#like; this is coming from the perspective of someone who's only here for the stories; its quite fascinating
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Salutations! I’m in the process of creating a story wherein both characters are missing an eye. One has a prosthetic, but is presently isolating themself in the woods, and wears an eyepatch to protect the eye while alone; the other’s socket is either empty, or they have a glass eye with no actual details (iris, pupil, etc.). I’ve struggled to find references for the latter, and fear it may come off as unrealistic. I understand prosthetic eyes keep the eyelid from collapsing, but aside from that could a person just not wear one? If these options are unrealistic, please let me know. I can supply you with concept art if need be.
The story itself centers around these characters after one of them finds the other by accident. They’re painted as foils—the one hiding out in the cabin adhering to a self-made sense of logic that centers on cycles and confirmation bias, while the only who takes refuge there after running away is deeply paranoid and prone to hallucinations. The first character is missing their left eye; the other their right. I don’t want to make a symbol of their disabilities, but I feel their designs simultaneously stress their opposing perspectives, as well as the fact they paradoxically still manage to see “eye-to-eye.” Their visual impairment is just one of many ways they’re able to connect across the story, as they also bond over their obscure passions and delusions, and respect each other’s warped worldview to such an extent said worldviews start to blur together. In addition to this, the story places an emphasis upon an entity known as the “ocellus,” which is basically the “false eye” you see on moth wings. In my outline so far, it’s the name of a mysterious band which the pair discover in a record collection, and resolve to solve the mystery of (regarding the members, music, etc.) One of the characters also sleeps with an eye mask with the pattern of moth wings and their respective ocelli overlaying their own eyes; their paranoid counterpart also sees eyes in the trees and wood of the cabin.
Absolutely none of this is set in stone; before it is, I just want to know how much of it is fine, which parts “moralize” or make a symbol of a disability, and what is straight-up ableist. Please let me know if you need more details.
Hi!
The prosthetic eye has two main functions: 1) to keep the eye area stay in shape, 2) to protect the socket. Both of these can be achieved by conformers (it's like a big contact, except it goes into the socket and not on the eye) which I talked about here!
A blank prosthetic eye would probably be fine. The process of getting it custom painted is expensive from what I know, and IRL a lot of people will decide on the generic kind rather than a custom. If in your world the generic happens to be a blank, there's no problems I can think of? Potentially, you could explicitly say that it's not how most prosthetic eyes look like (maybe someone else knows a person with an eye prosthetic and they comment that it's unusual?). You mentioned that the character doesn't have it in all the time, so I don't think the trope of "blind character has blank/white/milky eyes" applies here because it's clear that it's a prosthetic.
A person could decide to go bare, but the sensation of blinking could be uncomfortable, and they would need to clean their socket more to get rid of anything that could get inside. Normal saline could be used for that.
I don't think there's an issue in them missing different eyes at all. If you want to make sure it's not giving "Just Magic Symbolism" energy then you could incorporate some boring everyday things that would make sense. If they go somewhere together, they could decide to walk missing eye-to-missing eye, so that they see what's going on the sides rather than in the middle, things like that. It could make it feel more grounded, so to speak.
I don't see any issues with the moth fake-eyes symbolism either, I think it makes sense for the story you're trying to tell.
If you want to be very safe, I would have a character (can be minor, or background) that's also missing eye(s) that's not connected to any of the potential symbolism and is more of an average Joe of Not Having an Eye.
In case you decide to get into that, it would be nice for them to have different causes of why they don't have eyes. It feels like in fiction it's always physical trauma, but there's a whole more that could cause someone to not have an eye;
anophthalmia,
retinoblastoma,
severe eye infection,
elective enucleation (removal) of an already blind/painful eye,
just to give you a few ideas! Giving them "boring" everyday reasons of eye loss will also make it feel less symbolic and more like a regular disability. Think "dramatic swordfight with Huge Meaning" vs "yeah I had cancer in my eye when I was 2".
I hope that this helps; if you have any further details you'd like to ask about feel free to send another ask!
mod Sasza
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The Heroine's Journey: Lucy MacLean
“The feminine journey is a journey in which the hero gathers the courage to face death and endure the transformation toward being reborn as a complete being in charge of her own life.” — 45 Master Characters
In her book 45 Master Characters, Victoria Schmidt outlines the steps and phases in the Feminine Journey as seen in many traditional stories such as myths and fairy tales. Unlike The Hero’s Journey, which focuses on the external, The Heroine’s Journey is about inner exploration.
In the following analysis, I will examine Lucy MacLean’s journey so far in Fallout (2024). I believe it will be interesting to identify at what stage she is by the end of S1 which will give us an idea of what likely awaits her in S2.
Note: This analysis is written for fun. It is my own reading of the character and her journey. You’re welcome to have your own. Spoilers ahead!
Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey has nine stages:
ACT 1 Containment:
1. The Illusion of the Perfect World
2. The Betrayal or Realisation
3. The Awakening or Preparing for the Journey
4. The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgement
ACT 2 Transformation:
5. The Eye of the Storm
6. Death – All Is Lost
7. Support
ACT 3 Emergence:
8. Rebirth – The Moment of Truth
9. Full Circle – The Return to the Perfect World
The Illusion of Perfect World
ACT 1
2. The Betrayal or Realization
In the first episode, we meet Lucy content in Vault 33. We are shown a whole montage of her perfect life in her perfect shelter. It’s designed to protect her. Outside is dangerous but in her bubble, she is safe and sound. But is this good enough?
Despite her obvious naivety, we get a sense she is after something else. In her first scene, she applies for marriage, which is telling of her being on the threshold of adolescence and adulthood. Now, if marriage is really what she is after, or if it is something she relies on to fit in the community she lives in, is up for debate.
The thing is, the heroine knows deep down that her little world is not perfect. And she subconsciously seeks freedom so she can exercise her growth. Perhaps the prospect of marriage is the closest to freedom she has known in the vault. Or perhaps it is the thrill of meeting someone from outside her containment. In any case, she wants change; her shelter has turned into a cage.
Here comes the moment when Lucy’s perfect world is shattered. On her wedding night, right after the consummation of marriage (the symbolic passing to adulthood), she is betrayed by her husband. This is the so-called “inciting incident”. He turns out to be a raider from the surface. Now, not only is she betrayed by him personally, but she is betrayed by her idea of the outside world. He is her first conscious contact with the world outside the vault. And it is a far cry from what she has believed in.
Not only that but the danger has breached the walls of her shelter; she can’t ignore it. It turns out that her perfect world and the system she has lived in are broken. Her attempt at freedom ends with her husband’s hands around her neck. The history and ethics lessons have done little to prepare her for this. So a part of her begins to wonder what actually lies out there.
To top it off, her father, who is an Overseer and the biggest authority by her glass bubble’s standards, is drugged and taken hostage before her own eyes. She encounters the villain for the first time in the face of Moldaver. With her convictions shattered and her dad gone, she must make a choice.
3. The Awakening, or Preparing for the Journey
Lucy’s world is in ruins, metaphorically and literally. The others’ refusal to send a search party only reinforces the idea that her world has let her down. This is her awakening. She decides to take the active road and do something about it herself, hoping to rebuild what was lost.
From the story’s perspective, she has to find her dad. But as screenwriter Robertson-Dworet puts it: “As much as she leaves to find her father in the pilot, she also wants to fuckin' know what's out that door.” Moldaver also remarks in the final episode that Lucy’s curiosity greatly motivates her to leave the vault.
Given the raiders’ attack and with no established authority to prohibit her from doing so, she ventures to do just that. With the help of Norm and Chet, she gathers tools and prepares for the journey. What she isn’t aware of but will soon find out is that no material tools will help her with what’s waiting outside. She has yet to learn to trust herself and her qualities which will ultimately help her. It’s time for the trial by fire.
4. The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgement
ACT 2
The descent may not be a literal one. In Lucy’s case, it’s ascent. She looks behind her as the door is closed and locked. There is no way back, only ahead. Often, the descent is about passing the gates of the Underworld. One of the first shots outside the vault shows us bones and a skull on the ground. The Wasteland is very much portrayed as the Underworld with its own set of rules.
From here on, the real journey begins. The heroine faces the consequences of her life-changing decision in the form of tests that will determine her worth. She might be advised to return to her perfect world, as Dr. Siggi Wilzig does after she lights the bonfire. After she refuses, he tells her that she will have to adapt and become a "different animal altogether," summarising the point of this stage of transformation in her journey.
She will then try to use the tools she has at her disposal—literal and metaphorical—but they won’t work. With each encounter, she will lose weapons or belongings until she is left with nothing of the things she thought would help her. Think of the filtered water Lucy loses or how her dart doesn’t work against the Ghoul. She begins to look progressively worse as her jumpsuit gets dirtier and bloodier. She even loses her trigger finger.
The heroine may also face societal prejudice. Lucy is stunned by people’s opinions about Vault dwellers and Vault ideals in general. She is being proven again and again that her sensibilities, HR manuals, and ethics don’t work in the Wastes.
The heroine has to rely on her courage and instincts. She must let go of all control and surrender herself to the descent. After being stripped of everything, she must face her demons. Lucy strives to always do the right thing, but she needs to embrace the fact the fact that the right thing doesn’t always come in a neat little package. The world is more than right and wrong.
I believe the scene that best illustrates the first time Lucy actively trusts her instincts and by doing so, survives on her own, is Super Duper Mart. She uses threats, uses a makeshift weapon, holds a hostage (it’s a robot but still, it’s a big step for her), and most significantly, for the first time, murders another to ensure her own survival. Even though Martha had no humanity left, her murder is important in Lucy’s journey because her death becomes synonymous with doing the right thing, not for a cause or the greater good, but for Lucy herself.
5. The Eye of the Storm
She emerges victorious with her bloodied face and tank top, and this is the most disheveled state in which we have seen her. By helping out the Ghoul, she is the victor not only in terms of survival but also in terms of morality. She shows him that she is morally superior to him. She’s successfully beaten her demons this time without losing sight of her golden rule.
Still, it has taken a lot out of her to survive. The heroine feels weary, reminiscing about easier times. She seeks to find the familiar comfort she once had and may consequently settle for something she doesn’t really want.
After this mini-climax, the heroine evaluates and comes to terms with what just happened. She concludes that she handled things well. Having survived the danger, she gains a false sense of security. In Lucy’s journey, this stage coincides with her meeting Max and their experience in Vault 4.
Finally, Lucy finds a person she can trust. The world feels a tad bit better with someone by her side. At the same time, she dreams of going back to her own perfect little world. It’s so lucky that they end up in another vault!
While Max discovers the joys of living a simple life, it’s interesting to observe Lucy’s behavior. Although she feels safe for a moment, she starts noticing the people and things around her. She’s become more perceptive than before. Try as she might, she can’t go back to her old ways due to her experience on the surface. She wants to feel safe, she wants to sleep with Max; she wants life to be simple again. But she can’t help but look twice over her shoulder. She feels uneasy and grows suspicious of everything around her. It’s the newly found survivor in her screaming at her to get out.
Eventually, Lucy learns that she has made the wrong assumptions about Vault 4 because of her ignorance and her raw instincts. They leave the vault unscathed, with Lucy fantasizing about a future with her and Max living together back in her perfect world. Soon they find the head but are forced to separate. Lucy gets the head, the kiss, and the promise that Max will find her in Vault 33. It looks like the journey is nearing its end. But it’s only the beginning.
6. Death – All Is Lost
The heroine believes that her journey will soon be over, but it is time for her to face her biggest fear yet. Lucy delivers the head and finds her dad, thinking they can safely go back to how things were. Then, all of a sudden, her world is spun on its axis once more.
Schmidt notes that few female protagonists make it past the stage of their “death”. Some of them die in the literal sense, some go back to their old lives defeated, and others fall into a spiral of depression. I believe this is Lucy’s final stage in S1. What will become of her in S2? Let’s speculate!
She learns about her mother’s fate and about what her father did to Shady Sands. And perhaps most jarring to her is that her father really believes that he’s done the right thing by dropping a bomb over a thriving city. Lucy’s role model turns out to be a fraud. The ideals she has lived and fought for, too. And it’s Moldaver, the villain, who seems to be on the right side of the story, despite her murdering her fellow people. It looks like the world isn’t simply divided into right and wrong after all.
This is the ultimate betrayal that leaves the heroine’s thoughts in inner turmoil. She feels humiliated and confused. All this time, she’s lived in a perfectly constructed lie. The events build up to her mercy killing her own mother, which is exactly what the Ghoul did to Roger in front of her. Purnell says: "She's learned from him. She has turned into him." She faces the death of her old self.
7. Support
ACT 3 Emergence:
The heroine’s journey is about building bridges between the individual and the group. Her inner awakening leads to her being more open to the help of others and helping them in turn. She isn’t afraid of betrayal anymore because, at the end of the day, she has herself.
In Lucy’s final scenes in S1, we actually see the beginning of this stage with the Ghoul offering her to travel with him and find out more about the past. She leaves Max behind and goes with the Ghoul. According to Schmidt, it’s during this stage that the protagonist will accept herself as she is and go on to share her knowledge with others. She will define her own world without an external authority. Her journey of self-discovery will guide the others around her to make amends with their own problems.
We have already seen the Ghoul’s influence on Lucy. In S2, I believe we’ll see how Lucy affects the Ghoul for the better by balancing his sharp edges. But before that, she will need his help to get herself up on her feet so that she can be reborn and come full circle in a new perfect world.
Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts!
#lucy maclean#cooper howard#maximus fallout#fallout#fallout prime#vaultghoul#fallout spoilers#fallout meta
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#;ooc#ooc#so i finished hearing this summary of paradise lost and#im im??? im????#my brain rn: umm ok anyways-#THAT WAS A L O T- like legit a lot; in all senses possible#listen i dont know the context nor the story of the author himself or a bunch of religious beliefs but i can say that was a creative poem#allow me to be silly but as i was listening the story i was like; wow this would a banger anime OIUTORHGROHG#IM SORRY IM#i was already thinking; wow the angels could make a banger concept for a storyline in fate#i dont think i would read it raw tho- bc old english is so difficult to read#BUT GODDDD IT WAS SO TRAGICAL- TRAGEDY-#im still speechless about it but if i could put a word to summarize my experience with it; it would be tragedy#its like hope but tragedy but its so sad but there is a lil light but also OUGH#the angel gabriel was funny; when he lit showed l.ucifer just how minuscule his power was against him; like lit on a scale (literally)#im seeing it in the lenses of an epic so apologies if i came up crude with my wording i have no intentions to offend anyone okok#also i've heard of d.emonology but??? yesterday was the first time ever that i heard angelology exists and its so interesting??#like; this is coming from the perspective of someone who's only here for the stories; its quite fascinating#like we all know the meme of 'oh biblically accurate angel that is all eyes and wings yeah!'BUT LIKE THERE'S S O MUCH MORE#i dunno i never really gave it much thought about it before so to me its a lot!
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Controversial opinion among Dune book fans maybe, but I loved the changes they made to Chani's character. Making her a fedaykin who is already an experienced fighter before Paul arrives was a brilliant choice. Dune Part Two is a war movie, and this puts her at the center of the action, side by side with Paul, and gives her a much more active role than she has in the book.
We got a hint of where things were going in the beginning of Dune Part One. The first thing we ever know about movie Chani is that she's a fighter. She serves as a voice for the Fremen, telling us the story of their struggle from her point of view. I wrote here about the difference this change makes compared to other adaptations of Dune, what a perspective shift it is to have the world of Arrakis introduced not by an outsider, describing it as a dangerous but valuable colonial prize, but by one of its native inhabitants, who tells us before all else that it's beautiful, her home that she's fighting to liberate. I am so, so glad that the second movie followed up on this characterization.
I never found Chani and Paul's love story in the book particularly convincing, because why would this woman, who already has a prominent and respected place in Fremen society, even give the time of day to her deposed would-be colonizer, let alone fall in love and have children with him? Without a compelling reason for Chani to love Paul, she ends up feeling like a prize to be won, and "indigenous culture personified as a woman to be wooed (or conquered) by the colonizing man" is a trope we've seen and don't need to repeat.
But as soon as you tell me it's a barricade romance I get it. Cool cool cool, I know exactly what this relationship is now and it makes sense. Movie Chani doesn't respect or even particularly like Paul when she first meets him, and she doesn't think he's the fulfillment of any prophecy. She comes to respect him, and eventually love him, through his actions. He's brave--sometimes recklessly so. He fights well. He's willing to stick his neck out on the front lines with the other Fremen fighters. He can (after a little help) hack surviving in the harsh desert environment. He's not too proud to learn from others. He seems to genuinely want to be her equal in a common political struggle. All these qualities make sense as things she values.
Fighting side by side as equals is just about the only way I can see movie Chani falling for Paul. And it fits perfectly with the film's pattern of reversals that Paul's capacity for violence would initially be one of the things Chani likes about him, only for her to be repelled later when she sees what he becomes.
And as for Paul, well, he's had people deferring to him his entire life. Someone who doesn't take any shit from him is probably refreshing. He seems to like people (Duncan, Gurney) who challenge him and engage in a little friendly teasing--and aren't afraid to go a few rounds in the sparring ring.
It's easy to speedrun a romance when you're spending all your time together in mortal danger fighting for a shared political cause. Especially if you then start winning in a war your people have been fighting for decades. Are you kidding me? That is the perfect environment for intense battle camaraderie to turn into romantic love, and lust.
It makes sense that this version of Chani never believes Paul is any kind of messiah. Of course a character like movie Chani wouldn't believe in or trust some outside savior to liberate them. She's been working to liberate her own people for years. The more Paul invokes the messianic myth, the more he starts sounding once again like someone who plans to rule over them, and the more uncomfortable Chani becomes. In this way she becomes a foil to Jessica, the two of them representing the choices Paul is pulled between. It's a great way of externalizing the political and philosophical debates that often happen within characters' heads in the book.
And of course this version of Chani would leave Paul at the end of the film. It's not just the personal, emotional betrayal--although that stings. What common cause does she have with someone who just declared himself emperor and is sending her own people off in a war of conquest against others? Given the important role she plays in Dune Messiah, I am super curious to see how they get her back into the story, but girl was so valid for being willing to just gtfo. Given that she has the last shot of the whole movie, I'm sure she'll be back somehow, and I can't wait to see what they do with her character in any future installments.
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OKAY REAL TALK. i'm on episode 5 rn. if this keeps up the way i think it is then this show is such a fucking genius adaptation, and i never would've seen it coming
like yeah, an animated scott pilgrim series authentic to the comics and the story bryan originally wanted to tell would've been amazing too. but when you think about it, SCOTT'S story has already been told to us more than a few times now. even if the live action movie took a different turn by accident, the overall message of "well-intentioned people can still make, and should still take responsibility for, mistakes that hurt those who care about them, and indifference will only end up hurting them back" still sticks for the most part.
but it's mainly been from scott's perspective. which makes sense! he's the main character, so, obviously!! but here's the thing: ramona has ALWAYS served as a reflection of scott's issues. ngl i think this is one of the most consistent things in the entire franchise, and it's why i love ramona so much. as we dive further into her backstory we learn just how much of a wall she's built around herself, how she's afraid of trusting people, but especially that, as sympathetic as she is, she's also caused so much (unintentional) damage herself. although she's introduced as someone literally too good to be true and unreachable by scott's standards, it becomes more and more apparent how similar scott and ramona are, and so they're perfect for guiding each other towards a brighter path.
and what better way to highlight this than to flip the tables completely, putting RAMONA center stage aka making the audience intimately familiar with her immediately, making SCOTT the mysterious damsel in distress/goal at the finish line instead, driving ramona to face the 7 evil exes and making amends with them in a way scott never could???
also can i just say. HUGE SHOUTOUT to the marketing team for hiding this reveal SOOOOO well. like seriously, i was worried they were showing TOO MUCH in the trailers BUT I WAS WRONG. WE GOT PLAYED SO HARD
#ANYWAY ILL KEEP WATCHING NOW#leo.txt#spto spoilers#ramona flowers#scott pilgrim#spvstw#scott pilgrim takes off
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I see a lot of people clowning on the people of Pelican Town for not repairing the community center themselves or clowning on Lewis for embezzling and. like. Those criticisms aren't entirely unfair. But I think instead of coming at it from a perspective of "why can't the townspeople do this" we should be asking "why and how can the farmer do this?"
Like. Think about it. The farmer arrives in Stardew Valley on the first day of spring. By the first day they're obviously different. By day five the spirits of the forest who haven't been seen by the townsfolk in years or generations are speaking to them. By the second week they've developed a rapport with the wizard that lives outside town.
In the spring they go foraging and find more than even Linus, who's spent so many years learning the ways of the valley. Maybe he knows, when he sees them walking back home. Maybe he looks at them and understands that they're different, chosen somehow.
In the summer they fish in the lakes and the ocean for hours on end, catching fish that even Willy's only ever heard of, fish that he thought were the stuff of legend. They pull up giants from the deep and mutated monstrosities from the sewers.
In the fall, their crops grow incredibly immense; pumpkins twice as tall as a person, big enough that someone could live inside. The farmer cuts it down with an axe without even batting an eye. Does Lewis wonder, when he checks the collection bin that night and finds it full to the brim with pumpkin flesh? What does he think? Does he even leave the money? Does he have the funds to pay the farmer millions of dollars for the massive amounts of wine they sell? Or is it someone--something--else entirely?
In the winter, the farmer delves into the mines. No one in Pelican Town has been down there in decades. No one in living memory has been to the bottom. The farmer gets there within the season. They return to the surface with stories of dwarven ruins and shadow people, stories they only tell to Vincent and Jas, whose retellings will be dismissed by the adults as flights of fancy. People walking by the entrance to the mines sometimes hear the farmer in there, speaking in a language no one can understand. Something speaks back.
The farmer speaks to the the wizard. They speak to the spirit of a bear inside a centuries-old stone. They speak to the shadow people and the dwarves, ancient enemies, and they try to mend the rift. They speak to the Junimos, ancient spirits of the forest and the river and the mountain. They taste the nectar of the stardrops and speak to the valley itself. They change Pelican Town, and they change the valley. Things are waking up.
And what does Evelyn think? She's the oldest person in the valley; she was here when the farmer's grandfather was young. (How old *is* she, anyway? She never seems to age. She doesn't remember the year she was born.) Does she see the farmer and think of their grandfather? Does she try to remember if he was like this too, strange and wild and given the gifts of the forest?
And does their grandfather haunt the valley? He haunts the farm, still there even after his death; his body died somewhere else, but his spirit could never stay away for long. Does Abigail, using her ouija board on a stormy night, almost drop the planchette when she realizes it's moving on its own? Does Shane, walking to work long before anyone else leaves their house, catch glimpses of a wispy figure floating through the town? Does the farmer know their grandfather came back to the place they both love so much?
Mr. Qi takes interest in the farmer. He's different, too; in a different way, maybe, but the principles are the same. They're both exceptional, and no matter what Qi says about it being hard work and dedication, they both know the truth: the world bends around the both of them, changing to fit their needs. Most people aren't visited by fairies or witches. Most people don't have meteorites crash in their yard. Most people couldn't chop down trees all day without a break or speak to bears and mice and frogs.
The farmer is different. The rules of the world don't work for them the way they work for everyone else. The farmer goes fishing and finds the stuff of fairy tales. The farmer goes mining and fights shadow beasts and flying snakes. The farmer looks at paths the townspeople walk every day and finds buried in the dirt relics of lost civilizations.
The farmer is a violent, irrepressible miracle, chosen by the valley and destined to return to it someday. Even if they'd never received the letter, they would've come home.
They always come home eventually.
#lich says shit#stardew valley#sorry for the stardew valley meta i'm just so obsessed with how FREAKY the farmer is. Like it's so fun#gonna write another long ass post about the farmer's bloodline specifically and. like.#why did their grandpa leave the valley?? why did their parents never go back??#stardew valley farmer#sdv
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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 (𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐞𝐬) | nh¹³
౨ৎ ─ summary | you and nico have only been dating for 6 months but both of you are convinced you've found the one, and a certain theory proves you right.
─ word count | 2k
─ warnings | mention of doubt in relationships (not you and nico's ofc) and slight angst when it comes to ex's, BUT OTHER THAN THAT, tooth-rotting fluff u might just get diabetes 🥹
─ taglist | @dancerbailey3 @valluvsu @daisysnhl @dasiysthings @iminlovewithtz11 @literatureluster @lvrzegras @lxvleyzoe @bowen-power @ru-kru @jackhughesily @hearts-for-luke
─ ev's notes | i know this is SOOOO short but i still hope y'all enjoy! i love nico sm :( hes adorable :(((
You and Nico had been dating for almost 6 months and it has been nothing less of perfection, you'd never thought you'd meet someone who fit every single one of your boxes. He was handsome, tall but also very sweet, empathetic and mature. Before Nico, you had only dated self-involved assholes who only cared about their wants and needs.
Now, with Nico, everything felt different. He listened to you attentively, remembered all the little details you shared, and always made an effort to understand your perspective. His presence was calming, always making sure you were okay and somehow always knowing if you weren't, even if you insisted you were. Everything with Nico was effortless, you didn't have to try - you just knew.
Despite the love that enveloped your relationship, you couldn't shake the nagging feeling of doubt that occasionally crept into your mind. It wasn't about Nico himself - he was everything you had ever wanted and more - but rather a lingering fear that somehow, someday, it might all come crashing down. Maybe it was the scars left behind by past boyfriends, the ghost of heartbreaks past whispering cautionary tales in your ear. Or maybe it was simply the vulnerability that comes with opening your heart to another person so completely, knowing that the possibility of pain exists alongside the promise of love.
Yet, with each passing day, Nico continued to prove himself worthy of your trust, erasing any doubts with his unwavering love. He showed you, time and time again, that he was different; that he was here to stay.
"And then I looked inside of the car, and it was what looked like a sixteen year old." Nico shook his head as he bit into his sandwich. "A sixteen year old with a damn Porsche, can you believe it?"
You chuckled at Nico's story, shaking your head in disbelief. "A sixteen-year-old with a Porsche? That's insane. How did can they even afford it?"
Nico laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I have no idea. Must be nice to have such generous parents. My first car was my dad's old car, it was a really old Toyota Camry." Nico took a bite of sandwich before continuing, "I crashed it 3 times before getting my new car."
"Three times?" you exclaimed, unable to hide your surprise. "And you're still alive to tell the tale?"
Nico chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, I wasn't the best driver back then. It's a miracle that Camry held up. I learned my lesson, though. Now I drive like a grandparent."
"Oh, I know." You teased as you finally got your sandwich from the waitress, smiling up at her. "Thank you."
"Can you imagine crashing a Porsche? Imagine how much you'd have to spend fixing it." Nico shook his head as he looked at you.
"Crashing a Porsche? I can't even imagine affording one in the first place, let alone fixing it after a crash. That's a whole different level of stress." You shook your head as you took a bite of your sandwich.
Nico chuckled, leaning back in his chair. "Exactly. I'd rather stick to my reliable car. Besides, I've grown attached to it over the years. It's got character."
"Oh no, they put tomatoes in my sandwich." You gagged as you put down your sandwich, sighing.
"Wait, you don't like tomatoes?" Nico looked back at you in disbelief. "How do you not like tomatoes?"
You made a face, scrunching up your nose at the offending tomato slice. "I've just never been a fan. The texture, the taste – it's just not my thing." You began taking the tomatoes out from the sandwich.
Nico laughed, reaching across the table to grab the tomato slice from your plate. "Well, lucky for you, I happen to love tomatoes. Problem solved." He winked, placing the tomato on his own plate.
You laughed along with Nico. "God, they're disgusting."
Nico smirked, his dimple showing as he held up the tomato slice like a trophy. "More for me, then. Tomatoes are so good, especially in a sandwich."
You shook your head, feigning disgust. As you watched him enjoy the tomato slice with happiness, you couldn't help but feel a warmth spread through your chest. He was so cute. "Well, you can take all the tomatoes you want from me."
Nico grinned, "oh, I will. Don't you worry."
"Oh wait." You watched him eat the tomato. "This is the Olive Theory!"
"What the hell is the Olive Theory?" Nico looked confused as you smiled, excited. "Aren't we talking about tomatoes?" He smiled at your excitement.
You laughed, nodding eagerly. "Yes, yes, but bear with me. So, you know how in 'How I Met Your Mother,' Marshall and Lily have the Olive Theory?"
Nico furrowed his brow, trying to recall. "Vaguely. Something about olives?"
"Exactly!" you exclaimed, delighted that he was playing along. "So, the theory goes that Marshall hates olives, but Lily loves them. Whenever they order food, Marshall always gives his olives to Lily, and it's this little gesture of love and compatibility. The idea is that if one person hates olives and the other loves them, it's a sign of compatibility because it means you complement each other."
Nico's eyes lit up with understanding. "Ohh, I see where you're going with this. So, you hate tomatoes, but I love them. And I happily take them from you. It's like our own little Olive Theory."
"Exactly!" you exclaimed, your heart swelling with affection for him.
Nico couldn't help but smile at you. You were so cute, he couldn't help but laugh at how excited you got. Nico's laughter filled the air, his smile reflecting the warmth in his heart. "You're adorable, you know that?"
You felt a rush of warmth at his words, a blush creeping up your cheeks. "Well, I learned from the best," you teased, unable to hide the smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
Nico reached across the table, his hand finding yours as he squeezed it gently. "I mean it though, you're amazing. You're adorable when you get all excited about these little things, even if I don't understand half of the references you make."
You chuckled, appreciating his honesty. "Well, that just means we have more opportunities for you to learn and for me to share all my references with you."
Nico's eyes sparkled with affection as he held your gaze. "Yeah and then I can teach you about hockey, it's perfect."
You smiled at Nico's suggestion. "I'd love that! Hockey lessons from the expert himself. Now people won't call me a puck bunny."
Nico grinned, his enthusiasm contagious. "You'll be a pro in no time. Maybe you could even join the team, who knows?"
"Maybe I'll even be captain."
Nico shook his head, "Nah that's kind of my job."
You laughed as you gazed at your boyfriend, a warm smile playing on your face. "Alright, Captain, I'll let you keep the title. But maybe I can be the team's official cheerleader?"
"Well you're already my cheerleader so that wouldn't work very well, would it?" Nico shrugged as you laughed and shook your head.
You couldn't help but laugh at Nico's response. "I guess you're right. Can't double up on roles, can we?"
Nico smirked, "No can do, princess. You're my lucky charm not the team's."
You nodded your head in faux understanding as you played along with Nico's words. "Right, right. And I wouldn't have it any other way."
"Good cus I need my good luck charm." Nico smiled, his eyes warm with affection as he squeezed your hand once again.
"And you'll always be mine." You replied, his words filled you with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and you squeezed his hand gently in return. As you gazed into each other's eyes, you knew that no matter what happens, one thing remained: your love and support.
-> make sure to check out my navigation or masterlist if you enjoyed! any interaction is greatly appreciated! <-
thank you for reading all the way through, as always ♡
#❀ evangeline's 1k celly!!⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚#nico hischer imagine#nico hischier smut#nico hischier imagines#nico hischier imagine#nico hischier#nhl imagines#nhl angst#nhl fic#nhl fanfiction#nico hischer x reader#nico hischier x reader#nico hischier blurb#nico hischier fic#luke hughes#njd#jack hughes
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NOTHING MATTERS — op81
pairing: oscar piastri x fem! engineering intern! reader
summary: the best way to get over someone who broke your heart is to get under someone else and (unintentionally) break theirs. / inspired by nothing matters by the last dinner party, listen on spotify here !
style: primarily written with a single smau element at the end.
warnings: 18+, minors do not interact, smut, unprotected sex ((p in v) please wrap it before you tap it)), oral (m! receiving) finger sucking, sub/don undertones but nothing serious, i swear on my life oscar piastri is a grunt and groaner but simultaneously considerably vocal during sex (i will die on that rock), afab! reader, readers kinda uncaring about who she hurts because she’s hurt, reader is referred to as she/her, miscommunication trope, oscar piastri has been in love with reader since the beginning of the season and just assumed one-sided pining. authors refusal to write with capitals, you can pry them out of her cold dead hands.
faceclaim: sofia dirado, although feel free to imagine reader as anyone else.
word count: 4.1k +
YOU WERE NO STRANGER TO HEARTACHE.
you fear it followed you around more often than not, like a dark cloud that covered your entire existence in this bubble of heartbreak that nothing ever felt good to you, nothing was ever worth it. from your parents divorcing after years of suffering in a loveless marriage to every single relationship you’d ever been in never making past the first time you sleep together — you’ve genuinely felt about giving up on life, going so far as to consider a life as a celibate nun or maybe not, perhaps just the life of a girl who burns through multiple packs of AA batteries using her rose toy.
however, when you’d met levi, your first year of finally being allowed to leave the mclaren technology centre to shadow tom stalland during the 2023 f1 season. you genuinely thought this man had reshaped your entire perspective of love, he made love easy, made loving him feel less like a sport and more like a hobby you could never get sick of, being with hom felt like you’d been going through all the “firsts” all over again, like a cheesy romance movie monologue.
and yet, here you are, sat in your hotel room after the japan gp, suzuka has always been your favourite gp to watch and unfortunately for some reason, instead of standing in the mclaren garage doing your job, you’re sat clad in your team clothes (a stark contrast to the white bed linen) and sobbing over a text message paragraph explicitly telling you that levi has decided to break up with you after he fell in love with someone else during the summer break, someone who “rewired his brain chemistry in a ways you could never do.” you want to get angry, you wish you were an angry person, instead when you got angry you cried, when you got too happy or even just laughed too hard you cried, you were a crier.
your heart is heavy, as you scroll through the other woman’s posts, she’s gorgeous, and that’s where you begin your myriad of self deprecating comparisons of you to her. you doom scroll for what feels like forever until you spiral even further down the heartbreak rabbit hole, your attention drawn to the fact that levi had both unfollowed and removed you as a follower at some point between when he said goodnight and then broke up with you the next day. you watch as stories of their summer break spent together is shared and your jealousy sends you into a blind rage that you block the both of them; because ultimately you knew that he will hold her life he used to hold you — for levi was boring, a one trick pony you’re only just now coming to terms with.
your disheveled appearance and self imposed seclusion from the events of the day were not left unnoticed, you’d resigned yourself to just stand on the outskirts, occasionally moving to sit down and watch the screens as the friday practice begun, you’re uninterested, unmotivated and trying your dandiest to not cry, for the sole reason of simultaneously not wanting to draw unwanted attention to yourself and the fact that the mascara you’re bought at the duty free at the airport was most definitely not waterproof.
the good thing was that you’d be in japan for the rest of the weekend, the worse thing was you knew not s language lick of the language — sure you could probably call someone an idiot in japanese thanks to the sheer amount of one piece you’d watched eith levi during days he didn’t want to do anything you had planned or suggested; however, the single knowledge of know the word idiot in japanese will not get her very far. you’re almost too zoned out to notice the first free practice had finished, oscar’s team engineer tom standall dismisses you, tells you that whatever happened before you came to track is to be sorted out before it potentially jeopardises a race and without a word or argument against hai decision you shuffle out of the garage and into the paddock.
“name, hey wait — wait up” a voice you’ve only heard considerable muffled by a racing helmet and through large oversized noise cancelling team gear headphones when you got to play pretend engineer whenever it was during his practice laps and his qualifying laps, it sends a shiver up your spine, always has and you’re unknowing if it always will.
“oscar? hey! you did so good today, from what i say, p3 is so awesome how are you not more elated about that!” you’d found yourself smiling, wide across your face and sinking into the gentle rhythm of the conversation with oscar. the smile he returns is equally as wide as if his whole face were smiling, you want to punch him — the cuteness aggression playing devil on your shoulder.
“oh nah, i am actually it just hasn’t like kicked in gully yet, i’m waiting for the full body visceral reaction i’m about to have,” he pauses for a brief moment, hands itchy to fiddling with something snd find solitude in dragging one hand after the other through his tangled and sweaty hair. “like just, honestly, jesus christ and in japan of all places fuckin’ hell” he seems both simultaneously out of breath and ready to compete in a marathon.
had it not been a considerably formal setting you swore you can picture him jumping up and down on the spot whilst trying to contain all of his excitement, you allow him to be excited not wanting your own mood and misery to overshadow his complete and utter elation at his podium win. it’s the first time in the few days you’d been moping about that the smile you give off reaches your eyes and oscar’s always paying attention to these things, unbeknownst to you of course.
“your excitement is infectious, surely the team have planned something celebratory for you! you’ve gotta celebrate this i’m sure lando is!” you can’t help but practically beam, you’re mesmerised by the excitement the unashamed amount of happiness this boy is oozing and the bitter feeling in your stomach over it all is just barely going by unnoticed.
oscar shakes his head, overs a tiny shrugs and barely gets another word into the conversation you teo ate having before he’s whisked away by the team to be dragged off towards the podium, you watch as he shakes the bottle of champagne onto lando and max. any and all brief untouched moments of happiness are immediately replaced when your phones buzzes, a notification alert from your ring door bell and the video supplied of your now ex boyfriend grabbing whatever stuff he’d left at your apartment. the situation just breaks your heart even further than when with the whole of the mclaren team being called upon for s group shot with both the boys and their podium wins you ignore it and decided you’d had enough of it all.
the hotel’s quiet as you tap your keycard against the inside of your hand waiting for the elevator to come back down, the traffic from the track back to the designated hotel meant you’d wound up leaving just as all the other drivers had and whilst you weren’t in the mood to face anymore interactions you were lucky to bypass the small group of fans loitering in the hotel lobby. the elevator itself is slow, like most and the way your stomach drops at the incline is almost akin to how you felt when you’d first received that break up text at the start of the week.
if there was one thing you were thankful for, it was the fact the hotel had a bar just off the lobby, which is where you’d found yourself, skirt a little too short, shoes a little too high and too the perfect amount of booby that you won’t get in too much trouble but also attract someone willing to take away the ache in your chest for the night.
you’d been sat at the bar for just under an hour, occasionally chatting to some of the other patrons but mostly the bartender herself; the paper straw mushy and impossible to drink out of sits on a napkin as you sip on the glass uncaring or the lipstick mark on the rim or the smudging it does to your own lipstick — in fact you’re hoping something else smudges the lipstick further if the night doesn’t continue to progress as slowly as it is.
“can i get a beer, whatever you’ve got in the bottle and another one of what she’s drinking” there it is again, the chill on your spine and the heightened sense of the hand that brushes past your ear to give the bartender a bank card. every single nerve ending in your body is on fire when the stool beside you in moved and a body now begins to occupy it, perhaps you’re a bit drunk, you’d already had two of these and what if the different alcohol consumption laws you’re unsure how much alcohol is actually in the fruity little cocktail you’d ordered.
“oscar piastri, i thought i told you to go celebrate your podium with lando, why are you still at the hotel?” there is is, a tone you’d never thought you’d use with someone who wass essentially your bosses boss, which therefore makes him your boss, and yet here you are — sultry tone and lips loosened by the alcohol in your system, shamelessly flirting with him.
“well, you see, i’m more of a pub person than i am someone who prefers nightclubs and being touched and bumped into by random strangers, i fear that’s more of a lando thing than my own” oscar laughs, the way he’s relaxed and carefree shows signs he did however, get roped into pregaming with lando beforehand, the neck of the beer bottle sits between his index and middle fingers, a comfortable position one you're sure would feel weird if you so much as tried to mimic.
you fear you're done for when it comes to watching the way his throat bobs as he takes a swig of the larger, it's a japanese brand one you've never heard of nor tried and you can tell oscar hasn't by the way his nose scrunches at the taste, he still continues to drink it though. time seems to float by, growing continually more comfortable with one another to the point you'd sauntered away from the bar stools and are sat perhaps not even an inch apart in a booth in the corner.
"favourite race destination, so far?"
"monaco. most definitely, melbournes a close second, but that's just because of a personal bias"
"personal bias?"
"yeah. . . you."
you'd never thought to combine the flavours of japanese beer and strawberry liqueur, and yet here you were, back-pressed and arched up against the wall beside a hotel room that not yours, the elevator ride was one stop too long to have it be that you'd gone back to your hotel room, hands, not your own, are roaming places never thought to be touched, the bluntness of their nails digging into the soft flesh of your thighs has your separating from the kiss to lean your head back and full indulge in the simple pleasures received in this moment.
arousal builds when soft lips find the pulse point in your neck, your choice signature scent perfume the most aromatic in that area brings a subconscious reaction from oscar, the thigh between your legs juts up and you also convulse right then and there, your own hands ove from holding the back of his neck to drag through his soft, product-free hair, tugging on the last few strands that slip through your fingers.
the beep of the room door unlocking pulls you to your senses, and a hand tight around your waist drags you inside, you cling onto him in the worst way possible, you can see the smudges of lipstick on the corners of his mouth and god, does he look beautiful. you're unsure for a moment, even if the alcohol had loosened you up a little, you still didn't know how to react around oscar, he's looking at you in a way you can't describe, it makes your stomach flip and you're eager, thighs clenching to distribute the friction of your building arousal. you want his lips on yours again, there's zero space between you, you're simply sharing each other's breath.
his hand finds the back of your neck, tangled in your darkened locks and pulls you back in for a kis, is soft, he must moisturise your brain supplies before it fizzes out, the kiss is messy, all teeth, tongues and spit. you whimper into the kiss, knees buckling, your own hands are on a mission sliding under the hem of his shirt to perfectly feel the warmth that radiates off his skin against your cold hands, you can feel the exact moment your cold touch makes him hiss into the kiss and it finally ignites the fire in your stomach. this is what you want.
you two remain lip-locked until your chest hurts and you've traded the same breath back and forth that it's completely died, when you pull away, you finally take notice of the blown-out pupils staring down at you. his a look entirely of lust, desire, arousal and it shows, especially with the bulge in his pants. your bottom lip finds sanctuary in between your teeth when you raise an eyebrow and one of your hands slips out from under his shirt to palm him through the cargo shorts he'd donned to wear.
if oscar's voice sent a shiver down your spine, the way he groaned at your touch against his bulge chilled you from the inside out, the noise rough and gravelly like he'd not uttered a word in weeks, it's deep and low in his chest that you wouldn't have heard it if you weren't practically flush against him. your hand continues to palm him, making riskier moves as your other hand moves to dip your fingers into the waistband of his pants, you don't wait, you don't even need to ask for permission when his own hands are practically shucking off his own clothes for you.
he looks so gorgeous standing right in front of you, the wet patch you can only assume of precum on the front of his boxers has you licking your lips involuntarily, you try to ignore the voices, fight the urgers but you're but a simple girl, eager to please, that you're flicking your gaze up at him as your sink to your knees, the carpet is soft enough against you but you know better and are already seeing the red marks you'll have the next morning.
oscar looks confused for you in the briefest of moments, your nails dragging along his thighs, soft blonde hairs tickle your finger tips and you bite back the sweet giggle you want to let out as you're finally tugging his underwear down. a moment of shock halts your movement, eyes flicking up and down between oscar's gaze and his cock, tip pink, throbbing and leaking — it's a sight to be seen and you're the one who gets to gaze upon it.
your hand wraps around him, fingers barely meeting at the girth and you moan, can feel the saliva pooling in your mouth, your oral fixation working into overdrive, a single flick of your wrist has a louder groan rolling out of oscar's mouth, a quick "fuck" followed after it that as you once again clenching your thighs. your hand sets an easy rhythm, tried and true, one that allows for long strokes at a steady pace and your thumb to swipe between the slit on his tip that has his stomach clenching. his own hand grabs at your hair, both for something to hold onto and to keep it out of our face when you inch closer and allow your tongue to tease his tip with small kitten licks.
"fuck, fuck, name, fuck suck my cock"
the verbalised plea is all you need to finally wrap your lips around the swollen head, the saltiness of his precum mixing with your spit as you moan around him, your tongue swirls around his tip every time you pull back, only to resume bobbing your head and matching the movement of your hand to the pace you set as you take more of him in your mouth, your mouth feels so full and you can practically feel his dick pulse against your tongue when your other hand moves to squeeze his balls.
"holy shit — where did you learn that, fucking hell"
you smile when you pull away, uncaring of the drool that rolls down your chin, oscar seems not to mind either when he's pulling you back up to kiss him, your hand still stroking him slowly. he can taste his pre cum still on your tongue and as someone who'd assumed he wouldn't be fond of the idea, seems more or less enjoying it solely because it's coming from your mouth. his tongue overpowers your own and he's licking in your mouth with such severity that you can feel your own wetness pooling in your panties, had you been horny before you were now basically unbearably horny at this point.
your clothes feel bothersome, and your top and bra come off rather quick once your legs meet the edge of the bed you'd been pushed back against. the cool air of the hotel room meets your nipples and you gasp out once oscar's hot mouth chooses to settle on one and his hand favours the other. it's magic, that's what you can choose to blame it on, with the way oscar's fingers tug and twist one nipple all whilst his mouth and suck away on the other, your back arches up against him when his teeth graze the sensitive bud and you swear you could achieve your first orgasm of the night just from that alone.
his mouth switches to give the same treatment to the other nipple and yours that tug and pull on his hair only urge him on more, whining and desperate and what you want to happen is not happening. you need him, you crave him, you desire him.
"please oscar, fuck me"
there is it, the words oscar had been waiting to hear since you'd kissed him, and who would oscar be if not someone who listened when he was asked to do something. he sits up on his knees, jerks himself a couple of times as he watches you, skirt rugged up to your hips, a perfect picture, a sight for sore eyes, so beautiful, all for him to bare witness too. you back arches, your eager and needy and positively soaked you don't even need to touch yourself to know, your panties are finally pulled off and you hiss at the air that hits your center. you're clenching around nothing, sticky and sweet, eager, he looks up as your and you nods a final confirmation before you supply a weak "please" before his tip is aligning with your entrance and he's sliding in.
the stretch is everything to you, he is perfect, your hand stretching splayed out against the pillow as the tiniest whine falls from your lips, oscar grunts, face and chest flushed, you can hear exactly how we you are just from the squelch when he finally bottoms out and you moan loud enough that if anyone had been walking past the room they would have heard. oscar doesn't move, allowing for your pussy to stretch and get comfortable around him before you nod, rolling your hips to signal him to move and move he does.
"you're so tight, holy shit."
his hips rock back and forth into you, it's slow and sensual something you hadn't expected, your legs shift and wrap around his hips and your body rocks back against his thrusts willing him to move faster. unlike past partners, oscar seems to get the hint almost instantly as he pulls out and shifts slightly, hand holding onto your hips before he's sheathed himself back into you entirely in a singular thrust.
you moan out, toes curling and your legs wrapping around him so tight as if you'd practically become some sex-fueled boa constrictor. you swear his muscles are working overtime as his abdomen flexes with every deep thrust inside you, your body abuzz with electricity, the fire in your stomach scorching as a particular thrust has him hitting your g-spot and your back arching receptively.
in a world where you'd thought this was ever possible, all imaginations and scenarios have proven wrong already as oscar's thumb finds solace on drawing circles on your clit, causing your pussy to clench around him and a hiss to drag itself from his lips. to oscar you feel amazing and the flush on your face perfect evidence of his inability to be shy about telling you so and all you can do is ooh and ahh in return. something pulls in your stomach when he bottoms out in you again, your leg twitches and you're hyperaware that you'd just orgasmed around him, vocalising how it feels and your back arching however, his hips remain relentless only to come to a halt as he pulls out; your words are stopped as you're flipped over with a gentle tap against your thigh.
arms stretched out in front of you and your back arched, give oscar the perfect view to just take a moment to stare at your fluttering pussy, clenching around nothing as you suffer through a partially stunted orgasm. fingers drag through your folds and your body jerks at the sensitivity, the dip between them, pumping in and out similar to the rhythm he kept previous, his middle finger hooks and your face is thrown forward into the pillow as it hits the spongey feel of your g-spot, you gasp out hand white-knuckling the pillow as he focusses his fingers on that one particular spot
"fuck osc – fuck want you back inside me"
you don't bother with caring much about how whiney and desperate you'd begun to sound, throat dry from the gasping and the continuous noises he pulls from you, your tempting him, ass swaying as he chuckles, pulling his fingers out, he coo's at you as you whine to mourn the loss of the feeling, teases you as he slips the tip of his dick through your flushed red folds and bottom out with a quick hard thrust. you scream out, the pleasure perfectly combining with the sudden stretch to make the sweetest mixture of pain and pleasure you'd ever felt and to silence you, the fingers he'd just fucked you with had found the way into your mouth and if there was one thing you were, it was a good girl.
the sounds reverberating around the walls of the hotel room are borderline pornographic, the new pace oscar has set, deep and hard, skin slapping against skin as he practically bounces off you, his free holding your hip steady as your own knees buckle and you can feel the way his dick pulses inside you, the way his movements become sloppy yet still hitting your pleasure spot every time. the fingers in your mouth licked clean of your own arousal now replaced to be covered in your own drool. oscar grunts, his hips snapping against you in a final thurst as he slumps forward to press the most delicate of kisses to the nape of your neck as he feels you up and you cum around him for a second time.
it's messy, whatever hadn't spilt inside you now jerked off onto your back as your knees give out and you slump against the bed. worn out and woozy you're hardly paying attention to oscar cleaning up, the warm washcloth drags along your hot, sticky and sweaty skin in a way that twists your brain and brings out the regret that seeps into your stomach, had your legs not been feeling like they weren't attached to your body you would have scrambled to get dressed and done the walk of shame back to your own hotel room; however, you stay, regretfully.
you don't cuddle, oscar tries not to act hurt about it as you roll over and away from him when he finally climbs in himself. to you this didn't matter, you fucked him, like nothing matters. come the morning you'll be gone before he wakes. because this didn't mean a thing. to you as least.
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♫ nothing matters . the last dinner party
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oscarpiastri oh.
authors note: please excuse my smut skills, i'm rusty a lil ngl. i love a bittersweet ambiguous ending. if this gets enough recognition and asks, i'll definitely more than likely make a part two or even multiple parts. reminder, if you weren't tagged it means i couldn't find your account.
add yourself to the taglist here !
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#𐙚 paige’s works#oscar piastri x you#oscar piastri#oscar piastri x reader#oscar piastri fic#oscar piastri imagine#oscar piastri smau#oscar piastri smut#f1 x reader#f1 x you#f1 imagines#formula one x reader#formula one x you#formula one imagines
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Alright, it’s less than a week since the Owl House finale aired and as expected I’ve already seen two direct comparisons to Steven Universe’s ending and several more vague-blogs, because one of this site’s hobbies is using other queer shows to put down Steven Universe. So let’s do this, then. Let’s compare the endings of Owl House and Steven Universe, and what each is ultimately trying to say.
Steven Universe and the Owl House are both shows that deal heavily with the clash of individualism and self-expression vs. socially-mandated conformity, and both shows’ final villains ultimately embody this conflict. One major difference, however, is that Owl House approaches this from the perspective of legal/societal structures, while Steven Universe approaches it from the perspective of family structures.
Steven Universe has always been about family--and particularly the ways traumas and biases are passed down through a family--and it has always heavily used the language of metaphor to discuss these topics. The Diamonds are the ultimate extension of this theme, something a lot of bad-faith (or just bad) takes on the ending miss; they interpret the diamonds in their literal capacity as dictators, rather than the way Steven Universe always portrays them, which is as matriarchs, i.e. the heads of a family who dictate and control all the family’s other members. This metaphor becomes more and more blatant until it outright becomes text, with the Diamonds turning out to be Steven’s literal family members, with whom his part of the family is estranged because of their previous controlling behavior.
In accordance with this theme, we ultimately find out that the Diamonds’ toxic ideology, with its rigid standards of perfection, are not only something they enforce on the gems below them, but also on themselves. They are suffering from the system in their own ways, unable to live up to the standards they themselves created. And who among us hasn’t known someone like that? A parent or grandparent who grew up under a cruel, oppressive worldview, and instead of rebelling against it internalized it--who turned around and said “I dealt with this, and so can you”? And so the ending of Steven Universe is the Diamonds realizing exactly how toxic the rigid ideology they’ve spent their lives perpetuating really is, and confronting the fact that their adherence to this ideology is what destroyed their relationship with Pink, and that the only way they’re going to have a relationship with Steven is if they’re willing to commit to changing both themselves, and the family structure they’ve enforced for so long.
Emperor Belos, in contrast, is not suffering from the structures he created, because his rules were never meant to apply to him. He sees the witches (and demons, and so-on) as lesser beings, evil beings, who exist to be controlled, and ultimately, exterminated. And every element of the society he built--the schools, the government, the police force, the religion--he intentionally constructed to keep these lesser beings under his control. The real-world allegory isn’t hard to see, here. And because what Belos represents in the story is, in fact, a fascist leader, the story shows that he can’t be reasoned with in any way that matters, and instead he is ultimately ground into paste beneath the boots of the people he sought to destroy. Different themes, different endings.
Now the usual argument that comes up here is as follows: but the Steven Universe ending isn’t as realistic! Not everyone is going to change, not everyone is going to be able to be reasoned with. Not every older, conservative family member is eventually going to accept you for who you are. And while that is true, ultimately SU isn’t meant to be realistic; it’s meant to be a power fantasy. Rebecca Sugar has come out and said before that they wrote a world in which there was good in everyone, because that’s the way she wishes the world could be. That’s the world they want to be able to believe in. And I am never going to begrudge a person, much less a queer person, for finding healing in writing that kind of world.
But you know what else is unrealistic? What else is ultimately just a fantasy? Grinding your government’s fascist leader into paste under your boot, then taking over and remaking society into something that accepts everyone. Sadly, Trump is not likely to get his ass beat any time soon. And more generally, punching fascists, while ideologically sound, is something most people are not going to get to do, due to real-world consequences such as “getting beat up by the fascist’s angry friends” and “being arrested for assault”. And even if you did depose one leader, our very society is set up in a way that perpetuates all manner of injustices, and systemic change is a complex and lengthy process that almost certainly won’t be completed in our lifetimes. But it’s fun to imagine we could, isn’t it?
Both endings are power fantasies. Both show the way they want the world to be, rather than the way it is. They are very different power fantasies, which fill very different--and at times conflicting--needs. And in situations like that, internet culture really likes to pick one to be the right fantasy, the right way to look at the world.
But the truth is, both fantasies are needed! Some people need stories about your queerphobic relatives finally realizing the error of their ways and taking the necessary steps to accept and reconcile with you. And some people need stories where you get to grind fascist bastards beneath the heel of your boot. It’s okay if you prefer one type of fantasy over the other! But in the end, both are valuable, and both are important.
And isn’t it wonderful, for us to have such a diversity of great queer stories? That we can explore both of these deep, conflicting needs? Let’s appreciate each of these fantastic works for what it was meant to be, rather than trying to pit them against each other or make them conform to a single, “best” way to tell a story.
#owl house#the owl house#toh#toh finale#toh spoilers#steven universe#sunset#su spoilers#meta#discourse#my meta#queer fiction
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I shifted using the void state!
I'm getting straight to the point because I know people don't like long success stories, but I used these two posts to finally shift to my desired reality and manifest my dream life.
Rotten’s Practical Guide to Shifting Realities
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zgrhCYyct7xV4j7d7qYFcoO8bAMx5Jqdb3NGoO81Oqs/edit
Reddit Post: The Power of the Void State
https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/s/XMIo5TPYlM
Anyways, when I learned about the void state on Reddit, I was instantly captivated. I mean, who wouldn't be? The idea of not only using it for shifting but also manifesting my dream life for myself and my family felt like a dream come true. That's when I came across the second post I shared about the void state, and eventually, the first document I shared. They were incredibly informative and completely changed my perspective on shifting and the law of the universe.
I went on to stalk many of the recommended success stories on Reddit, exploring posts and comment sections that mentioned you. You seemed to be a common denominator in their journeys, helping them shift or guiding them with your posts. It made me happy to see your positive influence, even though your posts were from years ago and it seemed like you no longer have an account. Unfortunately, many other creators' posts were either inactive or banned due to Reddit's strict rules which is really annoying.
However, someone made a post about you, and one of your friends ended up commenting with your Tumblr account. So, I gathered a lot of valuable information from your account and a few others (like Fleur, Pink, Rem, Sexy Dream Girl, etc.) on Tumblr.
I must say, the Tumblr shifting and void community is miles ahead of Reddit and Amino. I was shocked that I hadn't come across this community before. Reddit is just starting to talk about the Law of assumption and the void, whereas you guys have been immersed in it for years. I even encountered some misconceptions on Reddit, where people still think the void can only be used for shifting and not for waking up in a whole new life. 🙄
Regardless, finding this app was the motivation I needed, and I discovered so much valuable information. I ended up using your theta wave method, combined with the first Reddit post I sent, to enter the void and shift to my dr. It's truly mind-blowing how easy it all was.
I can vouch for this process. All you need are the two Reddit posts I shared, as the guide is highly regarded within the shifting community, along with a few trustworthy Tumblr bloggers. I've been part of the shifting community since 2017, so I've seen it all, and I managed to shift within just two and a half weeks of finding these resources. Even though I was struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, I realized it doesn't have to hinder your journey.
I wanted to share my experience here, and I might make a post on Reddit too. However, they have become stricter with success stories due to anti-troll measures, and it takes weeks to even months for anything to be processed. So, I wanted to share my journey here first.
I also recommend this: https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/s/daFCQdyHim because it helped me understand what shifting really is. Manifesting too!
Lastly I'm 26 years old, and I've noticed that Reddit tends to have a more adult audience compared to Tumblr. At first, it felt nice to be surrounded by fellow adults discussing shifting. On the other hand, seeing Tumblr mostly filled with teens and younger adults made me wonder if it's easier for them, especially without the weight of responsibilities that often come with age.
But let me tell you, age is not a factor that determines our success in shifting. Whether you're 13 or 55, it doesn't matter. This is something we can all engage in, no matter our age.
Sure, there might be some challenges that come with getting older. As we accumulate more life experiences, doubts tend to creep in, and we become more logical. But guess what? Those doubts and logical thinking don't define our ability to shift realities. They are simply hurdles for us to overcome.
Hi love! I've spent some time going through all the resources you shared, and they've been incredibly helpful! Actually i have seen that guide in so many places, and it's truly enlightening. Thank you for sharing these amazing tools with us!
And yes, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. age and doubt really do have no place in our journey they really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
I used to engage with @theastralplaneandbeyond5487 on Amino and Reddit too. He also has an informative YouTube channel and is in his 50s, I believe. His experiences and insights are rlly helpful and further show that age is just a number in this journey.
His journey showed me that we can do whatever we we want , regardless of our age. It's a beautiful reminder that we're all capable of creating and experiencing whatever we want 🩵
Also omg my Reddit era in 2021 was so fun. I’m glad it’s still helping people though my views have definitely evolved :D!
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EDIT: THIS POST IS INACCURATE !!!
I made the assumption Olive was editing the wiki articles, and while that's a very logical conclusion to reach, it was actually someone who shares the same viewpoints as them!!! Anything including the wiki articles and Olive's involvement is wrong and that's my bad!!!
Alright fellas, I guess we did it. We have reached the tipping point. I'm going to dedicate this post to calling out one specific person, @olivescales3, and their very toxic behavior. This post will be a bit messy, and I do apologize in advance, I'm writing this from the perspective of a Ninjago fan who also thinks beyond just the petty fandom stuff, what they're doing is just not cool.
I will clarify, I do not make this post for petty fandom drama, I make this to better spread awareness on some of the bullshit they're doing, so you can look out for and understand that they're bullshitting. Without further ado, I think we should just get into it.
So, what have they done?
Now, I should say while there is no 100000% concrete link between hyenabro and olivescales, I think based on their talking points (as well and the information I've recieved from friends in the Chima fandom, who have a bunch of prior experience with them,) it's safe to make this assumption!
So, what has olivescales DONE in this case? Simple, they've vandalized the Chima wiki on NUMEROUS occasions, even after several different people have revised their revisions, so as to discredit any conenctions between Dragons Rising and Chima.
(Green is their edits, red is the ones prior to theirs, I found this while going through their contributions section on their Fandom account, HyenaBro119)
As seen here, they have (under the username HyenaBro119) edited the pages for Chima AND the Forever Rock (I have two similar screenshots of essentially the same thing, one was from the Forever Rock article, the other was from Chima) and claimed Ninjago's lore to be some alternate universe. To further validate it, they write "Ras' visit to," but Ras NEVER claimed to have VISITED these locations, just that he knows them. They also claim the Forever Rock was destroyed, a blatant lie. Only a small section of rock on the Forever Rock was actually destroyed, not the whole thing.
Now, you're gonna ask "but Raine, how can you 100000% say it's them?" and I will cite common sense. While I cannot directly tie Olive to hyena, I CAN say their wording is SO very similar.
Both Hyena and Olive call DR "a parallel/alternate universe," and again, claim Forever Rock was destroyed, WHICH IS A FULL ON LIE. They're so adamant to protect "the sanctity of Chima's pre-established, set-in-stone lore" that they can't stop to think maybe, JUST MAYBE, sometimes a story can get new lore which can ALSO be canon!
I'd also love to share this HILARIOUS screenshot of one of their many posts, which not only backs up what I'm saying, but it's like damn they really set themself up huh!
Gee I wonder why you feel alone! Maybe it's because you are! Maybe it's because you're lying and making shit up to prove yourself right! No one is as big of a hater as you!
The also LOVE saying Ninjago cannot do anything with Chima unless they get express permission from the creator of Chima, some guy named John Derevlany, but oh man what's this I see before me?
CO-CREATOR? Oh but Olive, I thought he was the CREATOR of Chima, not CO-creator... ALSO Lego owns the rights to Chima, and Ninjago, and every other theme, as said by Doc himself! If anything he wasn't really dodging the question, just giving a vague answer, because he doesn't know much about the old contracts!
From what he said, it's clear that if they wanted to use anything from the other themes, they'd have to consult folks over at LEGO, not John Derevlany or Tommy A.!
Now here's the THING, I GET where they're coming from, it CAN be annoying to have people only care about a thing you like in relation to something else, but when you're going out of your way to argue that none of it can be canon and it's all an alternate universe it's like... god it's so sad and pathetic really.
Their lies and BS don't even end there with the wiki shit, because I have THIS glorious gem.
A) They bring up that the Ninjago folk do not know who the Phoenixes are which is like, okay??? Why the fuck are they gonna know about how another universe was created??? That's like if someone told me I don't exist in the same universe as my glasses because I have no clue who made them, that is to say, that's stupid as FUCK to say!
B) OH they say something REAAALLL funny ohohohho I am actually dying. Olive says the Phoenix icon "appeared in a Ninjago episode" and "Ninjago tends to reuse assets." Yep, NINJAGO is the one who reused the phoenix symbol, mhm. The symbol that was made in 2011 for NINJAGO, which cameoed in CHIMA in 2014, was actually just an asset reuse by Ninjago. I feel like this actually goes to show how desparate they are to feel right and validated, because this? This a lie! Ninjago made the symbol, and because Tommy A. is co-creator to both, he wanted to slip in a neat Ninjago reference, so he slipped in the Phoenix symbol Nya uses for the Phoenix tribe, not the other way around!
Another REALLY funny thing they did, aside from the wiki and Phoenix symbol shit, was this hilarious attempt at being right!
Yes, the compared the WOLF Masks to BATman's cowl, and did a horribly rough comparison illustration that very much does not make sense. If you actually compared them side by side, the only similarities would be they're both angry animal themed mask with pointy ears, which does NOT go very far in the long run. The foreheads they drew aren't even the same fucking shape lol.
OH ANS WE CANNOT FORGET THIS ONE! Their using a post about the Palestinian genocide and boycotting Lego in order to complain about Ninjago.
They claim Ninjago is produced by Lego, unlike other Lego shows, which is an EXTREMELY bullshit fucking claim. Just like Chima and Nexo Knights, Ninjago is produced by Lego, it's not JUST Ninjago produced by Lego, they are all Canadian-Danish CGI action shows, and they're all known to have Tommy Andreasen involved in the creation of them.
They're using a post about boycotting for the sake of innocent people DYING to complain about a lego ninja show for... killing evil people? It doesn't glorify war, the worst it does in regards to war is like not address how fucked up it can be in regards to the Serpentine War, but that's like it. I think it's so funny they want to single out Ninjago as if it's the only TV series where villains die for trying to conquer/destroy the world.
So, what do I want the takeaway from this post to be? What do I want you to get from it? I don't really know anymore, I just don't want Olive's horrendously toxic behaviors, and straight up lies to stop. If anything I think it's beautiful that Ninjago is making others interested in revisiting Chima again, stop being such a fucking hater dude. They act like Chima is some holy grail of Lego, the greatest thing since bread, but it, just like Ninjago, Dreamzzz, Hidden Side, and Nexo Knights, have Tommy in creative roles.
To act like Chima is somehow greater than is to place it on an unrealistic pedestal as if it's a godsend, when in reality it was co-created by Tommy Fucking Andreasen.
If you read through all of this, I do THOROUGHLY appreciate it, I didn't mean for this post to descend into an angry ramble but ehhh yk how it is. And Olive, if you see this, please, just stop with the bullshit.
#ninjago#lego ninjago#ninjago dragons rising#lego ninjago dragons rising#lego chima#lego legends of chima#chima#legends of chima#callout post#long post#edited all 'she' for 'they' here !!
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bit of thinking outloud but for my current tactician run im doing a special wyll origins playthrough im calling the Evil Wyll Run & it’s given me a lot of food for thought about his character (or at least the freedom of psychological movement + exploration afforded to an origin run!)
wyll spoilers abound we’re entering the wyllenium here
wyll always felt a bit underwritten to me - i know that’s partially because there was that big kerfuffle in the 11th hour with changing his whole story and personality on top of having to recast his VA, and frankly hats off to both original VA lanre malaolu & new VA theo solomon for their hard work - both brought tremendous performances, & i sincerely hope mr malaolu was paid well for his work & time even if his voice wasn’t used in the final cut (i would also say warlock as a class itself felt a bit underdeveloped but im 100% OK with chalking that up to me the player not understanding how to play warlock effectively yet lol im more of a fighter barbarian Hit Stuff guy)
but honestly this feeling of being “underwritten” combined with a character with a long history of heroism in his pocket made wyll really interesting to me even in my tav playthrough. for all his accomplishments he still feels like a blank everyman, or like he’s someone who fully believes he’s the main character who doesn’t “need” to do any extra work on himself - and honestly he feels Very much like he could be The Main Character. once his backstory of the son of the duke was revealed too i immediately got the sense of like, rich boy trying to prove his worth beyond his wealth and status by striking out & becoming that hero, or that Prince Charming. basically that perfect happily ever after somebody. and im of the opinion that you don’t get mixed up with a cambion in the first place unless you’re either the kind of naïve “everything will just work out” immature that tends to comes with his status as the son of a noble, or you’re hungering for power. depending on playstyle he’s very easily both of these things
on the naïve front (ie a good wyll playthrough) if anything he feels very believably immature, & from that perspective the events of the game feel as though they’re the prequel to the actual start of wyll's story where he finally finds himself & learns what kind of man he really is. we just dont get to see it alas, but i really enjoyed the thought exercise of somebody still grappling with overcoming his own immaturity. he feels like someone who can still grow and that his tale is just beginning
Evil Wyll (meaning any time mizora shows up he drops everything to enact her instruction & hasnt once tried to find a loophole out of his contract) which ive come to be far more fascinated by is someone clearly vying for power, which is interesting because his noble status would’ve given him all the power he wants had he Played Nice. to me it speaks of someone who wants to be able to take what he wants from life without it being handed to him, which contrasts in a really fascinating way with entering into a warlock pact at all. maybe he thought it was better that it be a decision he made as opposed to nobility given to him by his family ties, maybe there’s still that pollyanna sentiment of “it’ll just work out & ill live happily ever after.” again maybe both. maybe in a sense the fiend, as he calls himself, is a good excuse to shuck off any poor decision he makes or any genuinely heinous thing he does under mizora’s instruction - an identity he uses as power fantasy (and very much in tandem/interchangeable with the blade of frontiers power fantasy) until it means taking ownership for any of his misdeeds, and then a scapegoat.
may be a bit incoherent but im only now hitting act 3 in my origin run & im Really enjoying this difficult characterization ive cooked up for myself lol
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Whenever I complain about graphic or dark content in media I watch, I keep hearing people retort with this apparently very popular opinion that people who enjoy comfy, wholesome things are actually more likely to be raging assholes than people who love things like death metal and gore. As someone who seems to enjoy comfy, wholesome things yourself and likely met many others who enjoy similar such things, do you agree with this opinion? If so, why do you think this happens?
So I've been sitting on this ask for like a week, not knowing whether or not I wanted to touch it because it kind of feels like being handed a live grenade
For one, I don't like being pigeonholed as someone who just likes "comfy" or "wholesome" things. Yeah, I enjoy My Little Pony and Animal Crossing. I made a game with cute furry characters and lots of bright colors. I also enjoy things like Berserk and Chainsaw Man and Doom and violent crime dramas and punk rock with vulgar lyrics and porn. Variety is the spice of life
Anyway: I generally don't think it's a good idea to make sweeping statements about peoples' moral or intellectual character based on what genres of story they enjoy, regardless of what direction you're coming at it from. But this is a very leading question that kind of skirts around the root problems
There's frequent (perhaps a bit exaggerated) pushback these days against people who prefer their fiction to be a warm blanket, a form of escapism meant to distract you from the real world. In particular, the dreaded "person who only watches kids' cartoons" is a form of this that gets brought up a lot. I don't think the root problem here is what media people enjoy or don't personally enjoy - taste is subjective, and I don't think it's a moral obligation for everyone to have diverse tastes in TV shows - but I do think some folks should try to get out of their comfort zone a bit more. Sometimes stuff that seems like it won't be for you on a surface level will really end up speaking to you, but you won't know until you give it a shot. Trust me, I've been there many times
It becomes a problem when people demand that media ONLY cater to that "warm blanket" attitude. And I think that's part of the reason why that stereotype you mentioned about fans of ""wholesome""" media being assholes exists. People who view dark or violent content as an inherent flaw because it's not what they like. People who yell at creators when they make bad things happen in their stories, because how dare you do this to my comfort characters? People who say movies should never have sex scenes. People who want "problematic" moral complexity stripped out in favor of black and white moral instruction. People who seem to hate any sort of interpersonal conflict in fiction at all
These attitudes can be the result of many different cultural factors, factors that can't all be traced back to Tumblr or what shows you like, but sometimes it's definitely because of that lack of broader perspective on media. You can tell when someone's opinions on The Right And Wrong Ways To Write Fiction were shaped almost entirely by, like, Steven Universe discourse. (Yes, this is a jab at Lily Orchard.) And when these people are very loud about their opinions, well, it becomes a trend people notice
Like. I don't know you. You sent this anonymously. But when you say you "complain about graphic or dark content in media you watch"... that could mean a few wildly different things! Maybe you're just venting about something that unexpectedly triggered you, and that's totally fine. But the wording could also imply that, like, you take issue with these things being present at all, and that you expect a person who likes "death metal and gore" to be more of a "raging asshole" than someone who likes the "wholesome" things you like. So... well, maybe you're more dismissive or judgmental of things outside your comfort zone than you realize?
Unfortunately, in case it's not already obvious, on the internet this shit quickly becomes a proxy battle over dozens of intersecting cultural issues at once where everyone is kinda just talking past each other. So it gets messy
For example, I have no reason to believe that the people who run the "Wholesome Games" showcases have anything against games that are dark or violent or contain adult themes. (They've outright said they don't. Many times!) But when you see people going "why is Spiritfarer allowed in the showcase? That's a game about DEATH and that's NOT WHOLESOME, why would you make me think about death?" or "Ugh, why does Disco Elysium have to be about a cop? Why can't we apply these systems to a game about a young witch who's trying to find a lost cat in an idyllic village instead?" it... Well, it makes me sympathetic towards the indies who don't feel comfortable with the "Wholesome Games" label and consider it limiting. But it also doesn't make me think that devs catering to a demand for more chill, nonviolent video games are categorically facilitating fascist censorship from the Christian right
It's complicated! The written word is imprecise and the internet is a nightmare
I've kind of gone off on multiple tangents here. Basically: I do think that people can kinda turn fans of "comfy" media or "adults who only watch Bluey" into an overblown boogeyman these days. I think people online generally have a habit of swinging too hard in one direction or another in their stances on certain things, overcompensating based on what group of people online are currently annoying them the most and turning said group into like The Main Problem With Society Today. But I also think that boogeyman only exists because of very real examples of people demanding that everything cater to their narrow comfort zone. Go like what you like, but also, y'know. Don't be that person
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You don't need to worry about the ATSV fandom dying. As someone whose been in the Marvel fandom over ten years - I can assure you this is natural.
The ATSV Fandom Isn't Dead: A brief look into the science of fandoms.
[me standing beside Hobie beaming my thoughts of love and adoration into his head like I'm professor x]
A lot of people are afraid of the ATSV dying - and I don't blame them.
In the era of shows releasing all in one day, or movies coming to streaming almost immediately - it's not hard to say we're in an era were content is consumed at ridiculously rapid rates.
I mean, this time last year Wednesday was breaking records on Netflix. Where's the hype now?
I know you see it too, there's less posts everyday in the Hobie tag, less screenshot breakdowns, etc etc etc.
But I'm here to tell you - The ATSV fandom is doing just fine. Better than fine. All of this is meant to happen.
Let me put it into perspective.
ATSV released on June 2nd - it's November.
ATSV released a little over six months ago.
For reference: The Avengers (2012) was released on May 4th.
The Avengers DVD wasn't available for purchase until SEPTEMBER 25th - almost SIX months later.
The time that the Hobie fandom has formed and existed - is the same amount of time people had to wait just to see The Avengers again.
Large periods of time where tags only get three posts a day TOPS was nothing to fear. xReaders and fanfics held the fandom over until the next trailer, the next sneak peek or leak.
Prior to the release of streaming, only a little more than ten years ago - it was NATURAL for a fandom to wait six months before even seeing the movie for a second time.
And mind you - streaming didn't exist. If you wanted to see The Avengers again, you had to go out and BUY it. $26.99.
If you wanted to order it online - you'd have to get it shipped to you. Before Disney plus, we watched on BlueRay Discs.
And the fandom was fine and healthy.
If a fandom that doesn't even have a DVD release can keep up content for six months, I think we'll be fine.
But I'll admit - there's still the question:
If the ATSV fandom is 'doing fine' then where is everyone going? Why are the tags getting slower?
The answer is simple:
FANDOM BIOLOGY
I LOVE social sciences and the systems people create and how they work - even unintentionally.
And I have a theory - one about the natural evolution and regeneration of fandom. Hear me out -
When it comes to ATSV:
We are leaving the Analysation Phase, the phase in which content creation is centered around deciphering and breaking down the most recent installment in the fandom.
During this phase usually see art of newer characters, new ships, meta breakdowns, easter egg point-outs.
We were in that phase.
Once the Analysation Phase dies down, usually main content creators may remain. The intermediate or liminal period.
The intermediate is usually when you'll see more x-reader art pop-up, the levels of fanart evening out as artists return to their favorite characters - usually incorporating any new ones they gained from the last installment.
Shitposts usually also become popular around this time, as the shock and weight of the story wear off, and we're more able to joke about the storyline a lot more light-heartedly.
That's why the intermediate point is often see as the passion 'dying out'.
When in fact, it is the fandom getting comfortable. Resting for the next phase.
And after a few months, the next phase comes:
The Speculation Phase:
The Speculation Phase cannot come until the Analysation Phase is over.
During the Analysation Phase the fandom begins to breakdown and digest the writers intentions. They integrate the new character into the story, and the fandom.
As the audience and fandom talk amongst each other, we get more solid ideas of who the characters are, what their motivations might be, and most important of all-
What they might do.
In the Speculation Phase we turn from the last installment - and start looking towards the future.
Let's take Hobie for example.
Looking at the timeline of the Hobie fandom, we can see a progression.
Originally taken as a punk-rockstar and little more, throughout the months the fandom began posting things about punk culture, the 70's, Hobie's motivation in the comics, and how that all correlates to him.
As the fandom analyzed, the collective zeitgeist and understanding of Hobie grew into something a lot more sound, and telling.
We looked at the parellels he provides in the story, and what kind of person he is.
And because if that we have seen a marked improvement in people's contextual understanding of Hobie - as a punk and a hero.
And now that we can understand him - we can predict him.
The same goes for Miguel - over the months, a lot of us have began to question if we know him as well as we think we do , if we really know the kinda person he is -
And if we really know what he's doing to do.
That's where the Speculation Phase comes in.
The Speculation Phase in fandom is when we see some of the most passion - and instead of tapering off overtime, it builds. More and more until the next release.
The Speculation Phase is when the fandom takes the analysis' and from there, they begin to theorize.
Now that we understand, we can begin to predict.
And this is arguably one of the most interesting parts in a fandoms natural ecosystem.
During the Speculation Phase, we can see a number of diverse opinions appear.
As more and more creators begin to gather their understanding, tips from the writers, new released news, and past comic book arcs, we start to see dozens of triguing paths the writers can take us on.
As more news releases, the more hype people get. I mean - imagine how you'll feel when they release the first new poster of Hobie, or Miles? Or when we get to see Miles.G in the trailer?
And with each new poster, or trailer, we're given clues. The theorizes develop more. And the plot thickens.
It's all natural.
So I can understand the fear. Only getting one or two new posts when you visit the Hobie tag can be a bummer. But it's natural and it's GOOD.
Y'all, we need to conserve our energy. We are in the liminal phase. And they never last long.
With the news of the voice actors back in the studio, and a cliff-hanger like we have - I can assure you, it's only a matter of time before we begin to see the theories, the trailer breakdowns, the people guessing what Miguel might do, or exactly how much tech Hobie is hiding.
And when that time comes we need to be READY. I can already feel it on the horizon.
I really wonder what they'll do with all that left over Hobie concept art.
Plus with explosion of Hobie approval, I wonder if they'll add him in even more. Hobie fan-service anyone?
Hmmm...
But chill y'all, we're on the right track -
-------------------------------------
If you read this far, as always THANK YOU SO MUCH!! And as a token of my appreciation, I hand you this Hobie. Hold him gently please
Bye 💗
#no proofread ever ever EVER#spiderman#atsv#spider man#marvel#across the spiderverse#hobie brown#spider punk#spiderpunk#Miles morales#miguel o'hara#miguel ohara#peter parker
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I've been scrolling through your blog, and I saw your post about discussing the racialized nature of gender. As someone who has several transmasc POC friends, and someone who's a nonbinary POC themself, I wanted to give my 2 cents.
It's important to understand that "woman" in the "man vs woman" gender binary is a colonialist, white supremacist construct, especially in Western countries where you are the numerical minority. My trans friends aren't on T, they haven't gotten top surgery, we are all quite young. But they all have numerous stories about being addressed as "sir" which brings them euphoria but as one person said, while we were making fun of the amount of white people in our club, "Due to my race and skin color, I get masculinized."
And again I'd like to emphasize, that since we're young, none of us really have medically transitioned due to financial and familial barriers. Their hair is long, our binders we definitely have notable chests, and even if they dress masculine, it's notable that no one in our communities would ever gender us properly. It's often white people calling them "sir." Again, I think this reflects how gender performances in mainstream queer communities are deeply White. Like, trans boys talk about having haircuts, but only one of my friends has that wavier, more manageable hair that will help them pass. When you've got curly/kinky hair, the standards are different. For a white person, what's the difference between a "girl" Afro and a boy "Afro"? White cis people have a harder time identifying us, and literally talk to any black girl, and they'll tell you about being mocked, dehumanized, and called "manly".
I don't have much else to say. These are just my personal experiences. But if you want to be an ally to POC in the queer community, this is why it's so fucking important to bring in colonialism/imperialism/white supremacy into discussions of queer liberation. My biggest gripe with ignorant white queers is when they ignore their white privilege, and act like "cishets" (AKA the patriarchal system regulating sexuality and gender) is the only enemy. Because cishet POC deal with plenty of shit with being infantilized, masculinized, feminized, seen as brutish & dangerous, the list goes on. Doberbutts had a post saying, "Believe me, your family's going to care more about me being black than my queerness." towards his white partners. Acknowledging and creating a framework that centers these intersections of queerness and race into your beliefs is true allyship. This is why if you're not anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, ACAB...I do not think you care for queer liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free.
Please don't view this post as an attack. But this is my perspective, and I thought you'd be receptive to me sharing my lived experiences.
Oh I absolutely don't view this ask as an attack, and I really appreciate you bringing these things up because you're right! Like, just very plainly: You are right and your and your friends lived experiences are extremely important to the conversation on the racialized aspects of gender.
It gets me thinking about where Misogynoir and the social White Fear of Black manhood intersect for Black trans men in particular. Because Black women and Women of Color in general are masculinized by White gender standards and the ways in which Black trans masculine people are gendered in alignment with their identity is absolutely not always done with gender affirming intent. In fact, it's often actually done with racist intent or is fueled by racist bias when it's coming from White people or even from non-Black POC.
That's kind of restating things you've said but differently, it's just such a topic worth highlighting explicitly since it's extremely relevant to the conversation that's been happening about Male Privilege here the last few days.
I do think I know exactly what @doberbutts post you're talking about and yeah. It's just truth. It's something Black queer people have been talking about for ages in both theory and in pop culture (my mind immediately goes to Kevin Abstract and "American Boyfriend") where Black queer/trans identity is both materially different from (neutral) and is treated differently from (negative) White queer/trans identity in multitudes of ways and those differences are worth sharing and exploring and talking about.
Genuinely, thank you for sharing! I try really hard not to lead these kinds of conversations outside of explicitly referencing back to non-White theorists because I don't particularly feel like it's my place to do so, but I will always provide a platform for them because they're extremely important conversations to be had.
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Symptoms of a System Error: The Manifestation of Myungha's Depression in Love for Love's Sake
Ok I will almost certainly have more thoughts about this when I go back to rewatch Love for Love’s Sake in the next couple weeks, but I’ve been thinking about the finale for the last couple of hours and I want to get some stuff out of my head. Before I get too far in to this, I want to say that I think most of the ambiguity in the show is brilliantly executed in a way that allows people to take whatever meaning they want to from it without contradicting each other, without stepping on toes, and without having to twist or bend the narrative beyond all recognition to make it make sense.
So I want to talk about the use of depression in this show, because the way Myungha exists in the world is recognizable enough to me that these moments of choice, and the system errors were extremely legible. That doesn’t mean my take is the correct one (and I honestly don’t think there is one right answer here anyway) but it’s what I got out of it, so with the needless ramble complete, let’s get to it.
Prologue
gif by @dramascene
I connected rather quickly to Myungha as a character from right near the beginning of episode 1 because of how passionate he was about the character of Yeowoon and how much he hoped for a happy ending for that character. As someone who processes a lot of my feelings, and who understands myself better through media consumption, I was quick to appreciate the fact that Myungha recognizes the parts of himself that speak to Yeowoon and to know that because Yeowoon is fictional, he has a chance not to suffer with merely a stroke of a pen. The Author could have chosen from the beginning to give Yeowoon a happy ending, and did not because he believes that there are people for whom bad things will never stop happening. But from the perspective of a fictional story, the Author should consider who he is writing the story for. Myungha connects to Yeowoon, and it sends one hell of a tragic message for how Myungha’s life will end up if even in fiction the people who suffer have no hope of happiness.
Myungha tells the Author that someone like Cha Yeowoon, someone like him [Myungha] with awful lives can still be happy. Looking back on that statement with the knowledge that Myungha kills himself, sends a very clear message, at least for me, of the hope that he was clinging to and finally lost his grip on. The Author asks if Myungha can change the outcome, and thus begins our story.
Debuffs
Now, I don’t know that I will have much more to say here than what @jemmo said in their very brilliant post, beyond the fact I agree with their interpretation of the debuffs. But I am thinking about the debuffs as it relates to mental health and to Myungha’s independence. One of Myungha’s first missions is to befriend Cha Yeowoon, and we see the difficulties associated with doing so when it comes to the Fondness Level meter and the debuffs that happen as a result. I love what Jess said about the dichotomy there: the debuffs mean that every time Myungha gets close to Yeowoon, something bad happens, Myungha uses that as a reason to stay away from Yeowoon to protect him when in fact, being around Myungha and increasing his fondness for him is the only way to really keep Yeowoon safe.
gif by @dramascene
And here again there is something recognizable to me in this dichotomy. Myungha likes Yeowoon, Myungha wants to be friends with Yeowoon, every time something bad might happen to Yeowoon, Myungha is there to intervene. But Myungha is convinced that the potentially negative events that might occur during a debuff are because of him, and so he avoids Yeowoon as much as he possibly can. To me this makes the debuffs a stand in for depression symptoms. Myungha has convinced himself that he is the cause of the bad moments in Yeowoon’s day. Myungha has convinced himself that Yeowoon would be better off if they weren’t friends, because he only makes things worse. And that is not something he can easily shake off, it’s not something he can logic his way out of, that’s the game, that’s just how it is. And so he withdraws until Yeowoon comes to him.
And honestly thinking about it, nothing bad really happens during those debuffs. The light doesn’t shatter, the boys back off on the bus, Yeowoon doesn’t punch Sangwon. Maybe the reason why nothing at all happens is because Myungha intervenes. Maybe if Myungha hadn’t been there, the light would have broken, maybe if Myungha hadn’t been there Yeowoon would have punched Sangwon. But that is not a lens that Myungha is capable of viewing himself through, that is never an option that crosses Myungha’s mind because he is too focused on feeling like the cause of Yeowoon’s problems.
System Errors
I know there is a lot of confusion or at least uncertainty around the system errors. Why are they happening? Where are they coming from? For me, I think the answer is Myungha himself. The first time we get a system error, it’s in Episode 6, what I think is the day after Yeowoon and Myungha have their first kiss and very soon after Yeowoon and Myungha kiss on the rooftop at school. The first error isn’t subtle, but it’s not explicitly stated. Myungha walks in to a room to take a phone call and walks in to the middle of band practice, falling through the world as he tries to remove himself from the situation until he (literally) runs in to Yeowoon. Myungha goes home that night and gets his first moments in the black abyss, and the first explicit mention via pop-up of a system error. I have not gone through (yet) to track every instance of what happens before a system error pop-up occurs from that point on, but I will say moment that was most legible for me in terms of indicating that these system errors were stemming from Myungha himself were when he gets the notification both times that Yeowoon looks directly at him and tells Myungha “I love you.”
gif by @dragonsareawesome123
That moment was a guy punch for me because I was not able to see it any other way except that Myungha is so incapable of believing that people could actually love him that someone telling him directly and sincerely that they love him cannot exist in his world. He literally cannot compute it, and thus an error occurs. Again from the perspective of depression, or trauma, or what have you, this is familiar to me. It is perhaps the most reflective part of Myungha to my own psyche. Neither of us know how to be loved.
Myungha is called out on this repeatedly, he is nice to everyone, he does so much for everyone and refuses to ask for help himself. I’m the same way, I will bend over backwards as much as I can to help the people that I care about, but it is a rare occasion where I can ask for help myself. I’m not sure if this is the case for Myungha, but for me at least a lot of that stems from needing to make myself useful to people in some way so they keep me around. And so I end up feeling like a commodity to the people that I care about and help, and merely tolerated by anyone else that I do not help but that interacts with me any way. Myungha is called out consistently by multiple people, real or NPC about this similar habit. Myungha does not want to be a burden, Myungha only cares about other people’s happiness, Myungha is not happy himself and has maybe never been happy and so he pours everything he can in to lightening the load for others.
He loves Yeowoon, but to be loved by Yeowoon is different. To experience any moments of joy cannot possibly be real. Maybe I am projecting too much on to the character, but it makes complete and total sense to me that Myungha’s worldview would break down upon having someone state wholeheartedly that they want to be a support system for him.
Cruel Choices
gif by @dramascene
With the enmeshment of depression and video game mechanics in mind, I want to talk about the scene at the end of Episode 6. I love this scene so much for a number of reasons:
It turns the game on a head for me as we slip further and further in to a nightmare scenario
It raises the stakes and attempts to get Myungha to make a hard choice
It forces Myungha to think about what is important to him
It’s ultimate purpose and who is posting the mission is ambiguous/uncertain
I’m going to focus on number four. I think it is a perfectly valid read to see this and all video game mechanics as designed by The Author in an effort to help Myungha change Yeowoon’s story in which case this mission feels particularly vindictive and cruel. @lurkingshan posed the question in a conversation we were having about Love for Love’s Sake, where she wondered why the game could not hold two sources of love for Myungha at once. I love that question because it made me realize how differently this show can be read and how important who you choose to read as the entity in control of this game is for what this scene specifically means and I love so many interpretations of it, I love the interpretation that is was simply cruel, I love the interpretation that in retrospect this was the Author being angry at Myungha for dying, I love the reflection from @jemmo that said this felt like a choice between staying rooted in the past (sparing grandma) or choosing a future (sparing Yeowoon)
For me, I think I am leaning heavily in to the pop ups are under Myungha’s subconscious control, his mind, the missions he thinks are important, the problems he thinks he is causing are what is driving the base game. Because of this my base instinct is to lean in to the depression/anxiety/trauma tent where things have been going a little too well for him lately and he has convinced himself that he is due for something bad to happen. I am happy to once again acknowledge that this probably projection, but I know that my own mental illness(es) does not let my peace linger for long. Myungha is spending so much time with Yeowoon, Yeowoon who grounds him when his world is literally falling apart. Yeowoon who cannot contain his smile whenever he is around Myungha, Yeowoon who is downright desperate to bestow love and support upon Myungha, Yeowoon who has accompanied Myungha to the hospital late at night to be there for his boyfriend in a stressful time, and Myungha can’t have that. He loves his grandmother, he loves Yeowoon, they both love him and so obviously means that something bad is going to happen to them.
gif by @25shadesoffebruary
[As an aside I am thinking about what the Author said in the final episode about wanting Myungha to be able to see himself from the outside, and how I took that to mean Yeowoon is supposed to be a reflection of Myungha and a journey to self love, and how Yeowoon told Myungha that something bad always happens to the people around him in relation to this hospital scene]
Secondarily, I do think being confronted with this choice at all allows Myungha to have a moment of reflection, and is clarifying for him to know that both Yeowoon and his grandmother are important people in his life that he doesn’t want to lose. That’s fucking huge, in my opinion at least. And for all this mission was cruel, it was the first time Myungha refused to complete the mission. He was asked to save one, he decided to save both, and the game could have been cruel and taken his grandmother and Yeowoon away for refusing to choose, but it didn’t. They both got to live, and sure Myungha’s mission to make Yeowoon happy was shortened significantly, but I do think fifteen days was enough time to be successful in his mission if the depression and the grief had not gotten to Myungha instead.
Grief
gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses
Something about grief that my therapist told me once was grieving people love helping others. And I think that is the case of Myungha here just based on the way he throws himself in to helping as many people as he can, especially Yeowoon. He knows Yeowoon is grieving, he knows Yeowoon is struggling, and he can distract himself from his own shit by helping Yeowoon instead. But once Myungha is confronted with the possibility that either one of the people that he loves could die, the penality for failing in his mission to make Yeowoon happy looms over his head like a knife. Just like Myungha considered himself the problem with the debuff, he knows how high of a likelihood it is that Yeowoon would regress, would isolate, would sink into a massive low.
And it would be Myung’s fault (in his mind).
Especially because Yeowoon keeps saying that even thinking about going on dates with Myungha is making him happy but Myungha’s mission isn’t complete. Myungha has started to get low, he is not as engaged in his relationship with Yeowoon, he’s convinced himself he is going to fail, and is thus setting himself up for failure because he decides 15 days is not enough time to find happiness, but it is enough time to break somebody’s heart in preparation for a devastating loss. And maybe, maybe Myungha would have snapped out of it with enough time to spare initially, but any hope of that being the case was shattered the second Yeowoon admitted that he wasn’t happy because Myungha wasn’t relying on him.
Myungha is so used to be self-reliant there is no way for him to break out of that habit in just two weeks. Myungha knew his death would hurt Yeowoon, but the final nail in the coffin for him was learning that his life was hurting Yeowoon too. And he almost got there, he almost did it, he admitted that he didn’t know how to, but he withdrew at the last second. He has spent all this time, all this energy, all this focus in to changing Yeowoon, he does not have the space to do that for himself.
The Choice
gif by @supanuts
The last moment I will really speak to as it relates to my interpretation of this game being controlled by Myungha as a manifestation of his depression is the author’s pen. Considering the fact The Author asked Myungha if he wanted to try again, I do not think if the Author was controlling this game world that he would have had Myungha disappear from it. Because according to the Gaga subs, the change that Myungha writes is that he wants Yeowoon to be happy, and immediately upon finishing that request, Myungha starts to fade.
If we hold these game mechanics as manifestations of Myungha’s depression, which I do, it makes complete and total sense to me that Myungha would fall back in to the pattern of believing that Yeowoon would be happier if Myungha wasn’t there. Yeowoon has a modeling deal now, he has some modicum of fame, he has friends now, he has supports in place that he did not have before, so what need does Yeowoon have of him, when his inability to let people love him is what is now causing Yeowoon to feel sad.
And I think that massive server error at the end where the world is burning and the universe is melting in to the game is a result of Myungha realizing too little, too late that this isn’t what he wanted. But it can’t be undone. The line he says when he is sinking in to the water about how at the last minute before he died, he regretted it. The game, the drowning here are one in the same to me.
And for me there was just something so beautiful and hopeful from Myungha telling The Author that he wants to try again. We started the show with Myungha telling The Author miserable people can be happy, and we end the show with Myungha and Yeowoon finally getting the happy ending they never thought they would have.
gif by @junghaesin
God I loved this show.
#love for love's sake#lfls#love for love's sake meta#love for love's sake analysis#one thing about this show is that it almost certainly will lend itself well to a rewatch!#and I *love* rewatching shows#wka long post
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