#‘oh but historically men have done this’ ok but this is fiction

[patcaps]

all the people wanting queer trauma porn who would’ve bet money on cap killing himself because he’s gay owe me £1000 btw. you fucking freaks

[marimosalad]

8 TV shows can say a lot about a person!

Certainly for me, I think! I’m listing here many of my personal recs which (as this is a Haladriel blog) I will be talking about them in relation to Haladriel, if applicable.

Thanks for the tag @pursuitseternal 🌟

Without further ado:

———

1. Needless to say, The Rings of Power.

I’m a total sucker for Hot Bad Men™️ so I never stood a chance against Saubrand.

Blorbo aside, my attachment to this show far preceded my Saurondriel obsession — I was completely enamored with it since Episode 1, the first big scenic shot of Valinor; the Two Trees; the epic soundtrack; stunning costumes. I had tears in my eyes during the boat sailing into the light of Valinor. The scale of storytelling far exceeded my admittedly meager expectations.

Let me be clear: I did not want to like this show and was set on dismissing it as an inferior fan service following The Hobbit franchise. Next thing I knew my inner child had been awakened and my love for Tolkien universe rekindled. Add to this concoction my weakness for complex villains and the epic reveal of Hot Sauron — boom, I was done. I’ll never recover from this.

2. FRINGE.

This show has such a special place in my heart. It’s sci-fi, mystery, time travel, alternate timelines, quantum physics mumbo jumbo, love story, and a father/son story all rolled into one amazing series that ended abruptly and went under the radar for so long.

In this universe, Denethor II has reincarnated into a much more gentle, sweeter Dr. Walter Bishop who actually loves his son and will put his life at risk for his son over, and over, and over again.

I also have an undying admiration for Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham (I’m planning a separate post of all my fictional female crushes over the years). I was so giddy to see her in The Last of Us — she’s an underrated actress who deserves to be in the spotlight.

3. LOST.

Probably the first TV show that I actually got seriously invested in as a young adult and since then I’ve watched it so many times in every phase of my life. I’ve named our new puppy after Penelope Widmore. My computer name is Not-Pennys-Boat. I’ve been thirsting after stranded-at-sea disheveled ruffians since Sawyer, who is my favorite character who was the antagonist at the beginning (I’ve been saying that Halbrand is the perfect mix of Sawyer and Aragorn).

Sawyer/Juliet is my absolute favorite onscreen couple, pre-Haladriel. Their chemistry is fire. They just work. (Hated him with Kate.) Just tell me this doesn’t scream Haladriel (aesthetically):

Bonus: scene look familiar? Desmond did it first 🔥

4. Outlander.

Ok, believe it or not, I wasn’t quite watching this for the copious amount of steamy sex just because I was watching with my husband AND my mom over the pandemic when we lived together, and needless to say it was quite awkward 😂 I have a particular inexplicable love for Scotland (despite having only gone there twice), so when I discovered the series I went head over heels in love with the landscape, costumes, historic details, music (Bear McCreary), mythology, etc. Oh, and the hot Scotsman too 🫠

Jamie and Claire are the epitome of cosmically connected soulmates, their love transcending across lifetimes. Their early sex scenes are 🔥🔥🔥.

Bonus fact: Sam Heughan was named after Samwise Gamgee by his Tolkien hippie parents. He’s been casually broadcasting that he wants a role in TROP. Could we help him? If enough of us use the tag #SamHeughanForCeleborn, will they give Galadriel the husband she deserves?

5. DARK.

Did I mention I’m a big fan of quantum physics, philosophy, time travel, and parallel universes? No? Well, this brooding German show just about represents everything I love. The perfectly planned 3-season show is everything you could ever hope for in a good TV series. It’s moody, intelligent, mind-bending, and heart-wrenching. Watch the first episode, and by the end of it, you’ll be hooked, I promise you. Oh and for the love of god, do not watch it dubbed.

6. Norsemen.

Ok, I don’t typically watch too much comedy. But I do like The Office. I also like medieval movies/shows. What if I said Norsemen was basically a medieval version of The Office? Oh, it’s so dumb. It’s so dumb I almost didn’t finish the first episode. But once you get in the groove, it’s hilarious as fuck. On Netflix.

7. True Detective.

I don’t know how many times I’ve rewatched this show — it’s my comfort show I watch by myself on my laptop on rainy evenings. I don’t know what that says about me, and I don’t want to know 😂

Aside from the intrigue of the creepy Southern Gothic and unsettling cult themes, I mainly attribute my obsession with the show to Matthew McConaughey’s brooding Rust Cohle. He’s tall and lanky, a total weirdo, a lone wolf, has commitment issues, single-minded about his job, and (a bit more than) slightly unhinged. Also known as my kind of dude.

8. Better Call Saul.

Greatest of all spin-offs, who knew that the show about the sleazy lawyer who represented the world’s greatest meth kingpin was actually a love story in disguise?

Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn as Jimmy and Kim are the perfect embodiment of a modern couple who are equals and opposites, bring out each other’s best and worst, and have an undying respect for one another which serves as the backbone for their relationship. They even take turns towing on opposite sides of the law, pushing and pulling each other’s inclinations towards Good & Bad, only to find each other drowning in the dense grey area that is all too real. They are the *could have beens* for Galadriel and Sauron in the best case scenario (I could go on with the similarities but I don’t want to spoil the show).

Bonus fact: Gennifer Hutchison was the writer for both BCS and TROP. This fact should speak volumes about the kinds of discussions that would have occurred in the writer’s room regarding the nature of Galadriel and Sauron’s relationship. Watch the show and you’ll understand.

I’ve got many more recommended shows, but I think these 8 have been my primary emotional support shows over the past few years. I debated including Raised By Wolves, but as it was prematurely canceled there isn’t a whole lot I could say about it, despite having a fantastic premise (and which I still recommend people watch).

No pressure tags (but also curious to know): @starlady66 @maironiiel @demonscantgothere @scriberated @wyrd-syster @formerlyir @nenyabusiness @thegreatzombieartisan and any others who want to join.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

A mini rant about scholarship in the US and South Korea

'cause... it might make you learn something. USian scholarship usually has weaknesses in the following areas:

Don't check your sources.

Don't check your source's sources.

Take a quote and then don't check the surrounding quotes or take a quote from a different text that quoted a text, but don't check the original text.

Writing convoluted to sound smart when not necessary.

Retconning to believe white (usually straight, or make them straight) (usually abled, or make them abled) men over everyone else in the world. (which, BTW, is easier to do when you don't do 1 and 2).

Not requiring citations from white men.

Weaknesses of Korean scholarship

Jump conclusions--not even reasonable inferences.

Everyone believing a source before checking how the work was done

believing fictional sources without questioning them first. (This is a different flavor from the US)

believing fictional sources without looking for historical backing.

Not being able to sort logically sources that came from a much later date versus contemporary to that date.

It's an exalted source, so you believe it absolutely rather than investigate if it could be true or not.

It's a different kind of media literacy issues. It's irking in different ways, but mixes really badly in News reporting. So, say, there is a historical figure, but we don't know what their name is. Someone from a different country takes a stab and *guesses*, the Korean media thinks that's the "valid" name. Urrgghhh without asking, "What is the source of the name?" "What historical documents do you have to back this name?" They don't have it? Oh noes. Let's ignore that part. Then they make the jump conclusion, this must be the name. Then news articles pick it up, but because the US doesn't check their source's sources, they think it's 100% true. Then it becomes a copy error. Then the Korean news media doesn't doubt the US news media, and then double copy error. And I'm over here banging my head against the keyboard because the bad media literacy is feeding off of each other and I want to bash both sides.

Which is what happened to poor Heo Hwang Ok. Someone made a comic book and then it got transliterated wrong by the Korean media, then got copied to the Indian media, then became her "official name" in the Samguk Yusa, which it DOES NOT APPEAR. I have the copy of the Samguk Yusa.

Then the copy error became official on Wikipedia.

But this has also happened in other instances which has been noted by Korean native scholars and I've noticed too. There is an absurd theory that chili peppers are native to Korea, for example, because birds carry seeds, and they could have pooped them in Northern Korea/ China, therefore the current chili pepper in Korea (Kochu) comes from Korea.

But is there academic evidence with DNA? Nope. This is all inference and conjecture based on air. And I'm not saying the US is much better... for example, there was a study about mice where they seemed to have behaviors of autism, accordingly, but no one could read the article well. Because they didn't have media literacy, they were making jump assumptions such as, "Vaccines cause autism." What? It's about mice, dude. And Autism is caused by bacteria. But that's not what the study actually said. No one actually looked at the study or lines of evidence. So I spent time breaking it down bit by bit.

The whole anti-homosexuality scare a few months back--I also broke it down and found flaws in the study.

Basically what I'm saying is that a little media literacy and making sure you aren't doing these mistakes would help everyone a lot. I get it, though, reading the source all the way through it hard. But make sure it says what you think it actually says. And remember, fiction IS NOT HISTORY. WTF. Why do people think a comic book is actual history?

BTW, if you stop trying to dress up your words to sound smarter, maybe you'd actually make sense. Also stop ranting about unrelated things, Freytag and Foucault. If your academic buddies think that because you write in plain goddamned English, you should be kicked out of the academic club for writing for plebeians, then kick them back and call them unrelenting snobs. Also, I'm pro more media literacy.

[ramp-it-up]

...And Forever

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Enhanced!Reader; Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader

AU: MCU A/U, after TFATWS

Warnings: 18+ Only, Minors DNI. SMUT! Read at your own risk. Alternate MCU facts/timeline, lies, cursing, angst,  oral, (F, M receiving) fingering, spit play rank kink, size kink, unprotected sex (wrap it up!), sex on a pool table, semi-public sex, a special surprise, stalker-ish behavior, almost Dark!Steve? Not Beta’d. All errors my own.

A/N: I am an MCU nerd but not a timeline detail gal. Please forgive me if the timeline is off. This is an alternate universe and a work of fiction. Please have fun with it! This is the second part to Always.  Enjoy!

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

You opened your eyes to see that you were in what looked like a break room. There was a coffee machine, a round table with five chairs, a row of lockers, two Captain Americas, and a Winter Soldier.

There was some strange conversation going on.

“Then who gave me the shield at the lake…?”  

Sam was questioning Steve, but he stopped talking when you started moving around.  You must have still been in the wedding venue, because you saw the name of the historic building on various items in the room. 

You scowled up at Sam, Bucky and Steve.

You moved to sit up and Steve was at your side. “Easy…”

“Sweetheart, are you okay?”

You squinted at Steve. His hair was shorter and he was clean shaven, but he was still gorgeous. Those blue eyes were full of concern. 

You raised your hand, and he held it, holding it and caressing it as you raised it to his face.

“Is it really you?”

Steve smiled ruefully at you. “Yeah, it’s me.”

You held his cheek and looked at him, bringing your other hand up to the other side of his face. He smiled at you. 

You grabbed him and hugged him hard, and then pulled back again as he held you in his arms. He moved back and pursed those ruby red lips. 

You had this irresistible urge to...slap the shit out of him. And so you did.

The sound reverberated in the room. Steve just stared up at you, with that fucking beautiful face, and then smiled, rubbing his jaw as if it hurt. 

But you knew it didn’t. And you were tired of the bullshit.

Sam and Bucky moved to calm you down, but you were too quick for them, pacing to the other side of the room. 

“All of you can stay the hell away from me. Y’all have some fuckin nerve. Especially you, Steven.”  

Your Houston accent was shining through with your anger.

“Wow, Sweetheart, that was harsh. But I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

You pointed at Steve.

“Fuck you.” 

You were seething, especially when he raised his eyebrow at your comment. But he quickly fixed his face when he saw the rage on yours. You looked at Sam, who just looked down, and at Bucky, who looked like he was in pain.  

Fuck thier feelings.

“I deserve your anger. I didn't tell…” Steve tried it. 

“You don’t deserve a got damn thing. Not even my anger.” 

Steve was stone faced at your vitriol. You were shaking, trying to control your emotions and not cry.  You were so hot. You fought to keep your voice steady.

“I thought you were dead.” It came out as a ragged whisper. But you knew everyone heard you.

Your voice was low, even, and scary. Bucky looked at you with wide eyes. Your own were brimming with tears.

“I thought you were dead and that they didn’t want to tell me.” 

You waved your hand at Bucky and Sam. And you waited until Steve looked you in the eyes again. 

“I thought you were in prison, that someone, on some alien star, forced you to play some sick gladiator games. Or that HYDRA was still around and they turned you into an agent for them. Or that you lost your memory in the blip. So many scenarios played in my mind, Steven.”

Steve knew better than to talk. This was his time to listen.

“But I never ever once thought that you chose this. Never thought it was your choice to leave and to stay away.”

“Listen…” Sam started speaking.

“Shut the fuck UP, Samuel.” 

If you had Bucky’s knives, all of them would be seriously injured right now.  

“You knew that he was alive and you didn’t tell me. Despite me begging for any kind of information.”  

Sam just pursed his lips and returned your glare.  You were right.

You went and stood in front of Bucky.

“James…” 

He looked at you, those pained eyes making your stomach flip.  

“How could you?  You knew?”

He just stared at you. Retreating into not speaking.

Steve spoke up.

“Yes, I left. Yes, it was my choice.  I thought I could… Well, let’s just say that hindsight is 20/20 and you can’t ever go back. I swore Sam and Buck to secrecy and I asked them to take care of you.  This all just got out of hand.  Didn’t it Buck?”

You watched Steve in disbelief and you swiveled your head toward Bucky and Sam again.

“You both lied to me. And Sam. Did you tell Steve to come back and ruin my life?”

Sam scoffed, offended. “No. I didn’t. S.H.I.E.L.D gave Steve quarterly updates.  You and Bucky happened so fast…” 

You ignored his explanation.

“But you knew exactly where he’d gone.”

“Yes.” Sam was cornered.

You turned back to Bucky. 

“I asked you a question earlier. Did you know?”

He nodded, imperceptibly.  “Doll… I…”

“James Buchanan Barnes. You knew?” Your heart was breaking even more than it was.

“Yes, but it’s complicated. He didn’t come back, at least not the way he left, and I thought it was a done deal. I thought he found…”

You interrupted him. 

“What. Happiness?” 

You turned back to Steve. “Is that what you were looking for, Steve? Happiness?”

“Sweetheart, you made me happy, I just had the chance to finally settle some unfinished business.”

You nodded.

“So James here took advantage of your little vacation to get with his best friend's girl while you explored your other options. Cool.”

It was not cool.

“Do you remember when you asked me if you could trust me, Steve?”  

He just gave a little smile and came to stand before you, looking down at you in that way of his.  He was trying to shake you. You were unshakeable. You raised your chin and looked right in his eyes.

“What you don’t understand is that you can’t pick and choose the pieces of life that you want, Steven.” 

You moved away from all of them. Steve stepped toward you, but stopped when you held up your hand.

“I’ve lived my life for everyone else, for this country, for as long as I can remember.  I deserve a little piece of life, Sweetheart.”  

Steve really believed what he was saying.

“What about me? Do I get a choice?”

Steve looked around at his two best friends, who were now best friends, and his best girl.

“You’re right. I think you should. You should choose.”

Your mouth hinged open. You spoke at the wall, then looked at Bucky.

“What about you, James? Do I need to choose?”

Bucky walked in front of you

“No Doll. You don’t have to choose.”  

You looked up into his eyes.  Damn, he looked so handsome in his bespoke grey suit that he chose for the wedding. And the tie that you gave him set off his eyes.  

“I just….  I just wanted a piece of happiness too. I knew you were Steve’s girl.”  He took both of your hands in his. 

“I don’t deserve you. When Steve didn’t come back, and you and I connected, I couldn’t help it. I was just going to keep an eye out, but…”

He gave you that cute little side smile of his.  And then he kissed you. It was short and sweet and oh so hot. You looked up at him, shook to the core. And then he ruined it all.

“I love you Doll. It was nice while it lasted.” 

Bucky was giving up. 

You nodded and backed away. Not believing this situation. 

“Ok. I’m making my choice.” 

You raised your chin and looked at Steve and Bucky.

“I’m not some fucking marble that you pass around, play with, and trade with your friend.” 

You took a deep breath.  “I choose me.”

You were gone in a flash, before they could even register it.  And although they ran, they couldn’t catch you before you were out of reach.

-----

Three months later, you walked through the late August soup of Houston heat to the bar, pausing when you thought you heard footfalls behind you. You used your speed to zip along to Willy’s; you were safe there.

You were back sharking with the best of them.  But your training was put to good use.  You never got burned and you never got caught.  You were making a good living.  

There were a jumble of misfit super humans who had gathered there with you.  You were a leader now. And you were doing well on your own. It was a life.

You already knew he was coming, and maybe that’s why you moved to the back room to play.

You were prepared, but when you felt him, you still lost your breath.  But you recovered quickly, straightening your spine, despite the fact that he was standing so close to you.

You looked at the dartboard on the wall across from you and chalked your cue.

“Don’t you have other things to take care of? Other wheres? Other whens maybe?”

You learned more about time travel since you’d left New York, and you understood more of what happened. 

The Avengers had access to time travel.  If only you could go back… but no. You were stronger than those men.  You could live with your decisions. And move forward.

“No. What I need to take care of is right here. Right now.”  

His deep growl stirred something inside you, and you fought your body, which was becoming moist at his proximity.

You bent over the table, super soldier dick poking you in the ass before you drew your pool cue back sharply into his stomach.  Abs of steel met the cue and nearly broke it.  He just stepped aside and shook his head at you.

You turned your head to look into his aqua blue eyes and you fell in love all over again.  Shit.

You gave up and turned around, leaning back against the pool table, because he wasn’t giving an inch, not moving from your space.

You scanned the room and your people were watching, but keeping your distance. They all knew who he was, and your history. They gave you space, but wouldn’t let you be hurt without a fight. You nodded at them and they all went to the front, giving you more privacy.

He nodded in their direction. 

“People fall under your spell fast, I know that all too well. They trust you.”

You lifted your head. “I’ve never done anything to make them not trust me.”

He sighed.  “Point taken.”

“Why did you come here?  I know that you’ve known where I was. Sam must have told you.” 

“I’ve known where you were. How could I not? I didn’t need Sam to tell me. It’s not like you were trying to hide.”  

He cocked his head at you.

“But the reason that I’m here, now, is that I’ve always been slow at math. And I just put two and two together.”

You smirked up at him. “You’re right. This is home. A leopard doesn’t change her stripes.”

He just chuckled at your evasion.

“You wanna play a game?” 

His eyes followed you, undeterred by your challenge.

You walked around to the other side of the table, leaned over and gathered the balls to be racked. 

You held two in one hand and looked at him.  He smiled and the electricity at the small of your back was everything. He slowly walked around to you as you racked them.

He took in your form (including your ample cleavage) as you bent over the table and your mouth as you said the word, “Break.”

“I’m tired of playing games, Doll. I’m just here to win you back.”

You turned around and faced him, looking up at him, now aware of his smell.  You closed your eyes and inhaled leather and metal. You opened them again and his eyes were blazing.

“James.. I”  

Bucky grabbed your face, hands gently cradling your head, and cut you off with a kiss, his lips gentle at first. Then his hands moved to your hips and lifted you onto the table. He slotted himself in between your thighs, your bodies separated by the same brand of black denim. 

His lips and tongue seemed determined to possess you. Bucky kissed and felt your body like he hadn’t in a lifetime. His hands roamed you like they were starved from touching you. 

Your hands were on his neck and in his hair, relishing the feel of him. You’d  missed him so fucking much. You drew apart, and his breath fanned your face as you two panted together, his forehead resting on yours.

“I am never going to let you go again.”

“James…”

“Hold on Doll, I’ve got to say this.” 

He smiled and gave you another quick peck.  You nodded, solemn.

“I said the wrong thing back in Brooklyn. I don’t care that you were with him first. I don’t care if you think that you might want to be with him. When I fell for you, I fell harder than I ever have. Even from the train.”  

He was whispering the words you wanted to hear months ago, causing you to cry.  But a lot of things caused you to cry lately. 

Bucky smiled at you, his eyes crinkling in that adorable way that you loved. You opened your mouth to speak and he kissed you, silencing you again. You responded with a smile. He continued.

“I know that you think that I folded and just gave up on you on our wedding day. I was just thinking that I don’t deserve you. Especially next to Steve.  I mean, you won’t find a better man.  But in the time since, I’ve realized, even though it’s hard. I’m a good man too.”

“You are, James…”

“You helped me come to terms with everything that’s happened. Sam has helped me deal with everything I did...and I’m not perfect, and neither are you, but we can be perfect for each other.”  

You nodded, smiling a little.

“I’m in love with you and I deserve you. You deserve me. We deserve each other.  And I’m not saying this because I think you saved me. But you are the strongest woman I know, enough to be with me when I am weak. I figured out that I can be strong for you too. I have to be now. I am so sorry that I let you walk away. But I’m not going to let you out of my sight now, even if you don’t want to be with me.  But I am asking you, again. Be my family. Make one with me. Choose me.”

You shook your head as tears fell from your eyes.

“James Barnes, there was never ever any choice. It’s you. It will be you. Forever.”

Bucky let out a sigh of relief and started kissing you all over your face, down your neck and into your cleavage.

“I was scared shitless, Doll! I love you so much,…”

You kissed him now, your hands under his jacket, slipping it off his shoulders. Next, you went under his shirt, feeling his nipples, playing with them as he shuddered. Then your hands went up to one cold shoulder and one warm, grasping them as he ground his hard jeans covered crotch into yours.

“Too many clothes.”

You ended up helping him pull his shirt over his head. You trailed your hand back down his abs to the button on his jeans.

“I missed you James. My hormones are going crazy, Baby…”  

His eyes got wide as you popped the top button and bit your lip.  Bucky moaned.  He was about to explode just being near you.

“Th-that’s what we need to talk about…”

“Talk later. Fuck. Now.”

Bucky looked over your shoulder to the other room. To his surprise, the door was now closed.

“Wow, they…”

You hopped down from the table and got on your knees in front of him.

“You gonna let me suck your dick or not James?”

He looked down at you smirking up at him and could feel himself leaking in his jeans.  Three months of his hand had been torture, thinking of you.  

It seemed as if he unfastened and pulled himself out without knowing.  For a moment he feared mind control. 

But it was just love and lust.

You grasped him, testing his girth and admiring how your fingers did not meet around his cock.  

“Mmmmmmmm,” you moaned while you thumbed his tip, collecting the pre-cum and lubricating him as you pumped.

He stared at you, slack jawed and sexy as he watched you.  He reached down and put his hand in your hair, massaging your scalp.

You commanded him. “Eyes on me, Sergeant.”

Bucky locked eyes with you and watched as you licked your lips, opened your mouth, and spit on his cock.

“Fuck.”

You pumped him a couple of times before you opened wide and took him as deep as you could, relishing the feel of his wide, smooth, hard unit in your mouth.  You pulled off of him with a pop.

“Damn I missed this dick.” 

Then you deep throated him again, making Bucky have to hold on to the side of the pool table as he held your head while you spluttered around him.

“And I missed your pretty little mouth, Doll. Damn.”  He watched as you did it a few more times.

When you looked up and  he saw your ruined face, Bucky went feral.

He pulled you up by your shirt, pulling it over your head and wiping your face with it.  Then he kissed you.

“Fucking love how you do that, Doll.”  

He started kissing down your chest, pulling your breasts out of your bra, pinching and rolling your nipples gently, a little more carefully than usual. He looked at you knowingly as you squirmed in pleasure.

“I’ve been doing my research.”  

Then, he leaned down and suckled them with that mouth until you almost came, writhing in his arms. Bucky unbuttoned your pants and pulled them down, kneeling, and staring up at you as you leaned against the green felt table.

You stepped out of your jeans and panties and watched as his flesh hand glided from your ankle to your ass, palming it and then sliding back down as he lifted your thigh on his shoulder.  You shuddered as you could feel his breath on your cunt.

“I’ve been dreaming of this.”  

His eyes held yours as he leaned in for a kiss, then a long wet lick of your cunt.  You grabbed his brown hair as his blue eyes hypnotized you and as he ate you out. When his metal fingers came up, whirring, you started begging.

“Please, James…please…please…..”

He laughed, mouth still fucking your pussy. He pulled away, chin glistening with your juices. His fingers began pumping inside you, the vibration driving you up the wall.

“Are you begging me to stop, or to continue, Doll? Talk to me.”

“Unnnh, unnnnh, oooohhh shittttt. Don’t ever stop.” 

And then you came all over his face,  Bucky slurping it up happily.  He stood up, taking you with him and maneuvering you so that you could feel his thick tip at your hole before it breached you. 

Bucky’s cock stretched you out and made you see stars as you slid down his thick pole while he was standing up, pumping inside you as he deposited you on the table.

You wrapped around him like a vine as he held you, cock pounding from the feeling of being inside you again. He pulled back to kiss you again.  He was grunting in his throat as he tried to speak.

“Fuck you feel so good...Fair warning, Doll. I’m not going to last. Been too long.”

You let go of him, and leaned back on the felt, arms braced behind you as you replied, “Just fuck me James.”

Bucky took in your body, from where you were connected up your torso to your breasts and the beautiful fucked out look on your face and started moving.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckkk.”  You took him, looking down to see the impossible stretch.

“Yeah, look at that. Looks and feels so damn good, doesn’t it, Doll? How the fuck are you so… so… fucking… tight….?”

“Yes, fuck, James, FUCKKKKK.”

All nerves were in your cunt as you went down to your elbows, and then to your back flat on the slate table, pool balls going everywhere.

Bucky pulled your hips off the table and really started digging in, hips snapping at a frenzied pace as his metal hand slid down your body. You could tell that he was almost there.

“Cum with me Doll.” 

When that metal thumb touched your clit, it was over.  You came as soon as you felt his white hot ropes of cum drench your walls. You closed your eyes for just a second, and then opened your eyes wide.

‘Why am I curled up on a pool table after being fucked by my 106 year old fiance? What is life?”

Bucky laughed as he pulled his shirt over his head and helped you off the table. He looked around, going to get you a bottle of water from the vending machine.

“You good?” 

Bucky eyed you as you got your clothes together.  He leaned next to you as he watched you drink the water.

“Baby okay?”

You ducked your head, smiled and grabbed his hand, putting it on your slightly rounded stomach.

“Yeah. I can feel him moving around.  Can you feel that?”  

Bucky just stared at his hand, then at your face.

“Not really… Him?”  He was astounded.

“That’s normal. I’m gonna be able to feel him before you can, And yeah, Him.”  

You turned more fully toward Bucky and he took you in his arms.  

“I had all kinds of tests, to make sure that he was okay.  I wanted to know if… if what they did to me would affect…. “ 

You shook your head, then smiled up at Bucky.

“He’s healthy.  I’m 20 weeks. I figured we’d call him Jamie?”  

Bucky beamed at you and nodded. 

“How did you know?”

“Well, I figured out that you didn’t faint at the wedding just because of Steve. Why didn’t you tell me, Doll?”

You rolled your eyes.

“Are you really asking me that question?”  

Bucky blanched and you decided not to be salty. 

“Well, At first, I didn’t want you to feel trapped. I was so happy that you asked me and didn’t know.”  You beamed at him. “ But then…” Your smile faded.

“I’m an idiot, Doll. Forgive me.  It’s me and you. And Jamie. Forever.”  

You two shared the kiss you missed at the altar. It was going to be okay.

“Now, let’s go get some food. I know you’re hungry.”

You laughed as you punched his arm. 

“Ass. But you’re right.” 

You two walked down the street to Ninfa’s Restaurant hand in hand. Bucky turned his head and gave an imperceptible nod as you two passed by an alley/

Steve returned the greeting as he stepped out and watched you and Bucky make your way down the street.

“That’s okay Sweetheart,” he whispered. “Buck’s a good man. But I know you’ll choose me. In another time.”

He walked to the quinjet, which was pointed toward New York.

-------

Did Reader make the right choice? What do you think about the surprise?And what the what is Steve thinking? Let me know if you liked it by commenting or reblogging!

Tagging:

@olyvoyl @summerofsnowflakes @sillyteecup @riiyy @honeysucklechocolatedrippin @theselilwonders @lonelydance @chattykathysquietsister @anh1020 @nissameta1782 @afriendlyblackhottie @betterkeepmewetterthanabayou @jbrizzywrites @stilltoyou  @donutloverxo @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @kiwisa @food8me @aiikaa @marvelfansworld  @london-grunge @pheebsyells @thesecretlifeofdaydreams-bl-blog @douxtille @ximaginexx @fofisstilinski @bertieandberries @ladystrawberry @bit-of-a-timelord @chesca-791 @calimoi @fangirlfree @bbaengtan @karolsboo @aliceforbes @insertpithyusername @sickknik @photmath @whorekneebrain  @anacrcarvalho @iconicshit @spicybibimbap @fineanddandy @olyvoyl @chaoticsteverogers@txtsfromyourex @sadthotsonlylove @ikatieebabyy@nerdymugsharkempath @maroonsunrise83 @curlyhairclub @spookyparadisesheep @keepingitlokiii​ @weaselbeedisneygeek @toofab4utheatrediva

[mediaevalmusereads]

When A Scot Ties the Knot. By Tessa Dare. New York: Avon Books, 2015.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Castles Ever After #3

Summary: On the cusp of her first London season, Miss Madeline Gracechurch was shyly pretty and talented with a drawing pencil, but hopelessly awkward with gentlemen. She was certain to be a dismal failure on the London marriage mart. So Maddie did what generations of shy, awkward young ladies have done: she invented a sweetheart. A Scottish sweetheart. One who was handsome and honorable and devoted to her, but conveniently never around. Maddie poured her heart into writing the imaginary Captain MacKenzie letter after letter … and by pretending to be devastated when he was (not really) killed in battle, she managed to avoid the pressures of London society entirely. Until years later, when this kilted Highland lover of her imaginings shows up in the flesh. The real Captain Logan MacKenzie arrives on her doorstep—handsome as anything, but not entirely honorable. He’s wounded, jaded, in possession of her letters… and ready to make good on every promise Maddie never expected to keep.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: graphic sexual content, blood, violence

Overview: I came across this book while doing research for a blog post on Scottish fetishization in romance. While writing the post, I encountered YouTuber Jean Bookishthoughts’s video “ An Actual Scot Reads Highlander Romances,” and she gave this novel a fairly positive review. So I decided “why not? I’ve got nothing better to do.” Overall, the premise of this book was really enticing - the idea of a woman writing letters to a fictional sweetheart only to have a flesh-and-blood man show up at her door is quite the setup. I also think Dare does a good job of writing humor and moving the narrative along. But I ultimately couldn’t give this book more than 3 stars for a number of reasons: for one, the main crux of the plot felt like it could have been a bit more robust. Two, I didn’t find Logan to be a very interesting character. And three, some of the random “Highlander” references felt cheesy.

Writing: Dare writes prose that is quick, witty, and humorous. I very much enjoyed the jokes and the banter between our protagonists, and I appreciated that Dare didn’t get bogged down in some of the details of day-to-day life. If I had any criticisms, it would be that I think Dare moves almost too quickly at times. Some of the more emotional moments could have used some room to breathe or some more description of how the characters’ emotions are faring. But it wasn’t so bad that I felt like I was being rushed through the novel. Another way of putting is may be that sometimes Dare told where she could have shown, but the balance of telling vs showing didn’t feel egregiously off.

Plot: This plot mainly follows our heroine, Maddie, and our hero, Logan, as they try to work out an agreement. Maddie, in the attempt to avoid going on the marriage mart, invented a sweetheart at age 16 and wrote letters to a “fictional” Scottish captain in the army for years. Unbeknownst to her, the letters were actually being received by Logan, and when he and his men come home from the war, Logan is determined to marry Maddie in order to get her land in Invernesshire.

Personally, I found this setup to be quite intriguing and whimsical. I liked the embarrassment that arose from Maddie’s letters actually being received and read. I liked that Logan secretly looked forward to the letters from a stranger. I even liked the dilemma of negotiating a marriage of convenience. But I think where this plot fell apart for me was the whole challenge of consummating the marriage. Logan and Maddie agree to marry and live separate lives (it’s early on, so this isn’t really a spoiler), but Logan is adamant about consummating the marriage so that there’s no possibility of an annulment. Maddie, for her part, wants to avoid consummating the marriage because she finds that marriage will threaten her career prospects; as an illustrator, she finds that men will not hire her for work if they think household or parenting duties will interrupt her work schedule. To be completely honest, this challenge was quite good; I thought there was a real opportunity here for Dare to explore the sexist challenges women face in the workplace. Where I thought the challenge was weak was in the whole obsession with consummation. Unless there was such hostility between the Scottish and the English that an Englishwoman’s word would always be taken over a Scotsman’s, I found the question of “did they actually have sex or not” to be quite trivial. From what I know, annulments were notoriously difficult to obtain, so it wouldn’t matter much if Maddie and Logan had consummated the marriage. It seems like Logan could just say they did and an annulment would be near impossible. Nor do I think the law would care much if they only had non-penetrative sex. It seems like the whole plot hinging on whether or not they had “real sex” was a non-issue for me.

Instead, I would have liked to see more conflict in Maddie between balancing her desires for romance and a family with her career aspirations. Once Logan enters the picture, it seems like her career takes a backseat (except for a couple of scenes), and I would have rather seen it be more front and center. Either that or I think Maddie’s story could have mirrored her aunt’s more closely. Maddie’s Aunt Thea was long ago caught up in a scandal that ruined her, but later, Thea reveals that she had enjoyed the freedom. I think having Maddie be independent and struggle with the idea of being “tied down” by marriage could have also been good, and while there’s a little of that, I think it could have been more apparent to the reader.

In terms of small-scale narrative points, I think a lot of the scenes Dare writes are very funny and entertaining. I liked, for instance, the scene where Maddie falls into a bog, or when Maddie shows kindness to Logan’s friend, Grant. The scenes that truly did bother me, however, were some of the more “fluffy” ones that were a bit too cheesy for my tastes. For example, there’s a scene in which Maddie finds Logan reading Pride and Prejudice and he’s wearing spectacles. She makes a big deal about him being a reader and I had to roll my eyes. There’s also a scene towards the end in which Maddie attempts to make haggis, and I hated it because it felt like it was inserted so Dare could check off a “Scottishism” in a list. Tartan? Check. Brogue? Check. Haggis? Check. The scene also erupted in random violence, too, which felt out-of-place and inserted for pointless drama towards the end of the novel.

But I will admit, I did like the scenes that were very self-aware about what Dare was doing. For example, there’s a scene in which Logan is debating about what to do to get Maddie into bed. His friends give him suggestions like “offer your heart to her on a platter” or “throw in a lot of oochs and bonny lasses when you speak” or “dive into the loch and have her go looking for you. Then, when she’s found you, pretend you don’t notice her and have her watch you bathe for a while. Then emerge from the lock all dripping wet.” This self-awareness was a nice stab at romance cliches, though I wish Dare had done a better job herself at avoiding them.

Characters: Maddie, our heroine, is fairly likeable in that she’s bookish, generous, and a bit clumsy at times. I liked that there was a juxtaposition between her confidence and her social anxiety: while she wasn’t afraid to assert herself in some situations, big crowds made her nervous, and I think navigating those two scenarios made for some interesting characterization. The main thing I didn’t like about Maddie was how quickly she seemed to give up her career ambitions for Logan. There’s a point where she has to make a choice between letting Logan go and following her dreams, and she claims that she’s choosing Logan even though the choice is really made for her based on sexist norms of the day. I would have liked to see her wrestle with her ambitions a little more.

Logan, our hero, has some admirable qualities, but in the end, I found him rather uninteresting. He’s your basic roguish Scotsman with a tragic past, and though I liked the loyalty he showed to his men, I ultimately though he was a little too jealous and a little too used to his orders being obeyed. I would have liked to see him be a little less dictatorial so that his romantic appeal would shine through a bit more brightly.

Side characters are charming but, in my opinion, underutilized. I liked all of Logan’s army buddies and appreciated that all of them had disabilities in some way (and those disabilities were important but didn’t define them). I really appreciated Maddie’s relationship with Grant, the soldier whose memory resets every hour or so. She was kind to him and he was sweet to her; I just didn’t think his random violent outburst towards the end was necessary or in-character. Maddie’s Aunt Thea could have also been used more effectively, but I did like that Thea had this quirk of making a lot of cosmetics and remedies that were, ultimately, rubbish. It was charming.

Romance: Logan and Maddie’s romance was... ok. The premise started out really interesting, but over time, I lost some enthusiasm because I felt like I was being told that they had feelings for each other (rather than being shown). Sure, Logan does some things that challenge Maddie’s assumptions and vice versa, but I wanted them to have a stronger basis for a romance than just “they’re hot and I’m horny oh wait they were nice to me and aren’t exactly what I expected.” Part of the reason I wasn’t super enthused might also be the focus on sex and sexual attraction as well as Maddie feeling pity for Logan on account of his past. I prefer romances where the focus is on each person lifting the other up emotionally, and while there was a little of that, I think I would have liked to see it be more of a centerpiece within the plot.

TL;DR: When a Scot Ties the Knot is a funny, light, historical romance, but ultimately doesn’t have a “meaty” enough plot for my personal tastes. Some readers might enjoy the banter and the heroine’s determination, while others might be turned off by the cheesiness and lack of a complex hero.

[curlewsteph]

COVID THERAPY VIEWING

It’s been a year indeed and a struggle, but when I’ve needed an escape I’ve found solace in some brilliant tv series this year that I want to take a moment to remember. Immersing myself in characters, online discussion, podcasts and more, has kept me going and allowed me to block out everything that 2020 has been when I’ve needed to. This is my first and possibly only Tumblr post but here, the place where I’ve found so much great conversation, fan fic, gif sets and more to add to my enjoyment of my favourite things to watch, seems the best place to leave my own thoughts. So here goes from the year’s beginning to its welcome ending:

TURN - Washington’s Spies

I’ve got a thing for moody Jamie Bell (The Eagle 😍) and discovered TURN last New Year looking for other historical dramas he’d appeared in. These characters completely captured me and drew me into a historical period I’d done my best to avoid since flunking it during A Level history. Abe made quite the most useless spy but his passion and compassion sold him to me. The Culper Ring story is fascinating and the show brought to life the real lives and conflicts of those involved. Intriguing portrayals of morally corrupt characters (Simcoe, Andre etc) who surprise you at every turn kept me gripped and props to some extremely fine acting and characterisation. The found family dynamic of the Culper Ring was a real joy and Brewster will forever be one of my most favourite characters. I wanted more personal development and not really being able to ship Abe with anyone especially was a let down but it was a fine series that really kept me company.

PEAKY BLINDERS

I’ve no idea why it took me so incredibly long to watch this series but having eventually succumbed I was hooked from the very first episode. Brooding, oppressive, threatening yet full of charm and humour with characters that jump out of the screen and take your heart without asking, made it addictive viewing for me this year. The next series is light years away but I’m waiting for you Tommy.

THE 100

Thank all the stars that we had good weather during lockdown because the final series of this post-apocalyptic drama almost ruined my summer. I’ve followed every twist and turn over the past six years, had my Bellarke heart broken time over time, shared the pain and angst of an array of brilliant characters and watched through my fingers when the creators treated legions of fans of all factions, worse than mortal enemies. But the end was coming and I stuck with it - despite my misgivings since the overturning of the Writers Room - buoyed by some hopeful S6 content, but I should have listened harder to my guts. Despite some flickers of promise in S6, it was beyond clear to me that the new writing team simply didn’t have the same connection to the characters and history of the show. Instead of wanting to resolve arcs and reunite characters we’d become inexorably entwined with, the lure of the new and an opportunity to reinvent and take a detour sparkled more brightly to them - something I will never ever be able to fathom. Fans forgotten, long running storylines dropped and characters - including our leads - essentially abandoned and made for a horror show of a final act. S7 broke my heart and I should have seen it coming. When I’ll feel ready to rewatch The 100 again I don’t know, but I’ll end my run when the show should have at the S5 finale and save the CPR scene for an occasional treat. Farewell and May We Meet Again.

THE MUSKETEERS

Salvation comes in leather and 18thC lace. I ADORED this so much! Again I was incredibly late to the party because it seemed such a frivolous show but a Youtube fan vid drew me in and I’m so thankful for it. The plots are mostly light but tackle some important issues, the tension is chest heavingly dramatic and everyone looks astonishing and oh my was this the antidote to an anti-climactic apocalyptic obsession that I needed. There’s humour, kindness, compassion, daring do and a huge dollop of care and an emphasis on the value of friendship too. Clever dialogue, confident female characters, wry humour and some seriously good acting healed my heart. And yes the outfits helped. I loved it all and was transfixed by Tom Burke’s Athos.

STRIKE

...which led me to Strike. I don’t do whodunnits and crime fiction as a rule is just not my thing, usually because the core cast is always too small and I miss the found-family dynamic and they often feel claustrophobic, plus the predictable focus on difficult but supposedly fascinating men in the lead can be dull. In some regards, Strike is no different but Tom Burke’s performance and more significantly Holiday Grainger’s skill in playing Robin and how she transforms the usual “gritty detective with attractive sidekick” dynamic on its head, is really superb. I’ve read the books now too - my first JKRs. Honestly, parts are overwritten and a little indulgent but elements are breathtaking and as she’s so involved in the series too it’s a tie up I became incredibly invested in and the actors on screen are the characters on the page for me too. One does not lose out to the other, which is often the case with dramatisations. I can’t wait for the next instalment.

THE LAST KINGDOM

#TeamUhtred #TeamUhtred #TeamUhtred that’s it, that’s all there is to say, although it’s not obviously. TLK has been a slow burn for me and I began it several times when it was first aired by the BBC. The early series felt small, focussed on a pretty hateful hero who I failed to connect with, but I loved Aethelflaed and her story with Erik and Uhtred’s growing maturity was intriguing too. And then Netflix came in and the show exploded! Better scripts, more than the same 3 locations, impressive costumes and set-piece battles with characters that grew and grew. I rewatched S3 in preparation for S4’s release which I binged in style in lockdown 1 and cried when it ended. Utterly brilliant and a cast of characters that came closest to replicating the joy of my first fandom experience with the outlaws of Robin of Sherwood. Uthred has become a leader, has had to reckon with his responsibilities and shows a tenderness as he’s aged that the young callous warrior lacked. But if it weren’t for his bunch of faithful arselings I wouldn’t be watching at all. Without Finan there is no TLK for me. He’s my favourite character to have emerged in years. It’s the humour, the humanity of him that makes me cheer for him every time - as well as the arms 😍 Long live TLK. Or a final season at least.

VIKINGS (*spoilers for S6b)

2020 ended another long standing favourite series that I’ve followed for years. Unlike The 100 I’m not as deeply invested in this saga but Vikings has kept me company for so long now that the show feels part of me. It’s certainly lost it’s way over time but my favourite characters still shone brightly and those we lost were sent off triumphantly. I’ll forever miss Ragnar and the show lost a lot of its appeal with his passing, but the homage paid to such a talisman of a character was always done well. Later series did feel repetitive and the drama between the Ragnarsson brothers diluted. But Ubbe - my love - stayed true and the ending for him and Hvitserk (I always felt so heart sick for him) both felt fitting. And Bjorn’s final climax was awe inspiring (I do wish the tomb had stayed closed though). I’d have absolutely loved more time to have been spent on Ubbe’s future adventures instead of the endless hours in barren wastelands and storm lashed ships, but what we got was good. As for Ivar... an utterly unforgettable character (performed superbly) who became human again was a journey to behold. I’m glad it went that way but honestly I lost touch with him with all the time spent on the Rus storyline that repeatedly ate its own tail. Getting back to Wessex brought the show full circle and I loved it for that. Farewell Vikings. I hope Ubbe and Torvi are still doing ok in their new Valhalla.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Fandom, social justice, and You Must:

Good morning all and happy Saturday. (Or whatever day/time of day it is when you read this.)

I just read a post about the Old Guard fandom that has some perfectly fine points about noticing which characters get more focus than others, and then moves on to suggesting an obligation for fans to change which characters and ships they personally focus on.

I think that, while the criticism is absolutely worth making, the solution side of the post is the wrong approach on multiple levels.

The first thing is: you ever read bad representation? Like, a character is technically a Diversity Win but in practice they’re a fucking caricature and have no personality other than their race, gender, whatever was going on with their group of people at a particular point in history, etc?

(There’s one series that is especially notoriously awful about this, the author is Philip Jose Farmer and the first book in the series is To Your Scattered Bodies Go. It’s a sort of big old historical crossover story, except it was mainstream published, and it is so bad. The female characters are women, that is their entire personality. The black characters are black and that’s it. Etc. So bad. Anyways.)

When people are writing (I don’t know if this is as big an issue with fan art) out of a sense of moral obligation or solely to teach a moral lesson without a love of the characters and a willingness to get dirty and do some things their ego doesn’t approve of, you get very flat, dry, stale writing. It’s unappealing. It’s not worth reading. Someone who’s engaging in fandom from a place of “oh, I don’t want people to not like me” or “I am going to be a Racial Justice Ally” is at significant risk of getting into that writer space.

Writing and fandom aren’t something like doing your taxes, where of you don’t really want to do it that doesn’t really matter. They’re more like playing a game with your child or a friend. Your emotional state, whether you’re into it or not, is actually going to influence whether you get the outcome you were hoping for.

So encouraging people to be open to specific possibilities and seeing if something clicks, is good. Gently attempting to expand your own capacity to love specific characters and really get into their inner life and drama, is good, just don’t force it if you give it a fair try and it’s not working. (Like dating? Maybe someone who isn’t the sort of person you dreamed about marrying at age 10 could be a great partner for you, it’s good to be open to the possibilities, but if you go on a couple dates and you don’t even really like spending time with them, it’s time to let it go.)

Nile is a very central character in the movie (I don’t know that she’s the protagonist, surely that’s Andy? We certainly see Andy a lot earlier), but the sort of person who loves Booker for his misery isn’t going to necessarily be able to transfer that over to Nile. Nile is bouncy and idealistic and doesn’t have that much angst and is going to be a lot more appealing to people who like badass fighters who are also kinda cinnamon rolls, which is a pretty different character type than Booker. And yeah, there is a shortage of black women characters who have that level of angst, because of social patterns around who is expected to give empathy and who is expected to receive it.

Some people are going to take a look at Nile or a Nile/??? ship (which...there’s a reason people are hesitant to ship Nile with other Old Guard members, there’s a lot of ways things could get unintentionally oogie there) and just not see anything to connect to in that and that’s OK.

Social justice work is a marathon, not a sprint. And which opportunities for Doing Something make the most sense for each person is going to be highly individual.

And...I’m not saying fandom representation is irrelevant? But...it’s one out of many, many issues that are relevant to social justice. There’s the cop stuff and education and childcare and workplace stuff and...I mean there’s a lot of things that need working on and picking one specific thing that’s relatively symbolic and relatively amenable to a very superficial “look at me I’m performing inclusivity” activism ...I don’t like it.

So, everyone makes this mistake once of trying to pressure people into specific changes that might not work for them, right? No matter how much I got into bicycle advocacy I was never going to get my mom to use a bicycle as a form of transportation. (And due to disability I don’t do that myself any more either.) Her contributions to a greener planet are things like driving a more fuel efficient car and getting thicker, more insulating windows put in and keeping the thermostat at arctic temperatures. You need to learn to be flexible and look for the people who are open to making specific changes and use more honey than vinegar and recognizing that there’s enough things that can be done or need to be done that not every single person needs to do any given thing.

Talking about personal experience can be really helpful here. For instance, talking about how you, personally learned to really love writing about a character that you’d previously dismissed. People need a roadmap, a path to follow. Because if you try to force yourself to love fandom in a way that just doesn’t work for you, well, loving people and loving things and loving fictional characters or ships is something of a miracle and you can be grateful when it happens but you can’t force it.

Oh, end note, I think we can learn something here from how so much of m/m shipping is not written by mlm and how sometimes that leads to things that actual queer men are kind of “wtf?” about? I’m definitely not saying that only black women should write black female characters. I am saying (and the person who wrote the post was white, so I’m not talking over black voices here or w/e) that when you have a situation where people in minority group x are mostly written by people not in that group, sometimes that goes off the rails in ways that are really uncomfortable or at least not actively good for people in group x. And people feeling obligated to write certain characters seems to me like a perfect storm for them writing them both badly, but also maybe badly in a way that might be hard to put into words and suggest corrections for.

[lady-plantagenet]

♦ for all three sons of York! 😄

Asked via the Headcanon Meme: https://lady-plantagenet.tumblr.com/post/634584063141920769/headcanon-meme.

Darling I apologise for the delay 😭😂, hope you enjoy this semi-historical train of thought. You indulge me xx ☺️☺️ (rest of you get ready for a similar level of uncalled for ridiculous levels of detail)

♦ - Quirks/Hobbies Headcanons

~Edward IV~

Ok, one more grounded in reality and some more Headcanonish:

So, in Lord Edward Lytton-Bulwer’s ‘Last of the Barons’ I uncovered a fascinating (and primary-sourced) fact about our Edward: He engaged in international trades of his own. Apparently, he had his own ships and vessels that would jettison wool to and fro Burgundy. The trading classes, with whom Edward was always on great terms, were initially thrilled and felt a bit of sense of connection because of this. However, it became a bit of a bother when his self-given exemption from custom and duties gave him an unfair competitive advantage. Since reading that, I’ve always seen Edward as someone whose hobbies revolve around these types of matters rather than military ones. I really headcanon trading as a genuine hobby of his. With that, I would also connect other practical as opposed to artistic or conventional pastimes. I always saw Elizabeth Woodville as the big account manager (based on how she ran her crown property), so I headcanon Edward as liking to meddle in the external more merchantile matters, which translates to enjoying himself by making wagers/bets with those around him and always winning whether it be on personal matters or businesses (sometimes even in appropriately on women of the court). Not to mention a talent at games like cards and dice. If he lived today he would be the grand master of monopoly 😂. He wasn’t the most intellectual of men (he was at one point planning on defunding Eton College to get funds), but I always headcanoned he was pretty strong at maths (which was part of a nobleman’s education, but at that time it was mastery of the arts that granted you the reputation of a smartman). Of course, this fits in with his historical interest in alchemy, which I headcanon he was also partly interested in because of the potential of it yielding gold, but upon his marriage, the mystical side beckoned him too.

~ George Duke of Clarence~

I’ve done one for him here, which you can check out. But hell, do I have a lot of headcanons about him so I’ll do another here.

Our George was by all accounts a talented demagogue. His performance in the inheritance dispute indeed adds stock to what chronicles such as Rous Rolls and Crowland have said about his oratory and reasoning talents (which allegedly were rival to Edward’s own). Though some personality quirks could make him appear like a bit of a (popular Headcanon nowadays) himbo: penchant for airing out his grievances, flamboyancy and a great pride which combined with a famous sense of humour leads to instances where it verges into innappropriate levels of macabre (his own death being the prime example).

N.b: and yes I do in fact believe he was drowned in a barrel of wine and by his choosing. I don’t need Shakespeare to tell me this, I need only look at the strong evidence proposing this: a) Margaret Pole’s barrel charm, b) The fact that his head was reported as attached to his body when his body was exhumed centuries later. Drowning in a bath is another possibility, but then again, it was famously a womanly execution and I doubt a man as self-important as George would have been alright with the association, c) The fact that contemporaries such as Mancini (among others) have stated that this is the manner in which he died. Shakespeare’s play just further reflects that at that time (as in closer to 1478 then we are now) this was the consensus. Not to mention that in Richard III he wasnt technically drowned but stabbed and then thrown in a barrel. Arguments against center around ‘this seems just a bit too crazy’ but stop there.

So where was I? Oh yes. So in spite of that, I headcanon teenage George as very resentful of those who thought him bumbling, giddy and unserious (young Richard especially), because well, he was very touchy about his pride and saw himself as a prince worthy of deference and gravity (multitude of evidence for this). His charming nature never left him even as he grew bitter but instead he learned to harness it into a mask in order to induce others into error and subestimation. Indeed, much of his earlier successes hinged on the fact that Edward didn’t expect that level of planning (and betrayal) from him. Nevertheless, he never hid his talents completely, he had a very astute legal mind and I headcanon him as having a hobby for the law since he was a young boy and realised how useful this knowledge would prove in time and loved it on an intellectual level as he engaged with debates on matters from trusts laws to constitutional canonical and jurisprudential matters, first with his tutors, then his brothers, then Warwick and then his chief supporters and friends at Warwick and Tutbury when he became a magnate post-1472. Of course, I feel like this fits in with the impression of an argumentative and opinionated man as exuded from the historical figure. I also headcanon him as being delighted to have had Caxton’s Games and Playes of Chess (1474) dedicated to him (becoming one of his patron around this time historically). It remains the second book printed in English (first being Anthony’s dictes and sayings of philosophers - I think) and I headcanon him as doing the head in of all those around him with discussions and debates around the book’s message XD.

~Richard III~

Richard gets a reputation in fiction (where other people get most of their headcanons from) as being extremely serious. I personally share this Headcanon and I feel it was the most striking difference between him and his brothers’ personalities. I think he had very little ‘quirks’ as it were. Though there was this author (haven’t read the book) Jonathan Hughes who somehow manages to write an entire book about Richard’s interesting divination. He draws onto some vaguely paganistic symbols among Richard III’s choice of clothing and such, and posits that he had some interest in pre-conquest Northern religious culture. Anne Neville who by all accounts seemed to have had some interest in mysticism (read and discussed Ghostly Grace by a German mystic with her mother-in-law at length) I headcanon bonded with Richard over conversing on these types of topics. Therefore, I headcanon him as having a (very very lowkey because, as I said, he took great care in presenting himself as conventional and unsuspicious) hobby for northern paganisms, myths, prophecies and the like. I think it would explain what appears to be the historical figures ‘apparent hypocritical personality: Only banning benevolences after first trying to acquire them, having Shore pay penance when he himself had fathered bastards (John probably during his first year of marriage if Kendall’s reasoning is right) and aspiring and holding others to strict chivalric values of which he often fell short. The signs of stress found in isotopic analysis on his bones however makes me think that he was aware of these contradictions. Of course, he could have been stressed around the time of his death for other obvious reasons, but I’m not getting into that here. I suppose my headcanon of him as very utilitarian (yes I know Bentham came centuries later but, you know, he didn’t exactly invent this manner of thought) in his beliefs classifies as a quirk? Haha. As for hobbies, I think his scoliosis made him eschew some of the more physically demanding types of sports, so I see him as fairly bookish and like his brother George, extremely interested in the law as a hobby (though nowadays we wrongly see it as a rather vocational discipline). Though he shared the interest in matters of jurisprudence with George (about which they both strongly disagreed Richard taking the less fiscally conservative stance), he was more interested in criminal law matters (which checks out as he had made reforms on the criminal law and bail). I think he was genuinely concerned with justice, just a bit self-contradictory in his approach and diverse in his spirituality (the last more headcanonish)

[incarnateirony]

Why do you think so many people in fandoms of tv shows, movies, games and pretty much anything have such a strong resistance to a character being revealed to be LGBT? I've seen it so many times, and I know you've seen it a lot as well, and it's just so weird to me how offended people are by this. A recent example is in the fandom of a videogame I'm in, were many are just outraged by the notion some believe that a main character, a white, male soldier that exists since 1997 could, maybe, be LGBT.

The fight over this crap is kind of intersectional. Everything from homophobes to our own. This is heavily tied to (America, since this is intersectional with an american show, but also global) opinions shifting on things like oh, gay marriage. (x) Such as modernly 15%~ of citizens are homophobes and think The Gay Sexinating should be illegal. Which sounds shitty as all kinds of fuck until you scale that against 43% in 77′, and 77 was actually *before* the AIDs epidemic really became central or anything so you can imagine what those numbers realistically became then.

We’ve made progress, and there’s still progress to be made, but it was literally less than half a century ago – two generations ago – here, in many of our lifetimes, or at least in the lifetimes of people the younger reading audience here *knows* – that this landscape wasn’t even *recognizable*

So socially speaking this works in waves of conversation– be that the gays being cursed by god yadda yadda and thus deserve to die of AIDS and be treated like lepers – down to “Why do they even need included in anything” following shortly after, with a mindset of “perversion” still heavily steeped in the population that would plague children of the 80s and 90s heavily. You wanna deal with some internalization, there’s some internalization.

Keeping a thumb on the fact that the needle *has* shifted is a great deal of it, I think – obviously not “OK! WE’RE DONE NOW!” but being aware there’s not a 50%~ chance someone you walk by thinks you should be arrested or killed anymore, that more than 1 in 8 douchebags are going to be whole thundergeese about it, and that it is what it is, and it sucks, and we’re waiting to get further-again. Also there’s whole other issues WRT MLM vs WLW and what earns what kind of resistance but that’s a WHOLE other rant.

The thing is, when people grow into an environment of being *disadvantaged*, if they don’t as much take time to celebrate our *progress* as much as rant about everything that *isn’t going perfectly right*, we lose our scale. It maintains this feeling of being the completely 100% hated unseen minority that the whole world still hates, when we can’t look back and go, you know what, in 2019, 83% of people don’t think it should be illegal, 2% have no opinion. That’s just a very congealed residual screaming mass of assbags and subconsciously we all know it, but continuing to gear the conversation as if we’re fighting from the pits of the 60s or 70s is??? really weird???

But at the same time understandable?

So on the one hand you get The Gays arguing from being an angle of being incredibly more disadvantaged than they are. And then, you get people from this shifting demographic – be it the 15% remaining douchebags congealed into a screaming lot, or the 40% slide that have come to realize we’re just minding our own business and loving who we want between 77 and now – that, still lost *in* that dark history and frankly propaganda hold onto *resistances*. So if we’re talking about a character that, say, probably straight white guys have attached to since the 90s, if they attached to that character in the 90s, odds are, they were fairly developed and at least 15 years old if not more already. And odds are, they were subject to everything from the impact of the epidemic to just older nonsense clouding their vision, and whether we like it or not, these people *will* have likely resistance.

Because we may not like that chapter of history, and we give no excuse for homophobia, but in perspective when an entire country’s homosexual population was ravaged by something ignored by government and hospitals, and dismissively packaged as a curse by evangelical america in a country about 75% christian, just how *much* that *completely* fucks up people’s internal understanding. It’s the same dehumanization that was used against anyone else genocided, in other major historical moments we all know about. It doesn’t make the passivity right, but welcome to how literal propaganda can fuck up entire populations.

So to roll back to the Nonnie: These fights in general seem to strike me as a mix of intersectional… lack of understanding. Young Gays that don’t really get what the world was like 40~ years ago or even 20~ are absolutely baffled why anyone would get so reactive to an idea. Old Gays do want better representation, but some have had a hell of a time *from* internalizing those ideas.  The Straights of the time have a WHOLE other mess of shit to sort out in their heads before coming around to being open and understanding. Everybody’s talking across each other, instead of talking with each other, and some have unfortunately entirely convinced themselves they are still as hated as they were back then, which turns into more circular representation visibility fights, which turns into another circus, yeehaw. 

Which sometimes even turns into striking down their own representative work (be that SPN here or the goblins we all know on this hellsite that tear down anything that looks vaguely like representation because it isn’t XYZ enough). Because in the interest of arguing with *maybe 15 percent of the population that doesn’t think you have the right to exist* about *fictional content* being made to *represent YOU, not them*, we ironically do a lot of damage to our queer canon by just stomping on current incrementalization and expansion without minding the history and steamroll it. Which frankly makes us all look like disorganized lunatics trying to Make Everything Gay™ even if that’s not what it is remotely.

And because I know this will be misunderstood I’ll continue to frame this point from a few angles before it’s misrepresented: Wanting rep/seeing queer narratives wherever you go is fine and the nature of the fight, I’m just trying to explore the divide between r/NiceGuys that get mad at the gay vs the modern LGBT comm and frankly the general bloated, inflated relevance they have that the community at times lets, or even invites dialogue of, their heteronormative framings, often rooted back from times of REALLY DARK PROPAGANDA AND GENOCIDE and how it affected culture – to damage and bury their own content, generally in the logic “if they don’t see it, then it doesn’t count!” when, if-and-when queer coding or open in your face textual coming-out canon or even just low-visibility text is conscious, that is content for *you.*

And it’s not saying “stop and settle” to put this into perspective. It’s “don’t piss on the work everybody else did before you – or worse on what they’re doing right now – just to argue with the couple of assbags left in the universe.“ They’ll go away too eventually. It doesn’t happen overnight. And they’re not going to stop happening overnight. No matter how many gay video game soldiers you find at this type, no matter if Dean Winchester just quietly voices his repeat encounters with men in a way that landmarks it so loudly you NEED to break out alt-right dialogues those same 1 in 8 have that I have beaten to death – to choose to interject that kind of long-ago-addressed conversational edge is literally to choose to interject homophobic dialogue into conversations of how LGBT rep should work and honey if you need an indicator that you may be leaning in the wrong direction, there’s your sign.

But it can be hard to unplug and stop thinking the world is still as bad as it is back then, BECAUSE you run into those assbags that resist it loudly. But like many things, numbers show they’ve died off into a minority. We still have a way to go, but this is a weird ongoing self-inflated fight that seems heavily unaware on WHY people react like that (as per the original ask) much less how ridiculous it is to keep dragging dialogues born in the AIDS epidemic days into these discussions.

Simple point? If you aren’t able to really mobilize on content (yelling online generally ain’t it, chief), ignore them. Enjoy your content if it’s yours, because there’s a lot of effort in simply erasing normalizing queer content because if it’s not EXTREME enough to win against THOSE GUYS *POINTS AT* then NYEAAAAAAAAAH.

It was never gonna be enough to win on those guys, even if it was full queer cinema canon LGBT stories and not stories that just include LGBT people normally.

Look I don’t even know what soldier you’re talking about, and I don’t care. Enjoy your shit your way and remember how easy it is for a minority to be ruthlessly loud when they can connect themselves across the wholeassed internet. 

But until people really learn the history of why certain mindsets cropped up or how they invaded conversation or what rattled entire generations to their core, prople are gonna have a hard time fucking communicating with each other instead of just talking over each other. And sometimes even talking over their own within the community/engaging in deletion/the carousel runs in a circle.

But *why* that mindset exists? It’s not difficult. It’s because this nation got saturated in propaganda that warranted letting the homosexual community suffer and die in numbers that would make your head spin, where everyone knew someone with it, as coffeebrainblog has said, where we were treated like lepers, or “cursed by god”, or as lesser, inhuman things and climbing out of that hole has been a hell of a ride, but the community has to also de-internalize that propaganda and realize WE’RE PRETTY MUCH THERE. Like the road isn’t over, the war isn’t 100% won, but if the statistics alone don’t get you, if you *really* sat and read this reply, maybe where the din and eternal upset has buried our *progress*, you’ll realize that progress has dramatically pitched that into being the minority.

But it keeps everybody arguing from disadvantaged levels and even some choosing to self-handicap by creating their own definitions, rules, boundaries and almost states of the universe they’ll accept, because 1 in 8ish people hate them, but they’re still stuck in a world where 1 in 2 might want you dead, somewhere in your headspace. It’s like setting your own handicap bar which… is kind of the opposite? Of what we’re supposed to do? We’re supposed to knock down those cages? And point out we’re the same as everyone else? Running to prove things to people who still think we might carry God’s Plague And Be Judged that haven’t listened to decades of correction so far, just to dissect and dismantle your own contents or enjoyments – it’s a really, really weird backwards pedaling thing to aim for.

I *get* why people think it’s the right way, again, as per all of this, but it’s… it’s pedaling backwards and thinking it’s moving forward. 

So while I don’t know what soldier you’re talking about, it was a chance to address A) why there’s resistance in some generations B) what that did to us, as a community C) where sometimes we lose track of ourselves in a carnival of competition.

EDIT:

This note by @amitywho rings home:

Excellent analysis. I’m extremely ancient - I was a grown-ass adult in a flyover state back in 1980 when the first whispers about “the gay cancer” in New York and San Francisco began to make their way to us. I had to drive 150 miles to find a bookstore that carried any kind of gay-positive literature. We parked across the street to watch and see who might be loitering in the neighborhood - if they had baseball bats, no one would be coming to help.

I’ll also add there seems to be OUSA influence, but I centered on the american demographic of an american show; but it still impacts online worldwide net conversation. That OUSA influence varies between highly oppressed countries having heartier ala-80s POVs on LGBT, to on the exact opposite OUSA fans not really having their heads wrapped around the American side of the history beyond what it means in a few articles if they came from more progressive countries that didn’t, like, genocide their gays. So even older LGBT OUSA people look at it from the disembodied angle of a few headlines they remember, not being in the blast zone and resulting fallout.

Also to drift to another topic of LGBT exploitation: If you want to know why CW has “dare to defy” as a slogan just behind the idea that they have PoC or gays on their channel, I really need someone to sit and think about that. Welcome to a bunch of older people that remember these days that see it as *DEFIANT* to do at our current intersection. Nevermind them now exploiting that to try to find a new center for their network after CBS fucked them WRT Netflix, but hey. Yeah. Put that in scale. Why does it need virtue signal marketing, and moreover, what are they “defying”? This. This kind of mindset. Which is heavily sourced in an age demographic likely to be the core of CW Exec boards and marketing. 

If you want an idea how deep rooted in our psyche stunted dialogues are, the fact that few people even blink at that says a fuck of a lot to me. No, we dared to defy decades ago, you’re just trying to profit on what you still run through marketing and demographics and ho-hum but think you can pull money from. There’s a difference. But it does betray the minds behind it. It should be more like “DARE TO LOSE 15% OF OUR PROFIT MARGIN AND HOPE WE GET THAT 20-30% OF GAYS INSTEAD” – it’s profiting off of the work the LGBT community did and acting like they’re brave for doing it at a point that they actually risk more losses to NOT start. It’s signaling themselves as heroes in a battle they had nothing to do with. And it’s pretty standard fare.

(And, ON that aside, it spins me out how often I’ve seen in misc fandoms fans acting like queer content that is canonically queer doesn’t count if it’s not overtly marketed and shopped explicitly as LGBT content, rather than content that happens to have LGBT elements – why are you BEGGING to be exploited before you consider yourselves valid, I’m confused. We’ve already had our big grand coming out stories and tales of struggle and there’s a whole queer canon history I’ve posted about this. The whole point of our current junction is getting content everywhere that reflects how normal-and-everywhere we are, why are y’all like this)

[litbits]

2018 Reading Round-up!

In 2018, I read 21 fiction and non-fiction books. (Poetry to be dealt with separately.) I probably spent the equivalent of 10 books’ worth of time on stupid Twitter, though. I don’t know what the sum of these tweets have contributed to my life or understanding of the world yet. I can’t even remember the funny memes at the moment. OH WELL. I also tried to keep up with a New Yorker subscription, which cut into book-reading time. I’m discontinuing this in 2019 and have subscribed to Granta, which is quarterly, instead. I’m also engaging in periodic social media fasts to break addictive patterns. We’ll see how that goes!

Reading trends in 2018: more European fiction, more novels and fewer short story collections than I usually read. Each year, there’s been a single author I become obsessed with and seek out (Anais Nin, Deborah Levy, Elena Ferrante, Joan Didion), but that didn’t really happen in 2018.  The list is rather eclectic and there was nothing that made me rave and buy multiple copies and press into friends’ hands, which is my favorite thing that happens. I do want to read more by Elizabeth Strout, Rebecca Solnit and Virginie Despentes, but the desire isn’t at obsession level.

Some stats:

•  52% fiction (mostly novels), 48% non-fiction (interviews, memoir, politics, feminist theory, art theory)

• 64% by women, 36% by men (out of 22 total writers)

• Authors were from the U.S.A. (11), United Kingdom (3), France (2), Italy (2), Canada, Colombia, Germany, and Greece (1 each). I read 19 books in English, 5 of these were in translation, and 1 book in Spanish and 1 in French.

• Original dates of publication span 1946-2018. About half of what I read was published within the past ten years. 

The list, ranked in order of how much I enjoyed the book, its scope of impact on the life of the mind and imagination, and how likely I am to re-read and recommend it. 

1. The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton, 2018)

This is the second volume in what Levy herself has termed a “working autobiography”. The first volume, Things I Don’t Want to Know, was probably one of my favorite books I’ve read, ever, so I was excited for this one. The second volume doesn’t dive as deep as the first, but that deep dive is also something that can’t be done twice. (The first book contended with her childhood in South Africa and her first graspings of injustice as a fact of life). In this volume, she recounts starting over at age 50, post-divorce, making a new life with her daughters, losing her mother, writing through it. She does it her way, which is in a Modernist spirit, understatedly, through metaphor, and weaving in objects (a bird clock,  a necklace, a heavy e-bike), recurring phrases, and other pieces of writing (in this one, Beauvoir’s, Duras’) as way of coming at the narrative elliptically and lyrically. Her piercing analysis and sense of humor make her writing about anything a pleasure.

Provenance: Van Stockum bookstore in Leiden (RIP) Fate: On the keeper shelf

2. My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (Viking, 2016)

A slim, absorbing, funny, affecting novel. Lucy Barton starts by remembering a period she spent hospitalized in New York and her mother came to visit. Her mother, who had never been on a plane before, who she hadn’t seen in years. The story weaves around like memory itself, making lateral, associative leaps between different episodes about growing up in poverty and becoming a writer. The narrative also mimics the writing process itself, now that I think of it. My only quibble is that this is a piece of fiction where the narrator is a writer, writing about writing, writing about writing workshops and writing about another writer. It all gets too much into itself – the premise would somehow be more acceptable to me if it were a piece of non-fiction.

Provenance: Gift from my sweet mother-in-law Fate: Passed on to a friend

3. Fellini on Fellini, various translators (1976)

This was a re-read. Essays by and interviews with Federico Fellini. Things I take away from Fellini: his (Jungian) trust in dreams, the image as a source of creation; appreciation of artifice (the film set above reality, hyper-real characters); improvisation and a sense of humor as requisite for survival; not doing it for the money. There’s a beautiful essay about Rimini, the place he grew up, in the 1930s (essentially an essay version of Amarcord). There’s an interesting coda, when he goes back to the town in the late 60s and barely recognizes the place. He is older than the revolutionary youth, but he admires their ideas and bravery, recognizes the limitations religion and fascism placed on his own youth and how their freedom from those strictures will take them into new, unknown discoveries. Curiously, he view his own time as producing outsized artists, and the post-60s times as producing more, but smaller figures, a society of small artists. Is this true?

Provenance: a used bookstore in New York Fate: On the keeper shelf

4. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantis (1946), translated by Carl Wildman

If you can set aside a feminist perspective and pretend you’re a pre-1970s dude while reading this, then it’s a classic. I don’t mean that facetiously – the character of Zorba is a useful point of reference in life. I think about him a lot, and the wimpy narrator, too. We all have a bit of both in us. (I am OK with reading like a pre-1970s dude at the moment, maybe because there are so many interesting women’s voices out there, it’s almost like assumed patriarchal views are historical, like feudalism, and not annoyingly ubiquitous. Almost. I also have times of only wanting to read women, insisting on our personhood, etc. With Zorba, beyond even issues with the female characters and what happens to them, there’s the basic world view it departs from, that women are like nature, religion, war, learning: one of those things in life men must contend with, rather than heroes of their own stories, too.) 

So, Zorba versus the narrator: eating up life all has to offer vs. ascetic withdrawal; a life of experiences over a life of contemplation; choosing experience over morality. The spiritual life? Monks reveal themselves to be as depraved and greedy as anyone else. The simple country life? Apparently innocent villagers can transform into a killer, misogynist mob. Zen withdrawal? When a beautiful woman offers herself to you, you take her! You might as well be honest and not buy into any of those rigid life paths. But then there are the sacrifices you make if you choose to be a Zorba, too, going all the way, doing it all, leaving everyone behind at some point or another...

5. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Henry Holt, 2018)

I couldn’t put this book down. I’ve figured out why it was comforting: It was a confirmation of reality, of a timeline of events in objective reality, in this awful moment when we’re spun in circles by media, social media, fake news, real news, bad news, until we’re dizzy, can’t see straight, think straight. Particularly notable was Wolff’s account of election night and the weeks that followed. I wanted it to go on and on, up through the present day. Wolff writes vividly and entertainingly. He also has a nuanced grasp of the media landscape, which shaped Trump and the people around him more than politics did, and isn’t afraid to be critical of Democrats and figures on the left, either. I wrote more about this book here. (God, it seems like this was published years ago, the scandal it caused, but it was only a year ago.)

Provenance: Purchased by Dan from a Dutch bookstore, he ordered it as soon as it came out.

Fate: Holding onto it for now.

[dollofdeath]

Military Men -- A Rewatch of JG Ep 1

Originally for this Joker Game rewatch, I was going to just redraw scenes I liked because I thought I didn’t have anything to add meta-wise or analytical-wise. But as I was reading JGfiles’ rewatch (which is super interesting! Do read it if you have the chance), I remembered the one thing that always stood out to me -- and it’s not necessarily confined to this episode -- is the dynamic between Sakuma and Odagiri. I don’t think it’s quite strong enough to call “parallelism,” but I think there’s something intriguing about having Sakuma, a soldier overseeing the spies, within the same space as Odagiri, a former soldier turned spy.

A bit of a disclaimer here but I’m not too well versed in regards to the historical context of the setting which may lead to shortcomings in my analysis. Anyways, without further ado, here I go! (•̀ᴗ•́)و

Right from the beginning, we know that Sakuma isn’t like the spies at all. Unlike them, he’s a trained soldier -- taught to follow Imperial ideologies with unwavering belief. As portrayed through his dynamic with Miyoshi, his beliefs clash with the spies’ and lead to the predicament Sakuma finds himself in later in the episode. One would think that these men have no common ground with Sakuma, that there’s no understanding between him and them. But as learned from the character biographies, Odagiri was once part of the military. Already, this sets Odagiri apart from the other spies and draws a similarity to Sakuma.

If the spies are considered anomalies of society, Odagiri can be considered an anomaly of an anomaly. While he’s an independent thinker honed by his spy training, he isn’t quite inhuman as the other spies are (as shown in episode 12). I’m probably treading on headcanon territory here, but I think that he’s a bit more sympathetic to Sakuma due to this.

Let’s start with the first (and only) scene Sakuma and Odagiri interact, which is the Joker Game -- or the poker game as Sakuma is initially led to believe.

I love imagining everyone in D-Agency and Sakuma as one big happy family as much as everyone else does, but I’m sure the reality is that they toyed with Sakuma to amuse themselves (perhaps saying that they bullied him is a better way to phrase it) and the Joker Game was one way they did it. Even Odagiri is in on it, though I think he may feel a bit bad about it.

Because, after all, it’s Odagiri who tells Sakuma that his loss wasn’t due to the way he played, but the way he and the others worked against him.

I believe it was never the spies’ intention to let Sakuma know about the Joker Game. Maybe they wanted him to figure it out himself, maybe they just wanted to be dicks towards him, maybe some kind of mix of the two. Regardless of the reasoning, I think Odagiri telling Sakuma about the Joker Game was something he did out of his own volition and was never part of the plan. Sakuma was about to leave and it felt like a last minute choice to tell him. And maybe it’s just the way the shot is angled combined with Odagiri’s typically stoic expression, but he almost (just almost) looks concerned. 

And to me, it seemed that the other spies were... annoyed about having to explain things to Sakuma and don’t even take him that seriously, treating him like he’s some sort of dense child.

(miyoshi’s face screams “oh my god this dumbass” while hatano is judging sakuma lololol)

(kaminaga and amari: lmao ok bye)

So back to the point: what did Odagiri have to gain from telling Sakuma about the Joker Game besides advancing the plot? Nothing really. Had he not done that, the status quo would’ve remained and Sakuma would’ve gone back to bed in ignorance. But perhaps he wanted an easier conscience and maybe in a roundabout way, he wanted Sakuma to learn a lesson he needed. 

As an aside, something I find interesting is that when Yuuki is talking about how the spies will live in solitude doing their jobs, we’re given shots of all the spies. Odagiri is the only one by himself, which I suppose can symbolize him not being like the others. Not only that, but the way that he’s seated is different.

Odagiri is facing towards the spies, away from Yuuki as Sakuma was just a few moments ago from this particular shot. In fact, in this shot, he’s the only one facing completely towards the audience (Amari is kinda too but like he can still easily look at Yuuki and Sakuma) and I wish I had some deep analysis to give you guys about this, but all I can come up with is “yeah, he’s different” haha yeah orz. Or maybe none of these don’t mean anything at all lol they were just something that caught my attention.

Anyhow, from thereon, Odagiri’s interactions with Sakuma are more indirect, if not nonexistent (which is a shame, but I digress).

The next time Sakuma and Odagiri are together is during the search of John Gordon’s house. While there’s no interaction between them, we see that Odagiri is standing directly behind Sakuma. It might not mean much overall, but this just really strikes me. They could’ve chosen literally anyone else to be behind Sakuma and they went with Odagiri. I’m not quite sure how to put my thoughts about this except that I think it’s rather poetic how the former soldier is standing behind the military man (literally and possibly figuratively).

(Presenting my super crappy editing skills haha anyways)

The next interaction isn’t much of an interaction, but more of how Odagiri reacts to Sakuma as opposed to the other spies. As Sakuma faces the prospect of actually committing harakiri, we get a very quick pan of all the spies sans Miyoshi. The fact that this shot happens so quickly gives us the impression that every single one of the spies is smirking at Sakuma, mocking him and his beliefs that lead him up to this point, which is probably how Sakuma himself feels no doubt. 

However, if one looks closer, Odagiri has a different reaction than the others.

It’s rather difficult to see this on tumblr so here’s a link to the bigger picture. Since we’re focusing on Odagiri, I’ll just share the closeup on him.

I won’t say that he definitely isn’t smirking because I think it can be argued that he is in his own way given his stoic nature. But the point is that the other spies have a pronounced smirk, whereas Odagiri’s lips are closer to a flat line like he’s not as amused at this spectacle as the others are. Even Fukumoto, who is also portrayed as serious, has a more noticeable smirk than Odagiri.

Just to further illustrate my point because the more I look at this screencap the more I feel like I’m deluding myself into seeing a smirk, I placed a straight line across each of the spies’ mouths from corner to corner. Odagiri’s lips resemble -- if not perfectly fit -- the line while the other spies have a noticeable curve.

Here’s a link to the bigger picture and here’s a closeup of Odagiri:

this is probably the most extra thing i’ve ever done i apologize

Perhaps this doesn’t mean much as well, but I think it’s Odagiri’s sympathy towards Sakuma showing up once more. Due to the circumstances of the situation, he can’t do anything to stop Sakuma without raising suspicions (not only from Gordon, but his fellow spies as well). All that he can do now is watch as Sakuma tries to find a way out of this situation or die trying. Unlike the others, he doesn’t seem too interested in seeing the latter play out.

And that... is about it -- for both episodes 1 and 2. I don’t think we ever see Odagiri and Sakuma interact ever again after this (which is unfortunate, but alas).

Admittedly, this is a one-sided dynamic given the little interaction that they have and when they do it's Odagiri towards Sakuma and never vice versa. It's probably due to story reasons as there wouldn't be much conflict if the focus was on Odagiri and Sakuma as opposed to Miyoshi and Sakuma and that's fair. As much as I wish Sakuma and Odagiri’s dynamic was explored more, I appreciate subtle relationships like this and know they have their place within the story and for what it is, I think it plays its role well. 

To conclude, I guess I’ll just throw my bits of headcanon. I can see Odagiri keeping his distance from Sakuma as a way to distance himself from his past (which we'll see doesn't work out for him in episode 12) but he allows himself moments of sympathy to support Sakuma in a way. He understands where Sakuma is coming from, so he’s easier on him than the others are. Of course, maybe things really Aren’t That Deep and I care too much about fictional characters, but ah well hehe

(Also if anyone is interested, I wrote a fic some time ago exploring some of the events of episodes 1 and 2 through Odagiri’s perspective, focusing on his thoughts on Sakuma (basically this analysis in fic form haha). You can find it here! ehehe shameless advertising)

Thank you guys for taking the time to read all this!! And thank you JGfiles for giving me the opportunity to put all of my thoughts about this into one coherent post hehe╰(*´︶`*)╯

[hub-pub-bub]

Author Jennifer Weiner has built a built a career writing the kind of female-friendly, relationship-oriented fiction that typically gets dismissed as "chick lit," with bestsellers like "Good In Bed," "In Her Shoes" and "Little Earthquakes." She's also spent nearly a decade challenging the elitism and sexism of book publishing and criticism. Her new novel, "Mrs. Everybody" is a culmination of Weiner's work as both a storyteller and a truth-teller, a sweeping multigenerational family saga against a backdrop of 70 years of women's history. Weiner joined us recently for an episode of "Salon Talks" to discuss family, Franzenfreude, and why guys should read "women's" literature.

This book is so amazing. It is big. It is sweeping. It is ambitious AF. And it's interesting because your last two were a children's book and a memoir. This is a very different kind of book for you too. What made you try this?

After the 2016 election a lot of fiction people and novelists — especially those of us whose fiction tends to be on the more fun and entertaining side — were doing a gut check and saying, "All right, what am I called to do at this moment in time?" I wanted to write a big dystopian thriller about a future where abortion was illegal and where birth control was illegal. I wanted to write "Red Clocks," if you've read Leni Zumas' book, "Red Clocks." It's a dystopian [novel where] women can't have fertility treatments. Women can't get birth control. Women can't have abortions.

I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I just could not make it work. I am not Margaret Atwood, as much as I would love to be Margaret Atwood. Then I'm sitting here thinking, "What am I going to do now?" I always wanted to write a historical novel. Susan Isaacs is one of my all time favorite writers and one of her favorite books of mine is "Almost Paradise," which does the same kind of thing as "Mrs. Everything." It takes on generations. You go back and you see people's grandparents and people's parents and how they were formed in the crucible of expectations and limits.

I wanted to do that. Then there was a voice inside that said, "Is that book big enough? It's just another sister story." I had to tell that voice to shut up because I had to really argue with myself and remind myself that the personal is political and that women's stories can be big stories, even though we are not taught to think of them that way. I just had to get over my fear of doing all the research, which was no joke. I finally gathered up my courage and went to the library and here we are.

I'm so glad you brought that up because traditionally stories about war are stories, and stories about men things are stories, but stories about family are ...

Domestic. Women's fiction. Chick-lit.

If it's a story about women, then it's not interesting to everyone.

You have to package it so carefully. In my reading last night, this topic came up and I was talking about Meg Wolitzer's books and how carefully those covers are designed to make sure that there's not a woman, there's not a beach, there's not a flower, there's no Eiffel Tower with a beautifully dressed woman photographed from behind in the mist. The subtexts of those covers is, "Men, you can read this and be OK."

You will not be embarrassed on an airplane.

You will not get your period. It will all be fine. There are women in the book, but don't worry, don't worry. We've made it safe for you. I hope that men read "Mrs. Everything," I really, really do, but as you can see there are women on the cover.

It's abstract enough.

The men can think they're just shapes. Just shapes. Just circles and swoopies and shapes.

My 16-year-old, the grumpy one who hates me, came to my reading the other night and she's like, "Ugh, it was a room full of middle-aged white ladies." I said, "OK. A, what do you think I am?" I said. "B, what do you think you are going to be?" Then I was like, "Lucy, who do you think reads any book?" Women are enormous consumers of fiction. Women are the readers. We read books by women, we read books by men.

We read all the books. Nobody has to do any special arranging to signal to us that Dave Eggers is OK or John Cheever is OK. We read men in school and we were taught that that was Literature, with a capital L. We read books by men. Men did not grow up reading books by women in school and believing that that was literature. I think that for a lot of men it's like, "Oh, it's all romance," or, "It's all fluff," or, "It's not for me." I think that's really unfortunate. I think men are missing great stories.

They absolutely are because it's just about the human condition and about family and about relationships and about the dynamics. This is also about a 70-year period in American history. It's not a bad thing to know about what went down in this period. I want to talk to you about that because you are a former journalist. Reading this, I could feel you doing the work, Jennifer. Even when I got to 2003 and someone has a Blackberry and someone is on the Zone Diet.

Some of it I could remember. I had my Blackberry a lot longer than most people. I just gave it up. I didn't want to use an iPhone because the typing was hard. The typing still is. I have really huge thumbs.

But there are pieces I could remember, obviously the pieces that I lived through. I remember the '90s pretty well. I remember the '80s-ish. I barely remember the '70s when I was a kid. The '60s, the '50s, that was where I really had to dive into the magazines and the newspapers and the classified ads, which were always the most interesting part of the newspaper. I wanted to get the details right. I wanted to really make you feel like you were there, like you could feel that shag carpet under your feet, or you could taste the New Coke in the '80s, or whatever it was.

The Jell-O.

The Jell-O.

Jell-O comes up a lot in this book.

It's those kinds of little details that make it very real. Just even the little moments of, this is what the experience of being an African-American veteran of the Vietnam War would be like. Things that, again, guess what, men? There are men in this book.

There are men in this book. Perhaps we should have put one on the cover.

This is a book about history. It's also really personal. There is a very crucial element in this book that is drawn from your family.

The story of my family is that my parents both grew up in Detroit in middle-class Jewish families. They both went to the University of Michigan. They met and they got married. My dad became a doctor and they moved to Connecticut and they had four kids and they lived in the suburbs. My dad left in the '80s, just decided he was done being a father and being a husband and left. My mom was a single mom for ten years with teenagers and young adults and all of us trying to get our lives started. Then in her mid-50s, fell in love with a woman. We were all shocked. None of us had seen this coming.

I remember being on a conference call with my siblings and being like, "Did you know? Did you know? Did you have any idea?"

Her first girlfriend was this much younger woman who was closer to my age than my mom's, which added this whole other layer of awkward weirdness to it. Then they broke up and then my mom met Claire, who's been her partner for the last 16 years. My mother would tell me when I was growing up, I would complain about things, and she would say, "It's all material." When I grew up and used that material in fiction and had characters like complaining about their gay mom, she was OK with that.

As I got older and as my daughters got older and as I started to think about what her life must have really been like and what it must be like when there's a part of you that you can't share, that there's this secret you're always keeping, there's something you know about yourself that you can't be open to the world about and how that shapes your life. I wanted to write about that because I'm interested in women's stories and women's secrets and the way we are in public versus the way we are in private, the way we are with men versus the way we are with friends, or family, or sisters. I wanted to do a more thorough and respectful telling of my mom's stories. That's where Mrs. Everything, that's was where it was born.

We can talk about the secrets that women carry. We talk about where we are now at this moment in history, which is not great.

#BelieveHer.

#NotGreat, also. These characters, through multiple generations, go through molestation, rape, illegal abortion. Being closeted. Having an interracial romance. Going on a sugar daddy site. Being sexually harassed and abused in the workplace.

Being judged for not wanting kids.

Being shamed for your size, for having the audacity to put on weight. All of these things that women do go through and do suffer through in quiet. In times past, there was no back and forth. There was no conversation. This book is a conversation about that.

I promise there's funny stuff too!

There are two sisters in "Mrs. Everything." There's Jo and Bethie. Jo, as in "Little Women," she's the rebel, she's the tomboy. She wants to be a writer. She wants to live in a city. She wants to have a big life, as in "Little Women," ends up married to a guy who sniffs at her writerly ambitions and ends up as a mother for awhile. My Jo, I was able to give a different ending to. Then there's Bethie who's the good girl. Bethie in "Little Women" is the sister who dies. I'm sorry if I just spoiled "Little Women" for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

But you've had like 200 years.

Yeah, so come on. Catch up. Bethie, she's the pretty, suffers-in-noble-silence sister. Then when she dies it's this moment of heartbreak for this family. She's like, "Don't weep for me." I wanted to take a good girl and I wanted to talk about what the world does to good girls. Here's my Bethie who is shiny as a new penny and she's bright and she loves to perform and she loves to be the center of attention. She's Queen Esther in the Purim play. Then there's this uncle.

What happens with Bethie and the uncle, I am discovering, has happened with a lot of women. I did one video chat with a group of readers about this book a couple weeks ago. I was like, "And then this terrible thing happens to Bethie." Right down the screen scrolled, "That happened to me. That happened to my sister. That happened to my best friend. That happened to my partner." Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I was just like, "God, I so wanted to believe that I was making this up." Of course I know what happens, but boy, it happens a lot.

Everything, every single thing that we've just talked about, affects everybody.

Affects everybody.

Every single person in the world is or knows someone who's been sexually abused, who has been sexually assaulted, who has had an abortion.

With Bethie's story, I wanted to show the importance of language because she doesn't have the words, really, to even tell anybody what's going on. She can't say, "He's molesting me." She doesn't know that word. Or abusing me, even. All she can come up with was like, "He's hugging me too long." Her mother, who is a widow now, who's supporting this family, who's out in the workplace, who is enjoying her life in the workplace and probably feeling guilty and conflicted about that, is like, "What do you mean he's hugging you too long?" Bethie ends up confiding in her sister. Jo is the one who sort of takes care of business on her behalf.

As I was writing the book and as I was putting Bethie through one thing after another, I had to be careful that it wasn't too much. But I wanted readers to think about the importance of naming things. How once you've got a term for something or a word for something or a language for something, that's when you can start to solve it. That's when you can start to fix it. As we move forward and we think about the gains we've made and perhaps the ground we're losing, I wanted people to think about the importance of naming things and speaking out loudly and telling our stories bravely and knowing that our stories matter in the world.

It's the Mr. Rogers quote, "What is mentionable is manageable." It's that simple. Speaking of telling our stories, you know we want to get into this. The past nine years, you have been in a very bold, brave — to the point of being really savaged for this — talking about the sexism in the literary world, in the way that women's stories are written about, in the way that women's literature is talked about, in the way that women in general as a group, or demographic, are talked about. When you started having this conversation you were pilloried for it. Now here we are.

Here we are.

Can we just say, you were right? You were right about a lot. In this book,  you take on in a pretty explicit way some of that hypocrisy. What does it feel like now to look around and see that there has been this reckoning?

There has been this reckoning. Again, this goes back to naming a problem and being able to point at something and say, "Yes, this is real." When I started talking about it and Jodi Picoult started talking about it and saying, "Women's books are not reviewed as often," and we were told we were lying. We were told we were jealous. We were told we were just making it all up. We were told we were hysterical. We were told that our books are crap and that's why no one reviews them. Then someone started counting.

The organization VIDA every year does its count and they discovered that lo and behold, there was a true discrepancy. They started calling editors and then reporters started calling editors and saying, "Hey, New Republic, you reviewed seventeen books by men and one book by a women. What do you have to say for yourself?" Or, "Hey, Paris Review, you published 75% of your short stories by men last year. What's up with that?"

Also, discovering the rot that was actually going on behind the scenes at some of these publications.

Some of the biggest offenders have been "Me Too-ed," as we say in my house, and are no longer at the head of these organizations. I think that there's been a shift. There are women at the helm of some of these publications, which makes an enormous difference. A lot of editors have tried to do the right thing, have said, "Yes, we know there's a problem here. We are trying to address it."

Even the editors who haven't said that, they get called on the carpet. If they say, "We review the best books and if the best books are by men, we will continue to review books that are just by men," people say, "Well, let's talk about your criteria. What is best to you? How are you defining it? Who's defining it? Who's on your staff? Let's take a look at that masthead." I've seen real progress. For me personally, to see this book called ambitious and to see people call it a great American novel and to see people say, "This book has something to say and it speaks to readers," that's just tremendously gratifying and rewarding. I don't want to do a big victory dance or anything because it's not fixed yet, it's not all better yet. Are we moving forward? Yes, I think we are.

I love this book because it is at a moment when there is so much despair and hopelessness. This is a book that looks at that, but it also ultimately joyful and hopeful and funny. And sexy.

Sexy, yes. Super entertaining because that's my job, at the end of the day. I don't want to write polemics. I don't want people feeling like they've just spent 400 pages watching me stand on a soapbox and yell at them about reproductive rights, even though I want to do that sometimes. Yeah, there's some pretty sexy sex scenes. Honest to God, I gave the book to my mom. She was at my house for Passover, so I give her the advance reader's copy. I'm sitting there watching her read it. I'm thinking, "Oh God, please leave. Please leave. Please just go. Just get in the car before you get to the sex scene because I don't want to sit here and watch you read about two teenage girls and a vibrator. I just do not."

MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles."

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