#I don’t know how to describe it or if I’m being hardcore about this series when it was first revealed last year | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cyanoticfireflies · 16 days

Text

Hazbin Hotel - Rewatch Thoughts (Episode 1, Part 2)

Charlie kicks into song #1, “Happy Day in Hell,” and KeeKee is just kind of floating in the air listening along with all the rest. Just an observation.

Okay, so some of the stuff we see in Hell: one very dead ant/praying mantis looking demon, some actually not *that* kinky sex (guys, we’re on AO3… if you know you know), and a slew of dead bodies in the road. I assume those are fresh kills and not leftovers from last week’s extermination – though maybe? They smell awful and have flies, which means the dudes picking up corpses in the Pilot are very inefficient at their job.

Real talk about the barbed-wire pair – what’s the status on Sinner/Imp relationships?

Because in HB we kind of see some of the social stigma of, say, a Goetia prince and an imp. Though there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of noise about a Sin and an imp – probably because everyone is way too distracted by Lust falling in love. And with a Sin and a hellhound, it is telling that the party is populated by imps and hounds exclusively….

We do get an imp and a sinner making out in the music video Addict (the ladies with Valentino) but that strikes me a bit more as “someone told Valentino that lesbians making out was hot and he said “Yeah, sure.”

Anyhow.

I feel like when Charlie hops up on the car we get our first real core philosophical discussion here. “If I can show them the dream I’ve dreamed, that anyone can change.” This is *optimism.* This is highly simplistic so we as first-time viewers of the show can understand Charlie’s personality and motivation.

This is not realistic.

Vivianne did a livestream where she talked about just this idea and that part of the conflict is that maybe not everyone can be redeemed. Are we holding out high hopes for the loan sharks that came to the hotel with a battering ram in episode 5? The skeezy sharks that tried to date-rape Angel in episode 4? *Valentino?*

(That last one actually wouldn’t surprise me that much if they tried it, but also how? If HH pulls it off and genuinely manages to redeem the most universally hated character in the show, I will be impressed.)

Some people don’t want to change their ways and be redeemed. Others may have done things so horrific that it’s hard to imagine them being able to truly change their ways and move forward with the rest of their existence. There’s a sliding scale of what is and isn’t forgivable, and VM said herself that the scale is very person-to-person and it’s something the series will struggle with.

“But I do think there are certain things, you know, to me, from my perspective, that I feel like are irredeemable and, you know, when that line is crossed, I’m like ‘that can’t be uncrossed.’”

Counterpoint to Charlie’s singing, Vaggie starts talking about the angels. She’s 10,000% convinced that this isn’t going to work, and at this point in the show first-time watchers are just nodding along.

But we know that Vaggie isn’t just repeating anti-angel slander here. She knows better than anyone in Hell except maybe big Lulu himself what the angels are like because she *was* one. When she says they’re stubborn, don’t change their minds, are bloodthirsty, she’s talking from hardcore experience. And specifically exterminator experience. We only really spend time with Lute as far as the exterminators go, but – as we’ll see later on in this very episode – Vaggie is pretty much hitting the nail on the head describing her own personal knowledge of angels.

Also, it’s worth noting that Vaggie says “those angels,” “they.” This is partially to avoid spoiling the big reveal later on but also because Vaggie genuinely doesn’t think of herself as an angel anymore.

She no longer has wings. She’s no longer an exterminator. She lives in Hell. She doesn’t have any personal connections – that we’ve seen yet – to anyone in Heaven but has a Hellborn girlfriend. Vaggie’s life exists in BC and AD in terms of “Before Charlie” and “After Demon [Princess].” More on this later.

(What moron killed this dude and then *left. the. drugs?*)

This next part is, to me, where “Happy Day in Hell” cooks. You sing it, Princess!

So… Travis? Why??? What is this dude’s deal? Not even getting into the pilot or Addict videos, but in episode 4 – so actual published show cannon – this guy directs Valentino’s porn.

His literal job is watching porn all day long, live and in 3D. But he wants to spend his free time watching other porn and getting so randy he’s practically humping the windows? Me thinks his sins are related to a porn addiction that is very not under control.

Moving on to Cannibal Town, I have a legitimate question. We’re told that sinners can’t “double-die” unless they take an angelic weapon to the face. Does that mean that those who are cannibalized in Hell don’t actually die from it?

And if they won’t die from it, are there people who volunteer to be eaten? Do the cannibals take turns deciding whose turn it is to eat and whose it is to be eaten? And then after they’re eaten, do they just respawn? Is there a lottery system?

It's been a long time since I was in band, but I think the sheet music behind Charlie is actually correct, which is like a super impressive little detail. Tri-pe-let-hold. There’s-just-no-way.

As someone who likes shows where the person “playing” music is so far off of the music that it’s laughable sometimes, it’s just really cool to see. It probably wouldn’t have been any more – or less – work to just make something up, so there was no reason not to. But I’ll still give the kudos!

Little detail that cracks me up every time is Husk’s original VA being the flasher Trenchcoat Demon. “Touch his parts” indeed.

Sorry, buddy – only certain fluffy spiders get to touch the parts. Imagine getting told you’re being replaced by Keith David only for them to find a part for you anyway and it’s that. Mick Lauer must have a great sense of humor.

Without going into too much detail on my job, I actually do a reasonable amount of communication with and visits to embassies in Washington, DC. Charlie’s experience of walking straight in the front door and ambling around until she finds the reception desk is definitely a suspend your disbelief moment for me.

I know the whole point is that it’s abandoned and creepy. But no metal detectors or bag checks? At least there is a sign in sheet.

Someone pointed this out, but how does Adam eat through his mask? I know that the ribs are a hologram, but so is Adam, so assumedly the real Adam is eating real ribs up in, like, the atelier off of Sera’s office?

In episode 6 we later see him drinking through his mask while he’s walking around with Lute, but that’s normal drinking. This is like he’s shoving the ribs through a rib-stripper that mechanically separates the meat from the bone. That whirs.

The hologram part of Adam’s presence does seem to be entirely arbitrary, though, based on whether the scene wants him to pull a prank on Charlie or be slightly threatening. Her hand goes right through him when they go to shake, but later on he is able to grab her wrist and physically move her.

Is there a button up in Heaven?

Wait… if Adam is a hologram for Charlie, is Charlie also a hologram for Adam? Is he in full VR like he’s sitting in the Heaven Embassy in Hell, or is he sitting in his own office and just Charlie’s physical presence is being projected? Or did the design the two rooms to look the same so no one would get lost on where they are? If Adam moves a chair in Heaven, does an identical chair move in Hell so that if Charlie walks in that exact spot the two images won’t overlap?

I may be thinking too much about this.

We go back to the hotel, where Vaggie wants to create a new commercial.

I love that Angel can’t be within a few feet of Husk without basically going “the old man… I desire him.” Poor Husk. His eye is actually *twitching.*

Notice me not saying anything about the genuinely impossible physics related to another (missing) eye. So proud of myself.

Alastor creates a new camera for them, and I’m genuinely curious what his thought process is. The photo camera he makes seems pretty congruous with his time period (aside from some antler decorations), so it seems like he conjures what is familiar for him. But when he creates the video camera, it includes an eye and even eyelashes.

I wonder if this might be related to some part of his backstory with Vox. We know that Vox has cameras set up all over the place and watches people, so maybe Alastor associates video cameras with being watched.

Vaggie films Husk and Angel first, and I love hearing awesome actors act like they’re awful actors. But this also makes me curious what the storyboard Vaggie has in mind is. Also, there’s no way Vaggie actually handed Angel a script that said “big, strong daddy.” She’d die.

I know the “you come” set up the Angel-filthy-moan joke, but it should definitely be “you’ve come” – possibly setting Angel up for a “not yet, baby” joke… Either Husk really needs the script that close to his nose to read it or the scriptwriter didn’t get good grades in grammar.

Scrub that counter good later, Niffty and/or Husk. We know where Angel’s *everything* has been.

… I’m not even asking what the skeletons around the bar are from, but one does look like a snake.

Maybe that’s why Sir Pentious thought they other residents had it out for him.

I’ll get into this more in episode 4, but even this early we can see Angel adopting some of Valentino’s mannerisms when he’s making passes at Husk. “Baby-cakes” from the pet called “Angel-cakes” by his own master….

I know it’s upsetting you, Husk, but take the lid off the bottle first.

(We'll pick up in Episode 1, Part 3 due to Tumblr's 30 images-per-post limit.)

#hazbin hotel #recaps #images #musings #meta #analysis #charlie morningstar #vaggie #angel dust #husk #alastor #niffty #adam #lute

22 notes · View notes

natlacentral · 4 months

Text

Forget The Haters, Avatar Live-Action Star Elizabeth Yu Is Our Princess Azula

When Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbenderannounced that newcomer Elizabeth Yu was cast as Princess Azula, some fans of the original Nickelodeon cartoon immediately took to social media to complain. Some thought she looked too innocent to play the Fire Nation princess, an antagonist in the Nickelodeon series that takes place in an imagined world with people who can master and manipulate the different elemental energies of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Others lamented that her face wasn’t angular like Azula’s is in the cartoon, or that she looked too young for the part. (An especially odd critique considering, though never specified, Azula’s age is believed to be 14. Yu herself is now 21; she was 19 during filming.) But when it comes to the fan reaction, the young actor is completely unphased. “I’m a hit with the kids,” she jokes to Refinery29, adding that she doesn’t take it personally. “I think anybody playing this part would’ve gotten some kind of backlash.”

Yu is confident that when the show premieres February 22, fans will see the live-action show is doing more than recreating the cartoon. In the original, Princess Azula, the ambitious daughter of the Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim), doesn’t appear until Season 2 when she emerges as a new threat to the Avatar, the boy with the power to control all four elements and unite the nations against Ozai’s dictatorial rule. In this iteration, Azula is a recurring character, allowing fans to see her in a brand new light. “It’s an origin story for her,” Yu says. “It’s this foundation being laid out for a lot of things to make sense when we eventually pick up where we first met her in the original series.” So if you were worried Yu’s Azula had lost her villainous edge, don’t be. Yu describes her as “a girl boss,” but “evil.” Still, she says, “Azula is my baby girl, she’s my boo thing. I love her.”

Not only is she unbothered by the early reactions, she’s not at all nervous when thinking about how the show might be received by hardcore fans. Instead, the actor is more concerned with what her two younger sisters will think. The actor has seen Asian American representation grow from Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody — “All I had growing up was London Tipton,” she says, giving a shoutout to star Brenda Song — to recent Oscar-nominated films, like her 2023 favorite Past Lives starring Greta Lee. As half-Korean, Yu is proud to be a part of this current shift. “The idea that my little sisters are going to be able to watch TV and movies, and the likelihood of them getting to see someone that looks like them is so much higher, is such a win. It’s so healing to know that we’re creating an industry where little girls — little anyones — can feel like that.”

The fact that Avatar: The Last Airbender stars Asian actors is arguably the new show’s biggest break from the original series. When the cartoon first premiered in 2005, it only featured a few Asian and Asian American voice actors, despite the fact that it took place in a world inhabited by mostly Asian and Indigenous peoples. When the beloved series was adapted into a widely panned live-action film, The Last Airbender (2010), the cast also remained mostly whitewashed, save for members of the Fire Nation, who were depicted as South Asian. Now, two decades after the original’s debut, Asians are finally getting a seat at the table. “It’s monumental,” Yu says.. “It’s so important to be able to see yourself in stories. That’s what storytelling is about.”

Yu’s confidence is impressive, especially considering Avatar: The Last Airbender is only her third credit on IMDB. She gives off the air of an old pro. And in some ways, she is. Born and raised in New Jersey, she’s been auditioning for acting roles since she was 16. She’s also been dating Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo since they were 15. They currently live together in New York City with their three cats, and she’s had a front row seat to his rise to global celebrity. Though she insists she has always tried to keep their careers separate from their relationship, she admits, “Getting to see someone with such a huge heart navigate this industry is the best advice that I could be given.” She adds, “We’re both still trying to figure it out, and it’s really cool to be able to do it together.”

She continued to audition throughout her last years of high school, though “it was a struggle,” she says. During her senior year, she debated whether or not to go to college or commit to acting full time. In the end, she stuck with her passion. Then, in December 2021, just months after her high school graduation, she booked Avatar. “‘Oh, thank God,’” she recalls thinking. “I’m doing what I should be doing.” She has since gone on to appear in the Oscar-nominated May December, opposite Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton.

It wasn’t until her fourth and final audition came around that Yu finally learned what role she was fighting for. “It was insane. I cried on the phone with my mom.” Months later, she was standing on the Fire Nation set next to the legendary Daniel Dae Kim in full armor and regalia, acting between bursts of flames. (“Before they’d call action, they’d be like, ‘Pyro!’ and the flames would ignite from these sconces on the walls. It was insane.”) And though she admits acting opposite Kim was intimidating at first, it was also pretty damn cool. “Who wouldn’t feel like the baddest bitch in the room sitting next to Daniel Dae Kim as Ozai?”

It sounds lucky, but her road to Azula had more than a few bumps. First, there was the fact that she didn’t know what project she was actually auditioning for. “They sent this completely fake, made-up storyline for this fake TV show. I was auditioning for a character named April,” she explains. After getting a callback, she hit the internet to do some sleuthing. “I became an FBI agent trying to figure out what I was actually auditioning for, because I was like, ‘Something about this does not feel real,’” she says. When she realized that it might be an adaptation of Avatar, a show she watched growing up, she couldn’t believe it. (“I was like, ‘No way. That is definitely not what I’m auditioning for.’”) Then there was the “minor car accident” that she got into right before her first callback. (She made it safe and sound and “did the damn thing!”).

As for what big names she hopes to work with next, Yu is open for whatever comes her way. For now, she’s got her eyes set on a not-yet-confirmed Season 2 of Avatar, which she hopes will include Azula’s time on Ember Island with her brother Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu) as well as some of her character’s famous lines. “I’m really excited to go into a second season and finally do these iconic line reads that Azula has,” she teases, adding, “I quote them all the time to myself. There’s this one scene in the original where she says, ‘Do the tides command this ship?’ And she’s basically threatening this soldier that she’ll throw him overboard if he doesn’t do what she says. It’s just so badass.”

Live action or not, Princess Azula will always be badass.

#natla #atla #elizabeth yu #azula #article #refinery29

35 notes · View notes

illfoandillfie · 1 year

Text

A Different Kind of Eduation: R Is For Role Play (Chapter 12)

ADKoE MASTERLIST

Pairing: Professor!Roger Taylor x Fem!Reader

Series Summary: After being broken up with for not being kinky enough, Reader seeks out her professor to give her some private tutoring so she can win her boyfriend back.

Chapter Summary: Reader steps out of her comfort zone. Roger steps into the past.

Warnings: Modern AU, smut (18+), slow burn romance, dom/sub dynamics, dom!roger and sub!reader, professor x student sex, dialogue heavy, degradation (slut/whore/etc), role play, PIV sex, a littlespanking, restrained wrists

Words: 8,007

A/N: I really make you wait for these don’t i lmao. Originally this chapter had more stuff meant to be in it but while writing it I realised it would end up ridiculously long and tbh I would rather give you 2 short chapters than 1 long one. I can’t make any promises about when the next chapter will be up but it should also be on the shorter side so hopefully that makes it a bit easier to write.

As always *** indicates the smut scene.

Taglist: @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming@queenmylovely @ilovequeenmorethanyou @johndeaconshands @borhapbois @stardust-galaxies @cherries-n-rocknroll @rogersslave@scorpiogemini

@80s-roger @libsterslobsters @okilover02 @cjand10 @dealorgirl32 @youngpastafanmug @onceuponadetectivedemigod @zeida @demo-wise@yuillfandomqueen @tie-ur-mother-down @rogermyreligion

(idk how many of you are still interested in this fic so if you want your name taken off let me know, or if anyone wants to be added i can also do that)

Once again you found yourself outside Roger’s house, stomach in knots with nerves. Though not the usual nerves. You’d checked the curriculum before you left the house that morning, wanting to be prepared, and the one word that he’d used to describe that week’s lesson had been rolling over in your mind ever since. Roleplay. Somehow the idea of roleplay was more terrifying than all the bondage and spanking in the world could ever be. The arts had never been your forte, and the idea of acting and improvising and playing a character made you feel apprehensive and sweaty. But, you trusted Roger to not force you to do something you really hated the idea of, and so you let yourself in through the front door, as had become the usual custom. You were still providing drinks to accompany the dinners Roger made and, as soon as he saw you, he directed you to grab out a couple of wine glasses from the cupboard. You did so, trying to put your worries about the upcoming topic aside and just enjoy a nice meal with him. Briefly, you wondered if Roger could sense your uneasiness, his gaze settling on you like he was trying to read your thoughts, but then his eyes shifted back to the stove as he asked how your day had been and you gladly accepted the distraction.

It wasn’t until you were settled at the desk in his study that you felt nervous again. “Okay. Tell me what’s going on, Y/N.” Roger said calmly. You cringed a little that he’d picked up on your discomfort so easily but tried to keep your voice steady as you asked, “Are we looking at roleplay today?” “Yeah, that’s correct. You don’t like the idea?” “I’m doing a biology masters Roger, I’m not an actor. I don’t really want to pretend to get pulled over by a hot cop or whatever.” Roger chucked, “Fair enough. But I’d have thought this would be one you were looking forward to since it’s going to lead up into CNC and all of that.” “It is?” “Mmhmm. I mean, Consensual Non-Consent is just acting out a non-consensual experience. It’s a little more hardcore than the roleplay we’ll start off with, but it is related.” “Well, when you put it like that...” “A theory lesson can’t hurt, right?” “Depends. The last couple of theory lessons you’ve had me trying prac stuff. What exactly are we going to look at?” “Well, I was going to start off with something easy. We can talk about why people roleplay and go over some of the basic scenarios – the stereotypical stuff like cops and robbers or uh, teacher and student,” he looked mildly uncomfortable but moved passed it quickly, “nurse and patient, that sort of thing. And then we can get into some of the more niche things like petplay and ageplay and then in a couple of weeks, if you’re ready, we can get into CNC and free use and the more intense types of roleplay.” You hummed in thought, “That sounds okay. I am still a little nervous about the more practical side though.” “And what exactly is causing those nerves?” You shrugged, “I already said, I’m not an actor.” “Neither am I. What’s really the reason?” For a half a second you considered arguing that he did have a background in performing for crowds, just with music instead of drama, and so he shouldn’t be allowed to make light of your nerves. But in the end you decided that being stubborn about it would just make him push harder, “I don’t want to look stupid. And I can’t imagine not looking stupid while saying that ive been a naughty girl or whatever you’re going to want me to say.” You could feel your cheeks heat as you spoke and looked down to avoid Roger’s eye. Roger hummed in thought, “Well, that’s fair enough. No one likes feeling or looking stupid. But, counter point, you don’t have to say anything as cliché as that if you don’t want to. And even if you do say something cliché, I promise it will not feel as stupid in the moment as it would if you said it now.” “Yeah I suppose so, but still.” “Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s just focus on going over what roleplay is and how people use it in sexual situations. Okay?” You nodded your agreement, hoping that knowing more would help you feel less self-conscious.

“Right, well, let’s talk about humans for a moment. We’re a creative species. We’ve been telling stories since before writing was invented, it’s in our nature to imagine, to fantasise. So, of course, it’s only natural that those ideas can become sexual. Imagining something allows people to explore desires in a way that’s safe for them, especially if it’s a desire they wouldn’t normally admit to out loud. Its why romance novels are written. Its why people seek out pornography of specific fetishes. So roleplay is a way for people take those imagined situations to the next level, making it more real by actively participating in it. There are a few different forms that roleplay can take. At the most simple it could be wearing a costume associated with a particular role, like a nurse, or with a particular character, like Princess Leia’s slave outfit.” “You’re such a dork.” “That outfit is hot. And it was just an example.” He paused to make sure you weren’t about to interrupt again, “It may just be that wearing the clothes of someone else is enough to satisfy the fantasy, but often there will be a bit more to it. A scenario. You take on those characters and act out a scene. The nurse gives a patient a physical examination, Princess Leia is held captive and tries to bargain for her freedom. There’s some sort of a story involved that the participants act out. And then finally, as an extension of that, there are the taboo roleplays. Things like pet play and age play and CNC. Taboos make people curious, and it’s very natural to think about taboo situations or acts. Roleplaying something taboo gives people a safe way to explore it. And it doesn’t even have to be particularly sexual. Sometimes it’s not about that, it’s just about being someone else, about the feelings you get or the connection with your partner in that unusual situation.” “That makes sense I guess.” “One interesting thing to note is that a lot of the “standard” roleplay scenarios are based in power dynamics,” Roger dropped his hands from where he’d made quotation marks, “a cop has power over whoever they arrested, a nurse has power over a patient, a doctor has power over a nurse. Maid’s serve, kings and queens command, the list goes on. So, why do you think that is?” “Because...Because it’s an easy place to start if you’re interested in dom/sub dynamics?" “That's absolutely part of it. It’s a great way to dabble with kink, to test the waters so to speak. But I think there’s another bigger reason that people, even very vanilla people, might be interested in roleplay. Power dynamics are so prevalent throughout our society. Everyone has a boss; everyone has had an experience with an authority figure. And it is human nature to take something mundane and create a story where it’s more fantastical, more interesting, maybe even less scary. Or, to create a story that switches the power.” “Huh. That’s a really interesting way of thinking about it." “Of course, sometimes getting into a roleplay is how people discover kinks or fetishes and they can be steppingstones to other power based BDSM practices. But I think for most people, roleplay is just something fun that lets them explore something different in an accessible and safe environment. I will admit I did consider starting you off with some roleplay stuff when I was working out the curriculum. I thought that dressing up as someone else might help you feel more comfortable exploring new areas.” “What made you decide to start elsewhere?” Roger shrugged, “I knew that CNC and those areas we’re building to would tie into roleplay and I didn’t want to get too close to them too quickly. And I didn’t want you to feel like you had to be someone else to enjoy any of it." “I think you made the right call.”

Roger smiled for a moment and then seemed to remember he was teaching a lesson, “Okay, Y/N, I want to posit a theory and I want to know what you think about it.” “Okay,” you said a little taken aback but intrigued all the same. “I suggest that we’ve already experimented with roleplay.” For a moment all you could do was stare in confusion, “But we haven’t.” “What makes you so sure?” “Because we haven’t been playing pretend or dressing up as anything. What we’ve been doing is real.” Roger looked supremely pleased as if you’d fallen into a trap he’d set. “What if I said that roleplay isn’t playing pretend.” “That's literally what you just said it was. Costumes, pretending to be something you’re not.” “Well, okay yes, a lot of the time roleplay can be about that. And that’s why you can walk into any sex shop and find naughty nurse costumes or sexy school uniforms or, fuck, even a sexy Santa outfit. But that’s just a side effect of roleplay being a way to feel like something you're not. I could still pretend to be Santa with all the double entendres about presents and chimneys even without a set of suspenders and red knickers.” You giggled at the image he’d conjured but Roger mostly ignored you. “The costume just helps the suspension of disbelief.” “Okay, sure,” you said, still smiling at the thought of Roger dressed in holiday themed lingerie, “I don’t understand where you’re going with it though.” “Okay well, let’s look at these basic scenarios we’ve been discussing. They take something mundane or even a bit scary – medical check-ups, having a meeting with an authority figure – and turn them into something fun and sexy. And in the process the people involved can explore things that turn them on but that they might feel wary about doing in a non-roleplay situation. Things like being told what to do, or something a little further like handcuffs or punishment spankings. It allows people a chance to try being more dominant or more submissive or even more hyper-sexual than they let themself be in real life. Thus, it’s a way for them to achieve a different headspace or to feel something they wouldn’t ordinarily let themself feel. And isn’t that just what we’ve been doing too?" “No,” you knew you didn’t sound very certain, but you didn’t want to accept he’d been right too quickly. “Okay, let’s look at an example. Take Daisy and Jo and their slave/master dynamic. In real life, by law, you cannot legally own another person. They can call each other the right names, they can agree on who gets to make which decisions, they can put their names down on a slave registry, they could even get Daisy a barcode tattoo if they wanted to go that far. And yet, Daisy is still her own person, Jo doesn’t really own her. Daisy has a job, she has hobbies, she has a life outside of their relationship, and she has her own thoughts in her head, her own autonomy. And you heard how when that autonomy was taken from her in a previous relationship, it stopped being a kinky dynamic and turned into actual abuse. Daisy and Jo play around with things that make them feel psychologically as if one really is the other’s slave but, in reality, she’s not. So, in that case, roleplay is no less real than other parts of BDSM. Roleplay is just the closest approximation we can get to it being real before it crosses into abusive, illegal or dangerous territory.” “That’s a pretty extreme example though,” you counted, feeling as if you were in Roger’s regular classroom discussing the results of an experiment, “What about a stock standard bondage scene?” “I think it still fits. What a lot of people get out of a dom/sub dynamic is feeling control or lack-there-of, right? And isn’t the bondage just a vehicle for making the submissive person feel as if they have no autonomy or to feel as if they can’t escape? Or for making the dominant feel like they have total control over someone else?” “I suppose so,” “Obviously in a safe, sane, and consensual scene that can’t ever really be the case. The sub always has the right to stop things, to say no. There might even be a physical way for them to get out of the bondage if they need to. The ropes just make it feel less like they have the option to get out. Ergo, it’s a form of roleplay. And we can’t ignore spanking. That for most people spanking is intrinsically tied to discipline. That a lot of the ways spanking is portrayed or thought of, both inside and outside the kink community, is related to punishment. That probably the most common spanking scene imaginable is a schoolgirl being punished by her teacher. Dressing up in a short skirt and long socks and a white blouse and promising you’ll do anything for a better grade.” You swallowed thickly, very aware that you were sitting in front of your professor. Roger seemed almost as flustered as you felt as he paused. He plucked his glasses from his nose and began to clean them on his shirt hem, his voice a little quieter when he spoke again, “And you don’t even have to get that specific with it. Just the idea of spanking as punishment within a sexual scenario can be construed as roleplay. Chances are the person being spanked didn’t really do anything bad enough to warrant a physical beating.” He put his glasses back on and the tension from moments before disappeared, “And yet everyone involved pretends they did because they enjoy the act of spanking or being spanked and because it makes them feel secure in the dynamic they’ve built. The dom is in charge, the sub obeys, there are consequences for stepping out of those boundaries. They perform their roles, and it makes them feel good and sexually satisfied and bonds them.” “Fine, okay, maybe you’re right then. But if this was your attempt to make me feel less nervous about doing a roleplay scene in prac, it’s not worked. There is still a difference between the two...even if it’s not as clear as I thought it was.” “No, you’re right, I do think there is a distinction. But I don’t think that distinction is based on one being more real than the other. And really, it’s up to the individual to figure out where that distinction lies for them. But I also think that if we consider them essentially the same thing, or at least closer related than one initially presumes, it can help you remember one very important fact.” “Which is what?” “BDSM is a conscious choice. And to me, knowing it’s a choice offers so much more safety and security than considering it “real” does. Whether I’m acting as the dom or the sub, it's a reminder that everyone involved has actively chosen to be there and if that desire to be there changes, everyone has the option to say as much. Which ultimately makes things more enjoyable.” You’d already known that Roger cared about your safety and how much you enjoyed yourself, but you couldn’t help but be touched by his obvious enthusiasm for the topic and his sincere way of expressing it. It was something you hadn’t been able to properly appreciate when you first started your lessons, but the more time you spent with Roger, the more he voiced his thoughts on sex and BDSM relationships, the more you found yourself admiring him. It made you feel like you’d definitely picked the right person to learn from.

“We have two options now. Number 1, we can keep going with theory and look at some more specific areas of roleplay, maybe more taboo stuff like pet play and age play. Give you a sense of where roleplay can lead and how different dynamics like that work. Or, number 2, we can discuss some options for a possible prac scene and, if we can settle on something we both like the sound of, maybe we could try it out. I’m going to leave it up to you though. Whatever you're comfortable with. Although I will say, I would feel better about exploring CNC with you the coming weeks if we’d played with a simpler roleplay before then.” “So I have to roleplay then.” “It doesn’t have to be anything big and it doesn’t have to be tonight. But, yes, I would like it if we did.” “Did you have any scenarios in mind for us to do in prac?” “Nothing picked out but I can offer some suggestions you might like.” “Okay, hit me.” Roger hummed in thought, “I mean, basically anything can be a roleplay scenario. 1950s housewife and her husband, royalty and their servant, strangers meeting at a bar, a couple engaging in an adulterous relationship. Even fictional characters are possible. Are you into superheroes? I could be uhhh, I don’t know, Batman? Save you from some danger and you’re so gratefully horny about it.” You snorted, “Maybe something else.” “Do you want to go with something vastly different from our actual lives or something that’s a bit more familiar?” “Umm, maybe something more familiar would be easier to do without feeling like a complete wanker.” “In that case,” he made a clicking sound with his tongue as he considered your options, “you could be the babysitter I hired to look after my kids. Orrrr, I could be a repairman fixing something for you.” You didn’t hate the sound of either of them but also weren’t totally sure you wanted to do either and made an uncertain noise in response. “I suppose if you wanted we could do a teacher/student thing.” You shook your head, “That’s too much like real life, I think it’d make me feel weird.” “Okay, good,” Roger sounded relieved, “In that case...maybe something with a similar dynamic but less baggage... a boss and employee? You could be asking for a raise or something like that.” You shook your head again, though more out of amusement than disinterest. “There is always a doctor or nurse thing, we both know biology after all. Or, well okay, this one might be a bit weird but hear me out.” “Okay,” “I could be a rockstar and you could be my groupie.” “Oh,” “Is that a good oh or a bad oh?” “Neither I just wasn’t expecting it. But I kind of like it I think.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. I think I could be your groupie.” “Hanging off my every word,” Roger said suggestively, gesturing between you as if to say just like you are right now. “Willing to do whatever it takes to keep my attention.” “Something like that, yeah.” you laughed, “It seems doable.” “Alright, that’s settled then. So what sort of kinks would you want to include?” “Umm the usual stuff I guess, a little bit of degradation, maybe some spanking.” “Bondage?” “I don’t think I feel like that today. Not anything like ropes or cuffs, but I think I’d be okay with you physically holding my wrists or something.” Roger hummed in thought, “That all sounds very reasonable. Any thoughts to positions?” “Umm, not really. I’d be up for most things I think.” “I think I have some ideas then. Are you ready to get started now?” You were a little torn, the part of you that enjoyed having sex with Roger more than ready to go but the part of you that was apprehensive about acting was more in control, “Maybe a little more theory first. And maybe another drink.” “Okay,” Roger gave you a reassuring smile, “I’ll grab us a top up and then we can talk a bit about where we’re going with roleplay.”

When Roger handed you the glass of wine it was hard not to gulp it down in an effort to quell your anxiety. “You know if you get too drunk we won’t be able to do any prac and we’ll have to come back to it another night. And I’d have to insist on full sobriety that time.” You narrowed your eyes at Roger and took a smaller sip before putting the glass down, “So what else have you got to teach me about roleplay?” “We might as well start talking about the more taboo forms. I mentioned age play before but I don’t get the sense Dylan is particularly interested in it, so I wasn’t intending on going into detail. All you really need to know is that it’s a form of roleplay that involves someone acting a different age than they are, typically younger.” You’d never seen Dylan look at anything like that before and he’d never mentioned it so you felt confident saying, “Yeah, I don’t think Dylan would be into that.” “Okay, good to know. The other one I mentioned was, of course, CNC. But I don’t want to start on that until we can dedicate a whole lesson to it because it’s complicated and I want to make sure we cover everything. Which leaves just one other example I gave, pet play. How much do you know about it?” “I’ve heard of it, but I don’t really understand it.” “At its most basic, pet play is a kink in which one or more participants role play as an animal.” You dutifully noted down the definition, the familiar act putting you more at ease. “Technically it comes under a wider umbrella of animal play, but I think pet play would be the more familiar term to most. There are those that engage in animal play as foxes or wolves or even mythical creatures like unicorns and dragons. But pet play as a specific subsection of animal play revolves around acting as more common animals like dogs and cats and horses.” “So, if it’s taboo and about animals, is it like roleplaying bestiality?” “No. Typically engaging in pet play is, like a lot of role play in general, more about exploring different behaviours and desires, than actually being an animal. Someone who explores pet play as a puppy might be attracted to it because it gives them a space to be playful and bouncy and loose. Or it might be because they really like the dynamics involved in being trained to do something. Whereas a someone roleplaying as a kitten might be interested less in the training and more in physical affection while still being able to play and scratch and bite.” “Uh huh,” you weren’t totally sure you understood it, but it did make pretending to be a groupie sound less daunting. “The other thing with pet play is it’s not always about sex. It’s a fun way to show and receive affection – being petted or groomed, curling up on their partner’s lap, playing silly games, just being looked after.” “That does sound kind of nice.” Roger smiled, “Yeah, it can be. But we can get more into that another time. For now, let’s just stick to human role play.” Roger frowned at his phrasing for a second and you couldn’t help but snort and roll your eyes. “There’ll be none of that when you’re my groupie,” he playfully scolded, giving you a little wink, “Are you ready?” You took a nervous breath, “as I’ll ever be I think.” Roger gave you an affectionate look, "Give me a couple minutes to get a few things ready and then meet me in my music room.”

*****

As soon as Roger left you reached for your glass again, downing the wine quickly. You poured yourself another half glass and drank as you thought. Groupies. You understood the basic premise and you could see the appeal in sleeping with band members, in an abstract sense. But you weren’t sure how much of what you knew was even close to accurate. You were mostly going off depictions you’d seen in fiction. Roger definitely knew more about it than you did, even if his band had only lasted a short while. So what would he be expecting you to say? How would he expect you to act? It made your stomach twist uncomfortably and you put the glass of wine down. You didn’t feel much like a groupie. Glancing down at your outfit you thought you probably didn’t look much like a groupie either. But maybe you could fix that, at least a little. Roger had mentioned costumes and outfits as a way to help feel more comfortable in a role play scene so, grabbing your bag, you ducked into the nearest bathroom. There wasn’t a lot you could do with your clothes but thankfully you’d taken to wearing skirts whenever you had lessons. The one you’d chosen fell just above your knees, but you were able to fold the waistband over itself a couple of times to shorten it. The shirt was a little harder to alter since it wasn’t a button up. You experimented a bit with tying it up at the hem but didn’t really like the effect so instead settled for just taking your bra off underneath it. The material was thin enough that Roger would probably be able to see your nipples and that definitely sounded like something a groupie would do. You touched up your makeup and applied some lip gloss you found at the bottom of your bag, and then as a finishing touch you shook your hair out to make it seem a little messier. Looking at your reflection you decided that at least you'd been able to do something to alter your appearance. That was when you heard the drumbeat, Roger’s signal that he was ready for you.

He didn’t seem to be playing any specific song, at least not one you were familiar with, but the beat did make you feel a little more at ease as you headed toward the music room. Something about the background noise made it a little easier to believe your roles. And seeing Roger made it easier still. The door was ajar as you approached it, but you knocked all the same, pushing it open nervously. You noticed the flannel shirt immediately. It must have been one he’d had for a few years because it seemed worn and faded and a little tight around his upper arms. It was completely unbuttoned, his bare chest visible, and you were immediately reminded of the band photo that had been so popular on the university meme pages. Roger grinned when he saw you, not even attempting to hide the up and down look he gave you as he twirled his drumstick between his fingers. The movement immediately caught your eye, and you couldn’t help but be turned on, even though you still felt a little silly standing in his doorway. “Can I help you?” Roger asked when you didn’t say anything. “Oh, um,” you could feel your cheeks warming as you tried to think what to say, “I just wanted to tell you I loved the show.” You cringed a little at what you’d come up with, feeling it was a little cliche, but it must have been alright because Roger responded with a lazy smile. “Glad to hear it love. How’d you get backstage though?” You heart stopped for a moment as you internally panicked. Why had you spent so long on your appearance without spending a single moment preparing a backstory or anything useful to say. “Don’t over think it, you’re doing great,” Roger said, dropping the cocky rockstar act and nodding in encouragement. And then, as quick as it had gone, the rockstar was back as Roger relaxed into his seat again, spinning his sticks absentmindedly. “How’d you sneak in?” “No one stopped me,” you shrugged, unable to come up with anything better on the spot. “Well it’s a good thing. I love talking to fans.” His voice dripped with innuendo, and you found yourself swallowing hard in response. "I was hoping you’d want to...talk. I’m such a big fan.” Roger beckoned you towards him, “Close the door, love, I’d hate for our chat to be interrupted.” Your stomach did another flip, although a much pleasanter one, as you stepped further into the room. It helped that Roger seemed so at ease playing his role. You could easily imagine him playing for a crowd, flushed and sweaty as he banged out a beat. Even now with shorter hair and more of a dad bod, if he announced tomorrow that he was quitting teaching to go back on tour you would have no trouble believing him. He just looked right behind his drums. Not to mention hot as hell. “Do you want to touch it?” “Touch what?” you blurted, worried you’d missed something while you’d been distracted by the thought of a sweaty Roger pounding away at his drums. “My kit of course,” he laughed, grabbing your hand and bringing it to one of the cymbals, “You seemed pretty enamoured with it.” “Oh, yeah, it’s um bigger up close than I was expecting.” The cymbal felt cool under your hand but you had to assume that was partly from how warm you felt, embarrassed both at the cheesy line you’d just said and that he’d caught you daydreaming. “Not the first to tell me that,” he replied with a wink and an easy suggestiveness that made you feel somehow even more warm. “I could show you how to use it.” “I’d love that,” you gushed, not entirely pretending. The drums did seem like fun.

You let Roger lead you around to his side of the kit, his hands settling nicely on your hips as he guided you to sit on his lap. The whole situation made you feel giggly and for a moment you forgot it was role play, wondering at when you’d got so bold as to hit on a rockstar but glad that it seemed to be working. And it definitely seemed to be working if the semi pressing into your backside was anything to go off. You suspected you were not the only one who’d felt the need to get rid of underwear. Roger’s breath hitched softly as you wriggled against him and he quickly guided his leg between yours, putting you on his thigh rather than his lap. You didn’t mind so much though, especially when he shifted, and his thigh pressed up into your cunt. Roger’s hands meanwhile were also moving, rising up your sides, the light trail of his touch making you shiver and your stomach clench with anticipation as he neared your breasts. You nearly groaned in disappointment when he pulled them away too soon and heard Roger chuckle in your ear as he reached for you hands instead. He pressed the drumsticks against your palms and then wrapped his hands over yours, guiding your movements to bang out a simple beat. The drumming was fun but it was hard to focus when his hands felt so warm and large against yours, and his breath tickled the side of your neck. “You’re a natural,” You grinned, feeling quite pleased with yourself, until you gasped when Roger pressed his foot down on the kick drum pedal and you bounced on his thigh unexpectedly. “Too fast for ya?” he asked cockily. You turned your head to try to see him better, “No, I’m a quick learner.” “Well show me what you’ve got then.” His hands moved down to your hips again, pulling you snuggly against his chest. It was enough of a distraction that he had to prompt you again, leaving you flustered as you hurried to comply. “Harder than that, love,” He said when you produced a much quieter sound than he had, “Really pound it.” He emphasised the word with another stamp of his foot. Your second attempt was better but apparently not quite to Roger’s standards because he grabbed your chin to make you look at him again. “Do you need me to show you how?” Words completely failed you so you just nodded, your stomach in knots with anticipation, practically able to feel the wet patch growing against his thigh. Roger’s gaze flicked down to your lips as you both held the moment for a second longer, and then he was surging forward eagerly. His hand moved to your neck as he claimed you, his other still at your waist though his grip had tightened to keep you in place. The drumsticks clattered to the ground and you couldn’t help the little moan that slipped out into his mouth, finally having an outlet for all the tension that had been building since you entered the room. The sound just made Roger smile, his lips quirking cockily against yours as his hands began to roam, down your thighs, pushing your skirt higher, toying with your undies. “Don’t need these,” his tone making it clear you should have left them in your bag with your bra, as he pulled them down your thighs. You raised yourself a little to help him, feeling as if you had to make up for wearing them in the first place. Roger seemed pleased with your initiative, or at least pleased that he could easily access your pussy, his fingers slipping between your lips. “So wet already,” he half moaned, two fingertips toying with your entrance. You gasped again as he worked both digits into you, pausing a moment when he was around the first knuckle so you could adjust. But he didn’t wait long before he drew them back a little and then pushed them in deeper, and then again, clearly impatient to get you ready enough to take his cock. You were growing impatient too, your head still spinning from his kiss and from how good just his hand felt between your legs. “Rog please,” you whined, trying to sink down on his fingers, though the position made it difficult, “‘m ready.” “Yeah? Ready for my cock, huh love?” You nodded and groaned, desperate to convince him as he continued fingering you. Roger just chuckled, “Of course you are. It’s the whole reason you came here, isn’t it. To be fucked by a rockstar.” You nodded quickly, ready to agree to just about anything he said. “That’s what I thought,” he almost growled as he drew his zipper down and freed his cock. His hands came back to you then and you let him guide you to stand, shifting around so that when he pulled you back down, you were aligned with his cock rather than his thigh. You moaned as his tip breached you, his cock stretching you much more than his fingers had. But it was a very good stretch and one you were more or less used to by now. You didn’t even mind that he didn’t give you time to adjust, just kept pulling you onto his lap, making you take his whole shaft much quicker than he usually would.

When you were finally seated fully, legs between Rogers’, your skirt rucked up under his palms, and your pussy stretched around the base of his shaft, both of you moaned almost in unison. “Fuck, love,” he groaned against your ear, “taking me so well.” The praise made you squirm, and Roger moaned again as you tightened momentarily around him. “Jesus. Whores like you are my favourite part of this job.” He managed to get out through his heavy breaths. You whimpered, continuing to wriggle in place, Roger’s hands still grasping you making it unclear whether or not you were allowed to move. “You don’t need to tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had, I know I am.” Roger chuckled, the cocky rockstar act back in full force, “So why don’t you show me how grateful for my cock you are and ride me.” You didn’t need to be told twice, placing your palms against his legs to help steady yourself as you began moving as best you could. You never let too much of him escape your heat, raising up just enough and then dropping your arse back into his lap. As you found a good rhythm, his hands began to wander, squeezing your breasts through your shirt at first, though he quickly pushed the material up until your chest was exposed and he was free to grope you as much as he wanted. “That’s right, fuck yourself just like that,” he growled, “feel amazing on my cock, love.” The praise only made you moan more, especially since he said it like you were lucky to be pleasuring him at all. But you knew that, despite the attitude, he really meant what he said. He was breathing hard against your neck, making you shiver as he let out little moans each time you sank down on his shaft. And then there was the drum. Roger’s foot was still on the pedal and whenever you tightened around him enough or moved at just the right angle, he'd jolt like he wanted to spear up into you and a sudden stuttered bang would sound. You chased the sound of the drum almost as much as the sound of his moans, both making it seem like he was losing control, like you were cracking through his arrogant attitude.

But Roger wasn’t going to make it too easy for you. Whether because he was intent on finishing his lesson or he was just so lost in how fucking hot the groupie roleplay was, you couldn’t tell. It added up to the same thing though. He pulled your arms behind your back and gathered your wrists together in one hand. You whined and halted your movements but Roger tutted at you condescendingly. “Is my cock too much for you? Maybe one of the other girls could handle me better.” You shook your head, “No, I just-” “Shhh love, I don’t care. Just ride me.” You whimpered but that seemed to amuse Roger more than anything. “Already admitted you came here for my cock and believe me, love, you’re not the only one. So do what I say or I’ll find another slut who’s willing to do whatever I want.” The thought of him kicking you out before either of you finished was nearly as distressing as the thought of him replacing you with someone else. You quickly began moving again, trying to get back into a good rhythm. It was harder to ride him without the leverage your arms had given, relying on your leg muscles alone as you raised and lowered yourself. But the struggle just made it all the hotter. And Roger must have agreed because he groaned again, even though you couldn’t manage to move as much as before. “Such a hot cunt,” he moaned, “don’t stop.” You whined as you felt his grip on your wrists tighten but didn’t dare stop riding him even though the effort was making you pant and your thighs were beginning to burn. Roger’s breath hitched as you next sank down, “M-might have to keep y-ou around all t-tour.” He grunted. The thought made you moan and you found yourself hoping he meant it, hoping you could accompany him on the bus and share his hotel rooms. As if reading your thoughts Roger grunted, “Fuck you when-whenever I want. Y-ou’d like th-at.” It wasn’t a question but you answered anyway, a breathy, “yes,” falling from you as you desperately tried to keep fucking down on Roger’s cock. Thankfully your unexpected response had an effect on Roger. He let your wrists go suddenly, growling as he manhandled you off his lap. Pushing you to stand, you felt yourself bent forward over the drum kit as Roger took over fucking you. You braced yourself as much as you could, the drums rattling a little as you leaned on them. Mostly you were just glad your legs were getting a break, and thankful that your cunt was being stuffed at a faster pace. All you could do was moan at how good it felt, and brokenly plead with Roger not to stop. It was perhaps the loudest you’d ever been with anyone, not just Roger, but it wasn’t a conscious decision. They were not the sounds expected from a science major who was in the middle of a sexual awakening with her professor. They were the sounds of an eager groupie. Unashamed and unapologetic.

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.” As if to prove that he was in charge, Roger paused, holding your hips so tight you couldn’t even squirm on the cock filling you, "Fucking cockwhore, aren’t you love?” You whined but nodded. Roger just chuckled and then picked up where he’d left, one hand moving up your back to hold in you in place as he railed into you, one hand slipping down to rub your clit sloppily. The tension in your stomach nearly had you sobbing, so close to orgasm, and without worrying about how you sounded, you began begging Roger to make you cum. It nearly pulled him from the scene. He’d hoped you’d get into it, lose your inhibitions and enjoy playing pretend, but he’d not expected to hear anything so wanton from you. He miraculously kept the rhythm of his thrusts, but momentarily lost his voice, managing only a moan at your desperation and then a croaky, “You gonna cum?” It wasn’t nearly as commanding or demanding as he’d been moments before, but he cleared his throat and said it again as a statement rather than a question. You were too far gone to notice the slip, nodding in answer to both. Roger’s lapse passed and he lay a spank against your arse, “Words, whore.” “Y-yes, yes, ‘m gonna cum. Fuck, please.” He spanked you again, chuckling at your pussy’s response, before moving back to your clit, his fingers more deliberate this time. “Go o-n then love,” his breathing was heavier, strained from the effort of fucking you as well as his own approaching climax, “Cum on m-y cock and I-I’ll give it to you e-every night – of the tour.” It didn’t take much more than that and the pleasure crashed into you, Your legs trembling as Roger kept fucking you. He was swearing at how tight you felt, managing to get out half formed thoughts about how desperate for his cum you were and how jealous the rest of the band would be that you’d gone to him. To an observer it would have been unintelligible gibberish. So, it was probably good that you barely registered it, much more concerned with how it felt as Roger came too, his hips pressing against you, his cock pushed as deep as he could get it, filling you with his warm cum.

*****

You came back to yourself, still bent over the drum kit, still full of Roger’s cock, his heavy breaths hot on your skin as he gently stroked your arm. The embarrassment came quickly after that, your skin burning as you cringed at everything you remembered saying. Roger pressed his lips to the back of your neck, “I’m gonna pull out now, okay?” You nodded, half wishing he’d stay put just so you could avoid looking at him for a bit longer. But he didn’t. He hissed a little as he eased himself from between your legs, apologising when you reacted similarly, and then turned you around, cupping your face in both palms as he kissed you properly, on the lips. You tried to push your embarrassment aside and enjoy the kiss but it was hard to do when you kept thinking about how ridiculous you must have sounded. In fact, you were so caught up in your head that you didn’t even notice the sound of Roger’s fly being done up or him gently pulling your underwear back up your legs. “Thanks,” you mumbled when you realised, his palms warms where he smoothed the fabric now on your hips, grateful that he’d thought of it before cum started dripping out of you. “Guess I should clean up.” Roger caught you around the waste and shook his head, retaking his seat as he guided you onto his lap again. Only this time you were facing him so he could kiss you more.

By the time he pulled away you were feeling marginally better, telling yourself if you’d been too much of an embarrassment, he wouldn’t want to make out so soon. “See, wasn’t that fun?” he asked, his knuckle brushing against your jaw. You made an evasive gesture, “I guess so, yeah.” “C’mon, you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it when you got so into it.” “I really wasn’t expecting that. I must have sounded like an idiot.” “What? No.” Roger seemed perplexed by your statement, “Try insanely sexy.” “Really?” “Absolutely Y/N. You were perfect. I knew it was going to be fun the moment I saw you’d altered your outfit. Because that meant you were going to give it a proper try.” You smiled shyly, “It was fun.” “There we go, yeah it was!” “I assume it’s not always like that though.” “No,” he shook his head, “I mean, it depends. Sometimes you can be fully emersed in the scenario like tonight, and sometimes you know you’re both just saying lines. But that doesn’t make it less hot. Would you want to experiment more with role play?” You thought about it for a moment, “I guess I’d be open to it.” Knowing Roger, you were sure he’d ask for more details so hastened to add, “I am a little curious about how pet play works now.” Roger seemed surprised, “I was meaning like trying other scenarios – the nurse thing maybe, or... but yeah, if you want to know more about pet play I think I can teach it.” “Oh, I- fuck,” you buried your face in Roger’s neck, feeling likely to die from embarrassment if you opened your mouth again. But Roger just chuckled, rubbing your back softly, “It’s good that you told me, Y/N. I want to know what you’re curious about.” “I guess so,” you said managing to lift your head high enough for Roger to press his lips to your temple, “I'm just curious how it works because it sounds a bit weird. Especially after tonight, cause like, I imagine it’d be harder to feel fully immersed in the scenario when you’re pretending to be an animal. It’s so different from pretending to be a groupie.” “I love that you’re curious. I’ll have the kids from Thursday night until Sunday but, if you want to, we could do this again tomorrow or Wednesday to fit in a bonus lesson about pet play. Would that work?” You nodded, managing to meet his eye briefly but looking down again as you said, “Wednesday would work. And maybe, if I don’t want to try pet play we can do the nurse thing instead.” “That’s a great plan,” Roger smiled, gently tilting your head up so he could kiss you again. You melted into him, almost disappointed when he stopped. It might have just been a projection of your own feelings but you got the sense that Roger didn’t quite want to stop either. All the same, he did, his hands lingering. “I should let you go and clean up.” “Yeah,” you nodded, “I should probably be going soon.” It was at least another thirty seconds before his hands left you and you stood up.

#my writing #my fics #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor smut #roger taylor imagine #a different kind of education #im also posting this at work with the dodgiest internet connection so i hope it works lmao

85 notes · View notes

khalewren · 11 months

Text

Sonic character music HCs

I’ve been obsessed with both the Sonic the hedgehog series and Music in general for over a year now, so i figured i could combine those interests in a fun way. I’m gonna describe what kind of music i personally think the characters would like/listen to. And just so you know, this is just my thoughts on it, i’m not saying im right or anything. And while i am trying to match these genuinely, it’s also not something i’m taking fully seriously. I’m just doin this for fun :)

I also suggest looking up some of the terms/artists/genres i use here if you’re not already familiar with them! Might help you understand my reasoning a bit more, and who knows, you might even find a new favourite artist 👀

Oh, and one more thing. While i am of course going to go off of music i’m familiar with, i’ll try to avoid assigning characters music that i like just because its music that i like. That being said, i will of course, be just a tad bit biased. Anyways, time to start with the blue boy himself!!

Sonic

Sonic is somewhat easy. Seeing as how his main thing is standing up against tyranny, i imagine he’d definitely be a fan of punk. At first i thought of pop punk specifically, due to its high energy, but i feel like Sonic would find it a bit too commercial. Same thing with skate punk. I feel like anarcho-punk could be a little more up his alley? Maybe something like chumbawumba.

Oh, and personal bias time: I think he would like King gizzard and the Lizard wizard due to the themes of enviromentalism.

Example of Sonic’s music taste

Tails

Now, i’m completely split between two different paths here. The first option is EDM. Just overall music that sounds electronic, maybe dance, i dunno. The second option however, is one that i personally prefer: Just like, music with weirdass time signatures and polyrhythms n shit. Math rock, Prog, that kinda stuff. Specific bands i’m thinking about is Tool, King crimson, Black midi, maybe even KGLW (again, personal bias). Tails would think music theory is fucking dope and would be OBSESSED with this kinda music lmao.

Example of Tails’ music taste

Knuckles

Now, this is the rare instance that i feel justified in being biased, because his level themes in sa2 make me believe that knuckles is a hiphop head. Specifically, instrumental hip hop. I think he’d be a big fan of J Dilla’s style of hip hop production in general, with the soft fuzzy feel of songs like The light. Otherwise i feel like he likes some boom bap, like Illmatic.

Example of Knuckles’ music taste

Amy

I honestly feel like Amy is the kinda person who enjoys like, any type of music? Like this gal will listen to some chill folk music and then go directly to hardcore industrial rock lmao. I think her favourite genre is pop though. First artist that pops into mind is Carly rae jepsen, not only because she makes great pop music, but also since her songs are often about love, which i feel fits Amy pretty well. She’d probably like something more off-kilter like art pop too. She LOVES Björk, i feel confident in saying that.

Example of Amy’s music taste

Shadow

I’ve noticed that this one is quite varied (and if you’re curious, i don’t really mind the whole taylor swift thing, but i also don’t really care for it either), but i want to bring up a genre that i haven’t seen anyone else suggest Shadow being a fan of: Shoegaze. I think he would find the whole noisy, dreamlike, nearly overwhelming feeling of shoegaze calming. I don’t know, there’s just something about Shoegaze that makes me feel like it fits shadow perfectly. Only bands i really know are Slowdive and My bloody valentine, but i still feel confident in my opinion.

I also feel like the idea of him enjoying indie folk (something like the mountain goats) but would not be caught DEAD listening to it is really funny. The day that rouge finds out will not be a happy day for anyone in a ten mile radius.

Example of Shadow’s music taste

Rouge

Now, there’s a very easy answer here. Jazz. But i feel like rouge would also enjoy stuff like Soul and funk. She’d also check out music Shadow listens to, both to annoy him and out of genuine interest. Not much else i have to say here tbh.

Example of Rouge’s music taste

Omega

Harsh noise.

Silver

Similarly to Amy, i think Silver enjoys practically anything and everything, and is also super open to trying new stuff. If he has a preference though, i think he enjoys dance music? Or just electronic stuff in general. Daft punk comes to mind, specifically Discovery.

Example of Silver’s music taste

Blaze

I feel like Blaze is someone who simply hasn’t been able to listen to a lot of music yet? Her friends (particularly Silver and Amy) have given her a bunch of recommendations, and while she doesn’t have a preference yet, she has enjoyed some of the stuff that they have played.

Vector

On the complete contrary to Blaze, Vector is a supreme Music nerd. You name an artist or album, he is at the very least aware of them. He’s the kinda guy who will talk about some super obscure folk album from the 70′s and refer to it as if its some kind of holy grail. It’s great. He would have a vinyl collection, but due to the chaotix’s financial situation, he settles for CDs instead. Again, he enjoys practically anything, but i feel like his favourite genre is progrock. He also remixes music for fun.

And thats it!! I’ll try to think of more that i can add in a reblog, but for now, this is all that i can think of. Again, this is just my opinion, but i’d love to hear some of yalls thoughts!! why you think im correct or wrong or however!!

#sonic the hedgehog #sth #sonic music #tails the fox #knuckles the echidna #amy rose #shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #silver the hedgehog #blaze the cat #vector the crocodile #khale rants about music

42 notes · View notes

smallishbabes · 2 years

Text

The Smallishbeans Fan Starter Guide

Have you seen Smallishbeans in videos and/or on your dashboard and thought “hey he seems cool I wanna check him out” but don’t know where to start? Well this post is for you!

“Who is Smallishbeans?”

His name is Joel and he’s a British survival builder who appears in SMPs such as X Life, Empires SMP, and 3rd Life and does lots of challenges like doing hardcore for 24 hours, not using a crafting table, and spending 100 days in a world to name a few. He’s the MCC competitor who keeps spilling his keyboard and had to get a sippy cup for the tournament, first person to ever 1v3 and did it against pink parrots MCC 8, won MCC 10, and attained the lordship Joel Jumperman after getting 8th place in MCC 9. He’s also LDShadowLady’s husband and frequently collabs with her. He was initially known for playing Call of Duty, in fact Smallishbeans was his Xbox gamertag, but now he’s the Joel we all know and love, who loves to cook, loves his wife, is a big nerd, got two pets, loves to mess with his friends, and play in block game :)

He also looks like this, this, and this (the last one is his og skin and the one his current skin is based off of):

And here are a few examples of his builds:

“Where can I find him?”

He posts videos and streams on Youtube. He usually streams when it’s MCC b/c he personally doesn’t like the stress of streaming but he has streamed plenty of times before in the past. As of when I’m writing this, he’s planning on streaming more during Empires season 2. He also has a Twitter and Instagram if you wanna check him out elsewhere. His channel also links to his clips channel, Smallishbeans Clips, and extra videos channel called, More Smallishbeans.

“Where do I start?”

Anywhere! He doesn’t have any heavy lore if that’s what you’re worried about. I think the only thing he references is Jeremyism, which is a religion centered around naming everything Jeremy and also praying to Donkey Jeremy which he did during X Life. Joel doesn’t reference other series too unless it’s multiple seasons and he usually mentions it offhandedly. I’d say just start with a one off video or short series and then move to a long series.

“How would you describe him?”

Extra, sarcastic, overconfident while also being insecure, crazy, mean girl, pathetic, funny, angry short king, and bi wife

“What videos do you recommend?”

I’ll give you my favorites!

1.16-1.17 100 days series

24 hrs of hardcore again

Empires season 1 & season 2

Double life series

Last life series

100 hours of hardcore

Him making mcyters do parkour for money

X Life series

“Any Smallishbeans blogs you recommend?”

Aside from me, there’s also minecraftbee, sarioh, elbowreveal, mcytheap, pebbltree, condorclaw, unicornhazel, savviathan, navy-leader, pockopeas, harley-the-pancake, king-of-mezalea, digdeepergravedigger09, renchanters, and devilart2199-aibi. Obviously there’s tons more I haven’t listed, but these are good to start with. (Also if you’re a Joel blog and reblog this, feel free to use this post to promote yourself. The more Joel blogs the better)

That’s all you need to know! If you have any further questions or if you just wanna talk about Joel, feel free to ask me! I admit, I’m not a Joel encyclopedia, but I’d be happy to help as best as I can! Have fun watching him! :D

#mcyt #smallishbeans #joel smallishbeans #empires smp #trafficblr #empires smp s2 #empires season 2 #llsmp #dlsmp #double life smp #last life smp #mcc #i think those are all the ones I mentioned #it’s not the most perfect thing but hey no one else did it so here I am #long post #arah post

163 notes · View notes

desultory-novice · 2 years

Text

Magolor's (Apology) Theme Park

I'm sure it's been written about elsewhere, but here on the anniversary of the release of Kirby's Dream Collection (JP) it's time to lay to rest the question of why Magolor's theme park was built!

Follow the Read More for lots of screenshots!

“Hi, Magolor!”

“Well that’s just great!”

“I see. Sounds like some story...”

“Aww! That was sure nice of you!”

“One sec, Magolor! Mahoroa is here! Gotta translate for him...”

“Hi, my name is Mahoroa.”

“I’m a traveler from another dimension who wound up on this planet after an unexpected turn of events.”

“As I was getting a little bored, I built, in a corner of Dream Land...”

“...a super special fun theme park!”

---

So, there you go! There’s a little more dialogue where he describes how his theme park works, but it is not noticeably different in either version.

One thing I'd like to point out is that (...for once... :grumbles about the loss of pause screen text:) the English version crams in more words than the Japanese script does. Often times, the English script has to trim stuff down or trim it out entirely. Usually because of character spacing/the font.

Here, each English line can fit around 30-32 characters, where as the Japanese can hold only about 15. That’s normally pretty good, as the rule of thumb is x2 the amount of EN characters per JP “moji,” but that’s for typical Japanese writing that uses a mix of kana and kanji.

Kirby, being an all-ages series, tends to avoid heavy usage of kanji so that young kids who are still learning their joyo kanji can understand the text without assistance. The same philosophy is in use here with Magolor’s dialogue. Words that would typically be written in kanji (like “name��, “bored”, and “fun”) are now twice as long. So you’ve got LESS room for words in Japanese!

They don’t fill every text box to bursting in Japanese, like they do in English, of course, and it's possible that we get that extra fluff dialogue from English Magolor because his lines in Japanese are so short and broken up across multiple lines. Like in the last two. In order to read more smoothly, they make each text box a complete thought and thus, he needs to say SOMETHING.

So, they include the apology just to have him be conversational.

OR perhaps it was an understanding of the reactions of the different playerbases and their reception of Magolor? I know I'm completely biased when it comes to Magolor, but I gotta say, he comes off as darn CUTE in Japanese.

Of course, he was designed to be lovable.

Now, I put a lot of the love for Magolor on the good direction of RtDL, though I attribute some of this to his general cuteness too, but whether it’s an ingrained love of kawaii-kei or a culture of sympathy for the baddy present in most of their children’s media, it feels to me like there's a lot more sympathy for and, most relevantly, forgiveness toward Magolor in the Japanese fandom...?

I'm not saying we don't also cuddle and coddle the adorable, microtransaction-selling, lying, egg cat over here, but I feel like I see a lot more arguments on whether he can, should, or could ever be forgiven. Also, what would be required from him first before he can be allowed back in everyone's good graces -- from the Wii group and from Kirby themselves.

In contrast to this, you don't even have to search the JP fandom that hard to stumble across some :cough unusually gorgeous cough: fanart of Kirby forgiving Magolor - sometimes portraying the last boss fight as a battle to save him rather than stop him!

No fandom is a monolith and there are plenty of people who draw "Magolor has a LOT of repentance to work through" art. Or just have Kirby throw a pie at him for misbehaving! But the above has generally been my experience.

Fandom and how we enjoy things aside, the change could also stem from the same reason we have "American Kirby is Hardcore!" Maybe NoA thought "adorableness" wouldn't be enough to get people softening up on Magolor for this game - and that was important, since the ending cutscene walk back treats Kirby and Magolor as true friends now. If he's still the guy who backstabbed us without remorse, we're going to take that credits scene differently.

Thus, NoA injected an extra, err, rather a single apologetic action on Magolor's behalf. The theme park is now an apology gift to Kirby and the gang. As people have pointed out, it's not the same as an actual apology, and he still comes off as flippant and maybe a little self-obsessed with his own work.

(After all, he seems more interested in you checking the park out than going into his history or the reasons behind its construction, so even in English, you don't get the feeling he's all THAT burdened with regret...)

Still, it's a nice touch! And before this is used to say "Ah, okay, so Magolor's a jerk and doesn't feel sorry at all about what he did and never intended the theme park as an apology" I'd like to add one thing!

...Sometimes, an addition made to the localized version of a game can become popular enough that it gets re-adapted back into the original canon later on. It's here I'd like to take us to Dedede's Drum Dash, where it is heavily hinted in the last level (and outright confirmed in Miiverse) that this is a mini-game that Magolor, theme park designer, made for King Dedede.

What I’m getting at is that the existence of the full version of Drum Dash could have stemmed from the fact that Kumazaki et al saw EN Magolor's "apology" theme park and liked it so much they decided afterward Magolor WOULD make custom theme parks to apologize to the RtDL group for what he did!

...And there you go!

Actually, one more thing. Speaking of forgiveness and beautiful Magolor fanart, you may have seen any number of pictures of Magolor in a field of blue flowers or being given a bouquet of blue flowers.

These blue flowers in particular:

These are Nemophila or “Baby Blue Eyes” and in English, they mean “success.” ...But in Japanese?

They mean “I forgive you.”

And now you know why Magolor + Nemophila is such a common aesthetic!

As a bonus, here’s a shot of a very unenthusiastic Magolor I accidentally captured while gathering screenshots for this post.

(Credit for them goes to RetroArchive (EN) and しゅーや (JP) btw.)

#Kirby #Kirby series #Magolor #Kirby's Return to Dreamland #Dess Text Post #Translation Comparison

112 notes · View notes

absolutepokemontrash · 3 years

Note

ayo!! congrats on 666 <33 I'm not sure if its much of a request but I love how you wrote the demon kids personalities! I was wondering what kids of personalities you would see the other brothers kids having? Hypothetically of course (unless 👀)

BRO- I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while! Fan kids are fun to think about, what can I say? Now, these kids aren’t canon to the Awfully Familiar series, the HOL is crowded enough as is… but I hope you enjoy anyways!

(I’m giving all the kids names just so no one gets confused with which kid is whose)

Levi’s Kid

Uh let’s use probability to figure out how rare children of our snek boy are. The Otaku left the house (unlikely), spoke to a human being (very unlikely), did the devil’s tango with them (impossible)

I’m kidding, but seriously what the fuck why did this human exchange student look so much like Levi? Was that a tail? Hehehe… what a weird practical joke…

(I’m calling this MC Percy. Three guesses as to why)

Okay, onto the kiddo’s personality. I’m picturing them being REALLY hyped and REALLY enthusiastic about their hobbies and isn’t afraid to yammer about them. They’re good at what they do and they’re damn proud of it! They turn their envy into *~inspiration~* and get better at the things they enjoy doing!

In all fairness to Levi, it’s a bit easier for his kid because Percy isn’t literally being eaten alive and consumed by this sin every waking moment of his life… perks of being half human! :D

Percy loves swimming, and the ocean, and fish, and they brought a shark back from the beach- wait hang on a second-

It’s not uncommon for Levi to be hardcore gaming while Percy swims around in the fish tank.

The pair of them have a very good relationship, Percy is kind of Levi’s hero with how eager they are to get better at the things they love doing and how they almost never self pity spiral. The one issue is… ugh… Percy is a 🤢…. Sorry. Percy’s a 🤢 🤢-

They’re A FUCKING NORMIE. THEY DON’T LIKE ANIME!

Other than that, the two get along swimmingly. (Ba dum tisssss)

Percy’s reaction to Levi’s cool military titles is basically “WOAH! YOU HAVE BOATS?! CAN I GO ON ONE?!” And Levi would be a monster to decline.

Percy wore a pirate hat despite Levi telling them numerous times that they were a part of the navy, they CATCH pirates. Which are apparently still a big problem in the Devildom…

Also, Percy and Lotan absolutely adore each other. It makes Levi very happy

Satan’s Kid

Satan’s a pretty charming guy, and it’s canon that he’s amazing at seductive speech craft so it’s no surprise that he was able to seduce a human.

You know what is a surprise? The fact that Satan, the smart one, didn’t think to use protection! Like- DUDE I EXPECTED BETTER FROM YOU.

Whatever, anyway, when this kid slammed onto the floor of the assembly hall no one had time to react when the kid suddenly grew horns… and fangs… and a tail… OH FUCK THE KID WAS GOING THROUGH THEIR FIRST TRANSFORMATION WHAT THE FUCK-

(For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to call this kid Lyssa, mainly because of the meaning of the name)

The first thing Lyssa did was launch themselves straight at the first person they saw, and I ask you to guess exactly who sits in the middle seat of the assembly hall. That’s right… Satan… yay…

This kid nearly clawed his face off in the span of two seconds and it took Lucifer and Beel working together to drag them off of him and then Asmo had to step in to use his powers to calm them down. Well. That was eventful.

So Lyssa has a volcanic temper and they’re honestly really bitter and upset at everything, which is something that’s supposed to come in adult life, not so early. So what’s up with this kid? Well, when you’re born with a burning rage deep inside you that can be set off at even the slightest inconvenience and because of that everyone around you immediately assumes you’re dangerous or crazy can really do some damage to a kid.

So who oh who is Lyssa going to blame for this…? Hmmm… who is responsible for the anger? *Side eyes Satan*

“Wow, this kid is blaming me for passing down my wrath even though I couldn’t control giving it to them and if I had the choice I would have made sure they wouldn’t have to live with it and they’re mad at me for subjecting them to existence itself… wow this feels so bad :( who would treat someone like this..?” “*Dad sigh*”

The two of them do eventually get along. It’s actually Satan who extends the olive branch and offers to help them control their anger. As the two spend time together, Lyssa’s intense hatred slowly subsides.

So… what’s Lyssa going to do now? They’ve spent so much of their life being defined by their anger… who the fuck are they????? U-uh… cats! Cats! Lyssa likes cats! Is liking cats a personality? No? Okay… um… Music! Music is relaxing! Lyssa likes music! Um… um… ooo- look at that! They like space! And stars!

You knew what they don’t like? School. Lyssa doesn’t like learning in a controlled environment where they’re being told what to learn. Leave them alone so they can go read about space.

Beelzebub’s kid(s)

*munch* *munch* *chew* *chomp* huh, *chomp* why does the takeout- I mean the human look so much like him…? They’re his kid..? *choke* *cough* *cough* …Huh. Want some chips?

Surprisingly chill first meeting. Well, Beel and the kid were chill, everyone else was freaking the fuck out.

I’m calling this kid Pepper. Why? Fucking guess.

Pepper themselves is just… chill. They’re sort of like a capybara, their vibes are just so immaculate that everyone wants to hang out around them.

Unlike Beel, Pepper’s penchant for food mainly comes from “food is good.” instead of “my body is literally eating itself alive every second of the day and I need to be eating something at almost all times in order to stave off a rampage.” Beel is very happy that his kid doesn’t have to live with food constantly on the brain.

All was well until three days into the exchange program when Pepper asked at the dinner table “so when are we bringing my twin down here?”

…twin genes man… twin genes…

Second kid, I’m calling them Cane. (CANE PEPPER, GET IT?! GET IT?!) this kid is less like a capybara and more like a honey badger. They don’t give a shit.

Here’s the thing though… they’re identical twins.

Cane is basically Beel but smaller. They follow Beel to the gym and usually get stopped at the door. “Kids aren’t allowed in the gym.” Ha, the rules don’t apply to Cane, they just cross their arms and raise their eyebrows and whoever is stopping them just steps aside. Don’t fuck with the honey badger kid.

Pepper and Cane are super close though, but don’t ask if they have a telepathic link or something, Cane will fuck you up and Pepper won’t be able to stop them. (I know a pair of identical twins, and the amount of times they’ve been asked if they can read each other’s minds is enough to make anyone homicidal)

Belphegor’s kid

*squints* how’d this happen..?

Whatever. When Belphie’s kid woke up on the floor of the assembly hall everyone took one look at this kid and collectively went “shitballs”

Belphie was in the attic and his kid was wandering around the house like they ran the place! What the fuuuuuuuuck was Lucifer supposed to do with this????

Anyway, meet Arien.

Arien, how does one describe this little hellspawn? Well, one would call them the brood of Lucifer or the spawn of Satan but that would be false because this manipulative evil devil-child that crawled straight out of a teacher’s nightmares is BELPHIE’S kid. And it fucking SHOWS.

This kid won the demon/human genetic lottery and they’re going to make it everyone’s problem. Basically, they’re sin is sloth, but unlike Belphie, Arien’s is more voluntary, if that makes sense. They sleep and slack off because they like not doing work, not because they’re always tired. They have this sort of lazy relaxed facade that vanishes the second it’s not needed, it’s honestly kind of terrifying.

They quickly learn that if they just pretend to be having troubles with being constantly tired, the rest of the house will go easy on them if they miss their chores and schoolwork.

Jeez Louise when this kid met Belphie…

They both just stared at each other for a solid five minutes before anyone said anything. Belphie somewhat nervously started up his “oh woe is me get me out of here :(“ charade, and the kid played along for a few weeks, until of course, they got suspicious.

You remember how Belphie guilt spiralled with L!MC? Yeah imagine that but 40 times worse, and he hadn’t even done anything yet.

But yeah, blah blah blah Arien breaks Belphie out, they don’t die, family’s back together, happily ever after. But not quite. Arien’s “oh no I’m sorry I’m sleepy…” charade was found out and boy howdy was everyone pissed.

Surprisingly, it was Belphie who gave Arien the wake up thwack, but Arien called Belphie out on his laziness so Belphie was forced to become a better example.

The way they fixed Ari’s behaviour? Extra chores, extra schoolwork, extra everything, and the boys did nothing to help. Basically, “this is how we felt! Deal with it!”

It worked… thankfully.

#obey me #obey me!#obey me! shall we date?#obey me shall we date #Obey me fankids #obey me! headcanons #Obey me Headcanons #Obey me Belphegor #Obey me Beelzebub #Obey me Leviathan #Obey me Satan #Obey me MC

256 notes · View notes

mercy-burning · 4 years

Text

Something Different

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader and Spencer go on their first date. PART 1 / PART 2 / PART 3 / PART 4 / EPILOGUE Category: Fluff, Smut 18+ (oral sex- female receiving, penetrative sex, unprotected sex- creampie) Warnings: Sex, language (As always, if there’s anything I missed, let me know what I should include in warnings! I want to be as mindful as I can about what I post. Thank you!) Word Count: 5.9k

NOTE: This was my favorite part to write so far! I hope you all love it as much as I do! I have a little epilogue planned next, and I’m not sure when it’ll be up, but I’ve really loved seeing how much you enjoyed this series! Thank you for reading! 🥰

***

Y/N had never felt as much like a teenage girl as she did that Friday night. She stood in front of her floor-length mirror, smoothing out her dress and contemplating whether or not she should change. For the seventh time. And she'd been on dates before, but this time was different. Usually she barely knew the guys she'd gone on first dates with, but she'd already slept with this guy. On more than one occasion. And every time she did, she felt herself fall deeper and deeper under his spell. She wasn't sure if he knew the full effect of what he was doing to her, always taking up space in every crack and crevice of her thoughts until she felt like she couldn't breathe.

And that was what made this date different from all the rest. She knew Spencer. She liked Spencer. And she was almost positive that after this date she would be, at the very least, a little bit in love with Spencer.

At that thought, Y/N felt her heart swell in her chest, suddenly invested in the act of making him feel the same way, if he wasn't already.

So she reverted back to her original outfit choice, something she at first thought was too sexy for a first date, but ultimately was the boldest and best option. It was satin and deep violet in color, the fabric clinging to her body in every best way possible. It landed mid-thigh and the neckline was low enough to show just the right amount of cleavage without it being too overwhelming. Her father would have told her it looked more like a dish towel than a dress, and that fact alone was enough to convince Y/N that it was just perfect. It did have thin straps though, and it was freezing as hell at night, so she added a black cardigan that added just the right amount of elegance and warmth to the look.

She paired the whole look together with black pumps and threw her hair up in a loose clip, made for easy taking-down if the night ended as well as she hoped.

Just as she was applying the last of her makeup—simple black eyeliner and mascara, complimented with tinted cherry lip balm rather than lipstick—there was a knock on the door.

"Just a second!" she called out, rushing to spritz on some vanilla perfume and give herself a final onceover in the mirror. With a final deep breath, she switched off the lights and made her way to the door, silently praying that she wouldn't fall on her face.

"Hey, pretty gi— oh..."

The second she saw Spencer in the doorway, Y/N felt her insides swarm with butterflies. The way he took her in, completely captured by her presence as his eyes couldn't decide where to linger longest utterly wrecked her.

And he looked... God, if he wasn't the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. And of course she'd seen him in some rather beautiful positions prior to right then, but his hungry eyes, practically claiming her as his own as they raked her figure accompanied by the outfit he wore and the way his hair perfectly framed his face in soft waves... It felt like she was bathing in sunlight.

He wore a white undershirt and navy suit jacket, the tie the same color only accented with red stripes, and black dress pants. If she had to describe it, she would have said he looked like he came right of the page of a magazine, and even that wasn't generous enough. She knew she should say something to break the silence that had fallen between them, but she couldn't even remember her own name.

Thankfully Spencer seemed to get a hold of himself before she did, saying, "You look... amazing. A-and that's not even the right word, I... Wow."

Y/N felt her cheeks grow hot, playing with the hem of her cardigan. "Thanks, you... You look great, too. Um, let me go grab my purse, I'll be right back."

"Wait, before you do..."

She hadn't even noticed his hand was behind his back until he brought it out, bringing with it a small gathering of flowers. Lavenders. "You brought me lavenders?" she inquired, taking them with a smile. "They're beautiful. Thank you."

Spencer seemed to rock on his feet nervously. "They're generally known for their relaxation properties, and, you know, I figured since we always seem to end up talking about de-stressing, they seemed fitting."

Y/N laughed, her face growing warmer. "That's perfect, I love them. I'm gonna go find a vase for these real quick."

As she rummaged through her cabinets for something even remotely resembling a vase, she settled on a tall mason jar she had in the back, filling it with water and placing the flowers inside, letting it perch on the kitchen counter. When she turned around she found that Spencer had made his way inside, the door closed behind him. "Unfortunately they won't last very long without soil, water, and sunlight, but if they dry up you could always use them for decorations. I noticed you have lots of dried plants in your apartment."

With a smile, she grabbed her purse off the coat rack in the living room. "Oh. Yeah, I guess I do. I've always loved pressing flowers and stuff. My mom and I used to do it all the time when I was younger, and I guess it stuck."

"That's really nice. It's definitely better than the clutter of my apartment," he says with a laugh as they both make their way to the door.

"Oh, I don't know. I like your clutter, it's rather charming."

He laughed as he opened the door and stepped aside so she could walk through. "You've only been to my apartment once, and we were a bit... occupied for you to notice, so how would you know?"

They paused in the hallway as she closed the door and looked up at him, a knowing smirk playing at his lips. She grabbed the end of his tie and tugged it a little, turning it over in her fingers as she stared at him. "Trust me, Spencer, it's hard to believe that anything about you isn't charming."

It was his turn to blush, his smirk transforming into a shy smile. She let go of his tie and grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together before leading him down the hallway.

***

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were surprised," Y/N said once the waiter left to grab their drinks.

"Oh, I-I guess I just... I don't know why, it's just that I didn't... expect you to be a white wine person, that's all."

"You can tell what kind of wine I like?" she laughed.

Spencer returned it, brushing some of the hair from his face. "Well, I guess not, since I pegged you wrong..."

She shrugged. "You don't have to be embarrassed about that, I wouldn't expect you to have known."

"Oh, I'm not embarrassed, it's just that usually I'm better at reading people, that's all."

"Is that right?" Y/N mused, leaning forward a little. She smiled at him. "How come?"

Spencer swallowed before answering. "Well, my job... I work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, so my team and I study human behavior to catch killers."

Holy shit, that's so hot, she thought, silently hoping she didn't say that out loud. "Wow, so... you're a total badass, then. I gotta say, G-man, that's impressive."

He blushed under the dim light of the restaurant lights. He'd picked out this nice Italian place not too far from their apartment. Y/N had always wanted to go because she loved Italian food, but it was always too expensive and she never really had the time. When Spencer had suggested it, she practically begged him not to, insisting that she didn't want to make him spend so much money on her. In turn he told her, "I don't mind, you're worth spending a little money on," and that was that. Still she felt a little guilty, but he didn't seem to mind one bit. Not to mention the place was absolutely beautiful, easily one of the nicest places she'd ever been to. So if he was willing to do all this just to spend some time with her, then Y/N figured it was a good sign.

"What about you, what exactly is it that you do?"

Y/N shrugged a little. "Oh, well it's no fancy badass government job, but I work at a music store downtown. I just got promoted, so I'm an associate manager."

"Oh, that's great! What kind of music do you like?"

The way he genuinely looked so interested in what she had to say made her heart swell. She cleared her throat before answering. "My parents raised me on Classic Rock, so my brain is pretty much just made up of Queen lyrics, but... I listen to a little of everything. There isn't much I don't like, really, save for maybe hardcore metal. Though, some of it I've heard is okay."

Spencer laughed a little. "That's nice. I don't really listen to a variety of things, mostly classical, but... I don't know, maybe you could... introduce me to some of your favorites? Broaden my horizons?"

He almost sounded shy asking, but that only made the sentiment more endearing. Y/N smiled so hard her cheeks hurt. "Anytime, G-man."

The waiter came back with the wine then, and they got to ordering. Y/N ordered a lemon chicken piccata while Spencer settled on pasta alla norma. Of course they had a side of breadsticks and they each got a small tomato soup to sip on while they waited.

They continued to chat about their favorite things, anywhere from as general as their favorite books and movies to as random as their favorite flowers and candle scents. It was nice getting to know these tiny details. And normally this type of small talk was awkwardly necessary and devastatingly tedious, but with Spencer it felt effortless. She liked telling him about her favorite things, no matter how small they were, and just the same she liked listening to him. The way he spoke, his eyes lighting up as he talked about what made him happy made Y/N warm, feeling once again that night like she was bathing in sunlight.

That's what he was. The human embodiment of pure sunlight.

As they ate they talked a little bit about their childhoods. Spencer mentioned how it was mostly just him and his mother, and he almost seemed a little sad when he talked about it. She wanted to let him keep going, but at some point she realized that he was getting a little emotional and uncomfortable, so she made a point to respectfully change the subject, in turn telling some embarrassing childhood stories of her own. For one thing, she loved telling anyone about how she angrily chucked a remote at her brother when they were kids and gave him a permanent scar on his forehead, but ultimately she loved seeing Spencer smile, and she knew that the story would do the trick. It always did.

"Why did you do it?" he laughed after swallowing a bite of his food.

Y/N shrugged with a smile. "He was bugging me about wanting to watch something else, and it just annoyed me so badly that I decided I had enough. I should have been sorry, too, especially after being yelled at, but I really thought he deserved it. And now when people ask why he has this big-ass scar on his forehead, he has to tell them that his big sister chucked a remote at his head. It embarrasses him and it amuses me, so..."

Spencer laughed a little harder, setting his fork down and folding his hands together. "Sounds... like an interesting childhood."

"Yeah, that's putting it mildly. My brother and I did a lot of roughhousing, which would make more sense if he was the older one, but what are you gonna do?"

"So... What, you put him in headlocks and pinned him to the ground like a wrestler all the time?" he asked with an amused laugh.

"Yeah, something like that," she laughed right back.

"Well, I hope he hasn't sustained too much injury permanently over the years... Maybe one day I can ask him about it."

The thought of Spencer meeting her family gave her more butterflies, and it became evident that he was feeling the same way, because he blushed almost immediately after he said it.

"You two would probably get along really well, actually. He loves true crime and stuff, so I'm sure he'd love to talk to you about your job if that's not too forward. Plus, he reads more than I do, so I'm sure you'd find something else in common there."

"Yeah, that sounds great. I like him already."

She smiled, her heart still beating exponentially fast. A small part of her wondered if maybe talk of meeting family members was going too far for a first date, and on any other first date it would've been. But Spencer seemed to be genuinely entertaining the idea of meeting and discussing some of his life with her brother, and that was what flipped the switch. She was starting to feel it. She was starting to fall in love with him.

***

When the two of them got in the car, Spencer turned on the radio before they started their journey home— a Classic Rock station. Y/N smiled, immediately recognizing the melody to, coincidentally enough, her favorite Queen song, Who Wants To Live Forever. She told him as much.

He turned the volume up and started driving, listening to her sing along softly. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed him turning his head every once in a while, obviously sneaking a glance at her enjoying her favorite music. The thought sent a bloom of warmth through her chest as the song faded out and started playing Photograph by Def Leppard. Spencer turned the radio down just a little and nodded, turning down the street.

"I like it. I can see why it would be your favorite."

"This is another one of my favorites, too," she replied with a gentle nod towards the radio, giving him a smile. "A lot of these songs probably will be, though, I've practically been spoon-fed Classic Rock radio since I was a baby."

Then she noticed where they were. A street she didn't recognize. "Where are we going?" she asked, looking around.

"Oh. I-I know I only really promised to take you out for dinner, but there's somewhere else I wanted to show you... If that's alright?"

"It's more than alright," she reassured, placing a hand on his arm and wondering where he planned to take her.

He took her hand in his and continued down the road, the radio shuffling through more songs that Y/N recognized and sang along to. At one point she made a point of dramatically serenading Spencer with Love Song by Tesla, air guitar-ing and everything.

Soon enough they were out where she couldn't see any buildings and only a few streetlights. Y/N hummed softly along to the radio, holding Spencer's hand once again as he pulled the car over down a random road and under this large tree. In front of them she could clearly see the sun setting over the skyline, illuminating everything around them in a soft orange glow.

"It's beautiful out here," she mused as Spencer turned off the car, the radio with it.

"Yeah, I, uh... I was in a particularly stressful point in my life a few years ago, and one day I just drove aimlessly. I don't normally drive at all, but I needed something new, something different to do that I could focus on, and I just ended up here. It's one of my favorite places."

She looked over at him and smiled, running her thumb over his hand. "I find that some of the best things in life happen when you try something different."

His eyes softened as she spoke, squeezing her hand and leaning his head against the seat. "You're right. That's... actually how I got you, know know."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Mhm... Yeah, I didn't even want to confront you about hearing what happened that night because I thought it would be too awkward, but... I don't know, I guess there was just something that felt right about the whole thing, like... like it was an opportunity to get to know someone new. And I couldn't stop thinking about knocking on your door and getting to know everything about this woman who likes to invade other people's privacy." He laughed as he said that last part, obviously teasing her about the whole thing, and she laughed with him.

"Well, then I guess that means I don't have to be embarrassed about that anymore," Y/N noted. "I felt absolutely awful about it, you know."

"Oh, I know. You were practically the color of a tomato when I gave you that Advil."

They laughed together as the sun sunk lower in the sky, and as the air between them grew silent, they just stared at each other, smiling. Even as the sun was leaving, Y/N could still feel its warmth radiating in the form of Spencer's presence.

***

They walked up to her door hand in hand, laughing about a joke she'd told him when Y/N realized the night was potentially over. The thought silenced her laughter, and suddenly she was nervous, like she hadn't already considered that the night would eventually have to end somewhere.

"I... I had a really great time tonight, Spencer, thank you. "

He smiled shyly in that way of his that made her just as shy. It was sickeningly cliché, she thought, feeling this way about a man she'd only just started to get to know, but she welcomed those feelings nonetheless. He was so obviously infatuated with her in a way she hadn't felt before, and it made her nervous because she didn't know how to react. All she could do was welcome and embrace his adoring glares and little touches and compliments, and hope that he knew in turn just how much she appreciated and adored him all the same.

His free hand reached out and cupped her cheek, to which she happily leaned into. "I did, too," he said softly, barely above a whisper. "We should do it again some time."

She smiled against his hand, and she didn't realize it then, but they were closer than they had been all night, toe to toe. "We should."

The world stopped for all of two seconds before he leaned down to kiss her. But something embarrassingly stopped her from letting it happen, pulling her face away just a little. "Wait. My breath probably smells like breadsticks."

Hardly the most romantic thing to say, and she regretted it the second it left her mouth.

Spencer only shrugged, smiling amusedly. "Who doesn't like breadsticks?"

That made her laugh. Hard. And she was still laughing as she pulled him closer and kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

When he kissed her back, it was head-dizzyingly sweet, his hands softly brushing over her cheeks as she melted into him. Every time his lips parted, he came back stronger, pressing his lips and tongue to hers with slow, methodical precision.

She could have died right there.

But eventually they pulled apart, and she looked up at him with as much gratefulness as she could provide. "Look, I... I know it's not typically customary to sleep over on the first date, but... What about trying something different?"

Spencer grinned at her, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip. "Lead the way, pretty girl."

She couldn't hide her blush as she reached over and opened the door, pulling him into the apartment with her.

The door closed behind him, and Spencer kissed her again, this time using one of his hands to press her to him, resting promptly on her lower back. Their kisses were just as slow and sweet as they had been in the hall, though there was a slightest shift in the atmosphere, bringing forth a newfound passion behind each of their movements.

His tongue traced over her bottom lip before he took it between his teeth and tilted his head to the other side, pulling her even closer to him than she thought could be possible. They both stumbled around the living room as they kicked off their shoes. Y/N got significantly shorter after removing her heels, so Spencer bent down and lifted her off the ground, setting her on the back of the couch. Her dress had ridden up to the tops of her thighs so she could wrap her legs around his waist. She slid her cardigan off at the same time he slid off his jacket, their lips still adjoined. Once they were removed, Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck again, and he brought his arms under her ass as he lifted her off the couch

She expected the journey to her bedroom to be rocky, stumbling into furniture and walls and tripping, but was glad to be proven wrong when suddenly she was swiftly seated on her bed, Spencer standing between her legs.

He pulled away from her for all of two seconds before kneeling and pressing kisses to the insides of her right leg, starting at her ankle and trailing all the way up past her knee and eventually to her thigh. His hands reached up to grip the bed as he looked up at her and pressed kisses to her other thigh. Hoping to give him more access, she used her hands to pull her dress up even higher, scooting out from under her butt and bunching up at her hips as she spread her legs a little wider.

He smiled against her inner thigh, running one of his hands over the other. "Patience, pretty girl. I want to take my time with you tonight."

The way he said it made her shiver, and her head leaned back as she leaned back on her hands, feeling Spencer continue his exploration. His mouth travelled from thigh to thigh, doing just about everything he could think of—kissing, licking, biting... One of her hands found themselves in his hair as she sighed out, "Please, Spencer..."

For a moment she thought he wouldn't give it to her, if only because she wasn't specific enough and that had become part of their sexual routine, but this time he granted her what she wanted, one of his hands reaching up and ghosting along her clit through the fabric of her panties.

She instinctually rutted her hips forward at the contact, which made him laugh softly, and before too long, he hooked his finger in the waistband of her underwear, sliding up her dress just a little so he could reach. She lifted herself off the bed so he could bring them out from under her, and he slowly, very slowly, slid them down her legs. His lips travelled up her leg again, taking the same care and curiosity as he had before, each second burning impatiently through Y/N's body as she took it all in.

Right as his nose brushed over her clit, he pulled away, leaving her cold and desperate. She opened her eyes and looked down at him, running a hand through his hair and silently pleading to do something.

He smiled and stood up, pressing a kiss to her neck before whispering in her ear, "Will you ride my face for me, baby?"

"Oh, God, yes," she breathed before she could think, and he laughed, his breath sending goosebumps down the right side of her body.

Spencer got up on the bed and leaned back, his head resting on the pillows as Y/N straddled him, hiking her dress up over her hips and stroking the hair from his face before hovering over it. Before she could do anything, his hands wrapped up over her thighs and pulled her down to him, not wasting any time getting to work.

The initial contact jolted her awake, and she cried out, reaching forward and grabbing the top of the headboard as she ground down on him. His tongue plunged deep into her while his nose pressed against her clit, and the more she moved, the more his tongue drew patterns, wanting to taste every inch of her until she was shaking around him. And that's exactly what happened. His tongue came up to flick and swirl over her clit, and right when he wrapped his lips around it and started softly sucking, she cried out. "I'm gonna— ohh..."

He hummed into her, encouraging her to finish, and she did, clenching her thighs around his head as he shook it back and forth, lapping up every last drop of her arousal until her thighs lost their grip. She lifted up off of him, but he brought her back down to run his tongue through her pussy a few more long, meaningful times. He finally let go of her legs, and she kneeled beside him, catching her breath.

Looking down at him she noticed how wonderstruck he was, running his tongue along his lips to still taste her, his eyes searching hers hungrily before she leaned down and kissed him. The taste of herself on his mouth made her groan, and he reached up to pull the clip from her hair. It tumbled down in a curtain around them before he tossed the clip aside and ran his hands through it, gathering it all to one side and pulling her closer to him.

As he kissed her, she brought her hand to his chest, working at his tie and struggling to get it off. He laughed against her mouth and sat up to do it for her, breaking their kiss apart. Has he undid the tie and the first few buttons of his shirt, Y/N reached back to grab the zipper of her dress, but Spencer stopped her.

"Wait. Can I?"

She nodded, turning around.

"Stand up for me," he told her.

Y/N got off the bed and felt Spencer behind her, his hands brushing her hair out of the way and slowly zipping her dress down, pressing kisses down each inch of skin that exposed in its wake, all the way to her lower back. His hands slid up her back and pushed the straps off her shoulders, then tugged the dress down to watch it fall on the floor, leaving her completely bare.

He kissed her neck and ran his hands up and down her body, eventually reaching around to cup her breasts. She sighed at his touch, leaning back against him as he rolled her nipples in between his fingers. Her hands reached back to wrap around his back and pull him flush against her, the unmistakable feeling of his hardening dick through his pants pressing against her bare ass.

"I love how soft your skin is, pretty girl," he murmured into her neck, sliding his lips down to her shoulder and biting down. She sucked in a breath, her hands removing themselves from his back and placing themselves over his own, feeling the veins strain as they kneaded her breasts. His tongue traced over where he bit down before he kissed the same spot, then he worked his mouth back up her neck and reached her jawline. She turned her head, meeting his lips and pressing herself further into him, whining at every single sensation coursing through her veins.

Eventually she'd had enough and turned fully around, breaking apart from him just to come back. She faced him and wrapped her arms around his neck once more. He leaned in to kiss her again, but she stopped him, pulling her head back and using one of her hands to grip the hair at the nape of his neck. "Tonight's your lucky night, you know..."

At her teasing tone, Spencer laughed, his eyes searching hers before giving in. "Why's that?"

She used the hand that wasn't in his hair to slide over his shoulder and down his chest, drawing patterns across the bare skin he'd left exposed after undoing the first few buttons of his shirt. Then she smiled, bringing herself closer and gripping the collar. "Because I'm on birth control now..." She leaned forward and lightly brushed her lips against his, feeling them just barely as she whispered, recalling what he'd told her a few weeks ago. "You still wanna fill up this slutty little pussy? Make me yours?"

He didn't give a second thought. Before she was aware of what was happening, Spencer had his lips crashed against hers and his arms wrapped around her back, pulling her forward so that the tent in his pants pressed right up into her bare crotch. She gasped against his mouth and reached down to take the rest of his shirt all the way off, and he let her.

Her hands fumbled with the buttons, severely close to just giving up and ripping the shirt apart but she got there in the end, sliding the fabric off his shoulders and tossing it God-knows-where as his tongue slipped into her mouth. She trailed her hands softly down his chest and stomach, making him shiver, and she relished in the feeling of his lean figure tensing under her touch. She scratched her nails along the lower part of his stomach before touching his belt, and then he stopped her, grabbing her wrists.

"Sit on the edge of the bed," he commanded softly against her lips.

Y/N pulled away reluctantly, immediately missing his bodily warmth before doing as she was told and perching herself patiently at the edge of the bed.

Spencer got off his knees, climbed out of bed, and stood on the floor, coming over to her and placing himself between her legs once more. Only this time, he towered over her rather than kneeled. His hands unbuckled his belt while his eyes bore into hers, the anticipation of what was to come as high strung as it had ever been.

He pulled his pants and underwear down in one swift motion, and right a he kicked them to the side, Y/N reached out, grabbing his hips and pulling him closer. One of his hands gripped his hard cock while the other found purchase in her hair, brushing it behind her shoulders and resting at the base of her neck as he leaned down and pushed her back onto the bed. She scooted back just far enough for Spencer to kneel on the edge of the bed, her legs instinctually wrapping around his waist once more as he kissed her.

Her hands brushed the hair from his face and stayed weaved there, whimpering with anticipation as he ran the tip of his cock along her pussy, just as slowly as he'd done everything else so far. He broke their kiss apart and pushed the tip in, not going any farther than that. "I told you, pretty girl, I'm taking my time with you tonight. I want this to last."

As his forehead rested against hers, she barely caught a glimpse of his eyes before he pushed all the way in and squeezed his eyes shut. Y/N sighed and massaged his scalp, completely aware of every inch of him as he held himself inside her. He pressed just about the sweetest kiss to her lips before setting a slow pace that gradually became faster with every passing minute. She was still a little sensitive from when he'd eaten her out, but that only added to the feeling.

"Fuck, you're perfect," Spencer breathed, pulling his head just far enough away from her so he could look her in the eyes. "You're so goddamn perfect, Y/N..."

She slid her hands down his back as he picked up his pace inside her, gasping when he hit her g-spot. "Speak for yourself," she breathed.

When she started to feel herself getting closer, Spencer seemed to notice, because he slowed his pace again and ran sloppy, passionate kisses along her jaw and neck, and she reveled in the feeling. He was all around her, consuming every fiber of her being, and she could bask in it forever if he'd let her.

"Spencer," she breathed, her hands reaching down to grip his ass as he hit inside her deeper. "Fuck... You're so good to me..."

In turn he cradled her face and kissed her deeply, moving his tongue against hers in tandem with his hips' ministrations. Her fingernails bore deeper into his skin, and it wasn't long before she started to feel an orgasm surfacing. He rested his forehead against hers again, biting her bottom lip softly as he pulled away to speak. "Almost there, pretty girl. "

Y/N removed her hands from him and brought them up to bring her face to hers again, sighing into his mouth when they reconnected. And then he grabbed her wrists softly, pinning them above her head and sliding his hands up her forearms until his fingers laced together with hers, squeezing and pushing them both closer to the edge.

"Cum for me, baby," he mumbled against her lips, and within a matter of seconds, she did. Her legs tightened around him and her ankles hooked round his waist, just above the top of his ass to keep him tightly inside her while he found his own release. "Fuck," he sighed, giving three more hard thrusts forward. He held himself inside her while he came, the warmth spreading through her being just about the best thing she'd ever felt. It was the cherry on top, the last puzzle piece falling into place, and she kissed him once more while he finished, feeling him groan in her mouth.

The two of them stayed like that, their hands still laced together and legs still tangled, and even when their lips pulled apart, their foreheads rested together while their breathing slowed.

"Have I already told you how perfect you are?" Spencer breathed, nuzzling his nose against hers.

Y/N laughed a little, nuzzling him right back. "You may have mentioned it."

"Well, it's true. Everything about you is just so..."

"Perfect?" she offered.

He laughed, kissing her once more on the lips before slowly pulling out of her and unlacing their fingers. "Yes. Perfect... But as much as I love laying here with you, UTIs are not perfect, so I'm gonna get you cleaned up. Come on."

She sat up with a grunt, not wanting to get up so soon but she knew he was right. So she let him lead her to the bathroom as quickly as they can, his cum slowly sliding down her thighs when they got there. Spencer turned on the light and closed the bathroom door, a small smile on his face as he got on his knees to help.

"I can grab some toilet pa— holy shit..." Y/N was cut off when he dragged his tongue up the inside of her leg, scooping up his mess and making his way to her pussy where he cleaned out the rest of it. She was still sensitive, so he went as gently as he could, making soft, gentle swipes of his tongue until it was mostly gone, at least not dripping down her legs anymore.

When he stood up to meet her face, she felt stunned, absolutely enraptured by everything about the man in front of her. "So, does that mean I'm officially yours now?" she asked with small laugh.

He gave her that bashful smile again, and it made her feel even better, basking in the familiarity of his boldness of sexual acts followed by instant shy demeanor. "Only if you'll have me."

Y/N grabbed his face and kissed him before looking him dead in the eye and saying, "I hope I'll always have you, G-man."

#spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid

925 notes · View notes

jennana501 · 4 years

Text

A Case for Rexsoka

I’ve been around the block when it comes to ships. I’ve seen people obsess over them, and I too have been driven mad by obsession. I was a hardcore original avatar fan and I was OBSESSED with shipping Toph and Sokka together. Any time they so much as made an interaction I over analyzed it and picked it apart looking for clues that somehow would prove that my hunches were correct. It was because I related with both characters, and I loved their chemistry. I wanted them to have a romantic relationship because it would feel like some sort of personal validation.

I’m an adult now and nothing has changed. But it has been a while since I’ve desperately shipped two characters together that are not obviously romantically involved with one another, or who could be romantic behind the scenes or beyond the story shown.

Until Rex and Ahsoka.

And I’ve seen people be adamantly against it.

“No no no it’s just a brother/sister relationship.”

“No it’s gross she is a child”.

And of course being disagreed with on the internet can drive a person crazy, and instead of individually arguing with dozens of people online, I’m making this post once and for all to explain why I think Rex and Ahsoka have romantic feelings for each other. Especially Rex.

The argument I’ve seen, that their deep passion, commitment, love, admiration, and respect for one another (which are all so obvious you’d have to be...silly to not see it) are felt in a platonic fashion. Which, for the first 6 seasons and 8 episodes, I would totally agree.

But then Ahsoka comes back. And let’s face it. She is a woman. Age wise, she’s around 17, but everything from the maturity of her Lekku (which weirdly don’t get all that longer, especially compared to other Tagrutan women) to her poise and confidence, to her prowess as a warrior, a user of the force, and her ability to command soldiers as well as control her emotions points to her being an adult woman. She’s no Snips anymore; she’s no child. She’s grown up. And how her peers react to her illustrates how they now view her as an adult.

First there is Obi-wan. Obi-wan has always been a mentor to her, a sort of second Master. Obi-wan never hesitated to guide and Ahsoka or offer his council. He is proud of her when she succeeds, and will admonish her when she makes mistakes. When she returns and he sees her as a woman, he changes the way he treats her. He acknowledges her maturity by addressing her as an equal. He doesn’t admonish her. Instead he discusses with her, challenging her ideas and letting her offer an argument for them instead of putting them down and telling her how she should think or act. He also comes to her in his time of need, trusting her to help him with Anakin.

Then there is Anakin. We all know of Anisoka shippers, and they are perfectly able to ship and enjoy said ship, but we can all acknowledge that it is a crack pairing with no basis in the canon. Anakin portrays the perfect kind of brotherly love. He is excited to see Ahsoka, and is stunned by her unexpected reappearance. Things are harder for Anakin because he is used to their fun banter and sibling-like companionship. He’s constantly shut down with her business like manner and he struggles with coming to terms with the fact that she isn’t a little kid sister anymore. She is an adult with a mission and a plan. When he looks at her, he is endearing. He loves her. Admires her. And he can’t wait to pick up where they left off. There’s joy and adoration in his face. He is proud of her and what she has become, but he also feels alienated and even hurt because of how her adulthood has changed their dynamic.

Then there is Rex. When he first sees her, he wants nothing more than to reassure her that she still belongs. The clones had accepted her into their family. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. When he looks at her for the first time, he’s beaming with the same adoration as he had had for her before, but also with a solemn awe at what she has become and what she has grown into. He welcomes her back into his life without hesitation.

But then there is a moment things shift so drastically that I paused the show and re-watched it half a dozen times. We all know it and love it. This face he gives Ahsoka. The Look.

What we see here is something we have never, EVER seen in Rex for 7 whole seasons. And it is my opinion that this is the first time Rex has been able to feel and express that he is attracted to Ahsoka. In other words, Rex has a sexual awakening.

Up until this point, Rex has been a sexless character. Nothing he does is flirtatious, sexy, or at all suggestive that he has those feelings inside him at all. Every sexual being has a moment where they are first animalistically drawn to another being. Characters who have already had this moment are easy to pick out. Obi wan. Anakin. Ventress. These characters have already experienced their sexual awakening. Ahsoka has too. Lux was her first object of attraction.

But Rex has never had this moment. Until this reaction.

I know some of you might be thinking “but Ahsoka gives a very similar look to Anakin, does that mean she is sexually attracted to HIM?” It’s a very good point. Ahsoka and Anakin share some cheeky playful looks during “Old Friends Not Forgotten”. We see many characters give similar looks to other characters, but does this mean it means the same thing as when Rex does it? The short answer is no.

When animators design a character, they establish the “range of emotion” for that character. You can easily see this when you look back at how many times you see Rex break from his stoic, captain’s face. He rarely laughs, smiles, or emotes in any way. This is why when we see him emote it is exciting to us as an audience. A character like Ahsoka or Anakin commonly show a wide variety of expressions. Ahsoka is much more likely to give a cheeky look than Rex is. So “the look” for Rex, means a lot more when he is doing than it does when another character does it, say Fives or even Obi-Wan.

Which means the writers are trying to tell us something about this moment.

This moment has changed Rex’s and Ahsoka’s relationship.

Now does this mean that they are going to go bang each other immediately? Does this mean the second they are alone after “Victory and Death” they start an intense, sexual relationship? Of course not. That’s not what this ship is about at this time. But the reason many of us ship it is because suddenly they don’t feel like brother and sister anymore. It isn’t entirely platonic. And the show does a good job to further emphasize this as they come closer and closer both emotionally, and physically during the finale.

Blocking is a huge factor in visual storytelling. During the finale, Rex and Ahsoka are blocked in a way that makes them as close as physically possible on the screen. This communicates to the audience that they are closer now than they have ever been. As Jedi and Clone Trooper. As friends, and as companions, their bond forged in the fires of war, struggling to find meaning in life as soldiers.

In contrast, look how Ahsoka and Anakin are blocked in their scenes. There is nearly always a gap between them, illustrating that they are distanced from each other emotionally. Rex is even visually inserted into the gap between them in several instances. Anakin and Ahsoka are growing apart, but she and Rex are growing closer.

We get to experience Rex and Ahsoka engaging in actions and conversations that we had rarely seen before. From casual banter, to moments of intense intimacy, to emotional peaks, Rex and Ahsoka interact more in these four episodes than in the previous six seasons. Part of this is because their maturity gap has closed. Ahsoka is finally Rex’s equal in experience and maturity. It is also in part because it is a unique dynamic. No Obi-wan. No Anakin. Rex and Ahsoka are equal leaders of the 332nd. There’s also the fact that they are put into life threatening situations and have no one else but each other.

But there is that “look” that is given at the beginning of all this that suggests something else, that as their bond undoubtedly becomes strong as beskar, there is an element of it that takes their relationship from the platonic to the romantic.

I feel every detail, moment, and piece of dialogue in the finale tells the story of this bond.

Many instances of their strong emotional bond have been spread throughout the internet, with most ready to acknowledge that they have a connection unlike any other, one that may even be described as a “force” connection. These last four episodes are so exciting because we see two friends reunited, but then we get to watch as their relationship transforms.

Even disregarding their implied attraction to each other physically, they dive into each other and hold on tight. Ahsoka shares deep personal worries with Rex, and Rex and her are shown opening up to each other in ways they have never opened up before.

We were all floored and dumbfounded at scenes such as these that show these characters at their most vulnerable. But they decide to be vulnerable together. Is it because they are all that is left of their 501st family? It part, this is definitely true. But by being this vulnerable they transform their relationship into something very different from what they had before. It will never be the same again, and it will be near impossible to back out of the emotional intimacy that these two have participated in. Once you have formed that kind of an attachment with someone, there is no going back, and as is seen in rebels, these two maintain that strong connection even after years of being apart.

This goes beyond their sexual desires or needs. They’ve forged a bond that cannot be broken. They have shared minds, shared pain and agony that only the other can understand. They’ve been isolated from the world, and all they have left is each other.

And at the end of the series, when we have Rex and Ahsoka broken, their world flip upside down and everything they ever valued or cared about lies in ruins before them, the idea that they still have each other is that beautiful seed of hope Star Wars is so good at preserving. Those of us who believe that their relationship could be romantic want good things for Rex and Ahsoka. We want them to have that love and share it with each other. Maybe only for a few moments, but having known it would be better than both of them living and dying without having that experience.

When we see the two in Rebels, for me it confirms that these two love each other deeply. But their lives can never be lived in a normal fashion. They cannot even be together as partners in life. The Empire has stolen this from them. The tragedy of this ship is that it can never be the way we want it to be. Rex will age and die long before Ahsoka is even halfway through her own life. They cannot live with one another. They cannot wake each morning with each other, at least not at the point we see them in rebels.

But they continue to love each other. Even over distance, even knowing that mortality will claim them with only a fraction of the memories that they deserve with one another.

So please, the next time you see some art or a fic, or a post like this, think of what I had to say. Rexsoka is about two adults, their lives destroyed at the hands of Sidious, but in defiance they still forge a bond that he could never break or take from them. And that to me is beautiful and something to celebrate.

Side note: I spent a ton of time making gifs but they never would work and so I had to use screenshots instead :(

EDIT: At the request of the OG poster of a few gifs, I have replaced them have also made some grammatical changes.

#ahsoka #captain rex #rexsoka #rexsoka week #the clone wars #star wars

1K notes · View notes

shihalyfie · 3 years

Note

Hi :) If it's not too much trouble, could you please share your take on why they'd continue the Adventure brand after tri. was such a flop? (and a tangent: what does "dark history" even mean?). We got Kizuna, the reboot, and a 02 movie. Logically, it doesn't really make sense they'd keep investing in it.

This is a thorny topic, and I'd like to reiterate that although I've ended up making more posts related to this series and the discourse surrounding it recently (probably because it's even more on the mind now that another movie is on the horizon and a lot of people are apprehensive for various reasons), I do not want this blog to be making a brand out of being critical of this series. I’m writing this here and in public because I figured that there is a certain degree I need to clarify what I mean about audience reception/climate and how it might impact current or future works, and I’m admittedly also more than a little upset that I occasionally see Western fanbase criticisms of the series getting dismissed by people claiming that the only people mad about it are dramamongering or ignorant Westerners (which could not be further from the truth). However, this is mainly to address this and to answer your question, and is not intended to try and change anyone's existing opinion or impression of the series as much as it's me trying to explain (from my own personal reading of the situation) what practically went down with critical reception in real life; no more, no less.

The short summary of the matter is:

The series was a moderate financial success (albeit with some caveats; see the long version for details) and definitely outstripped a lot of prior attempts to revive the franchise;

However, the overall Japanese fanbase-side critical backlash from tri. was extremely and viciously negative to the point where even acknowledging the series too much could easily result in controversy;

Kizuna’s production and the PR surrounding it very obviously have this in mind with a lot of apparent “damage control” elements.

The long version is below.

Note that while I try to be diligent about citing my sources so people understand that I’m not just making things up wholesale, I’m deliberately refraining from linking certain things here this time, both because some of the things mentioned have some pretty crude things written there -- it’s not something I feel comfortable directing people to regardless of what language it’s in -- and because I don’t want to recklessly link things on social media and cause anyone to go after or harass the people involved. For the links that have been provided, please still be warned that some of them don’t really link to particularly pleasant things.

I am not writing the following information to suggest that anyone should agree or disagree with the sentiments being described. I know people tend to take "a lot of people like/hate this" as a signal of implication "it is correct to like/hate this" when it's not (and I especially dislike the idea of implying that Japanese fanbase opinions are the only correct ones). There's a reason I focus on "critical reception being this way" (because it influences marketing decisions and future direction) rather than how much this should impact one's personal feelings; this is coming from myself as someone who is shamelessly proud of liking many things that had bad critical reception, were financial failures, or are disliked by many. As I point out near the end, the situation also does seem to be changing for the better in more recent years as well.

Also, to be clear, I'm a single person who's observing everything best I can from my end, I have no affiliations with staff nor do I claim to, and as much as I'm capable of reading Japanese and thus reading a lot of people's impressions, I'm ultimately still another “outsider” looking in. These are my impressions from my observation of fan communal spaces, following artists and reading comments on social media and art posting websites, and results from social media searches. In the end, I know as much as anyone else about what happened, so this is just my two cents based on all of my personal observations.

A fanbase is a fanbase regardless of what part of the world you're from. There are people who love it and are shameless about saying so. There are people who have mixed feelings or at least aren't on extreme ends of the spectrum (as always, the loudest ones are always the most visible, but it's not always easy to claim they're the predominant percentage of the fanbase). That happens everywhere, and I still find that on every end I've seen. However, if I'm talking about my impressions and everything I’ve encountered, I will say that the overall Japanese reaction to tri. comes off as significantly more violently negative on average than the Western one, which is unusual because often it's the other way around. (I personally feel less so because the opinions are that fundamentally different and more so because we're honestly kind of loud and in-your-face people; otherwise, humans are mostly the same everywhere, and more often than not people feel roughly the same about everything if they’re given the same information to work with.)

This is not something I can say lightly, and thus would not say if I didn’t really get this impression, but...we're talking "casually looking up movie reviews for Kizuna have an overwhelming amount of people casually citing any acknowledgment of tri. elements as a negative element", or the fact that even communal wikis for "general" fandoms like Pixiv and Aniwota don't tend to hold back in being vicious about it (as of this writing, Pixiv's wiki refuses to consider it in the same timeline as Adventure, accusing it of being "a series that claims to be a sequel set three years after 02 but is in fact something different"). Again, there are people who openly enjoy it and actively advocate for it (and Pixiv even warns people to not lord over others about it condescendingly because of the fact that such people do exist), and this is also more of a reflection of “the hardcore fanbase on the Internet” and not necessarily the mainstream (after all, there are quite a few other Digimon works where the critical reception varies very heavily between the two). Nevertheless, the take-home is that the reputation is overall negative among the Internet fanbase to the point that this is the kind of sentiment you run into without trying all that hard.

I think, generally speaking, if we're just talking about why a lot of people resent the series, the reasons aren't that different from those on the Western side. However, that issue of "dark history" (黒歴史): there's a certain degree of demand from the more violently negative side of the fanbase that's, in a sense, asking official to treat it as a disgrace and never acknowledge it ever again, hence why Kizuna doing so much as borrowing things from it rather than rejecting it outright is still sometimes treated like it’s committing a sin. So it's somewhat close in spirit to a retcon movement, which is unusual because no other Digimon series gets this (not even 02; that was definitely a thing on the Western end, but while I'm sure there are people who hate it that much on their end too, I've never really seen it gain enough momentum for anyone to take it seriously). If anyone ever tells you that Japanese fanbases are nice to everything, either they don't know Japanese, are being willfully ignorant, or are lying to you, because there is such thing as drama in those areas, and in my experience, I've seen things get really nasty when things are sufficiently pushed over the edge, and if a fanbase wants to have drama, it will have drama. This happens to be one of those times.

(If you think this is extreme, please know that I also think so too, so I hope you really understand that me describing this sentiment does not mean I am personally endorsing it. Also, let me reiterate that the loudest section of the fanbase is not necessarily the predominant one; after all, as someone who’s been watching reactions to 02 over the years, I myself can attest that its hatedom has historically made it sound more despised than it actually is in practice.)

My impression is that the primary core sentiment behind why the series so much as existing and being validated is considered such an offense (rather than, say, just saying "wow, that writing was bad" and moving on) is heavily tied to the release circumstances the series came out in during 2015-2018, and the idea that "this series disrespected Adventure, and also disrespected the fanbase.” (I mean, really, regardless of what part of the world you’re from, sequels and adaptations tend to be held to a higher bar of expectation than standalone works, because they’re expected to do them justice.) A list of complaints I’ve come across a lot while reading through the above:

The Japanese fanbase is pretty good at recordkeeping when it comes to Adventure universe lore, partially because they got a lot of extra materials that weren’t localized, but also partially because adherence to it seems to generally be more Serious Business to them than it is elsewhere. For instance, “according to Adventure episode 45, ‘the one who wishes for stability’ (Homeostasis) only started choosing children in 1995, and therefore there can be no Chosen Children before 1995” is taken with such gravity that this, not anything to do with evolutions or timeline issues, is the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity was disputed in that arena (because Wallace implies that he met his partners before 1995). It’s a huge reason the question of Kizuna also potentially not complying to lore came to the forefront, because tri. so flagrantly contradicts it so much that this issue became very high on the evaluation checklist. In practice, Kizuna actually goes against Adventure/02 very little, so the reason tri. in particular comes under fire for this is that it does it so blatantly there were theories as early as Part 1 that this series must take place in a parallel universe or something, and as soon as it became clear it didn’t, the resulting sentiment was “wow, you seriously thought nobody would notice?” (thus “disrespecting the audience”).

A lot of the characterization incongruity is extremely obvious when you’re following only the Japanese version, partially because it didn’t have certain localization-induced characterization changes (you are significantly less likely to notice a disparity with Mimi if you’re working off the American English dub where they actually did make her likely to step on others’ toes and be condescending, whereas in Japanese the disparity is jarring and hard to miss) and partially due to some things lost in translation (Mimi improperly using rough language on elders is much easier to spot as incongruity if you’re familiar with the language). Because it’s so difficult to miss, and honestly feels like a lot of strange writing decisions you’d make only if you really had no concept of what on earth happened in the original series, it only contributes to the idea that they were handling Adventure carelessly and disrespectfully without paying attention to what the series was even about (that, or worse, they didn’t care).

02 is generally well-liked there! It’s controversial no matter where you go, but as I said earlier, there was no way a retcon movement would have ever been taken seriously, and the predominant sentiment is that, even if you’re not a huge fan of it, its place in canon (even the epilogue) should be respected. So not only flagrantly going against 02-introduced lore but also doing that to a certain quartet is seen as malicious, and you don’t have as much of the converse discourse celebrating murdering the 02 quartet (yeah, that’s a thing that happened here) or accusing people with complaints of “just being salty because they like 02″ as nearly as much of a factor; I did see it happen, or at least dismissals akin to “well it’s Adventure targeted anyway,” but they were much less frequent. The issue with the 02 quartet is usually the first major one brought up, and there’s a lot of complaints even among those who don’t care for 02 as much that the way they went about it was inhumane and hypocritical, especially when killing Imperialdramon is fine but killing Meicoomon is a sin. Also, again, “you seriously think nobody will see a problem with how this doesn’t make sense?”

I think even those who are fans of the series generally agree with this, but part of the reason the actual real-life time this series went on is an important factor is that the PR campaign for this series was godawful. Nine months of clicking on an egg on a website pretending like audience participation meant something when in actuality it was blatantly obvious it was just a smokescreen to reveal info whenever they were ready? This resulted in a chain effect where even more innocuous/defensible things were viewed in a suspicious or negative light (for instance, "the scam of selling the fake Kaiser's goggles knowing Ken fans would buy it only to reveal that it's not him anyway"), and a bunch of progressively out-of-touch-with-the-fanbase statements and poor choices led to more sentiment “yeah, you’re just insulting the fanbase at this point,” and a general erosion of trust in official overall.

On top of that, the choice of release format to have it spread out as six movies over three years seems to have exacerbated the backlash to get much worse than it would have been otherwise, especially since one of the major grievances with the series is that how it basically strung people along, building up more and more unanswered questions before it became apparent it was never going to answer them anyway. So when you’re getting that frustrated feeling over three whole years, it feels like three years of prolonged torture, and it becomes much harder to forgive for the fallout than if you’d just marathoned the entire thing at once.

For those who are really into the Digimon (i.e. species) lore and null canon, while I’m not particularly well-versed in that side of the fanbase, it seems tri. fell afoul of them too for having inaccurately portrayed (at one point, mislabeled) special attacks and poorly done battle choreography, along with the treatment of Digimon in general (infantilized Digimon characterization, general lack of Digimon characters in general, very flippant treatment of the Digital World in Parts 3-5). If you say you’re going to “reboot” the Digital World and not address the entire can of worms that comes with basically damaging an entire civilization of Digimon, as you can imagine, a lot of people who actually really care about that are going to be pissed, and the emerging sentiment is “you’re billing this as a Digimon work, but you don’t even care about the monsters that make up this franchise.”

The director does not have a very positive reputation among those who know his work (beyond just Digimon), and in general there was a lot of suspicion around the fact they decided to get a guy whose career has primarily been built on harem and fanservice anime to direct a sequel to a children’s series. Add to that a ton of increasingly unnerving statements about how he intended to make the series “mature” in comparison to its predecessor (basically, an implication that Adventure and 02 were happy happy joy series where nothing bad ever happened) and descriptions of Adventure that implied a very, very poor grasp of anything that happened in it: inaccurate descriptions of their characters, poor awareness of 02′s place in the narrative, outright saying in Febri that he saw the Digimon as like perpetual kindergartners even after evolving, and generally such a flippant attitude that it drove home the idea that the director of an Adventure sequel had no respect for Adventure, made this series just to maliciously dunk on it for supposedly being immature, and has such a poor grasp of what it even was that it’s possible he may not have seen it in the first place (or if he did, clearly skimmed it to the extent he understood it poorly to pretty disturbing levels). As of this writing, Aniwota Wiki directly cites him as a major reason for the backlash.

In general, consensus seems to be that the most positively received aspect of the series (story-wise) was Part 3 (mostly its ending, but some are more amenable to the Takeru and Patamon drama), and the worst vitriol goes towards Parts 2 (for the blatantly contradictory portrayal of Mimi and Jou and the hypocritical killing of Imperialdramon) and 4 (basically the “point of no return” where even more optimistic people started getting really turned off). This is also what I suspect is behind the numbers on the infamous DigiPoll (although the percentage difference is admittedly low enough to fall within margin of error). However, there was suspicion about the series even from Part 1, with one prominent fanartist openly stating that it felt more like meeting a ton of new people than it did reuniting with anyone they knew.

So with all of that on the table: how did this affect official? The thing is that when I say “violently negative”, I mean that also entailed spamming official with said violently negative social media comments. While this is speculation, I am fairly certain that official must have realized how bad this was getting as early as between Parts 4 and 5, because that’s where a lot of really suspicious things started happening behind the scenes; while I imagine the anime series itself was now too far in to really do anything about it, one of the most visible producers suddenly vanished from the producer lineup and was replaced by Kinoshita Yousuke, who ended up being the only member of tri. staff shared with Kizuna (and, in general, the fact that not a single member of staff otherwise was retained kind of says a lot). Once the series ended in 2018 and the franchise slowly moved into Kizuna-related things, you might notice that tri.-branded merch production almost entirely screeched to a halt and official has been very touchy about acknowledging it too deeply; it’s not that they don’t, but it’s kind of an awfully low amount for what you’d think would be warranted for a series that’s supposed to be a full entry in the big-name Adventure brand.

The reason is, simply, that if they do acknowledge it too much, people will get pissed at them. That’s presumably why the tri. stage play (made during that interim period between Parts 4 and 5 and even branded with the title itself) and Kizuna are really hesitant to be too aggressive about tri. references; it’s not necessarily that official wants to blot it out of history like the most extreme opinions would like them to, but even being too enthusiastic about affirming it will also get them backlash, especially if the things they affirm are contradictory to Adventure or 02. And considering even the small references they did put in still got them criticism for “affirming” tri. too much, you can easily see that the backlash would have been much harder if they’d attempted more than that; staying as close as possible to Adventure and 02 and trying to deal with tri. elements only when they’re comparatively inoffensive was pretty much the “safe” thing to do in this scenario (especially since fully denying tri. would most certainly upset the people who did like the series, and if you have to ask me, I personally think this would have been a pretty crude thing to have done right after the series had just finished). Even interviews taken after the fact often involve quickly disclaiming involvement with the series, or, if they have to bring up something about it, discussing the less controversial aspects like the art (while the character designs were still controversial, it’s at least at the point where some fanartists will still be willing to make use of them even if they dislike the series, albeit often with prominent disclaimers) or the more well-received parts of Part 3; Kizuna was very conspicuously marketed as a standalone movie, even if it shared the point of “the Adventure kids, but older” that tri. had.

(Incidentally, the tri. stage play has generally been met with a good reputation and was received well even among people who were upset with the anime, so it was well-understood that they had no relation. In fact, said stage play is probably even better received than Kizuna, although that’s not too surprising given the controversial territory Kizuna goes into, making the stage play feel very play-it-safe in comparison.)

So, if we’re going to talk about Kizuna in particular: tri. was, to some degree, a moderate financial success, in the sense that it made quite a bit of money and did a lot to raise awareness of the Digimon brand still continuing...however, if you actually look at the sales figures for tri., they go down every movie; part of it was probably because of the progressively higher “hurdle” to get into a series midway, but consider that Gundam Unicorn (a movie series which tri.’s format was often compared to) had its sales go up per movie thanks to word of mouth and hype. So while tri. does seem to have gotten enough money to help sustain the franchise at first, the trade-off was an extremely livid fanbase that had shattered faith in the brand and in official, and so while continuing the Adventure brand might still be profitable, there was no way they were going to get away with continuing to do this lest everything eventually crash and burn.

Hence, if you look at the way Kizuna was produced and advertised, you can see a lot of it is blatantly geared at addressing a lot of the woes aimed at tri.: instead of the staff that had virtually no affiliation with Toei, the main members of staff announced were either from the original series (Seki and Yamatoya) or openly childhood fans, the 02 quartet was made into a huge advertising point as a dramatic DigiFes reveal (and character profies that tie into the 02 epilogue careers prominently part of the advertising from day one), and they even seemed to acknowledge the burnout on the original Adventure group by advertising it so heavily as “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends”, so you can see that there’s a huge sentiment of “damage control” with it. How successful that was...is debatable, since opinions have been all over the board; quite a few people were naturally so livid at what happened with tri. that Kizuna was just opening more of the wound, but there were also people who liked it much better and were willing to acknowledge it (with varying levels of enthusiasm, some simply saying “it was thankfully okay,” and some outright loving it), and there was a general sentiment even among those who disliked both that they at least understood what Kizuna was going for and that it didn’t feel as inherently disrespectful. (Of course, there are people who loved tri. and hated Kizuna, and there are people who loved both, too.)

Moreover, Kizuna actually has a slightly different target audience from tri.; there’s a pretty big difference between an OVA and a theatrical movie, and, quite simply, Kizuna was made under the assumption that a lot of people watching it may not have even seen tri. in the first place. An average of 11% of the country watched Adventure and 02, but the number of people who watched tri. is much smaller, in part due to the fact that its “theater” screenings were only very limited screenings compared to Kizuna being shown in theaters in Japan and worldwide, and in part due to the fact that watching six parts over three years is a pretty huge commitment for someone who may barely remember Digimon as anything beyond a show they watched as a kid, and may be liable to just fall off partway through because they simply just forgot. (Which also probably wasn’t helped by the infamously negative reputation, something that definitely wouldn’t encourage someone already on the fence.) And that’s yet another reason Kizuna couldn’t make too many concrete tri. references; being a theatrical movie, it needs to have as wide appeal as possible, and couldn’t risk locking out an audience that had a very high likelihood of not having seen it, much less to the end -- it may have somewhat been informed by tri.’s moderate financial success and precedent, but it ultimately was made for the original Adventure and 02 audience more than anything else.

I would say that, generally, while Kizuna is “controversial” for sure, reception towards the movie seems to be more positive than negative, it won over a large chunk of people who were burned out by tri., and it clearly seems to have been received well enough that it’s still being cashed in on a year after its release. The sheer existence of the upcoming 02-based movie is also probably a sign of Kizuna’s financial and critical success; Kinoshita confirmed at DigiFes 2020 that nothing was in production at the time, and stated shortly after the movie’s announcement that work on it had just started. So the decision to make it seems to have been made after eyeing Kizuna’s reception, and, moreover, the movie was initially advertised from the get-go with Kizuna’s director and writer (Taguchi and Yamatoya), meaning those two have curried enough goodwill from the fanbase that this can be used to promote the movie. (If not, you would think that having and advertising Seki would be the bigger priority.) While this is my own sentiment, I am personally doubtful official would have even considered 02 something remotely profitable enough on its own to cash in on if it weren’t for this entire sequence of events of 02′s snubbing in tri. revealing how much of a fanbase it had (especially with the sheer degree of “suspicious overcompensation” Kizuna had with its copious use of the 02 quartet and it tagging a remix of the first 02 ED on the Hanareteitemo single, followed by the drama CD and character songs), followed by Kizuna having success in advertising with them so heavily. Given all of the events between 2015 and now, it’s a bit ironic to see that 02 has now become basically the last resort to be able to continue anything in the original Adventure universe without getting too many people upset at them about it.

The bright side coming out of all of this is that, while it’s still a bit early to tell, now that we’re three years out from tri. finishing up and with Kizuna in the game, it seems there’s a possibility for things improving around tri.’s reception as well. Since a lot of the worst heated points of backlash against it have a very “you had to have been there” element (related to the PR, release schedule, and staff comments), those coming in “late” don’t have as much reason to be as pissed at it; I’ve seen at least one case of a fanartist getting back into the franchise because of Kizuna hype, watching tri. to catch up, casually criticizing it on Twitter, and moving on with their life, presumably because marathoning the whole thing being generally aware of what’ll happen in it and knowing Kizuna is coming after anyway gives you a lot less reason to be angry to the point of holding an outright grudge. Basically, even if you don’t like it, it’s much easier to actually go “yeah, didn’t like that,” not worry too much about it, and move on. Likewise, I personally get the impression that official has been starting to get a little more confident about digging up elements related to it. Unfortunately, a fairly recent tweet promoting the series getting put on streaming services still got quite a few angry comments implying that they should be deleting the scourge from the Internet instead, so there’s still a long way to go, but hopefully the following years will see things improve further...

In regards to the reboot, I -- and I think a lot of people will agree with me -- have a bit of a hard time reading what exact audience it’s trying to appeal to; we have a few hints from official that they want parents to watch it with their children, and that it may have been a necessary ploy in order to secure their original timeslot. So basically, the Adventure branding gets parents who grew up with the original series to be interested in it and to show it to their kids, and convinces Fuji TV that it might be profitable. But as most people have figured by now, the series has a completely different philosophy and writing style -- I mean, the interview itself functionally admits it’s here to be more action-oriented and to have its own identity -- and the target audience is more the kids than anything else. As for the Internet fanbase of veterans, most people have been critical of its character writing and pacing, but other than a few stragglers who are still really pissed, it hasn’t attracted all that much vitriol, probably because in the end it’s an alternate universe, it doesn’t have any obligation to adhere to anything from the original even if it uses the branding, and it’s clearly still doing its job of being a kids’ show for kids who never saw the original series nor 02, so an attempt to call it “disrespectful” to the original doesn’t have much to stand on. A good number of people who are bored of it decided it wasn’t interesting to them and dropped it without incident, while other people are generally just enjoying it for being fun, and the huge amount of Digimon franchise fanservice with underrepresented Digimon and high fidelity to null canon lore is really pleasing the side of the fanbase that’s into that (I mean, Digimon World Golemon is really deep in), so at the very least, there’s not a lot to be super-upset about.

#tri negativity #shiha's ask box #springcrafter

54 notes · View notes

kaile-hultner · 3 years

Text

Nihilism is so easy, which is why we need to kill it

(I initially published this here a couple weeks ago.)

So last night it dawned on me that, after over two years of being relatively symptom-free, my depression snuck back up on me and has taken over. It’s still pretty mild in comparison to other times I’ve been stuck in the hole, but after 24 months (and more) of mostly being good to go, I can tell that it’s here for a hot minute again.

How do I know? Well, it might be the fact that I spent more time sleeping during my recent vacation from work than I did just about anything else, and how it’s suddenly really hard for me to stay awake during work hours. I don’t really have an appetite, and in fact nausea hits me frequently. I don’t really have any emotional reactions to things outside of tears, even when tears aren’t super appropriate to the situation (like watching someone play Outer Wilds for the first time). And I’ve been consuming a lot of apocalyptic media, to which the only response, emotional or otherwise, I can really muster is “dude same.”

For a long time I was huge into absurdist philosophy, because it felt to my depressed brain like just the right balance between straight up denying that things are bad (and thus we should fix them, or at least try to do so) and full-blown nihilism. This gives absurdism a lot of credit; mostly it’s just a loose set of spicy existentialist ideas and shit that sounds good on a sticker, like “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

In the last couple years, while outside of my depressive state, I went back to Camus’ work and found a lot of almost full-on abusive shit in it. Not toward anyone specifically, but shit like “nobody and nothing will care if you’re gone, so live out of spite of them all” rubs me the wrong way in retrospect. The philosophy Camus puts out opens the door for living in a very self-destructive fashion; that in fact the good life is living without care for yourself or anyone/anything else. The way Camus describes and derides suicide especially is grim as fuck, and certainly I would never recommend The Myth of Sisyphus to anyone currently struggling with ideation. That “perfect balance” between denial and nihilism is really not that perfect at all, and in fact skews much more heavily towards the latter.

Neon Genesis Evangelion has been a big albatross around my neck in terms of the media products I’ve consumed in my life that I believe have influenced my depression hardcore. It sits in a similar conversational space to Camus’ work, in that it confronts nihilism and at once rejects and facilitates it. A lot of folks remark that Evangelion is pretty unique – or at least uncommon – in its accurate portrayal of depression, especially for mid-90s anime properties. The thing I notice always seems to be missing in these discussions is that along with that accurate portrayal comes a spot-on – to me, at least – depiction of what depression does to resist being treated. This is a disease that uses a person’s rational faculties to suggest that nobody else could possibly understand their pain, and therefore there’s no use in getting better or moving forward. Shinji Ikari is as self-centered as Hideaki Anno is as I am when it comes to confronting the truth: there are paths out of this hole, but nobody else can take that step out but us, and part of our illness is that refusal to do just that. Depression lies, it provides a cold comfort to the sufferer, that there is no existence other than the one where we are in pain and there is no way out, so pull the blanket up over our head and go back to sleep.

Watching Evangelion for the first time corresponded with the onset of one of the worst depressive spirals I’ve ever been in, and so, much like the time I got a stomach virus at the same time that I ate Arby’s curly fries, I kind of can’t associate Evangelion with anything else. No matter what else it might signify, no matter what other meaning there is to derive from it, for me Eva is the Bad Feeling Anime™. Which is why, naturally, I had to binge all four of the Evangelion theatrical releases upon the release of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time last month.

If Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion are works produced by someone with untreated depression just fucking rawdogging existence, then the Eva movies are works produced by someone who has gone to therapy even just one fucking time. Whether that therapy is working or not is to be determined, but they have taken that step out of the hole and are able to believe that there is a possibility of living a depression-free life. The first 40 minutes or so of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 are perfect cinema to me. The world is destroyed but there is a way to bring it back. Restoration and existence is possible even when the surface of the planet might as well be the surface of the Moon. The only thing about this is, everyone has to be on board to help. Even though WILLE fired one of its special de-corefication devices into the ground to give the residents of Village 3 a chance at survival, the maintenance of this pocket ecosystem is actively their responsibility. There is no room or time for people who won’t actively contribute, won’t actively participate in making a better world from the ashes of the old.

There are a lot of essentialist claims and assumptions made by the film in this first act about how the body interacts with the social – the concept of disability itself just doesn’t seem to have made it into the ring of safety provided by Misato and the Wunder, which seems frankly wild to me, and women are almost singularly portrayed in traditionalist support roles while men are the doers and the fixers and the makers. I think it’s worth raising a skeptical eyebrow at this trad conservative “back to old ways” expression of the post-apocalypse wherever it comes up, just as it’s important to acknowledge where the movie pushes back on these themes, like when Toji (or possibly Kensuke) is telling Shinji that, despite all the hard work everyone is doing like farming and building, the village is far from self-sufficient and will likely always rely on provisions from the Wunder.

As idyllic as the setting is, it’s not the ideal. As Shinji emerges from his catatonia, Kensuke takes him around the village perimeter. It’s quiet, rural Japan as far as the eye can see, but everywhere there are contingencies; rationing means Kensuke can only catch one fish a week, all the entry points where flowing water comes into the radius of the de-corefication devices have to be checked for blockages because the water supply will run out. There is a looming possibility that the de-corefication machines could break or shut down at some point, and nobody knows what will happen when that happens. On the perimeter, lumbering, pilot-less and headless Eva units shuffle around; it is unknown whether they’re horrors endlessly biding their time or simply ghosts looking to reconnect to the ember of humanity on the other side of the wall. Survival is always an open question, and mutual aid is the expectation. Still: the apocalypse happened, and we’re still here. The question Village 3 answers is “what now?” We move on, we adapt.

Evangelion is still a work that does its level best to defy easy interpretation, but the modern version of the franchise has largely abandoned the nihilism that was at its core in the 90s version. It’s not just that Shinji no longer denies the world until the last possible second – it’s that he frequently actively reaches out and is frustrated by other people’s denials. He wants to connect, he wants to be social, but he’s also burdened with the idea that he’s only good to others if he’s useful, and he’s only useful if he pilots the Eva unit. This last movie separates him and what he is worth to others (and himself) from his agency in being an Eva pilot, finally. In doing so, he’s able to reconcile with nearly everyone in his life who he has harmed or who has hurt him, and create a world in which there is no Evangelion. While this ending is much more wishful thinking than one more grounded in the reality of the franchise – one that, say, focuses on the existence and possible flourishing of Village 3 and other settlements like it while keeping one eye on the precarious balancing act they’re all playing – it feels better than the ending of End of Eva, and even than the last two episodes of the original series.

I’m glad the nihilism in Evangelion is gone, for the most part. I’m glad that I didn’t spend roughly eight hours watching the Evamovies only to be met yet again with a message of “everything is pointless, fuck off and die.” Because I’ve been absorbing that sentiment a lot lately, from a lot of different sources, and it really just fuckin sucks to hear over and over again.

It is a truth we can’t easily ignore that the confluence of pandemic, climate change, authoritarian surge and capitalist decay has made shit miserable recently. But the spike in lamentations over the intractability of this mix of shit – the inevitability of our destruction, to put it in simpler terms – really is pissing me off. No one person is going to fix the world, that much is absolutely true, but if everyone just goes limp and decides to “123 not it” the apocalypse then everyone crying about how the world is fucked on Twitter will simply be adding to the opening bars of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

We can’t get in a mech to save the world but then, neither realistically could Shinji Ikari. What we can do looks a lot more like what’s being done in Village 3: people helping each other with limited resources wherever they can.

Last week, Hurricane Ida slammed into the Gulf Coast and churned there for hours – decimating Bayou communities in Louisiana and disrupting the supply chain extensively – before powering down and moving inland. Last night the powerful remnants of that storm tore through the Northeast, causing intense flooding. Areas not typically affected by hurricanes suddenly found themselves in a similar boat – pun not intended – to folks for whom hurricanes are simply a fact of life. There’s a once-in-a-millennium drought and heatwave ripping through the West Coast and hey – who can forget back in February when Oklahoma and Texas experienced -20 degree temperatures for several days in a row? All of this against the backdrop of a deadly and terrifying pandemic and worsening political climate. It’s genuinely scary! But there are things we can do.

First, if you’re in a weather disaster-prone area, get to know your local mutual aid organizations. Some of these groups might be official non-profits; one such group in the Louisiana area, for example, is Common Ground Relief. Check their social media accounts for updates on what to do and who needs help. If you’re not sure if there’s one in your area, check out groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief for that same information. Even if you’re not in a place that expects to see the immediate effects of climate change, you should still consider linking up with organizing groups in your area. Tenant unions, homeless organizations, safe injection sites and needle exchanges, immigrant rights groups, environmental activist orgs, reproductive health groups – all could use some help right now, in whatever capacity you might be able to provide it.

In none of these scenarios are we going to be the heroes of the story, and we shouldn’t view this kind of work in that way. But neither should we give into the nihilistic impulse to insist upon doing nothing, insist that inaction is the best course of action, and get back under the blankets for our final sleep. Kill that impulse in your head, and fuck, if you have to, simply just fucking wish for that better world. Then get out of bed and help make it happen.

#Neon Genesis Evangelion #existentialism #philosophy #media criticism #cultural criticism #spoilers

24 notes · View notes

lucemferto · 3 years

Text

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT PH1LZA (or Why Philza is a Victim of Narrative Circumstance)

Heyo! Per request I am posting the script to my video of the same name here on tumblr. I must warn you that just reading the script will probably not give you the full experience, so I would encourage you to watch the video (linked above).

There might also still be a lot of grammatical errors in the text, because I don’t proofread.

Intro

LAST TIME ON LUCEM FERTO

Okay, so! I don’t want this to turn into a reaction channel OR a Dream SMP channel for that matter! [echo]

Well, I lied.

[Intro to “Luc is pretentious about the funny blockmen. Episode 2”]

I swear, I’m working on other stuff. It’s just that my dumb lizard brain has only capacity for one interest at a time!

So, something you might not know about me, is that I am on tumblr – who am I kidding, most of you will know me from tumblr. Before starting this whole YouTube thing, I thought that website died years ago – but as per usual reality proves me wrong. I’m also on Twitter and Reddit, but I get the most engagement on tumblr – by far! – and I need those sweet, sweet numbers for the serotonin!

Anyways, one of my favourite past-times on tumblr is to razz Philza Hardcore Minecraft – that’s his full name – for being a frankly awful father [clicking away] – wait, wait, no! Philza fans, this isn’t a hit piece on him, I promise! Please come back!

This is video is meant to be a companion piece to my previous video about Technoblade and the Doomsday event – you can tell by the shared nomenclature – so you should probably watch that one before you proceed. Unless you don’t want to, which is also perfectly understandable.

DISCLAIMER: This video is mostly about the character Philza plays on the Dream SMP. Whenever I talk about the content creator Philza, I will say so properly. Also, Spoiler Warning for Dream SMP Season 2.

… What is that? You’re wondering what the Dream SMP is? Well, if you had just watched the other video like I told you to do, you would know, because I explained it pretty well there. But in case you don’t know, here’s the cliff notes.

Dream SMP is the hottest New Media Series on Twitch right now! It has it all: gaslighting, child soldiers, Machiavellian political intrigue, Hamilton roleplay, desecration of the dead, shounen protagonists, SO! MUCH! AMNESIA! Filicide, furries, a red egg that’s definitely homophobic and teenagers inventing nuclear warfare. And it’s all done in Minecraft – yes, the funny block game where the only way to emote is to crouch.

And you say the perfect brief doesn’t exist!

Now, you might be wondering, why do I want to talk about this? Well, it’s because Content Creator Philza is one of least controversial internet personalities that I can think of. That man exudes pure comfort. So, it’s just very, very amusing to me that his character became one of the most controversial figures on the SMP, only outshone by Tommy and Technoblade.

And it’s not just amusing, it’s also extremely interesting! I want to dig deep to uncover and discuss the dynamics behind why that is. How did it come to this point? How did a man who appears genuinely so pleasant create a character that inspires so much discourse!

Now, if you watched that Technoblade video – like I told you to twice now! – you might know, that I am the resident character analyses hater of fandom! And that impression is false and slanderous! Don’t tell other people that I hate character analyses! I love them!

It’s just that, in the Dream SMP in particular, there is an abundance of character analyses! Every streamer has at least two very good essays written about them, exploring every possible angle to view their characters and backgrounds and everything. All I’m saying is: I don’t have anything to add on that front.

So, instead I want to pursue a different approach – something, that I feel is a bit underrepresented in the fandom! And I’m not just talking narrative analysis – that’s right, this episode we’re going even more pretentious! – I’m talking Transtextual Analysis!

Now, what is Transtextuality? Well, unfortunately it has very little to do with actual Trans people – #transrights, just in case that wasn’t obvious – but instead describes a mode of analysis with which to put – to quote French literary theorist Gérard Genette – “the text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts”.

Basically, you know how the L’Manburg War of Independence heavily quotes and borrows from the hit musical Hamilton? That’s transtextuality! A lot of the analyses surrounding how Tommy mirrors the Greek hero Theseus, who was invoked by Technoblade multiple times in the series, are already doing transtextual analysis! So, it’s really not something that’s new to the Dream SMP fandom.

But how does this apply to Philza and how he is looked at and judged by his parental skills? Well, there are multiple forms of transtextuality, two of which we will discuss today.

But before we continue, I gotta do that annoying YouTuber thing. I know these videos don’t look like much, but I spend a really long time making them. I work fulltime and I try my best to keep up, but sometimes I can’t. So please, like, subscribe, comment to give me some algorithm juice – I really need it – and most importantly share it! Share it with your friends, share it with your family – I’m sure Grandma is very interested in what I have to say about Philza Minecraft.

And I’m trying to be better! If I sound at all different for this video, it’s because I finally bought a new pop filter, so I can hit my plosives without it sounding like there’s a thunderstorm in my room. I hope it makes a difference; it was a very cheap pop filter, so maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it sounds worse – that would be bad!

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, CHILD NEGLEGT!

Intertextuality: Why is Dadza?

You know what’s really interesting about the Dream SMP – aside from, you know, most things about it? Very few of the characters have concrete, fleshed-out backstories – and that’s pretty weird! In no other medium or genre could you get away with something like that – at least for long-form storytelling!

So, how does Dream SMP get away with this? Well, it’s because every character on the Dream SMP is basically a self-insert – and I don’t mean that in the “This character is based on me”-kinda way, but in the “This character, for all intents and purposes, is me!”-way. This, like many things that are fascinating about the Dream SMP, is owed to the fact that this series didn’t start off as a continuous drama – it started off as a Let’s Play.

And while we can talk about how someone’s on-camera/on-mic persona is in some ways a character, it’s still miles off of being an actual, fully-realized, separate character in a storyline.

This is where Intertextuality comes in.

Intertextuality is a subset of Transtextuality. It describes how the hypertext, which is the text, you’re currently engaged with, uses another text, the hypotext, to supplement itself. The interconnection the hypertext establishes with the hypotext, through stuff like allusion for example, uh-hum [Hamilton], can colour how an audience interprets the hypertext. Basically, Hamilton and Theseus are the hypotexts; the Dream SMP is the hypertext.

So, what does this have to do with backstory? Simple: The backstories of the characters in the Dream SMP consist basically of nothing but intertextual references. Through intertextuality their content effectively substitutes their character’s backstory.

You can see it everywhere. Wilbur’s and Schlatt’s relationship and rivalry is hugely enriched, if you are aware of their shared history like SMPLive, for example – I think anyway. I haven’t watched SMPLive, because … there’s only so many hours in the day and I cannot keep up with the Dream SMP and catch up on SMPLive and live a healthy life – which I already don’t do, so…

BadBoyHalo’s and Skeppy’s relationship, which has become the crux of the Crimson-Storyline of Seasons 2 and 3, is hugely supplemented if you know that they’re also very close as streamers and in real life.

Another great example of intertextuality is basically Technoblade’s entire deal. If you just look at him completely within the text of the Dream SMP and try to transplant his entrance to any other medium: It would be extremely weird! Like, he’s just this guy that comes in in the middle of a very climatic arc, no build-up, no explanation what his deal is, and he’s treated like he has always been there. In any other medium that just wouldn’t work – at least not without a flashback or some sort of exposition!

But because of stuff like Minecraft Mondays, the Potato Wars, his Duel against Dream and SMPEarth, we understand that he is a Big Deal!

Anyways, to bring all of this back to Philza Minecraft: What kind of hypotext informs how the audience sees his character? Well, this is where I will have to talk about SBI.

SBI is an acronym that stand for State Bank of India, the 43rd largest bank in the world and…

It also stands for Sleepy Bois Incorporated. Sleepy Bois Incorporated is a loose assembly of content creators, consisting of Philza, Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit and Technoblade. It is most well-known for its very endearing family dynamic – a dynamic that is frequently acknowledged and played up by the creators involved. Tommy is the youngest brother, Wilbur and Techno are the two older brothers and Philza is of course the dad. And when I say, it’s played up, I really mean it! Wilbur seems to be especially enamoured with the idea and leaves no opportunity untaken to bring it up – which we will come back to.

And I’m not saying that they’re faking this and this is somehow an act. While I know none of these people personally, it appears to me, that this is genuinely how they interact – if a little exaggerated for the streaming experience. Even when they’re not consciously playing into the family dynamic, their interactions still very much lend themselves to that interpretation by the viewers.

Philza especially just radiates Dad-Friend energy – so much so that it has become a huge part of his brand identity – yay, I can bring that back (check out my Christmas video if you want to hear me ramble about that). The nickname Dadza stuck even before SBI was a thing.

So, even if we completely disregard SBI – which we shouldn’t for reasons I’ll get back to – Philza has cultivated an image of strong paternal guidance. He is, in my opinion completely deservedly, regarded very positively. He is highly respected and in turn seen as a voice of reason.

All of this would eventually inform the hypotext of the character Philza within Dream SMP.

Interlude: Before Dadza & November 16th

Okay, so now we have established that a) Dream SMP heavily hinges on intertextual readings by the audience to supplement character backstory and b) that Philza’s entire deal is that he’s the dad-friend – more specifically that he’s the dad of SBI (not the bank). I think you know where this is going.

So, yeah, ever since it was on the table that Philza could join the Dream SMP, it was immediately assumed that he would take on the paternal guardian role all these traumatized people on that server so desperately needed – and with good reason! Like I said before, the audience at this point was trained to take intertextual interpretations as basically canon or at the very least canon-adjacent.

I want to emphasize that this is most likely not done deliberately. I’m sure content creators Wilbur and Philza didn’t sit there and said: “Yes! We will rely entirely on the audience’s inclination to interpret our characters intertextually to define character Philza!”. Like, obviously that did not happen.

But it’s also important to remember that unlike with traditional media and the fanbases cultivated there, the separation between the Dream SMP and its audience is almost non-existent – and purposely so. The story events are streamed live, Chats are acknowledged in canon and even outside of livestreams creators are extremely involved with the fandom. So, the weight of fan-expectations is equally amplified and will more likely be incorporated into the writing process. Case in point:

[Wilbur “I miss Philza”/Philza about Wilbur]

During Wilbur’s villain arc, even before his official involvement, Philza became a prevalent point of discussion. The hope that he would be the one to snap Wilbur out of his downward spiral was not only wish-fulfilment on behalf of the fans; it also very much played off of the intertextual reading of the SBI-dynamic in relation to the Dream SMP.

Of course, this still doesn’t make Philza and Wilbur canonically blood-related – but it definitely used the “paternal”-dynamic of SBI to build-up tension and drama.

And that ultimately brings us to November 16th. The Grand Finale of Season 1 and Philza’s first canonical appearance on the SMP.

Now, for this I want to pull back from the transtextual analysis and talk about simply narrative analysis: What is Philza’s narrative purpose on November 16th?

Philza serves as the last threshold on Wilbur’s Villain’s Journey – to appropriate Vogler’s version of the monomyth for a minute here – he is what Vogler calls the “Threshold Guardian”. He is the last enemy the Hero faces before completing his quest – in this particular case Wilbur’s quest is to blow up L’Manberg. Multiple people have at this point tried to dissuade him from this course of action: Tommy, Quackity, Niki and others. So how come this Philza moment is not redundant in terms of dynamics compared to these prior scenes?

Well, it’s through our intertextual understanding of Wilbur’s and Phil’s relationship. Because Philza does not just occupy the role of the Threshold Guardian – he is also implicitly the Mentor. Before Phil there was no character in the storyline that held a higher position of moral authority than Wilbur – Dream and Schlatt, while at points more powerful in terms of actual authority, were never positioned by the narrative as Wilbur’s superiors in the same way as Wilbur was to Tommy, Tubbo or even Niki.

Before November 16th all challenges Wilbur faced were from people narratively subordinated to him. But that trend is broken with Phil. That is why he is the Threshold Guardian, why this confrontation is at the climax of Wilbur’s arc. Because Phil is the last thing tethering Wilbur to whatever morality he held before his villain arc; Phil is the last, moral obstacle Wilbur has to discard before gaining his reward.

And, just a quick sidenote, because I’ve seen it around the fandom a bunch: When I’m referring to Wilbur denouncing his morality, I’m using that in terms of narrative analysis. I’m mentioning it, because Wilbur’s character can very easily be read as mentally ill or neurodivergent and some people have – rightly! – pointed out that the excessive vilifying when talking about his character is … problematic, to say the least.

So, I just want to make clear, this isn’t a character analysis, I’m being purposely broad when talking about Wilbur and Phil.

In the end, Wilbur takes that final step and gets his “reward”: As his final request his mentor takes his life and vanquishes the evil – the dragon of Wilbur’s story slays the dragon of L’Manburg. It’s very Shakespearean in its tragedy – but beyond the larger theatrics it’s not really used to further characterize Phil – at least in the context of Season 1. There’s not a lot of focus on his characters internal conflict during November 16th.

Phil, like Techno, is very utilitarian in how content creator Wilbur writes him: He serves as a moment of hype; an obstacle Wilbur has to face; a participant in the tragic climax of Wilbur’s character and ultimately takes on his implicit and expected role of mentor and guiding figure to the rest of L’Manburg.

I think not a lot of people talk about how Philza does not join Technoblade during November 16th. He takes the side of L’Manburg – he fights against the withers and he joins Tommy, Tubbo and the others at the L’Mantree, thus framing him as loyal to the L’Manburg administration – even though Season 2 would make his loyalty to Techno central to his character. But more on that later.

What’s also important about November 16th is that this is the day when the general intertextual interpretation became canonized text.

[You’re my son!]

Wilbur is made Phil’s canonical, biological son. The intertextual interpretation of SBI as it pertains to these two characters on the SMP was completely reinforced by the narrative. Or to put it in Fandom terms: The headcanon became actual canon. At least when it came to Wilbur … but what about Philza’s “other” children?

Well, that leads to our second form of transtextual analysis:

Paratextuality: Is Dadza?

These titles are just getting better and better.

The Paratext is defined as all those things in a published work that accompany the text. It comes in two forms: One of them is the Peritext, which are non-diegetic elements directly surrounding the text – like chapter titles, author’s notes, and stuff like that. Translated to the medium of the Dream SMP, it would be stuff like this:

[Examples]

And, trust me, I could make a whole separate video about how people on the SMP use their peritext as a tool for storytelling – I’m looking at you, Ranboo – but that’s not what we will talk about in the context of Dadza.

Instead, we will focus on the second form of Paratext, the Epitext, which consists of all authorial and editorial discussions taking place outside of the text. That’s stuff like interviews, private letters or J. K. Rowling’s Twitter Account – you know, before she decided to become a full-time asshole.

[Wilbur: Transrights]

After Season 1 ended, Wilbur indulged pretty heavily in providing epitext for the Dream SMP, something he had not done prior to November 16th. His paratextual additions ranged from the playful, like assigning DnD alignments to various SMP members, to the extremely impactful, like the whole three lives system!

You probably think, you know where this is going. Wilbur provided some epitext about how Tommy and Techno either are or are not biologically related to him … and I have to be honest I thought that too. But then I began looking into the impenetrable web that is the SBI-canon on the Dream SMP and found this!

[Ghostbur explains family]

So, it wasn’t paratext, it was just straight text. Said in character, in canon, without any implication that we the viewers should question this. The text of the SBI family dynamic was explicitly linked to Dream SMP-exclusive lore, namely Fundy being Wilbur’s and Sally the Salmon’s son. This is as clear as Philza’s anguished declaration on November 16th in establishing the intertext as text. And because Wilbur also had a very heavy hand in the discussion of paratext around that time, it gave his character’s words even more “canonical” weight. Metatextually speaking, this very much read like the author giving exposition through his character – exposition that we should understand as reliable.

And, by the way, before I continue, I need to give a huge, huge shoutout to kateis-cakeis on tumblr, I hope I pronounced that right, who was just so quick in providing me with these crucial clips. Without him I would have looked for days because these people don’t archive their shit! And the Dream SMP Wiki was NO help, by the way! I love what you guys do, but stuff like this belongs in the Trivia section on characters’ pages!

Anyways, basically during the entirety of early Season 2 the SBI family dynamic was basically canon to the SMP. Sometimes it was only alluded implicitly, again letting the intertext fill out the rest.

[Philza clips]

But just as often it was just explicitly talked about – both in the text and in the paratext.

[Fundy clip/Wilbur “Twins” clip/Tommy clip]

So, I know what you’re thinking: “Why is this part called paratext, if the entire family tree is just textual”. Well, that last clip might give you a hint, as to what I will talk about. Notice how Tommy, one of the people most directly impacted by the canonization of SBI lore, is both unaware of and seems generally unenthused about it, to put it nicely? Well, that would soon turn out to be a much bigger deal than anyone could have imagined as he wasn’t the only one.

[Technoblade decanonizes SBI]

Yeah …

This happened on 20th of December. Regular viewers of this channel will remember that I put out a 90-second joke video, where I complain about this very development. And while I was mostly kidding around, the core idea is still true. The paratext provided by Technoblade and established text were in direct contradiction with one another – and that brought a lot of confusion into the fandom. Confusion, that would soon be followed by frustration.

Because Techno only decanonized himself as part of the SBI family dynamic – but what about Tommy and Tubbo, the latter of which was incorporated into the dynamic exclusively within the lore of the Dream SMP. Was this still canon or wasn’t it?

What followed was a muddled mess of contradictions, intertextual implications, text and paratext in conflict with each another. It was for the most part inscrutable to figure out how Tommy and Philza related to one another. I’ll spare you every comment made about this – mostly because I want to spare myself from looking for all of them.

In the end, the current status is that their familial relationship is … unclear. Philza said, again in paratext, that it’s ultimately up to the writers to decide, whether or not Tommy is his son … which, I personally think he and Tommy should be the ones to establish that, but I’ll come back to that later.

But why is all of this important anyway? Why would this ambiguity create such an uproar, such controversy – especially when it comes to Tommy’s character? What makes Tommy’s and Philza’s relationship such a target for discussion in the fandom?

Well … this is where we will have to talk about the storyline of Season 2.

Interlude II: Tommy’s Exile and Dadza in Season 2

Okay, Season 2. This is where the spoilers are, so I will just sneakily drop this again. It took me five seconds to google this gif and I will milk it for every penny it’s worth!

At the beginning of Season 2, Philza’s narrative role has not changed much from where Season 1 ended. He is in L’Manburg dispensing earthly wisdom, being a paternal figure to Fundy, Ghostbur and Tubbo, helping with the nation’s rebuilding efforts; just generally occupying the role of the mentor.

[clips]

And then came … the Exile. The Exile Arc took place between December 3rd and December 15th during Season 2 of the Dream SMP. It revolves around TommyInnit getting exiled from L’Manburg and slowly getting psychologically tortured and broken down by Dream. It’s a really great arc, at least in my opinion, that explores and deepens a lot of Tommy’s character relationships, whether that be Tommy and Dream, Tommy and Tubbo or Tommy and Ranboo. One relationship, however, is noticeably missing.

So, yeah, Philza spends basically the entirety of the exile doing pretty much nothing of consequence. And that’s not a problem specific to him – One big criticism I would levy against the Exile Arc is that a lot of characters are left spinning their wheels. Which is why we get zany stuff like El Rapids, Drywaters, Eret’s Knights of the Roundtable, Boomerville – anyone remember Boomerville, that was a thing for 5 seconds, wasn’t it? – basically a lot of storylines are started and then unceremoniously dropped. Now, I will talk more about this, when I make a video about Season 2 of the Dream SMP … in ten years, look forward to it.

In the case of Philza, this inaction was especially damning, because at this point it was still a considered canon that he was Tommy’s dad. So, the fans were left with a situation, where just a few weeks prior Philza was occupying a paternal role for Fundy and Ghostbur … but now, that his youngest son was in a very concerning predicament – to put it lightly – he was nowhere to be found.

So why is that?

Well, the most obvious answer is that Dream and Tommy didn’t write him into the storyline. We’ve seen that Tommy wasn’t particularly interested in exploring a familial relationship to Philza, at least at the time. And it would just not fit in with what Dream and Tommy tried to do with the Exile Arc: they wanted to tell the story of Tommy being isolated, completely under Dream’s mercy, slowly worn down and manipulated. If Philza had been constant presence for Tommy during that time, it would have definitely shifted the narrative focus. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have done that, it’s just a matter of fact that they didn’t.

This also reveals another truth about content creator Philza’s character work, that I think is extremely crucial: He takes what the writers give him. Outside of a few choice moments, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in expanding or even solidifying his character on the SMP.

What I’m saying is that he is very go-with-the-flow: Wilbur wants to enact a Shakespearean tragedy? Philza’s up for it. Fundy wants him as a parental figure and mentor? Philza’s here for him. Tommy, conversely, doesn’t want him as a paternal presence, even though it would make sense for Philza’s character, as it was established so far, to be there? Philza will oblige.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because, while Tommy and Dream were unwilling to utilise Philza in their storyline, someone else was more than happy to. Which leads us back, like it always does, to everyone’s favourite Porky Pig-kinnie in a crown: Technoblade.

Technoblade and Philza, from everything I’ve seen of them, seem to be very good friends – and they share a lot of history even outside SBI. So, it’s commendable that they would collaborate on a storyline together.

A consequence of that, however, is that Philza’s narrative purpose shifts completely with very little transition. His entire character changes from being the Mentor-figure of L’Manberg to being pretty much exclusively defined as Technoblade’s ally; his man on the inside. It is a very sharp turn from the end of Season 1. Their relationship is once again informed via intertext – this time the Antarctic Empire on SMPEarth serves as the hypotext – but there isn’t a huge effort made to smoothly integrate that aspect of Philza’s character into the larger narrative framing around him.

How much the narrative utilisation of Philza has shifted can be very easily observed through the Butcher Army event on December 16th, a story event that I like less and less the more I think about. Here Philza is used to show just how corrupt and violent Tubbo’s administration has becomes. He is no longer the respected mentor, he is now the stand-in for the oppressed populace, similar to Niki’s role in Season 1. On a narrative level, he is here to prove a point.

If you’ve seen my Technoblade video, you know how I feel about … just that entire storyline, so I will not reiterate too much on it. I just want to make clear that I’m not principally against this development – if they wanted to truly explore Tubbo going down a dark path and getting corrupted by power, so much so that he would even treat the person who effectively raised him like a prisoner, I would be extremely here for it, I cannot stress that enough.

The problem I have is that it’s just so sloppily done. It is not coherent with how these characters behaved and, more importantly, how they were narratively framed prior to the Butcher Army event. Fundy gets one token line about Phil being his Grandfather – a far cry from the very emotionally complex relationship they had established at the beginning of Season 2 – and Phil then callously disowns him.

The major problem simply is that we don’t see how Philza changes from Mentor-figure to embittered, oppressed citizen. And there was enough time to build to that. During the entirety of Tommy’s exile Tubbo was pretty much spinning his wheels and Quackity and Fundy were opening up plot cul-de-sacs that didn’t end up going anywhere. This is time they could have spent on developing their relationship to Philza and the dark path they were going down – but again, Season 2 video.

There is not much to say on Philza’s narrative purpose and framing beyond the Butcher Army event. He remains pretty much exclusively Techno’s consigliere with his role as Mentor to L’Manburg a distant memory. He has some cute character moments with Ranboo, because content creator Philza is just big dad-energy whether he wants to or not, and whenever he and Ghostbur share a scene suddenly the narrative remembers that there are people other than Technoblade that should exist in Philza’s inner world. But aside from that, Philza’s storyline in Season 2 remains … pretty definitive is the nicest way I can put it.

Most importantly his relationship with Tommy continues to be completely unexplored – whether by chance or choice – and that combined with ever vaguer paratext leaves “Dadza” in a very peculiar situation.

Conclusion: Is Dadza a Good Dadza?

So, the question to end all questions. The big, obnoxious text, that I will probably have put in the thumbnail – I haven’t made it yet, but I know myself. The honest answer is: I couldn’t tell you.

I have, in the past, been expounding the virtues of narrative analysis. That is because I feel that Narrative Analysis and Textual Analysis, like in this video, can provide certain tools that Character Analysis lacks. Often times I see people trying to get at a writing problem or query and getting frustrated because they’re not using the toolset, they need to figure out what they want to figure out.

But I’d be a hypocrite if I pretended like everything could be solved through the modes of analysis I prefer. And I think the Dadza-issue is exactly such a case.

I set out to explore why the Philza-Tommy-“Dadza”-relationship has become so controversial. It’s a combination of expectations build up through intertextual readings, that were partly canonized – something that is very common for the Dream SMP – conflicting pieces of paratext, which only serve to muddle the issue further and a text that is not only completely uninterested in actually exploring Tommy’s and Philza’s relationship – as it stands right now they might as well be strangers, narratively speaking – but also completely changes Philza’s narrative purpose as it relates to characters like Fundy or Tubbo about half-way through with little to no transition.

That is why I say, that Philza’s character is a victim of narrative circumstance. Because unwittingly, through all of these factors and decisions, there is not coherent reading of Philza that frames his parental skills in a particularly kind light.

The question of how we can judge Phil as a paternal figure ultimately falls within the purview of the character analysis – and that’s a very multifaceted issue, highly dependent on which POV you focus on and how you interpret the other characters in that POV’s periphery.

To put my cards on the table, I think that Philza is a very flawed father/father-figure – and I find that absolutely okay. Flaws are the spice of character building. He is not Cinderella’s Evil Stepmother – but he’s also definitely not Mufasa. If we were to read Philza as a paternal figure, then he would have made a lot of mistakes and decisions to the detriment of his “children” – least of all everything that happened on Doomsday.

But I also have sympathies for Philza fans who are tired of the Dad-Debate and would like to have his character judged independent from his relationship to Ghostbur, Fundy, Tubbo and Tommy.

Ultimately, to bring it all to a point, I’d like to end with saying, that I think that Philza, out of all the characters on the SMP, has the potential to be on of the most intriguing, multifaceted ones. There are all of these different patches of story, character moments and narrative and transtextual implications, that, if brought together, could create a beautiful tapestry of the character Philza.

You have his relationship with Techno, which holds the potential for so much emotional conflict and vulnerabilities, you have his time as mentor of L’Manburg, which is just criminally underused; the complex relationship between him and Ghostbur/Wilbur; and – for me, personally – most intriguingly this weird, almost uncomfortably distant non-relationship with Tommy. That last one is intriguing to me, because it contrasts just so much with our intertextual understanding of the characters and streaming personas – and it just holds the potential for so much conflict, so much drama, so much angst. Which I live for!

And, yes, I do believe that most of this is narrative happenstance, that this was largely not intended by Philza or really any of the writers. It’s just what happens when hybrid-roleplay-improv a long-running, livestreamed storyline in Minecraft.

But I want them to realize the potential they have on their hands, because it could – with barely any adjustments – turn Philza from a victim of narrative circumstance to a champion of it!

Outro

Thank you so much for watching this video. Usually, I don’t record outros this standard, but after this beast of a video I felt it necessary. I hope that whether you’re a Philza fan or a Philza critical or just completely uninvolved in the whole thing, there is at least a little entertainment you could get from this.

I want to take this opportunity to say that my next few videos will probably not be Dream SMP related – a sentence which undoubtedly lost me a bunch of subs – simply because I don’t want to burn out on it. I genuinely enjoy watching the SMP and being exhausted by it would be something I wouldn’t want to force on myself.

But who knows what will happen? The Karl Jacobs video was something I did spur of the moment because the idea just came to me – so I can’t guarantee that the next video won’t be a three-minute joke about Purpled or whatever.

Anyway, my concrete plans for future Dream SMP videos are essays on Season 1 and Season 2 as well as one for Tales from the SMP.

Before that I have a longer video in the works, which I’ve already teased a bunch, so I hope it will finally be finished sometime. And I also may be working on something … eboys-related? Maybe. I’m not making any promises!

117 notes · View notes

acesydneysage · 3 years

Text

My thoughts on how an Alchemist revolution could go

I turned some of the initial points into a one-shot, but I'm very unlikely to actually write anything that sees all of it through to the end, so I'm laying out what I imagine would happen. I could follow the initial fic's format and just write cutesy domestic fluff with hints of what is going on in the Alchemist revolution in the background, but who knows

In The Golden Lily, Sonya thought Sydney's blood might be key to a vaccine, since it was undrinkable to Strigoi. Later, in The Fiery Heart, in their visit to Inez, we find out that it's because her blood is coated in human magic. That makes it taste foul to undead vampires, and also broke her Alchemist tattoo, by countering the compulsion of Moroi magic with human magic.

She eventually uses a similar principle to make the tattoo breaking ink she gives to Marcus, and that she uses to help the other re-education inmates in Silver Shadows.

So, with that in mind:

My initial idea was that one of Marcus' operatives, who got tattooed with Sydney's ink, would suffer a Strigoi attack. Their blood would turn out to be undrinkable. Since Sydney's ink breaks the Alchemist tattoo, the receivers blood would get coated with human magic, like a witch's.

I would like it if that person was one of the people Sydney helped in re-education, because I'd like to think those people stayed loyal to her, and maybe see her as a leader. Just because it's really touching to me how she was still worried about others, and risking herself to help, while she was going through her worst nightmare.

In my fic I went with Sydney's roommate Emma, "the Sydney Sage of re-education", because I really love her. She really did turn out to be the Sydney of re-education, at least in part, because while she was repeating the party line and trying to seem cooperative, she was actually a badass rebel who fights back. There are other reasons, I'll get to that in the end.

Sydney's ink potentially working as a Strigoi vaccine is something important enough that she would risk her truce with the Alchemists to investigate. And since the ink also makes people immune to their mind control, the Alchemists wouldn't work with them like they did for the spirit vaccine. I truly believe that they value their control more than human souls.

I'm sure Declan’s blood will be important to the spirit vaccine. They couldn't mass produce it since it required a recent Strigoi restoration, trapping the spirit before it left the blood, while his blood is described as brimming with spirit. But Sydney and Adrian don't want their son to be experimented on, so that's just more incentive to seek an alternative.

I think Sydney’s ink wouldn't work on Moroi, going by the logic of the magic described in the books (human magic wins out in humans), but helping humans is already a big deal, and it could maybe work on dhampirs.

Meanwhile, the Alchemists have been getting polarized. When it's revealed that some of them were helping the Warriors of Light in the end of the series, while Warriors were keeping Moroi captive, that causes controversy. They eventually start to get divided into factions.

After the US re-education center burns down, those who oppose re-education try to defend that it not be rebuilt, and that other centers be shut down. There are symbolic concessions, but they eventually get basically re-education by another name. Similar things happen when it comes to demands for more transparency, and less authoritarianism in general.

And of course there's a reaction to progressive demands. A hardcore anti-Moroi faction is amenable to teaming up with the Warriors. They're tired of "fighting evil by cataloguing it."

If this faction wins out, they won't actually care that Sydney is blackmailing them into letting her live with proof that they worked with the Warriors, since they openly want that, and they consider her continued existence a humiliation. So Sydney and Adrian wouldn't be able to sit out this fight.

There are more and more defectors who simply leave and join Marcus (or go into hiding and try to stay away from that whole mess). But out of those who stay Alchemists, as things start to devolve into an actual civil war, the moderate faction has a lot of infighting about joining up with the rebels.

That's at least in part because Sydney is one of their most notorious members, and while they might not want to see all the Moroi exterminated, marrying one of them is still going way too far to a lot of them.

So, let's talk allies. Sydney definitely put Marcus in touch with more witches and taught them how to make the ink. And I think besides kidnapping Moroi and dhampirs, the Warriors could be capturing witches too, which would turn them against each other.

In re-education, when it's revealed that Sydney has magic they say that has happened before, and I imagine they handled it with the same amount of compassion. I think maybe Chantal is a witch too and that's why she was fown in the punishment level with Sydney.

Alicia definitely showed that some witches might be willing to work with them for their personal gain, but I think as a community they would protect their own. They wouldn't look kindly on Alchemists torturing witches. And even if they were born into the Alchemists, they chose to be witches, so their allegiance to them would take precedence in their minds. Sydney's coven and Ms. Terwilliger are definitely on board.

I think the rebels might be able to get the Keepers on their side, since they have a complicated relationship with the Alchemists, where they seemto deliberately keepthem dependent. Marcus' stated goal for a long time was helping Moroi on their own terms, that's what he did for a long while. He definitely didn't have any plans to topple the Alchemists in the Bloodlines era, he didn't thinkthat was possible. So they occasionally helped them get better technology and resources that the Alchemists don't want them to have, and they promise to help them further in the future. That gets them the Keepers sympathy.

The Moroi government obviously isn't gonna side with the anti-Moroi faction, but I think they'd try to stay out of the conflict and not be dragged into the fighting for as long as possible. But they've come to depend on the Alchemists too much to keep them hidden, and they're now in chaos.

With the Alchemists weakened by a civil war they aren't really doing a great job of keeping up the masquerade, Moroi secrecy gets very precarious.

Now. While Alchemists claim to be very worried about human souls, absolutely no one in the VA universe seems that worried about regular humans' lives. They don't even know about the existence of Strigoi so they could protect themselves. And yes, there are humans who'd work with Strigoi. Strigoi seem to have zero issue finding those humans as is, they simply tell them about vampires themselves when they wanna get servants.

Now there's a vaccine that could help protect humans, and really reduce Strigoi's capacity to feed, but you have to actually apply them to humans. And more and more supernatural events are being sloppily covered up since the Alchemists are otherwise preoccupied.

I'm sure there are some valid reasons for the masquerade, and humans might not behave amazingly towards supernatural creatures, but leaving them completely helpless to this threat isn't very ethical, and certainly not when you have a vaccine that could help them.

And honestly, as cliche as that argument is in discussions of monster hunting, humans could potentially take the Strigoi out, we have some pretty amazing weapons. Or we could be massively incompetent about a problem that we are fully capable of solving. You know...

So the supernatural world gets revealed, and that makes the Alchemists pretty obsolete. Of course, although they have been weakened by the decade(s) of infighting, that doesn't mean they lose all of their resources and connections all at once, but it would be a huge blow their relevance.

They get splintered into a lot of different groups that can still cause trouble, but they're no longer the omnipresent shadow organization they used to be.

And if this whole process took about 15 years, Declan and his buddies would be neatly protagonist aged in time to deal with the huge upheaval and the new mess of problems brought on by the integration of the Moroi and human world. And he'd more capable of thinking about his own relationship to the spirit vaccine and making his own decisions.

So most of this post was written to be understood whether or not you read Silver Stars, but this final bit is more about what could directly follow. When it comes to the fic I was more worried about the characters and their feelings, and excuses for domestic fluff and hurt/confort. So here's the fic on AO3 and on Tumblr.

In the end of The Ruby Circle, there's indication that Zoe Sage and Stanton, with the incentive of Sydney's blackmail, will be trying to reform the Alchemists. I don't really think they're reformable, attempts to extinguish re-education would basically result in rebranding. @sydneysageivashkov has some lesbian!Zoe head that I think are pretty compatible with my headcanons for an Alchemist revolution, and what Zoe would be doing during that initial period.

I think it could take a few more years, 3 or 4, for Sydney to actually have to leave her home and go into hiding. Declan foes actually get a little bit of a normal school experience. I imagine this whole process going very slowly, as the situation gradually deteriorates. And the witches would now claim Sydney as one of their own, making it a bigger problem for the Alchemists to attack her directly, lest they make enemies of the whole magical community.

By the time Sydney has to go into hiding I imagine Zoe is gonna have to leave the Alchemists as well. The other reason why I chose Emma for the first fic, is that she was in re-education in part for her sister's actions, so it shows that the Alchemists wouldn't be above hurting Zoe for Sydney's actions.

Sydney has very important reasons to join the revolution, and in fact she might eventually not have a choice, but she knows that once she officially breaks her truce with the Alchemists her whole family and even her fellow re-education inmates that she got amnesty for.

I imagine Sydney, Adrian, Eddie and Declan could spend a while hiding in a ranch very out of the way that Chantal and Duncan got themselves. Insert Adrian joke about that escape plan where cute blonde girls had to wear cow girl outfits.

Duncan has been shown to be pretty hesitant to risk going against authority, and Chantal is even more psychologically messed up than Sydney and the rest of them. Sydney feels pretty awful about placing them in danger, but they're both very grateful to her for helping them escape. Also Chantal is a really badass witch, although a bit unstable, I'll eventually find something to do with that, revolution wise.

But Sydney and Adrian would eventually leave and get more active roles in the revolution. I would very much like it to be an actual collective movement and not one special girl bringing down the Alchemists by herself, but I think Sydney would have a pretty prominent role after everything she went through.

This is way too long, but I had fun with it, and if you got this far, thank you for reading 😀

#Rapha's Bloodlines Tag #sydney sage #adrian ivashkov #declan ivashkov #zoe sage #bloodlines series #bloodlines #Alchemist revolution #headcanons #sydrian

25 notes · View notes

heyovivi · 3 years

Text

ACOTAR 6? (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ACOSF)

Okay! I just finished A Court of Silver Flames and absolutely love Nesta’s journey and this is coming from a person who didn’t really like Nesta from the beginning. Her journey of healing and finding herself was beautiful and her journey with Cassian was heart-wrenching and sexy and I just loved it all! But anyways, more on that later, I have some predictions for the next book.

So I usually don’t go into anything without spoiling myself so before I even picked up ACOSF from a bookshelf at Target (don’t worry I was able to read both bonus chapters; meaning Azriel’s and the Feyre and Rhys’ chapters) I knew a little about ACOSF already. Now, ACOSF wasn’t deeply plotted and there wasn’t any world building like there was when we read the first three book--although it didn’t really matter to me I still enjoyed the book. ACOSF was all about Nesta and her journey and an insight to her thoughts and why she is the way she is and although I felt that at some points I hated Nesta I could still understand her frustrations and I could understand that she was deeply flawed as a character--which is fine.

Now, even if ACOSF didn’t have a huge plot there were some key elements that will probably be very important in the next book such as Koschei, the remaining Mortal Queens, the Band of Exiles, Azriel’s journey, and Elain’s journey. But one key thing I noticed was Eris. Now he didn’t appear that much in the book and if he did it was during moments where his presence was essential to the plot (such as being kidnapped by Queen Brialynn and Koschei), but in that last chapter he appeared in it seemed like there was more to the story, to his story specifically. I think that maybe we might be getting a book on Eris.

A lot of people say that ACOSF is reminiscent of Tower of Dawn from the Throne of Glass series, where instead of following Aelin in her quest to free her kingdom and stop Maeve, we instead venture into a Chaol-centered book where we kind of try to understand his point of view and character growth. So maybe, and this is just a theory or prediction, maybe we’ll get a similar thing with Eris.

From that one little conversation we get with Cassian and Eris, it appears that Eris is kind’ve jealous of the Night Court and it’s relationships with the other courts in Prythian. A lot of people have already pointed how much Eris could be a lot like Rhys in the manner that Eris wants the Autumn Court to be seen not as the fiery court of rage and misery, but instead wants to be a beacon for those who dwell there. And you do see some parallels between Rhys and Eris and their upbringing with their fathers being very strict figures in their lives but with Eris there was an emphasize of abuse somewhere along the line.

Now I’m not saying that Eris is getting a book or that his book even next, but I think that we have not heard the full story of what happened between both him and Mor, and I really want to know the entire story of what had happened in Eris’ life to make him seem like such a conniving person. But if I’m being honest I would much rather read a book about Eris’ efforts to lift the Autumn Court than a book about Mor--just my preference you don’t have to agree with me.

Now here are my runner ups for who could be the possible voice of ACOTAR 6.

Azriel

Elain

No, not Azriel and Elain, but Azriel or Elain. Now there were a lot of people saying that the book is either about Elain and Azriel, or Azriel and Gwyn, or Elain and Lucien--and I’m not going to shut down anyone’s theories but I’m going to share my own. Again, if you feel peeved about what sides or ships I support then stop reading when you get pissed because I can live with the fact that not everyone is going to agree with my theories.

First off, Azriel.

I’m going to be honest, from what I read on Tumblr mainly I thought Azriel’s role in ACOSF was going to be way bigger, but I still enjoyed his dry humor and presence when he was there. Though when it comes to Miss Sarah J Mass we have to pay attention to every little detail in her books and if you caught onto his distance from Mor during the Solstice party or his reluctance to hold baby Nyx because of his scarred hands then I think it’s pretty telling that the next book could be about Azriel and his journey with coming face to face with his trauma, his past, and maybe his unsteady relationship with the Illyrians; not to mention his five century one-sided love with Mor.

If you know me, or looked at any of my content, you should know that I am a hardcore Gwynriel shipper. I love Gwyn and fell in love with the ship almost immediately so much so that I’m embarrassed that I entertained the idea of shipping Azriel with Emerie or Clotho. I think that she might play a pivotal role in his journey to healing and that he might also play a large role in hers as well. Through his bonus chapter we can kind of see the sparks of something starting between them, I’m guessing it’s tied to theories that they are mates or to the theory that Gwyn could be a possibly lightsinger. All I know for sure right now is that Gwyn’s story is definitely not over with and I except see more of her in the future along with the other Valkyries as well.

Finally, Elain.

Now I don’t think the next book is about Elain but I do feel that out of all of the other characters her story is in the making? I’ve been told numerous times that Elain will be getting a book of her own, but we don’t know when and we don’t know what it is going to be about. Now, I’m not the hugest fan of Elain and it all goes back to her and Nesta just sitting around when Feyre was in the woods fighting for her life and there's as well. I know that she apologized and felt guilty afterwards but her excuse was “we gave up and she didn’t” just did not do it for me.

It was in this passage from A Court of Thorns and Roses, where my distaste for Elain blossomed:

The mercenary transferred the coins to my waiting palm, and I tucked them into my pocket, their weight as heavy as milestone. There was no possible chance that my sisters hadn’t spotted the money--no chance they weren’t already wondering how they might persuade me to give them some.

...I felt my sisters sweep closer, like vultures circling a carcass.

Like at least we knew Nesta was the “wolf” as she described herself. We knew she had a sharp-tongue and we knew she could be a bitch with her words. But Elain, she was described as innocent and nice, and yes when you paint her in a garden with flowers and frilly dresses she does just seem like some Cinderella-like character but after five books, especially after ACOSF my hate for Elain has just grown. Like after ACOWAR, I just thought she was boring--yes, she had a hand in killing the king of Hybern but that hype was kind’ve stolen away when Nesta ripped his head from his body.

Since then, we haven’t really, really got a full look through with Elain and a large part of that is because we haven’t gotten her point of view, like not even in A Court of Frost and Starlight. From what we know about her, canonically, no theories or anything, she likes to garden, she likes to cook, her friends are Cerridwen and Nuala, she doesn’t want to confront that bond she has with Lucien, and she has an attraction to Azriel. But beyond that we don’t know anything--there were things that I kept out even though they were mentioned in ACOSF but there is also a lot of mystery around the things she said and claimed to do--even Cassian questioned them but didn’t approach her about the topic.

I don’t think we have enough of a story to build up on Elain. For the most part I feel like her presence in ACOSF was mostly there to just piss Nesta off. Literally, in every scene she has with Nesta, she is pissing her off, setting her off, making her yell or scream, or making the silver flames ignite. And this is extremely out of character for Elain. Yes, we don’t get enough of her, but from what we can gather, Elain usually is not one to push buttons but I wonder why she did with Nesta.

Here are a few passages that I just found beguiling while reading Nesta’s interactions with Elain:

Elain stepped closer, brown eyes wide. Undoubtedly wholly convinced of her own innocence, her innate goodness. “It’s the truth. We did this because we love you, and we worry for you, and if Father were here--”

“Don’t ever mention him.” Nesta bared her teeth, but kept her voice low. “Never fucking mention him again.”

Mentioning their father? A very taboo subject for Nesta. And Elain stans like to argue that Elain is quiet and docile because she is an observer. She takes things in and she tucks them away in her memory, but if she’d paid so much attention then why would she mention their father to Nesta? Feyre noted Nesta’s relationship with their father in book one, so there is no way that Elain herself didn’t know about it.

Here is another line from their conversation I thought were very weird to read about and I’ll explain why:

Elain crossed her arms and said calmly, sadly, “Feyre warned me this might happen.”

Bullseye. Nesta doesn’t like to be talked about, to be judged. We learned that in ACOSF and again if Elain was this person who sees and pays attention she should’ve known this or caught on.

I think in this scene, Elain was purposely trying to set off Nesta.

Nesta cleared her throat. “Cassian said it might be good if I came.”

Elain’s eyes flickered. “Did Feyre pay you, like last year?”

“No,” shame washed over her.

Elain sighed, glancing over Nesta’s shoulder to the open doorway across the entry. The party within, only for their small inner circle. “Please don’t upset Feyre. It’s her birthday, first of all. And in her state--”

“Oh, fuck you,” Nesta snapped, and then choked.

Nesta was actually trying to get better at this point. She even risked going to a party despite not feeling welcomed just because Cassian told her it might be good for her to be surrounded by her family and for her not be alone on the holiday. You could even tell how by the way Nesta is keeping herself away she is still uncomfortable but the thing is she still showed up which is a sure sign she is improving.

I don’t know why Elain started talking about the year before or about upsetting Feyre--literally wanted to slap the bitch in this scene. Like I just want to know why Elain pressed so hard. Then afterwards she waved it off as if she hadn’t just said what she said and acted normally. I can not tell you how mad I was at this--like especially for a sensitive character like Nesta who is ALWAYS In her thoughts and always takes things to a deep level. Like what Elain said could’ve just broken a vital part of Nesta and caused her to relapse.

Anyways, I think Elain’s behavior in ACOSF could hint at the Evil Elain theory. Although I don’t think it’s going to come in the next book--it might build in the next book but at most I think Elain’s story will come to fruition in ACOTAR 7 or 8 and isn’t going to be about her journey or soul searching but maybe we’ll be getting the point of view of a villain. Like there were many mysterious hints dropped in ACOSF and the way I interpreted them is that Elain is planning something and if her behavior matches her actions, it’s something that could possibly affect her sisters.

Plus, you have to wonder how Brialynn and Koschei knew everything. They knew all the IC’s moves and all of Nesta’s moves...but how? A lot of the time when Nesta was given a mission by Rhys it was in the River House and we also know that Elain has been getting better at sneaking around without being detected so it’s not too farfetched that Elain could be the spy. You don’t have to agree with me but I think it’s a pretty solid theory as far as they go.

But do tell me your thoughts I would love to hear them. I’m sorry if I offended anyone in the end but we all have to just respect everyone’s opinion so no fights or slander, especially in my comment section.

#eris vanserra #azriel #elain archeron #gwynriel #gwyneth berdara #nesta archeron #evil elain #cassian #a court of silver flames #a court of thorns and roses #acosf spoilers #acosf #acotar6

68 notes · View notes