply any kind of costs to the people around you so long as you’re a catgirl for them, because both they and you assume that they can’t get friends anywhere else.

This is not actually true! Being friends with people who are... a bit high maintenance is great, but you shouldn’t do it out of the feeling that they are the only people who will be friends with you. It’s not true. and people shouldn’t feel like they can be as high maintenance as they want so long as they play catgirl.

When I got over this, approximately concurrent with me starting therapy and reinforced by an increase in RL socialisation they encouraged at the time, I flipped out a little and quit most of the circles I was in for a bit. I don’t need to be friends with people who borrow hundreds of pounds from me and have no shame about not paying it back to have friends, and any interactions with people who think I do are going to involve them taking liberties. I’m back in parts I like now, but without the previous “I need to cling to this community” feel.

Most stuff involved in thinking about social status and auras, and social reality, more likely if it promises to be looking at social reality for “real” when everyone else isn’t. These things are real, but... the only way I can really put the issue is... “wow, autistics are really bad at distinguishing between good and bad social models”. If the models pick up on one dynamic that a naive model doesn’t, they’re adopted without question, no matter what other cases they get wrong. And boy, do they get things wrong.

“Sometimes an impression of a person having an effective aura picks up on evidence that you would consciously miss about them being competent” => “The halo effect isn’t a bias anymore, it’s actually the correct way you should be approaching your decisions, your feels of a person’s aura is a better assessment of their competence than any assessments you might make away from those feels”, is every rationalist talking about how their in person interactions indicate a person actually has brilliant models despite everything they ever wrote being evaluated as awful when actually analysed blind. And it is frustrating as hell.

Auras and social reality offer a tempting opportunity to be the holders of a cynical secret, but taking that opportunity in no way requires people to actually adopt better models, and since the matter is complex enough that adopting better models is genuinely hard, that generally doesn’t happen. More common is brazen self-justification; the more you describe the rest of the world as sucking and focus on that the less your flaws show up relatively. The more you talk about your version of social reality, the less you have to pay attention to actual reality.

(I vaguely associate this stuff with Vassar’s group? But by now it’s the default.)

Trying to invent their own novel forms of therapy instead of (rather than as well as) going to actual therapists.

I think trying to execute therapy without being a therapist would be fair enough just because therapists are expensive, but some effort to actually be aware of what therapy generally entails rather than just sticking the name “therapy” on any series of actions you think is helpful would be good.

Hypnosis for mental health assistance and anything involved in exploiting suggestibility. This is mostly correlational- I observe a very strong correlation between cultivating suggestibility and a tendency to lack direction and an internal moral sense. But I also observe a lot of enthusiasm and no results, which is sufficient in itself to be dubious of it as a strategy.

Internal Family Systems; there’s a definite thing of temporarily disassociating to regain functionality temporarily I’ve seen people do which... I guess worked for them, I don’t want to recommend it but I can’t discourage it either.

But reifying things you are conflicted over into multiple personalities seems in the many cases I’ve seen it to let you keep both sides of the conflict, and I think that’s often not a good idea. The part of your thinking which is saying “actually, I don’t want to have this trait” should not be satisfied by being split off into a different personality unit than the trait.

I’m not sure it is something that can’t work to actually make progress in internal conflict, but I don’t think it looks like it is working the way I see it tried. I hear actual therapists touch on the concept, but I’d assign a probability of 80% that they do it different in a substantive manner.

I think peer support centred around validation has a tendency to validate behaving toxically. This isn’t rationalist exclusive, but is a problem with its self-improvement channels.

Separated out so you can more easily say you hate this bit while agreeing the above is bad: I also think it has a tendency to validate inaction. You don’t need to do X because Y. It’s okay to spend your time high because Z anyway. As a throwaway thing from a friend to a friend, well, there are worse crimes than bending epistemology while being supportive. As a culture, gets a bit crab bucket-y.

Part of the problem, I think, is that these traits tend to overlap and seem to reinforce each other. Once you get into some you get a bunch of the rest, and then you can’t update out because of the mutual reinforcement. The stuff you hear against your weed habit? Clearly just people manipulated by state propaganda trying to increase their own social standing. The stuff you hear against social power? It definitely seems to help in whatever hypnotic/suggestibility stuff you’re playing with. Why go to a therapist when they don’t understand social reality? And such. I never particularly bought into any of them, and am quite glad I did not.

I’ll mention messing with self-identity as something which is more good than bad. It doesn’t work, I think, if you detach yourself from reality enough that you can sustain a positive self-identity without actually... being positive, which is a problem that exists. It’s often done very poorly. But it’s still better than the way people readily self-identify as negative things by default. People are at least aware that negative identity is much more self-fulfilling than positive, and if you let something negative in there that wasn’t definitely true by accident then it will tend to become true.

Also, while I now no longer agree with the part of it based on IFS, I like the rest of the Luminosity sequence as a “soft sequence”, based on novel ideas, which I think is good for self-improvement; it focuses on self-observation to gain a more accurate self-model, and I think this largely works and is positive.

(On the Hammertime sequence in particular, I’ve not read it yet.)

1048 Miles Morales is not 1610 Miles Morales (and that’s fine)

[Originally Posted @videogamesincolor 11/7/2018]

Miles Morales as a character is only officially seven years old in terms of publication, debuting in 2011 in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and prior during the Death of Spider-Man arc in Ultimate Comics Fallout, just three or four years before Marvel’s Ultimate Marvel line would come to an abrupt end in 2015. 

From 2011-2017, Miles Morales has been consistently written and drawn by a specific team: Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, and David Marquez. 

Since Bendis’ departure from Marvel to DC Comics, Pichelli and Marquez moving on to other projects, the character is probably now more open to reinterpretation in popular media than he was when Bendis and Ultimate Marvel were still a thing to consider.

In the case of Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man (or Spider-Man PS4), the writing team have reinterpreted the character to suit the designated 1048 universe that their game and their version of Peter Parker inhabit.

LITERAL vs. REMIX

I don’t think you can say Insomniac Games’ writers don’t know or are ignorant of Miles Morales’ history. It’s pretty clear they’re familiar with it just from what they’ve chosen or chosen not to use for their story. This is more of a case of what most multimedia Marvel properties have done to established superheroes, and that’s change parts of his backstory to suit their version of the Spider-Man canon while maintaining other elements. 

Best example I could use is X-Men’s Rogue and other X-Men characters as reinterpreted by David Hayter and the associated screenwriters for the original X-Men film. They made deliberate changes, not out of ignorance, but convenience to their own take on the X-Men canon.

It happens, it’s the backbone of Marvel’s multiverse, and that’s not necessarily a negative depending on the execution. I’m not of the mind that a character’s origin story can’t be changed or shouldn’t be changed. There’s a possibility to make a Miguel O’Hara Spider-Man without the pretense of 2099, there’s a possibility to create Peter Parker Spider-Man without the death of Ben Parker, there’s a way to make Miles Morales Spider-Man without Peter Parker in any pretense as a necessity to his story.  Again, it’s all about execution.

The expectation of a 1:1 adaptation of a character in different mediums is an expectation fans of any medium assume way too often. Yeah, it’s clear that a lot of characters are closer to their comic book carnations than most sometimes and it’s a game of pick and chose, but those choices shouldn’t be viewed as inherently malicious or done out of ignorance, not when Marvel encourages its content creators to do different things with their brand characters for the sake of relevancy.

It’s fairly clear what they were trying to do with Miles Morales, which is the same method they used on Mary Jane Watson (who has garnered similar complaints from 616 fans of the character).

I don’t think Anya Corazon is really a solution. Even if Insomniac decided to used Anya, her backstory would’ve changed to suit the canon of game, just like Miles’ was. And it’s clear that Miles was chosen for the same reasons he continues to appear in new Spider-Man cartoons: His relevancy and his connection to Peter. Anya really doesn’t have that.

The absence of characters like Ganke Lee, Aaron Davis, or even Jefferson’s frayed relationship with his brother doesn’t mean they were ignorant of them, so much as they weren’t things they could tie to Peter Parker as a means of creating a relationship with Miles. Ganke and Aaron are crucial bits to 1610 Miles Morales in a universe where Miles was, initially, only tangentially connected to Peter Parker (despite the fact his character more or less orbits around him, to his detriment) and Spider-Man was an afterthought prior to his being bitten by the Oscorp Spider. 

1048 Miles Morales is literally informed by Peter Parker’s actions, and Miles’ heroism is more or less informed by Spider-Man because he is Miles’ hero. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is more or less playing on the same scenario, but on a different track. The nameless kid from Miles’ intro more or less indicates, yes, Miles has friends, but they’re literally not important to his story arc so they’re not getting screentime remotely.

The Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon has one version of Miles Morales that attends Midtown High instead of Brooklyn Visions Academy (but he doesn’t know Peter), while the other (”Kid Arachnid”) followers his 1610 narrative a little closer (but his father is dead). The 2017 animated Spider-Man has Miles attends Horizon High with Peter Parker (they also happen to be friends). The Miles of Marvel’s Spider-Man could be attending Midtown High (but the game never verbalizes that as fact) and later becomes a friend to Peter. 

1048 Rio Morales is a school teacher (instead of an apparent stay-at-home mom) who teaches science, Peter Parker is a struggling scientist working a public funded project with Doctor Octopus. 1048 Miles is also into science, and likes to fix or tinker with things. 1610 Miles simply was not (and his original comic book title never really explores or makes plain what his favor subject or hobbies are like it does with Ganke). 

1048 Rio’s game profile says she was born in New York City, New York, 1048 Jeff Davis’ profile emphasizes that he was born in Brooklyn, but the its clear that he is a beat cop who clearly works within the city. From all of that, it wouldn’t be out there to assume that the 1048 Morales family lives in NYC instead of Brooklyn, NY in this Spider-Man canon. 

Everything they do, including attending school, is within that area. They don’t commute to or from Brooklyn or do anything there despite Miles and Jefferson being born there. There is no Brooklyn Visions Academy or Brooklyn apartment in 1048 to worry about.

I don’t see their version of Miles being a fan of Spider-Man in this canon as negative, but it is illustrative of Insomniac tying their version of Miles closer to 1048 Peter Parker, in the same way Jefferson Davis’ introduction and death acts as the catalyst for Miles and Peter’s mentor/student friendship later on in the game. 

I don’t believe Jefferson dying was ever meant to represent the death of 1610 Peter so much as it was meant to be that “tragic backstory” moment for Miles. It was also meant to give Peter and Miles a reason to talk to each other, and mirrors Doctor Octopus’ metaphorical “death” in Peter Parker’s eyes. (They were doing a whole “death of the father figure” thing, obviously.)

The removal of Jefferson from the narrative to facilitate the Peter/Miles relationship is your standard anti-Blackness. It makes no bones which of the characters is more important for their version of Miles, which, like other things in the game, is Peter Parker. (It’s reminiscent of Bendis of killing off and minimizing Riri Williams’ family to make a stronger connection between her and Tony Stark.) I find that as questionable as Marvel’s insistence to make Davis a cop in alt-universes instead of a father with a off-screen job, or, hell, an Agent of SHIELD. But, I get Jefferson’s profession is another narrative convenience in the same way Mary Jane Watson being a reporter instead of a model/actor was also narrative convenience.

1048 Miles was written and designed to be Peter’s supporting character, so a lot of the elements that make him the lead character of his own titles are not necessary. If he was made to be anything else (like a leading character or the lead character of the game), I’d probably view of all these ties to Peter as an outright negative. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a): just another way of differentiating him from his 1610, b): not far off from what Marvel is already doing with the character anyway.

The fact the writing in the game is upfront about its preoccupation with connecting Miles closer to Peter, instead of pretending otherwise (as Bendis has), probably makes me less inclined to dislike their take on Miles. 1048 Miles is just another cog in this Peter Parker’s mythos, yes, but Flash Thompson he ain’t. 

1610 Miles Morales was designed to be and had the potential to be a character set apart from Peter. Bendis and Marvel simply squandered that by undermining him with the constant fallback on Peter Parker and his history. 

Even the MCU, when they had the opportunity to create a Miles Morales Spider-Man without the pretense of needing Peter Parker, just reduced him to a throwaway line for a miscast Donald Glover to utter, then used every element in his story for their version of Peter Parker. If we’re doing a compare and contrast, I’ll take supporting character Miles Morales over a Miles Morales that’ll be standing next to his white clone as portrayed by Tom Holland.

JEFFERSON’S SURNAME

Jefferson never renounced his last name in such a way that he stopped using it. He might be married to Rio Morales, but it’s clear he never changed his surname to hers. For the entire run of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen and the 616 soft reboot (Spider-Man), Jefferson has always referred to himself as “Jefferson Davis”.

The characters he interacts with - either personally or professionally - always refer to him as “Mr. Davis” or “Jefferson Davis”, or “Jeff Davis”. Insomniac’s narrative does nothing to alter this whatsoever and sticks to the status quo established by the comics. The most  Jefferson ever did was dissociate himself with his brother because Aaron refused to shape-up. Miles doesn’t use his father’s surname (and, sure, you can spend a lot time theorizing the in-universe reason for that), but it’s a clear writing decision on Bendis’ part that the Morales surname was to ensure no one would question whether or not Miles was, in his words, a "Black” and “Hispanic” character.

Not once in the run of the Ultimate Marvel or Miles’ recently ended Spider-Man series, or even the Jason Reynolds penned Young Adult Novel, does Jefferson denounce his name, or refer or is referred to Jefferson Morales. There isn’t even an instance in the comic books or said book where he says, “Please, call me Jefferson Morales.”

He’s ashamed of his past, rarely talks about it, yes, but his surname? Still uses that. Jefferson Davis is a black male character created by a tone-deaf white man. The comic books (by proxy of their author, Bendis) have historically ignored the unfortunate ties behind the name “Jefferson Davis”. The most Miles Morales: Spider-Man does is have Ganke crack a joke about Miles not using Jeff’s surname, and draw explicit attention to the fact that Jefferson Davis is the name of supporter of the confederacy and a racist to boot. 

We’ve never gotten a genuine discussion in either medium about how Jefferson feels about his name.Jefferson being called “Jefferson Morales” has never been a thing in Miles’ mainline titles or alternate canons. His surname has never been ignored.

COLORISM AND ASSUMING BLACKNESS

Colorism with respect to Miles has always been fairly present with the character, though not on any level as bad as it is with someone like Storm. With his most consistent artists, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez, Miles’ complexion was consistently somewhere between medium brown and dark brown. But, outside of those artists, Miles’ skintone is fairly all over the place in other titles with other artists, with his most recently ended Spider-Man title often bringing somewhere closer to Rio Morales complexion (and it happened with Jefferson as well). It gets even worse with animated shows, which give him an almost washed out, zombie-esque, pale brown complexion.

Miles’ complexion in Marvel’s Spider-Man is definitely fairer in comparison to his 1610 counterpart, or even 1048 Jefferson, and closer to Rio’s. Depending on the cinematic, it flip-flops from extremely fair to medium brown in the same way Rio goes from medium brown to extremely pale in a lot of scenes.

And with regard to Rio Morales, there’s nothing about her character model that excludes her from Blackness? But, similar to characters like Aya of Alexandria (from Assassin’s Creed: Origins) or Jade from the original Beyond Good and Evil (who, yes, could be viewed as a Black woman), the way the character is designed (both in the game and in the comics) is inherently divorced from common markers of Blackness in such a way that it’s no one’s first assumption. 

Rio Morales has always been a fair skinned woman. She in no way was drawn to match the skintones of Jefferson or Miles, and she wasn’t lightened in the game at all. Her representation in the game is fairly close to her representation in the comics, which also flip-flops between “super-fair-skinned” to “medium brown” Rio Morales.

I think Brian Michael Bendis makes it very clear with his poor understanding of Blackness and its lack of exclusivity to folk with Puerto Rican parentage - that Rio Morales is a non-Black woman (or in Bendis’ words, “Hispanic”), and Jeff Davis is Black (African-American). 

Miles’ selling point is that he was the “Biracial Spider-Man” in the same way Miguel O’Hara is lesser known for. That’s the divide Bendis’ writing and comprehension creates for this character. The clear avoidance of the issue for something that wasn’t a walking joke (Rio’s racial caricature of a mother) or Bendis’ “who cares if I’m black? I’m also Hispanic, so...” spiel, is another indicator. 

So, yeah, even though her character design (in any medium) doesn’t necessarily exclude her from Blackness, I don’t think Rio Morales was ever a Black woman to begin with. Brian Michael Bendis never saw her as a Black woman, just the “Hispanic” side of Miles Morales’ family tree where Jefferson was the Black side of the family tree.

I can’t blame anyone for not assuming Blackness on Rio’s part, because neither does Bendis’, neither do the artists drawing her, and by extension, neither does Insomniac Games. 

Honestly, I think Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse might be the first property Rio has appeared in where someone appeared to even consider the question, “Is Rio Morales Black?” when designing her character.

Missing elements in a reinterpreted character is neither wrong or a dsplay of ignorance on part of the writers. 1048 Miles Morales and the Morales family are not the 1610 iterations of the character, and that’s fine. Jefferson Davis has never dropped the use of his name, personally or personally. In addition none of the writers, white or non-Black, have ever considered questioning the history behind his name and let it be. 

Rio Morales was always a fair-skinned and non-Black woman on accounts of Bendis and her artists constructed her within Miles’ narrative, which outright ignores any cultural or emotional significance Rio and Miles being Puerto Rican holds. Amid varying complexions of bright she’s been depicted, her character in the game has hardly been lightened, whereas Miles’ complexion definition has.

the fractured but decent

I just finished the new South Park game, The Fractured But Whole, so naturally, I want to pick apart every detail and review it in disgusting depth.

It might seem unfair to compare it to Stick of Truth, but I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of that.

Obviously, I'm a huge SP fanboy, and had been following the release of the game months beforehand. I watched an interview with Matt and Trey, and they gave a lot of insight into the game, how it would be different from SoT, and how it would be similar. That too will play into my analysis.

Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Let's divide this up for clarity. I'll go through general gameplay, plot, side quests and collectibles, mechanics/UI, and general thoughts, in that order.

Gameplay is a vague term so let's subdivide that: combat, powers, effects and exploration.

Combat is decent. I prefer the system set up in SoT, but the new system has its pros. I like the grid, moving around, and how your stats effect where you can move on the battleground. For example, Clyde has such a high "movement" stat that he can move almost anywhere on the grid.

But it can also get frustrating and confusing. Sometimes there's so many players on the board that moving becomes impossible. Sometimes you're stuck with combat buddies that can't attack, and sometimes it's unclear as to what the board will look like after your turn. For example, knockbacks and moves that change your location aren't always obvious as to how they’ll play out.

Finally, "inspection mode". It's meant to be used to get details on your friends and foes in battle, like their class, their health, and, most confusingly, their status effects and durations thereof. I never used it, and I think it just served to make combat more confusing.

Powers, I'll admit, kinda suck. Once you reach a point in the game where, for some back-assward reason, you unlock ALL POSSIBLE POWERS, it becomes a game of making a goddamn spreadsheet to weigh the pros and cons of more than 15 powers to decide which 4 you can have active in combat. Now, they give us a bit of help by allowing you to switch powers and buddies before a battle, but taking 20 minutes to pick your best powers beforehand is tedious, but also, unfortunately, necessary.

Also, they aren't very interesting or varied. Most powers involve a punch or hit, but there's like 8 of them that are basically the same. A lot don't make sense for their class, while others are completely useless. Finally, fuck all the healing powers. If you've got Kyle on your team, he's 50% a healer, so you have 2 (very weak) moves to use to deal damage. The healing items are much more effective, at least in my opinion.

Effects. What I mean by that is "Might", stats, and "artifacts". This is a lot of convoluted spreadsheet math again. There's hundreds of items that you can stick in your stats to improve your "Might". This is very hard to explain and even harder to balance.

Say you have six slots. There's more than 100 things that can go in those slots. Some of them improve your health stat, but eliminate your ability to move. Some of them downgrade your buddies' health while increasing your damage dealt. There's a total of (I think) 12 stats that can be affected by these "artifacts". Each one is assigned a number, and adding up all these numbers gives you your "Might" - which I still don't understand what, if anything, this means.

Exploration. Very little has changed since SoT in this department except there's fewer fast-travel locations, a slightly bigger map, and more (and better) puzzles throughout the world. One of my gripes would be the uselessness of many locations - a good 50% of the buildings or locations are only relevant once, and there's no need to revisit them later. (Canada, Mephesto's, the strip club, the Italian restaurant, City Wok, and U-Stor-It just to name a few).

But like I said, the puzzles are quite good, and actually challenging at times. Sometimes it involves spotting something a buddy can knock over, or noticing a little pinwheel that can get you on top of buildings. With the addition of the fart powers (reverse, pause, summon self and shift night/day), these puzzles are more complex and often have multiple steps involved.

Alright, onto the plot. I think it's much better than SoT. It starts out similar, with one faction of kids against the other, then brought together to fight a bigger foe. But they did this in a better, funnier, and ultimately more effective way, in my opinion.

For example, what seems like a silly side-quest leads to Stan (from the other faction) helping your faction, which then leads to both groups joining once they discover something bigger going on.

Now, this "bigger thing" is pretty confusing, especially at first. There's a lot of parts that don't seem to match up. The mayor is apparently failing the city, the cops are working for a racist slime monster (literally), and the sixth-graders are hoarding cats. It eventually comes together: the town is falling apart due to the main foe putting cat urine into the city's drugs and alcohol in order to cause chaos to usurp the mayor's seat. A lot of random groups get involved, like the sixth graders and Butters, to try and capitalize on the situation.

Which brings me to the second half of the game, where, in my opinion, a lot of comedic gold is made without it relying too much on nostalgia and throwbacks to the show. Mitch Conner, the main bad guy, is a joke I've never found particularly funny in the show, but in the game, it was easily one of the smartest moves they made.

"Mitch" (Cartman's hand puppet) kidnaps your parents in order to get you to help him win the mayoral race. As soon as this is revealed, all the characters react as they should: by blaming Cartman. No matter how much he insists "Mitch" is acting on his own, independent of himself, everyone turns on Cartman and he goes into hiding.

This, to me, is a much better way of bringing the plot together than in SoT, where the main villain's (Clyde’s) motivation is not very clear or believable. When we see "Mitch's" motivation for becoming mayor (to make every day Christmas), it's so absurd and Cartman-like that it works incredibly well.

And probably the funniest part of the game, right at the end, is when suddenly Mitch Conner takes over Kyle's hand. It makes no sense, but after the entire problem being blamed on Cartman, it takes a hilarious turn, suggesting that maybe Cartman really wasn't really behind everything after all.

And finally, the last battle. There's a bit of bullshit about going forward and back in time, but it ultimately leads to a hilarious battle where the characters fight themselves from the past - when they were still "playing" Stick of Truth. SuperCraig fights Thief Craig, Human Kite Kyle fights High Jew Elf Kyle and et cetera. There was also a great throwaway line from Wendy: "Hey, now I finally get to play Stick of Truth!"

Onto side quests and collectibles. I've stuck these together because they're pretty much the same. There's only maybe 8 side quests, and almost all of them are just "collect X and return to character Y". There's a lot to be desired in that department, in my opinion, but there is some good stuff in the "filling out your character sheet" plotline. Like the farting-flying-unicorn minigame where you help Kanye West's mother reach heaven so you can meet Jesus and choose your religion. Or when you have to learn about microagressions from PC Principal to choose your race.

As for the collectibles themselves, they're a bit much. Collect Yaoi, toilets, artifacts, costumes, Memberberries, Coonstagram followers, character sheets, cats. But that's up to you to care which achievements you pursue.

Now, mechanics and UI. This is the one category I will unapologetically shit on till the cows come home, with the exception of the phone menu, which is actually a very smart way to organize the massive amount of UI in place.

The artifact menu is a mess. It's confusing and frustrating. Same with the powers menu. Very hard to navigate intelligently. Props to the crafting menu, which is rather straightforward. But outside of the phone, the simple act of pulling up the map, seeing your quests and seeing your progress on those quests is very much lacking.

It gets even worse when we get into combat UI. When it's your turn, you get to choose between your three powers and healing items. It's actually somewhat trial-and-error when you go for an attack. Which power is most effective, and from which position on the board? It's a good thing it's turn-based and not timed, because I often found myself spending a good minute or two testing out every possible move.

And I'd be amiss if I didn't talk buddies. There's waaaay too many, and it's pretty easy to see the best ones and never change them: Wendy, Tweek, Cartman and Clyde were my team for the entire game, because nearly all the others have massive, gaping flaws in their combat abilities. For example, Stan only has two good moves, and they're very situation-dependent. They only help if he's in a specific spot and the enemies are lined up perfectly. He, along with Kyle, Kenny and Jimmy, are pretty useless.

Finally, general thoughts. Obviously, no matter my gripes, it's a great game. It's got enough from the last game and enough from the show to make it work. I found it much funnier than the last game, but, and here's one of my biggest problems with it: it was very short.

This brings me back to when I watched Matt and Trey talk about the game pre-release. They specifically said that this game would be longer. It only took me 20 hours to finish the main plotline AND all the side quests and collectibles. The last game took me nearly 30 hours just to finish the main quest. 

Also, they said the combat would be harder. It’s definitely more confusing and convoluted, but overall, it was pretty damn easy, (and I played on the hardest setting), and I only died maybe three times.

Two of the three fart powers (summon self and switch night/day) are pretty useless; I would've liked more interesting uses for these powers, or, even better, different ones. Reverse time and pause time have great applications in nearly every aspect of gameplay, whereas the other two only get used once or twice in very specific circumstances.

Again, I only gripe because I love the show and the games; I wouldn't put this much thought into it if I didn't. There was a lot that I feel like they missed out on, but there was definitely a lot that they got right. Every building has something to offer, unlike SoT, and there's a lot more in the way of puzzles, characters and overall comedy.

I do hope there'll be another game, but I don't know how that would really happen. If they're going to stick to the RPG genre, well, the kids have only ever played Game of Thrones and superheroes in the show. I don't know that there's another way to do this sort of game.

But hey, as we all know, Matt and Trey are full of surprises.

Stay Greater.

REPOST  ,  NOT  REBLOG !  TAG  OTHER  MUNS  YOU  WOULD  LIKE  TO  GET  TO  KNOW  BETTER  WHEN  YOU’RE  DONE !

NAME: D NICKNAME: Taen {even the husband calls me this sometimes},  AGE:  35+ FACECLAIM: Given the moment: Ron Swanson, Lafayette Reynolds, Lilo, etc PRONOUNS: she/her HEIGHT:  five foot eight BIRTHDAY  :  13 March AESTHETIC  :  Snark and Coffee LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO: 4 Non Blondes: What’s going on

FAVOURITE MUSE(S) YOU’VE WRITTEN:  I enjoy Beth and Riley, but my favourite muse might be Quothe “Captain Obvious” Ravenchenko {a were-raven} and Taenvri Oakstone {An Elvish Tolkien OC}

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO TAKE ON YOUR CURRENT MUSE (THAT YOU ARE POSTING THIS ON): I really fell in love with the Winter Soldier storyline and came up with a fanfic Idea{tm} and created Beth whole cloth from one throwaway line in the movie. In wanting to flesh her out a little, I was advised to come to tumblr and once I got here I was lucky enough to meet some amazing people, and in the year I’ve played, we have become great friends. Beth has grown and changed in that time, and I am still learning new things.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE ASPECTS OF YOUR CURRENT MUSE:  Beth doesn’t judge people. She welcomes and accepts them flaws and all for who they are. She is gentle and affectionate and sometimes is the mom friend, but mostly she has good intentions, even if she struggles to communicate, and has a pathological need to make connections with other people as a means to deal with a sense of loneliness and grief. I love that she’s discovering herself as I am discovering her, with all y’all’s help {Texas grammar ftw}.

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATION WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING:  Cheesy as it sounds, it’s all my rp partners. A single line in a post can spawn millions of ideas and rabbit holes in which to fall, and the delight when something I planned or thought of gets completely turned on it’s head because I didn’t see someone else’s influence coming. It’s spectacular. Plus there’s the various ways things have gone, the people she has met, the lives that come into contact with hers.

FAVOURITE TYPES OF THREADS: Novella or multi-para; I prefer longer threads just because you get to build an intricate world and get a genuine insight into the inner workings of both muses. I’m a big fan of developing a relationship between muses- both platonic and otherwise- over an extended period. A bit of a slow burner. I like a thread that helps us build that relationship into something believable. Ultimately, the most important part of any thread is having fun, and no matter what the style, I just want a thread that we can both be excited about. {The above was from Leslie-holt’s beautiful mun and I am leaving it untouched because that is almost exactly how I feel and am just not eloquent enough to state it}

BIGGEST STRUGGLE IN REGARDS TO YOUR CURRENT MUSE:   I’ve got a fairly good handle on Leslie so far, but I’ve yet to find the opportunity to explore his “not-a-total-bastard” side just yet. We’ll get there! He switches faces often enough so I’ll have the opportunity to try them all on eventually.

TAGGED  BY  : the lovely @leslie-holt TAGGING: @multi-mused, @ronmanmob, @lilxlionxman, @drifting-anarchist @theregoesthebellhop, @tenderest-contender, @lucxsnorth, @agentharrisonofshield, @tattoosandmusclecars, @thewiccanmechanic, @lokitheliesmith,  @morgansmornings@lovelornrocketscientist, @jerseysass @hoouna, @sfdctective, @scottykerouac, @eli-rochester, @magnetician, @vamptrampbamf @big-d-little-i-big-n-little-ozzo, and anyone else that wants to, just remember to blame me ;)

Podcasts & Structure

Every time I get around to sitting down and actually writing these articles, I have to seriously consider what I’m going to talk about. It seems the conversation of audio drama is becoming more widespread lately, oozing its way into mainstream media faster than I can keep track of. 

And so many are being made at such a rapid pace, catching up with it all can be its own challenge. A lot of people are starting to see the power and potential of audio plays and it’s a slow burn revolution I am a hundred percent behind. 

When I achieve my dreams of becoming a licensed journalist under that sweet, sweet trademark PodCake©, know that I’ll be somewhere in the front lines, keeping everyone up to the date and in the zone until I’m old and gray and still very, very pink.

So with this exciting idea in mind, I find it appropriate to do a somewhat different type of “Podcasts&”. This is still very much an article dabbling into my specific interests and experiences though also a guide of sorts to those who may be wrapped up in the creative hype. Allow me to pull you starry-eyed artists aside for some well-meaning advice. May you follow in the footsteps of your idols, though know you are above any of their common mistakes.

I had a few options in store to pick from when it came to another topic covering audio drama critique, though I felt that I wanted to address this first. This is another dabbling into the more specific structures of my podcast journalism and the consumption and creation of audio drama in general. 

In a similar vain to my latest article, “Podcasts & Critique”, I’ll be talking about something that perhaps not many are willing to discuss out in the open but is certainly touched upon enough that I feel the merits to bring it up in more depth. What we will be discussing today is the element of effective story structure.

Get comfortable, this is gonna be a long one. 

Let me start by saying that I adore and always will adore a nice, rich setting presented only through words. I adore lavishly designed dystopias and lively apocalyptic wastelands more than the next guy and the idea of a soothing, sweet voice cooing to us over a delicately designed world is a surefire way to ensure a fanbase. This is the popular set up known as The Newscaster or The Fake Radio Show or Handsome Male Character Headcannon Sitting in a Big Chair or whatever you want to call it. 

I enjoy this format namely for its simplicity and ability to relay information to the listener all while still characterizing the narrator as an active part of the world. Though these shows might be more episodic, to a degree, the ideas are still being connected by one single thread. It’s such a regular aspect of the podcast scene that it’s nothing short of being a style.

This style places a lot of emphasis on lore and quirks and memorable little moments that arrange themselves into a little audio scrapbook. We’re given this collection of information, all gorgeously described in luscious detail.

That’s why it’s such a shame how boring it can be at times. 

Don’t get me wrong here, my problem is not with interesting landscapes and rich lore, my problem is when a lot is being said but not enough is being done. 

I fell out of love with Welcome to Night Vale for this particular reason, this inconsistency with stakes and conflict that made any enjoyment to be found quickly tedious. Night Vale is and always will be a staple in the audio drama community, though it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from its mistakes that may go over our heads due to its excellent writing and characters only sometimes overshadowing it. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: an excellent audio drama is the sum of many parts and only succeeding in one area won’t always make the cut. But today’s topic is less about writing and more about narrative pacing…which is still kind of about writing but in a different way.

The central issue with these types of single narrator driven shows, being that we are being presented with a setting, problems, and characters who can solve that problem, but an effort is rarely ever made to get to a satisfying conclusion that is worth the wait. Of course, there actually being conflict to resolve can be its own and even more disappointing dilemma. 

A crowning example of this type of flaw occurred in what used to be  one of my favorite audio drama comedies, Kakos Industries. 

I promptly stopped listening to Kakos after a lackluster attempt at it’s first real arc after roughly fifty episodes of filler and build up that didn’t contribute much to whatever the arc was trying to get across. None of the past episodes helped create a central theme that the arc was meant to represent, making its conclusion lack any emotional stakes or a reason to get invested. 

The primary mood of the arc was all over the place with rapid character changes, unclear motivations, and a rushed explanation behind multiple episodes with little to no foreshadow to back it up. Furthermore this supposedly crucial ending didn’t tie into the continuation of season three beyond the absence of the past antagonist who was the center of the whole thing and the victim of a bloated backstory that needed way more than twenty minutes to be summarized.

No one changes from the whole ordeal, not even the protagonist who goes about his daily life as if none of it ever happened, and nobody and nothing is lost from the whole thing besides the character we already knew was bound to kick the bucket because it needed to end somehow. Generally, it does everything arc is not supposed to do as it doesn’t act as a changing phase for the story and doesn’t give us any vital information that will effect any of the characters long term.

The problem also lies in that there are a number of interesting subplots that emerged within the show’s canon as of season two: some more details about head rival  Melantha Murther that imply she may be older than she seems, the relationship she has with Corin Deeth I as well as his involvement with the company, and a theory about cloning being brought up to name a few, but we have yet to even gently nudge at these ideas yet for a good batch of episodes because we wouldn’t want all those penis jokes to go to waste.

This is content with potential to be interesting arcs on their own and functional ones as they key into new information about characters we’ve come to know and gives Kakos Industries the tension and mystery it desperately needs. 

These little bits and pieces of information can keep a listener engaged long enough to keep tuning in, but it can quickly become a chore to go back to something that seems to have been forgotten in exchange for repeated jokes and some new standalone characters that don’t really matter.

These might be in the footnotes of the creators for episode whenever, though to us they feel like throwaway lines pitched as bait more than anything of actual importance. They’re just there to be there.

And when the show peddles back to its roots of everyday shenanigans and jokes, the luster is lost, no matter how funny or well executed they might be. In the end, a lot of gimmicks and a lot of chatter with no real weight becomes nothing short of a series of filler episodes with no purpose. 

I understand that indifference and dissonant serenity is part of the Kakos Industries’ humor though it often comes at the cost of events not carrying any real weight because it’s already predetermined that it’s being treated like a joke or that things will be resolved and go back to status quo with minimal effort. It insists you don’t take it seriously even if the problem at hand would suggest otherwise. To anyone else listening, this makes the stakes nonexistent and the protagonist seem overqualified to handle any problem thrown at him, never giving him a chance to be vulnerable to the slightest misfortune. 

The same could be said for Welcome to Night Vale, a show with many compelling ideas and character drama though one that loves to meander and reestablish how strange and bizarre their world is on repeat instead of doing anything of actual substance, at least as far as season three is concerned. 

Night Vale has a much better grip on characters and conflict that Kakos Industries does, though it also suffers from some of the same problems. Night Vale also had arcs, one incredibly well done to the point it’s been considered a crowning moment of the series while another that wavered a bit too long and simply wasn’t intriguing enough to make a huge difference in the end besides being another case of the Put On the Bus trope. And when they concluded, we’re back to square one again.

Once again, we are given a lot of ripe material here: There’s instances of Cecil’s childhood that we must piece together, pretty much anything about Kevin is bound to be creepy and interesting, Carlos and his apparent involvement with a college university, and something about sleeper agents and traffic signs and blood space but I lost count.

The case here is almost as dire as this is something of a multiple choice scenario where there’s just piles and piles of plots being given to us but all of it feels for naught when something else is being added to the collection a second later.

The same way Kakos is so obsessed with its dark and sexy aesthetic to the point it under develops its characters and has an absence of stakes, Night Vale is the same with its surrealism and seems to pull the “it’s a weird show” card whenever something gets unresolved.

There comes a point where a show’s quirky nature can only be used for so long to avoid the big question about what it’s all in service of. If all the oddness has no meaning and the plots are just being pitched with no real agency, then they fail to provide the show with any real purpose.

The point of an arc ending is for another one to start later, namely by picking up leftover plot points from before or starting something else that still entwines with the story’s central lore. 

For a good example of how to manage an arc, I’d recommend Wolf 359 that has at least four in the duration of about forty episodes. I’d go into more detail about exactly what made the individual arcs in Wolf 359 work so well though that would lean heavily into spoiler territory and I wouldn’t want to ruin anything for those who haven’t listened to it yet. 

This too started as a sort of news caster from space format until it flourished into the characters offering their points of view on a scenario and developing as people as they are placed in tight spots. 

We learn more about who we’re dealing with, what is at stake, and grow invested because we never know which direction the events can take us. Wolf 359 has become so successful in its run because of the writer’s ability to admit something is amiss which gives the listeners something to anticipate rather than just tolerate. 

Listen here, I know that podcasts are all for entertainment’s sake and I will always respect that, but even something that is entertaining must have a hook-line-sinker mentality, as I like to call it:

The hook is the first impression: What made you want to listen in the first place? Did the general synopsis intrigue you? Maybe there was just an actor in the show that you really like. Simple. 

The line is the plot: This is the thing that makes you keep coming back for more. You’ve gotten comfortable with the story and its characters, you want to know as much as you can about the lore and the stakes. This is very much literally “a line” the audio drama is following and encourages you to keep up with.

The sinker is the payoff: This is where all the accumulated information you’ve gathered really matters-the climax. This is where we get the hidden motivations of characters, know about the dark secrets and figure out who the heroes and villains might be. We have a winner and a loser or at least some kind of ending, be it good or bad for the protagonists. 

Many podcasts are capable of the first two steps though tend to forget the third. And when we do forget to touch that oh-so crucial sense of conflict and resolution, it becomes the equivalent of a Breather Episode series. 

To those who don’t know, a Breather Episode is a common trope that is put into place to remind the audience that all of the past problems have concluded and we can once again revel in comedy and lighthearted fun.

I am a big fan of the this trope, it’s an implication that the past troubles of our protagonists have been dealt with and they can now relax, getting back to basics, but it’s getting back to the old grind that really matters.

We as listeners are a bit bloodthirsty, to say the least, constantly seeking out what new thing might be out to threaten the characters and disrupt their tranquility. Though in the character’s universe, and, to some extent, the writers, this is a pleasant period to soak in for a bit for just a little while. 

It is prone to overstay its welcome if the average episode is nothing to look forward to.  In short, if there’s nothing to hold on to, people will drop your story knowing it was of no loss to them.

A constant barrage of drama can be very overwhelming to the story’s ability to stay surprising and believable, so it’s good to have that even blend of “the bleeder and the breather”, as I’d like to call it, to keep things balanced. 

But Podcake, you might be saying. This is audio drama! Emphasis on audio. They’re just sounds! Why expect so much when we can’t get visual input?

And you have a point there metaphorical reader. I’m not saying every show needs this epic score, high budget, and groundbreaking editing, I actually encourage shows who rely on this minimalism to try even harder in the writing department. 

It is actually possible to have a consistent sense of tension even with limited sound effects and budget. 

A good example would be The Bright Sessions. The presentation is mostly contained in one room and only occasionally stepping outside of it to overhear conversations. Despite the format being mostly casual and calm, there is still a pressing sense of drama and conflict we keep coming back to. And when we do get “the breather” in between, it’s a welcome change until going right back to where we started.

This is because the show stands on its own two feet in the dialogue department to get their point across and let things flow naturally. No big pizzazz or flashiness, just saying what it needs to say.

And if you insist on the superb audio editing part of this, I’d say Hadron Gospel Hour is always an recommendation, as well as defining the even blend of episodic with tension combination. 

Gospel Hour is a sci-fi comedy with multiple unrelated cutaway gags and strange characters that have events in episodes that may not always be highly relevant to the next. But this has yet to cripple the storytelling since there are always connecting threads our protagonists go back to that develop their backstory or truly emphasize the dire circumstances they’ve been put in, something I’ve begun to notice in later episodes. 

And if you’re still concerned about arcs, The Once and Future Nerd has the decency to have well established and satisfying beginnings, middles, and ends to each chapter. They have a wide and vast world to explore and take any opportunities they can to remind you of the fantastical yet still dangerous and grisly setting.  

And maybe you’re really stuck on the newscaster format. Fine, I like those shows too. From here I’d highly encourage The Bridge: a show with a rather complex world, decently sized cast, and a steady increase in drama that isn’t afraid to step back from the main character’s perspective to tell a complete story.

Sorry to name drop so much in this particular document, though this is a narrative problem I’ve seen so often and so poorly I want to save anyone attempting this style from the same shortcomings. If you enjoy these shows for that exact reason, that is completely fine, though don’t be afraid to ask for something more genuine than just empty world building. 

A good story is what you make of it but a memorable story can be much more.