Tumgik
#i've also seen this quote with will and yeah <3
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the way some people talk about luke & nicola is disgusting.
at first, the "bridgerton glow up" was a fun joke, but now people are taking it too far. it is literally just a better haircut and better wardrobe that is all the glow up is. i saw someone call luke "ugly and fat." as if he isn't a real human being. just straight up called him ugly and fat and then proceeded to objectify him in the trailer and say he "redeemed himself." respectfully, you can fuck all the way out of here with that. that is such a fucked up thing to say. and i wasn't online when it happened but apparently, these fuckwads are the reason why luke doesn't smile with his teeth much anymore? idk if that's true, but if it is you are a villain. an actual villain. you bullied someone into not smiling, are you proud of yourself?
and nicola. i don't even want to quote the things i've seen said about her. she is a queen. a queen. and yeah, people bring up her body and her looks and say she doesn't deserve to be the lead. the casual fatphobia is disgusting, to say the least. nicola has literally been promoting 3 things at the same time, and she has not lagged on either project. she is the reason we have bts from filming and are getting important moments from rmb. she is a professional and she has a heart of gold. she is also chronically on line (affectionately) so she does see all the shit you antis post. and, i can't even believe i need to say this, that shit hurts. because she is a human being. she has explicitly stated, multiple times, that she wants the focus to be on her work and not on her body. thinking caps on: why do you think that is?
they are both human beings with real feelings. no one is saying you have to love penelope or colin or polin, but they are fictional characters. they won't get affected by some of the fucked up shit yall say. but luke and nicola are real human beings. you can have opinions on them, we all do, but if it isn't positive, maybe shut the fuck up?
it also needs to be said that a lot of the hate comes from people who are fans of kanthony. i usually wouldn't call them out but name but it's true. the person who called luke ugly and fat had anthony bridgerton in her user name. she also had an israeli flag in her bio but that's another rant. most of the hate i see about polin and luke and nic come from people who stan kanthony and/or are huge fans of jonny and/or simone. and that is 50 shades of fucked up. do you think they want fans like that? fans who will say disgusting things about their friends/colleagues and then turn around and praise them? jonny literally calls luke his little brother. no one is saying you have to love polin, but why do you need to say this shit? why can't you just quietly stan kanthony and go about your lives? why do you feel the need to bring down not only fictional characters, but real people?
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our-reality · 2 years
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oh my god.
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filmbyjy · 1 month
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hiii
you may not recognize me and thats because im (kinda) new hehe.. anyway, i've been kinda stalking you- but that's besides the point. i loveee your workss!! keep up the good work <3 idk if asks are open, but if they are, could you write a fluffy fem!reader x bf!niki where the reader comes home from a long day, and niki comforts her?? and if you cant, its totally ok <3
have a nice day!
a/n: this has been in the drafts for a year now💀 so sorry, I am trying to clear the drafts but my schedule is shit and we all know I suck at keeping up with my schedule😍
WELCOME HOME
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it was past 8pm when you had treaded through the front door of your apartment. your body sore from leaning over the tables and wiping it. normally, the cafe you work at was peaceful and was decently packed but after a viral video that practically wowed the internet.
there had been more and more people stopping by everyday. the cafe was decently sized but it was short staffed so sometimes you had to man the cashier, do the dishes, clean the tables and make the drinks. for normal days (before the surge of people), there was about 2 people working per shift, not including the 2 bakers in the kitchen as they were the behind the scenes staff that were required to be there.
with not that many staff per shift, it was hard for you and whoever was working that day to manage the cafe. that also meant more demands from the customers who think they are entitled to make a mess of the space as 'customers are always right'. curse, whoever made that quote.
you were mentally and physically drained. you just needed a good long rest for the rest of the week. however, you couldn't do that. not when your off-days were already used up for visiting your family back in your hometown. if only you could just...take a breather.
"welcome home, baby!" ni-ki slides into the hallway just as you walked towards the living room. you gave him a tired smile.
"hi riki, why aren't you at the dorm?" ni-ki gives you a playful pout.
"already kicking me out? baby, you wound me. i came to see you and you're already pushing me away." he says as he throws his (long) arms around you. "you weren't answering my calls so i assumed it was a long day at work and you didn't charge your phone."
you took out your phone and tried to turn it on but it was indeed dead. "sorry, today was a hectic day. couldn't even get a proper lunch break. there was so many people coming over for the past week."
"yeah, i heard about it. jake hyung talked about wanting to come over and buy some desserts. they did look good but since you know us being celebrities...we could get mobbed."
you hummed, "that's fair. it's a good thing you didn't go. seriously, have never seen such a long queue outside of the cafe in my whole years of working there."
"there was a queue?" he says as he pulls back from the hug.
"yeah, i felt like i was working at some fancy restaurant. oh god, speaking of there are so many karens trying to scam me and gaslight me into thinking i did something wrong when i did nothing wrong." you groaned and buried your head against ni-ki's chest.
he pats your head. "were you the shift manager?"
"usually i am whenever i am working that day."
"mmm, then you could've kicked them out and taught them a lesson."
"trust me, i wanted to but i can't i'll lose my job so i just sucked it up and patiently worked with them and even gave them a free bagel."
"not the free bagels, baby. they'll just come back again for more." ni-ki huffs.
"i know but what am i supposed to do." you sniffled as the tears that unknowingly appeared falls. you were just mad and exhausted. ni-ki obviously heard it so he pulls you back and cups your face.
"hey hey, don't cry. everything will be fine. why don't i run you a bath and then order some of your favourite food, okay?" he wipes the tears that were falling down.
"will cuddles be included?"
"of course. cuddles will be included. now, just lay in bed and i'll get the bath running." he pecks your forehead and goes to move to bedroom. however, you grabbed his wrist.
"carry me to my bedroom?" you pout. ni-ki smiles and scoops you up in his arms. he princess carries you over to your bed and places you gently onto the mattress before going over to the bathroom and getting ready the bathtub.
you had shut your eyes for a bit since you were tired but the exhaustion took a toll on you and you fell asleep for a little. ni-ki shakes you a little. "baby? the bath is ready. go enjoy it, i already placed an order so the food should be on the way soon."
you hummed and went over to the bathroom to remove your clothing and step into the bathtub. you laid your back against the edge of the tub and shut your eyes again. the candle light making everything moody and warm. you were enjoying the comfortable warmth and silence, much better than the bustling sounds at the cafe. this felt nice.
you had spent in the bathroom for about 20 minutes or so before deciding to get out of the tub. you didn't want to your fingers or toes to look like dried prunes so you decided to just get out of the water. you had grabbed the towel and dried yourself off. you could hear a knock at the door.
"baby, i have pyjamas with me. i forgot to leave them inside the bathroom." you opened the door to ni-ki. he had one hand out to hold the pyjama set and the other hand covering his eyes. a very gentleman thing of him to always do if you came out of the shower in just your towel.
you had noticed he too was wearing a pyjama set and it was similar to yours. of course, he loved matching things with you. you grabbed the pyjamas. "mmm, i think you forgot to grab my undergarments."
his ears quickly turned red in embarrassment. "ah, i knew i forget something. i-i'll just leave the room so you could change." and so ni-ki bolts out of the room and shuts the door. you shook your head, laughing a little since he was so adorable.
you changed into the pyjamas after putting on your undergarments and then went out to the living room. there ni-ki was, turning on the tv and searching up your favourite anime to watch together and setting up the food onto the coffee table. you had come up behind him and back hugged him.
"i have the best boyfriend in the world." you say. ni-ki smiles.
"well, let's not forget your boyfriend is one of a kind. where can you get another nishimura riki, member of boy band enhypen, in the world." he boasts. you playfully rolled your eyes and released him.
"that's very humble of you, riki." you playfully say.
"oh, i know. i'm just that hot." ni-ki smirks. you laughed.
"yeah, you are. now, will my hunk of a boyfriend please just cuddle and eat with me?"
"of course, i'll eat with my beautiful and amazing girlfriend any time." he steals a small peck to your lips and settles down on the couch. you gave him a playful gaze and settled right next to him.
after some time, you found yourself tangled with ni-ki. your legs and his long ones were somehow crossed in between in each other as you cuddled like cats laying together.
"oh, it's over?" you say.
"no, it can't be." ni-ki gasps.
a flash to the tv showed 'season 2 coming soon'. it made both you and ni-ki groan. "that's lame. we have to wait for the next season? that's going to take 1-2 years." ni-ki whines.
"they're going to pull another 'Spy Family' thing where there isn't going to have episodes in the next season, i can feel it." you complained.
"boooo. let's watch something else." ni-ki grumbles.
"yeah, let's watch-"
"let's watch, you. you're really pretty." ni-ki says as he stares down at you. ah, this playful and teasing ni-ki is appearing now.
"that wasn't that smooth, riki."
"well, to me it was. besides, this is a signal for you to reward me and i don't know give me a kiss or at least a peck? i am an amazing boyfriend, right?"
you snort, "yes, riki. you are but you're not getting that peck."
"what? why." he pouts.
"because..." you got closer to him and watches you with adorable doe eyes. before you unexpectedly peck him and ran away. ni-ki sits there confused, trying to analyse the situation properly. until he finally digested it.
"hey! get back here!" he yells as he tries to chase after you.
you could've not felt any better.
and being with ni-ki helped it.
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ladyluscinia · 4 months
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Draft clearing. I think I had more of a point on the topic of Jenkins and genre I wanted to make when I gathered these, but I'm not feeling it anymore. However, I need spread awareness of his absolutely baffling ideas about pirate media and how he sounds half-convinced it must be a formulaic action/adventure. I only picked up on this by reading way too many interviews back to back so I'm not surprised I've never seen anyone else mention it, but like. It's wild. And he's SO additionally weird about how showrunning a piece of media about pirates relates to whatever concept he has of pirate media in his head.
Here's the link to my interview compilation if you want to check my sources on these.
Jenkins Quotes on "Pirate Genre"
"I think actual pirate stuff is fine, but it's not necessarily my cup of tea. And I think Taika [Waititi] felt similarly.
[...]
Showrunner Jenkins sees Our Flag Means Death as having "joy. A lot of joy. I like Stede because Stede is, to me, the outsider artist of pirates. And I think in designing the show, I was conscious [of the fact that it's] a hard genre to do anything to. It's a very stubborn genre because it's been done so well and so often. So I kind of tried to look at, like New York, like Alphabet City in the '80s via a pirate genre via Mad Max and try to throw all these different things at it. So I think you'll get a different feel than you'd get on a normal pirate thing. I think we achieved that with our amazing crew." - (Gizmodo, 2/22/22)
"I guess I really… I get kind of bored. How much pirate can you do? They're going to rob stuff. They're going to steal ships. There's only so many pirate stories you can do." - (Collider, 3/24/22)
Despite creating a pirate show, he himself says he's not a huge fan of pirate movies. - (EW.com, 12/13/22)
"I don't want to see a bunch of pirate things that I've seen in other things, I'll just go watch another thing if I want to see that. That's not really my thing. I like the genre, but it's a very hard genre to budge. I want to see relationships in a pirate world." - (TV Guide, 10/5/23)
"The pirate genre is fun, but I wasn't dying to make a pirate show. Taika wasn't dying to make a pirate show. But the thing that was interesting to me was that Stede finds love, and he finds it with Blackbeard." - (Variety, 10/13/23)
"I think there is something in the show about how piracy is a brutal way of life. It's essentially Mad Max, this world. There's no law, there's just strong and weak." - (Polygon, 10/21/23)
"And it’s also a pirate show, so he’s got to die." - (Vanity Fair, 10/26/23)
"Another thing I love is what I call shaggy stories, stories about people navigating each other. When you plug them into different genres, you get this great engine that comes with it. I'm not particularly dying to write a pirate thing, but I want to write a bunch of characters trying to navigate each other in a pirate thing." - (Vulture, 10/28/23)
"But I'm like you. I'm not a big pirate person. In general, it's a big creaky genre that's hard to budge, but I think the show benefits from we can pull pirate stuff out when we need it. Ultimately, yeah, I want to see these different relationships and perspectives on different relationships. Then it's fun to plug it into an overwrought genre.
[...]
Pirates of the Caribbean, those movies are great. That's not necessarily what I hunger to see, but in that genre, it's great. You're not going to beat that, especially on something that's lower budget. We've seen a lot of this stuff, so it's fun to take it then and don't do any of that stuff." - (Metro Weekly, 11/1/23)
"I think it's more interesting to me that I've never seen a love story like this in this genre, and you dream for that. Really, pirates, what can you do that's different with pirates?
[...]
To me, to tell the story about these two men in this very hetero action genre, falling for each other..." - (Metro Weekly, 11/1/23)
---
...This is the same guy who just ended a season on the British Navy blowing up Nassau for symbolism reasons that I'm pretty sure have nothing to do with the love story. 🤨
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thankeywa · 1 year
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hi babes i hope YOU MISSED MY SUPER DETAILED REQUESTS! so, for a long time now im craving for the “rut”, “heat”, “nest” and other a/b/o dynamics inserted on avatar universe, so i WAS HOPING:
could you pretty please write something about lo’ak and reader (a female na’vi) where they're best friends and both insanely in love w each other – reader already had her "cerimony" meaning she needs to find a partner soon, but lo'ak has been convincing readers parents to decline any mate offers because none of them is good enough for her. one day, reader's heat come and bsf lo’ak comes to the rescue? i need a cocky possessive lo’ak in my life and I KNOW you're the one whos gonna gimme !!!!!
lov u, drink water and stay safe <3
The Right Profile | Lo'ak x fem!Omaticaya! reader (a/b/o smut).
Happy Valentine's Day to all my readers! As always, requests are open. Minors DNI!
A.N= everyone needs to know that every time you send me a request my mind makes me put everything on standby until I get it done. Also, I have a major weakness for a/b/o and I've been dying for someone to send me a request like this, so yeah, your wish is my command. For anyone who wanted the new installment of Star-crossed instead of this, you can send your complaints to @punkrockrogers (I'm kidding, obviously).
Summary: exactly what's in the request but I found some juicy canon info about Lo'ak failing to tame an ikran on his first attempt and almost dying in the process, and you can bet I'm going to use that for this fic. So, our boi failed his driver's test therefore he does not get to smash. Both Lo'ak and reader are aged up (20 y/o). Title from the song 'The right profile' by the Clash. Quotes in this: one is from Avatar 2009 and the other is by Goethe.
T.W= this is going to be A LOT, if there ever were an Omegaverse phd course, I would be teaching that class, so if that stuff is not for you, scroll away now. NSFW: p. in v., a/b/o dynamics, mating cycles (heat, rut), marking, scent marking, knotting, breeding, also possessive!Lo'ak (our boi is a lil ooc in this, I don't condone this type of behavior in a relationship, it's all for the sake of the story, you know the drill, if this might be disturbing to you, again give this story a miss).
word count: 8k
Mini na'vi dictionary:
'evi= child (said affectionately by an elder)
Tsurokx= rest/sleep
yawne= beloved
syulang= flower
Ngaytxoa= forgive me
Oeya= my (possessive)
yìmkxa= banshee catcher
The Na'vi say that every person is born twice. The second time is when you earn your place among the people, forever.
"I do not wish to take part in the Uniltaron without you." Y/n had told Lo'ak, still distraught from the events of that day. His best friend had been the first of their group to manage to tame her ikran, of course, she had. And now she was set to take part in the Dream Hunt before finally taking her rightful place among the people along with the rest of Lo'ak's peers, while he was left behind.
He had failed and almost fallen to his death during his attempt, and now his parents were going to make him wait until he was 'truly ready' before he could try again. His father had thought it was somehow his business to step in and stop him from trying his second attempt at taming the banshee then and there. Lo'ak had never felt more embarrassed, especially because y/n had immediately dismounted from her ikran and run to his aid the second she'd seen the scene unfold before her eyes.
"You have already waited five years for me to complete my training..." Lo'ak dismissed her words. "And I won't be the reason you wait any longer..." Y/n had never said it out loud, but Lo'ak knew it was true. She'd been postponing her rite of passage so that they would have joined the clan together, and he couldn't deal with it anymore.
"But Lo'ak, I do not care about-"
"Well, you should care." He snapped at her, not really knowing where his anger was coming from. Sure, he'd just had what could have been described as the worst day of his life, but something and been simmering inside him all week. And now Lo'ak felt like he'd reached his limit. In a few hours, the young Na'vi male was going to discover that anger was only a prelude to his first rut. "Everything comes easy to you, but it's like you don't even notice! No one ever said we needed to be attached to the hip for the rest of our lives, so why don't you just get over it and do what's expected of you?"
The second he saw the heartbroken look on y/n's face, Lo'ak wanted to take it all back. He hadn't meant to say any of those things, of course he hadn't. She was his best friend, she was the woman he loved, yet he'd passed up his chances to ever be with her twice in a single day. He was petty and weak, unable to own up to his own shortcomings, and now he was taking it out on the only person in the world who would have never judged him for it.
"I see..." Y/n said, her voice laced with grief. For a single, stupid second Lo'ak had deluded himself into thinking she was about to say 'I see you', it was what he wanted to tell her. He'd been wanting to tell her for so long. "I have... been foolish. I thought that maybe you... that we..." Y/n wiped a tear away from her face, and stepped back from Lo'ak when he tried to reach out for her. "I do not need your pity." She hissed at him, feeling that Lo'ak had just rejected her. "You have made yourself understood."
With that, y/n disappeared from Lo'ak sight and into the darkness of the night. By the time Neteyam found him, Lo'ak was already in the throes of a terrible fever. His father and brother took him to a secluded place where he would have been safe, but couldn't do much for him besides that. Moat had said the rut hit Lo'ak so suddenly that he was beyond being helped with any sort of treatment. He had no mate, and neither did he have the right to choose one. Left alone to endure the most excruciating pain known to the Omaticaya people.
A lot could change in a week. Especially when it came to things taking a drastic turn for the worse. Lo'ak, who was still experiencing the occasional violent aftershock from the trauma he'd just finished enduring all by himself, was about to get accustomed to a whole new kind of pain.
"We seek your guidance, Tsahik." Y/n's parents had come to speak to his grandmother, while she was still in the process of checking he hadn't suffered any irreparable damage during his absence. "Our daughter, y/n, does not wish to wait for love to find her. She has invoked the old ways, asking us to choose a mate for her." Another violent fit wreaked havoc over Lo'ak's body, but this time he wasn't entirely sure it was due to the aftermath of his rut. Moat had told him the worst was now behind him. "Cease your whining, 'evi." She reprimanded him. "Only by regaining your strength will you find the way to be whole again." While that statement sounded overtly obvious to him, the look his grandmother gave him made him think she was trying to tell him something more.
"Forgive us, we have come at a bad time." Y/n's mother said, directing her sympathies to Lo'ak. They had always been kind toward him. "Your grandson is still injured, y/n has been heartbroken about it. We have prayed to Eywa every day for your swift recovery-"
"He has recovered." Moat cut her off. "And your daughter cannot force her childish whims on you. She is a woman, a warrior of this clan, she cannot hide behind her parents. We only arrange the marriages of future Tsahik and Olo'eyktan, for they are given gifts by Eywa herself to guide the people. The old ways have brought nothing but suffering, I remember the time when they were enforced all too well. They are only to be invoked in drastic situations, such as the event of a heat."
"We are grateful for your wisdom, Tsahik." Y/n father said. "But that is precisely what we fear... she is already showing signs. Every day our daughter grows weaker. We know she may not survive without a mate, and now it is too late for her to make her own choice."
"Fools." Moat almost spat. "Bring her to me at once-"
Lo'ak was on his feet and running out of the healing tent at once, no longer willing to listen to a single word of that conversation. Mating cycles were usually something that a couple faced together, but he and y/n had waited too long for their rite of passage. In that time they hadn't found the person who was truly right for them, so now y/n was going to force herself to be with someone or face her heat alone, along with the consequences that entailed. And it wasn't like Lo'ak could step up and ask her parents to marry her, he wasn't even part of the clan. Not only that, y/n also probably thought he wanted nothing to do with her.
He went looking for y/n everywhere. She wasn't in her tent, nor was she staying with her parents. Word was she'd gone hunting, and after a desperate search, Lo'ak ended up finding her in his own living quarters when he returned home in the early hours of the morning. As much as Lo'ak wanted to yell at y/n in frustration because he'd been worried sick over her, the sight of her sleeping peacefully quelled his anger. He knelt down to touch her forehead, and let out a breath of relief. Her body temperature hadn't drastically risen just yet.
Lo'ak took a look around and only then noticed y/n had rounded up the entirety of his possessions to surround herself with in her sleep. She had made a bed out of the skins and paintings which used to adorn the inside of his tent while holding on rather tightly to a piece of fabric he quickly recognized as one of his loincloths. He felt himself turn into a deep shade of blue in the face and attempted to gently tug the item out of her grip, but y/n growled menacingly in her sleep, immediately making Lo'ak give up on his intent. He did not wish to wake her. Not when it was clear she'd been so distressed, she'd felt the need to make herself a nest just to feel safe.
"Tsurokx, yawne..." Lo'ak wished her a good sleep, and went to tell her family she'd been found.
Her parents were thankful, and just because Lo'ak was not allowed to catch a single break, it turned out y/n parents trusted him so much they began to ask him his personal opinion on the skxawngs that had already shown up to ask them to be her mate. Lo'ak respected y/n's parents and knew they were only worried about their daughter, but he was running on zero hours of sleep, and the image of y/n curled up in a nest she'd made of his belongings was still too fresh in his mind, so he let his worst side get the better of him. He lied. Something so deeply human, his people did not even have a word for it.
"...I would not even consider Selkath, he is too arrogant to even see past himself..."
"Pantoran is weak, I would not trust him to provide for your daughter..."
"... I have known Skakoan to have used cruel words against y/n. She does not deserve her..."
The more he spoke, the more Lo'ak realized he was describing himself and the way he had treated y/n, not giving a true judgment of his peers. And her parents were trusting him with that information, even though he had absolutely no authority to be judging anyone. But there was no reason to worry, a fresh batch of idiots would have shown up to declare their 'love' soon enough, over and over again until eventually someone was found.
Lo'ak slept on the cold hard ground just outside his tent, barely getting an hour's sleep before the day began for the rest of the clan.
"Showing your worth to the clan, as usual, Su-ly?" A voice Lo'ak knew all too well asked, as he was 'accidentally' stepped on and woken up. Tholothian had never been too shy about disliking Lo'ak, and the feeling was entirely mutual. "Watch where you're going, Tho'lo." He growled as he stood up, certainly not in the mood to be taking anyone's crap. The other Na'vi was also standing entirely too close to the tent where y/n was currently resting, and Lo'ak was about the get real territorial real fast if the skxawng didn't back off. The low rumble in his throat was still there, and Lo'ak was making it very clear he was not to be messed with at that moment.
Tholothian, who thrived off humiliating the younger Sully brother in any way possible, had to take a step back. Lo'ak had been missing for an entire week, and now that he was back, he seemed to have doubled in size. He was taller, his shoulders wider, his once delicate-looking human hands bigger, and his muscles considerably more defined. And his entire demeanor also seemed... different, menacing almost. Never before would he have considered Lo'ak Sully competition, least of all a threat. So he decided to back off, for the time being at least.
What he wanted was y/n, and Lo'ak couldn't claim her. There was no pride in kicking someone down when they had already lost. Or was there? "I was just on my way to see, y/n..." Tholothian gloated, knowing it was a sore subject for Lo'ak. "You must have heard... she is searching for a mate..." The look on Lo'ak face darkened considerably, and it would have been a lie not to admit he was reaching for his dagger to challenge Tho'lo to a duel and see which of them could draw first blood, when y/n audibly called Lo'ak's name from inside the tent.
Tholothian paled considerably when he heard y/n call out to his rival and Lo'ak smirked, basking in the pride he felt at that moment. Y/n was probably waiting inside to give him an earful about disappearing for a week, but Tho'lo didn't know that. "Yeah, man. I heard." He sneered, his cocky attitude back in full swing. "I'd wish you luck, but I think it'd be fairer if I gave you a little advice instead..." Lo'ak lowered his voice and pointed his dagger in the direction of Tho'lo chest. "If you, or anyone of your friends, come sniffing after y/n again, just know you're going to have to get through me first." He snarled, showing a full set of teeth, before heading back inside to see y/n.
"Hey..."
"Hey? That's all you have to say?" At least she was still lucid enough to be mad at him, Lo'ak thought. There was still time. Y/n threw the first thing she could find at his head, but Lo'ak managed to dodge it. "Where were you?"
"I was sick." Lo'ak said, and cautiously sat down next to her. He didn't know how else to describe what he'd been through, without inadvertently bringing up her own situation.
"Sick?" Y/n asked, still not understanding why he'd been away from home if he'd been ill.
"I'm sorry I missed your ceremony." Lo'ak said truthfully, the regret clear in his voice, even though he'd just avoided her question. "And the dream hunt, and all of it... the reason why doesn't matter, I should have been there for you."
Y/n hugged her knees to her chest, her worry not subsiding at all. What could have been so bad, Lo'ak couldn't even tell her about it?
"So... you're going to be mated soon..." Lo'ak didn't even know why he said it, other than the fact he was always the one to break the silence and say the things others wouldn't. "Why are you making your parents choose for you?" He asked when she didn't respond. "Y/n you know that's stupid..."
"What? Now honoring our traditions is stupid?" Y/n snapped at him, barely leaving any distance between them. "Weren't you the one who said I acted like I didn't care? That I should start doing what's expected of me?" She threw his words back in his face and Lo'ak immediately understood how the entire insane idea of an arranged marriage had come to her in the first place. He'd made her feel less than worthy, like she wasn't grateful enough to be part of the people, and now she was trying to make up for it, even though it was never true in the first place.
"Y/n... I never should have said those words... I wasn't myself that day, you have to believe me..." Lo'ak implored her, but it wasn't enough to keep the tears from rushing down her face.
"Well, it doesn't matter now..." Y/n kept half the truth to herself. She'd childishly thought that Lo'ak would have tried to prevent her from her recklessness and chosen her himself. But clearly, it had been a fantasy. "Lo'ak, I know what's happening to me... and I'm scared, I don't know what's worse, facing it alone or...or..."
Lo'ak pulled y/n into his arms then, holding her close as he felt her tremble against his chest. "You won't have to face this on your own, and... and I'll make sure you'll be with someone worthy, who'll take good care of you..." His words were like daggers to her chest, because there was no one else she could ever want besides him, yet she understood Lo'ak was trying his best to comfort her. Y/n buried her face in the crook of Lo'ak's neck, breathing in his scent. It was a lot stronger now, and only at that point did she realize so many things about his appearance had changed.
There were two small glands, one on either side of his neck, where his scent seemed to be strongest, and she was suddenly overcome by the need to be covered in it. Y/n began to purr softly, rubbing her face against Lo'ak's neck, not really knowing what she was doing other than chasing after the feeling of comfort and protection that came along with dousing herself in Lo'ak pheromones. "What are you doing, y/n?" Her bestfriend asked, his voice sounding considerably deeper than it had been a few seconds ago. "Feels nice." Was the entirety of the explanation she gave him, without showing any intention of stopping. Not that Lo'ak wanted her too.
He suddenly understood why she'd come to his tent in the first place, and that was to seek out whatever still held his scent, to numb out any feverish symptoms her pre-heat was going to throw at her. Lo'ak knew they were treading a dangerous line, but he also knew he would have given anything to have felt any sort of comfort during his rut, and he couldn't bring himself to tear himself away from her. The type of contact y/n was craving at that moment was completely harmless, yet the idea that she needed to be marked with his scent so badly made a Lo'ak feel possessive in a way he hadn't even known was possible. "Yeah? Is that what's been stressing you out, baby?" He cooed, wrapping her braid around his hand and tugging it softly. "You just wanted to breathe in my scent, didn't you?"
Y/n whined at his touch and nodded feverishly at his words. "Y-yes... I missed you, and I didn't know where you were. I just knew you were hurt..." She rambled, but Lo'ak kissed her temple, trying to let her know that there was no need to worry about him. "I'm right here, I'm sorry I was away. I let you down. I should have been here to help you with your nest. Look at this, you did it all by yourself, huh? Good girl." Lo'ak praised her, letting out a deep-sounding purr to let y/n know how impressed he was with her. Y/n nodded, smiling as she basked in Lo'ak's praise. "I did it for you, I wanted to be here when you got back..."
Lo'ak had to remind himself all he was doing was for the sake of helping y/n deal with how increasingly hormonal and emotional she was about to become over the next few days, and nothing that was saying in that moment held any real meaning. Somebody else would get to take care of y/n, and somehow he'd ended up on the council of people who got to determine who that person was going to be. As long as he kept his own feelings out of it, there was no reason why y/n shouldn't have stayed with him.
"Thank you, baby..." Lo'ak whispered softly and brought her hand to his mouth, kissing her wrist. "I'm going out to get you something to eat now, do you want to come? Or do want to stay here?"
"No." Y/n wrapped herself around him like a vine. "Stay."
"Huh-uh, it's like that, is it?" Lo'ak chuckled, powerless against her death-grip. So he took the opportunity to have a lie down. Unlike y/n, he was missing several hours of sleep. "Well, I'm not going to argue with the woman who has me in a choke-hold... and sleeping will do you some good too..." He sighed, resting his arms around her middle. It didn't take long for Lo'ak to pass out completely.
When Lo'ak woke up, y/n seemed to have been long gone. Someone had also brought him some food and water while he'd been resting. Lo'ak hurriedly ate something, before heading out to look for y/n, but he didn't end up needing to look too far. Moat had been in the middle of examining y/n when Lo'ak showed up out of the blue.
"Ever heard of privacy? Get out of here, skxawng!" Y/n yelled at him, and Lo'ak immediately did as he was told. At least y/n seemed to be once again lucid and back to normal. For the time being. And now that he knew she was alright he really didn't have any other excuse to be around her, so he left.
Lo'ak finally found the time to get back to his training, something he now did in private. It was embarrassing to perpetually remind the rest of the clan of his failure, and he would not ask his father or brother for help. His mother however, was a lot more difficult to get away from. And she understood more than most. "My son, it is clear you are hurting... we have not seen you for days... "
"So? What good is showing my face when I have failed you?" Lo'ak turned away in shame. He did not need anyone to look out for him, not anymore.
"Stubborn! Just like your father." Neytiri hissed at him, bonking him on his head with her bow and not too gently either. "It is clear... that Eywa made you and y/n to be together. Do not treat me as if I do not see. I see you, my son."
Lo'ak broke down as soon as he heard those words. It was true, he had been pushing his family away, but simply because he hadn't thought himself capable of facing them. What would his mother think of the twisted game he'd gotten himself in? What kind of example was he setting for his younger sister? He didn't deserve to be around any of them until he somehow managed to make things right.
Neytiri hugged him, even though it was something they hadn't done in a long time. She had immediately known how strong and independent her youngest son was from a very early age, and she feared that it may have been the reason why, out of all of her children, he'd most often been left to his own devices while she and Jake were forced to tend to the others.
"You have not failed us, Lo'ak. But you must still fight for y/n... and I will help you."
The next few days went by in a blur. If he wasn't training with his mother to successfully pass the Iknimaya on his second try, he was making sure to steer away y/n's parents from any candidates they may have seriously been considering to be her mate without seeming too obvious. If a certain potential candidate began to seem like a real threat to Lo'ak, then he would personally seek them out to politely dissaude them himself.
"If you ever try to talk to y/n, ke-he, you ever even look in her direction or... you just as much as think of her again, I'm dragging you out of your tent while you sleep and leaving you out to die in the forest. And trust me, the viperwolves will finish whatever meat the Thanator doesn't tear off your bones first."
The Na'vi might have been dangerous, but they were a peaceful people. Humans had been the ones to bring war upon them. And Lo'ak had begun to realize just how much of a scary breed he was of the two things. He was now turning on his own kind, on the very same members of his clan, his brothers and sisters. He was cheating and lying to get his way, just like a human would. And the scariest part was, that realization was bothering him less and less as time went on. Y/n's heat was approaching fast, and as a consequence, he was getting more protective and territorial by the day.
While y/n had been able to keep her head in the beginning, only going through a few 'fever dreams', as Lo'ak liked to call them, in a single day and quickly recovering from them, it was now rare to come back and find her to be lucid rather than not. She had a few lulls, here and there, where it was once again possible to get her to have a coherent conversation, but those instances were now few and far in between. Lo'ak would have to seize those opportunities to take her out so she could have a walk, drink or eat something, and show her parents she was still alive. One night he'd even managed to take her all the way out to the ponds for a swim, something she'd always loved, but she was way past that point now.
Y/n slept most of the days off; the nights were the real problem. Due to her body temperature slowly increasing to the point where it was eventually going to be unbearable for her, y/n had taken to refusing to wear any sort of clothing. Which was particularly hard on Lo'ak, especially since her body was also changing in ways that weren't so subtle. As much as he tried not to look, it seemed as if both her breasts and her hips were filling out little by little each day. By that point, he was sure it was some specific torture that had been crafted for him especially, but it all came to pale into comparison when most nights were spent treating the aches of y/n's fever.
"You need to drink some water for me, baby..." Lo'ak would try to encourage her. "I promise you'll feel a lot better if you do..." Y/n was struggling, and Lo'ak was thankful for the fact that after making a bit of a fuss she would eventually listen to him. He couldn't think of a single other person who would've had the same amount of care and patience to make sure she was eating and drinking regularly throughout her heat, and there was hardly any time left before she was completely under the influence. A decision was going to be made whether he liked it or not.
The only problem was that now, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to stand aside when the time came for her to leave. The two of them had gotten somewhat... close during their time together. Close in a way that Lo'ak was certain didn't apply to being best friends. Y/n had suffered a great deal the night her scent glands came in, two on her neck, two on her inner thighs, and one on each of her wrists, and Lo'ak had almost mistaken the event for the beginning of her heat. The sweetness of her scent had him so out of his mind, and he would have torn himself away from her if she hadn't been holding on to him for dear life. "Don't go, Lo'ak, please..." y/n had begged him through choked sobs.
Lo'ak still didn't know if he'd made the right choice to stay, because of everything that happened afterward. He peppered y/n's skin with kisses as usual, trying to bring her comfort, only this time the need to taste and sink his teeth into her was almost uncontrollable. "Y/n, I don't think I should be here..." Lo'ak tried to say, having never felt so at war with himself. Y/n shook her head and caught his lips in a kiss, completely tearing down any ounce of doubt he may have still had. For the time being. The fact that she was promised to another suddenly didn't matter anymore, and the two of them were painfully aware y/n had been dripping with slick from the moment Lo'ak had pulled her into his arms. They were all over each other instantly, reaching desperately for one another in the dark. The sound y/n made when he breached her walls was the most beautiful thing Lo'ak had ever heard, and they fucked so desperately, he was almost ashamed of it afterward.
Almost.
"I told you, my sweet syulang..." He teased, regretfully having to pull out of her for the second time. "You're not ready to take my— a knot, I mean..." Lo'ak kissed her whines away, only taking a few more strokes before coating her belly will his warm seed. "But I want to try again, weakling..." Y/n huffed, having absolutely no mercy for her spent companion as she climbed on top of him. Lo'ak let out a groan and a laugh at the same time, pulling her in for a hug. "You have come so many times, I am literally covered in your slick... and since you're clearly in the right mind to give me attitude..." he pinched y/n's ass cheek and she yelped, slapping his chest. "You're more than capable to come with me for a swim and... help me clean up all this later..." Y/n had bit him in protest but eventually complied with his unreasonable demands.
In those moments with her, Lo'ak had felt so happy he'd almost forgotten what the future actually had in store for the two of them. Even though now he knew y/n so deeply, both at a mental and physical level, another would be the one to marry her. Another would the one to make a lifelong bond with her, mark her and mate with her.
'Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully. I grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!' Kiri had once read out those words from one of her mother's old books, since the ability to read and write in English had always been important to his sister. At the time, Lo'ak had made fun of her, saying it was all a bunch of boring nonsense. Now, those words haunted him. Every day. And here he was now, acting in the worst of ways just to hold on to y/n for just a second longer, have every part of her until the was nothing left for anyone else to aspire to.
When he walked into the tent that night, y/n was sitting upright and wearing a large white T-shirt Lo'ak had stolen from the RDA supplies. Lo'ak was happy to see she was doing her best to eat some fruit, and the awkward smile she gave him made him understand she currently had her wits about her. "Moat came by... she said it will happen tomorrow... and she gave me... something to help with the pain. Medicine, I think. She told me... my mate will have to take me away. I can't stay here with the rest of the clan while it happens, it might be dangerous-"
Lo'ak shook his head, raising his hands as he tried not to laugh bitterly at the sadness of the situation. How could she talk about it so calmy?
"I don't want to know, okay?" He tried to say as calmly as he could, but she could hear the distaste in his mouth.
"If you can't even talk about it, then admit what I've known all along." Y/n managed to say in a weak voice. "Lo'ak, I see you... I see you... everything you're doing for me, because of me..."
Lo'ak's ears immediately turned down at the sound of the words he'd been waiting for y/n to say his entire life. His immediate instinct was to shut her out. Now that he wanted nothing more than to say those words back, he knew he was only going to make irreparable damage. He'd justified the fact they'd been having sex in secret because it wasn't uncommon for their people to do so, nor forbidden. The only problem of course was that he and y/n were painfully aware of being in love with someone who couldn't commit to them. They had chosen to live in the most blissful of lies until their time together was up.
Well, that time was now.
"Spend my heat with me." Y/n said, not even posing it as a question.
"I can't! How hasn't that gotten through to you yet?" He asked angrily, hating himself for the way she instinctively flinched at his words. Lo'ak got down on his knees, kneeling in front of her. "Ngaytxoa." He asked y/n for her forgiveness. "Oeya syulang, you deserve to be with someone who has shown enough strength and honor to be part of the people... If we'd only had more time, I... but you cannot face your heat alone, nor will I allow you to tie yourself to someone who is not worthy. Who may never be." Y/n had begun to cry at this point, and Lo'ak could feel that he'd been joining her soon. "An outcast. Someone like me."
Simply put, if Lo'ak had spent y/n's heat with her, got her pregnant, and then ended up dying on the Halleluja mountains on his second or third attempt at his Rite of passage, not to mention the unpredictableness of surviving the Dream Hunt as well, he would have committed the cruelest act of all: giving his mate false hope before leaving them behind forever, all for the sake of getting what he wanted.
"You are... impossible..." Y/n cried. "You say these words, therefore you must believe I deserve to be with someone I do not love when I have already chosen the man I belong to and he has chosen me... do you not understand that would kill me just as much as being alone would? I know you went through your rut alone, Lo'ak... I know you went through that pain and survived, Moat told me. I am willing to take that risk, and wait for you."
Lo'ak looked into her eyes then, and it seemed to y/n he was having a realization. Had she finally gotten through to him? She knew her chances of survival were slim, and she hadn't exactly prepared, but after finding out Lo'ak loved her as much as she did, he would sooner risk her life to be happy with him in the end than choose someone else.
Suddenly he was grabbing her face and kissing her, pulling away just as quickly. "I'll be back by morning... there's something... important I have to do." Lo'ak saw the look of distress on her face as he stood up. In many ways, I would have been their last night together, and he was leaving. "Trust me, syulang, I beg of you. Nga yawne lu oer."
"I love you, too."
And with that, he was gone from her sight.
As he climbed the path of vines and rocks leading to the banshee rookery, Lo'ak wondered if anyone had ever managed to reach the Halleluja mountains past the eclipse in the dead of night. If that person, whoever they may have been, had been so desperate to have made the attempt even though everyone around them had said they were not ready, because it was a question of life and death for them as much as it was for him. After the initial surprise of having made it to the top, he was immediately aware of a dozen pairs of yellow eyes blinking at him in the dark.
Lo'ak immediately whipped out the yìmkxa, swinging it around a little as he cautiously walked amongst the ikrans. "Didn't mean to spoil your beauty sleep..." He said, counting how many of them had already flown away at the sight of him. "There's just one of you I've come to settle the score with, some motherfucker who threw me off a cliff the other day-"
A very familiar hiss came from out of nowhere and Lo'ak now knew he was looking back at his banshee. "Long time no see bro, I sure hope I didn't ruin any late-night plans." The ikran lunged at him but Lo'ak knew exactly what to do this time, and moved without hesitancy, muzzling the creature's mouth with the yìmkxa. "Me? Oh you know, my girl is going through the worst experience of her life--- shit, stop that, man--- where was I? Oh right, I'm supposed to be back home with her, yet I'm out here, dancing around with you. Bet you can't wait to get inside this head, huh? Hope you enjoy all the angst, you mother-"
With a final struggle and a minor chunk taken out of his leg, Lo'ak was able to make the connection. The ikran, his ikran, immediately calmed down and let out a pained sound, that Lo'ak recognized as being directed at him.
"Yeah, well... no worries bro." He sighed from exhaustion and patted the banshee's neck. "Now let's get out of here, I don't have all goddammed night."
By the early hours of the morning, Lo'ak had returned aching from the fight with the ikran and still disoriented from the self-induced high he'd given himself with whatever concoctions he'd found in his grandmother's hut to make himself find his spirit animal. No matter what anybody said, he'd completed his rite of passage and now he was going to tell y/n they could be together. Y/n however, was not where he'd left her. Moat found him soon after, and after reprimanding him for stealing her supplies and acting so recklessly, she told him y/n's parents had chosen Tholothian to be her mate and they had left not even an hour prior to Lo'ak's arrival. The Na'vi, much to his grandmother's protests, immediately set off to find them.
With the sunlight by his side and the ability to fly over the forest, it didn't take long for Lo'ak to recognize Tho'lo's ikran resting on top of a branch and its rider wandering the forest below.
"I thought I told you to stay away from her." Lo'ak snarled, quickly dismounting from his ikran.
"Stay out of this, Sully. The fact that you did the bare minimum this time, doesn't get you a prize." Tho'lo took a threatening stance against him. Lo'ak immediately noticed his bow and dagger were missing, and that he had a large cut across his chest. "Y/n was left in my care and responsibility-"
"She attacked you." Lo'ak accused Tho'lo, charging at him with everything he had the very next second. "What did you do?" He roared with a murderous look in his eyes as he held his knife to his rival's throat. "What could you have possibly done to her to leave you stranded out here, huh?"
"What I have done? What have you done, Lo'ak?" Tho'lo accused him back, sounding all too calm for Lo'ak's liking. "She has clearly chosen you, I see that now. I had known you two were close, but I never thought it went beyond you recklessly amusing yourself with her. I never would have accepted her parents' decision if I had known-"
"The why. the fuck. did she attack you?" Lo'ak growled, actively losing his patience by the second.
"Because she's in a heat, you moron. She won't be with anyone who isn't you now that the two of you have clearly done everything except maybe name your future children...I just wish someone had warned me, so I wouldn't have to be here right now!" Lo'ak stepped back from Tho'lo then, realizing he had just been assuming the worst of someone who was meant to be his brother-in-arms. "She attacked me not two minutes after we were in flight. I thought she was going to kill my ikran so I got us all down to the ground. She escaped of course, but I still couldn't leave her out here... "
Lo'ak nodded, ashamed of all the grief his actions had caused. But he didn't even have time to dwell on it, or make things right with Tho'lo, because y/n was still out there, scared and alone.
"I'm sorry, brother-"
"I'll forgive you when you find her and bring her home in one piece." Tho'lo cut him off, calling his ikran and mounting it. "And I know you threatened others just as easily as you have just accused me. That's what separates you from the rest of the people, Sully. You reek of anger and distrust, toward yourself and others. You are selfish, just like the rest of the sky people. Whatever y/n sees in you... must be the true reason why I'm still willing to call you brother."
After a few minutes of frantic wandering, Lo'ak picked up y/n's scent and it didn't take him long to track her down. She'd hidden herself in a small cave behind the waterfall, a place they'd both discovered once when they were out hunting. The closer he got, the more overpowering the influence of her sweet pheromones became. As he climbed his way up to the cave, mindful of the water cascading above him, he knew she could sense his presence too because she began to call out his name. Lo'ak could hear the strain in her voice and ended up cutting his hands and feet several times on the rocks as he made his reckless endeavor all the way to the safe haven she'd chosen.
He looked up to see her looking down at him, and he made one last stupidly dangerous jump to get her away from the edge. "Where were you? You told me to wait, I waited for you but- you are hurt!" Y/n reached for him, she was shuddering violently and unable to keep herself from crying. Lo'ak knew exactly what kind of pain she was going through, and he had to dissuade her from fretting over his wounds.
"I know, I'm sorry Oeya syulang, I'm right here now. I'm with you..." Lo'ak kissed y/n, making quick work of getting rid of whatever fabric was left to separate them. He let out a guttural sound at the copious amount of slick that gushed out of y/n simply from his touch. "Lo'ak, it hurts..." Y/n begged him, holding onto Lo'ak so tight he was pretty sure she was going to end up rearranging his bones.
"I know baby, you're burning up..." He kissed her neck, feeling how scolding her skin was as she lowered herself onto his cock, taking him all the way with a desperate moan of relief. Y/n seized up around him and coated him with a second wave of slick, high on the feeling of finally having her mate buried deep inside of her. "Fuck--you really needed me bad, didn't you baby?" Lo'ak groaned, unable to even comprehend what was happening around him anymore. Y/n's cunt was impossibly tight and warm, and she was making a complete mess on his lap.
His mate nodded and began to ride him in earnest, her stamina never breaking for a second. Lo'ak was so in awe, he could barely keep up with her. Their moans and whines echoed off the walls of the cave, and Lo'ak knew y/n was desperate to get knotted. "You need to... relax syulang." He kissed her face when she began to whine in frustration. "Might have to fuck you a few more times before your body is ready for me, sweet thing..."
"But I want--" Y/n was beginning to sound completely unintelligible, but she never once stopped grinding down on Lo'ak, challenging herself to take in deeper and deeper every time. "Such a good girl, look at that..." Lo'ak praised her, earning a deep purr which he happily returned. "Gonna make you a proper nest... so my baby can be nice and comfortable while I mount her later, how does that sound?"
Y/n curled up against his chest at the idea, kissing him deeply and coming on his cock for the fourth time since they'd started (yes, he was keeping count), and without much warning Lo'ak began to feel the his knot forming inside of her. She gasped and began to frantically fuck herself back against it, giddy on the pleasure the foreign experience was giving her. Lo'ak gave a a few more harsh thrusts, until his knot finally popped deep inside y/n's walls, binding them together. "Fuck, baby you can't keep moving anymore..." He groaned, blissed out and slightly amused by y/n's attempts to bounce up on his knot while she was stuck on top of him.
Y/n wasn't particularly shy about being loud, but the sounds she made when Lo'ak finally began to breed her made him want to fuck her all over again right at that moment. "It's... it's so much..." She sobbed, overwhelmed by the constant stream of warm cum that was now pouring into her. Lo'ak wrapped his arm around her and made a second connection between them, bringing their cues together. Immediately he could feel how close she was to climaxing again, and he reched down between them to rub her small bundle of nerves while she was still split on his shaft. "Going to cum on my knot, baby...? You're been such a sweet girl, taking everything I have to give you... once I'm done breeding you, your belly's going to be so pretty and full---"
Y/n gave out another high pitched whine and came thanks to Lo'ak's expert fingers. He managed to lull her to sleep after that, while they were still tied together and in the process of mating. Lo'ak found his sleep to be rather light, keeping an eye open for his vulnerable mate and growling menacingly at any noise he heard coming from outside.
When his knot died down he left y/n to get some much needed rest and set out to get everything they needed to stay in the cave for the rest of the week. He knew that his scent was more than enough to let anyone and anything to stay the fuck away from the cave, and that y/n would have been safe. Even though he'd returned with food supplies and other creature comforts to make a worthy nest, y/n was not too forgiving of his absence and jumped his bones the second he came back. After she'd deemed herself sated, they made their nest together, but it was hard to do anything without eventually getting distracted.
Y/n's belly was beginning to stretch out a little already from their activities and Lo'ak was completely mesmerised by the sight of his cum slipping out of her. So much so he could help but hold her down and get a taste. "Lo'ak... w-want your knot again..." she mewled, tugging fiercely at his braids while he drank down the sickly sweet taste of her slick.
"Oeya syulang, I haven't eaten all day, you can't blame me for wanting a taste... " Lo'ak growled softly before sinking his teeth in the scent gland on her left inner thigh, making her cry out. He soothed the wound with his tongue, lapping up her blood. "Now, you're going to have to behave for me a little, or I'm going to eat you out until you're a sobbing mess... understood?"
Y/n was a lot more partial to taking a break to eat and drink something after that. Lo'ak was not surprised when she feel asleep again, and he curled up around her on the makeshift bed they'd made, holding her close to his chest. He immediately woke up when she began to cry next to him a few hours later, not even thinking twice about mounting her from behind as her kissed her shoulders and reassured her everything was alright.
Y/n was the one to link their queues this time, moaning softly as he began to move. "Still hurts if I'm not inside you, baby?" Lo'ak asked, genuinely worried that the heat was still painful even though y/n was no longer facing it alone. Y/n shook her head and tried to find the right words to express what she was feeling, Lo'ak kissed her temple reassuringly, stroking her tail to soothe her. "J-just now... I think... I think I'm ready..." It took a little while for Lo'ak to understand, but then he felt it through their bond. Y/n was at the peak of her heat, and his next load was sure to get her pregnant. "You're happy..." she said, Lo'ak still forgetting that she could probably feel his heart soaring at that moment.
"Yeah..." He laughed, a little choked up. "Course I'm happy... so fucking happy" Lo'ak placed a hand on y/n's lower belly, firmly holding her there as he picked up his pace, pounding into her deeper and deeper. Y/n bared her neck to him then, submitting and asking him to mark her as his own. "Nga yawne lu oer..." He whispered before sinking his teeth into her scent gland, tasting the blood and sweetness there. Y/n cried out his name, feeling their bond deepen even more and the desperate need to mark Lo'ak just the same.
Both of them felt the exact moment when life began to blossom between the two of them when they were lying in each other's arms some moments afterwards. They were holding each other close and tending to the deep marks they'd left on each other's bodies. Lo'ak spent the rest of the night whispering promises and soft nothings to y/n, and she quelled all his anxieties about his wrongdoings or the fact that his child might have inherited his human features.
After all, she'd never cared for the right profile anyway.
578 notes · View notes
Now that submissions are closed, we can talk stats. There were 881 valid, unique submissions for 474 characters! Woof, women have it rough out there!
The most submitted characters, with a relevant propaganda snippet included, are:
1. Sakura Haruno (Naruto): 28 [where do i even fucking begin]
2. Cordelia Chase (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel): 21 [OH SO MANY THINGS]
3. Misa Amane (Death Note): 20 [The author of Death Note invented new forms of misogyny just to apply them to Misa.]
4. Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3): 15 [Oh, you thought we would have a female main character in one of our mainline games? With a cool defining talent, no less? That's stupid of you]
5. TIE: Kairi (Kingdom Hearts): 14 [I'm so mad. I think she deserves a gun.]
5. TIE: Stephanie Brown (DC Comics): 14 [She does eventually get retconned as surviving the event and hiding out in Africa (don't ask, it does not make more sense in context)]
The canons with the most submissions, with a relevant propaganda snippet included, are:
1. DC Comics: 61 [DC has SO MUCH sexism it's laughable]
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel: 35 [Fuck Joss Whedon, man.]
3. Naruto: 33 [because Kishimoto hates women]
4. Warrior Cats: 26 [Warriors is one of the most misogynistic children's series I've ever seen]
5. Danganronpa: 25 [I honestly had to think about it just to decide which woman is treated the worst because this series hates them so much]
The canons with the most characters submitted, with a relevant propaganda snippet for a specific character included, are:
1. DC Comics: 21 [Free her from the huge tits back breaking pose.]
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel: 12 [Anyways she was so hot and for what. 10/10 my lesbian awakening.]
3. Supernatural: 11 [Yeah, she got randomly killed off-screen for shock value and manpain, but she sent an email right before she died so at least her death wasn't in vain, right?]
4. TIE: Star Trek: 9 [She literally gets teleported out of her clothes in one episode.]
4. TIE: Yu-Gi-Oh!: 9 [One loss is particularly brutal as she falls from a large height directly onto her head and goes into a coma (again. yes this was the second time).]
5. TIE: Warrior Cats: 8 [I'm sure she'll get submitted again just ask any reasonable fan they'll tell you about her and her sister]
5. TIE: Attack on Titan: 8 [As a child soldier, she does commit some war crimes]
And here are some charts to show how some of these entries fucked the scale on my charts:
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Look at Sakura, fucking up my chart with her numbers.
On a similar note...
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Good god, DC, I know what you did, but add fucking up my charts to your list of crimes.
And now, enjoy some rankings of my favorite things:
My favorite universal sentiment quotes from propaganda are:
She lived she served cunt and then she got killed off super early so that the male characters could experience man pain and also because I guess she would have been too powerful if left alive. [Wen Qing (Mo Dao Zu Shi)]
That design. Dear god. I don't want to live on this planet anymore. [Mitzi (The Queen's Corgi)]
In the end she may have girlbossed too close to the sun, but I support her anger. [Ling Wen (Heaven Official's Blessing)]
the victim of “writer doesn’t understand women and also hates them” disease. [Naomi Misora (Death Note)]
She could 100% kill somebody but nobody ever effing lets her. Rip queen. [Kairi (Kingdom Hearts)]
My favorite raging at a writer quotes from propaganda are:
1. You took every single protagonist to weird lion heaven, Clive, but suddenly Susan isn't good enough. [Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)]
2. Being a woman written by Joss Whedon should automatically entitle her to financial compensation tbh. [River Tam (Firefly)]
3. A lot can be summed up in a couple words, namely, "Furman, why?" [Arcee (Transformers)]
4. Can you tell respect women juice ran in Tolstoy's veins. [Lise Bolkonskaya (War and Peace)]
5. TIE: (specifically a guy called Dan Didio, who we all hate) [Stephanie Brown (DC Comics)]
5. TIE: until Geoff motherfucking Johns comes into the picture [Pantha (DC Comics)]
My favorite quotes from propaganda that have nothing to do with misogyny, y'all are just funny:
I wish I could use bold here, because there's no such thing as uppercase numbers. [Arcee (Transformers)]
the most convoluted and lore dense piece of media this side of the afton criticality. [Jane Crocker (Homestuck)]
ended up starting a gang war by accident [Stephanie Brown (DC Comics)]
Ashfur, who later turns out to be a murderous incel [Squirrelflight (Warrior Cats)]
Hawkfrost is actively seeing Brambleclaw and his evil father in cat hell. [Squirrelflight (Warrior Cats)]
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shimmer-wolf-arts · 5 months
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So uh... I kind of did my own form of Inktober this year. Basically, I drew a BUNCH of doodles of these 3. (There are some more, tumblr just limits the number of images to 10 lol) You can also tell I really don't like drawing Varian's goggles, most of the time xD
For those who may not know me from Instagram, I do ship Varian with an OC of mine!! But! I also ship Varigo... and Hugo was supposed to be pansexual anyway, so why not just combine the two and have it be a polycule? I've seen other polycule ships with Varigo and OCs, so why not me too?
Besides, I give Hugo his appropriate character arc in my story. He becomes way less of an asshole by the end, LOL
So yeah... this is Frozen Alchemy, as I've dubbed the ship name of these three. Because Grace, my OC, is an Ice Sorcerer. Hence the frozen aspect of the ship name!
No, she is NOT from the Tangled universe. She existed in my own universe and book series before I started shipping her with Varian, so she does follow the rules of that universe first. So, crossover ftw I suppose!
(And yes, the quote in the last drawing IS, in fact, a quote from Jeremy Jordan from a comic con panel for Supergirl, if you wanna hear the actual voice line! 🤣 It's on YouTube)
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talkingparrotkee · 1 year
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Re: Namor x Shuri working from a storytelling standpoint
I stumbled on a post trying to give an analysis of how Namor and Shuri "don't work" from a storytelling standpoint. After reading several of the objectionable points made and realizing I've seen them all before, I felt like trying my own hand to exemplify why these kinds of criticisms against "Nashuri" don't actually work. I didn't directly reblog to avoid being convoluted or dogpiling, but I'll be responding to specific points throughout.
Direct quotes are in orange
Linked sources and further information are in green
Warning: This article has many layers, musings, and points. After all, it's essentially a master collection of material. If you just want to jump to a certain point, you can. There are subtitles for every point.
The Oxymoron of Improbable and "Non-Sensical" Story Writing
In the context of specifically Wakanda Forever's story and nothing else, yes: as of now, Namor and Shuri being a romantic couple does not make "sense."
However, there is no such thing as a ship that doesn't make sense from a story-writing perspective.
With your pen, reality can be shaped according to your whim, or elements can be bent to fit the mold of a given reality. Story-writing-wise, anything can happen, and anything can work with the proper execution. A good writer knows how to suspend the reader's disbelief and make the seemingly improbable, seem probable.
Namor and Shuri already have the ingredients for chemistry and compatibility as characters, which are the two essential requirements in relationships. The media they're in gives you the room to potentially address their circumstance, like reviving Ramonda (coming back to life is no foreign concept to Marvel) or building off of the concepts already there (e.g., the Ancestral Plane or "dead not meaning gone"). There are also AUs.
Saying otherwise is simply putting a cap on your creativity and demonstrates a sheer lack of imagination.
Why Do People Ship Namor And Shuri?
To answer this question, Namor and Shuri:
Have undeniably strong chemistry. That was the first thing that had people question what their relationship would be. You don't have to register this as inherently romantic, but they have chemistry nevertheless.
Deeply connected with and paralleled-equaled one another. Shuri opened up to only Namor about her true grief. With Ramonda, Shuri closed herself off. When her mask cracked, she lamented that if she sat and merely thought of T'Challa, she'd burn the world and everyone in it. The ancestral plane, tethered to her subconscious and emotional state, lit up on fire the moment N'Jadaka mentioned T'Challa. Yet... Shuri felt that she could be emotionally vulnerable to Namor, seeking solace and answers within him. She could not only think of but also talk about T'Challa with Namor. This is after Namor was, in exchange, completely vulnerable and honest to her, showing her his scars and his cherished nation. Both characters did things they wouldn't do with anyone else. They felt seen and heard by the other. That is a beautiful testament to the bond they were forging before uh, yeah.
Shuri was healing in Talokan. It is directly said in the script Shuri was better than she was before she left, but the movie let it be a "show, don't tell." We already established she was finally unveiling her grief to Namor, but Talokan was also an escape for her. Her behavior and attitude were a sheer contrast to how she was earlier in the movie. Shuri was shown beaming, marveling at, and practically glowing as Namor showed her his world. Approximately, she genuinely smiled 11 times in under 3 minutes. She forgot her worries. The tension rolled off of her and let herself go "with the breeze". Her admiration and sense of wonder made him smile too. She was taken care of, a shame that her reason of stay wasn't preferable.
Shared several purposefully intimate moments.
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Look hot and are hot together. Argue with a wall.
Can be the strongest, most unstoppable MCU power couple to date.
Create a rich, ethnic, and main poc ship and representation between a black African woman and a brown-skinned indigenous man. That's not common at all, and the thought of their cultures being connected, becoming one through their union is hair-twirling inducing. The idea of them creating a new era filled to the brim with their respective cultures and identities together, with them learning from one another, is very interesting.
They have many, many classic romantic-fantastical tropes poured into the batter that is their dynamic. You may have heard the comparisons to Beauty and The Beast (say thank you, Riri!), Aladdin ("I Can Show You The World"), Peter Pan and Wendy (Namor is deemed of a "Peter Pan" archetype. "Peter Pan" lost his Wendy, who is Shuri in this case. See Inframundo.) and Hades-Persephone.
The only reason why they're on opposite ends is due to outer forces and unfavorable circumstances at work. There's something interesting about their nuanced tragedy. There's a fun intrigue to find a way to "fix" what seems broken beyond repair, through understanding, love, character development, and healing.
Have a romantic anthem: Con La Brisa is a tender love song specifically created based on the underwater scene between Namor and Shuri. Foudequesh revealed that the meaning of the song was showing someone the sun for the first time.
Additionally, Namor and Shuri having romantic chemistry is not baseless. It was initially toyed with. Though they decided to characterize their relationship a bit differently and focus on grief-shared trauma, elements were still left in to give their relationship complexity. The way they relate and the things they did gave romantic undertones you can't just pluck out. Micheal P. Shawver, a colleague of Ryan Coogler and an editor of Wakanda Forever, said this much when asked about the possibility of Namor and Shuri having romance in their cards.
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Note how Ryan Coogler, a writer and director of both Black Panther, even apparently thinks that Namor and Shuri are not unsuited for one another even then.
You can also view the original script where Namor is described as "charmed" and "smitten" with Shuri. It's only natural people pick up the pieces purposefully left behind.
Clarification Notes
Before we jump into this, there are things you need to know.
Note 1: None of this is bashing or permission to bash Ramonda, Riri, Shuri, or Nakia. They were justified and operating under grief and dramatic irony if you look at it from every perspective. Currently, this is just clearing up Namor and Talokan's perspectives because that is what's being targetted and unceremoniously characterized, but everyone has a case for them.
Note 2: This doesn't mean you need to ship Shuri and Namor. It's explaining why some do and clearing up misconceptions about their dynamic as well as individual characters. Your takeaway should be this and valueable information on Black Panther, not a decree of what you should or shouldn't ship.
Positive and Negative Chemistry
"Positive" and "negative" chemistry is confusing terminology at best and doesn't exist at worse. It's either you have or lack chemistry. There are also two different kinds of chemistry: platonic and romantic.
When describing how characters wouldn't be compatible in a given relationship, you may be looking for the term, "compatibility".
Chemistry: magnetism, attraction, and natural connection. Compatibility: a more "logical" component: your degree of harmony and cohesiveness.
You can have chemistry without compatibility, and compatibility without chemistry. Healthy and long-lasting relationships have both.
Namor's view of Shuri
Namor does not view Shuri as an equal, despite their similarities.
Pause. Namor does view Shuri as an equal. Shuri is arguably the person he respects the most.
The idea That Namor-Talokan does not relate, respect, connect with, or even view Shuri-Wakanda as human directly goes against the meta-pillar theme of Wakanda Forever.
You said it yourself:
"these are fictional characters (who represent real-world dynamics)"
“We talked to so many experts and really made relationships with them, because there was a lot to go through,” says Beachler. “There are a lot of parallels between Africans and Latin Americans as far as the colonization of their communities and cities, the enslavement of their people, the lies that were told about their culture, the misinterpretation of their words, and the ways they were made out to look demonized in order to elevate a European country.”
Besides honoring Chadwick Boseman, motherhood, and the dead not being gone, grief, trauma, the effects of colonialism, and the connectivity between African-Mesoamerican indigenous culture are central points of the film. Namor and Shuri and by extension Talokan and Wakanda are explicitly supposed to relate and be equal to one another for this reason. You are supposed to struggle with choosing a side, and Namor is a complex antagonist or even anti-hero rather than an actual villain (An antagonist just opposes or challenges the protagonist in the context of the story, they're not inherently good or evil. Villians are inherently evil and with malice.) Their fight is supposed to feel wrong, intimate, and emotionally charged, unlike most generic action hero fights. They are natural allies, and therefore unnatural enemies.
Namor bent in ways he wouldn't have with anyone else.
This is why it's an in-fandom joke that he was whipped or smitten. What he says on his throne when waging "war", was "Máansa'ab u nej miis tin wich." Josué Maychi confirms that this means, "They passed the cat's tail in front of my face with the hope of an alliance."
"If you see cats, jaguars or panthers when they go hunting they wag their tails because it is a way of hypnotizing the prey, then that image is what happened to Namor, that someone did like that with the tail."
Namor virtually said he was hypnotized, but the Spanish and English translations didn't quite convey that cat-involved metaphor (although keeping the crux of his lament.).
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Namor could have killed Riri the moment she touched Talokan grounds, but he showed temporary "mercy" because of Shuri and Shuri alone. He didn't need Shuri's permission nor did he have to communicate with Shuri. Riri was in his domain, Shuri did not really have much power there, yet he treated her as if she did.
"It goes back to the point of him never seeing Shuri as human or recognizing her feelings as valid."
Two of Namor's quotes in the movie alone prove this wrong:
"I know you wanted me to spare the life of the scientist (recognizing and acknowledging what she wants), but now you see what I have to protect."
"So you can understand why I need to kill the scientist."
He didn't need to seek her approval or give her the ability to negotiate with him, yet he did and on top of that dressed her in the finest silks fit for royalty, consistently trying to convince Shuri like her opinion mattered, and that he wanted her on his side. It wasn't that he didn't "recognize her feelings as valid," he just felt that, based on how many of their lives are at stake, he couldn't risk it (Movie quote: "I cannot risk that, princess...").
He was absolutely gobsmacked when she said, "Take me instead." He wouldn't speak then, uncharacteristically breaking eye contact. When he could finally speak, he couldn't answer her directly, his voice awkwardly raised an interval and suddenly, unnecessarily, speaking with his hands.
Shuri wanted to see Talokan, and Namor, the pessimistic isolationist who never let a surfacer step foot in Talokan, immediately caved into her desire. There was no reason for him to do that and it demonstrates an immense level of trust. He also, quite literally, showed her the keys to his kingdom. He waited until she was beside him, looked to see if she was watching him, and then did his hand sign in the rock to open the "doors" to Talokan.
As writer Joe Cole said in The Movie Report panel interview, Shuri demands him to make the right choice that was yielding, and he does yield to her, which wasn't something he'd ever consider in his hundreds of years of being alive.
Namor gives his beloved mother's bracelet to Shuri
Fen was Namor's beloved mother. Her memory is something he held dear to him. The bracelet he gave not only was the last piece of her left with him, but it directly signified his birthright as king, was a priceless national object, and was made with their sacred plant's fibers.
He gives it to Shuri twice. One immediately to hold when he sees she's attracted to it, two he ties on her (after receiving her non-verbal permission, another sign of respect) for her keeping as a "gift of gratitude."
Namor saw his mother in Shuri
Namor saw his mother in her highest state, induced by Shuri. She was unchanged, young, and in their homes, outstretching a hand to him as Shuri metaphorically did.
Namor paints the mural of their fight
in his personal hut no less, where he preserves their history and culture. He paints them entangled in a battle with neither side besting the other. She is the Jaguar-Black Panther, a revered, highly respected animal in Maya culture with connections to godhood, and he is a mere human, humbling himself in a sense. That speaks volumes, and it's furthered when he tells Namora that Shuri had every single reason to kill him. He also speaks very highly of her, stating she's the strongest person on the surface, of the strongest nation.
None of this makes sense AT ALL if he supposedly did not view Shuri as a respected equal, let alone "human." If he somehow doesn't see her as a "human", then he sees her as higher than.
Talokan's "Violence" to Wakanda's "Pacifism"
"Namor and the Talokanil, immediately resort to violence and war when they feel a threat from the surface world. But since no one knows they exist, this threat is hypothetical for now."
This is not true. Talokan has constantly been evasive with relocating being their immediate resort. In the film, Namor says, "Talokan will not move, again" for a reason. They didn't "feel" a threat, there was a threat. People found the Vibranium within their domain and were drilling to seize it. War was a later development after Shuri took killing Riri off the table, which is what Namor initially wanted to do (in the script, this is furthered, with him saying he'd prefer picking off one person to outright war.).
"A direct contrast to Ramonda and Shuri, who in the face of real eminent threats, resorted to peace and showed their aggressors mercy."
Ignoring the insinuation that Namor was not faced with real eminent threats when he was, there is a reason for that contrast. Remember that while Wakanda was being threatened, they have never been conquered or forced to move. They're confirmed less vulnerable than Talokan, who does not have shields and lives in the ocean. They can afford to reveal themselves. Talokan cannot, and they're collateral damage to Wakanda's choice of revealing themselves and the power of Vibranium to the world.
The beginning village of Talokan has been conquered and mass murdered before the rebirth into the blue people we see now, with their ancestral lands plundered and made into slave houses. Namor almost died and was sick in the womb because the conquistadors brought smallpox. His father who he never met died due to their disease. He witnessed countless treacheries, betrayals, and wars from the surface lands. Namor spent his entire childhood watching his mother grieve due to them. As a result, Talokan has a more pessimistic perspective compared to Wakanda's privileged optimistic one.
So yeah, Talokan isn't going to play patty cake with their active aggressors who are trying to plunder them. Nor should they, because Namor is proven right with America actively seeking to destabilize Wakanda under the guise of retrieving Riri (see the meeting Ross has with government officials), and the ending with Val.
Wakanda wants to delay inevitable war and minimize the loss across the board but will go to war if pushed, which is fair. Talokan is tired and ready to give the smoke, striking fast and hard to merely end what threatens them once and for all after centuries of patience and displacement. That is also fair.
"Namor, despite wanting Wakanda’s help with his mission, ultimately doesn’t view Wakanda with anymore sympathy than he does the rest of the world. He has made it clear that he hates the surface world and everyone in it, which includes the Wakandans."
You're right, he doesn't sympathize with Wakanda. There's nothing to sympathize with. He empathizes with them, a stronger feeling and sense of connection than sympathy. He admires Wakanda and feels a sense of kinship, maybe a bit of jealousy (Joe Cole). To him, Wakanda was a threat if they weren't on his side. Why?
A) Wakanda (unintentionally) compromised them by revealing themselves to the world and the power of Vibranium. Now everyone else, armed with that dangerous knowledge, is looking for it to wield it. Wakanda can more or less protect their Vibranium, claiming ownership of it when it's on their lands, they have the power to, and they're the ones who revealed it. But what can Talokan do? They'd be forcefully revealed in some way and be subjected to attacks just because they dared to also have Vibranium.
B) Wakanda is compromising them again by harboring Riri, who is the one source capable of the machine the FBI is currently chasing down. There is no guarantee Riri would stay with them (Riri is not their citizen, and America can easily use her as a means to undercut Wakanda and force them to either give vibranium or fork Riri over, so she can build the machine, and they'll get vibranium anyway through Talokan) or wouldn't rebuild her machine. The solutions Namor could fathom were either taking Riri out of the equation for sure (a case of killing one person and saving everyone else) or taking out the threat of those who seek to exploit her.
C) Wakanda was already shaking hands with nations that wanted to destabilize and plunder them, and will want to do the same with Talokan.
D) Wakanda is the only nation that can rival them that now also knows of their existence. If they're not allies with that information, that's dangerous and makes Talokan vulnerable.
With all things considered and understandably from Namor's perspective, there's no "in-between" here. You can't be "neutral." You either are with them or facilitate your own and their destruction.
This doesn't mean he hates Wakanda or Shuri. It is nothing he wants, but something he perceives he has to do for his people, as their protector, father, god, and king. In the script, this is only further exemplified, by his, "I don’t want it to come to this. But I will not hesitate."
Namor Killing Ramonda
His line of "You are queen now" showed that he was never willing to conduct business with Ramonda likely because she was the only person on the surface world who bested him when she lured him out of Talokan(...). He was simply looking for an excuse to get her out of the picture."
At that point, Ramonda threatened to reveal Talokan. Ramonda purposefully played decoy with him and sent in a war dog to infiltrate their nation and retrieve not only their national threat but the princess who has all of their secrets without a sense of closure. The result of this act was the death of two of his "children". Did you just gloss over that fact, because Ramonda didn't just "lure" him away? He wasn't throwing a fit because he was bested. People literally died? He was cradling a dying child in his arms?
Namor was "willing" to conduct business with Ramonda, proven by the simple fact that he approached Ramonda and gave her the shell to contact him. Namor went out to answer Ramonda's call in the first place when he could've just ignored it when he had what he wanted and more in Talokan.
Namor saying "You're queen now" doesn't at all connect to him not seeing Shuri as an equal. That doesn't make any sense. If anything that undermines your point, because before Shuri is officially crowned, he immediately sees her as the sovereign leader, much like himself.
He says "you're queen now" because Shuri is likely the queen now. It's simple math: Shuri is the heir apparent. There's no royal before her now that is leading.
"It's also another reason why he killed Ramonda with no hesitation despite knowing what he knew about Shuri"
Again, Namor did what he did with no hesitation or care if Ramonda is collateral damage because in his eyes, Ramonda betrayed him, he was acting as a vehicle of vengeance for two souls, and he was defending Talokan. When she stepped in front of Riri glaring him down, that was his final nail in the coffin (no pun intended, please, no pun intended.). It was never personal to him nor did he look at it as him killing Shuri's mom. He was playing the role of a protector and king in conflict with another royal, but of course, it's inherently personal to Shuri because that royal happens to be her mother.
Ryan Coogler confirmed it was not personal for him in the Disney+ movie commentary, Tenoch Huerta says killing the queen was never in his initial plans, and Namor says this himself in the script, explaining he did what he did because the queen "betrayed" him with not only a guard, but a child dying as a result when Shuri was never in danger ("you were safe in my care").
Recklessness With Grief
No, Shuri did not have a better handle on how she externalizes her grief until the final of the movie.
"She recognizes that even though she is angry at T’Challa’s death, the rest of the world doesn’t deserve to feel the extent of her wrath."
That's not at all what she recognized at any point. "It will not be these clothes, I'll burn. It will be the world. And everyone in it."
"Even when Namor does kill her mother, she rightfully directs her anger at him."
At the expense of her people's safety and risk of eternal war. She tells M'Baku straight up that nothing else matters except what she wants, and she wants Namor dead. She threateningly pointed a finger, giving M'Baku no choice and leaving him with the command to help her in her endeavors, even if it meant sending them all to their watery graves.
Nakia: "If you go to war for vengeance, it will not fill the hole left from your loss. It will only grow larger, and it will consume you!"
Shuri: "It already has."
With every blow she landed and exchanged with Namor, we cut back to Wakanda receiving blows and being backed up into a corner.
Namor and Shuri were on collision courses where they were destroying themselves, each other, and their people by not handling their grief properly, being consumed by their vengeance, and committing destructive actions ignited by their pain.
Shuri just later had the strength to break that cycle by recognizing what he said to her back in Talokan ("broken leaders"), their connectivity, and shared traumas. She saved them both and quietened Namor's own flames in the process.
"Sure, she has some outbursts at Nakia and M’baku, but she never really alienates them."
Do not downplay the fact that Shuri is dangerous and was not healthily dealing with her grief, but instead was on a path of destruction. Ryan explicitly states that Namor shares this with Shuri: they're both trying to process and similarly struggle grappling with their grief.
Why else do you think Ramonda took Shuri outside to touch grass and do a ritual? Shuri was not ok. From the moment her beloved brother died, she was not ok. She was not magnanimous to the world. She was angry at it. She thought that there was no point in the Black Panther mantle or herb when T'Challa isn't there. As M'Baku even pointed out, she buried herself in her technology as a coping mechanism, which she ought to stop.
Shuri does alienate Nakia. Not only does she snap several times and harshly shove Nakia off of her after she took the herb, but it's also shown at the beginning of the movie she's ignoring all of her calls. In the script, she explicitly considers Nakia dead, immensely angry she missed T'Challa's funeral.
She doesn't listen to M'baku, but consistently tries to push him and his wisdom away during Ramonda's funeral. She even pushed away and tried closing herself off with Ramonda in the lab and river scene.
Namor's Desire
"All he wanted to do was push her to the extremes of grief so she would become reckless as she was."
Namor's true desire was safety for his people. He didn't want to move again or have to change who they are to survive. Namor later had a genuine desire for an alliance with Wakanda, a nation he canonically admires. Namor didn't want to "push her to the extremes of grief to become like him" because she already was like him. He just wanted to channel their shared feelings of reaping "destruction" to the common enemy.
“I think that a lot of the emotion that I was trying to put into it [Talokan] was this idea that Namor is not wanting to move his people again,” says Beachler. “So there is also, this sense of grieving, even there, of this idea of being encroached upon by humans, who are somewhat inconsiderate of them.”
"Instead you see a mutant emerging not out of genetics, but out of the crucible of oppression. Whereas mutants in the comics are born, in Wakanda Forever, they are made. And that history isn't the side story, it's the entire story. It explains Namor's rage, his desperation, and the path he takes which eventually leads to a collision with Wakanda."
It was never a case of Namor only loving and can love his people while hating everyone else, seeing them as inhuman. Namor was prioritizing what he loved the most above what he may also like, admire, or empathize with. He was fulfilling the role given to him he was forced to take from the moment he was born.
"I mean, “no love” is literally his name."
Let's slow down a bit and mayhaps rethink a little on using the meaning of his alias "Namor" as a point about him being loveless, no? That was a "name" given to him by a racist, slave-owning Conquistador priest who also called him, "son of satan" all the while he was burying his mother, the only and last immediate family he had. Namor took that alias to empower himself and take away the sting. He clearly does have love when all of his life he has been a selfless agent for his people. He thought a single or two lives were worth war over. Yes, he explicitly said it was to convey he had "no love" for the surface, but there is context to that.
"Wanting to destroy the whole world, funny enough, including other Mayan descendants who were enslaved or colonized"
When Namor burned down the Hacienda, slaves ran free. Only the Consquisdators were killed. The village elder relayed that they know of Namor's existence and were able to live with that knowledge. The only ones who died were the ones who sought him out with ill intent. The script also featured the factoid of Namor saving the elder and her husband from drowning on their wedding night, if that's worth anything. In the movie, he doesn't want to include Wakanda in the mix of the nations they're at war with either.
Clearly, he is discriminatory with who he'd kill. Who said he'd include Mayan descendants that were enslaved and colonized? The last time I checked, the only person who said anything about burning everyone was Shuri.
Namor: "It is no longer about the scientist. For centuries, the surface nations have conquered and enslaved people like us. Over resources. Since the day I buried my mother, I have prepared my people for the time they would come for us. And that machine? Is the sign that the time is now. I need to know if Wakanda is an ally, or an enemy. There is no in-between."
Shuri: "So you plan to wage war on the entire world, and want Wakanda to help you?"
Namor: [leans in and nods slightly]
Shuri: "That's madness!"
Namor: "There isn't a nation that wouldn't plunder Wakanda if given a chance. If we make an alliance, we can protect each other by striking them first. Then, when the threat of these nations have been eliminated, the scientist will be returned to Wakanda."
Namor wanting to remove the teeth from the lion's mouth and hitting first isn't the same thing as destroying everything and anything. Mind you, he is being chaotic, but he clearly has a concentrated target. Don't get it twisted.
Namor's Regret
It is suggested that Namor in particular felt regret and dislike for the situation in interviews, script, and in-film.
A) Namor is seen pensively on his throne, touching and cradling the shell phone as he awaits contact.
B) Namor's, "It could've been different."
C) Interestingly, Ryan and Joe Cole corroborated in The Movie Report panel interview, more regret was in every blow exchanged. Namor in particular did not want to exchange a fatal blow until he was pushed to impale Shuri on the rock in a desperate attempt to his life.
Equaling and Relating
Relating to someone is different from equalling someone. Out of all who were listed, whether it was Peter Parker, Riri Williams, or Namor, Namor is the only one out of those that is explicitly and purposefully depicted as equalling and relating to Shuri.
Namor And Shuri
The reasoning given for how Shuri works paired with Peter Parker or Riri Williams strongly applies to Shuri with Namor, so operating under the same logic, they largely work too.
"What makes both of these pairings work to a degree is the idea of them being equal in some regard(...) They clearly see each other as equal. They more or less agree on a common enemy and how to deal with said enemy, with morals and values that more or less align."
They do agree on a common enemy. That's literally half of the premise for Namor proposing an alliance where they protect one another. The problem just was how they go about handling things. Tragedy, trauma, and dramatic irony unfavorably played factors.
Otherwise, they're practically the same, and are now on the "same page". Their morals and values aren't far off either. Wakanda and Talokan are eerily similar, whether it be in having spying channels, an isolationistic approach, finding jurisdiction wherever they feel it (aka, if it regards and threatens them), only wanting to protect what they love, embracing-involving their culture-traditions, being environmentalists, and using defensive-offensive means if provoked by a perceived threat.
In visuals alone, they took great care to portray Shuri and Namor as Parallel Characters.
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The "boy without love" and the "child who scoffs at tradition." They do have a few healthy differences (I'll save that for another article), but they are equal and deeply relate.
As said on The Movie Report panel interview, Shuri became the Panther god (the Black Panther is canonically Bast's avatar), while he is the god of his civilization. They're both royals and leaders of their own nations. Said nations are sister nations, both having the power of vibranium and the highest levels of advancement. They are both broken and with a shared trauma etched deep in their hearts. They both have a righteous, divine fire and an acute sense of avenging. They both were haunted by similar grief and pain that pushed them to seek solace in one another.
Namor is described as lonely and with loneliness by Ryan Coogler, and that's exactly how Shuri felt in the beginning as well (see her Interlude), and unfortunately, later in the movie after Ramonda "dies" (but in the end, it's revealed that Ramonda, like T'Challa, is not gone.). They brought innovative technology and a new era of living to their people. They share the same love languages: acts of service and gifts.
There was an entire montage near the end of the film showcasing this.
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Riri Williams
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Riri Williams relates to Shuri in a sense of being young black women whose intelligence and talents aren't always respected by their elders. They can also relate to their fathers being murdered (if they take a page out of comics for Riri, see Ironheart #9) or the loved ones that taught them what they know being ripped away from them. Maybe they also know about diffusion too as geeks, but it stops there.
Riri, like Peter, is a teenager (19 years old) new to college (the same college Okoye states is the equivalent of a Wakandan elementary school), trying to grapple with her emerging life and school. Shuri is a princess of the most powerful nation and head of Wakandan Technology. She completed the journey of school and became a college assistant at the age of 13. Wakanda Forever was Riri's debut and entry into the game. Wakanda Forever was Shuri, who is already a non-teenaged adult at this point, journeying through her womanhood and immense grief. Shuri is not new to the game, having been in countless wars and accumulated countless experiences Riri has yet to touch.
Throughout the film, Shuri acted as the voice Riri didn't have that Namor would hear, largely due to T'Challa's influence. At the end of the film, Riri invites Shuri to a basketball game. Shuri says no, prioritizing her duties and having a full plate compared to Riri's less uncomplicated, lighthearted one. This alone highlights their differences in placement and mental space.
Big sisters do not "equal" their younger siblings. They guide and protect, having some level of authority and experience over them.
And That's Perfectly By Design
Riri and Shuri are not equals and have noticeable divergences where one cannot ever relate to or feel what the other does. Shuri won't know how Riri feels the need to prove herself as a black woman in a society where black people, black women, are given the shorter end of the stick. Shuri doesn't know anything about how it is for African Americans and law enforcement. Riri won't know the privileges or how it feels like to carry the burdens Shuri does to the extent she does. Riri does not entirely relate to Shuri's grief either. Riri was a fish out of water who constantly wanted to go home despite the beauty and safety in Wakanda. They belong to two different worlds.
It is great that they have these differences because, in the words of Dominque Thorne, they can learn from each other. Their relationship in the film is contextualized as Shuri perceiving Riri as her reflection and then taking on a mentor role. Riri is, in Letitia's words, a reflection of T'Challa's choice. There are several parallels between Riri-Shuri and T'Challa-Shuri. It gives Shuri more of a personal incentive and investment in the outreach program her brother enacted. T'Challa had the connection, learning experience, and realization of the Lost Tribe and their struggles through N'Jadaka. Shuri now has that with Riri, but positively! Riri also can offer a breath of fresh air every now and again, fulfilling the chemistry she had (bubbly, plucky younger one) with T'Challa (the more composed, older, responsible one).
Whether you want to mold and configure this into a romantic dynamic, is up to you. The point is that yes they relate, yes they do have chemistry, but no, Riri and Shuri aren't equals.
Peter Parker
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Hypothetically, Peter relates to Shuri in their intelligence (although I'd argue Shuri is smarter, Shuri's probably smarter than everyone), but that doesn't at all suggest they'd have the same interests. It doesn't work like that.
Peter (2001 baby) is younger than Shuri (1997-1998). He is just starting college. Shuri is around 22, 23 years old due to the snap. She was 19, 20 in Infinity War. Peter was 16. It's not a big age gap, but I wouldn't say they're peers. Age proximity doesn't indicate relatability either, especially if the maturity levels and experiences differ.
However, I will say, I think Peter and Shuri can relate to being orphans that do feel lonely (although Shuri lost and later gained family, Peter is left off completely alone), going through personal dark arcs, and suffering immense pain that changes the trajectory of their lives. They used to be more lighthearted, but now were forced to grow up and their perspectives darkened.
That's about it though. They aren't on the same wavelength or of the same caliber when it comes to their types of threats, challenges, and predicaments. Namor could entirely relate with her being another nation of vibranium of a culture the other nations seek to destabilize, destroy, or conquer, as well as someone with a similar depth and sense of grief. Riri could relate as a black woman living in America (lost tribe) who'd know a thing or two about persecution and was thrown into the mix between the Talokan-Wakanda conflict. Peter?
This isn't factoring in their standings either, with Shuri being an heir apparent and leader of the strongest nation on the surface with Peter being "your friendly (and now depressed) neighborhood Spiderman" that occasionally gets thrown outside his payroll.
Peter and Shuri can probably relate and it's easy to assume they'd have chemistry and may do a little chemistry together. But they do not equal either.
In Conclusion
Yes, ship and let ship. These are all great fictional characters with compelling dynamics. Shipping is largely for fun and often depends on the person's taste.
Looking at this from a perspective of a writer and storyteller, there's no such thing as it "not" working or "making sense" unless you have, excuse my language, shit and uninspiring writing.
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Gotta say your au mixed with the art style and such and amazing work in what we seen so far with the horror and some laughs it's just become a treat every time I saw new details (whenever you supplies them up, thanks for that)
I know you already disclosure that it's gonna be bad BAD TIMES for the puppets gang but does it have it's soft ad fluff times??
The shot were Frank ask Wally if they're dying will looking up for the ceiling hasn't leave my brain, such a raw emotional clear on them, I wonder when they were just the two of them for a while they cuddle or hold hands for comfort??
I just.i just want them to have small victories of comfort
of course it has fluff and comfort! a lot of it! having a nice blend of both makes the fluff feel sweeter & the hurt hit all the harder <3 i will now supply some (written (for now)) examples and tidbits. putting it under the cut cause it got kinda Long
Frank & Wally do become very affectionate with each other! ofc as soon as Frank woke Wally was like "ok im holding your hand everywhere we go, this is Non Negotiable". because its dark! he doesn't want Frank to stray too far or get lost! and it's easier to yank Frank outta harm's way if they're already holding hands. comfort factors into it later, when Frank starts initiating & Wally does it purely to make sure Frank is still there. but yeah they get Very comfortable with each other, to the point where when Eddie wakes up he asks Frank - misinterpreting the situation entirely - "if you'd rather have Wally than me, i understand." ofc Frank laughs his ass off bc uhhh no that is Not what their relationship is, Ed
~ similarly, (almost) everyone acclimates to Wally's need to be as close as possible at all feasible times. he's Very physically affectionate and has little to no regard for personal space or boundaries anymore. like, he'll listen when someone asks him to back off or somethn, but until then he does not give a fuck. and this rubs off on the others as they get used to it
and then there's OH WAIT IDK IF I'VE MENTIONED THIS YET but! Wally - during his main exploration phase - found the Welcome Home episode recordings! and he eventually figured out how to work a tv he found, so he added "watch an episode of me and my friends" into his Routine. when the others wake up, he includes them in this. is it horrifying for them at first? yeah. but they get used to it and find similar if not the same comfort and enjoyment in it that Wally does. like in This Scribble, Frank & Wally & Poppy & Howdy are all watching an episode, and are quoting the lines they've memorized. they all cuddle up on a couch together and watch their favorite show <3
& Wally also teaches them (as they wake up) how to repair and care for themselves / each other, sleeping or otherwise. picture a little sewing circle of Frank, Wally, and Poppy, with Poppy giving tips and guidance on how to improve. these sessions provide them with genuine smiles and sometimes even some laughs.
before Wally & Home's divorce, they'd pass much of the time with games! go-fish, charades, i spy, etc. one of their favorites was when Wally would toss a ball at Home's door, and Home would hit it back. additionally, whenever Wally discovered something new, he'd rush back to Home with it - either the information or the actual thing, if he could carry it. ex: when he'd find books or files, he'd bring them to Home and (quietly) read them aloud while resting against them
and just in general know that the Post Office is a place of safety. Wally has made sure it's secure. i like to imagine like... little craft sessions and impromptu dancing lessons and story sharing going on in there among the awake neighbors. they try to have fun despite it all
that's all i can recall for Act One's fluff tidbits rn, but trust me there is More. and also abundant angsty comfort. the downright painful stuff has to earn its existence yk yk this au is Not grimdark
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spinnysocks · 13 days
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incorrect lion guard as snapcube quotes
if you haven't watched snapcube then i'm sorry if this is really out of context LMAO but that's kinda the point :)
Makucha: See ya, cheetah!
Fuli: Huh? He's faster than Fuli. He's faster than Fuli. What?
Janja, annoyed: What is it this time Ushari?
Ushari: Janja, you found my You're A Bitch Degree!
Janja, after one of Scar's meetings: ...Something just happened.
Nduli: When was the last time you washed your paws? I haven't washed mine in four days. I've also been eating rocks-
Tamka: Rocks?! Nuh uh uh, that's not food!
Nduli: What about grass-
*Butterfly lands on Tamka's nose* Tamka: This is food Nduli!
Nduli: It's beautiful, I love your new hat! I'm gonna name him.. Mwamba!
*Butterfly starts flying away*
Tamka: You scared it away! :(
Nduli: Bye Mwamba! :)
Tamka: Bye Mwamba..
Janja: Hey, you know what this place looks like? Looks like the Pridelands! *starts singing Tonight We Strike*
Janja, to the skinks: Are you in on this conspiracy to?!
Shupavu: Everything is a conspiracy, haven't you ever seen the Circle of Life?
Janja: Wh-What?!
*waiting for Scar's meeting*
Reirei: Are we just doing this now? A bunch of assholes standing in a line? Congratulations!
Janja: Ah fuck, she got us there guys. Well.............
Ushari, while Janja's Clan are hysterically laughing: Alright, I think we need to figure out what we're going to do about this-
Kenge: It's not important that we lost! Look at who's responsible! *points at Janja*
Janja, pointing up: I'll point at you also.
Kenge: I'm not the sky, hyena.
Janja: We're doing Nne's plan? We're all agreeing that Nne came up with this right?
Cheezi: Yeah... 2, 3, 4, 5, 6- Here we go! :D
Janja to Reirei: Sorry that sounded like I wanted to kill you, I didn't mean that. *whispering to everyone else* I do wanna kill her don't fucking tell- I don't wanna kill you, don't worry! I wanna kill her so fucking bad! I didn't say anything to them just now. You know what I said! I-I gotta go, uh, think about some stuff!-
*Battle for the Pridelands in a nutshell*
Scar: Heyyyyy~ What's uppppp?~ It's meeeeeeeee~
Kion: STOP! >:(
Scar: I don't know how to impress upon you that you cannot defeat me.
The Guard: Kion!
Scar: Oh, your friends are here!
The Guard: We're here to help you!
Scar: It's really cute that you're going to defeat me with the power of friendship and all, but then again I am Scar from the Lion King, so-
Kion: You didn't let me finish, Scar!
Scar: Mhm, go ahead.
Kion: I have-
Scar: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I don't care. I do not care! You don't understand. I came back here to destroy the Pridelands. This means nothing to me! Alright? You mean nothing to me! You and your little friends are fucking annoying! This is why I stayed down in lion hell. This is why I punish Pridelanders. I'm the good guy! Do you not realise? I am the good guy here! I am the true King of the Pridelands! Mufasa goes up and he plays with all his little friends like "Oh look, are you watching over the Pridelands?" Yeah, whatever. Fuck everybody.
Kion: Ah!
Scar: I get to kill people! I get to command my army all day! It's great, give me the Pridelands! You don't get it. You watch your stupid little privileges. Fuck you. Idiot.
*The Guard yells*
Scar: Go to hell! *makes the volcano erupt* Look, I can do this! Anytime I want! This is nothing to me! You are nothing to me! I hate you! I HATE YOU! THIS IS MY BIG FUCKING VOLCANO!
Bunga: Oh my god, he's fucking losing it entirely!
Chungu & Cheezi: All around me are familiar faces, work out places, worn out places- IS THAT WHAT A HOUSE LOOKS LIKE? Oh my stars! This place is amazing! Where am I, the Pridelands?...... Worn out places~ (thanks to @devilsrecreation for that one 😭)
feel free to reblog with additions, there's too many quotes to put in here </3
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youphoriaot7 · 7 months
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Would love to hear what you have for bad or any of the french!!
I have my own ideas but love hearing how others interpret things hehe >:]
And maxo is def lonely...I'd say eye before but he's so alone :<
OOH alrighty this was fun >:3 i totally feel you! i love hearing other opinions too >.> especially for stuff like this, because everyone interprets it differently!!!
note: these are all q!, of course, so keep that in mind! i also don't watch these ccs very frequently, so this is just what i've noticed! :D
bad is, arguably, the end. this one probably isn't a surprise—he is literally the grim reaper. but on top of that, as shown especially in his recent arcs, he will not hesitate to end life if necessary. he's immortal[?], he's seen a lot of death. it doesn't faze him quite the same way anymore. his rage is cold and calculated (hello, ron). he just has this air of...inevitability.
antoine is the stranger. hands down. i'm sorry, but this man(? question mark?) is so freaking weird /pos. he totally nails that uncanny valley-type vibe, the not-entirely-human thing. i also like to think of it as though he's performing, masquerading amongst the humans. i just...hmm. i love antoine.
baghera is the lonely. that hurts me so bad to write ksjfgsk but especially after the recent lore, it makes sense. she seems to have a tendency to close herself off from people, whether she realizes it or not. she's close with people, don't get me wrong—but it's...i don't know. it's not the same. i can't quite explain it.
etoiles is the slaughter. i know that feels like an obvious answer, but it just. makes. sense. the man is a fighter, through and through—whether he wants to be or not. his first reaction—whether joking or not—is generally violence, in some way. i also really love the way the tma wiki says this: "fear of not knowing where, how, or when pain will come—but that it will." i feel like that quote is just...really applicable to etoiles.
pierre is the eye. pierre was tricky, i'm not gonna lie, but i really think he falls under the eye. he sees a lot more than he admits he sees. his mechanical brain is freakin' incredible. he puts things together super quickly once he has all the pieces—see philza's birdcage incident as an example. i just. yeah. eye vibes.
i'm abstaining from kameto. mans is out getting cigarettes. just havin' a good time. good for him to be honest. avoidin' the horrors. <3
also, i wanted to take a stab at maxo myself—i completely agree that he fits the lonely so well (my poor cubito :( ), but i would argue that maxo is the spiral! i dunno, i just feel like a lot of parts of his lore have very...spiral-esque feelings to them. false friendships, gaslighting, madness—in a way, he's turning into a sort of spiral himself, what with that leg—can he even trust himself anymore?
thank you for asking!! >.> :D hope i was entertaining >:3
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grandlinedreams · 2 months
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Ahhhhh hellooo welcome back! <3 How are you doing? It’s so good to see you in my feed again! :)
Have you seen the game Love and Deepspace that’s been floating around? It’s an otome game for the phone/tablet that kind of reminds me of final fantasy with its game play and animation style. And the guys are just 😍😍😍. I was wondering (if it’s okay with you!) to request what you think Law, Azriel, and maybe Rhysand’s reactions would be to their s/o spending all their time with the characters in the game instead of them? Just some cute and silly jealous scenarios?
!! Hiya!! It feels good to be back hehe, I've missed you all and really missed writing!! But ooh, I'll have to check it out, but yeah, I can do that!! I hope this is to your liking!!
|| warnings: jealous boys, a little suggestive in Rhys', Law is an adorable nerd and so is sulky Azriel
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Law ㅡ as a man who has his own interests in comics and coin collecting, I feel like Law sees your interest in the game as cute, especially when he watches your eyes light up as you talk about them to him. It's a two-way street to him because he's spent many a night explaining Sora to you, so seeing you so invested is endearing to him. As far as jealousy goes, I can see it being more of a teasing point for him of "do I need to be more like that character?" and then watching you scramble to reassure him that no, he's the only one for you ㅡ he knows, but your adamant reassurance makes him feel good.
Rhysand ㅡ Rhys absolutely has the time of his life teasing you about it. He'll quote dialogue lines to you, watching your cheeks color and cooing about how cute you are when you're flustered ㅡ the man is a menace, truly. He really isn't genuinely jealous, but he'll make a show of it because he also thinks it's funny to rile you up ㅡ can he help it if you snapping "quit being a menace, Rhysand" has desire sparking in his veins? He tugs your console out of your hand and settles over you, violet eyes bright against the expanding dark of his pupils as he leans in. "Darling," he purrs, "I haven't even begun to be a menace with you."
Azriel ㅡ probably the one your attention shift bothers the most ㅡ it's cute at first, but that little flicker of self-doubt gnaws on him when he hears you gush about the characters, even though he knows they're not real. He thinks it's dumb that it's upsetting him so much, but you're so in tune with him that you pick up on it ㅡ and you gently reassure him that there's absolutely no way that you would ever choose one of them over him. If you tease him gently about sulking, he denies it (but he absolutely was).
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agent-calivide · 3 months
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I kinda roll my eyes whenever I see posts mocking the whole "don't spam like" "unalive" tiktokification of social media, but not in the genuine "it's a fucking travesty that people have to self censor and think about algorithms that actively tries to screw over the users" way but rather in a "haha, new social media is dumb, I'm a bitter 30 year old" way.
Like, yeah, on Tumblr getting the response of "don't spam like" is fucking annoying because it doesn't do shit other than just show that someone's looking at all of your stuff, but spam liking is not binging a page. It is specifically when someone goes onto someone's tiktok and proceeds to mass-like videos without actually watching them all the way through, it's just scrolling and liking without actually watching the content, which communicates to the algorithm "hey, this person's videos suck because people stop watching at the 3 second mark" and stops pushing your videos.
This doesn't matter for people who are doing it for fun, I don't care personally on my tiktok, spam like away, but when people are trying to make a career out of it by either being an influencer or advertising their small business or trying to show music they've written or just wanna share work they're proud of it's annoying to get screwed by someone showing misplaced love. Especially when there was a window of time were people would spam like as an attack to try and fuck someone over and "shadowban" them.
And the making fun of the censoring is even more fucking stupid. I have posted 2 videos that got dinged for having inappropriate content and got two strikes on my tiktok that I've been running for about 5 years. Anyone who has seen my tiktoks knows I am as inoffensive as you get, I don't do thirst traps, I have Content and Trigger and Flash warnings, I hand-type captions on all of my videos and if I do use the auto-generated ones I watch the video back to make sure they're all correct, I just lipsync to silly audios and basically make video versions of incorrect quotes of whatever my hyperfixation is at the moment.
One was me painting a nerf gun and a nerf crossbow to look like a real gun and real crossbow to be props, which was dinged for showing firearms. My video of me painting a neon yellow gun and bright pink crossbow to black and woodgrain was marked as dangerous content because either someone chose to report me or whatever scanners they use to pick out "dangerous" videos misread and assumed I had real firearms and wouldn't repeal it. My other video, with multiple content and trigger warnings, had an audio that went "For my next trick, I'm gonna fucking kill myself". And while the audio was allowed to stay on tiktok and other people were allowed to use it, because I had a caption and a description that read: TW: Suicidal ideation and properly typing out captions, I got penalized.
But with tiktok, your post isn't just taken down, you have a limited number of strikes and if you get too many, you're entire fucking page is eaten. Just gone, erased, and there is no way for you to get it back. And I have two strikes for: painting a toy black and lipsyncing to a popular audio.
People aren't arbitrarily using "sewer-slide" "grapist" "unalived" and "pew pew" because they wanna infantilize this serious issue, it's because they want to talk about this serious issue without being silenced and, like it or not, tiktok is where word travels fast and to the biggest audience these days. Being "shadowbanned" and having all of your messages get strangled because you used the proper terminology, if not getting kicked straight off the platform, is too high a risk for someone who uses that platform. Especially if they do also use it to advertise, to squeeze a few pennies from the creator fund, to try and make it big or even just to fucking have fun.
I don't know if shadowbanning ever was actually a thing, I just do silly costumes to songs for fun, but there were many people who'd be trying to get traction to show work or get sales or speak out about a bad situation and suddenly they'd go from getting hundreds of thousands of views on every single video to maybe a couple hundred because they had the audacity to say "this shooter is a fucking monster" rather than "this [pew-pewer] is a [bad bad person]"
And if TikTok was their first social media platform, of course they're gonna think other platforms are also ruling with an iron fist. I still feel weird being allowed to say shit like gun and murder on Tumblr because there's a voice in the back of my head that says I'm gonna get my entire blog taken away for daring to use the proper words.
I don't know, maybe I'm missing something, but I think the most well known and most encouraged to use platform of these last few years is also one that's so highly regulated that people are pre-emptively trying to figure out how to talk about important things without it totalitarian-ly beating them into a fine paste with the algorithm so people just see the silly little dance videos tiktok would rather push over the people communicating real world problems is more fucked up than Stacy saying "unalived" on Reddit out of habit.
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undescribed1mage · 3 months
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breaking down my doctor who playlist by what from the show they remind me of the most <3
As The World Caves In by Matt Maltese — The Doctor & The Master, more specifically in The End of Time Part One & Two & Last Of The Time Lords. but also. just. vibes (vibes about the doctor holding the saxon master after he was shot).
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon — All of the Christmas specials but mainly, again, The End of Time part one & two. & . everything about that.
Two Birds by Regina Spektor — The Master and The Doctor, again (they're awful), but also twelve & clara with the bird symbolism and clara leaving when he tried to save her, clara being brave and letting go, and Jack & Torchwood &. everything with that (i've never seen Torchwood but I still know like. most of what happens)
Memories by Conan Gray — Martha Jones, specifically in the episodes after her season (also Jack in seasons 3 & 4). With 'It's been a couple months / that's just about enough time / for me to stop crying when I look at all the pictures / now i kinda smile / i haven't felt that in awhile'. 'You see / it's hard to find an end to something that you keep beginning / over and over again.'
I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers — Ten's era, with different companions for different parts like — "When I get back I'll lay around / then i'll get up and lay back down / romanticize a quiet life / there's no place like my room." with Donna at the end of Journey's end, and "Out in the park we watch the sunset / talking on a rusty swing set / after awhile you got quiet / and i got mean / always pushing you away from me / but you come back with gravity / and when I call / you come home / a bird in your teeth." (the last line specifically with the fact that Jack was Supposed to be in a good man goes to war). I also think it works very well with The End Of Time Part One & Two & just. the world almost ending at the end of s4
Your Sister Was Right by Wilbur Soot — You know how like. every mother during the RTD (pt1) era slapped the doctor at some point? yeah. just. the doctor in reference 2 rose, martha, & donna & their mothers. as well as the doctor thinking that they're bad news which is something that comes up quite a bit with these songs.
Why Didn't You Stop Me? by Mitski — I don't really know how to explain this one it just. gives me ex-companion vibes, specifically with 'I look for a picture of you / to keep in my pocket / but i can't seem to find one / where you look how I remember'.
Long Live by Taylor Swift — In reference to a companion departure, from the Doctor's pov with 'will you take a moment? / promise me this / that you'll stand by me forever / but if, god forbid, fate should step in / and force us into a goodbye / if you have children someday / when they point to the pictures / please tell them my name.' & 'i had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.' I think, if we're going for a specific companion, it's very the Doctor & Donna coded.
Walking All Day by Graham Coxon — something about how multiple companions have followed the Doctor to the end of the universe (specifically martha & jack but I think it could also work with clara) & how devoted companions are to them, especially the ones that are interested in him romantically (that one rory quote that's him talking about how the doctor makes people want to impress them).
Never Love An Anchor by The Crane Wives — Part of my interpretation with this when it comes to Doctor Who is how the Doctor, after losing a companion, is always 'i will never love again this is the end for me...' & then he meets the next companion & does it all over again (& in specific situations, such as Donna & Amy & Susan & Vicki, they're very similar to the person he just lost), and also how awful ten was to Martha (& Jack) & oblivious to most of it because of the loss of Rose (it's a secret i keep tucked inside my chest / with this heart of mine that's guilty not remorseful / there is love that doesn't have a place to rest / but it would've buried you if it had settled on your shoulders). The Doctor just also (as seen in the Church On Ruby Road) just thinks they're bad news in general (no comment from my end on this) &. yeah
Two paragraphs for this one! The second interpretation I have is specifically the first doctor after the loss of Susan, and how he was (for the end of their time together, which was what we saw in Susans serials) very hard on her especially for her last two serials. Also, him leaving her behind & 'so I did the only thing that I could / and severed the rope that set you sailing from my harbor'. I don't have a lot to say about this but. the doctor & susan make me so :(
Be Safe, Be Good (For Rachel) from Ride The Cyclone — do you ever think about how many deaths (companions or otherwise) (no spoilers please i'm on series ten for nuwho & season two (soon to be three!) of classic who so) the doctor has caused. indirectly or directly. do you ever think about clara & how her family and her students will likely never know what happened to her. do you ever think
Blue Lips by Regina Spektor — originally when i added this to the playlist (back when i was first making it, probably around me watching series five) i had intended it to be about the doctor but now i think it's more about ashildr / lady me and how much she's seen and how much she's lost. she forgets anything she hasn't written down (and rips pages of things she wants to forget out) and she's seen the world in most of it's phases, she's seen societies crumble and rise &. yeah
The Main Character by Will Wood — I have so much 2 say about this one. buckle in. i'm that first person they talk about in all the books.' him being referenced in literally the first episode of torchwood (for valid reasons he is a very important part of jacks story). & 'imagine if protagonists just died in the first scene.' cut to jacks death in everything changes. & 'I loot plot armor from NPCs / well they are to me.' again. the amount of people that have tried to help him & died. specifically one off ones. & 'Villains are everywhere / that's how I know that I'm a hero.' yhe battle of canary wharf. enough said. & 'Her majesty says the royal we demand a stander of loyalty / an agreement to be reverent / link the emperor's new boots' something about tooth & claw. + so much more that i don't feel like elaborating on rn !!!! they even mention daleks in the song <3
Right Where You Left Me by Taylor Swift — SARAH. JANE. SMITH. It is so her coded. The way the doctor left her, and how in School Reunion she talked about how the Doctor was her life (such a good episode btw). & . she was just waiting. for him 2 come back. & . godddd. i'd break down these lyrics too but i'd be saying the same thing (basically just what i've already said) about all of them so. just listen 2 it or look up the lyrics & you'll see.
Thinking About A Potentially Awkward Interaction With An Old Friend by Crywank — another ex-companion song !!! I don't have any in particular for this but i feel like whenever past companions return for an episode or two it's never nearly as awkward as it should've been, especially with Martha & Sarah Jane, especially how much the tenth doctor had grown (& how much Martha had grown !!!) in between s3 & s4 Alone !!!! 'Well memories sure / they're precious / that's true / but I don't want to make any new ones with you' is sooo Martha. & 'It would be nice to underline it / but i know we're both doing fine without the other in our life.' & ESPECIALLY 'yes / time away has taught me that I like this distance from you'.
River Like You by Maya Hawke — the riverdoctorjack polycule is insane. man. & this is on here for them <3 i think a lot about how jack's other male love interests at least vaguely resemble the ninth doctor in some ways, and how he & river are both immortals so they'd be the perfect people to travel with. & how the doctor tries, at times, to separate himself from both of them (much more severe with jack). 'i've loved a river like you before / i'm a river too'.
Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers — Martha Jones deserves to be SO bitter about how the doctor treated her. SO bitter. 'you said when you met me you were bored.' & 'i have emotional motion sickness / i try to stay clean and live without.' & . yeah. martha jones you will always be famous. also 'and while you're bleeding on your back in the glass / i'll be glad that i made it out / & i'm sorry that it all went down like it did.' in reference to the end of time part two.
Smoke and Mirrors by Emily Rohm — certain parts of it. are kind've the like traditional backstory for a companion (with nuwho) like. 19-25 year old girl who lives with her parents & is bored of everyday life & still waiting for her life to begin & then the doctor comes along & she's swept away into time & space & now she's sosososo important !! + 'She walks alone every morning / down the same old street / and wonders how she let her days get stuck on this endless repeat / she wants that movie life / a hero comes to sweep her off her feet / they'll run away'. & there's other parts that could fit but generally. just the same idea
Black Sheep from Scott Pilgrim — 'Hello again, friend of a friend / knew you when / our common goal was waiting for the world to end / now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend / you crack the whip, shape-shift and trick the past again.' literally no other part of this song matters in reference to this playlist. it is just that & the fact that it reminds me of the master <3
The Lucky One by Taylor Swift — companions drive me so crazy btw. specifically companions after leaving the doctor. 'It was a few years later, I showed up here / and they still tell the legend of how you disappeared / how you took the money and your dignity and got the hell out / they say you bought a bunch of land somewhere / chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square / and it took some time, but I understand it now.' with a current companion thinking about a past companion. & just. idk. something about bad wolf & the girl who walked the earth & the most important woman in all of creation & the girl who waited & the impossible girl & so on. the lucky ones.
Mr. Perfectly Fine by Taylor Swift — I've realized that from this playlist it makes me seem like a swiftie but i'm not i just enjoy some of her music & mr perfectly fine is the most tenjack coded song in all of existence. nine being at the very least interested in jack, traveling with him & flirting with him & kissing him & then ten turning around & running away from him & calling him wrong ('mr change of heart'). 'oh he's so smug / mr always wins'. 'hello / mr casually cruel'. 'always at the right place at the right time'. 'he goes about his day / forgets he ever even heard my name' . & last. but oh so definitely not least. ''cause I hear he's got his arm 'round a brand-new girl / i've been pickin' up my heart, he's been pickin' up her / and I never got past what you put me through / but it's wonderful to see that it never phased you'. I am so emotional about doctorjack can you tell.
Viva La Vida by Coldplay (Covered by Annapantsu) — don't ask me why i didn't add the original version on here i just didn't feel like it. anyways. it reminds me a lot of elevens era, with a good man goes to war & rory's line about how he (the doctor) doesn't make people brave, he makes them want to impress him (SO TRUE KING !!!) & the day of the doctor. i think it could also work with the time war & eight & the war doctor (i've only listened 2 some of eighths audios, working my way through them rn). & Maybe the battle of Canary Wharf. just generally. the doctor. & war. & how he is respected. oh & also him being the PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD IN CRISIS ???
Soldier Poet King by The Oh Hellos — saw a post about this in relation 2 ninejackrose & it got me thinking. rory soldier eleven poet amy king. i think if you tried hard enough this template could fit a lpt of the tardis teams. that's all <3
Little Soldiers by The Crane Wives — the master & the doctor. again. 'on the broken backs of all the words we spared / like little soldiers in the trenches' we're gonna take the metaphors a little seriously here & i'm gonna mention how the doctor has a habit of turning companions into soldiers and fighters. & . again. he makes people want to impress him. i think the rest of the song is still very them but that's the only part that i really have anything to talk about (besides 'i swear that you loved me / i swear that i loved you).
Not Strong Enough by Boygenius — 'Always an angel, never a god / Aways an angel, never a god /Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god / Always an angel, never a god' is so. companions in general coded. why can't they just have a nice time :(
Nowhere Man by The Beatles — I think this may be one of the only songs on here that portrays the doctor in a semi positive light :-) !!! — oh wait nvm forgot the lyrics. sorry we're criticising the doctor again (i adore them i swear. what a guy) 'He's as blind as he can be / just sees what he wants to see' @ ten. sorry buddy. you're really being attacked in this post aren't you. 'Doesn't have a point of view / knows not where he's going to.' do you ever think about how the doctor just sort've. wanders aimlessly in between companions. like. sir how'd you end up in victorian london wearing amy's glasses. 'Nowhere man / the world is at your command.' They are PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD IN EMERGENCIES. UNIT why would you let them have this power.
Interplanet Janet from Schoolhouse Rock — Added as a joke . for the sillies of it <3
Partner in Crime by Madilyn Mei — another Jack song (can you tell he's my favorite companion) but only like. a certain part of it (i have not listened 2 it all the way through but i heard a clip from it & went oh my god jack harkness... & here we are). 'Run for it / I'll keep 'em occupied for you / 'cause i love you / i love you so / left me hangin' at the station / but you'll be back for me soon / i'm 'bout to die / yet the only thing i'm worried about is you / something tells me you aren't coming / i guess i'm truly doomed.' it is so INSANELY PARTING OF THE WAYS CODED !!! Me when he sacrificed himself for the doctor & rose me when he was so ready to die for them. me when he woke up from DEATH to the tardis dematerializing and leaving him surrounded by dead bodies so far away from his home (which is the tardis. but yk). he was about to die and the only thing he was worried about was them. something tells him they aren't coming. he guesses he's truly doomed. j just. raigdhdjdhhdjd. he drives me crazy.
Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis — 'Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n roll band / who'll throw it all away.' so. many. fatalities, tumblr. that's all.
Oh Distant You by Wilbur Soot — okay i've already written this specific part out but tumblr deleted it when i switched from the page that i had the next songs lyrics in so i'm just gonna take a photo of the lyrics that are SO ten post rose coded & hope you read them
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am i the biggest tenrose fan? no :( not on their own, at least, however i will accept that he loved & adored her. he loved her So Much. she was the first face that face saw !!!! & there are other companions that this song could work with but in my head. it's a them song. (this would probably be like. at the end of the end of time part two. him thinking about this.)
The Ballad of Lucy Gray from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes — i've never seen the ballad of songbirds and snakes (or consumed any hungergames media) however i do think that this song is clara coded <3 i can't really explain it but. amelia pond i love you dearly. i think that specifically 'it's sooner than later that I'm six feet under / it's sooner than later that you'll be alone / so who will you turn to tomorrow, I wonder? / for when the bell rings, lover, you're on your own'. her talking about how twelve needs to be on his own in face the raven. & how she needs him 2 understand that he cannot keep her from dying & that it's her time (he's already lost her at least twice, and that's just when we see her in the show). ''cause I am the one who looks out when you're leaping / I am the one who knows how you were brave / and I am the one who heard what you said sleeping / i'll take that and more when I go to my grave' i think this is more twelve or ashildr about her. & how she said 'let me be brave' before she died, and how she slowly became more daring after spending time with the doctor because that's just what he does (not gonna quote rory again but. yk) & how the original clara oswald (not oswin oswald or clara oswin oswald)s first appearance in the show was her standing over her own grave !!! 'Well, all right, I'm bad, but then, you're no prize either / Al right, I'm bad, but then, that's nothing new / You say you won't love me, I won't love you neither / Just let me remind you what I am to you.' clara, you are exactly what he deserves. & vice versa. they are both so awful & it is so insane. the doctorification of clara is so much worse than the other companions.
No One Lives Forever by Oingo Boingo — i . cannot explain this one. it is PURE vibes.
All My Little Words by The Magnetic Fields — last song (as of rn! there may have been more added by the time you're reading this) & surprise surprise. it's a doctorjack song. 'I could make you fly away / but i could never make you stay.' imagine you're jack harkness & the man you loved (& the only other immortal you know) is REPULSED by you. he keeps running away. 'You said you were in love with me / both of us know that that's impossible' i think this is from the doctors pov. it just seems like something he'd think. 'Now that you've made me want to die / you tell me that you're unboyfriendable' the tenth doctor after flirting by asking jack if he wants 2 die & then holding the man that tortured jack in his arms as he died in a similar fashion to jacks first death (being shot in some way). his ass Is Unboyfriendable
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so so I finally found words for it but there is no way Annie as a character is meant to be with Jeff,,, and yes this does come from a place of hate for anything even remotely related to JeffAnnie but it's also more than that and totally based on their behavior towards each other throughout the seasons but I just found the perfect moment that incapsulates it
and that is in 4x13 Advanced Intro to Finality wherein Jeff is ready to graduate and there's sorta paintball with the darkest timeline and all that (which just saying is such a cool fucking setup but this is not the post where I talk about it) and both the Annie's (from the normal and darkest timeline) are facing off against each other,,, what the evil Annie tries to persuade the normal Annie with is the fact that they (jeff and her) are sleeping together in this alternate future and normal Annie literally responds with, and I quote, "No-one is supposed to sleep with him. Not even me." let that sink in
Now does this seem like somebody who has a serious romantic crush/is in love with the guy? What it seems like to me is a case of admiration (as a person and a human being) which is further warped into her assuming it's love because that's what we're supposed to do and told to do by society... What is more she obviously views Britta as a woman who (might not be the smartest and I will always hate on how the show ruined her character) but is still recognised and acknowledged as a woman,, something that Annie feels alienated from since most people look at her and tend to infantilize her (which is also a part in her dynamic with Jeff which is just,, n o),,, so a lot of the tines she tends to look at britta's choice of partners to turn to, to fall in love with (obv this is something that I derived from the 6 seasons laid out before me but this is my opinion and yeah)
and yeah the question then becomes why didn't she do the same with Shirley,,, number 1. Shirley is obviously in a different place in her life with her husband and kids,,, number 2. Shirley and her also have quite a big age gap which is again only widened by number 1,,, and number 3, if you notice properly there are episodes wherein you can see her try to emulate Shirley,,, the easiest and most off the top of my head example being the one where they are the campus security together which does end with her professing that she wants to be a grown powerful woman like her.
Now, if we talk about her other main crush, talking about Troy here throughout the first few seasons,,, it's again based a lot on her admiration for him for being popular and again THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO AND WANT TO BE especially when you're literally at the sidelines of the high school hierarchy so much so that you would busy your ass to score good and do good but still never be known by anyone or acknowledged for anything you do,,, and she technically knew nothing about him which at most i can grant her being infatuated w him and yeah
and most of her attraction to anyone feels very surface level,, in the this-is-what-i've-seen-people-do-so-this-is-what-i-need-to-do-as-well,, instead of being properly attracted in a,,, i want to be romantically with you sense,,, she's essentially creating a fairytale of her life and idealising it and all the models she has for them are heterosexually inclined,, so this is the kind of behavior she ends up adopting and emulating,,
so a large part of Annie's behavior I do chalk up to heterosexual compulsivity (or comphet) because there are moments throughout wherein she shows more admiration and love for women than men in a i-want-to-be-with-you kind of way (and it would be really interesting to look at her struggle as a difficulty to differentiate btw I want to be her,,, and I want to be with her)
a large part of her character is also so interesting to me because of the fact that it feels like she gets away from the writers quite a bit,,, because a lot of the instances you can see how the writers want her to be perceived vs how she ends up being perceived by us (but that's true for most things related to media concerning the expected reception vs the actual reception)
i didn't know this was going to end up being a lesbian or at least queer Annie post either,, but apparently that's my truth and I stand by it
(also I do acknowledge the fact that the part of all this (the part about her being queer) can be chalked up to my own desires and biases and a little bit of projection but regardless,,, in any case, JeffAnnie is still weird and bad and doesn't really fit for their characters regardless (technically for both of theirs but this too long already) and I'm a firm believer of that (anti JeffAnnie till the day I die fr)
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dailycass-cain · 3 months
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Birds of Prey #5 kicks off 2024 with our first appearance of Cass in the new year! It is also near the end point of the series' first arc!
So how's it going with the fill-in artist? Well, time for my thoughts...
I think I'll start with the only "minor nitpick" and that's we're on the fifth issue and well I'm so accustomed to Leonardo Romero's version of Cass I'm thrown a little off that we're back to "normal" looking bat ears Cass by Arist Deyn for the issue.
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It took a moment for my mind to adjust to the fact, "Oh right another artist's interpretation of Cass." And that's when my mind went back into the story. Besides the other cues of the Romero tweak is there with the blue hue inside the cape.
Sides...
It's an artist I've never seen draw Cass. I'm good with it. Moving on.
Cass has a surprisingly meaty role in the issue going back and forth throughout. I was expecting a lesser role like in #3 but nope every member gets a good chunk in this issue.
Cass is mainly in "go-to" position. She's one of the first Birds who sees Dinah after Sin is taken. She's given the task to fetch something, is the witness to Zealot/Wonder Woman "round 2", and---
-- well to quote a famous web series I love to rewatch, "Multiverse theory is a bitch". See we get another clue as to why Babs and maybe a few others aren't in this arc (or why some are and still events are going down as they are).
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From this brief exchange between Meridian (gosh I want to call her "Mirai Maps" from now on given the way this issue clicked).
It's obvious that Mirai Maps has been playing a game. A game to try and stop Megera from absorbing Sin, achieve "perfection" and destroying the world.
So far, the "attempts" at trying this has seems like A LOT, and you can tell Cass catches on with the last bit. I'm just a bit surprised she didn't inquire more into the OTHER outcomes.
It sounds like Dinah knows this, hence why she's been following Mirai Maps' rules of not letting Babs in on this (and I'm curious what happens if Babs finds out).
Regardless, it seems like A LOT of attempts have been made, and this just happens to be the latest against Megera.
Also one tiny little note, I love that Megera is literally the panel-lines in this issue. They are EVERYWHERE after being unleashed last issue.
I wonder if it'll continue next? Be nice if it still goes on until the issue's end given the implications of this issue that multitasking without a host is quite hard for Megera.
However, they do possess the mega rod. So there is that.
This issue was fun ramping everything up even more with the arc's villain staying their plan, showcasing their powers (their strengths and weaknesses), and well all the Birds get a fun moment.
I'm really curious how writer Kelly Thompson will wrap this arc up, and given the seeds throughout these issues how the next will go? Not to mention how they pertain to Cass?
Gawds I almost wish we had Batgirls around still with Cass absent with this going on while Steph/Babs have an adventure. That'd be SWEET.
So yeah, another stellar issue from the GOAT of series at DC right now. Gosh, it hurts as much as Tec waiting for that next issue to drop next.
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