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hanasnx · 2 years

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❝ talk huttese to me. ❞

── anakin skywalker x reader

MINORS DNI 18+ WORD COUNT: 6k SUMMARY: intent to get his mind off of his hard work, you ask to learn more about anakin’s native language: huttese. when he talks dirty to you in it, you can’t help but beg for more. and he gets off to the fact you have no idea what kind of depraved things he’s saying to you while he pleasures you. NOTES: i used the huttese dictionary linked here just a little, the rest i made up bcos hayden made up a bunch of shit when he spoke it in episode 2 cos george told him to so i’m rolling with that energy | if clarification is needed, there is at one point in the fic that anakin’s dialogue is already translated for you (the actual person reading this), thats cos i didnt want to keep coming up with huttese and the reader asking anakin what it meant so you (the actual person reading this) could understand what he was saying. WARNINGS: explicit sex | established (fwb?) relationship | f!reader | dom!anakin | rough sex | degradation | unprotected sex | no explicit ask for consent— things implied | unclean hands touching sensitive areas (always make sure to have clean hands) | oral (m receiving): face fuck | oral (f receiving) | vaginal fingering | anal fingering | breath play | mentions of slave (both sexually and unsexually) but absolutely no ‘slave kink’ it’s used as a figure of speech sexually | heavily focused on dirty talk | size difference | tit smack | ass smack | squirting | mention of breeding kink | mild dacryphilia ── DISCLAIMER: i want to preface this by saying that i do not think foreign languages are barbaric or that just because it’s not english it’s barbaric. huttese is the language of smugglers, slave traders, sleazy businessmen, and started out as a lingua franca. anakin knows it as the language he used when he himself was a slave, spoken by the people that bought him and his mom, and often criticizes it because of his personal vendetta. they do not reflect my opinion of languages other than english

“Here,” Obi-Wan handed you a ceramic cup of warm broth, “this is what we have. You said he hasn’t eaten?” There was a hint of concern in the Jedi’s voice, and you nodded.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” you reassured, “He’s busy, you know how it is.” The temperature from the broth spread through the material to your hands, warming them. You offered Obi-Wan a small smile, hoping to ease his worry.

“Unfortunately, in this case, we depend on him.” Obi-Wan replied, fists resting on his hips. “Without his help, I’m afraid we’re stranded.”

“I know,” you said softly, taking your leave. The pressure on ANAKIN SKYWALKER was necessary, but you could tell it was taking a toll on him, neglecting himself in order to stay focused on his task.

When you entered the hangar of the base, you found him right where you’d left him. Underneath the vessel, consumed by his work. A loud clanging sounded, a curse in a foreign language, and your eyes followed the wrench tossed out in anger. It clattered to a halt, and you set the broth down on a drawer stack. The noise revealed your presence to him.

You saw his hand reach out and point to a tool, speaking again in words you couldn’t understand. Unable to get past what he tried to say to you, you idled. “What was that?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, sliding out from under the shuttle on the mechanic creeper to give you a sheepish look as he grabs the tool he gestured to. “Forgot.” He wagged the tool at you when he raised his hand apologetically, excusing himself back under the ship. You crossed your arms and leaned your shoulder up against the vessel, eyeing his propped up legs. You didn’t know what to mention. Ask about what he’d said, or audibly observe how cute he was shirtless, streaked in grease and shining with sweat. A curl tugged at your lips.

“No, what was that?”

You heard him sigh, resuming his activity on the underbelly. “Huttese,”

“‘Huttese’?” you parrot, the tone awkward. The word felt foreign on your tongue. You were unaware he knew it. “Where’d you learn that?”

“Tattooine. I didn’t tell you?” Another sudden noise, followed by another one of his long winded, indecipherable curses from whatever pain was inflicted on him. You could tell he was rushing himself, ignoring safety procedures in order to get this hunk of junk running again. Obi Wan was right, everyone was depending on him as the person with the most experience in ship repair. However, that didn’t leave him a lot of room for error, or for proper rest. You wanted to get his mind off of it for a while. Distract him so he could come back to this with a clearer head.

“Do you know just the swear words?”

“No. Fluent.” he spoke through gritted teeth.

You thought of a joke and scoffed to yourself. “Do you know any dirty talk?“

There was a quiet moment, save for the din of metal. “It’s a very… coarse language.” He slid out to meet your gaze, breathing hard from the heat of his work. Generously, you viewed the expanse of his chest rising and falling. “It would just sound insulting.”

Carried away with how hot he looked, you bit your lip. “Is that a bad thing?”

He flashed a downturn of his lips, blowing air through his nose, “Not necessarily.” He snatched a new tool, and returned to the underside. “Just letting you know it wouldn’t sound pretty.”

“So?”

You heard him scoff.

“You don’t wanna hear what I have to say about you in Huttese, trust me,”

For some reason, you really wanted to find out even though it was a joke at first. Absentmindedly you rubbed your thighs together at the thought of him degrading you in a filthy tongue. It was nothing new to you, Anakin has always been obscene when it came to dirty talk. How would this be any different? “How come?”

“It’s that it’s… it’s cacophonous. Double voweled. The language of barters, slave traders, sleazebags. To associate it with you- seems wrong.” You wondered if he felt that way about it because of the unfortunate circumstances of his childhood. This was going in the opposite direction you wanted it to. “It’s not beautiful. It’s barbaric. Blunt. It would sound worse directly translating it to Basic.” You listened thoughtfully as he talked, and your eyes drifted over his tool table to the drawer stack.

“Oh!”

“What?”

“I forgot to tell you, I brought you something. It’ll keep up your strength,” Carefully, you retrieved the mug as he shimmied out.

“Something for me?” He raised his brows and he sat up at the recognition you were about to hand it to him. He reached for it, brought it to his lips to sip it. It was flavorless. “Appreciate it.” He decided it was best to ration it, leaving it at his side as he settled against the shuttle, drawing his knees to his chest to rest his arms on them. They were swollen, thick, and veined. Even his metal arm that began at one of his elbows was attractive to you. Reminiscing the many times he’s used it to bring you to your knees. What was it about him that made you want to lick the sweat off him? You sat down next to him, mimicking his position. “What were we talking about?”

“Huttese,”

“Right,”

“Teach me something,” you flirted.

“Teach you something?” A hint of an amused smile ghosted his handsome features.

“Yeah, I’d like to know. Something easy.”

“Something easy…” he parroted thoughtfully, bowing his head as he contemplated. “Kark’s an easy one.” He straightened only to incline towards you.

“Kark?”

“Kark.” he nodded. There was a stark difference between how you two pronounced it.

“What’s that mean?”

“Fuck,”

“No, I mean like a sentence—!” Anakin ignored your true request, continuing on, childish grin growing.

“—You want a sentence? A sentence- Okay, kark. As in, I’d really like to kark you—“

“—Ani,” you scolded playfully, nudging his shoulder with your hand. He snickered.

“Really, it’s only an expletive, it’s not used like we use ‘fuck’.” The way he gazed at you made you feel warm. “There’s a different word for that.”

A pensive moment passed before you piped up, “So, show me something else.”

“You still want to hear dirty talk?” he asked with a knowing glint in his eye. Since you thought it might be funny, you obliged.

“Sure,”

“Let me warn you one more time, I don’t think you really wanna hear it—“

“I do! I do. Seriously, satisfy my curiosity.”

Anakin hummed. “If it’s for curiosity then…” His head bumped the shuttle as he searched the ceiling for answers, “Let me think,”

You waited, toying with the ends of your hair. You eyed the way his curls propped up against the hull where the back of his head rested. You had half a mind to reach over and brush through his locks with your fingers when he interrupted your admiration.

“Okay, I got it,” To occupy his hands, he snatched up a rag hanging from his pocket and started wiping the grease from his fingers, and you noted the length of them. “Uh,” It’d been a while for him since he’d had to piece together a sentence like this. He tossed the rag. “Naga bu eechu,” The words were stiff on his tongue as he was figuring out how to arrange it, until he relaxed, letting the next roll off his tongue more smoothly, “et kah to. Peenta kay rada.” He glanced at you to gauge your reaction, but you looked at him expecting him to continue.

“What does that mean?” you asked with wide, intrigued eyes. There was something inherently masculine about the way he spoke this language. His voice got deeper, the sharp consonants were punctuated with a twitch of his nose as if he was stifling the habit to sneer his lips.

Suddenly bashful, he raised his brows with a single nod. “Directly translated?” He was apprehensive to reveal it to you. In truth, he was planning on saying that and nothing else, leaving it to your imagination. He adjusted in his seat, lifting himself up to face you more and you did the same. Resting his chin on his hand, he ran his fingers over his jawline to fidget as he stared at the ceiling in thought.

He met your gaze, and told you the meaning like you asked for. “I want to put my full fist inside you. Split you open. And sit down to eat.” There was no romance in his tone. It was matter of factly, pressing his lips into a thin line.

You inhaled, mouth opening to say something. You furrowed your eyebrows, “You’re right. It is a little… violent.”

“It lacks a certain decorum, yes.” Anakin nodded.

“Would it be better if I spoke Huttese too?” So you could better understand what he was saying, instead of recovering the words in Basic.

“Not really, no.” As he’d said, it was harsh at every angle. It wasn’t known for being frivolous, it was known for getting a point across. It was impatient. You were getting a little impatient hearing it come from Anakin’s mouth. Especially talk so foul.

Maybe it was the fact he was bare chested, or the personification he took on when he spoke in Huttese, but you found yourself chewing your thumb, and asking for more. “What else would you say about me?” Anakin was taking another sip of his broth when he heard your question, and pivoted his surprised attention in your direction.

“You wanna know more?”

Soundlessly, you shook your head yes.

Anakin chewed his lip as he held your eye contact, having to tear away in order to keep from getting ahead of himself. Answers were already piling up in his mind, “Naga seeta pon nuda— reeta seep.” This time around, you noticed his confidence had heightened, and it only added to your intrigue. “Nudaonnud to soot. Scrit ah seepa fin teese.” That same expectant expression adorned your features, inviting him to clarify for you. He explained, “I want you sticky— slippery with fluids.” You swallowed hard. “You’d look so fuckable with my hot cum glazed on your face. Strung up in your hair and dribbling down your tits.” Biting your lips, your gaze locked with his, as if waiting for the other to make the next move. Anakin stood by his opinion of how ugly this language was, however he saw how your body betrayed you before and after he translated for you. In turn, it aroused him too. The fact you were letting him talk to you like this had his pants tightening.

“Um,” You gained your footing. A shaky breath. “What else?” you said, barely above a whisper.

The turn of events had Anakin adjusting his position, leaning back onto his hands, folding his legs in front of him. You took note of how his stance was more open to you, gaze trailed down his shoulders and scars on his chest, his abdomen and how it curled with his relax, a bulge at his crotch. As if trained, your mouth watered. To be safe, two of Anakin’s fingers raised from the flat of the floor, forcing the door you had come through earlier to be locked from his seat. When he held your gaze through his brows, adopting that intense look you liked so much, he spoke his next words in Huttese, “Pump you so full, you’ll sweat my cum,” You had no idea what he’d said, and you didn’t care at all to ask. It was the mystery of it now, and how he spat the words at you, you knew they had to be nasty.

The two of you exchanged this heated look again, your breath having quickened. Anakin was the first to break it, getting up to stand with a sigh. He offered you his hand in order to aid you in standing too, however you had other plans. “I should get back to work,” he said, a hint of disappointment in his tone. You moistened your lips, a fire igniting in the pit of your stomach, pooling in between your legs when you fixed yourself on your knees. A questioning expression flashed on Anakin’s features, promptly answered when you pushed his hand out of the way, undoing the waistband of his pants to tug just his length free. In an instant, you’d guided him to your mouth, letting it harden fully in the warmth inside. “(y/n)—! (y/n)…” You knew if he wanted this to stop, he’d say it or he’d push you off. Instead, he was rolling his hips into your mouth, throwing his head back. His metal hand you’d discarded moved to cradle the back of your head. He knew it’d pay off to lock the doors.

A sinful sound reverberated from low in his throat, which only served to further arouse you, wet with anticipation. It allowed you to take him farther in, and he flexed his arm, bringing you to meet his thrusts. A steady pace was set, until you started dragging your tongue along the underside of his shaft. His voice was so addicting, his moan made your eyes roll into the back of your head. You braced yourself with your hands on his thighs.

“Filthy little mouth-pussy, made for me.” he purred in Huttese, “Wonder how many other guys would kill for a whore like you slobbering all over their cock like this.” You keened, even though you couldn’t understand it. When his cock twitched, you could tell he liked that you didn’t know what he was saying.

It gave him permission to say anything he wanted to you.

Your jaw went slack, throat relaxed enough to take him, but he desired more from you. By asking to learn about this side of him you had, unknowingly, unlocked something buried in him. His deep rooted hatred for where he came from, was now being worked out with the splendid efforts of your mouth. Rewriting bad memories into an entirely new one. Huttese was vile in his experience, and you welcomed it instead of shying away. However, this side of him was more volatile. The pain that he repressed manifested itself into aggression, and you were more than happy to receive every last drop.

His hand at the back of your head tangled in your hair with a pleasant sting, and when you emitted a noise in surprise, it was strained by his cock shoving deeper inside you. Wide, doe eyes gazed up at him, granting him passage, letting him take the complete lead using you. You hollowed out your cheeks when you could, swirling around him with your tongue when you couldn’t. He whined, and he saw you stifle a smirk. “Choke, whore. Choke,” he cooed at you in the language, increasing his thrusts until you squeezed your eyes shut, gagging on his length, dizzy with excitement. He sensed you liked this, and it thrilled him to no end. His free hand moved from being limp behind him, coming up to pat the back of your head twice forcing himself in minutely. You gagged because of it, and you pushed off of him in order to turn your head to the side, afraid you were about to hurl, drooling on the floor as you hung your head.

You coughed, and he kicked the mechanic creeper out of his way with a clatter. Once able, he dragged you over by his fistful of your hair. The pain, combined with the strength it required for him to move you over made you whimper, faithfully following him keeping your knees underneath you. He pinned your head to the hull of the ship he’d been working on, his flesh hand over your forehead, as his metal cupped the underside of your jaw, diving his cock back in between your lips. You gasped, strangled by his substantial girth bullying its way into you. You couldn’t bob your head anymore, and he fucked your throat exactly how he deemed fit for a slut like you. “You wanted this so bad. Now here it is, and you’re afraid of it. Go on, make me proud.” That wolfish grin on his face was so fucking hot, his scar along his eye, gaze trained on you as you were forced to swallow his every inch. It didn’t matter you couldn’t speak Huttese, you loved hearing him talk to you in it. Helpless to his desires, you held your breath everytime he bottomed out, so big you knew your throat would be sore in the morning. Nearing his finish, he had half a mind to paint your face with his cum like he’d promised earlier. Instead, he got a better idea. When you instinctively tried to back up, halted in your tracks by the hull against your head, he reassured you, his flesh hand stroking over your hair soothingly, “A little longer, I’m almost there,”

You recognized his tone to be surprisingly tender compared to how he’d been acting up to this point. Like he was begging you to keep playing this game with him. You obliged, having found him captivating as this authoritative figure. To be privy to the darker side of Anakin Skywalker was a privilege, and to be on the receiving end was simply an opportunity you’d never pass up.

Hips stuttering, and a long string of Huttese curses, you knew he was close. You felt hot spurts of cum on your tongue as he slowed to a halt, and when he pulled out, strings of it connected you to his cock. “Oh, mwa con schutta,” he cooed with fake sympathy, puckering his lips in a pout. Oh, my poor slut, he’d said. His finish was pooled in your panting open mouth, and your defiant gaze told him you were about to spit it to spite him for his behavior. You broke eye contact, moving to get rid of his milky load. In an instant, he arrested you. His hands came to cup over your mouth and pinch your nose. Unable to breathe and at his mercy, your futile attempts to free yourself went ignored. He laughed as you clawed at his fingers, knowing if you needed an out you’d tap him twice. You were being difficult on purpose, because you liked it.

You knew what he wanted from you, and his visceral wicked expression only confirmed your thoughts. You were strained, you’d never win fighting against his grip but you tried anyway. At your limit, you gulped, swallowing him. Released, you gasped for air. “You mad at me?” he asked grinning wolfishly down at you, but since you didn’t know Huttese, you simply glared at him, a curl at the corner of your lips betraying how turned on you really were from his actions.

He fisted your shirt in his hand, bringing you to stand so he could direct you— more like drag you over to his tool table, and yanked your clothes off. “I want to see those fat tits,” he demanded in Huttese. You moaned from his sneer, aching for him to reintroduce himself to your dripping sex.

The surface of the table was in disarray, littered with stray items like the ship’s original blueprints and apparatus. In one fell swoop, his metal arm swept the contents to the floor, “What are you—?” Without answering you, he circled you over, holding your waist to pick you up onto the table. Once again his show of strength jellied your legs, and you could anticipate what he was about to do to you.

Now tucked against your pussy, he pinned your back to the table with his metal palm gripping your breast tightly, and you keened when he pinched your nipple. You could see the marks of oil where his touch had been, decorating your waist. He admired you like this, streaked in grease like he was. Metal hand moved to hook your leg over his shoulder, the hand he’d wiped with his rag started circling your entrance soothingly, dulling that ache. “Dire schutta,” There was that word again. Picking your head up in order to meet his heated gaze, darkened by lust, you questioned breathlessly.

“What’s that mean?” Your broken voice indicated how desperate you were for him.

“Dirty slut,” he replied in Basic without skipping a beat, pressing an open mouthed kiss against the side of your knee, bowing his head to do the same to your thigh. “Letting me get you all filthy, filthy like I am.” his soft lips spoke against your flesh, pleased to reaffirm in his twisted mind that you and him were the same. You reached out to touch him— the words being so tame compared to all the shit he’s been talking to you in his native tongue, unbeknownst to you— but you were instantly weakened when his fingers entered you. So sensitive, your back arched off the surface, head falling back, and a crooked grin adorned his features, staring at your every shift through his brows as he curled his thick digits inside of you. He knew that you didn’t want to waste time, and he stroked the plush of your thigh with his metal hand to caress you as you cried out for him. The tips of his fingers petting that sweet spot inside of you that had you writhing.

“Anakin!”

He bit your thigh hard at the sound of his name sinfully spilling from your perfect lips. You yelped and looked at him. Your pleading countenance only served to fan the flame in his chest, cock hardening to stand at attention again, ready and waiting to return to where it belonged. He wished to abuse you, in every way you could desire. When he pulled his fingers from you, he answered your questioning expression, “Oh, I’m not anywhere near done with you, schutta,” The name made you whimper now that you knew what he meant by it. Adjusting you as if you were light as a feather, he shouldered your other leg, and wrapped his arms around in order to rub at your clit with one of his hands. Strangling the soft skin of your thighs between his massive biceps, he dipped his head down to start lapping at your wet sex with his hot tongue, devouring all you’ve produced.

You cursed, the pad of his thumb gently circling your pink bud, swelling it with stimulation as his tongue continued to work on you, alternating between flattening against you and diving into your hole. Finally, putting that disgusting mouth to good use after all he’s spat at you. He seemed to sense that thought, digging himself further into you, making out with your weeping cunt as his nose started to brush your clit. You wished you could think of something to say to him on your own, taunt him with malicious talk as he’s done to you, but if this man had one gift, it was how he got you speechless when he ate you out. To egg him on, your hands played with your chest for him, giving him a show as you squeezed and pinched. As if entertaining a god, he hummed in approval, watching from over your mound. You rolled your nipples in your nimble fingers until they were red with sting. His hand came from curling around your thigh to your chest, and you offered one to him by releasing it from your hold. Experimentally, he slapped the flesh, and it bobbed from the strike.

Nobody’s ever smacked your tit before.

Pleasantly surprised, he told you, “That got you so wet,” knowing you couldn’t understand him as he smiled against you. There was no part of you that could deny you wanted him to talk to you in that vile language forever simply because of this personality shift he took on speaking it. Electricity shot through you. His lips placed open mouthed kisses over your spread folds before sucking your bud into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it. You cried out, legs shaking involuntarily, and when he added his fingers to your hole, filling it to the brim and nearly sending you over the edge. Immediately, he sought out the button inside of you that had you writhing underneath him. You and him both knew what this led to, and on instinct your hand came to his wrist to brace yourself. In response, he released your clit with a pop, straightened, and spat on your pussy to lubricate it as he fucked you with his fingers. Everything inside you was crying out as you screamed, unable to keep your eyes open, features twisted in pleasure from how he never faltered hitting that spongy spot. He didn’t need to be force sensitive to tell where you were headed, he’s done this to you before.

“Ani— I’m gonna— Oh… oh,”

He exhaled, falling victim to you on the brink of making a terrible mess. His thumb returned to circle your clit. “Yes, yes, let me see you squirt, baby,” In this moment more than any other he wished you could understand his Huttese. However, you didn’t need to in order to do as exactly as he demanded. You released in bursts, and he kept up his pace, watching you squirt all over his arm and chest. “Oh, fuck yes, schutta, fuck yes,” You practically cried as took all you could provide, “Give it all to me,” Why did Huttese have to bring out such a cruel side of him? Why was it working so well on you?

He was no longer glistening with sweat, but a mix of your fluids as well. Slowing to a stop as you went slack from your intense finish, he didn’t hesitate to suck off whatever you left on his fingers. You had drenched yourself, the table underneath you, and by the looks of it his cock and pants too. “Fucking love it when you do that. Maker, I can’t get over the smell of it.” You whimpered even though his words were indecipherable. To emphasize just how much of a mess you made, he drew his soaked hand across your thighs and up your abdomen, and you shivered. His parted lips were downright sinful, plump and begging to be nibbled on by your teeth. Your gazes met, hazy with desire as he fisted his cock, nudging it lazily against your overstimulated entrance.

“Please,” you whined for him to keep fucking you, and he scoffed. There was no please in the Huttese language.

“Nothing but a hole,”

Anakin Skywalker was a very large man, in every sense of the word. By the way he acted, you’d think he forgot that he takes up the most space in a room. Taller than many, broad shouldered, angular muscles cut from the diamond of battle. The Great General Skywalker reminded you how big he really was every time he lead his troops, engaged in hand to hand combat with literal droids, and fucked you. Not necessarily in that order.

He brutalized you. Your struggling cunt could barely swallow all of him. It was no secret the General had a bruising cock, but you were not one to back down from the challenge. “Fuck, Ani, fuck,”

Sinking into you over and over again as he lifted your legs for you with his palm fixed on the underside of your thighs. He could feel the tremors passing through them. While you begged, he merely watched your pussy consume his every inch. “Quiet. Let me enjoy this,” Anakin revelled in his ability to say whatever he wanted to you without fear, feeling you suck him in with every foul word like the greedy bitch you were. When he’d had enough, he pushed your thighs up against the sides of your chest, pressing your flesh together in the most beautiful way as he fucked into you, increasing his thrusts. You scrambled for purchase on the table but there was none as his purple tip kissed your cervix repeatedly. The mating press was by far one of his favorite positions to put you in, one of the reasons being because of the implication of its name. It was a common fantasy for Anakin to revisit how much he wanted to fill you up with his seed until an heir to the Skywalker name was sired. However, he’d much rather you be able to hear that kind of talk. That’ll be for next time.

Finally, your fingers found the edge of the table to grip, still slick with your squirt as he loomed over you, bouncing you from every roll of his hips. You delighted in the way his abdomen curled into you. “Harder, fuck me harder,” you told him, having adjusted to his substantial size. “Keep talking to me,”

Anakin exhaled the breath he was holding, “I should ravage your insides for speaking to me like that,” You keened at him for listening to you, and he did as you’d requested, desperate to see you weep for mercy. “Schutta,” Your voice grew in volume, unintelligible noises spilling from your open mouth as he fucked you, the tool table creaking underneath your combined weights. “Schutta,” he whispered again, focusing entirely on how you were reacting to everything he was doing. “Not even good enough to be my fuck toy,” Oh, that one he longed for you to understand, knowing how you’d double over from the shock of pleasure that would course through you from the degradation. “Lucky I’m feeling generous today.” He groaned as he reangled his hips, making you scream. Unfortunately, a little slut like you couldn’t understand his native tongue, and to silence you he shoved the L-shape of his flesh hand into your mouth. You bit down on the webbing, grateful to focus on something else.

Your wet heat was squeezing him so good, the momentary feeling caused a lapse in judgement, speaking without thinking it through, without correlating what it meant to him. “I’m slave to you, I’m slave to this hole squeezing me so perfectly, so cozy, so good, eager to please me, eager to serve.” Even if anything he’d been saying was in Basic, you were too far gone to hear it.

A devious idea formed in his head, and his metal hand came over to your belly, pressing down so not only was that new angle rearranging your insides, but that spot was met by his thrusts quicker. “Wait, if you do that again, I can’t help it—“ you had begun to warn speaking over his hand, your small fingers splaying against his hot chest as he merely grinned down at you with sick delight, curls falling in front of his eyes.

“If you don’t squirt all over my cock, so help me Maker—“ It’s as if your body responded naturally to him, once again spraying it’s surroundings with the full force of your release, running down the front of his pants and leaking to the floor from where your bodies conjoined. He laughed at you. Becoming shy, you turned your reddening face away from him. “What are you getting shy for, whore? All you’re good for’s a decent fuck. Way to make it worthwhile.” Your velvety walls fluttered around him because you could tell whatever he’d said was horrible. His hand moved out of your mouth when it pinched your cheeks, forcing you to look at him. There they were, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. Had to be from your release, otherwise you’d be telling him to stop. He dipped down, poking out his tongue to collect the salty tear on the tip. The act caused you to connect your lips with his, and he mumbled in surprise, swallowing your moans when he parted your lips with his, exploring you with his tongue. His metal hand slipped out from in between the two of you, swiftly smacking the fat of your ass cheek as he kept moving inside of you. You yelped against his mouth. When he broke the kiss, a string of saliva attached the two of you, panting in unison as he felt you quiver underneath him. Perhaps it was time to put your poor legs to work.

Your back having arched, made the perfect space to slot his arm in, wrapping around your waist while his other repositioned your legs off his shoulders, but kept a knee pinned to his hip. He unsheathed, and your poor pussy instantly felt empty as he picked you up off the table and setting you down, spinning you around and planting your hands flat on the table so your heart shaped ass was presented to him. “I’ll never get tired of this,” he confessed in awe, stooping to drag the flat of his hand over your sex, making you jump from the sensitivity. Once he gathered enough slick to lubricate his cock with, he reentered you, and the shock of it caused you to fall forward, eyes rolling into the back of your head. It pleased him greatly. He sucked on his damp fingers as he pistoned in you. The coil in your belly was wound tight, and he was well aware of it.

His hips snapped against the soft flesh off your ass and his metal hand tangled into your hair, using it like a leash to yank you back onto his cock faster. It made you arch, curses falling from your lips in a cant along with his name. Satisfied his fingers were properly lubricated, they traveled from his mouth to your rim, circling it curiously. You shied away from the feeling at first, but relaxed into it once you realized what was going on. That’s my girl, he thought. Carefully, he dipped his fingers inside, plunging into your asshole as he fucked your pussy with his cock. It added a new height of pleasure to you, and you clenched your silky walls around him instinctually. He explored the inside of you with his digits, before moving them in and out. He heard your breath hitch, “You feel about ready to make a mess all over me again. I don’t care what hole it comes out of, you’ll clean me up.”

“Can I… fuck- Can I please cum? Baby, please,” you strained, a lump in your throat.

“What are you asking me for? You afraid of what I’ll do to you if you don’t obey me?” he teased, a sinister undertone to his voice that made you struggle to nod your head. “Go ahead then, if you’re so close.” he spoke to you like it didn’t matter, knowing it only added to your enjoyment. Your orgasm shooting through you without a second to waste. You called out his name, squeezing your eyes shut when your vision turned white. You rode it out with him, thinking he might release with you like you two usually do with his help of the force. Not this time it seemed.

“Aren’t you gonna cum too? C’mon, Anakin,” you whined, wiggling your hips as best you can for him. He leaned over you, bicep flexing with his hand still in your hair.

“Do you really deserve my cum?” You couldn’t find him anything but attractive like this, bullying you while he ravaged your insides. “I should cum in a rag and gag you with it instead of letting you feel me finish inside this tight cunt.” You moaned involuntarily, his movements more erratic as he neared his edge. After this you were going to learn Huttese if it was the last thing you did.

Moans burst out of him as he spilled himself inside of you, bending you over further when his muscle tensed, shoving your cheek against the cold surface of the table still wet from your squirt. He fucked his seed into you as he worked himself through his own orgasm, using your abused pussy to do it.

Only once he’d stilled, did you move. He took the hint, removing himself from you, and you felt your combined essences drip down your legs. Exhausted, he lazily kissed up your back for a start to his apologies. “Let me grab something for you,” You leaned against the table, waiting for him to return with a clean rag. As he wiped you down, you chuckled breathlessly.

“What?” he asked, amused at your reaction.

“You wanna tell me some of the things you said to me?” You stared him down with a raised brow, intent to learn whatever depraved things this deranged man had said to you to get himself off.

He stifled a smile, hanging his head in shame briefly. “Maybe some other time.”

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laora-ryn · 3 months

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so I have a Magnus Protocol theory. it's not an airtight theory, but I think it holds enough water that I feel confident posting this today now that ep 21 is live

I think [ERROR] is Jonathan Sims, The Archivist. or what's become of him. or what's left of him

The short version:

Tape recorders spontaneously appear around [ERROR] and their victims

People are compelled to start reciting statements. We have an n of 3 total, but an n of 1 (of 3) where the statement and [ERROR] are directly linked

They were trapped in a water-logged space beneath the Archivist's office of the Magnus Institute, before Sam accidentally let them out

They seem to have a vested interest in protecting Gwen "Jon Sims' closest archetype in Protocol" Bouchard

The long version is under the cut because hooooo boy did it get long

I'll start with the obvious question. "[ERROR] is credited as voiced by Beth Eyre! we do hear their voice in Breaking Ground, and it doesn't sound like Jon!"

Answer 1: it would be extremely way too obvious if Jonny voiced this character, if they didn't want people to make the connection immediately

Answer 2: I doubt what [ERROR] sounds like right now is going to matter too much in the long run, if it isn't meant to, because it sounds like they're probably some kind of ghost/apparition, and their appearances are so heavily distorted audio-wise that I just. don't really trust them myself, tbh?

But it probably would be silly to forget that Beth Eyre did appear in TMA, exactly once. She voiced the lady who witnessed the attempted Flesh ritual and came to give a statement to Gertrude about it. As far as I can tell, that lady didn't meet Jon at all. I feel like it's probably premature to say this is a simple case of "reusing the VA because we like them," but I don't think it's completely out of the question

so to the matter of [ERROR] themselves, the only physical description we get of them is "manky old git," courtesy of Ink5oul. They seem like the type to think anyone over 30 is "old," so take that with a grain of salt lol

The in-scene descriptors we get of [ERROR] are as follows:

Episode 10:

The water is gently disturbed below. Then there is a thud on the hidden wooden trapdoor and the rattle of a padlock.

There is the distinct sound of a key being dragged across wood, then being blindly fumbled in a lock which finally clicks.

The trap door opens, the lock falling away and [ERROR] emerges and takes a shuddering breath..

Episode 21:

A Figure emerges, shrouded in a cloak of whispers.

The Figure continues to emerge, a nightmarish specter of an older world, slowly enveloping Ink5oul’s brash bravado.

Ink5oul reluctantly releases GWEN. She sprints away still gabbling as she flees.

The Figure does not move.

Beat. The Figure turns to Ink5oul.

The Figure breathes deeply, a strange and disconcerting sound, enveloped in pained whispers.

The Figure recedes.

Voice lines from episode 21:

"MINE"

"ALL OF THEM, MINE"

"THERE IS MORE"

"NO. NOT HERE. ELSEWHERE..."

So here's what I'm taking away from this list:

[ERROR] is at least in some way corporeal, in that they can interact with the physical world

They seem to do a lot of breathing. it is unpleasant to listen to

They appear to be followed around by whispers? I'm taking the transcripts' word on that one, because my hearing is crap and I can't hear the sound effect. But I'm including it because it might be relevant

They have either a powerful enough presence/aura, or did something visibly that we didn't hear, enough to make Ink5oul back down. Ink5oul, who three minutes ago cut off a man's arm because he thought about getting in their way. Ink5oul, who definitely was Not going to let Gwen go without a fight. Ink5oul, a powerful new avatar, backed down after barely a fight at all

"a nightmarish spectre of an older world" has terrifying connotations I am not yet ready to tackle!

So... to go through my points from earlier I guess aha:

THE TAPE RECORDERS

We've seen tape recorders pop up 3 times so far:

episode 10 in the Archivist's office

episode 15 when Alice encounters the drowning woman

episode 21 when Gwen is cornered by Ink5oul

Two of these, [ERROR] shows up directly. In episode 15, we have no [ERROR] that we can see, but we DO see someone who is very likely one of [ERROR'S] victims? after-effects? which leads into:

THE COMPELLED STATEMENTS

We've heard of 3 (4, ish) compelled statements so far:

episode 15, the drowning woman

episode 18, the woman who started speaking on the autopsy table

(arguably) episode 20, where Ink5oul gives a monologue that sounds Very Much Like a statement. However, the mechanism of how this happened is still unclear

episode 21, Gwen spontaneously starts giving a statement relatively coherently when she's been hysterical - immediately after Ink5oul's tattoo gun touched her skin, and literally three seconds before [ERROR] shows up and lays claim to her

Two of these are recorded on tape recorders, as above. One of them (Ink5oul's) is recorded on Gwen's phone.

Episode 18, according to the coroner's report, was transcribed longhand by the doctor while the victim was speaking. Presumably, they eventually loaded it into her chart, where it was picked up by Freddy. However, it feels significant to me that the initial recording of the statement was done in a non-digital way

THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE

Does this even need to be a section tbh? lol

I would like to point out some oddities from episode 10 that may or may not be relevant to [ERROR]:

Alice and RedCanary both specifically call out a weird floor carving in the atrium, that somehow survived the fire

The key to the trapdoor was at the bottom of a filing cabinet?

The LOCK on the trapdoor, which appears to have been keeping [ERROR] trapped, was on the UNDERSIDE of the trapdoor??

THE TIES TO GWEN

Please consider Gwen Bouchard for a moment.

Gwen is a young employee of the OIAR who's worked there for four-ish years. She's recently been promoted.

She's finding out very quickly that she's in over her head with this job, but doesn't feel able to ask her coworkers for help.

She's rash, and has a short temper, and has exacting standards, and doesn't think very highly of her coworkers. She's an ass, but she's not a bad person - when she realizes that something she did caused other people to suffer, she was genuinely horrified.

Her boss is deliberately obtuse and unhelpful. Her boss is deliberately sending her into dangerous situations without all the facts or even any information at all, making her go face to face with monsters with the power to seriously harm or even kill her.

All this, while she barely has any concept that the monsters she's been reading about are very real and very dangerous. She has, just moments ago, been visibly marked by a monster who's been stalking her with a stated intention to cause permanent, even fatal, injury

EDITED TO ADD: Gwen had a childhood encounter with something presumably supernatural. Something involving a door that shouldn't have been opened

It feels very, very in-character for Jon Sims, or what's left of him, or an Archivist that has any scrap of Jon Sims left in them, to see her and see her trajectory, and say "no, absolutely not." Jon Sims, who - last time we saw him - said "I'd rather kill our doomed world myself than make anyone in another hypothetical reality go through what I have."

"[She's] mine - all of them, mine." Gwen Bouchard, a young member of an office with a job she can't even begin to understand. Her coworkers: Alice Dyer, a friendly, sarcastic woman with a cheerful front and a younger brother she adores. Sam Khalid, a man far too curious for his own good, who will follow a lead into danger if it means he might get some goddamn answers. Colin Becher, a man who's starting to understand what they've been wrapped up in, and who is quickly letting it consume him. And Celia Ripley, a woman [ERROR] may or may remember or recognize from the last time they were anything approaching human

Jon, or what's left of him, or what he's become, seeing all the same parallels that the audience has been seeing since episode one, and deciding to do something about it. To be the protector he, and Tim, and Sasha, and Martin so desperately needed. Laying claim to the OIAR staff in order to prevent them from being harmed by other monsters. Helping in maybe the only way he can, as he is right now

And maybe I'm wildly off-base! Maybe I'll be proven wrong in episode 22, or episode 30, or episode 90! but the more I think about this meta the more I love it, and the more sense it makes to me

#the magnus protocol #the magnus protocol spoilers #tmagp spoilers #tmagp #episode 21 #mine #idk what the tags are. i havent been in the tumblr fandom i hope those catch everyone #who wants to block spoilers i mean #this was the post i lost yesterday ajd had to retype from the ground up but as i was retyping it #its making more and more sense to me #i love it and hate it equally because of what it means for jo #and what it means for everyone else

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 1 year

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IOTA Reviews: Emotion

Hey, remember Felix? You know, that minor character who is the entire reason Gabriel has all of Ladybug's other Miraculous? The writers remembered he existed more than halfway through the season.

Let's get into the eighteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Emotion

We start off with Marinette and Adrien getting ice cream, and just like last episode, right when they're about to kiss, Adrien stops at the last second. While we don't see it, it's heavily implied that Gabriel is behind this. It turns out that Adrien has to get ready for some dance for rich people. While it has a name and I think it was mentioned in a few earlier episodes this season, it's really just some dance for rich people, so I don't care enough to remember it. Of course, all of the rich characters we know are invited, like Kagami, Chloe, Zoe, and Prince Ali. Lila, on the other hand, wasn't invited. This might sound important, but nothing happens with her until the end.

Zoe isn't going because of the “character development” she's gotten, so she offers to let Marinette wear her dress to the dance, which just so happens to be a masquerade ball. Tikki asks why Marinette even wants to go to this party she wasn't invited to, but all Marinette says is that it's so she can tell Adrien that she didn't have to keep the dance a secret from her. Why didn't Marinette just call Adrien? Because then we wouldn't have a story.

At the ball, Adrien and Kagami are the king and queen or whatever because their parents are really determined to make their ship sail even though the two show no real interest in each other (insert your own joke about the writers here), but they're interrupted by Amelie, Emilie's twin sister and Felix's mom. She's worried because her son has been missing for weeks, but Gabriel couldn't care less about the little twerp.

At the party, we get a somewhat amusing joke where Chloe fails to recognize Marinette under her mask, where Marinette not only says her name is Zoe, but her “underling” is named Chloe too. But speaking of...

Chloe: How rich are your parents? Rich? Very rich? Immensely rich? Of course, otherwise you wouldn't be here! It's too bad we can't bring out underlings with us. I'm sure these tin cans can serve properly but we can't make fun of them! (grabs a drink from a butler robot before kicking it) So lame!

Okay, did the writers just stop caring about writing convincing dialogue for Chloe? This is a problem I've noticed a lot this season. Yeah, Chloe was bad in the last four seasons, but here, she constantly talks about how Sabrina is her “underling” (Passion), or how she finds Marinete's suffering to be amusing (Derision). It's not really out of character, but it's weird how she's so much more blunt when it comes to boasting about how full of herself she is. It feels like a lot of her lines this season were meant to be placeholders for stuff the writers thought they'd change later, but then they decided to keep it in anyway. And of course to show how stuck up the other rich kids saying the same kind of stuff Chloe normally says, which is somehow less subtle social commentary than Hop Pop shouting “EAT THE RICH!”.

Adrien and Kagami talk about how they're expected to follow orders, while pretty much saying that Kagami is a Sentimonster since the camera really wants to show off her ring.

Oh wow. what does this mean? Wow, this is such a compelling mystery with so many twists and turns. I am so very invested right now.

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However, as the two talk, it's clear that Adrien isn't himself, literally.

“Adrien”: Let's leave, I dare you.

Kagami: Are you insane? We can't do that.

“Adrien”: Of course, we can. I can.

Kagami: (gasps) You'd do that?

“Adrien”: Wanna bet?

Kagami: No, we can't.

“Adrien”: See? You're not as free as you claim. Don't you think we should be able to decide our future?

I'll get back to this later.

Marinette tells “Adrien” that she loves her, but Chloe figures out that Marinette crashed a party she wasn't invited to. Of course, because this is Chloe, we're supposed to ignore how unnecessary this plan was for Marinette. Seriously, Marinette crashing the party in “Gabriel Agreste”, as illogical as it was, made sense, because they needed to stop Chloe from showing Gabriel incriminating footage of Marinette. Here, Marinette had no real reason to crash this party when all she had to do was call Adrien, and Chloe, like her or hate her, makes a good point in that she wasn't invited. But again, since this is Season 5 Chloe, she could say she opposes human trafficking, and the writers would still find a way to make her look like the bad guy.

Chloe tells the other rich kids to help her expose Marinette, but because they're so stuck up and entitled, they refuse to touch her. I'll give you all a moment to groan from that unfunny joke. Then we get this conversation between Marinette and “Adrien”.

“Adrien”: All eyes are on you.

Marinette: They're looking at me like I'm a monster.

“Adrien”: Look closer, Marinette. (whispers into her ear) They're the monsters.

I officially take back everything bad I ever said about the Canto Bight scenes from The Last Jedi.

While I get what the episode's going for, we really haven't seen a lot of the 1% doing things that would actually warrant this level of scorn from the audience. Yeah, most of them were egotistical snobs, especially Chloe, but you can't really see this as a shot at the elite when it's aimed at their children instead of their parents. All we've seen in this episode is the rich kids being jerks (and even then, it's played for laughs), Chloe rightfully trying to get Marinette thrown out of a party she had no reason to crash, and Gabriel and Tomoe trying to pair their children together. If you want to show the audience how bad rich people are, you need to show them actually abusing their power and mistreating others. As bad as the aforementioned Canto Bight scenes were, they still worked because it managed to back up the point it was trying to make.

Compare this to characters like the Ferengi from Star Trek or the World Nobles from One Piece. These are allegories for the 1% that work because they do a better job at exaggerating aspects of them that can translate to how we see the elite in our world. With the Ferengi, they represent everything wrong with cutthroat businessmen who base their entire society over financial gains, and with the World Nobles, they represent the disconnect with the common people by being so arrogant, they wear helmets that prevent them from breathing the same air as the commoners. If you wanted to show how bad the rich were, especially considering what's going to happen in a few minutes, you needed to do more to make the audience not like them so we'd be more happy to see them get their comeuppance.

Marinette figures out that Felix impersonated Adrien once again (it honestly stops being impressive when he's done it during literally every episode he appears in), and he decides to transform using the Peacock Miraculous in public for some reason, calling himself Argos.

Argos' design is okay. The suit and coattails look pretty nice, and the coloring on his face works a lot better than Gabriel's. The only problem I have is the way the hood looks. It looks too goofy to go with the rest of the suit. It kind of reminds me of that salmon suit Squidward wore in that one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Before anyone else at the party can do anything, Argos reveals a Sentimonster he created, Red Moon.

Red Moon is... a red moon. It's just a red moon that floats above the city, and it gives Argos the ability to make anyone bathed in its light disappear with a snap of his fingers. If anything, this shows how overpowered the Peacock Miraculous is, and that Gabriel was a real idiot for not trying anything like this while he was Shadowmoth.

Anyway, after making everyone think his cousin is a supervillain as part of his brilliant plan, Argos decides to tell everyone in the room about what his Sentimonster can do. He demonstrates this by, of course, choosing to snap away Chloe before targeting Gabriel and Tomoe. You really have your priorities straight, buddy. Argos then carries Marinette outside before throwing her in a dumpster, because if he snapped her away, than Ladybug couldn't fight him.

But then Argos decides to go to the streets, and decides to snap away a bunch of innocent civilians... while singing a jazz song. To anyone curious as to what it sounds like, I must warn you, it isn't for the feint of heart.

I take back everything bad I ever said about the Hawkmoth rap.

First off, I'm just going to say it, Bryce Papenbrook cannot sing. Argos is clearly trying to sound like a suave and confident villain like Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, but his delivery is terrible. It either ranges from flat monotone to trying to shout while dealing with a sore throat. The point I'm trying to make is that there was a good reason someone else did the singing voice for Adrien in the recent movie.

Second, this doesn't do anything to make us root for Argos as a character, because there's no reason for him to be doing this. I can understand why he'd use his power to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe (even Chloe, given we know how much she's done), but why is he suddenly going nuts snapping a bunch of random people who haven't even met him before? The episode tries to make him a character who only does bad things because he has no choice to, so him doing this to a bunch of innocent civilians makes no sense.

Finally, WHY THE HELL IS THIS SCENE A MUSICAL NUMBER?! It's hard enough to see Argos callously wipe out a bunch of bystanders, essentially committing genocide, but the tone of the song is all upbeat and cheery, while the lyrics are about how Argos should get whatever he wants. What is the purpose of adding a song here? Are we supposed to find this funny? Is it meant to establish Felix as a wild card? Is the song supposed to make us like him more because of how catchy it is? What was the writers' endgame here? Like I mentioned earlier, this flies in the face of the characterization the episode is trying to establish for him.

Marinette transforms into Ladybug and arrives on the scene, confronting Argos over what he did last season.

Ladybug: You're the reason why I lost the other Miraculous in the first place! And why he took them! You gave them to him without any regard for the consequences it might have with the people of Paris!

Argos: True, except I work for no one. I only helped Monarch cause it served my plans! I needed the Peacock Miraculous and today I need yours and Cat Noir's so I can make my wish!

Ladybug: Your wish?! What do you want?! What are you trying to do?! You're destroying the world and we don't even know why!

Argos: When I merge your Miraculous together, I'll make a wish to create a better world! A free world, where no one will be under anyone's control anymore, where no one will be excluded like I was! A world without people like you to decide what's right or wrong! Who gets powers and who doesn't!

Dude, you're literally playing God right now by snapping away people who did nothing wrong, while singing a song at that. You have no right to lecture Ladybug on how to use power responsibly. And once again, even though we just saw him happily snapping people out of existence like the kid from that one Twilight Zone episode, the episode is going back to portraying him as someone who's only doing this because he has nothing to lose.

Ladybug tries to use her Lucky Charm, but gets nothing in response. This is because her plan is to get Argos to give up, but even in episodes where her plan was to get Akumas to give up, she still got her Lucky Charm (Rocketear, Qilin, Penalteam, Reunion, Perfection, Intuition), so this doesn't really make any sense. Ladybug calls Argos' bluff, so he wipes out everyone from existence. After running into Kagami and snapping Adrien back into existence, Argos is surprised that they aren't thanking him for wiping out all of humanity, and in fact, see him as a complete psychopath.

We then learn Felix's true plan. Earlier that day, Argos capitalized on a opening he had been hoping he would get for weeks, and then created Red Moon. Right after Adrien's date with Marinette, Argos ambushed Adrien, and snapped him out of existence with Red Moon's power. He then decided to impersonate Adrien so he could infiltrate the dance and snap Gabriel, Tomoe, and everyone else out of existence.

I think my feelings on this plan can be perfectly summarized by Tony Stark.

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First off, why did he need to sneak into the dance? All Felix had to do was transform into Argos, and nobody would know who he really was.

Second, why did he need to impersonate Adrien? Felix claims he's doing this for him, yet all he did was steal his girlfriend and ruin his public reputation. As a matter of fact, why did he even snap Adrien away? You're already wiping out all of humanity, so I don't think temporarily doing the same to Adrien will earn you any goodwill.

Third, why did he waste so much time screwing around with Marinette and Kagami? I sort of get why he would try to get in Kagami's good graces (keyword being “try”) by trying to convince her to rebel against her mother more, but why did he dance around with Marinette while pretending to be Adrien? Felix later says he wanted to spare Marinette for Adrien's sake, but he barely knows her, and whether she finds out Felix impersonated her boyfriend or not, she's going to be pissed at either you or Adrien because of your galavanting. In fact, I don't think he ever told Adrien that he danced with Marinette while at the dance in the first place.

Finally, he really needed to wait for this for weeks? If your goal was to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe, why didn't you just ambush them yourself instead of waiting for a public function? This isn't like has last few appearances where he needed to rely on his intellect. He has superpowers now. All he has to do is create another Sentibug or some kind of assassin Sentimonster and he can be rid of them easily. Instead, he waited weeks for a chance to steal his cousin's identity, dance with his girlfriend, talk trash about Kagami for listening to her mother when he's supposed to be helping her and Adrien, blow his cover in a crowded area by transforming, and use his killer moon to erase all of humanity from existence while singing. Remember, this is the show that usually makes jokes about Marinette's obsession with unnecessarily complicated plans.

Anyway, Argos tries to use his powers to bring Marinette back, but for some reason, they won't work. My best guess is that it's because Marinette transformed into Ladybug, but that shouldn't chance the fact that Argos snapped her with Red Moon's power. After trying to justify his genocide by saying he never wanted to hurt Adrien and Kagami, Argos remembers how his powers work and brings everyone back. After Ladybug lets him go scot-free, Argos goes to a private place realizes that he may have made a few mistakes for almost wiping out all of humanity, tearfully snapping Red Moon out of existence, calling it “his sister”. Because I guess we were supposed to emotionally connect to the giant moon that showed little to no signs of sentience this entire episode? Argos transforms back to Felix, and we learn that Amelie knew where he was the whole time, and she was apparently testing Gabriel for some reason.

After Adrien explains to Marinette that his father ordered him to not tell her about the dance, Adrien goes to talk to Gabriel about it. Gabriel, being Gabriel uses his control over Adrien to force him to never talk about Marinette again. Gabriel then gets a call from Lila, and even though she's been nothing but helpful to him since Season 3, he's apparently tired with her. Why is he suddenly rejecting the help of his most competent (by comparison) ally?

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Also, the episode ends with the revelation that Lila somehow knows Gabriel is Monarch. Why? How? I DON'T CARE, BECAUSE THIS EPISODE SUCKS!

Oh my God, this episode was just terrible! “Derision” and “Adoration” definitely got to me with the way their stories were handled, but this was the first episode in a while to really piss me off. The plot was contrived as hell, basically being a repeat of “Gabriel Agreste”, and you all know how I wasn't exactly a fan of that episode. Think about it: Marinette sneaks into a party, Felix tries to scheme against Gabriel, and Marinette and Adrien end up getting caught in one of his schemes.

The social commentary about how bad the rich were just felt more pretensions than anything else. I get that it's meant to teach children a lesson about the real world, but the episode feels so confident in what its trying to say when it's not that deep, even by kids' show standards. Rich people are bad? Yeah, I think someone like me who lives in the same country as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg knows that. Will you actually teach kids about the financial conditions that allow the wealthy to abuse their power or the cutthroat methods they'll resort to in order to turn a profit? No? You're just going to tell kids that rich people are jerks without giving any actual evidence in the same episode you're using to try and to teach them? Man, these writers just keep hitting it out of the park here!

This whole “Rich people suck” message also falls flat because Felix is the one pushing it. You know, someone who already comes from a rich family? It's not like Bruce Wayne where he uses his money to help the people of Gotham, as Batman or not. Felix just whines about how “tHeY'rE tHe MoNsTeRs.” when he's just as well-off as they are. The episode tries to do a subtle discrimination message as evidenced by his rant as Argos earlier, but it doesn't work because we have never seen anyone discriminate against Felix for who he is. Yeah, the episode once again tries to hint at him being a Sentimonster, but because the show hasn't just pulled the trigger and confirmed it, it's hard to really sympathize with him being “excluded” when we've never seen him being treated differently by others in earlier episodes, and even if he was a Sentimonster, nobody would know or be able to discriminate against him in the first place.

I don't know why the show keeps trying to excuse Felix's actions when once again, he pretty much committed fucking genocide yet the episode still wanted us to feel bad for him realizing his actions had consequences. If he actually wanted to own up to his mistakes, he'd either hand over the Peacock Miraculous to Ladybug or help Ladybug stop Monarch. For someone who claims he hates when people abuse power to make others suffer, he's no better, judging from how both times he's gotten to use a Miraculous, he's either screwed over Ladybug (Strikeback) or endangered a lot of innocent people. And if you're wondering why I didn't point out any double standards between the treatment of Felix compared to Chloe, that doesn't really matter. No matter how you feel about Chloe, whether you feel like she got screwed over or not, it doesn't really make how the writers are glorifying Felix any better or worse, as his potential “redemption arc” isn't off to a good start.

The plot was stupid, Felix was an idiot, and it felt like more effort was put into the musical number than the writing. In my opinion, this is easily the worst episode of the season so far.

Although at the very least, now that we have even more evidence that Adrien, Felix, and even Kagami are all Sentimonsters, I think I know what clip I can start using to describe my feelings on this plotline.

youtube

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... FELIX

For someone who managed to outsmart Gabriel on multiple occasions with no superpowers, Felix's intelligence really took a nosedive the second he got the Peacock Miraculous. He came up with a completely unnecessary plan that involved impersonating his cousin's identity and mocking his friend when he's supposed to try and win their favor, he danced with his cousin's girlfriend without his consent, transformed in public, smearing his reputation even further, and proceeded to gleefully wipe out humanity through a musical number, and needed other people to point out how immoral his actions were. Of course, Marinette gets second place thanks to her plan to break into the party and later letting Argos get away.

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nixthelapin · 7 months

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A Jekyll&Hyde type akuma whose power is to bring out a hidden or repressed part of your personality (but like, making two of you instead of switching in one body), and when Chat gets hit suddenly there’s both “normal” Chat (I’ll get to that in a sec) and Cat Walker/Patte de Velours at the same time.

(Cue Ladybug freaking out upon learning they’re the same person)

“Normal” Chat looks the same, but is just a bit more intense (since this is Adrien’s way of “letting loose” to not be how he is as a civilian, he’s not too different, but because of the split he does lose some usual traits). I.e. *heavily* flirting with LB, going at it with the puns, more agressive and impulsive with the akuma, doesnt like following orders (especially with the remaining feelings of anger towards the partnership being put further into question as LB prefers CW), heart on his sleeve

Cat Walker is also not super different to the episode he was in, but is also more intense thanks to the akuma: all business- no nonsense, doesn’t laugh at jokes (even in a “I’ll laugh if you want” way, like in Kuroneko), cordial to LB, follows LB’s orders to a T (to the point of not making his own decisions in battle), calm and collected (almost emotionless, even with that plastered smile)

CN starts to hate CW as the fight goes on, because LB seems to prefer him (and she’s understandably getting annoyed with CN’s impulsivity). CN gets territorial, saying that he’s LB’s partner. CW: “then why did she replace you with me?” (Man, look at all the self hatred in Adrien’s psyche!)

So CN runs off and leaves them alone to fight the akuma. This ticks LB off even more, but she has an akuma to deal with- and she has CW- so she lets him go.

As the fight goes on, some of the same issues from Kuroneko occur, so she also gets frustrated with CW too.

Since he’s acting more extreme than normal (more like someone awaiting orders than a partner due to the Jekyll&Hyde thing), it causes more problems (like him waiting for her decisions leaving openings where he could’ve done something proactive)

She actually blows up at him, asking why he didn’t do anything (“I was waiting for you to tell me the plan!”), and she says he should be able to think on his own, he doesn’t need her to tell him everything, but- “I thought I was just being what you wanted.”

(He’s shocked and genuinely hurt- though it’s still pretty quiet emotion, subdued and apologetic)

And that’s when it clicks for her what becoming CW was back in Kuroneko. He was molding himself for her. And this version of CW is even more of that. She realizes just how much CN suppresses, not just for her, but for everyone- why else would this be a major aspect of his personality?

(Also, Patte de Velours? Velvet Paw? That’s basically saying he’s been declawed. Yikes.)

She makes CN get his butt back to the fight (or she finds him- he may have been doing something while away like talking with someone, maybe Alya or Nino, or Luka). CN and CW argue more, with insults. Then she goes on a whole rant/lecture to them about how important they both are, both to her and to each other, how they are one person, and their traits are both important, but each extreme is not great. Ex: instinct/impulse and service/obedience (the key is self control, so that your emotions aren’t controlling you, but neither is another person). He is allowed to be both! Neither personality is bad, and hating one is just hating himself- he can’t just reject a fundamental part of himself.

She makes them agree to work together to defeat the akuma. It’s awkward at first, but they get a rhythm by seeing where each one is needed in the plan (LB does still do that, but how they follow is more fluid now). Two cataclysms now! Yay! (Maybe they used their powers already and have to de transform, and they see themselves as Adrien- the same one, not different, and it gets through their skulls. Idk I’m spitballing).

They have a quick talk between the two about accepting each other, it won’t be easy, I’m nervous, we’ll be okay (“yeah, I think we will :)”), etc.

Ends with them combining back with the ladybug cure. Surprise! His outfit is combined too! (Honestly, I just want the ponytail with the fluffy hair)

LB and CN have a talk after recharging about everything. CN apologizes for lying about CW and explains why and how he did it. LB didn’t realize how much he hid. She never meant for him to change or hate parts of himself. He thought she didn’t like the CN parts of him, but LB promises that isn’t true. She admits she did get… annoyed, but never hate! She loves both sides of him. Besides, CW didn’t work out that first time, remember? (Though she very much leaves out her intense crushing being the deciding factor there)

CN admits he feels more, well, not whole, exactly, he’s actually still pretty uncertain about what all this means for “who he is,” but… he can at least say he feels less like he has to perform all the time. He loves being Chat Noir, but he is exaggerating a bit when he transforms, in part to be not like his civilian life. He tells her he’s not like that as a civilian, but he’s also not like Cat Walker. But he’s not really sure who “he” is yet. (What I’m getting at is Oblivio!Adrien- dorky, but not over the top, in love, trusts his lady to make the plan, but is still proactive, etc.)

LB says that’s okay, he doesn’t have to figure it out right away. But she’ll be there to help him figure it out.

END

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another-day · 18 days

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time for another lovely EPISODE IN REVIEW!!! and boy, do we have a lot to discuss for this one

!!!SPOILERS FOR II EPISODE 16!!!

oh my gosh

that episode was insane, i’m still reeling from it, but let’s start from the beginning

i remember seeing a post somewhere where someone was saying 3gs would most likely have a very ‘army general’ type personality, and i think that still holds, just not to the degree i intially thought

he’s someone who focuses on motivation and praise to not only please but get people to follow through. this is not in the way of manipulation, just in order to get what needs to be done, done. expanding on his personality like this was so interesting, especially interspersing his moments of fear with his moments of joy because he hadn’t seen other people in years. it really goes to show how cobs can negatively affect other characters than mephone 4.

trophy has really grown as a character in the sense that he can now see the fundamental flaws in the persona of knife, though i do feel he’s still heavily guided in this by his own values. he has this firm belief that knife is similar if not the exact same as him; angry and violent. he breaks down all of the cracks in knife’s facade, but incorrectly so, which was interesting.

alongside this, knife is shown to still be perceived incorrectly to how wishes to be by many of the contestants. considering he’s trying to make such an effort to change and become a good person only for trophy to treat him like this is clearly dishesrtening to him. as much as he likes to build up his whole tough guy persona, in this episode and the last, we’ve seen that the words of others, especially those he considers allies, can really affect him. granted, trophy is no ally of his, but it still has an impact on him to be so shamelessly called out, even if a lot of it is assumption.

i love that they make everyone’s attempts to comfort suitcase feel so condescending in order to emphasise her confusion and disarray in terms of the situation. this feels like a circus, where suitcase is realising she’s a clown for being fooled. i love her reaction to realising nickel and balloon are friends because she has that underlying anger, yes, but more than anything else she’s confused and upset. soooo cool.

i nearly screamed but it was two in the morning when i was watching this so i did not.

but oh my gosh, the idea of “deleting” a character is horrifying. as taco put it, seeing “the life drain out of him” must’ve been horrifying for her. this, oj’s, and nickel’s deletion are only amped up by this prospect of having people around to see the life drain out of someone they were once friends with.

also why did it have to be pickle. literally what did he do.

also also, now we know what happened to toilet i guess.

forshadowing cobs being able to see wherever they go, alongside how everything of theirs in under control, even if not by cobs.

cobs is meant to parallel mephone 4 in this scene. his advertisment is very “brainwash”-y, and it emphasises what a hold he used to have on people and the control he once held through his creations. similarly so, through the reveal at the end, WHICH I’LL GET TO, we see that mephone similarly has control over all of the contestants, whether direct or otherwise. so very peculiar really.

depicting the death scenes like this was brilliant. a persuing entity, sounded by alarms that only the person who is to be killed can hear is a horrifying concept, and something so horrifying from an outsider perspective.

imagine this from paper’s perspective: you’re arguing with your best friend about the amount of tasks you’ve been given for so little credit, and you finally admit everything that’s been bothering you. instead of the reassurance you usually receive, your friend stands there in shock before asking “do you hear that?” you hear nothing. the fear on his face grows and he backs against the door, crying for something you can’t see to ‘stop’. you’re confused, but before you can question it, he’s dead, spilled. any semblance of life in him as disappeared, and everyone is terrified.

this was so masterfully executed all the times it happened; taco’s incoherency when she was found with pickle, the hotel’s reaction when oj spills, and baseball’s silence and shock as he re-enters after nickel’s death. it sets up a tone of horror, and shows just how unaware everyone truly is. soooooo very cool.

it was so cool seeing the purgatory crew again because i really missed these goofy guys. but it really gets you thinking about what role they’re going to play.

unlike bow, all of the “deleted” contestants have had their melife icons completely removed, so that begs the question; will they be turned into ghosts at purgatory mansion? bow states in the episode that it took her a while to appear in the mansion, so it gets you thinking if deletion counts as a perma-death, and those killed will be turned to ghosts.

knife’s very impersonal handling of this situation versus suitcase’s gentle assurance and questioning really brings out the difference between these two.

this scene is meant to make knife seem foolish for wanting to rush by all this, but that’s not what knife intends to look like, again bringing back this idea of misunderstanding his actions. knife doesn’t like focusing on what’s around him when he’s been given a clear objective, getting information to find cobs in this case. alongside this, he doesn’t have the same understanding of what 3gs has been through as suitcase, yet he tries, to a degree, to understand this individual. when knife isn’t given the information he needs, he looks for his own means of finding it, and moves ahead.

suitcase on the other hand is shown to want to take it slower. unlike knife, she’s more invested in the story than the lesson or outcome. this is something normally detrimental to someone in a finale, but due to their working together, knife doesn’t really get too far ahead of her. she wants to understand motivations for actions so that she can figure out how to respond, whereas knife just wants to, for lack of a better phrase, cut to the the chase. very interesting.

now, the titular reveal of the episode, “the reality of the situation”, if you will.

despite how of guard i was caught, this makes perfect sense.

though i don’t really like season three, cabby has a scene where she freaks out when questioned about her parents. i initially thought this had something to do with her memory issues, but this explanation makes much more sense. bot knew about theur parents because their parents actually exist, cabby’s did not.

no character ever talks about their past, nor their parents, nor their motivation to join the show. it all quite literally starts from the first episode, and picks up from there. that is why mephone can regenerate them. that is why when mephone dies they can’t be regenerated, because as their creator, he was the only one capable of REcreating them. its an incredible reveal, and a very well working one.

all in all, this episode was phenomenal. the chracter work and development and storyline were all so well done and i totally adore it. episode 15 was very character focused and took a step away from the plot. this episode on the other hand took the plot and bolted with it, scattering all slrts of bombshells on the way.

i love this episode because it shows unity and disharmony and everything really feels like its coming together and i’m so excited for the next episode.

till next time lovelies!!!

#inanimate insanity #ii ep 16 #ii episode 16 #i don’t really like using the ii spoilers tag #but wow this episode was amazing #ii 16 #inanimate insanity 16

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nemastraea · 11 months

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Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 1

Or as I like to call it, actual literal word vomit attempting a proper character analysis!

Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,

Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide. Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here). It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following: - Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and - The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.

Anyway: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! A game in early access where a pair of siblings are stuck through a seemingly never-ending quarantine together, desperate not to starve to death. When their cultist neighbor dies in a ritual gone wrong, they rationally resort to cannibalism. Fun!

I am definitely going to assume that you read Leyleyfication's extremely normal essay (I am on my knees, begging you to read that). Which is why this essay immediately starts with, "yeah, Andrew definitely wants to fuck his sister" as its baseline.

What I will be adding to that funny little cauldron of fucked up sibling dynamics in a horror visual novel are the following: Andrew's fixation and sexual attraction manifests as his desire to control, dominate, and possess Ashley. And it is framed as a fatalist attraction and the totality of his existence (for worse or even worse).

Because of Tumblr's limit for 30 images per post, though, I'm going to have to split this extremely normal and reasonably lengthy essay into... multiple posts! Yeah! I have no idea how long this will fucking go!

So first things first: how can we tell that Andrew is even attracted to Ashley in the first place?

Nemlei (Devlog 05). Note the hickeys above and below Ashley's choker and her left inner thigh, and Andrew's left hand creeping into her right thigh.

As Leyleyfication points out, the game primes us to believe that Andrew is a pushover and Ashley is his abuser. This occurs in the Steam page as it explicitly says Ashley is "in fact, very bad" and Andrew is a "doormat extraordinaire." Moreover, it's very easy to tell that Ashley is, on some degree, obsessed with Andrew:

She's happy to hear that Julia broke up with Andrew over the phone;

She repeatedly accuses him of finding the Lady from Room 302 attractive and he 'tried anything with her;' and

Her flashback to wanting to punish her friend Nina ("the Bitch in the Box") for crushing on Andrew.

Episode 1, dream and memory. Leyley previously said that Nina should know better than to 'steal from another woman,' referring to herself. The implication that Andy is hers is toyed with after this moment, when she says she'd put Andy back in the box.

The game does prime us to think that Ashley is Andrew's abuser. It also suggests that Ashley projects an unrequited and incestuous love onto Andrew. Before we consider Episode 2's narrative, Episode 1 gives the initial impression that if Andrew comes to reciprocate her feelings, it's more of a reaction and subsuming to her will. That it may not be something he wants for himself and independent of Ashley's manipulation.

But again, I do believe Andrew wants to fuck Ashley. And always has been. He just frequently vacillate between 'subtle' and 'really fucking obvious' tells that completely take advantage of the game's third person limited POV.

Keep in mind that both Andrew and Ashley are extremely unreliable narrators. We aren't going to get information they personally do not care about and that is on top of our own choices as the player.

(A digressive example: you will not learn that the founder and CEO of Toxisoda's company was a former surgeon unless you interact with the television in Andrew's Episode 2 dream and memory of their blood oath. Otherwise, it neatly ties into the surgeon that Mrs. Graves conveniently says she was directed to regarding the siblings' quarantine in the main story.)

When it's really fucking obvious

When you play as Andrew in Episode 2, his post-dinner argument with Ashley carefully frames them both. They are cramped in the foreground and Andrew's left arm is conveniently blocked by Ashley and the kitchen knife, as seen here.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, you can interact with Mrs. Graves for her to pointedly comment on the siblings being inseparable.

At this point in the game, their physical closeness is something we're used to by now. After all, we've already seen Ashley on his lap at least twice; Andrew slept in her bed in Episode 1; and Ashley confirmed they've shared the same motel bed multiple times in the one-week interim between Episodes 1 & 2.

But the game abruptly shifts to Mrs. Graves' POV when she enters the scene and not only do we see the two as physically close, but we notice a few more details.

Episode 2, common route. The first picture transitions from Andrew's POV to Mrs. Graves as it introduces us to her entering the scene.

The contrast of how spacious the kitchen is from Mrs. Graves' POV to Andrew's cramped POV is obvious. More importantly, Andrew's fingers loop through Ashley's belt loops when the two are huddled together. When Mrs. Graves clears her throat, the two don't really separate.

Ashley pivots on her left foot so that her body is turned to their mother, not Andrew, but she doesn't step away from him. Andrew, meanwhile, recoils from Ashley and withdraws his hand. But he isn't turning his body to face their mother like Ashley does here. His attention, at least in this moment, is still towards Ashley (and, yanno, the sink).

Episode 2, common route. Two things to consider in the second picture: Andrew hides Ashley's bite mark on his cheek with his left sleeve and he conveniently moves the pillow from behind him to his front.

The 'tell' isn't so much as the two are unusually physically close. Again, we're used to that by now. But it's how the two siblings react whenever Mrs. Graves comes into the picture. Ashley doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not people assume the worst of her or even her intentions regarding Andrew. To Ashley, their proximity is normal and anyone who sees that as a problem is not worth an explanation or reason.

But Andrew is at least subconsciously aware it's 'not normal.' As far as these moments are concerned, Andrew instinctively tries to do damage control by either putting space between them or keeping his hands occupied so they aren't visibly touching Ashley. Still, he either does not mind or actively appreciates his physical closeness with Ashley.

When it's really fucking obvious (but only in hindsight)

In Episode 1, Ashley passes out after trying to clean up after the apartment. Regardless of her passing out in the living room, the bathroom, or their parents' room, she will wake up on the couch with her head pillowed by Andrew's lap.

Episode 1, Ashley's POV. Andrew's hands often hover over Ashley's head, but more than that—

I personally didn't notice this until I replayed Episode 1, when I basically have the hindsight of Andrew's fixation with hair. But yes, his fingers idly twirl through the ends of Ashley's hair as they watch TV. It's implied that Andrew can and will do this when Ashley pillows his lap, awake or asleep. He does not recoil from it when Ashley does wake up and later on, in Episode 2, even continues to brush it from her face.

Episode 2, common route. Ashley fell asleep at the passenger seat, so Andrew had to have transferred her to the back seat to pillow her head again. Though, technically, she's more cramped at the back seat than if he'd just reclined the passenger seat.

So far, we've seen that Andrew has a natural tendency to not only be physically close to Ashley, but to hover over her personal space and be in constant and direct contact with her. Whether it's by having her head on his lap, twirling her hair through his fingers, or even constantly grabbing her by the head in various states of comfort, playfulness, or outright threat (but let's put a pin on that for now).

The weight behind this candid contact shifts when Episode 2 draws a pretty explicit parallel between Julia and Ashley. Assuming that you interacted with Julia's landline and heard Ashley's voicemails, you know (and Andrew knows) that Ashley draws that connection herself:

DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to... It's not you he seeks out. It is me.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and vision implies that Andrew's heard these voicemails before.

That connection extends to the hair contact as well, as Andrew goes in to hug Julia, cards his hand through her hair and requests she tie her hair up.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and memory of Julia when they're older. From the use of Andrew's present-age portrait, suggests is closer to the timeline of the game's events than his and Ashley's memories as Andy and Leyley.

From this moment, we can have one of two assumptions: either Andrew wants Julia's (black) hair put up like Ashley's, or Ashley caught onto Andrew's hair kink and puts her hair up to imitate it.

Regardless, we infer the following:

Andrew teases affection through touching and even pulling on one's hair.

His fixation on ponytails and pulling on them does not exclude his own sister. It still stands and without reservation, perhaps more explicitly since he can do it so candidly, as we saw before.

The last of that Julia-Ashley parallel is self-contained within Episode 2. But only if you end up in the Burial route regardless of Ashley's platonic or incestuous vision.

Episode 2, common route (first picture) and Burial route (second picture). It's worth pointing out that Andrew is actually disinterested and moody during his conversation with Julia, and only perks up when he mentions Ashley or feigns care for Julia (since he extends his care of Ashley to her as well).

The game ends up drawing parallels on how Andrew treats Ashley, for better or for worse, with his ex (which is definitely worse, poor Julia). In doing so, the game blurs the lines between romantic affection for Julia and 'platonic and familial' affection for Ashley.

Y'all, this isn't even getting into how Andrew respectfully gives his parents space and only crowds them when he threatens them with his cleaver. In his mind, Ashley and Julia are in that same space of physical and romantic displays of affection; something he reserves only for them (only without reservation for Ashley) that does not extend to anyone else. His ex-girlfriend, and his sister. Shit's wild.

When it's obvious BUT it's violent!

That isn't to say that his hair fixation (hair kink?) is completely innocuous, though, as it rears its ugly head (pun unintended) in Decay. Which is what that previous pin was for! Yay!

You end up in the Decay route if Ashley doesn't trust Andrew with keeping an eye on their parents. Here, Ashley sleeps on their parents' bed by herself and has an alarming vision: an unknown party chases after her through the in-between and when they catch up to her, it's Andrew. Ashley has nowhere to run and Andrew eventually grabs her and threatens to kill her.

Whether or not Ashley can defend herself depends on Andrew expending all of her gun's ammo when he deals with the hitman, or not. But that outcome divergence will matter much, much later (so that's another pin for us to come back to).

The sequence of events actually mirrors the way the siblings ambush the Lady from Room 302 back in Episode 1. There, Andrew closes in on her and grabs the Lady by her wrist and uses his front to pin and restrain her. With his cleaver to her throat, the Lady is completely at his mercy.

Episode 1 & 2, common route (first picture) and Decay route (second, third, and fourth pictures). Note that Andrew restrains the Lady from Room 302 by the wrist while with Ashley, by her hair.

Andrew asserts control of the person and the situation through violence. Whether it's by killing them (the wardens) or by threatening physical violence (the Lady from Room 302 and Ashley). It's always on the table for him. As Leyleyfication puts it, "He's so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence [here]."

That violence includes Ashley. It's always on the table where Ashley's concerned. The game even juxtaposes when Andrew threatens violence and physical assault 'playfully' versus when he's seriously out for blood:

When you interact with the wall of call girls' numbers and Ashley jokes about leaving her number on the wall, Andrew 'jokingly' threatens to backhand her for even thinking about it.

When you interact with their parents' latched window for a second time, Andrew 'teases' slapping Ashley if she doesn't find a way to open it. (Ashley jokingly asks if it's on her ass or at her face, and assumes it must be the face when Andrew says she'll have to find out.)

The two other times that Andrew exerts violence against Ashley are both in Episode 1 & 2. We can remember when that happens in Episode 1, when Andrew's had it with Ashley's fits and threatens to kill her:

Episode 1, common route. Y'all, Andrew was choking her hard enough for his grip to bruise.

It happens again in Decay when he confronts Ashley about repeatedly calling him Andy and therefore, breaking the promise he coerced her into from Episode 1.

Episode 2, Decay route. Another thing to keep in mind is that Andrew's outburst is preceded by Ashley prodding him about his current state and insisting that Andrew was fine with 'Andy' during their home invasion.

In Episode 1, Andrew resorts to harming Ashley because he's fucking had it with her accusing him repeatedly of trying anything with the Lady from 302 and, in her eyes, his 'infidelity.' Where she accuses Andrew of not loving her enough that if his eye catches another girl, he'd leave her behind or flip on her. In Episode 2, she's poking and prodding on his boundaries on 'Andy' and whether or not, once again, he's with her on their now-committed life of joint crime.

If I can give another example, it happens in Andrew's common route memory of Nina's death and his blood oath with Leyley.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, Andy expresses immense exasperation at Leyley's tantrums over him 'thinking about that bitch again.' When he goes to grab the kitchen knife, cleans it, and returns to Leyley on his bed—he's briefly considering killing her.

Andrew threatens Ashley violently whenever he intends to confront her on her perceived brattiness, for lack of a better word. And keep Leyleyfication's essay segment on Ashley's insecurities and need for Andrew's validation in mind here—when Ashley does this, she wants and even needs Andrew to comfort her. But her aggression treads Andrew's patience and really, his tolerance of her behavior.

When Ashley's anger, clinging behavior, insecurities, and possessiveness of Andrew slips his control and tolerance, he resorts to violence to coerce or even dominate her.

I think (or hope, if it's clear enough) it reinforces what Leyleyfication points out:

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don't mean in the sense that I'm saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this.

It also reflects on another aspect of why Andrew resorts to violence: in all three situations, Andrew remarks on Ashley's behavior and her sake. If she acts up again once they're out of the apartment, it'll cause trouble for him while they're evading authorities. If she's going to call him Andy from hereon out, what's the point of running away with her. If she expects him to leverage keeping 'her secret,' he won't because it's for her sake.

Andrew rationalizes his attempt to control of Ashley's behavior as being for her sake. But really, isn't it him confining her behavior to something he can tolerate and personally handle?

I'd also like to point out that Andrew admits that he noticed Ashley push for calling him 'Andy' during the home invasion, and he did not argue with her on it while they held their parents hostage and readied to sacrifice them. We can infer that when Andrew calculates his use of violence, that can also factor when, where, and how he exerts it.

Well, that's where I can reasonably end this half of my word vomit! Now, onwards, to part 2!

#lia's conspiracy board #The Coffin of Andy and Leyley #TCOAAL: Andrew Graves #TCOAAL: Ashley Graves #ship: coffincest #character analysis

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thefruitonyourfly · 1 year

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Just read a comment under a magireco Madoka's magical girl sequence that said "now Madoka is a badass" and I was like HUH

Like did some of you watched episode 12 blindfolded and with ear plugs? Because I don't think you guys truly grasp the scope of what Madoka did that episode: The Incubator has been on earth for a MILLENNIUM, meaning that has been thousand of girls before Madoka who have tried to outsmart his system and met a terrible fate for their attempts, but only Madoka has been able to beat him, do you guys understand that? The smartest and strongest girls have tried, but something always thwarted their plans—be it their potential not being that high or Kyuubey twisting their words so it would be in his favor instead—But Madoka had something they didn't and it was her circumstances (Homura and the timeloops), Madoka knew her wish would come at a great sacrifice, but just like Homura said in Rebellion "She rose to the occasion" because she knew it was something only she could do; No one would ever have the perfect circumstances to make that wish like Madoka. So, she did it.

When Madoka made her wish and Kyuubey hesitated for the first time in the series because he understood the implication of it, Madoka said to him: "Now, grant my wish, Incubator." When Kriemhild Gretchen was born and Kyuubey thought he had the advantage back again because this witch could literally swallow a planet and Madoka killed her with one shot. Madoka won, essentially. Like her system isn't perfect, Kyuubey isn't dead, and there's still suffering, but it was the best wish for the magical girl kind as a whole, and all improvements are only possible by what Madoka did here. She played within the Incubator's system and rewrote it. She is the most powerful character in the whole franchise and arguably one of the most powerful characters in anime. "But didn't Homucifer defeated Madokami?" Well, sort of. Homura's win is, ironically, also due to extreme circumstances, only Homura could've done that and only within this one scenario: and even when she won it's heavily implied that if Madoka even has a slightly moment of deja vu it's over for her, she can't win against Madoka on fair terms so even Homura herself can't achieve that feat again. That's just how powerful Madoka is.

Do you guys understand that?

And here's the thing: my problem with that statement isn't even that I don't think magireco Madoka isn't as cool as Madokami, I think she's badass too. Is just like, I thought we all thought Madoka was cool as herself?? Like even without being a magical girl or a fucking godess, Madoka was cool as shit. When Madoka risked her own life to save the lives of her friends and strangers at the warehouse? She had no powers, no backup, and had just watched Mami die to a witch and yet she still followed Hitomi. But people only want to see Madoka's character as what the witch showed her afterwards, her own survivors guilt and perceived weakness and cowardice over wanting to live and not be a magical girl despite what she promised Mami, and yet the scene prior to this conflicts with this idea. Madoka not only can risk her life for others and save them when the need arises, but she already has. Even without being a magical girl. It's just who she is. This, to me, is one Madoka Magica's core strenght as a show that Madoka spent the majority of it being the most "powerless" in almost every scenario and yet she still tried her best to overcome things, even when it didn't work It was never worthless, if anything it proved her own strenght of character and without it she would've never gotten as powerful how she is today.

If Madoka hadn't been kind to Homura on her first day of school, if she hadn't done the simple act of reaching out to someone she thought was kind shy, none of this would've have happened. Her kindness did this, not any other power.

My favorite thing about Madoka's character arc is that Madoka starts as a very naive opmitimisc girl and with a somewhat sheltered view of of the world, then she goes throught horrors few can understand and while she could (understably) become bitter with the world and grow to despise it, Madoka comes of it realizing...she was right. Madoka has felt the pain the world could give her in her own skin, has literally died, and she now thinks Hope is needed more than ever. And it saddens me a lot when people don't understand how strong and cool she is because of that, to be hurt and choose to be kinder and more understanding to yourself and the world in return, because the world can be better we just can't give up...

Basically what I'm saying with this that if you don't like Kaname Madoka, fuck you—

#*sees one negative comment on madoka* *snaps and writes an essay at 1am*#guys i am so normal about kaname madoka #this probably has a lot of typos but i'm gonna sleep right now and fix em in the morning #kaname madoka #madoka kaname #madokami #madohomu #akemi homura #pmmm #madoka magica #long post #pmmm analysis

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system-of-a-feather · 10 months

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Alternative System Mind Mapping Method for Communication

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional or scientifically or anything really backed method, this is something coming solely from peer / personal experience.]

In regards to an anon ask earlier, I was thinking about it and one of the ways we've approached improving communication - particularly internal - in a way that is a lot less prone to flooding or dealing with trauma or anything too overwhelming - is by approaching it following the concept of Memory Webs

I haven't read up on them recently, but "Memory Webs" were a thing that our AP Psychology teacher in highschool made us do because the AP Psych test was term / jargon heavy. Memory in the human brain has been shown to be HEAVILY associative and the ability to remember and connect things tends to rely on following a "web" of connected topics, ideas, concepts etc from one idea to the next.

So in our AP Psych class, she gave us these GIANT books for Vocabulary Webs that we had to slowly work on, each of which required 6 other vocab words / related concepts, a summarized definition, and an image to represent it. By doing this, you added 6 cues to recall the word (increasing the chance you'd remember it), a visual cue, an episodic memory of working on it, and a definition - all in all improving how connected the word is to other concepts in your brain and making it easier to recall it.

I personally like to look at DID and our parts in a similar manner sometimes where the large issue is that a lot of the nodes in the web of associations are either disconnected or connected through a hard-to-find and/or small chain. In that sense, parts struggle to be held together because they are not associated concepts. It's hard to reach other parts because the dissociative walls (which in our unsubstantiated opinion is less a 'wall' and more so a lack of reinforced neural connections, so I would call them dissociative caverns) keep associations from forming

As a result, alternative to more traditional ways of mapping your system and parts, a method I've liked to internally visualize systems and navigating system dynamics is through a memory web manner. (I actually have never done it physically cause the Ray part of my brain - also the most prominent part writing this rn - rarely liked to front if he didn't have to and did a lot of stuff internally)

Here's a bit of a breakdown using six of our parts if any of you want to try it out.

We personally like it because it strips a lot of trauma and stress off of it and makes it a lot more of a positive and present engaging activity. For the purposes of this, I'll be using the free online app of Milanote cause we've used it before for OC associative webs and I think it'll do fine enough. (Honestly it actually might just be a good way to log alter information now that I'm looking at it if you are at a place in recovery where keeping track of that physically helpful)

So we can start by dropping down the parts we want to include in the form of boards

So from here, we have a bunch of disconnected parts. However, we find that a lot of these parts have things that mean a lot to them, that illicit a strong emotion or reaction from them.

Some parts may lack it more than others (often in our case trauma holders and/or trauma locked parts) and that's okay and to be expected. This is a visualization method and if there isn't much connecting a part that is 100% okay.

For demonstration sake, I will now add bubbles around each part of things that were pretty early apparent that each individual liked.

Also for the purposes of how I know our system works and how I plan to do this, I am actually moving Riku to the center and you will all see why Riku is such an S tier center point with this model

So you can see some connections forming.

Some key things you can take from this visual that also applied to earlier stags of how we connected

Lucille and Riku are and have always been pretty darn connected, they go back as one of the longest duos and were split almost as a pair to deal with academics

Chunn and Ray have a very shared interest of "I don't want to do anything leave me alone"

XIV literally was just a piece of shit early on and didn't have any immediate HARD connections with anyone largely because he never was interested in actually engaging in things he liked in a positive way as his "favorite emotion" at the time was "being pissed off"

Lin - an originally trauma stuck / loop - is very very poorly associated with anything that isn't overtly trauma related (and that is saying something cause Vocaloid is trauma related) and thus has very few connections to other parts

So looking at this though, there are a few things that have some similarities between parts. What you can do is make plans to try to foster the interests that you do have and try to generalize it a bit more to also encompass what interests other parts have. So lets engage in hobbies a little more - explore a few concepts that mean a lot to parts independently - and find some more generalized version of those hobbies

(forgot to add easy listening to Ray's and "only wearing monochrome*" to XIV's earlier) (*there are a lot of nuances and caveats)

Damn, look at that. It's messy and ugly to have in a 2D form. I absolutely hate it, this would be so impossible with our whole system. But HEY, it's very connected - and that's the goal.

Compared to the previous one, you can see how easily it can be for one part's interests to start to drift into another. Because they are largely and strongly associated features to each part, they are a lot more accessible when engaging in their shared / associated connections and interests which makes it easier for the them to stay together near the front, stay associated with one another, and work with and communicate with one another.

Of course anyone following this blog goes "Where tf is Birds" and that I left out because it would ruin the point of the web as it actually is one of our traditional "you are around the system a lot? okay pick a bird" which serves to 1) be a fun system culture thing 2) be a means of welcoming a part in and 3) helps establish a foundational connection; we do the same with music but with music its a lot more elaborate and I probably wont explain it for other reasons.

But overtime, by fostering interests that were already present and encouraging parts to broaden and generalize their specific interest a bit, you end up with a lot of overlapping associations that can greatly improve internal communication, co-fronting ability, and just general fluidity and easy of moving around the brain web.

It becomes a good way of trying to figure out what you can do to encourage and help build connections and associations between parts by seeing where things are similar / could have more overlap (combat and martial arts, different types of fashion, different types of music, different appreciation for arts, taking over the world, yada yada yada)

And you wanna know the coolest thing? When you step back from the whole web you can see certain things appear that stand out the most and have some of the most connections.

If you ever intend to go to Final Fusion, those are the things that will likely be the most prominent traits of your whole self

For us? [REDACTED BIRDS for the point of the demonstration], Music, Fashion, Taking over the World, Recovery and Healing, Buddhism, Martial Arts, Arts in general - they're all some of our largest traits that persist in almost all forms as individual parts, partially fused parts, and fully fused parts.

And the BEST part? Doing this didn't require us to touch trauma at all.

Of course in recovery that will come up cause PTSD doesn't ask permission, but its a very low stress way to help improve internal communication and engagement with one another.

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hugmekenobi · 5 months

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S3: The Bad Batch (3)

Chapter Three: Shadows of Tantiss

Gif by @theworstbatch

Hunter x femaleJedi!reader

Series Summary: Ever since Eriadu, Clone Force 99 had been a fractured squad. Months have passed but you're finally back with the Batch but Omega is still out there and you won't stop until you find her again.

Chapter Summary: Time is against Omega and Crosshair as they finally make the move to escape

Masterlist for S1 and S2

<Previous Chapter

Genre: Friends (idiots) to Lovers (we're in the lovers stage now)

Chapter Warnings: Canon-typical violence, mentions of food and the importance of self-care, the Force and meditation works how I say it can, reader is a bit more forceful in making Hunter look after himself lol, Hemlock and Palpatine, threatening insinuations, light angst, again my interpretations of headspaces, limited use of (y/n)

Word Count: 3.7K

Author's notes: The people have spoken (it was three people but people I greatly appreciate and it was enough) so here is the third chapter too! Very much sticking with the episode plot because the main focus is on Crosshair and Omega for this one but there's still an added moment in the beginning! Enjoy and I'm excited to start chapter four!

“You picking up anything?” Wrecker asked your cross-legged form that was seated by the tree at the top of Pabu.

You heaved an annoyed sigh as you sat there. “Nope. I don’t know if it’s cause I’m out of practice or if she’s really somewhere I can’t reach or both, but I can’t get a read on her.” You then sensed Wrecker’s slight unease. “What’s up?”

“Well… um… Hunter’s talking about heading out immediately.”

“Mm-hmm.” You said, shielding your eyes from the sun as you opened them to look at him. “And that’s a problem because?”

“Come on, (Y/N), we can’t just drop the kids here and leave. That’s not fair to them. Plus, Shep offered us a break and- and I- I think it would be good if we got some actual food in our systems. Supplies haven’t exactly been easy to come by when you’re travelling as much as we are.”

You had to agree with him there. You got to your feet and followed his eyes and saw Hunter disengage from a conversation with Shep and stride back to the Marauder. “And what exactly do you want me to do here?”

“Just…” He breathed heavily. “I dunno. Talk to him? Try to get him to listen? He won’t hear us out but- but your relationship is different and- and it’s not just for me, okay. Do it for him. I know things are better but…” He trailed off. “But I’m still worried about him that’s all.”

His sensitivity to the situation never failed to strike a chord with you. You patted his arm. “We’re family, Wrecker. I’d do it just for you anyway.”

Wrecker let out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, I know.”

You walked away from him towards the ship and as you stepped aboard, you saw Hunter sitting back by the navicomputer with his sight fixed firmly on the datapad. “You know, the sector isn’t going to change if you don’t look at it every two minutes.”

“I’m just making sure we have it correct and ready to go. Can you get Wrecker?” Hunter asked without looking at you yet.

“About that…” You came to stand in front of him and placed your fingers under his chin to get him to face you. “What’s this about you wanting to just leave the cadets and take off? Shep’s offering us some decent food and we could rest up before we depart.”

“We don’t have time.” He maintained.

“No one’s talking about a five-course meal. It’s a quick sit down where you can put those clones at ease about this new situation that they’re in and you take a moment to just look after yourself.”

“I don’t need-”

“Hunter, when was the last time you had something to eat that wasn’t just rations?” You interrupted sternly. The mere fact that he couldn’t answer told you that it had been far too long. “Look, we don’t know what we’re going to face out there and we all need to be at full strength and ration bars can’t always cut it. It’s not just you involved in this either. Wrecker has been at it non-stop too and he deserves a moment of respite and something that isn’t a flavourless stick and so do you.

“(Y/N)-”

“Thirty minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

As Hunter saw the determined look in your face, he heaved a sigh, but put the datapad down. He had never wanted his tunnel-vision with this search to negatively impact the rest of you but thanks to you, he realised now that if he had insisted on leaving immediately, then that’s exactly what he’d be doing.

Taking that as your answer, you took a hold of his hands and started to pull.

“Half an hour?” Hunter double checked as he let you tug him from the chair.

“Half an hour.” You confirmed with a nod. “Then we can get going again.”

Omega was already on her feet and waiting by the door when Emerie opened it.

“Good morning, Omega. Come along, there is much to do today.”

Omega followed Emerie through the usual route to the testing room but as she walked in and hopped up onto the examination table, she noticed there were more troopers patrolling and there was a new kind of tension in the air. “Something’s different.” She shared her observation aloud to Emerie. “Why are there so many troopers around?”

“I’m not certain.” Emerie replied.

“You don’t know?” Omega queried, not fully understanding how Emerie could be so content not knowing about what was going on around her.

“The doctor will inform me if it’s necessary.” Emerie prepared the blood drawing equipment and took the sample from Omega.

The door opened and they both turned to see Hemlock and Nala Se enter the lab.

“Emerie, a word?” Hemlock called over.

Emerie put the sample in the tray and walked over to him.

“An unexpected guest arriving shortly. Nala Se and I will be indisposed until he departs. Oversee the lab in her absence.”

“As you wish, Doctor. I will begin testing the latest samples.”

“That is unnecessary.” Nala Se interjected. “I will see to them when I return.” She had been doing her job in keeping Omega safe and having Emerie carry out the tests jeopardised all of it.

“Dr. Karr’s quite capable of handling such matters.” Hemlock ignored the Kaminoan’s objections and faced Emerie. “See it done.” His attentions were then commandeered when Scorch walked through the doors.

“Sir.”

“Is everything in order?”

“Affirmative. The shuttle has left the orbital station and the coordinated were transmitted.”

Nala Se stepped away from Hemlock to walk over to Omega as she saw Emerie gather the samples and leave the lab. She pretended to examine the records on the screen as she quietly addressed the young girl, “Omega… listen carefully. If Emerie tests your sample, you will be in danger. You must flee this facility before it is too late.”

“Wait. Is that why you’ve been destroying my sample?” Omega whispered back.

“Yes.” Nala Se replied. “Project-” But Hemlock’s voice interrupted her.

“Nala Se, come along. Our guest is arriving.”

“Go to the lab, retrieve my datapad and use it to escape. Sneak aboard a shuttle and flee.” Nala Se instructed before she left with Hemlock.

Omega made her way to the lab, her nerves growing as she saw the vast number of patrolling troopers, but she couldn’t second guess now, Nala Se made it clear she had to go, and she could make it work, she just needed the datapad and Crosshair.

She entered the lab and saw that Emerie had already placed all the samples, including hers into the centrifuge.

“Did you need something, Omega?” Emerie asked.

“I… Hemlock said there’s a guest arriving.” She released an awkward chuckle. “Who is it?”

“It’s best not to ask questions.” Emerie replied briskly. “See to your tasks for the day.” When Omega made no move to leave, she properly looked at her. “Are you feeling well? Forget your assignments and get some rest.”

“Okay.” Omega said lightly before she made her way over to Nala Se’s datapad but Emerie’s voice stopped her from taking it.

“Omega, I can handle things here. Go. I’ll check on you later.” Emerie insisted.

Double checking that Emerie’s attention was elsewhere again, Omega grabbed the datapad and ran out of the lab.

“We have quadrupled our objectives in record time.” Hemlock informed Emperor Palpatine as he led him to the vault. “The exotic matter facilities have expanded, providing alteration and testing of much larger assets.”

“I have need of such grand designs. However, that is not the reason why I am here today.”

“Of course. Project Necromancer.” With that, Hemlock activated the door to the vault.

Omega made her way to the detention level and covertly ran to the cell where her brother was lying on the cell cot. “Crosshair.” She whispered.

“What are you doing here?” Crosshair asked irritably.

“Escaping. And you’re coming with me.”

Crosshair reluctantly sat up and regarded the girl with scepticism. “You found a weak point?”

“Not exactly. I’m kinda improvising.”

“Is that some kind of a joke?”

“I’ll explain later. Just get the guards’ attention.”

Crosshair sighed, “That’s not a plan.”

Omega released a disgruntled scoff, and she did not want to entertain this argument, “Just distract him.” She insisted.

His longing for freedom trumped his displeasure at the fact that this kid seemed to lack any sort of proper strategic thinking. So, he got to his feet and walked towards the bars of his cell and addressed the two troopers standing down the corridor. “Guards!”

Omega waited round the corner and watched as one of them approached Crosshair’s door.

“Unlock this cell.” Crosshair demanded.

“What did you say?”

“I was giving you an order.”

The guard scoffed and called back to his partner, “This clone thinks he outranks us.”

“I do.” Crosshair replied simply as he saw the other guard coming to join. “And I’ll take your blaster too.”

“Oh yeah?” The trooper challenged with a mocking laugh. “How are you gonna do that?”

Whilst this was happening, Omega used the opening to place her datapad into the now unmanned centre console and programmed Crosshair’s cell door to unlock.

“You’ll see.” Crosshair didn’t have to wait long until his door opened, and he instantly overpowered the trooper. He stole his blaster and used his body as a shield from the oncoming stun blasts from the second stormtrooper whilst he fired his own stun blast in return and they both fell the ground.

“Nice work.” Omega praised as he put them back behind the cell door.

“Didn’t have much choice.” Crosshair griped as he picked up the second blaster.

“You’re out of the cell, aren’t you?” Omega countered smugly as she removed the datapad and caught the blaster he tossed to her before they both started running.

“Well? Start talking.” Crosshair said as he waited for her to get the next door open.

“I told you. We’re escaping.” Omega repeated.

“Why now? What’s changed?”

“Nala Se said I had to. And I wasn’t gonna leave without you.”

Crosshair let that sink in for a moment. It wasn’t a sentiment he was used to hearing or experiencing, and whilst he held responsibility for that, it was still strange to here coming from someone who had no true reason to have any loyalty to him.

“She told me to use her datapad to access the base and find a shuttle. We just need to get to a hangar.” Omega continued explaining as she finally got the door open.

They took cover behind the hallway’s centre console as a squadron of stormtrooper passed and they overheard part of their musings.

“We’re not supposed to be on patrol until midwatch.”

“Commander’s orders. All hands-on deck until the Emperor departs.”

“The Emperor’s here?” Crosshair hissed.

“What? I didn’t know.” Omega said defensively as she looked through the manifest of available shuttles.

Crosshair released another exasperated sigh. “Another reason why this was not the day to wing an escape.”

“Thanks for the reminder, but I think we’re past that point.” It was then that Omega noticed the tremor in his hand as he held the blaster. “Your hand’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

“I- It’s fine.” Crosshair said with a dismissive grunt as he willed it to stop shaking.

Not having time to push the matter yet, Omega turned her focus back to the screen but what she saw was not good. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

She took the datapad out. “All the shuttles have been grounded, except the Emperor’s. We’ll have to steal it.”

The sheer simplicity in which she said that had him realising that his brothers may have entertained one too many crazy ideas in his absence. “Impossible. It will be too well-guarded, even for me.”

Omega pondered through any possible alternatives in her head and then she came to the realisation with a gasp. “Wait. I know a shuttle we can use. It crash-landed outside the perimeter back when I first came here.”

“How does a crashed shuttle help us?”

“If the comms are still functioning, we can contact the others.”

He could concede that that part of this ill-conceived ‘plan’ wasn’t totally far-fetched. “And how do we get outside?”

“Follow me.”

“As you can see, the specimens are well-guarded to ensure they remain viable for testing. However, with more time, and additional resources, I am confident that we will have a successful M-count replication.” Hemlock revealed to the cloaked figure.

“There is nothing of greater importance to secure the future of this Empire. Whatever is needed to accomplish this goal, you will have it.”

“Thank you, Emperor.” Hemlock made to show him out, but he only turned to face him. His yellow eyes the only thing visible underneath the cloak as they regarded him with curiosity but also with a hint of disappointment.

Palpatine did not follow the scientist immediately. “I did here word, however, one such specimen escaped your grasp.” He commented. “One that perhaps could offer you more than those that are already under your… observations.”

Hemlock’s posture stiffened and he massaged the palm of his gloved hand. “It was an unfortunate error but one I am hoping to rectify.”

Palpatine only silently nodded before he started to walk out.

As they entered the kennels, they didn’t give the droid much time to react. A few blasts from their blasters and he was down.

“Now what?” Crosshair asked.

“We’ll use the kennel chute.” Omega said as she readied the controls. “It leads outside, but it’s protected by a timed ray shield. We’ll have to move fast or we’ll be trapped.”

Crosshair regarded the aggressive barking hounds uneasily. “Oh, I can hardly wait.”

“We can use Batcher’s empty kennel. Be ready.” She opened the chute, but the door whirred open.

“Omega.”

Crosshair cocked his blaster towards the woman that walked in.

“Don’t!” Omega placed her hand on his arm to get him to lower it.

Crosshair didn’t listen, he kept his sights trained on her.

“You should go back to your room.” Emerie advised as she advanced towards them.

“You mean her cell.” Crosshair snapped.

“You’re not thinking clearly. Neither of you.” Emerie said. “But it’s not too late. Come with me and no one needs to know about this.”

“I can’t do that.” Omega responded firmly.

“Omega-”

“I spent most of my life confined on Kamino. I won’t be trapped here too.” She looked imploringly at the older clone. “You’re a clone like us, Emerie. Help us.”

Crosshair could tell Omega’s words weren’t doing enough to convince her and he set his blaster to stun.

“Escape is not possible, Omega. This is for your own good.” She pressed the security alarm, but the stun shot hit her immediately afterwards.

The dreaded sound of the comms steady chirp told Crosshair he’d reacted a split second too late. “We have to go.”

Omega activated the first kennel door and the two of them ran down the chute.

Hemlock watched the Emperor’s shuttle depart with a growing sense of pride as the possibility of becoming the scientific minister felt closer than it ever had before.

“Sir.”

Hemlock half turned his head to the sound of Scorch’s voice. “What is it?” He asked tightly.

“Omega and CT-9904 are missing.”

He turned around fully. “Missing?” He glanced over at Nala Se and though her face didn’t give much away, he was sure she was involved somehow.

“An alarm was just triggered in the lurca kennels.”

“Seal it off.” He ordered.

An alarm blared through the tunnel and the shields throughout the chut started to turn back on.

“The shield’s not supposed to be active yet.” Omega said in distress.

“They know we’re in here.” Crosshair realised before he increased his speed. “Move faster!”

Together, they both managed to dive out of the exit just as the last shield activated.

Crosshair peered into the dark forest ahead. “What direction is the crashed shuttle?”

“Not sure.” Omega replied.

“Oh, great.” Crosshair muttered impatiently before he looked up to the sound of a shuttle leaving the base. “We’ll follow the flight path.”

“I’m picking up something.” Omega said as she looked at the datapad whilst they both came to a stop. “I think it could be the ship. That way.” She pointed ahead but the cry of a vicious snarl grabbed both their attention.

“Oh, good. The killer hounds.” Crosshair said wryly.

They started their run again but with Omega being so focused on the screen, she tumbled over a tree root.

Crosshair picked up the loose datapad and helped the girl up to her feet.

“Thanks.” Omega said but then she heard a new kind of animal growl, and she peered past Crosshair to see a giant bear-like creature standing tall on two legs. “Crosshair.” She said nervously.

Crosshair pointed his blaster, but he knew by the sheer size of the creature that there wouldn’t be much he could do.

Suddenly, the hounds came running in and rather than come after them, they charged at the creature, and they gratefully took the opportunity to keep running to the downed shuttle.

They reached the shuttle and Omega got to work on powering it up whilst Crosshair kept watch.

Having been dismissed by Dr. Hemlock when she’d come too, Emerie made her way back to the lab to do as he instructed and monitor things there. The monotonous click of the centrifuge blended into the background as she worked.

“Anything?” Crosshair asked.

Omega hit the control panel in sheer frustration. “It’s not working!” She let out a defeated sigh. “Comms are completely dead.” She put the datapad into a supply pack she’d found, grabbed her blaster, and put the pack on her back and came out to join Crosshair.

“They’re coming.” Crosshair said as he heard the low sound of engines approaching and he signalled to Omega to take cover to the side of the shuttle.

“I’m sorry. I thought this would work.” Omega

He may have been doubtful in the beginning, but it was clear that what he originally thought was careless thinking was actually rooted in that out-of-the-box thinking that had gotten him and his brother’s their success during the war and time thereafter. She had done something just by finding a way outside. Now, he could bring in his own experience. “You got us this far. And we’re not done yet. Did they teach plan 72?”

“Mm-hmm. Tech had me memorize all the plans.”

Despite the situation, he couldn’t help the small but fond smile that graced his face upon hearing that. “Of course he did.”

The two of them got in position as the shuttle arrived.

He looked at his hand with anger and infuriation as his aim was off with the first shot and all he could do was retreat into the treeline whilst they fired back at him.

With Crosshair’s distraction giving the opening she needed, Omega made her way to one of the cables the troopers had used to descend. But before she could get up, a stormtrooper cocked his blaster.

“Stand down.”

She awkwardly turned and waved to the soldier. “Hello.”

“I said, stand down.” He repeated forcefully.

Omega watched with shock as a lurca hound came snarling out from a bush and took out the trooper and when he got to his feet and aimed at the hound, she got her own stun blast away. “Batcher?” The answering happy bark told her the answer. “Stay close.” With that, Batcher went to take care of the troopers and she hooked onto the cable and ascended.

With the hound Omega had befriended making her appearance, Crosshair was able to take out more guards than he thought he would’ve been able to.

If things had gone according to plan, he would be able to join Omega in the shuttle in a few minutes. He just needed to bide his time.

Sure enough, as he took out one other trooper, the shuttle started to move wildly out of position and as he took cover from an onslaught of blaster fire, the shuttle fired down on the remaining troopers, and he hastily made his way across the rocks to reach the opening ship doors.

Omega steadied the shuttle and came down the lift to provide Crosshair with cover fire as he came in board and headed up to the pilot’s chair.

Crosshair reached the seat and chucked the pilot out the hatch.

Hearing the doors getting ready to shut, Omega took cover and whistled for Batcher. “Batcher, come!”

When the dog was safely inside, Crosshair shut the doors and got the ship in the air.

Emerie had gotten so used to the monotonous drone of the centrifuge that it had become mere background noise. So much so that she almost missed the new rhythmic beeping that chimed as a new sample clicked into position. Emerie stood up and investigated the screen and the realisation with what she saw, stunned her.

The troopers had only been half the problem. Despite having escaped the ground assault, they were now trying to out fly V-wing shuttles and the bases’ laser cannons and one of them managed to hit the shuttle.

“They’re locking onto us!” Omega shouted as alarms blared throughout the shuttle. “I can’t shake them! Systems are failing.”

“I want that ship neutralized.” Hemlock insisted heatedly as he watched map in main control room.

“Stop! Don’t shoot them down!” Emerie urged as she entered the room.

“What?” Hemlock snapped.

“The clone’s sample supported a positive M-count transfer with no degradation from the specimen.”

“CT-9904 was ruled out long ago.” Hemlock argued.

“Not him. It’s Omega.” Emerie revealed, showing him the results.

Hemlock studied the datapad and saw what she was talking about. “Call them off!” He directed Scorch.

“But, sir, they’re escaping.” Scorch tried to protest.

“Stand down!” Hemlock insisted. “We need her alive.”

Not looking to question the reason as to why they peeled off, Crosshair shouted to Omega. “Now!”

Omega launched the ship into hyperspace.

Hemlock watched the ship disappear off the map.

“They’ve jumped.” Scorch confirmed.

Hemlock released a short sigh. “A minor setback. I have the full resources of the Empire at my disposal. We will find her. And with her gone, she will lead us to someone else who will prove most useful to our endeavours.” With that, he exited the room.

Next Chapter>

Tagging: @noeasyisnoisy, @andreaaxy, @dominoeffectsworld, @nightmonkeysstuff, @arctrooper69, @starwarsnerd111, @fuckoffthanos, @graciexmarvel, @tpwkcalli, @brujaporfavor, @flyingkangaroo, @ladytano420, @keep-calm-and-drink-caf, @yyourmotherr, @sunkissedclones, @xxeiraxx, @dragonrider9905, @skellymom, @lokigirlszendaya

#the bad batch #the bad batch season 3 #the bad batch s3 #hunter x reader #hunter x femalejedi!reader #hunter x fem!reader #hunter x female!reader #sergeant hunter x reader #sergeant hunter #hunter tbb #hunter the bad batch #the bad batch hunter x you #hunter x y/n #tbb hunter x reader #the bad batch fanfiction #star wars #friends to lovers #angst #hurt/comfort

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gffa · 1 year

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Hi Lumi. This year I’ve watched The Clone Wars, Rebels, Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, and Tales of the Jedi and I’m watching Ahsoka as episodes are released. But I feel like I’m missing some context as to why people are wary of Filoni. What things should I know so I’m caught up, so to speak, in the fandom discussions?

Hi! That's a lot of Star Wars to watch in a year, I hope you're having fun with it all! And I will gently remind everyone that Filoni is not the be-all-end-all of Star Wars creators--Henry Gilroy was there for TCW and Rebels, too. George Lucas was holding writers' meetings years after the show started (at least into 2010!). The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett are far more Jon Favreau's shows. The Bad Batch is Brad Rau and Jennifer Corbett. Resistance was developed by him, but was run by other producers. It's just that Filoni tends to get the most camera time and has become the face of Star Wars creators. That said, the issue with Filoni is kind of two-pronged, though, they overlap. 1. He's done a lot of interviews where he's said a lot of anti-Jedi things that have drifted from reasonable critiques in the beginning to eventually "Qui-Gon Jinn was the only true Jedi. [blatantly wrong citations]" This has put a lot of people off him as a creator, because we love the Jedi Order that Lucas talks about and established, which Filoni has actively contradicted over the years, despite being promoted as someone who follows Lucas' themes. And it's hard not to be aware of his interviews when watching his shows and it's hard to enjoy shows that do your faves dirty, you know? 2. His writing has become weaker over the years for a lot of us--Rebels is a show most of us love and found to be incredible. Many of us really love The Clone Wars, which he was heavily involved in/was probably the central voice after Lucas started phasing out. But his biggest story told over the course of those series--basically, the story of Mandalore's history and fall to the Empire--has been extremely thin for a lot of us. And a lot of us get frustrated at his inability to be objective when it comes to Ahsoka's character, that we love her as a character very much, but it hasn't felt like Filoni really knows what to do with her character arc and yet almost everything he writes is centered around her. His final season of The Clone Wars? Gave her the walkabout arc and the Siege of Mandalore arc, both of which often did not hold up well under scrutiny. His episode of The Book of Boba Fett? I actually really loved it, but it absolutely just stopped the pacing of that show to focus a lot on her. More on Luke, but he couldn't resist putting her in there, either. Tales of the Jedi was half devoted to Ahsoka and so much of it wasn't even about her time as a Jedi! We're frustrated because he doesn't set things up well anymore--Morgan Elsbeth is a Nightsister?? Why wasn't that established in The Mandalorian instead of pulling out randomly in Ahsoka? Why does Sabine Wren suddenly so badly want Jedi training, when they barely even had a conversation in Rebels?? There's a lot of good that Filoni has given to Star Wars, I think he genuinely cares about the Force and what it means--he's very consistent on how it's not easy and how it takes discipline and control, that he has been consistent on how anger and fear are paths to the dark side, even his episode of TBOBF had Ahsoka saying, yeah, attachment is a path to the dark side, because the Jedi mean "attachment" in a more Buddhist-aligned way. A lot of his writing for the character of Ahsoka is actually pretty good, like I've been enjoying her being a prickly, traumatized hot mess in the show! It's just that I kind of hate all the interviews he gives and I think he's a lot less objective than a lot of fans and media coverage that would hold him up as a perfect writer/interviewee about all things Star Wars, and it all comes together to make him kind of a hot-button topic.

So, a lot of people LOVE Filoni's work, a lot of people are frustrated by it, a lot of people are casually fine about it, a lot of people HATE Filoni's work and it can be a fun mix of any of the above or even other issues that come up. (And that's all fine! I have my views on Filoni's work, but it's fine if others hate it more than I do or love it more than I do, there's room for us all, all of it is valid.)

But I think if you want to understand some of the roots of this corner of fandom's frustration, two (admittedly long as heck) homework assignment reads would be:

- My own rebuttal to Dave's behind the scenes Mandalorian Gallery talk (this is jokingly referred to as "Davegate" because I refused to take it too seriously) - @david-talks-sw's collection of comparisons between Lucas' commentary on the Jedi and Filoni's commentary on the Jedi

This response itself is more focused on laying out the problems a lot of people have with Filoni's writing, but also honestly I still have my giant collection of Jedi source material citations that quotes his commentary, I still bring up Filoni's quotes in current meta a lot, I still talk positively about the things I enjoy from his shows, so overall there's equal amounts of both praise and criticism here. So, as short as I can make it (which isn't very, shut up, I know! XD), that's basically what people mean when they say they're wary of Filoni.

#star wars #dave filoni #meta

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crazyk-imagine · 1 year

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If your requests are still open, can I request a Sanji live action x fem!reader with the same plot as Luffy having to make up the price of the order but Sanji overlooks the reader doing the jobs alone in the kitchen (make it more romantic and/or sexual, he’s heavily into her but she’s into the fun)

Pairing: Vinsmoke Sanji x Fem!reader

Characters: Vinsmoke Sanji, Fem!reader, Roronora Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy, Nami, Usopp, Zeff, Buggy, Arlong, Arlong's Pirates

Warnings: Angst, fluff, implied smut at the end, unnecessary drama, I rewatched the last few episodes and this is what happened, I love making the reader so sassy to Usopp, and making Nami bestie material, reader and Sanji have a past, this is an interesting one folks

Word Count: 5,102

*I did not realize this was so long, holy crap

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

You close your eyes and rest your head against the booth, letting the delicious and flavorful meal settle in your belly. You make a mental note to thank the chef before leaving because this was just what you all needed.

“Here is the bill.”

“I got it,” Luffy tells him.

You shake your head, having a feeling that this won’t end well. “Luffy.”

He turns to you, raising his brows.

“You barely have one berry to your name. How could you afford to pay for this meal?”

He gives you a mischievous smirk and taps his head. “I have an idea.”

“We’re going to be kicked out,” you say.

“Yep,” Nami adds. “If we can make it out of here alive that is.”

You shrug, “we can handle ourselves. They can’t.”

“Well, that’s rude and I’m actually very offended,” Usopp chimes in. “Who’s to say it’s us that can’t handle ourselves and it’s actually you.”

You raise a brow, “how many beers did you have?”

“Don’t deflect the question.”

“Don’t be an idiot and I’ll answer.”

The man grumbles under his breath.

The kitchen door slams open and an angry man with a peg leg walks out. “Who is Monkey D. Luffy?”

He swirls around the pillar, raising his glass of milk to gesture to himself.

“You signed your name?” You ask. “Are you dumb?”

“I wanted him to know who it was since I’m going to be king of the pirates. I didn’t want to be rude.”

“You’re an idiot,” Nami tells him.

“Thank you,” you tell her. “Oh, and the angry chef is coming this way, great job Luffy.”

After his explanation, you decide to take charge and know what you need to do. “I will do the dishes.”

“No, it is his responsibility.”

“I want to.”

“No,” Zeff shakes his head.

You cross your arms, “are you afraid of having a woman in the kitchen?”

Sanji, the blond (and still extremely flirtatious) chef chuckles, using his hand to pretend he’s coughing so his boss doesn’t catch on.

The man scoffs, “not at all.”

“Then let me do it… unless you want broken dishes.” You swear his mustache twitched when you said that.

“Go,” he points towards the door. “Show her the way, little Eggplant.”

Sanji’s eyebrows twitch, he takes a deep breath.

The only reason you knew he was taking a moment to collect himself was because of the way his chest puffed out while his hands stayed in his pockets. “If you’d follow me, madam.”

“I will if you don’t call me madam.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

“I’m starting to regret doing this instead of Luffy.”

He chuckles. “You won’t be saying that in the next few minutes. I think I’ll be able to get you to like it.”

You shake your head with a quiet scoff, “I don’t think so.”

“Want to bet?”

“Nope,” you tell him popping the “P”. “I don’t to take your money so easily.”

“Oh, is that what you think?”

“I know it.” His eyes follow you as you walk away, entering the kitchen. “You’ll do the dishes.”

You glance at the tower of unwashed dishes, knowing it’s only going to grow as the day goes on. You raise a brow, “couldn’t I do something else? I think you need a properly trained dish washing person to get through that.”

“It’s either this or something worse happens to your friends,” the braided mustache man chimes in.

You purse your lips, knowing he’s not joking. “I’ll do the dishes, but not happily.”

“Good. Now get to work. The lunch rush is about to begin.”

“You mean there’s gonna be more?!”

A few of the other kitchen staff laugh.

“You’ve never had to do this before, have you?” Sanji asks.

You avoid eye contact. “Not for a long time.”

“Well-” His name is called; a fellow cook needs his assistance. “If you’ll excuse me, my lady.”

You grumble under your breath, not letting the nickname get to you. “You can do this. The faster we get these dishes done, the less there will be.” You know it’s not true but it’s the only thing getting you through the next few hours.

You wipe your brow, not wanting your sweat to drip into your eye (you can only let it happen a few times today). You sigh, resting your hands against the edge of the sink trying not to think about the knots in your shoulders.

A hand rests on your low back, sending a comforting feeling down your spine (something you’re not used to and can’t find yourself to push him away). “Are you alright?” The chef asks, putting another dish into the sink, feeling bad because you’ve been working so hard this entire time.

“Yeah, yeah-”

“Oi, who said you could take a break? I need those dishes done before morning.”

You turn to face the boss, only to knock your hand into the pile of bowls which sends the one closest to the edge to fall and break into a million pieces on the ground.

“That’s worth at least another year.”

You want to scream. “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”

“’Fraid not. Hurry up, I don’t have all night.”

“Don’t tempt me, old man. I’ll break all your dishes if you don’t shut up.”

“Could you repeat that. I don’t think this “old man” heard you.”

“I said-”

Sanji wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you back, forcing you to sit in a chair as he walks back over to Zeff, whispering to him.

You don’t care enough to even try and listen to their conversation, you wish Luffy would bust in here and get you out of here but that punk, you shake your head.

‘He’s probably asleep after all the food he ate.’

You wish you could sleep but, knowing you took a burden off your captain and found a way to help people, even by doing the simplest task, meant more to you than sleep.

You sigh and push yourself out of the chair, walking back towards the sink. “I’ll have these done before the sun rises, chef,” you shout loud enough for them to stop bickering.

“Alright, I’m keeping you to your word, you hear.”

“I understand and if I’m not… I am willing to have myself stay behind while my crew continues our mission.”

Sanji’s eyes widen at your confession, that is not something he would have heard a few years ago. He turns back to his boss with a nervous chuckle. “She doesn’t mean that.” He walks closer to you and leans down, “you don’t mean that, right?”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye. “Shut up and finish what you were doing. I know how to handle myself,” you snap.

He takes a step back, looking at his fellow chef, who nods before taking his leave. “I’ll be over here if you need anything.”

You couldn’t respond even if you wanted to by the time the stranded pirate burst through the door.

Sanji ran over to help him, placing one arm around his shoulders (you do the same after watching him struggle).

You get him a cup of water while the blond makes some food.

The man is grateful and offers to pay for the food, reaching into his pocket but the man beside you shake his head. “Helping someone who’s hungry is more than enough payment. I’m just happy to have helped.”

That’s when you knew he’d most definitely be perfect to join the crew (if he wanted to, of course).

The man left and once again your cleaning dishes while Sanji does… whatever it is he needed to.

Honestly after that, you haven’t been paying too much attention to him to know what he’s doing.

You clear your throat, finding the silence to be a bit awkward now. “Who made our meal?”

“Who wants to know?” He raises his brow.

You roll your eyes, “don’t give me attitude. You haven’t known me long enough to be sassy with me.”

He nods. “Fine. And to answer your question, I did.”

“You did?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” He asks, feeling offended by your question.

“No, it’s not like that. I’m just- I’m very impressed. I mean, everything was just- I can’t even put it into words at how delicious the food was.”

His shoulders sag, no longer feeling the need to be defensive. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” You giggle, turning off the faucet. “Thank you by the way.”

“What for?”

“The delicious meal, for one.” You stare at the bowl, thinking back to when you barely had meals like this growing up.

It was always tough, using the few ingredients you had to try and make food, most of the time things went bad and you couldn’t use them. You were lucky to be able to eat when you could.

“It’s one I’ll never forget.” You glance at him from the corner of your eye. “Same with the chef.”

“Was that a compliment?” The corners of his lips curve upwards.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

“Fine,” you huff. “It is.” You wipe the last bowl dry. “Now, that I’m done… I can go join my crew.”

“You miss it.”

“Miss what?”

You turn around.

“Us.”

“There never was an us.”

“There could have been.”

Your tongue rubs against the front of your teeth. “Guess we’ll never know.” You toss the towel down on the countertop beside the sink. “I have to go now.”

He sighs. “Hey, don’t go. I’ll- I’ll stop talking about-”

“Our past. Something tells me you won’t.”

“I can.” He scoffs, “you know, you always did this.”

“Did what?”

“Tried to run away from reality.”

“I- maybe I left because it wasn’t the right time.”

“When will it be?”

You shrug, “who knows. Maybe-” Your eyes widen, feeling his lips on yours. You close your eyes, losing yourself in it… in him. You push him back, “Sanji.”

“Yes?” Hie slowly pries his eyes open.

“Why’d you do that?” You whisper.

“I couldn’t let you go without doing it.”

“Well, you did it. Are you happy now?”

“Maybe,” he smirks. “Does it change anything?”

You take a deep breath. “I- I honestly don’t know. I mean, not much has changed right? You’re still here and I’ll still be…”

“Not here.”

“Exactly.”

“I love you.” You nod, placing a hand on his cheek. “I know and that’s why I left the first time. You have so much potential, and the old man sees that, but your life is here. You- cooking here has been your life and I won’t be the reason you’re unhappy-”

“I wouldn’t.” He shakes his head, his hair covering his eyes so you can’t see his pain.

You close your eyes and peck his cheek. “I hope I’ll see you soon.” You sneak back onto the ship and lay in your bed, watching the sun rise.

“What happened last night?” Zeff asks, watching as the usually spunky chef does not fight back.

Sanji shrugs, making the meal on today’s menu.

The ex-pirate nods and turns at the sound of the captain entering his kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

“What I should have done yesterday. You need dishes clean, and I am here to help.”

“Get to work.”

You walk back into the restaurant to get a new bucket of fresh water to wipe Zoro’s wounds and look for some food when you stumble upon a fight going down between your crew and pirates.

You curve your index finger and thumb, whistling loudly to get them to stop throwing your captain around. “Hey! Why not fight someone who’s more worthy of a fight?”

Arlong smirks. “I’d like to see you try.”

You smirk and throw the bucket in his direction, giving you enough time to run over to him and kick him. You throw across the way and land on your back, pushing yourself up before he can grab you. “You’ve got fire. Why don’t you join my crew, so I don’t have to hurt that pretty face?”

You give him a tight-lipped smile. “Hard pass.” You stare up at the ceiling, faintly hearing Luffy and the pirate going outside.

His fishman make their way towards you until they decide they’re better off following their captain.

Usopp runs over to you and helps you sit up.

You groan, trying to get air back into your lungs. “Thanks.”

“Are you sure you should be trying to get up right now?” He asks, hand hovering around you in case something happens.

Sanji watches from the stairs, slowly getting himself up.

“Probably not but we can’t leave Luffy to fight that maniac on his own. He needs his crew even if,” you huff, knowing a bruise is forming.

“Even if he doesn’t think so.” You wobble for a second and then get yourself together, grabbing the two. “Let’s go.”

“For someone who just got thrown into a table, you’re moving exceptionally well.”

“Now’s not the time, flirty.”

He smiles, until you let him go and charge for the head pirate, stopping when your captain falls into the water.

Usopp runs towards you. “Oh my god. Oh my god. What do we do. What do we do?”

You grab the storyteller by his shoulders, shaking him to prevent yourself from slapping him. “Shut up, we just need to-”

The chef throws his shirt and jacket onto the dock before diving in for him.

You haul the man closer to the edge. “Move closer. We gotta pull them up when he comes up.”

You help Usopp pull Luffy up, making sure the captain is alright before helping Sanji (who doesn’t need as much help). You keep a hand on his shoulder, needing to know he’s safe while watching over the captain.

The chef leans into you, not wanting to lose you or your warmth.

“We need to leave now if we want to help Nami.”

The three agree with you and the storyteller assists the captain back onto the ship.

“Here’s your shirt and jacket.”

He slowly reaches for the items, not ready for you to leave. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For more than you know.”

“Don’t leave,” he grabs your wrist.

“What?”

“Let me come and cook for you and your crew. Just- just one meal.”

“Sanji-”

“I know you think I’ll regret it, but I won’t. This- it can be like our last adventure… together.”

“I don’t want you getting your hopes up.”

“I won’t,” he says all too quickly.

“I don’t entirely believe you but okay.” You gesture for him to follow you. “Fine. Let’s go.”

He makes another effortlessly amazing meal.

“Someone needs to shut that red nosed piece of shit up before I use this carrot,” you say, using the vegetable to point at Buggy’s head.

“Oh, come on. I’m not that bad.”

“New guy deals with the head,” Usopp tells Sanji, raising his hands as he walks by him.

The blond clicks his tongue, unsure of what else to do. “Do I have to?”

“House rules, new guy deals with the head,” Zoro backs up the storyteller’s not legit rule.

He's still as sassy as ever, even after coming back from the dead (even if he wasn't officially declared dead), it still amazes you.

“I hate you both.”

Usopp smiles and wraps an arm around your shoulders. “You kid in a mean way, but you really love us.”

“Right now, I want to use the carrot on you.”

He slowly removes his arm from your shoulders. “…okay maybe not.”

“This is about to get interesting.”

“Even more than it already has?” Sanji asks.

“Because being with you always-”

Zoro stops him with a head shake.

“What? What’d I do?”

You stay back in case anyone of them needs a little help; until someone grabs you from behind while a fishman jumps in front of Luffy and Nami, blocking their path.

Zoro takes care of him, giving the two an opportunity to continue.

Sanji manages to finish with the one fishman he was fighting, turning to check on you only to find that you need a little help.

He jumps across as you manage to get the fishman’s hand out of your hair, shoving him away so the chef can kick him in the face.

Your chest heaves as you try to catch your breath, knowing this is only the beginning.

He nods, hands still in his pockets. “You’re welcome.”

At some point you spot the storyteller on the run, unsure of where he plans on going as you’re stuck in your own fight.

You and Zoro make your way closer to the large fishman keeping Sanji on the ground.

After watching the swordsman get pushed back, you decide to take an alternative route and grab a rock to throw it in his direction.

He grabs it as if it weighs nothing and crushes it which gives the chef enough leeway to escape out from under him. “Fight someone your own size.”

He chuckles and makes his way towards you.

You groan but hold your ground, doing all that you can to… not die. You push various branches and leaves out of your way, listening to Zoro rag on Sanji about calling out his finishing move.

“Who the hell let him throw me into the bushes?” You pull out another leaf from your hair.

“It wasn’t my fault you couldn’t keep up.”

“Listen here, you muscular green bean-”

“Why not focus on the fact that you’re alive?”

You purse your lips knowing the blond’s right. “Yeah, well,” you grumble under your breath. “Do I at least look fine?”

The chef takes a step closer, holding his hand out for you to take, helping you out of the bushes. He wraps an arm around your waist when you trip, making sure nothing happens to you.

You straighten your posture and quietly thank him.

He smiles, picking a leaf out of your hair before brushing the strands back behind your ear so he can see you (and make sure you’re okay, he knows how you like to use your hair as a shield to hide what you’re feeling).

He leans closer to your ear, whispering, “you look perfect, a tiny leaf couldn’t take to your beauty.”

You freeze, unsure of how to respond.

“If you stop flirting, we can try to find Nami and Luffy,” Zoro grumbles.

“Oh, man. You guys are together?” Usopp whines.

Your nose twitches, “what? No.”

“Not yet.”

Your head snaps in his direction, glaring at his smugness before an idea comes to mind. “Oh, is that what you think?” You skip over to Zoro, placing an arm around his waist. “I’d think I’d much rather deal with a muscular green bean.”

“I’m not a part of this.”

You turn to him. “Too late.”

The blond grabs you and pulls you away from the green haired man.

“I still owe Nami,” Usopp mumbles.

You shake your head, realizing how idiotic these guys can be. You all turn and stare at the building, the faint sounds of fighting and the building slowly crumbling sends a chill down your spine.

You spot Nami running through the gate. “Na-” You groan at her throwing herself at you. “Good to see you too.”

You glance to the side and notice the blond’s shoulders sagging. Once she lets go of you, you turn towards him.

He opens his arms, making himself look sad.

You narrow your eyes, raising a brow. "Really?"

He nods.

You roll your eyes and pull him closer, stretching your neck so your chin can rest on his shoulder slash clavicle area (honestly wherever you could reach, you didn't care because you were hugging him).

You can feel his heart beating against your cheek, faster and faster the longer you hold him; you hope he can’t feel yours beating in your chest.

“Where’s Luffy?”

“He’s in there.”

“Should we start planning his funeral now or-” You frown, sticking your bottom lip out. “What? Would it be wrong of me to ask if I could keep his hat?”

“What is wrong with you?” The orange haired girl asks you.

“Humor is my only defense and I’m terrified to know if he’s still alive or not.”

A stretchy hand punches through the ruble.

“I guess that answers that question,” you say, covering your mouth to hide your relief sob.

Sanji pulls you closer, coddling you.

Everyone cheers when your captain shouts, “Nami, we are your crew!”

“Now, that’s someone fit to be a captain.”

You raise your plate, “can I have some more?”

The chef chuckles, “how can I say no to that face?”

“Could you two stop flirting for two seconds so we can eat our food in peace?” Nami complains, although she’s actually happy for the two of you (even if she just wishes you two would admit your feelings for one another).

“It’s getting annoying,” the green haired man adds.

“At least they have someone,” Usopp mutters.

“We can turn this ship around and drop you off back at Kaya’s,” the orange haired girl tells him.

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Shutting up now.”

“Wow, who knew Nami could get so mean?” Luffy says, baffled by the scene before him. “I mean it's nothing compared to them but wow. Are you feeling, okay?” He tries to reach across to feel her forehead when she slaps it away from her.

“Yes, would you please stop acting like I’m dying or something and finish your food. It’s impolite to talk with your mouth full.”

The captain nods, giving her a thumbs up.

“Why are you guys talking about us like that?” You can’t help but ask them, not noticing how close you two are.

“How can we not?” Nami raises a brow.

“I mean, have you seen you two. It’s like, you guys are so in sync and clearly have a history but you're walking around as if there’s nothing and I don’t know if you’re doing it for us, but I say you two just stop and do something about it.”

You stare at her, your jaw drops, as does Sanji’s.

‘Were we really as bad as they thought?’

You shake your head, giving them a not so genuine smile. “I’m gonna go now. You have fun thinking… whatever it is you think you know while I do something more interesting.” You quickly walk out of the kitchen, unsure of how to act now.

The chef sighs, tossing the dish towel onto the counter, resting his hands against the edge as he leans forward. “Why?”

“Why, what?” Zoro asks before Nami could.

“Look, I get that you guys want to us to stop and get our acts together, but this isn’t the way to do it. Did you think that maybe there was a reason we never did anything?”

“Maybe you should talk to her and find out why,” the orange haired girl adds, clearly knowing something he doesn’t.

He nods, debating on leaving the kitchen so the two can talk. “Don’t let the sauce burn, keep turning it every five seconds.” He runs out of the kitchen in search of you.

“Where would I find you?” He asks himself, searching throughout the rooms down the hallway.

He’s about to pass his room when something catches his eye, and he turns back around to find your sprawled out in his bed. He smiles and takes careful steps, not wanting to startle you. “Who knew I’d find you in here?”

“Really?”

“Humor me.”

“Why are you here?”

“I believe I should be asking you that question since you’re the one in my bed.”

“I guess you’re right.” You push yourself to the edge of his bed, making a beeline for the door.

He reaches across the way, stopping you. “Don’t go.”

“I- I really need to get back to the others. They might be wondering where I am.”

“That’s unnecessary. They’re the ones who sent me to find you and also send their apologies because they know that you left because of what they said.”

You talk a small step back, giving yourself a few inches of space from him. “It- I didn’t leave because of them,” you mumble.

He nods, “and they know that, but I think this was just a tactic to get us to talk.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They can sense it.”

You furrow your brows, “sense what?”

He scoffs, “don’t act like that.”

“I- act like what, I don’t understand. I’m not acting like anything.”

“You know exactly what it is I’m talking about. Please don’t act like you don’t,” he begs and you feel bad but you can’t help it.

This is not what you planned on doing today. You move his arm out of the way only for him to flip his hand and latched onto your wrist. “Don’t.”

“Sanji-”

“No, I know exactly what you’re going to say.”

You turn around, staring at him with a faux fury in your eyes, the façade you’ve put on in front of him for so long and he knows that.

“Why do you keep doing this?”

“It’s safer.”

“For whom? Me or you?”

“This has always been about us having fun and you know it.”

“It became more than that the moment we started talking.”

“Maybe I was just tricking you,” you shrug, avoiding eye contact as you stare at your shoes.

“I don’t believe that for a second and you know why?”

“Why?”

The heels of his shoes clack against the floor as he steps closer to you. He raises your chin, giving you the soft smile, you’ve only ever seen him give to you and the crew, but it always felt like there was more to it when he did it to you. “Because I know you love me as much as I love you.”

It feels like the air is getting thinner. You don’t realize your crying as hard as you are until you hear his voice trying to sooth you. “No,” you mumble. “No, no,” you push him away and run your hands through your hair. “Stop it!”

“Why should I? You haven’t rejected me and I know it’s because you love me to.”

“Sanji, we wouldn’t be good together.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you’re you. You- you crave the attention or maybe it's the chase but either way you like where you are, and you wouldn’t want to change that for someone like me no matter how much you love me.”

“So what, you think I’m like those other low lives that came into the Baratie with spouses and explicitly talked about their endeavors with other people. You truly think that I would do that to you?”

You shake your head and cover your mouth to quiet yourself. “I don’t- I know,” you take a deep breath. “I know you wouldn’t but that doesn’t stop the little part of me for thinking it could happen. I mean, you always talked about,” you sniffle. “Girls with Patty whether I was in the room or not-”

He shakes his head. “Not true.”

“Which part? You did talk about other girls with him.”

“I may have talked about girls but that was only for me to see if you were listening or not because if you weren’t, Patty would always tell me to stop acting like a child and tell you how I feel if I ever saw you again.”

“Why didn’t you just try to be honest instead of toying with my head?”

He raises a brow with his head tilted. “Fair enough… but now you understand why I’m so scared to start something with you.” He’s in front of you before you know it.

“That just means I need to try even harder to show you how much you mean to me.” He brushes the few strands of hair out of your face, letting him see you (and wipe away your tears). “I only have eyes for you.”

“And Nami.”

“She doesn’t make my heartbeat as fast as you do.”

You lean away. “But she does?”

He’s speechless and doesn’t know what to say until he sees you smiling.

“Just kidding.”

A breathless chuckle filled with obvious relief escapes him. “You are going to be the death of me.”

“Me?” You shake your head. “No. I will be the one who revives you if you even think about getting close to death’s door. I can’t handle that.”

“Neither can I. Of course, I’m always going to come back to you. Who could,” he stares into your eyes switching from one to the other. “Resist someone as beautiful and adorable like you.”

“Lots of people.”

“They’re the ones who lost because I have the best prize of all.”

You close your eyes and lay your head against his chest. “Shut up,” you mumble but he knows what you said.

“I have a lot of making up to do and other than worshipping you later tonight, we need to run back to the kitchen and get started in dinner. I plan on spoiling you.”

You shake your head against him, unable to contain your excitement or hide your smile; he always brings out the happiness in you even when he was just a young chef, still trying to get Zeff to stop using as much oregano (because it’s for savages) or so he told you when you two met one night in secret.

You rest your head in your hand and watch him be a master at his work.

“You’re staring.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I always liked when you did, even if the old man did try to kick you out because you weren’t his employee.”

“He was just pissy because I was “distracting” his star pupil.”

“I think he’d disagree.”

“You and I both know he was hard on you because he wanted you to thrive in areas he couldn’t.”

He shrugs, not sure if what you’re saying could be true or not, but he doesn’t argue.

“I’m sorry I left.”

“You wanted to get out of there. Who was I to deny you the opportunity to see the world?”

“And find the all blue?”

“Sweetheart, that’s my dream.”

You chuckle. “I know.”

“I’m just happy we’re here now.”

“That’s something we can agree on.” You reach over and steal a freshly chopped veggie, smiling sweetly when he catches you.

He bends down, staring at you; you kiss him before sitting back down.

#one piece #one piece live action #one piece imagine #one piece imagines #one piece fanfic #one piece fanfiction #one piece x reader #vinsmoke sanji #vinsmoke sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji imagine #vinsmoke sanji imagines #vinsmoke sanji fanfiction #vinsmoke sanji fanfic #vinsmoke sanji x you #one piece x you #crazyk-imagine

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orionsangel86 · 2 years

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I was once again flicking through the Sandman comics and thinking about the changes made to the show (as I am pretty much always doing) and something that struck me as interesting is why they chose to swap out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune.

In the comics, The Sound of Her Wings is the last story in Preludes and Nocturns. Dream’s meeting with his sister Death closes out the first of the overarching storylines within the Sandman saga, and it ends with Dream finding some measure of peace after speaking with her, and finding joy in hearing the sound of wings.

This can be interpreted as the first bit of real foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die. Anyone who has read the Kindly Ones knows how important The Sound Of Her Wings is as it is called back to heavily at the end.

In the comics, the next issue can be seen as a one off, but is included in The Doll’s House book. This issue is Tales in the Sand - the tragic love story of Dream and Nada.

Right after Tales in the Sand, we get to the Doll’s House, which begins the exact same way that episode 6 of The Sandman Netflix show ends - with Desire calling on Despair to begin their scheming over the existance of the vortex.

I found it very interesting how the show swapped out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune - a story which in the comics comes much later within The Doll’s House storyline.

On the one hand, it makes sense to move Men of Good Fortune outside of the Doll’s House story for pacing reasons. But by putting it where they did they have drastically changed the tone of the story in a few ways.

1. It changes the end of The Sound of Her Wings. Show!Dream doesn’t leave his sister to sit and find peace in the thought of death, instead he does the opposite, he immediately goes and seeks out the one person he knows who is quite literally the antithesis of death - someone who finds joy in living. It still ends the Preludes and Nocturns story with Dream finding some manner of peace and happiness, but not in the sound of wings. Instead, it’s in the reunion with his friend who loves life so much he refuses to die.

2. It takes the place of the only love story we are given for Dream at that point in the comics. The Sandman comics have a tendency to avoid revealling too much information about Dream too soon and up until this point in the comics, all we know about his love life is that he condemned a lover to hell 10,000 years ago, based on a very brief conversation in A Hope In Hell. Tales in the Sand is the expansion of that brief conversation, giving us at least one perspective of how the tragedy played out.

I am really curious about why they decided to leave it out of the show completely. Partly I think its because it isn’t exactly a flattering look at Dream as a character. Probably didn’t seem like good business sense to the people who wanted The Sandman to perform well to basically destroy your main characters likeability half way through the first season (imagine all the Twitter puriteens and anti types who would get on their high horses attacking Sandman fans and Neil Gaiman alike for daring to like a main character who comes across a little bit rapey in this particular story - among other horrific character flaws).

Also, Tales in the Sand generally fits better with the Season of Mists story arc overall, and I think we will get a much kinder and more forgiving version of this story in the show.

So instead of being introduced to the first of Dream’s lovers, we are introduced to Hob Gadling. Make of that what you will.

3. It makes the immediate cut to Desire at the start of The Doll’s House story all the more eyebrow raising. Part of the reason why I think Desire’s scenes follow on from Tales in the Sand is because Desire had a lot to do with Dream’s bad behaviour in that story, and what ultimately happened is partly their fault. It is brought up both in comic and show when Desire tells Despair that “Nada was a mistake” but in the show, this comment remains a mystery, whereas in the comic, it goes some way into explaining the horrific story we have just read.

In the show, instead it makes for absolutely beautiful subtext as they cut to Desire’s realm and the song Desire as Desire says “Attend sweet Sibling” whilst we have just watched Dream reunite with Hob and smile the first real smile he has had all season so far. For a split second on my first watch I legit thought Desire was talking to Dream at that point and encouraging him to hook up with Hob. It was a very confusing few seconds!

At the end of the day, I think the change to the order of these stories was a very good idea, even without the added level of shipping fodder it gives us Dreamling shippers. In changing the end to The Sound of Her Wings in the show, it removes the foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die, which I’ll be honest, so far I can’t see at all in the show version of the story. Instead, we get a Dream who is happy for the first time after reuniting with his friend - who apparently waited an additional 33 years for him and built/refurbished a pub in that time.

I have a bazzillion more thoughts on the changes from comic to show on the Men of Good Fortune issue in particular, but that’s for another post. I just had to get my thoughts down as the more I read and re-read the comics, the more I feel like the show is considering a different direction, a more hopeful happy direction. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

#the sandman #sandman meta #dreamling #dream of the endless #the sandman comics #sandman comic spoilers #the sound of her wings #men of good fortune #tales in the sand

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talktolwt · 1 year

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I would like to focus on the music chosen for Hob Gadling's 80s sequence.

I'm extremely late to the world of The Sandman (finally binged it two weeks ago after my mother had been begging me to watch it with her and now I'm more obsessed than her) Bottom line: I'm unbelievably glad I finally watched this beautiful piece of television.

I have yet to read the comics but as for the first season, I have to say, without a doubt, my favorite episode is Chapter 6: The Sound of Her Wings. Death's 20-min segment is a beauty unto itself, but I'll be focusing on Hob's segment today. Specifically, his 80s scenes.

Considering I'm so late to this fandom and exploring all of its wondrous details and themes, excuse me if this has already been noted. I've been thinking about these details over and over but I need to get it out there in the Sandman world and hear everyone else's thoughts.

*Also excuse the terrible photos - Netflix doesn't let you screenshot and I was too lazy to get another app to let me bypass it. Please bear with my photos of my laptop screen.*

There are three songs that play throughout this sequence.

#1 - "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals

I accidentally deleted half my post mid-writing this but here I go again.

As we can see, after the breakup scene, we open up on Hob Gadling (he looks amazing in his 80s look, by the way) and this song plays.

Here are the lyrics:

I mean - where do I even start LMAO.

*Let me just give another note - regardless if you ship Dreamling romantically or not, I will be merely analyzing these lyrics as they are and how they convey Hob's feelings for Dream in general. But, I mean, the songs are THERE, the text is THERE. So do with that what you will.*

This will go for the following two songs as well, but these songs are placed with meaningful intention. Each of these offer a unique lens and dive into Hob's feelings.

I won't be annoying and over-explain anything, but the lyrics are clear I feel:

"She drives me crazy" - cough

"Things you do don't seem real" - in Hob's view, Dream literally is an enigma. Hob has no idea the capacities, the limits, and even the name of this being he meets every century.

"This waiting 'round's killing me" - well.

"Everything you say is lies" - now I wouldn't say particularly lies, but Dream does keep and omit things from Hob. Understandably, Hob would find himself in a confused limbo with Dream.

Here's the kicker:

"I won't make it on my own/No one likes to be alone." - HELLO. I mean, if this isn't the core message and pinnacle of Dream and Hob's lesson to immortality.

As Death mentions earlier in the episode, around 18:10, "Most of us will be glad for the company of a friend."

I feel I could go on forever and ever about the beauty of this episode and how well The Sound of Her Wings and Men of Good Fortune intertwine. They beautifully complement each other as stories lamenting the dichotomy of life and death, and the joys of humanity.

But essentially, Death reteaches Dream how beautiful humans can truly be, and in this pivotal moment, she says this zinger of a line. The camera was initially on Death but for THIS line, it cuts to Dream.

BECAUSE - poor Dream is definitely in need a friend.

Which is then shown to the audience by the 30-min long Hob Gadling sequence that ensues, and we see Dream's aversion to needing someone, to needing a friend.

But I digress - back to the song, and that one line about not wanting to be alone.

That is such a poignant line, because as much as Dream felt alone and needed company, so does Hob? An immortal, constantly seeing the death of others around him, his companions and family long gone, he needs someone.

Considering this 80s sequence ruminates so heavily on post-breakup feelings, Hob is missing Dream dearly. His constant in life.

I'm rambling too much, onto the next one!

#2 - "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz

Time skip to perhaps a few hours later, who knows. We see Hob still waiting for Dream, alone in the pub.

Hm.

Literally what else could I say. I'm being slapped in the face with pining and angst and longing.

Here are the lyrics:

Some noteworthy lyrics:

"So much for your promises/They died the day you let me go" - this breakup man

"Caught up in a web of lies" - another lie motif

"I thought it was you/Who would stand by my side" - the theme of Dream and Hob being constants in each other's lives

"Shattered dreams" - I could scream. The title of the song. SHATTERED. DREAMS. giggling rn.

"Woke up to reality" - I think that's a very interesting line toeing between the constant references of the Waking and the Dreaming

Basically, I've been noting these evident similarities within the songs to align themselves to Dream and Hob's situation, and it's clear that the director/writers chose these songs with intent of it paralleling Dreamling.

So that makes it even more insane when lines like "From this empty heart" are meant to parallel Hob. Like.

Okay, last song.

#3 - "Keep On Moving" by Soul II Soul

This song plays as the night progresses. It's late, it's clear Dream isn't showing up, and Hob is feeling pretty final about that, and perhaps he's accepted it at this point. Dream isn't coming.

So this is where he speaks to the bartender and that scene ensues.

Here are the lyrics:

The themes of time and clocks are super prevalent within this song, and again it's once more clear how heavily this reflects and represents Hob.

Noteworthy lyrics:

"Why do people choose to live their lives this way?" - I think this also uniquely touches on the general aspect of humanity and one's reason to live/love life. Dream battles with his confusion/slight disappointment for humanity at the beginning, as he asks Death, "Why would any sensible creature crave an eternity of this?" And then Hob helps Dream realize why there's so much to live for. (24:30)

"I know the time will come today/The time will come one day"

"Walking alone in my own way" - Again this idea of walking alone and needing company.

"You'll be in my life, my life always" - Dream and Hob being constants again.

This all goes to say - Hob cares. He cares for Dream.

And I just think that's very beautiful. The magnitude with which Dream's absence means to him and how much their friendship/companionship both means to each of them. I just think their connection is a beautiful thing that I love seeing and rewatching. Wonderfully, these songs give the audience even more layered insight into this connection.

This was super long, and I apologize if I went on some tangents. But I also just couldn't help it, The Sandman is so incredibly rich in its storytelling and its connections and dynamics that I had to write this all down. I also just very much appreciate the amount of care and detail that goes into every aspect of television, and needle drops such as these three songs are no exception.

Thank you for sticking with me through this! Can't wait for season 2!

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