#International and Universal Exposition

[retropopcult]

The Hostess of the Kaleidoscope at Expo 67.

[rabbitcruiser]

Expo 67 officially opened in Montreal with a large opening ceremony broadcast around the world on April 27, 1967. It opens to the public the next day

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Herta, left, and Renee Von Haentiens, Viennese twins are are first European entrants in the first International Congress of Twins to be staged in 1934 under the auspices of California’s San Diego Centennial Exposition. Herta is now ‘Miss Austria’ and with her sister, will challenge ‘Misses America’ for the ‘Misses Universe’ award.”

- from the Kingston Whig-Standard. June 8, 1932. Page 11.

[armoricaroyalty]

Film Grammar for Simmers

What is film grammar?

"Film grammar" refers the unstated "rules" of editing used in movies and TV. Different types of shots have different associations and are used by editors to convey different types of information to the audience. Many of these principles were first described in the early 20th century by Soviet directors, but they're used consistently across genre, medium, and even language: Bollywood musicals, English period dramas, Korean horror movies, and American action blockbusters all use many of the same techniques.

Because these rules are so universal, virtually everyone has some internalized understanding of them. Even if they can’t name the different types of shots or explain how editors use images to construct meaning, the average person can tell when the “rules” are being broken. If you’ve ever thought a movie or episode of TV was confusing without being able to say why, there’s a good chance that there was something off with the editing.

Learning and applying the basics of film grammar can give your story a slicker and more-polished feel, without having to download shaders or spend hours in photoshop. It also has the bonus of enhancing readability by allowing your audience to use their knowledge of film and TV to understand what's happening in your story. You can use it to call attention to significant plot details and avoid introducing confusion through unclear visual language.

Best of all, it doesn't cost a dime.

The basics: types of shots

Shots are the basic building block of film. In Sims storytelling, a single shot is analogous to a single screenshot. In film, different types of shots are distinguished by the position of the camera relative to the subject. There are three big categories of shots, with some variation: long shots (LS), medium shots (MS), and close-ups (CU). This diagram, created by Daniel Chandler and hosted on visual-memory.co.uk illustrates the difference:

Source: The 'Grammar' of Television and Film, Daniel Chandler, visual-memory.co.uk. Link.

In film, scenes typically progress through the different types of shots in sequence: long shot, medium shot, close-up. When a new scene begins and the characters arrive in a new location, we typically begin with a wide establishing shot of the building’s exterior to show the audience where the scene will be taking place. Next comes a long shot of an interior space, which tells the where the characters are positioned relative to one another. The next shot is a medium shot of the characters conversing, and then finally, a close-up as the conversation reaches its emotional or informational climax. Insert shots are used judiciously throughout to establish themes or offer visual exposition.

Here's another visual guide to the different types of shots, illustrated with stills from Disney animated films.

This guide is almost 2,000 words long! To save your dash, I've put the meat of it under the cut.

Long shot and extreme long shots

A long shot (sometimes also called a wide shot) is one where the entire subject (usually a building, person, or group of people) is visible within the frame. The camera is positioned far away from the subject, prioritizing the details of the background over the details of the subject.

One of the most common uses of long shots and extreme long shots are establishing shots. An establishing shot is the first shot in a scene, and it sets the tone for the scene and is intended to give the viewer the information they’ll need to follow the scene: where a scene is taking place, who is in the scene, and where they are positioned in relation to one another. Without an establishing shot, a scene can feel ungrounded or “floaty.” Readers will have a harder time understanding what’s happening in the scene because on some level, they’ll be trying to puzzle out the answers to the who and where questions, distracting them from the most important questions: what is happening and why?

(I actually like to start my scenes with two establishing shots: an environmental shot focusing on the scenery, and then a second shot that establishes the characters and their position within the space.)

Long shots and extreme long shots have other uses, as well. Because the subject is small relative to their surroundings, they have an impersonal effect which can be used for comedy or tragedy.

In Fargo (1996) uses an extreme long shot to visually illustrate the main character’s sense of defeat after failing to secure funding for a business deal.The shot begins with a car in an empty parking lot, and then we see the protagonist make his way up from the bottom of the frame. He is alone in the shot, he is small, and the camera is positioned above him, looking down from a god-like perspective. All of these factors work together to convey his emotional state: he’s small, he’s alone, and in this moment, we are literally looking down on him. This shot effectively conveys how powerless he feels without any dialogue or even showing his face.

The same impersonal effect can also be used for comic purposes. If a character says something stupid or fails to impress other characters, cutting directly from a close-up to a long shot has a visual effect akin to chirping crickets. In this instance, a long shot serves as a visual “wait, what?” and invites the audience to laugh at the character rather than with them.

Medium Shots

Medium shots are “neutral” in filmmaking. Long shots and close-ups convey special meaning in their choice to focus on either the subject or the background, but a medium shot is balanced, giving equal focus to the character and their surroundings. In a medium shot, the character takes up 50% of the frame. They’re typically depicted from the waist-up and the audience can see both their face and hands, allowing the audience to see the character's facial expression and read their body-language, both important for interpreting meaning.

In most movies and TV shows, medium shots are the bread and butter of dialogue-heavy scenes, with close-ups, long shots, and inserts used for punctuation and emphasis. If you’re closely following the conventions of filmmaking, most of your dialogue scenes will be medium shots following the convention of shot-reverse shot:

To keep long conversations from feeling too visually monotonous, consider staging the scene as a walk-and-talk. Having two characters move through a space can add a lot of dynamism and visual interest to a scene that might otherwise feel boring or stiff.

Close Ups

Close-ups are close shots of a character’s face. The camera is positioned relatively near to the subject, showing just their head and shoulders. In a close-up, we don’t see any details of the background or the expressions of other characters.

In film, close-ups are used for emphasis. If a character is experiencing a strong emotion or delivering an important line of dialogue, a close-up underscores the importance of the moment by inviting the audience to focus only on the character and their emotion.

Close-ups don’t necessarily need to focus on the speaker. If the important thing about a line of dialogue is another character’s reaction to it, a close-up of the reaction is more effective than a close-up of the delivery.

One of the most iconic shots in Parasite (2019) is of the protagonist driving his employer around while she sits in the backseat, speaking on the phone. Even though she’s the one speaking, the details of her conversation matter less than the protagonist’s reaction to it. While she chatters obliviously in the background, we focus on the protagonist’s disgruntled, resentful response to her thoughtless words and behavior.

In my opinion, Simblr really overuses close-ups in dialogue. A lot of conversation scenes are framed entirely in close-ups, which has the same effect of highlighting an entire page in a textbook. The reader can’t actually tell what information is important, because the visuals are screaming that everything is important. Overusing close-ups also cuts the viewer off from the character’s body language and prevents them from learning anything about the character via their surroundings.

For example, a scene set in someone’s bedroom is a great opportunity for some subtle characterization—is it tidy or messy? what kind of decor have they chosen? do they have a gaming computer, a guitar, an overflowing bookshelf?—but if the author chooses to use only close-ups, we lose out on a chance to get to know the character via indirect means.

Inserts

An insert shot is when a shot of something other than a character’s face is inserted into a scene. Often, inserts are close-ups of a character’s hands or an object in the background. Insert shots can also be used to show us what a character is looking at or focusing on.

In rom-com The Prince & Me (2004) (see? I don’t just watch crime dramas…) the male lead is in an important meeting. We see him pick up a pen, look down at the papers in front of him, and apparently begin taking notes, but then we cut to an insert shot of his information packet. He’s doodling pictures of sports cars and is entirely disengaged from the conversation. Every other shot in the scene is an establishing shot or a medium shot or a close-up of someone speaking, but this insert gives us insight into the lead’s state of mind: he doesn’t want to be there and he isn’t paying attention.

Insert shots are, in my opinion, also used ineffectively on Simblr. A good insert gives us extra insight into what a character is thinking or focusing on, but a poorly-used insert feels…unfocused. A good insert might focus on pill bottles on a character’s desk to suggest a chemical dependency, on a family picture to suggest duty and loyalty, on a clock to suggest a time constraint, on a pile of dirty laundry or unanswered letters to suggest a character is struggling to keep up with their responsibilities. An ineffective insert shot might focus on the flowers in the background because they’re pretty, on a character’s hands because it seems artsy, on the place settings on a dining table because you spent forever placing each one individually and you’ll be damned if they don’t make it into the scene. These things might be lovely and they might break up a monotonous conversation and they might represent a lot of time and effort, but if they don’t contribute any meaning to a scene, consider cutting or repurposing them.

I want to emphasize: insert shots aren’t bad, but they should be carefully chosen to ensure they’re enhancing the meaning of the scene. Haphazard insert shots are distracting and can interfere with your reader’s ability to understand what is happening and why.

Putting it all together

One of the most basic principles of film theory is the Kuleshov effect, the idea that meaning in film comes from the interaction of two shots in sequence, and not from any single shot by itself. In the prototypical example, cutting from a close-up of a person’s neutral expression to a bowl of soup, children playing, or soldiers in a field suggests hunger, worry, or fear, respectively.

The Kuleshov effect is the essence of visual storytelling in a medium like Simblr. You can elevate your storytelling by thinking not only about each individual shot, but about the way they’ll interact and flow into one another.

Mastering the basics of film grammar is a great (free!) way to take your storytelling to the next level. To learn more, you can find tons of guides and explainers about film grammar for free online, and your local library doubtless has books that explain the same principles and offers additional analysis.

Happy simming!

[zoe-oneesama]

Hi, First I have to say that I love SL, also, in the Angelic AU, are the clamp characters gonna make a cameo in the comic?

Only as set dressing, like, popping up in exposition dumps about the game. Angelic Layer isn't a very well known (or well loved lol) story so I'll definitely be explaining quite a bit. But they do exist in universe.

I've created a vague timeline, so in universe:

Angelic Layer was made in 2000

Most of the main cast was born in 2005

It went International in 2015

The story will take place in *very fictional* 2020

Honestly though "Piffle Princess" (the company responsible for AL) will come up more than, like, Misaki and Hikaru. Especially since Misaki should be in her 30s by now.

[maspers]

The two Pokémon Characters that I most desire to witness interacting are Red and Cynthia. Not because I want to watch them have a battle (though for the record I think they'd be pretty evenly matched) but because of everything else I think would happen. 

You see, both Red and Cynthia are highly respected trainers. They're pretty much two of the strongest trainers on the planet. Legends. Bastions of wisdom and valor. Their heroics are well known, and simultaneously mysterious. Pretty much anyone in universe would expect their meetings to be respectful and dignified. Surely these two great trainers are pillars of rationality. 

Ding Dong, that's COMPLETELY wrong. 

Red and Cynthia SEEM pretty reasonable in context. Red seems completely calm and controlled when compared to his counterparts, the hot-headed Blue and head-in-the-clouds Green. Cynthia SEEMS wise and mysterious because she shows up to provide exposition and leaves. But Red is the guy who decided to live on top of a mountain for months without a jacket just for kicks, and who has only ever spoken ONCE just to mess with someone. Cynthia goes on vacations to everywhere all the time for reasons that are unclear but seem to be related to archeology and summoning deities, and jumped into a wormhole to another dimension with pretty much no context. Both of them are absurdly powerful and as a result their internal sense of danger is completely broken. The horrors of both the heavens and the earth are known to them, and they survived it already. They both just wander around and actively seek out weirder stuff. (And considering their Pokemon continue to accompany them after all this, we can assume the Pokemon are just as nuts as their trainers.)

So my theory is that if Red and Cynthia ever meet, all semblance of having brain cells is rapidly defenestrated. You take your eyes off them for a second and they are already half a continent away. There's an equal chance of them spending the day petting baby pokemon at the daycare as there is them traveling back in time, summoning a God, and killing it. Heroes will weep. The Earth will shake. And neither Red nor Cynthia will be at all aware of what's going on outside their line of sight. 

Please let this be a thing.

[teen-heart-throb-mr-hyde]

ok. more thoughts on this page.

we’ve seen all the main characters use these “speech boxes” as opposed to speech bubbles at various points. they tend to be used to show a character narrating, telling a story or recounting past events so we can see actually see these events play out while they talk about it, rather than just standing around a dumping a bunch of exposition.

jasper in chapter 8,

rachel in chapter 11, (though this instance being her speaking over events that are happening concurrently to her talking to jasper)

lanyon in chapter 12,

and jekyll in chapter 11. (also this panel makes me want to eat drywall.)

but, pretty infamously, hyde uses these speech boxes pretty frequently. he’s the first character to use them, in fact. but in his case, his speech boxes are never him speaking aloud, they’re never him recounting the past. they’re his internal monologue, something that is such a notable idiosyncrasy of his that it’s brought up in-universe.

he’s the only character who uses the speech boxes as his internal monologue rather than external narration. he’s the only character we really get any internal monologue from (there’s once instance of jasper having a thought bubble at in chapter 1, and then that’s it iirc.)

that is, until now. and it’s jekyll doing it.

i just think jekyll doing something that has been up until this point so intrinsically linked to hyde is... interesting. and again, jekyll’s face is most definitely being purposefully obscured. but also to note, every character has had a distinct colour associated with their speech boxes, with jekyll’s being red as opposed to hyde’s being a dull orangey-yellow. so it’s still very much supposed to be jekyll’s “voice.” again, interesting.

also, note the the type of internal monologue. self loathing/doubt directly followed by a reassurance--as if two very different ideas are fighting in his brain?

sound familiar?

[spectrum-core]

hi if you don’t mind me asking I’d love to hear more about serrated duo parallels?

Alright, just to make sure we are on the same page because I'm not sure if many people know who am I even talking about when I say serrated duo, I mean this pair of goofballs who I love very much.

Fuckass essay about them and how this thing even came to be (which is not what you asked for but it's still important I think) under the cut, as a warning though this is EXTREMELY long, i'm also writing it assuming the readers have played ruina to completion, have at least glanced at the ruina artbook once and are decently familiarized with the pjm universe and its terminology.

"But Spec", you may (and reasonably so) say, "these guys show up in different story tiers, one is a glorified ranged attack tutorial with a minor lore exposition attached to him and the other doesn't even have anything going on due to being a general reception, what the hell".

So let's get into this, more meticulously organized than some essays I've submitted for my uni classes because I care that much about these guys (don't be like me and do your uni projects, please).

Table of contents:

How the fuck did this even come to be 1.1. Me yapping about character dessign

Liwei as a character 2.1. The surface 2.2. Emotional internal nature 2.3. Resentment

Dong Hwan as a character (sorry can't separate him into many categories bc there's NOTHING THERE man i'm absolutely grasping for straws here i KNOW it, but please bear with me)

Summarizing parallels

If you don't feel like sitting through my attempts to contextualize how this ship came to be and me desperately grasping for straws, feel free to skip all the way down to part 4

1.- How the fuck did this even come to be

Honestly the whole thing started as a sleep deprivation shitpost I rolled with because yeah i like these two guys a lot (if you read that one post talking among other things about why I like liwei so much in the first place, the short reply also applies to dong hwan and... Yeag, the only thing that's better than one hot guy is two hot guys and so on).

There was also an interesting aspect about this because maybe it's just me but based of liwei's dialogue lines and keypage text he suggests not trusting, or even liking/admiring/looking up to, high graded fixers (despite feeling that he's supposed to). With an emphasis put into colors because, I mean, he fucking died because he met one at the wrong moment, but I feel it's a general thing he feels for grade 2s and above.

With this in mind, putting him to interact with a grade 1 is... at the very least it has the potential to put them into a funny mutual vitriol kind of dynamic with lw constantly thinking "what's the deal with this guy? does he expect me to praise him just for having a high grade? well, tough luck, i'm no bootlicker" and dh constantly thinking "what's wrong with this man? is he unable to recognize greatness even if it punched him in the face...? should i punch him in the face?", but it becomes far more interesting when you try to imagine (and, with dong hwan being an absolute background character we can only assume things of from extremely vague hints, pretty much all we can do about him is imagining) what made them both special enough for each of them to think "wait, hold on, i actually like this guy" of the other.

After the initial shitpost stage was over, we (the guy who came up with serrated duo while sleep deprived and me) started talking about why we liked both characters and we essentially concluded that, at least dessign wise, they are the same type of guy (ofc I also added a couple of characters I like and who fit the criteria to my post but this post isn't about them).

1.1.- Me yapping about character dessign

On top of that, if you pay attention specifically to liwei and dong hwan in there, you can notice that there's a pretty neat balance of common and contrasting themes in their dessigns, almost in a two sides of the same coin way, so here's a non exhaustive list:

both characters have a primarily monochrome/dark aesthetic going on, with their eyes being the primary colored element that stands out in their dessigns (yeah, you could say that dh has brown hair too but it's a dark shade of brown that doesn't catch the eye nearly as much as the bright-yet-deep shade of red of his eyes)

on top of that, liwei's eyes are blue while dong hwan's are red (i thought they were reddish brown at first but that's just an effect of the transparency, if you separate the sprite in it's different parts, you'll notice his eyes are actually red), which happens to link with a certain trope about two-sides-of-the-same-coin pairs... (will elaborate on this later trust me).

despite the previously mentioned similar monochrome aesthetic, there's a clear contrast between their styles and how they wear their clothes, with liwei having a much more "only informal if it's more practical that way" type of look, with a focus on practicality over trying to stand out too much (for the most part at least, he was dessigned with the idea of a cool guy in mind after all), while dong hwan is essentially wearing a business suit in the most fucked up way possible (really, what the fuck dong hwan), which of course makes his dessign incredibly memorable. To further elaborate on this (and to add details that don't really follow this formal until unpractical/informal AND unpractical pattern): -Liwei's clothes stay in similar shades of grey and black giving him a more uniform look, while dong hwan uses more contrasting shades in his clothing (despite wearing primarily black clothes, that light grey shirt absolutely stands out, and by extension he does) -Liwei wears long boots, while dong hwan wears regular shoes -Liwei wears a long coat, while dong hwan wears a short jacket -Liwei has a fully buttoned dress shirt with a tie, dong hwan wears his shirt unbuttoned, in an universe where clothes are basically like armor this is essentially him saying that he's confident that his opponents won't be able to hit him in the chest, or that even if they did he wouldn't get too hurt from it, and it's a dessign detail that absolutely stands out in an universe where most characters only show skin in their head, neck and hands at most, as we know since its stated in multiple keypages and cutscenes, if a character shows more skin than the absolutely bare minimum, then that means that A. they are inmensely strong, and B. they are even more confident in their capacities, with this being a tactic to intimidate potential enemies for many factions -Liwei wears fingerless gloves while dong hwan wears regular gloves, while at first glance this detail seems to subvert the pattern, let's be real here... have you tried to hold any object and using it properly with gloves? unless you're wearing latex gloves or something made of very thin fabric that shit's absurdly hard, of course i assume there's weird city tech involved in dh's gloves but at least that's my own personal impression of that particular contrast)

and going back to common but not really details: both characters have something noteworthy in their ears (this is most likely just a result of the characters being visible as chibis in game so the best way to give them memorable dessigns is by slapping somewhat unique stuff in their faces and heads BUT IM GRASPING FOR STRAWS HERE OK) with liwei's earpiece (which serves a practical function) and dong hwan's earrings (which look cool as hell, going in line with both characters' general priorities)

similarly, both have something in their opposite eyes, with liwei partially covering his right eye with his hair and dong hwan having the scar going through his left eye.

the right-left motif is actually very relevant in their dessigns. You see, most character sprites in ruina switch the hand in which they're holding their weapons for certain frames (or at least, this is not uncommon to see), either for rule of cool, clearer silhouettes or whatever reasons. However, in every frame in which liwei is visibly holding his knife, he holds it with his left hand (and when he uses his pistol he holds it with both hands), suggesting that he may be left handed. On the other hand (see what I did there?), dong hwan consistently holds his knife with his right hand, in every. single. frame. of his sprite, suggesting that he's right handed instead.

And of course, both of them have elements in their opposite legs too, with liwei having these two stupid fucking belts (affectionate) in his right leg while dong hwan has... whatever the fuck that thing is, in his left leg.

Of course I'm not here saying that they were given contrasting dessigns on purpose, but all these details end up making both of them looking really cool when put together, specially with how their dessigns emphatize their personal preferences and priorities, something I will elaborate upon in each character's section later.

2.- Liwei as a character

Liwei is one of my favorite pjm characters as a whole, yes i like him more than ayin, yes i like him more than angela, yes i like him more than carmen, yes i like him more than dante, yes i like him more than your favorite sephirah/patron librarian/sinner, no im not saying i think any of these characters is bad or poorly written and in fact i think pjm has made an amazing job with protagonists so far catching my interest even with characters i thought i wouldn't vibe with at all, but i have a thing for unremarkable background guys.

As you may have guessed, this means that i have a lot, and i mean A LOT to say about him.

This also means that I have a very specific interpretation of him, this interpretation, while clearly taking bases from what we can see of him in game, is entirely fanmade and i'm not trying to claim this is what anyone intended to convey with him, but it's what makes sense for me.

This interpretation also strays away from some other fan characterizations I've seen of him. So if you think he's actually, at his core, a serious, formal, emotionally detached and unbearably professional, even outside work hours, guy who's deeply dedicated to the honorable task of murder and who is in good terms with the shi association or holds them in high regard? sorry, but for me he's nothing like that.

2.1- The surface

"But Spec", you may say again, "he does act emotionally detached during his cutscene, he even says that people die all the time! are you sure you are actually reading this character right?"

Of course I'm not, I'm just saying that I'm reading him in a way that makes enough sense to me, but I do have reasons to believe that the serious and emotionally detached attitude is an akward mixture of a facade he puts up to be taken seriously by others and an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism, so let's start by analyzing his artbook profile...

Wait a minute, is that..?

Ok, I'll see myself out and continue writing the actual character analysis this is what people are here for.

Anyway, going back to the character profile, you may be inclined to see it and assume "well, that actually just proves that he's a serious and formal dude" at first, until you realize that artbook profiles, due to their in-universe explaination being that they were compilled by roland and angela from the information they could take out of the guests' books, are most likely to be about what the guests perceive themselves as/would say to describe themselves rather than what they actually are when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Further proof of the artbook profiles being subjective comes from how the profiles change almost erratically for distortions and ego users, with people in the middle of both states simply not knowing how to describe themselves, the fact that we lack any information about the agents of the head as they were never booked, or how characters such as tomerry have...

This, which I mean, it's very clear that's just tomerry talking about themselves.

Now, liwei's personality traits, or at least what he'd use to describe himself, are "Meticulous, Efficient, and Sharp". We know that he has to be efficient at the very least, considering the nature of his job and guns in universe, the same thing goes for meticulous, we can assume he wants to do things the right away so that he gets paid, sharp as a personality descriptor can take multiple meanings and frankly i don't know which was the original korean word used to describe him so i can't tell which is the right one but most of them seem pretty accurate, at least when looking at him from a surface perspective.

To be honest, I don't think any of the traits mentioned there is precisely wrong, I simply don't think that they are the main or core ones, but they are the traits liwei tries to show, at least.

Another interesting detail is that all full stop fixer artbook profiles have food related items for the likes and and dislikes sections, except for stephan disliking dangerous jobs.

Not particularly noteworthy for this category in particular but still tangentially linked to a point that I believe is also a core characteristic of all three full stop fixers and that is key to understand all three of them, their dynamics and the choices they make during their reception: they are Poor As Shit, because guns and bullets are expensive of course, we also get to see this in stephan's obssesive fixation in money (come on nobody actually checks their bank account as a hobby... right, guys?), and of course this ties in with wanting to be seen as someone serious and professional people will trust with their money AND with the idea of them having the need to maximize efficiency to... well... you... you know... not end up even worse than they actually are.

2.2- Emotional internal nature

Alright, and here we dwell into the actually spicy part of the essay, at least for liwei's character: the moments in which the mask of a professional and emotionally detached guy cracks and he shows his more emotional, and mostly caring, side. This is focused in the way in which he treats stephan and tamaki (compared with how several other faction leaders treat their underlings).

While I should probably need to read all the dialogue in the game to make sure this is a particularly notorious detail, something that inmediately caught my attention is... the fact that liwei never uses a single honorific when refering to other people, neither he's bothered by stephan's more informal speech and the fact that he doesn't refer to him by any honorific or title either (sure, you could say this is because they were in a life or death situation but also y'know, it says something about you that the people below you don't feel the need to use formalities when talking to you), the only person he calls by title instead of first name is... well, the blue reverb, whose real name we can assume he didn't know, with also him being someone perfectly capable of killing not only him but the guys standing beside him as well, you'd want to be as respectful as possible when talking to a guy like that and trying to negotiate.

(even then he doesnt use any sort of honorific towards him, at least in the english translation of the text, he simply refers to him by title)

He neither uses any title or honorific when talking to angela, despite keeping a formal/respectful attitude, i honestly believe that he is genuinely formal and respectful but... you know, that's not the beginning and end of who he is.

Of course, this isn't a major point, but I think it's worth mentioning considering how important honorifics can be to establish the speaker's relationship with the people a message is directed to, they can be used to distance oneself from others. So in a way it could be seen as him putting himself at an "equal" position relative to stephan and tamaki, as opposed to trying to assert that he's their superior (at least in the context of the mission they were working in, since his title is merely fixer, not operator, president, director or anything implying some form of leadership on his end).

Another extremely important detail is his inmediate first reaction once argalia shows up and ruins their plan is... not coming up with a plan b, not trying to fight him in any way, not doing anything about trying to save what little money they can, he quite literally tells stephan "forget about money, we need to survive now".

His initial reaction is directly just yelling at his team to run away, and this stays consistent once he:

Notices that stephan and tamaki are beginning to argue over the future of their mission and how much money they lost.

Realizes that they can't outrun argalia as long as they're wielding their heavy (and again, extremely expensive) equipment. This says a lot as it shows that he cares enough for the people under his care to let the office go bankrupt if it means they can live.

Needless to say, stephan and tamaki refuse to do so and while he clearly isn't precisely happy about the inevitable confrontation with argalia, he doesn't argue about this, he does understand their concern about money, he's not like the other authority figures who will ignore their underlings' concerns at best and ditch them once they outlive their usefulness at worst (at least, that's what i imagine he thinks as he makes these choices).

Not to mention, once they are in a, if only slightly, safer situation in the library, his inmediate response is trying to comfort stephan and tamaki, things dont look good but theyre at least alive, for now.

And there's this line which... doesn't seem to fit at first glance with the idea of him wanting his office to survive at all costs... right?

That is until you realize that he says that line during yet another argument between stephan and tamaki, as an attempt to get them both to calm down, this could also fit in with him trying to keep or restore the cynical, stoic and serious act, but then again we get to see his more emotional and sincere side once he:

Gets killed, quite literally saying that he didn't want to die yet, at least to me this line alone is enough to pretty much confirm that he didn't really mean it when saying that trying to delay their deaths was pointless, but if you need more, he also acts against that same line when he...

Sees his allies die, and inmediately starts freaking out.

Wins the reception, in which case his inmediate first concern is, again, not money, lost ammunition or anything, but rather if stephan and tamaki are okay and if they will be safe once they return.

I don't think that line was him fully lying though, it does say something about him that makes enough sense to me and fits with the rest of the characterization: that his cynism runs much, much deeper than stephan's.

Tl;dr he is extremely caring and emotional deep inside, and even though he tries to suppress that side of himself it always finds a way to show itself, I feel like in other contexts this makes him prone to emotional outbursts and generally make him an unpleasant person to be around... save for people who are already familiar with his personality quirks and the fact that he is Like That.

2.3- Resentment

Of course, this dissonance between the person he tries to pretend to be to fit in/keep his job and the person he actually is made him grow a pretty strong disliking of... well, everything he considers related to the fact that he has to act like that to get enough money to feed the people in his office.

I also feel like he feels genuine guilt over the fact that his job is essentially just glorified murder, I have no base for this other than the more detached way in which he refers to the church of gears, it almost feels like hes forcing himself to not care because its them or him and his office, and that he has genuine self-hating tendencies because of it (which he also uses his stoic act to hide, he doesn't want to worry his office and become a burden to them, after all), in a way he may be trying to overcompensate by being nice to his office to feel like there's people he can help/protect.

But this hatred towards himself also manifests in the form of hatred towards anything he can blame over him being the way he is and working the job he has.

As I said before, I don't think liwei likes colors, or most high grade fixers for that matter, you may also extend this to figures of authority, influential organizations or even the city's society as a whole (and honestly? i do personally, i don't think he's actually capable of forming any particularly healthy bond with people outside his office because of this, and even then saying that the relationships he has with his office are healthy is... generous to put it softly, this is not to say that he secretly hates the other people in the office, but rather that he fears that they may secretly hate him, because he's the highest graded member of the office, he hates people sitting above him so it only makes sense that people below him hate him for being above them, right?), and of course I'm not saying this because I'm projecting or because I think it's cool and edgy and sad but I actually have bases for this from what I can see in the game.

The first example of him not trusting high grade fixers AND influential organizations being one of the very first things he says when being introduced: that having an important person, from an important organization, belonging to an important section of said organization, approach him and give him a request was shady as fuck.

And he turned out to be right, as Yujin was planning for him and his office to get sent to the library and die there so she could read their books and find some passage saying shit like "well we were found by the blue fucking reverb and our only choice was to come here and die even though we were royally fucked either way life sucks see you all in hell my final message 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕" so she could use that on her favor.

In this topic too, I'm personally firmly opposed to the idea of full-stop office being affiliated to the shi association and this is the hill i'm willing to die on, but I digress.

We see this same resentment on an even deeper level in his keypage where he talks about colors (and we can assume this view extends to other high graded fixers, and to a lesser extent to the hana association), he doesn't sound like he wants to become a color, he doesn't sound like he even likes the concept of colors being a thing that exists in the first place.

The most important lines from these fragments to me being the following:

"A color is the dream [...] of all fixers who wish for freedom.", freedom is a VERY relevant concept in project moon and ruina makes a very clear point about how nobody is free in the city, roland says it, most plot relevant guests say it, some patron librarians say it too... a huge part of the story is how angela comes to terms to the fact that turning human wont grant her freedom and how she ultimately becomes free by embracing her nature as a machine (so free indeed that the head decides to kick her and the entire library out of the city, not only shes a machine that acts like a human, which is already a major city wide taboo, she made a choice that no human in the city should ever make). Essentially, liwei seems to see colors (and im assuming that by extension high graded fixers) as the ultimate example of an impossible aspirational class (think of these "self made" enterpreurs who received extremely generous financial support from their rich parents to start massive companies as the closest irl equivalent, except that obviously not the same, i will elaborate more on this later).

"They put forward the colors as great and successful people that other fixers will look up to. They dream of earning wealth and fame, and to be free like them one day." Why would he be talking in third person here if he too admired colors, or wanted to be like them, or thought that were free in any way? Also that separation between money and fame (something that colors objectively do have since they can afford exclusive high tech weapons and armor) with freedom (something that is debatable, but liwei seems to assume colors don't have) feels too much like a deliberate choice to further push towards that point of him seeing colors as not only an impossible goal to achieve for the average fixer but also that the ideal of a color as someone who is free is something impossible to achieve even if one were to become a color.

"Colors are assigned by the 'Hana Association'. [...] The title of a color is forcibly given to fixers who qualify essentially. Can a fixer be truly happy with freedom that was forcefully handed to them?" This particular fragment, specially the last sentence, is absolutely key for Liwei's characterization, and the final and most important part of him saying "wait, no, colors aren't free, because nobody is" to me. It is also worth noting that this fragment can be read in multiple ways, all of them are important and accurate for his characterization.

He thinks that the responsability and risks that come with being handed the title of a color are far greater than the prestige that comes with the title, can you really say that someone who cant afford to decline requests due to being contacted by the most important organizations in the city, whose closest friends or family WILL be regularly targetted by rivals either to extort them for money or just try to attack them to the point in which most high graded fixers abandon any personal attachment to others, who will have to see the horrible things that happen in the city in an almost day-to-day basis and will likely have to do even worse things in the name of corporate interests is free? Can you really call it freedom if you can't refuse it? Essentially he is saying "actually every single aspect of being a color is terrible and to make matters worse that life is forced on them after they go through extreme miseries in the hopes for a better life but all they get is more of the same if not even worse, they aren't free and shouldn't be refered to as such."

He thinks that in order to become a color (or any highly graded fixer, really), you must essentially lose yourself, which is to say abandoning all friendships or familiar bonds, only keeping shallow interactions with people, desensitizing themselves to whatever horrifying shit they may have to see, abandon all sense of morality as they never know what their next request will be and "im sorry but i dont do xyz, it does against my personal morals" isnt an argument that will work in a place like the city, this also fits into the whole "actually having a much more chaotic emotional side he's trying his absolute hardest to supress but failing" theme mentioned in point 2.2., someone who is so deeply emotional and whose actions are ultimately defined by what is the most likely to keep the people around him alive is obviously not going to like the idea of keeping his distance to them, or to dispose of people with lower grades than him because they were supposed to be expendables anyway.

I don't remember the exact quote and i dont feel like looking for it but in one of gebura's cutscene she claims that all power in the city only serves to strike those below but never up. You have to climb to get stronger and then you'll only be able to assert dominance (through violence) over people weaker than you are, and she grew to dislike this, as she wanted to protect others but was never able to do so because of how the city was dessigned.

Of course, liwei reached the same conclusion but he took the much simpler but much more unhealthy approach of assuming "well, if things are like that, then that must mean that everyone in a position of power (over me) must be responsible for this".

Of course this also comes with the side effect of him being as caring for the rest of the office as he can because he doesn't want to be like other figures of authority as i mentioned in point 2.2, but thats not to mean that things are all fine in the office, i feel like there are several moments in which he internally curses his position of authority but not quite (bc i don't think he's actually The Big Guy In Charge of the office, really), most obviously the aforementioned moment in which he yells at tamaki and stephan to drop their guns so they can run away and live when they clearly dont want to, i feel like at moments like that he feels like they only do things because he tells them to and they "can't argue" (except that they do, fortunately for him the enviroment in the office is healthy enough for the rest of full stops to not abuse this fact, but the "what if"s are absolutely eating him from the inside). As ironic as it sounds his earnest desire to not be Like The Others is the same thing stopping him from being the perfect and efficient leader he wishes to be, and he probably isn't sure of which thing he values more than the other (it's staying true to his own morals and keeping the people under him safe).

However, there's a key detail here that's worth noting: liwei has a tendency to treat everyone else as equals, sure he is formal and respectful when doing so (pressumably even when talking to people he'd rather never interact with if we assume his conversation with argalia was actually how he is and not him just walking on eggshells to not get killed) but he doesn't bother trying to make a clear distinction of who is above and below him, no matter what their title and rank may be, and for people who are used to being looked up to by everyone else this will be seen this as him insulting them in some way, it may come from a sincere desire of him to come off as insulting while not breaking any (major) social convention in an act of malicious compliance or just the type of person he is, that's up to you to determine.

"But how the hell does any of this relate to dong hwan?" we'll get there right now.

3.- Dong Hwan as a character

This is kinda... the hardest point to talk about, because sure I can yap all I want about him but... it's hard to without going "Source: I made it up" too much.

So, looking at his combat sprites you may notice one thing: he is unbelievably hot for real what the hell he has an incredibly smug aura, most people who care about him to some extent i've seen tend to depict him as a very prideful person, and honestly i dont think differently either.

HOWEVER, i feel like despite this he's still a levelheaded guy who can aknowledge his own flaws. On top of that, i think he's a pretty charismatic guy and he's capable of noticing other people's strenghts, and he'll let people know about their own strenghts too.

Also, to contrast with his smug and cheerful exterior, his combat lines depict him as someone very serious when at work, he doesn't even react emotionally to getting killed.

His first "on kill" line is also particularly interesting, as it shows that he prefers to work on his own (unlike everyone's favorite monochrome moody boy), which makes sense considering that he comes alone to the library when you fight him, he may belong to a one-man office (which is the closest a fixer can do to be fully independent, as far as we are aware).

His keypage story also fits this more serious and analytical personality but not much of it is particularly noteworthy from a character analysis perspective, it doesn't say much that you couldn't notice from his combat lines anyway.

Another important factor to me and to contrast him to liwei is... okay, this may be the fact that he's a solo fight and he is, pressumably, an independent fixer, so he's not titled as a member of a particular organization, instead his title (for him, his reception, his keypage and his book) is "dong hwan, the grade 1 fixer", which i mean, again, is most likely just so we dont fight this guy with zero context on who he is and what hes even doing in the library in his own is he stupid? but i like to imagine that the in universe explaination is that he has tied his perception of himself and his own self worth to his grade, to the point in which using both his name and grade is what comes naturally to him when introducing himself, since books are essentially physical manifestations of the soul, then it just makes sense then that his book will give both his name and grade the same importance. This may come from a need to compensate for something else and i actually like to imagine that's the case because it adds yet another layer of parallels with liwei (source: trust me).

Another point is... remember that I mentioned how food was a very consistent thing in the full stops' likes and dislikes sections in the artbook? this point is also not relevant but dong hwan is frequently assumed to be the owner of that pub that shows up at that short side story about roland and angelica which i never watched because i Literally Can Not Care about angelica sorry, but, hey, it's a cute detail, i think he should cook for the full stops.

I feel like there's something to be said about dh's red eyes because in pjm when a character has red eyes you know that means one thing: they will be a big deal, but dong hwan, other than looking incredibly fucking cool and carrying me through the snow queen suppression (FUCK THE SNOW QUEEN ALL MY HOMIES HATE SNOW QUEEN) and star of the city tier 1 (thank you dong hwan i love you dong hwan)… he is rather unremarkable on the grand scheme of things, he's a general reception so you don't even need to defeat him to beat the game, and he only serves to give us some insight on who the fuck was the vermillion cross, and even then he does a terrible job at explaining who he was other than "well, he was a guy i guess" and honestly, the relevance of both liwei and dong hwan is ALSO an important factor in these parallels, as with one being the guy who introduces the concept of colors and the other being the guy who introduces one particular color fixer by casually mentioning being friends with him, both feel like characters who would be much more narratively important in any other story, but here they... aren't.

4.- Summarizing Parallels

Aka the part you may want to skip to if you don't care about me analyzing characters with little background info about them.

So, basically a list of personality (and background, i guess) traits they have in common and how they're different:

Both characters are putting some sort of facade, with liwei trying to act serious and stoic so he's taken seriously while dong hwan... i dont think he even knows what the facade he's putting even is, he's been putting an act for so long that his mask became his true self

In both characters' cases, the first impression they give isn't really the kind of person they truly are (in lw's case this is a deliberate choice and in dh's case i assume that's just the type of person he is), HOWEVER, while liwei acts serious and analytical (and to some extent he is), his true self is far more emotional and prone to form deep bonds with people, while dong hwan has a more passionate, smug and cheerful external attitude but he's much more serious and levelheaded deep down

Both characters have different, conflicting views about their grades, however these differences ultimately lead to both of them being able to treat each other as equals, or as close to that as possible in the city, i feel like liwei can see dong hwan as someone of worth so to speak for reasons unrelated to his grade, while dong hwan does see liwei as a good person (well, good is a subjective term specially in a place like the city) and far better at teamwork than most people in the city, in a way both value something in the other that the other never stopped to consider "hey this is actually a good thing i have"

Both characters are (pressumably?) trying to compensate over something, with liwei putting his professional and formal act to compensate for his sentimental self while dong hwan puts a strong emphasis on his high grade for... who knows, really, i just like this parallel being there because i think it adds a lot

Both have problems forming relationships, with liwei being a generally unpleasant person but being capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with the people capable of seeing through it, while dong hwan is a charismatic guy liked by almost everyone he's met, but whose relationships tend to be shallow

Not really a personality thing but both characters have a thing for being remarkably unremarkable guys, dong hwan is obviously forgotten by most ruina playes because he's a general reception and the biggest impression liwei leaves in most players is "OH SHIT HE HAS A GUN", even though both are pretty intentionally dessigned with the intention of making them look cool however ive very rarely come across full stop or liwei fans (by which i mean people who like them particularly instead of "actually the entire pjm cast is cool and that includes them) and dong hwan fans are.... yeah, i think ive met like, 4 of them at most (thanks guys i owe you my life)

Something about their combat styles including their passives, liwei's only visible passive is called Concentration and gives him extra strenght for the first turn of a fight, after which he relies in the fact that his attacks weaken the enemy, so he comes off as the sort of guy who prefers to keep his distance and figure out the opponent's weak spot(s) (something he canonically is good at doing) to keep an upper hand at combat, however despite this he's still lacking in both strenght and technique, being only a grade 4 (which i mean let's be real the grades go from 9 to 1 and i feel like a majority of fixers are in the lower grades so he's still pretty much above average but he isnt doing all the cool shit you see the stronger characters do, because that's not the kind of character he is). On the other hand dong hwan's passives have much more cooler sounding names (Fervor, Carver of Scars, Toughness...), all of them focused on either inflicting bleed (status ailment that gradually makes the opponent lose hp)/buffing him against enemies with bleed or buffing him as he gains emotion levels, and his focus is just inflicting bleed like crazy, as well as delivering harder blows against people with bleed, prioritizing raw damage over strategy (but likely being able to figure out an opponent's weaknesses as well, brute strenght alone are most likely not enough to get you far in a world where the powerful people are INSANELY strong bc physical enhancements are commonplace)

I feel like in a way both admire each other, liwei admires dong hwan's capacity to keep a cool head at all times when at work and not letting his feelings have too much weight over his desicions, but dong hwan admires how honest liwei is about himself as well as his capacity to work in a team taking in consideration what will be best for the team as a whole even if it's perjudicial for him in particular.

In Conclusion

Your honor, two of them

[misshoneybee]

All the Nicest Places - CEO!Sugar Daddy!Steve Rogers x Reader // II. Rue de Bonaparte

Rating: Explicit (18+ Minors, DNI!!!) Other Links: ao3 Wordcount: ~6.4k Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader, Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes Content Warnings: mature language, explicit sexual content, (daddy kink, dirty talk, age difference (he's forty-five, you're twenty-three), use of pet names (petal, doll, princess, etc.), bit of a dom/sub dynamic, vaginal sex, voyeurism, exhibitionism, kind of a threesome (mfm), cuckolding?, a little impact play, fingering, teasing, oral sex (m and f-rec), squirting, overstimulation, orgasm delay/denial, dacryphilia, creampie, little bit of cumplay)

PART I: PARK AVENUE

Who knew you could go to Paris twice?

AN: My readers are AFAB but otherwise, I do my best to stay inclusive! Please let me know if there's anything I can do to improve. The title is from ‘I Don't Wanna Live Forever’ by Taylor Swift and Zayn and the divider is from firefly-graphics. Brevity is not my strong suit so here's ~2.1k words of exposition and ~4.3k of smut. I'm not sure how much I love this because it's my first time writing a threesome so, unlike Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers, please be gentle. Also, this wasn't beta'd or proofread so all mistakes are my own. Enjoy, lovelies! xx, 🥰 gif credit: xx

A soft moan was pulled from your lips as noises from the living room bled into the bedroom through the aged, wooden door. Squeezing your eyes shut, savoring the last few moments of sleep as you blocked out the warm sun, you pulled the duvet tighter around yourself, burrowing deep into the luxurious cushion of down pillows and cashmere blankets that still smelled like Steve.

It had almost been a week but the jetlag hadn’t been kind to your body; nine in the morning still felt suspiciously like the middle of the night to your unacclimated circadian rhythm. With university on break for the season, you hadn’t thought twice about accepting Steve’s invitation to trot across the globe. It was time for his annual visit to his international properties and you’d have been remiss to reject it. You couldn’t have, even if you’d wanted to (which, of course, you didn’t.)

People just didn’t say no to Steve Rogers. 

It was a beautiful townhouse that towered just slightly over its neighbors, not far from the Seine, with six ornate bedrooms, almost as many bathrooms, and a clear view of the district from all of the windows that flooded the home with mid-morning light. You couldn’t help but feel a little out of place despite Steve insisting that you could have, or do, whatever you wished. The old walls did little to muffle the deep voice that you’d grown to know all too well as Steve crossed the living room, getting closer to the French doors of the master suite.

It was a beautiful townhouse that towered just slightly over its neighbors, not far from the Seine, with six ornate bedrooms, almost as many bathrooms, and a clear view of the district from all of the windows that flooded the home with mid-morning light. You couldn’t help but feel a little out of place despite Steve insisting that you could have, or do, whatever you wished. The old walls did little to muffle the deep voice that you’d grown to know all too well as Steve crossed the living room, getting closer to the French doors of the master suite.

Sitting up, the soft blankets pooled around your waist as you rubbed the sleep from your bleary eyes, allowing an uninhibited yawn to rattle your chest. His voice was low as he turned door handle, “Ferme ta gueule, Batroc.” With a dark look in his eyes, you heard him mutter before forcefully hanging up the call, “Vous avez deux jours.”

As he opened the doors completely, slipping his phone into his back pocket, his eyes softened as they met yours, “Bonjour, ma chérie.” Leaning over, he pressed a short kiss to your lips as he carefully handed you your coffee before slipping back into bed beside you.

As long as you’d known him, he’d been a morning person. He was almost ready for the day, showered with still slightly damp hair and a freshly trimmed beard. It seemed as though he’d gotten a bit of a delayed start; you’d both been up a little late the night before.

You wished you could feel bad, but you didn’t.

He dragged you into his side, the corner of his mouth ticking up at the giggle that was pulled from your lips, “Merci beaucoup, monsieur.”

“Mm, look at you. Just like a local.” He grinned down at you.

Rolling your eyes good-naturedly, you took a sip of the creamy, too-sweet coffee drink you adored as he twirled a lock of your hair around his finger absentmindedly. Poking his side, you murmured, “Who was that on the phone?”

“No one for you to worry about, petal.” Steve dismissed airily. He never liked talking business with you and you could never quite tell whether that was a good or bad thing. Was it that he just wanted to keep you separate from that part of your life or that he didn’t trust you? You knew it had a lot to do with real estate and investment…and that was about the extent of your knowledge on his business endeavors. “C’mere.”

You squeaked, carefully placing your cup of coffee on the nightstand as he easily pulled you on to his lap, pressing a kiss to your almost bare shoulder before burrowing his face in your neck. Tangling your fingers in his hair, you had to bite your lip to keep youself from saying the three words that always teased the tip of your tongue.

“How do you look so good in the morning…” Steve groaned, nonethewiser as his lips trailed a line of soft, warm kisses from the tender spot just below your ear. He followed the column of your neck, before pushing the strap of your nightie off your shoulder and continuing down.

“Steve…” Your eyes fluttered shut, your fingers tightening in his hair as he mouthed at the swell of your breasts, the soft hair of his beard tickling your warm skin. Pulling the lace-line fabric down further, his tongue traced a circle around your pebbled bud slowly before taking it in his mouth.

Mornings like this were your favorite; slow kisses and lazy caresses as you rolled around in bed with his phone on silent as you escaped the world. Your eyes popped open as you tried to pull back, his flat hand on your back making it impossible as you spoke through a moan, “Wait—“

The pout on his pink lips was almost comical as he detached himself from your body, almost whining, “Baby, let me say good morning…”

His hand that rested on your lap lifted the satin hem slowly, a sparkle in his ocean blue eyes. Slapping his hand gently, you stifled your smile as you laced your fingers together, “Don’t you have a meeting?” Your brows drew together; his schedule had been the same every week day since arriving in the city and it was only Friday, “You can’t be late.”

“I rearranged my schedule.” Leaning back against the headboard, his thumb rubbed small circles on your hip as he chuckled at your innocently confused expression, “That’s what that call was about. I figured, I brought you the whole way to Paris, it wouldn’t be fair to keep you cooped up here.”

Rearranging yourself to straddle his lap, you slipped your arms around his neck as a smile slowly spread across your face, “What do you mean?”

“We have the whole weekend. Shopping, museums, whatever you want—“

With wide eyes, you sat up straighter, taking his face in your hands as you bounced excitedly, forcing a groan from his lips as you squealed, stumbling over your words, “The Louvre?” You gasped, “Or the Musée d'Orsay? It has more Van Gogh but the Louvre has more historically rel—”

Shaking his head, he moved to capture your lips in a slow kiss to interrupt your deluge of excitement but was stopped with one of your smaller hands over his mouth. An entertained, albeit puzzled, look crossed his face as you explained with a wrinkled nose as if it was obvious, “I have morning breath.”

Removing your hand, he murmured, “And I don’t care.” Returning to his intended target, his tongue brushed against yours languidly, the taste of coffee and mint that was meant to cover up the scent of tobacco from the cigarettes you hated mixed together and made you dizzy.

Finally pulling back, he chuckled, answering your initial inquiry, “The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, anywhere you want, petal.” 

His lips began to trail down your body as you grinned, “Anywhere?”

With a wink, he quickly maneuvered you on to your back and nodded, rolling your panties down your legs with a grin, “Anywhere.”

By some miracle, you’d made it out of Steve’s townhouse before noon. Two rounds in bed, bookending a third in the shower, you’d had to peel yourself off of him from where you were tangled in the warm sheets. You weren’t certain who really was the insatiable one; perhaps you both shared the title.

With intertwined fingers and a pair of large sunglasses obscuring your face, you’d made your way down the street to cross the Seine. Your heels clicked quietly against the sidewalk, the rhythm comforting as you traversed the city. The old, stone building facades with wrought iron accents and steep roofs felt so romantic as you meandered down the sidewalks you’d become well acquainted with. The location of his home was central to everything you wanted to see in the city; museums, restaurants, galleries—so many galleries. You’d be heartbroken when you eventually had to leave. 

The Louvre was everything you’d ever imagined; it was an art history major’s dream. The Mona Lisa, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, The Coronation of Napoleon, Liberty Leading the People—things you’d only ever read about but suddenly, they were right in front of you and your breath was taken away. 

“She’s beautiful.” You exhaled, your eyes tracing the white Parian marble as you squeezed Steve’s hand. 

The way the stone fell like draped fabric made you yearn to touch it. You couldn’t remember ever seeing anything so breathtaking. 

Unable to stem your excitement, the words fell from you lips quickly, “Did you know that they’re not even certain it’s Aphrodite? It’s just an assumption because of how she looks. If we knew what her hands were doing, we’d have a better idea. They actually found fragments of them when they discovered her but they just tossed them away—like trash! Can you believe that?” 

The corner of Steve’s lips ticked up at your excitement as he listened intently. He’d been to the museum dozens of time but something about being there with you felt like seeing everything again for the first time.

“She could have been Amphitrite since she was found on Milos or—“ 

Before you could go off on a tangent about France’s loss of the Venus de Medici prior to the Venus de Milo’s discovery in the early nineteenth century, you were interrupted by a smooth, low voice from behind you. It sounded like silk and honey and made you feel warm in the pit of your stomach; you had to suppress a shiver that threatened to wrack your body.

“Rogers, good to see you.”

Steve’s hand on the small of your back was firm as you both turned to face the familiar man. You hadn’t seen Mr. Barnes since the Stark Industries party in New York a few months before, since Steve had made that little quip that still made you blush when you thought about it too long.

“Is it?” Steve asked cooly, raising a half-amused brow, “Because I heard you were sniffing around that building in the seventh. Figured you knew I was here signing the contract this week.”

“Mm, you know the rumor mill these days.” Mr. Barnes’s lips twisted into wry smile as he gave Steve a noncommital shrug before offering a hand. Giving it a firm shake, he turned his sights on you, his grin widening lasciviously. “Lovely to see you again.”

Leaning in, he brushed a kiss against each of your cheeks and your breath caught in your throat as the scent of his cologne overwhelmed your senses and made you weak in the knees. It was dark and smoky, leathery and warm with a whisper of spice that reminded you of dusk, and you could feel Steve’s eyes burning into your back as your hands lingered on his biceps just a moment too long.

Your ass was going to pay for that later.

Stepping back closer to Steve’s side, you could feel your cheeks growing warm as you gave the other man a coy nod, “You as well, Mr. Barnes.”

“You can call me James, doll.” He didn’t have to be so charming but you could feel yourself being pulled in to his orbit. Steve’s arm around your waist tightened as James continued on, as if he wasn’t there, “Have you been enjoying the city?”

Looking around the cavernous Greek antiquities room, there was wonder in your eyes as you nodded slowly, a breathless smile on your face, “It’s beautiful. I adore it here.”

“You’re one to talk about beauty.” His voice was low, thick and sweet like molassas, and you squeezed your thighs together as a bolt of electricity zapped the pit of your stomach. His eyes trailed down your body, tracing the way your dress fell so perfectly over your curves.

“Thank you.” You murmured shyly, biting back a smile at his quick remark that you were certain sent Steve burning.

“As fun as this has been, we should be going.” Steve cleared his throat, giving Mr. Barnes a dark, almost competitive look as he tugged you closer to his side, a possessive hand splayed over your hip. With a curt nod to the other man, he began to guide you out of the wing, “Barnes.”

“Rogers.” James nodded cooly.

Unable to leave well enough alone, you peered over your shoulder to find James’s eyes focused squarely on your ass. With a sparkle in your eyes, and a flirty little smirk painted on your glossy lips, you called back melodiously, “Goodbye, James.”

You always did have a penchant for punishment. 

Biting his lip, he gave you one last slow look up and down, “See you around, princess.”

On one hand, you were grateful that Steve had waited until you’d finished your appointment at Hermes and had returned home. On the other, you were pretty certain that those extra two hours had only served to fester his jealousy, making the green vines twist around him tightly until there was no where else left for his feelings to go.

As you’d looked through bags and shoes, he’d typed away aggressively on his phone, only looking up to give his opinion when you asked and to hand over his black card to the sales associate.

Now, your new Birkin had been tossed thoughtlessly on the floor of Steve’s home office. The smooth camel leather and thousands of dollars worth of gold hardware winked up at you from the ground where it had a front seat to Steve’s defilement of you.

“Daddy, fuck—“ You whined, clutching his arms that were wound tightly around your waist. The buttons of his half-undone shirt rubbed against the sensitive skin of your bare back as he pounded into you from below, his mouth on your neck as you whimpered at the sensation of him easily slipping in and out of your wet cunt.

He’d ripped your dress off almost as soon as the door had shut behind you. You’d already come twice and when Steve got like this, there was no telling when he’d stop.

“That feel good baby?” He groaned, slowing his thrusts to gentle rolls that made you desperate for more. One of his hands pressed hard against your lower abdomen and you wiggled fruitlessly against his body. He could always tell when you were getting close.

“Uh-huh…” You whispered, rocking your hips as best as you could, your eyes fluttering shut. Your thighs were hooked over his, spread wide by his legs with no hope of moving, because he knew you got squirmy after orgasm number two and he wasn’t done playing with his baby girl yet.

One of his hands drifted from playing with your puckered nipple to dipping into your heat beside his cock, making you let out a choked moan at the stretch as he gathered some of your wetness and slowly circled around your swollen clit, “What’s that, petal? You like when daddy plays with this pretty little clit, don’t you?”

You hummed in response, your back arching as you prayed for more. Your eyes shot open at the sharp sting from a gentle slap to your tender nub, pulling a whine from your lips as your nails dug into his arms. You could feel the exhale of a silent laugh against your neck before he groaned at the way your walls clenched around him, “Out loud, baby.”

“Yes, oh fuck—“ You whimpered out, reaching one hand back to tangle in his hair as you rode him. A muffled noise from down the hall broke you from your reverie; your mind was hazy but you were almost certain that you’d heard something.

It wouldn’t be the first time one of Steve’s housekeepers had walked in on the two of you. Despite the dizzying endorphins that swam in your head, your hips stilled as you murmured, “Wait, what was that?”

“Shh…” Steve acquiesced, his fingers trailing slow circles around your clit once more as he shushed you. His cock gave a little twitch as his balls nestled snugly against you and he groaned quietly, “Just be a good girl for daddy, petal. Keep bouncing on my cock…”

As if you were a doll, his hands found purchase on your hips as he easily held you still and hammered into you from below. Your hands left his arms, trailing over your soft skin before finding purchase on your breasts that bounced with each hard thrust.

Toying with your nipples, you let out a gasp when the tip of his cock nudged that special spot deep inside that sent sparks shooting through your body as you keened, “Love your cock so much—“

It was like static filled your ears as he spread your legs even wider, pulling your hips back in to his before a quiet, smirking voice crossed the room, “Glad to see we have similar definitions of taking meetings at home.”

As your eyes shot open and met a pair of slightly familiar icy blue ones, you felt yourself shatter as your orgasm shook your body. You could feel your juices soaking Steve’s lap as you writhed in his arms, crying out as he continued toying with your sensitive button.

Whimpering, your limbs felt like lead, “Daddy—oh god!”

You felt your face grow warm as Mr. Barnes caught his bottom lip between his teeth, his eyes not leaving your squirming body. As you came down, you tried to cover yourself to no avail as Steve kept your arms pinned by your sides, his lips brushing over your shoulder as he let out a low, dark chuckle, speaking to the tall man who’d leaned against the wall, watching you both with darkened eyes, “Took you long enough.”

Mr. Barnes—James—gave a nonchalant shrug, his eyes not leaving yours, “Had to tie up a few loose ends.”

If you weren’t already bare, his gaze would have made you feel like you were. Swallowing, trying to remedy your dry throat, your voice broke, “Steve—“

“Is that my name, baby?” One of his hands drifted up your sternum, settling against the soft skin of your neck like a collar, not adding any pressure but ensuring you kept staring at James. His hot breath on your ear made you shiver as he groaned, “Fuck, you’re dripping, petal. You like this. Don’t you? You like his eyes on you, dirty girl?”

“Daddy...” You whispered, your entire body growing hot at the attention focused on you. As you caught your breath, Steve’s fingers spread your folds open, giving your voyeur a perfect look at his cock still pressed deep inside your hole.

“Fuck, Rogers.” Mr. Barnes groaned, a deep pained sound stuck in his throat as he watched Steve’s glistening fingers spread you wide. Slowly crossing the room to where you were still perched on Steve’s lap, on his desk, he asked lowly, “How do you get any work done with that tight little cunt waiting for you?”

You swallowed, trying to remedy your dry throat as a chuckle rumbled Steve’s chest that was pressed against your back.

Taking your chin between his thumb and finger, Mr. Barnes tilted your face up to look at him. The smirk hadn’t left his face as he brushed a thumb over the cushion of your bite-swollen lower lip, tugging it down just barely.

You could feel yourself shaking; terror and excitement always felt the same.

Raising a brow, Mr. Barnes murmured quietly, “You like being used like his little fucktoy, princess?”

The word got stuck in your throat so you nodded dumbly.

“Answer him, petal.” Steve hummed in your ear, his teeth tugging your lobe gently.

“Y-yes.” You whispered.

A sharp sting on your cheek sent a spark through your body, lighting up every nerve as Mr. Barnes’ hand soothed the site of its assault. You felt a rush of wetness between your legs but Steve’s legs kept yours spread wide despite your need to rub your thighs together, seeking more pleasure.

James’s voice was lower when he corrected you, “Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.” You sniffled, feeling over exposed as Steve pulled you tigher against his body with a low groan.

“Fuck, Barnes. Should’ve felt the way she squeezed me when you did that.”

Your whimper was muffled as Bucky slipped his thumb into your mouth. Your cheeks hollowed around his digit without a second thought, your tongue swirling around it as you silently begged for something more between your lips with a sated little hum.

“Would you like that, baby?” Steve prompted you and you felt your heartbeat quicken. You knew you could say a single word and end everything but—fuck, you didn’t want to.

“You want Mr. Barnes to play with your sweet, little pussy?” He continued, taunting you before a whine was pulled from your throat, finally nodding your consent. His hands on your hips lifted you from his lap easily, setting you gently on the edge of his desk as he knelt behind you. You whined at the loss of his length filling you, your walls clenching, unsatisfied.

Removing his thumb from where it was pressed heavily against your tongue, James easily shed his suit jacket, folding it in half before draping it over the back of one of the antique leather chairs that decorated Steve’s office.

His eyes stayed trained on you as he listened to Steve tick off his rules, speaking around you.

“You can touch her. Finger her. Fuck her.” His large hands spread you wide for his adversary’s eyes, as he continued with a little smirk, “She’s insatiable. When she’s crying, fuck—that’s when you know it’s just getting good. You can come anywhere but inside her pussy. That belongs to me.”

His jaw worked before he lowly added, “And if she says ‘empire,’ you stop. I don’t give a shit what’s going on, you stop and get the fuck out. Got it?”

“Got it.” James stalked back towards the desk like a wolf, tracking it prey, dismissively waving Steve off as his full attention returned to you. Cupping your cheek with an unfound gentleness, he asked quietly, “Would you like that, princess? You want me to touch you?”

Before he could finish his question, you were nodding, your body shaking with excitement, “Yes, please, sir. Need you to touch me…”

James’s hands skated down your body as Steve held your thighs apart. The other man’s thumb ghosted over your clit before tugging the little hood back gently, tsk-ing as he watched your glistening cunt clench around nothing, silently begging for it to be filled again.

“Fuck, look at that pretty hole drooling for me.” He groaned, his thumb barely pressing into it slowly as your head tilted back, bracing yourself on the desk with your weak arms. “Did your daddy stretch you open for me, princess? Get you all ready to take my cock too?”

With your bottom lip caught between your teeth, you nodded. You could feel a bead of wetness trailing from your entrance to your puckered hole and shivered. Steve’s heavy hands slid up your body, toying with your breasts. His thumbs brushed over the pebbled skin of your nipples before tugging them, rolling them between his fingers and pinching them teasingly.

Undoing his belt slowly, James’s crystalline eyes trailed over your bare form, “Been thinking about you all day, pretty girl. How cute and innocent you looked in that little white dress this afternoon. How you must be all sweet and shy…” With a little smirk, his warm hands gripped your hips and tugged you closer to the desk’s edge as a squeak was pulled from your lips.

“Turns out you’re just a little cock-hungry slut, aren’t you?”

You knew the nod you gave was unsastifactory when he gently pinched your clit between his thumb and finger, forcing a pathetic whine from your lips as you quickly corrected, “Oh fuck—yes, sir!”

“Good girl.” He cooed. His thumb brushed over your swollen nub soothingly as he nodded to your side, “Now, how ‘bout you keep your daddy’s cock warm with that slutty fucking mouth of yours while I play with this cute little cunt.”

You hadn’t even noticed Steve moving to your side, pumping his length that hung heavily between his built thighs, still glistening with your pleasure. Your brain was still fuzzy from the several orgasms Steve had given you earlier; your attention kept wondering.

Nodding obediently, you went to work. Using your tongue to wet your hand, you leaned back and allowed it to take over for his, opening your mouth slowly as Steve’s hand brushed against your cheek, guiding his cock to your lips and tapping his leaking tip against your tongue as James knelt between your legs.

“Fuck, baby. Look how used this pussy is…” His thumbs spread your lips apart, running over them soothingly as he muttered, “So swollen and puffy… Let me help, princess.”

A drag of his tongue from your hole to your clit made your hips jolt before they were forced back down onto the cool wood by his large hands, “Oh—“

Your exclamation was prevented by Steve thrusting into your mouth fully, his tip brushing the back of your throat, forcing a gag from you. His hand rested on the back of your head, guiding your mouth up and down his length as his head dropped back. With a gasp for breath, you pulled off of his cock, your hand replacing your mouth, jerking him off unevenly, as your other hand drifted between your thighs, tangling in James’s hair.

His talented tongue trailed around your clit as he easily slipped two fingers into your soaked entrance; you swore you could feel the smirk on his lips as you whined out his name.

Steve’s fingers tightening in your hair forced your attention back to him where your hand had slowed, overwhelmed with all of the new sensations that came with splitting your attention between the two men. Your tongue traced the prominent vein on the underside of his cock before finally reaching his tip where a bead of precum leaked from his slit. Giving it a little, teasing kitten lick, you giggled as his adam’s apple bobbed and a moan was pulled from his throat.

Wrapping your lips around its ruddy, swollen head, you moaned as the salty taste coated your tongue. You always loved sucking his cock.

Your hips bucked against James’ mouth as he sped up his ministrations and he hooked his arms around your thighs, spreading them over his broad shoulders as his tongue continued lashing over your clit, sucking it and gently grazing his teeth over the little bundle of nerves.

“You’re doing so well, petal.” Steve cooed as you whined around his length, your hand working what you couldn’t take down your throat. “Your mouth feels like sin…”

Removing your swollen, spit-soaked lips from him with a pop, you murmured brokenly, “Thank you, Daddy…”

“Princess, such a naughty girl. You’re fucking soaked for us.” James licked another languid stripe from your leaking entrance to the sensitive button of your little clit and you squirmed fruitlessly in his arms as his teeth grazed it gently. Looking up at you from under his dark lashes, the two fingers in your hole curled up, brushing that spongey little patch that made you see stars.

Watching the little ring of your cream form around the base of his fingers, he taunted against your sex, “You like having two of us? You like having all the attention on you, baby?”

“Yes, sir!” You cried out, your hips rocking against his digits needily.

“Fuck, you’re so sweet. Such a perfect little slut, aren’t you?” He traced the tip of his tongue around your clit before sucking hard then soft, letting go and repeating the movement over and over. He could feel your body tensing as your orgasm quickly approached, your thighs quivering at the added stimulation from his thick fingers.

“Yes, sir.” You nodded, feeling the wave building low in your tummy as your eyes watered and struggled to stay open, “Can I...” Taking a shaky breath, trying to keep your crest at bay, lest you receive a punishment for coming without permission, you whimpered. Your eyes found Steve’s, a little pout on your lips as you begged, “Daddy, I need to come. Can I? Please? Need it so bad…”

You broke off with a half-stifled moan as a shiver was sent up your spine.

“I’m not the one you should be asking, petal.” Steve grinned as he watched you struggle to hold back the pleasure that was already coursing through your body.

“Please—Mr. Barnes,” You sat up slightly, propping yourself up on your elbows. Spotting him worshipping between your thighs, your breath quickening as you begged, “May I come? Your tongue feels so good. I—fuck, please?”

“Look at you asking for permission. Seems like your daddy trained you well.” You could only whine in response and he grinned. His fingers pistoning in and out of you, pulsing harder and harder against your g-spot with each quick thrust.

Granting you grace, he nodded, his jaw clenched tightly as he groaned, feeling your walls flutter around his digits as a little trickle of your juices leaked out around his fingers. Swearing under his breath, one of his hands pressed against your lower belly as he murmured, “Go ahead, sweetheart. Let me see this sweet little cunt squirt for me.”

At his permission, you finally felt the dam break as a loud moan was pulled from your lips. Arching your back, unsure if you were trying to shy away from his touch or get more of it, you felt the wave crest and crash as several short bursts of clear fluid came from your fluttering hole.

“Shit…” He groaned as you came down, smearing some of your wetness over your already glistening folds. Unzipping his trousers as he stood, James shoved them down only far enough to pull himself from the confines of the tight boxer-briefs that hugged his built thighs.

You felt a lump in your throat as your wide eyes zeroed in on his length. Long and thick, it was painfully hard and ready for you as it rested against the light dusting of hair that trailed down his stomach before he choked it tightly in his hand.

You knew you were quite a sight—mascara smudged down your cheeks, lipstick smeared from your mouth—but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as you wiggled closer to the edge of the desk, situating yourself exactly where he wanted. Your knees eagerly fell open wider.

To the side, you could see Steve watching you, his hand working his lipstick stained length as James toyed with you. There was a silent smirk on his lips as he watched your hips give a little restless twitch, knowing exactly what you craved.

Maybe it felt a little dirty, him watching you get fucked by another man, but not more than it felt good.

Your head spun as James easily lifted you from the desk, turning you to face it instead. Without needing his instruction, your propped yourself up on your forearms as you arched your back, silently begging as you stuck your ass out for him. The cool wood brushed against your puckered nipples and you let out a soft whimper at the feeling against your burning skin.

“I gotta have you wrapped around my cock, baby…”

It was only a moment before he lined himself up with your sore entrance, dragging his tip up and down your dripping slit to spread the wetness around. Holding your hips firmly, he sank into your tight channel in one, smooth stroke with a deep groan rumbling from his chest as he bottomed out, his hips flush against your ass.

Your arms buckled at the sensation of being filled so completely, your nails scraping against the lacquered wood as he wasted no time before pulling out and shoving himself back in, setting a punishing rhythm that made you feel dizzy.

“How are you still so fuckin’ tight,” He punctuated his last few words with hard thrusts that took your breath away, “when I know you’re just your daddy’s little whore?”

“What do you say, petal?” Steve smirked at your wide eyes that fluttered shut as a soft whimper was pulled from your mouth.

“Thank you, sir.” Your cheek pressed against the cool top of the desk as your vision blurred with pleasure; James lifted one of your legs on to the desk, opening yourself wider for him as his hips snapped punishingly, his heavy balls smacking against your sensitive nub with each thrust.

“Oh fuck, da—sir—James…” Your mind had all but melted, your words slurring together.

“Look at you shaking.” His chuckle was dark but his movements never stopped as you mewled, all but climbing the desk to try and escape the overwhelming sensation. “This too much for you, doll?”

Your nod and whimper made his dick twitch as he split you open, slowing as he grinded into your cunt. Leaning over you, almost covering your body with his, his breath was hot as he whispered into your ear with a cheshire grin, “Too fucking bad, princess. I know you can take it…”

“Please, daddy…” You couldn’t see the way Steve’s eyes darkened as the title slipped from your lips. It wasn’t as if you could even apologize; your head was floating too high above the clouds in pleasure.

Leaning back, he reached down and toyed with your clit, forcing a whine from your lips as he watched his cock disappear into your body, glistening with your slick each time he drew it out, “Fuck, look at the way your little pussy is stretching around me.”

He groaned, returning to his hammering rhythm as he felt himself growing closer to his own edge. Holding your hips still, he grunted, “I can see why you kept her away from us, Rogers.”

Steve clicked his tongue, his eyes trained on the way your abused pussy gripped James’s cock as he slowly stroked himself, “Nothing changes after tonight, Barnes. You walk out of here and she’s still mine.” Landing a smack against the bouncy flesh of your ass, he squeezed gently, teasing, “Do you need to come again, petal?”

Heat from Steve’s handprint spread under your skin and you gasped. Bucky’s thumb that was still laser focused on rubbing tight circles around your clit forced you closer to another precipice, your voice breathy as you begged, “Yes, please…”

“Get on the desk, princess.” You whined at the loss of James’ length, and your impending orgasm, but you were spun around and lifted on to the desk before you realized, your head spinning at the sudden change in position.

Spreading your legs for him, your teeth dug into your bottom lip to muffle a whimper as one of his hands played with your clit while the other pumped his cock easily with the wetness you’d left on it. With a low groan, he came over your folds in slow, thick spurts and you felt your walls clench around nothing as his warm spend mingled with the wetness that clung to your skin.

You didn’t have time to catch your breath before suddenly, a pair of strong hands turned you. Steve spread your thighs and buried himself in your warmth in one, quick stroke; you let out a gasp as he filled you perfectly, “Oh!”

“Shit, baby. I just need to finish inside this tight little pussy…” He found a fast rhythm, knowing you both felt the tension growing low in your stomachs, the coil tightening as you tried to hold off your pleasure, “Love to feel this little cunt squeezin’ around me—you’re my good girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes…” You nodded breathlessly, his forehead pressed to yours as he locked eyes with you, his pupils eclipsing the seafoam irises that you always fell into.

Cupping your cheek, he traced his thumb over your swollen lip, taunting quietly, “You didn’t forget about Daddy, did you? Not when Mr. Barnes was in your pussy?”

“No, daddy!” Your thighs tightened around his hips, your body begging for more from him. Shaking your head, you moaned as he hit your g-spot over and over, making your toes curl, “Love your cock so much. Always need it so bad…”

“You need me to fill you up, petal? Remind you who you really belong to?”

“Only you, daddy…” You nodded, rocking your hips against his fruitlessly as you tried to hasten the release that you’d been denied, “Please?”

“That’s right, baby.” Steve grinned, a hand on the back of your head pulling you close so he could crash his lips to yours. His tongue twisted with yours and he let out a low groan into your mouth as your cunt began to flutter around him, “You coming again already? Good girl. Love this sweet little pussy, wrapped around me so fuckin’ tight. Go ahead, petal. One more time. Come on my cock, let me feel you squeeze for me. Show me who you belong to, baby. Show daddy who you belong to…”

His words made you forget you weren’t alone.

You felt your legs shaking as he ground his pubic bone carefully against your clit, forcing the coil deep in your stomach to finally snap. You both watched where your bodies were joined as your nails dug into his shoulders and your hips jerked. Squeezing your eyes shut as stars burst in your vision, you felt yourself squirt once again, soaking his cock as he gave one final thrust, burying himself to the hilt.

His length pulsed as emptied himself into your sensitive cunt, your walls pulsing over and over as they milked his cock. Finally, drawing himself out, he hummed low and watched with dark eyes as the white, pearlescent cream slipped from your channel. Using his thumb, he guided your combined spend back inside of your hole.

Squirming did nothing to get him away from your overstimulated sex and you were too exhausted to do anything more than whimper at his touch as the aftershocks wracked your body. His tongue darted out to wet his lips as he cooed softly, “Yeah, that’s it, baby. Look at you, holding on to my cum just like that…”

His hand cupped your cheek as you slurred out, sore but sated with a blissful smile, “Thank you, daddy…”

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest as he pressed a uncharacteristically soft kiss to your swollen lips, “You’re welcome, petal.”

The way his tongue moved with yours was languorous and you sighed discontentedly once he withdrew his lips, wanting more.

Easily picking you up from where you’d been sat against the cool wood of his desk, Steve smiled as you buried your face in his neck, taking a deep breath of the clean cologne that still clung to his skin from that morning. Your lips brushed against his throat affectionately and you could feel his mouth tilt up into a little smile from where it was pressed to the top of your hair.

Zipping up his trousers, already half-hard again, James shook his head and grabbed his jacket, folding it over his arm like he was leaving a business meeting rather than having just fucked you hard and fast, “You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Rogers.”

Calling over his shoulder, already carrying you down the hall to your shared room, Steve shot back with a grin, “And don’t I know it.”

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 9

259 – Died: Saint Polyeuct, lover of Saint Nearchus. Soldiers in the Roman army and deeply attached to each other, Polyeuct and Nearchus were both stationed in Militene, Armenia. The earliest account of Polyeuct's martyrdom was written by Nearchus.

The primary thread of their story is the desire of these two friends to spend eternity together. According to the text, when the emperor issued a new edict against Christians, Nearchus was worried that, since Polyeuct was a pagan and Nearchus a Christian, his own possible martyrdom and the eventual death of Polyeuct might lead to their being in separate places in the afterlife. Polyeuct reassured him that he had long been drawn to Christianity and intended to die a Christian. With a convert's fervor, Polyeuct then attacked a pagan procession and had himself arrested. The judge turned out to be his own father-in-law, Felix, who begged him to reconsider.

Polyeuct's wife, Paulina, came to court and unsuccessfully implored him, for the sake of their marriage and their son, to change his mind. After severe tortures, he was condemned to death. Just before he was beheaded, Polyeuct saw Nearchus near. His final words to Nearchus were "Remember our secret vow."

Nearchus was later martyred, being buried alive.

Before his own death, Nearchus recorded this story, which was recounted annually at the church at Militene and eventually erected over Polyeuct's tomb in Militene. In the year 527, a great church with a gold-plated ceiling was built in Constantinople and dedicated to St. Polyeuct. Later in the same century, Gregory of Tours wrote that the most solemn oaths were usually sworn in this church; because Polyeuct had come to be considered the special heavenly protector of vows and avenger of broken promises.

1900 – Richard Halliburton (presumed dead after March 24, 1939) was an American traveler, adventurer, and author. Best known today for having swum the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll in its history—thirty-six cents—Halliburton was headline news for most of his brief career. His final and fatal adventure, an attempt to sail a Chinese junk, the Sea Dragon, across the Pacific Ocean from Hong Kong to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, made him legendary.

Richard Halliburton was born in Brownsville, Tennessee. The family moved to Memphis, where he spent his childhood. He attended Memphis University School. He also showed promise as a violinist, and was a fair golfer and tennis player. In 1915 Richard developed a rapid heart condition and spent some time at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, run by the innovative John Harvey Kellogg, whose philosophy of care featured regular exercise, sound nutrition, and frequent enemas.

Leaving college temporarily during 1919, Halliburton became an ordinary seaman and boarded the freighter Octorara bound from New Orleans to England. He toured historic places in London and Paris, but soon returned to Princeton to finish his schooling. Travel inspired in him a lust for more travel.

Halliburton idolized mountain climber George Mallory, who died in 1924 while trying to climb Mt. Everest. He knew and admired aviatrix Amelia Earhart. He knew journalist Lowell Thomas, who had made Lawrence of Arabia a living legend. Halliburton craved the celebrity of Rudolph Valentino, the great romantic screen star of the silent era. Richard was acquainted with and looked up to swashbuckling cinema star Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who was also a world traveler.

Halliburton's first book, published in 1925, The Royal Road to Romance, became a bestseller. Two years later he published The Glorious Adventure, which retraced Ulysses' adventures throughout the Classical Greek world as recounted in Homer's The Odyssey, and which included his visiting the grave of English poet Rupert Brooke on the island of Skyros. In 1929 Halliburton published New Worlds To Conquer, which recounted his famous swim of the Panama Canal, and his retracing the track of Cortez' conquest of Mexico.

Halliburton's sexual associations with members of his own sex became apparent. To protect the image of heroic masculinity he had cultivated to win over an admiring public, he kept secret his true sexual orientation. He seems also to have kept it a secret from his doting parents, who longed for grandchildren from their one surviving son. Among those romantically linked to him were film star Ramón Novarro and philanthropist Noel Sullivan, both of whom shared his enjoyment of the bohemian lifestyle. Halliburton's most enduring relationship was with freelance journalist Paul Mooney, with whom he often shared living quarters and who assisted him with his written work.

In 1931 Halliburton hired pioneer aviator Moye Stephens on the strength of a handshake —for no pay, but unlimited expenses —to fly him around the world in an open cockpit biplane. The modified Stearman C-3B was named the Flying Carpet after the magic carpet of fairy tales, and this became the title of his 1932 best-seller. They embarked on "one of the most fantastic, extended air journeys ever recorded" taking 18 months to circumnavigate the globe, covering 33,660 miles (54,100 km) and visiting 34 countries.

Halliburton (R) with Moye Stephens

On March 3, 1939, Halliburton began to sail a Chinese junk across the Pacific Ocean. The Sea Dragon, a gaudily decorated 75-foot (23 m) junk, was made to his commission in the shipyards of Kowloon by cartwright Fat Kau. Emblazoned with a colorful dragon and equipped with a diesel engine, the Sea Dragon was supposed to make its maiden voyage from Hong Kong to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (at Treasure Island).

Three weeks out to sea on March 23 the ship encountered a typhoon. The junk was last sighted by the liner SS President Coolidge, itself battling mountainous seas some 1900 km west of Midway Island. That was the last seen the junk. After an extensive US Navy search with several ships and scout planes over thousands of square miles and many days, the effort was ended. In 1945 some wreckage identified as a rudder and believed to belong to the Sea Dragon washed ashore in California.

Missing at sea since March, Halliburton was declared dead on October 5, 1939 by the Memphis Chancery Court.

Simone de Beauvoir (R) with Jean-Paul Sartre

1908 – Simone de Beauvoir (d.1986) is best known for her revolutionary study of women's condition, The Second Sex (1949), a work that changed women's lives worldwide. In 1999, an international colloquium was held in Paris to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of The Second Sex. The conference included a number of papers on Beauvoir and lesbianism, a topic that, a decade earlier, would have been virtually unthinkable.

In 1990, however, when Beauvoir's journals and two volumes of her letters to Jean-Paul Sartre were made available, it became clear that Beauvoir had had a number of same-sex relationships throughout her life. These revelations, along with others, completely shattered the heretofore unassailable myth of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre as the twentieth century's most perfect couple. Today, Beauvoir's same-sex relationships are widely acknowledged, although attempts to excuse them (as "bohemian existentialist experimentation," to give but one example), in the interest of preserving Beauvoir's heterosexual image, persist.

Beauvoir was born in Paris into a bourgeois Roman Catholic family. Her family's fortunes declined after World War I, but she was nevertheless the beneficiary of an expensive private education. She then studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, where she met Sartre in 1929.

From 1931 to 1941 Beauvoir taught philosophy in secondary schools in Marseilles, Rouen, and Paris. In 1943, she published her first novel, L'Invitée, one of several fictional works dealing with her relationship with Sartre.

Although she herself seems not to have been involved in resistance efforts during the Nazi occupation of Paris, in 1945, soon after the end of World War II, she published Le Sang des autres, a novel reflecting on the question of political involvement and the French Resistance.

The feminist classic The Second Sex followed in 1949 and was eventually to make her reputation. Her strongest novel, Les Mandarins, appeared in 1954; a semiautobiographical work, it too focused on her relationship with Sartre, the subject that has preoccupied both her autobiographical works and the scholarship devoted to her life and work.

Beauvoir's same-sex relations, characterized by intense emotion and in most cases with a confirmed sexual component, likely began with Beauvoir's school friend "Zaza." Several of these relationships occurred during Beauvoir's career as a philosophy teacher during the 1930s and 1940s, and involved her students (who seemed to be the initiators, able to resist neither Beauvoir's physical nor her intellectual magnetism).

In one case, Beauvoir's rendez-vous were structured around philosophy lessons. Exasperated at having to discuss Kant before climbing into Beauvoir's bed, the student Nathalie Sorokine called Beauvoir "a clock in a refrigerator." When Sorokine's mother complained to the school, Beauvoir was fired, effectively ending her teaching career.

When Beauvoir was asked point blank in an interview if she were a lesbian, she angrily denied it. It should be noted, however, that Beauvoir tended to define things narrowly (she also claimed she was not a philosopher, again according to a strict definition). For Beauvoir, a lesbian is a woman who refuses to have anything (sexual) to do with males.

Further, Beauvoir was a major participant in the public erasure of her lesbian identity. A comparison of the unpublished diaries with published works shows a very different representation of the relationship with Zaza in Beauvoir's autobiography Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) or of Beauvoir's lover Olga as the fictional Xavière in her novel She Came to Stay (1943). It has only recently been recognized that Beauvoir was the model for the lesbian Inès in Sartre's No Exit (1944).

In the early 1960s, Beauvoir began a relationship with Sylvie le Bon which lasted to the end of Beauvoir's life. In 1980, following Sartre's death, Beauvoir adopted Sylvie so that the latter could legally care for Beauvoir, who was to die six years later. Their relationship offers a model of the lesbian couple described theoretically in The Second Sex.

1941 – Joan Baez is nothing less than a legend, both as a folk musician and as a catalyst for social change. A singer, guitarist, and songwriter with eight gold records and six Grammy nominations thus far, Baez has long been visible as a protest figure supporting civil rights, peace efforts, and human rights through her direct activism and numerous free concerts.

Born on Staten Island, New York to a Scottish mother and Mexican-American father, Baez moved with her family to California when she was a small child. She lived in Baghdad from 1951 to 1952; there, confronted with rampant poverty and human suffering in the streets, she first realized her passion for social justice.

Baez stood out as an artistic nonconformist and peace activist in her high school in Palo Alto, California, and then at Boston University—where she remained for only a short time. She had begun playing at local coffeehouses and decided to drop out of school in 1958 to concentrate on her musical career.

Baez started playing in clubs such as Gate of Horn, which belonged to impresario (and Baez's future manager) Albert Grossman, and appearing with well-known musicians such as Pete Seeger.

In 1960 her first album, Joan Baez, was released to huge acclaim. Gifted with an extraordinarily beautiful voice, she also brought an unusual intelligence to the interpretation of folk songs, both traditional and new.

Baez became increasingly involved with the civil rights movement, using her growing fame as a means of drawing attention to a cause she believed in deeply. She especially worked in conjunction with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Dr. King's speeches and Baez's singing were a staple of demonstrations and rallies during the turbulent 1960s.

Baez also became very active in promoting nonviolence. During the Vietnam War, she visited Hanoi for thirteen days to witness the horrors of war herself, and for ten years she withheld the percentage of her income taxes that would have been put toward military expenses. In 1967, she was arrested twice—and jailed for a month—for blocking the entrance of the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California.

All the while she continued recording albums in her signature clear soprano, both writing her own material and performing classic songs of resistance such as "We Shall Overcome," "Oh, Freedom," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

She founded both the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence (now The Resource Center for Nonviolence) in California in 1965 and the Humanitas International Human Rights Committee, which she headed from 1979 until its demise 13 years later.

Although she may be most famous for her civil rights and peace activism, Baez has also been prominent in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights.

She has been open about the relationship she had with a woman in 1962; in an interview a decade later, she told a reporter that she basically considered herself bisexual, a statement she stood by despite the controversy it sparked. She did marry activist David Harris in 1968, and had their son Gabe in 1969; although the couple eventually divorced, Baez never again pursued a lesbian relationship.

Still, she has been visible in the gay community; in 1978 she performed at several benefit concerts to defeat Proposition 6 (the Briggs Initiative), which proposed banning all openly gay people from teaching in the public schools of California. Later that year, she participated in memorial marches for the assassinated San Francisco city supervisor, openly gay Harvey Milk.

Alongside Janis Ian, she played a benefit for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in 1994, and has performed numerous times with the lesbian duo the Indigo Girls.

1994 – Elijah Daniel is an American comedian, rapper, and author. He became popular online through his comedy on YouTube and social media. Daniel is the author of the erotic novel Trump Temptations. His book went viral, and saw significant sales the day it was published; rising to the top of sales lists in multiple categories. Daniel's book received favorable reception. Trump Temptations became the top seller on Amazon.com in three categories: humorous erotica, LGBT erotica, and gay erotica.

Elijah Daniel was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was raised evangelical Christian. After his grandmother became ill, Daniel moved into her residence to care for her. During this period, he began to write comedy to occupy himself. He publicized his comedy work through posts on Twitter, and videos to Vine.

Daniel led an online White House petition in 2013 to make the Miley Cyrus song "Party in the U.S.A." the U.S. national anthem. It received international coverage. Starting in 2014 Elijah began hosting a weekly internet prank with CollegeHumor called Text Prank Thursday, where he would have his Twitter followers text random phone numbers saying whatever he told them to say. Daniel told Vice that he cultivated a group of followers online who appreciated his absurd and bizarre comedic antics. By 2016, his Twitter following had grown to over 95,000.

In 2016 Daniel stated on Twitter that he was going to get drunk and write an erotic novel starring Donald Trump. Daniel was inspired by a tweet which said the user wished to perform a sex act on Bernie Sanders. Daniel wrote the work as a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey. Within four hours, he had released the erotic novel titled Trump Temptations: The Billionaire & The Bellboy on Amazon. The work was Daniel's debut novel.

Trump Temptations became the number one best seller on Amazon.com in three categories: humorous erotica, LGBT erotica, and gay erotica.The book was listed on Amazon above Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James, and was featured in The Washington Post, Daily News, Los Angeles Times, GQ, Gay Star News, London Evening Standard, The Daily Telegraph, and Vice. The Guardian classed the work as part of the "small but burgeoning new genre: satirical books about Donald Trump" that began with the 2016 presidential campaign. Cosmopolitan called the book a literary success.

Daniel hired Trump impersonator Chris Ferretti to read the audiobook.

Trump biographer Marc Shapiro wrote in Trump This!, that Daniel's novel was one of the most infamous works capitalizing on interest in Trump. An article in Fortune said that Daniel displayed a Trump-like skill to capitalize on a niche demand.

After the Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016, Daniel publicly urged on Twitter for any individual who is closeted to feel free to contact him privately for support, and he published "An open letter to the LGBT kids who feel lost and scared" on Fusion.net. The letter positively received by ATTN:, which called it a powerful commentary on the attack.

On August 30, 2017, Elijah Daniel performed a publicity stunt centered around Hell, Michigan – an unincorporated town that allows visitors to pay for the opportunity to hold the title of "mayor" for a day. In what he called "a copy-and-paste of Trump's Muslim ban", he announced a satirical law that banned heterosexuals from entering and living in the town. In response, Daniel released an edited version of The Bible called "The Holy Bible… but Gayer" two weeks later. Sales of it were briefly banned on Amazon before being restored.

2016 – When Hubert Edward Spires was twenty years old, he decided to serve his country by joining the military. Because he was a gay man in a very different time, though, he was removed through an "undesirable" discharge. On this day in 2016, the 91-year-old Connecticut man finally received the honorable discharge he was denied 68 years ago.

In 1946, he joined what was then called the U.S. Army Air Force and became a chaplain's assistant at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Spires quickly took to the work, which included writing letters to families worried about their loved ones, playing organ during Catholic Mass and preparing the chapel for various services. When it became known that he was a homosexual he was given an "undesirable" discharge.

Because of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in 2010, it became possible for Spires to apply to have the status of his discharge changed. The 91-year-old Spires filed a federal lawsuit seeking an honorable discharge so he can receive a military burial.The Air Force has changed the 91-year-old's records to an honorable discharge. Spires said, "I can go to my grave with my head held high."

[the-s1lly-corner]

Could you possibly write about slenderman's ghost s/o trying to make the mansion festive for Halloween bc they're really excited for the holiday and never experienced it before? They have a list and everything as soon as they learn about the custom-

For instance, every room is decked out in decor totally not stolen, they make loads of themed treats, and try to engage the him and the proxies into doing multiple festive activities as well?

-slender anon <3 (sorry if this is too much exposition, tysm for all the cool writing)

Celebrating Halloween w/ Slenderman!

so so sorry for taking a a bit to get to this !! I meant to get this out tomorrow but I got distracted </3 still torn on if i want the mansion to exist in my au but for all intents and purposes we'll say it does for this >:) i might make the mansion like, some abandoned creepy haunted house in universe, like the house from IT or Nightmare on Elm Street (i actually... dont remember if it gets abandoned or not in the later movies, its been a while since i watched the series..) or something something yeah i think ill go with that for the mansion anyways enough rambling

Cue curious head tilts and questions from slenderman, he knows OF Halloween but he doesnt know all the ins and outs and intricacies when it comes to how its celebrated; best he knows is costumes and candy

initially watches you try to hang up all the decorations by yourself but eventually steps in to give you a hand

probably consults in you what basic Halloween traditions are, and probably also tries to ask the proxies if they know anything about it

i think outside of toby, the proxies don't really. remember much of their lives before becoming proxies, but that's because I'm basing my take on them off of the original MH where like, there's brain fog and the proxy/person are internally separate, but that's where inspiration from the original stuff ends; merging two fandoms together is. hard when the canon and fanon are so different

anyways

but also i never really like the creepypasta interpretation of masky and hoodie, at least from when i was in the fandom years back where they were shy and soft, but thats likely changed now- admittedly i dont interact with the fandom outside of creating

im rambling again, but i think masky and hoodie would also be a little lost but ready to do whatever they're told to do in regards to helping deck out the mansion

good news is that the mansion already looks like a spooky haunted house! especially on the outside since it's not as well kept as the inside

the inside is like what comes to mind when someone says old ass house; creaky wooden floors, shitty heating system, crawl spaces and compartments, that sort of thing. old enough that it would definitely have mold and rot, and be falling apart, if slenderman didnt come and keep it in tact

again, it already looks spooky enough as is, but decorations can really tie in the look

fake cobwebs, skeletons, spiders

oh those are real spiders

the mansion probably has spiders, slenderman cant do anything about the spiders sorry

okay anyways

treats! totally not stolen from some store by a teleporting entity that naturally distorts electronics! definitely not

he would make them with you, i think

i sometimes think about how slenderman would probably like calm and quiet activities, domestic ones included, so i think this is something he would actually end up loving especially with you around

learns he hates working with melted marshmallow, that shit is not banned from the mansion as well as marshmallow creme

he even gets those cute little halloween themed goodie bags so you can give them out

unfortunately he's going to have to pass, on account that he can't really eat any non-human meat food, but rest assured if he could safely eat your treats he would

Toby would be fucking that shit up, especially if you make those popcorn ball things. i feel like toby would love those. masky to me seems like a butterscotch haystack enjoyer to me (based), while hoodie fucks up those chocolate dipped pretzels, you know the ones that get decorated to look like mummies? those. he demolishes those (also based)

i kinda miss the popcorn balls tbh i havent had those in years but they were good from what i remember- i think i might make some this evening

moving on once more

if there's any extras slenderman may offer to take you around to give them to others

im still deciding character dynamics and relationships and who knows who in this funky au, but i feel like slenderman knows at least a handful of the other character. at least on a first name basis

so thats fun! you also get to share the joy with characters such as splendor and trender, and perhaps even jeff. i hc that eyeless jack and slender are both in the same forest but not like. buddy buddy. but he can get goodies too. ignore the fact jack is in the same boat as slender in terms of what he can and cant eat- he appreciates the gesture

now activities! i gotta admit i never really did halloween stuff outside of trick or treating; so im a little stumped on ideas

theres the obvious, pumpkin carving (the pumpkin insides get used to make more treats!), apple bobbing, and a few others

while not really a halloween game, you guys probably play a few games in the woods

thats

wait no thats terrifying, do not play hide and seek/tag with them in the woods regardless of if its night time and regardless of if youre a ghost, that shit actually sounds terrifying esp since i think slenderman and hoodie would get WAY TOO competitive

oh scary stories

definately

you insist on summoning ghosts and demons to fit the vibe

" but Dear, you're a gho-" "hush"

you guys accidentally summon one of the ghost creepypastas or something/j

you guys accidentally summon zalgo and halloween gets cancelled'j

idk if this is just a me thing but whenever me and my friends sit down to read creepypasta stories we get derailed and somehow end up reading fanfics and acting them out but i can see this happening as well; though this one also isnt a halloween exclusive activity

overall its a learning experience for most of you guys, and slenderman is totally up to humoring you again next year!

oh oh oh halloween costumes, how could i forget?

good luck trying to find something for slenderman, even if he could fit in anything he probably wouldnt dress up no matter how you try to word it

actually now that i think of it, do you think his suit is just part of his body? like ive seen loads of interpretations where it is; the shitty slenderman movie included. like is it a removeable suit? is it something that looks like a suit but its part of him? is it like a scp 049 situation where it is a suit but its attached to him?

im not getting into that today

masky and toby both dress up as classic slasher icons

hoodie probably would too but i got flashed with a vision of him dressed as pumpkin so im rolling with it

i think thats about everything! i hope you like this! this ended up way longer than i thought it would be but i fully blame that on me still being in my ramble mindset </3 ive been cooking up some major hcs for my au/interpretation as well as smaller stuff so my brain just wants to dump it TToTT

anyways

runs off to go draw spooky stuff (cough cough creepypastas dressed up in costumes)

[specialagentartemis]

Truly tragic how many fictional sci-fi universes were affected by the One Line War. You know, that devastating international conflict that probably involved nuclear weapons being dropped on major cities, that is only ever mentioned in a casual one-off line during unrelated exposition, and never referenced again, nor does it affect the plot or the world in any way. What a pervasive conflict

[i-bring-crack]

imagine an alternate universe where jinwoo and jinchul started dating after Kang taeshiks death. So,I wonder how it will affect the story and happy ending prepare actually.

Aint that just canon but no rewind? (im delusional) anyways while i dont have a lot of opinions over taeshik x jinwoo or jinchul x taeshik (despite my love for it, especially after ragnarok) well for once it will definetly be interesting that jinwoo had to kill taeshik during the prisoners arc, like if they had been dating beforehand (bc taeshik likes the fact that he can outlast death so many times or smth, i have more to say but it will go into spoiler town) and just now jinwoo found out his job, then it will put them at conflictive stance where jinwoo had slowly become that person he loves and also hates. It probaly would eat him up knowing that not only was he closed to taeshik but also inherited some of his assasin traits at the end of the day. And then Jinwoo falling in love with jinchul later on would probably also put the latter to be anxious because he doesnt want Jinwoo to end up as psychopathic as Taeshik had once been. It would certainly be fun to explore more of those inherent similarities with Taeshik and Jinwoo, assasins in their own way liking the slaughter of others, but differentiate when it comes to what kind of slaughter, Taeshik he likes killing peoplle whereas Jinwoo likes killing magic beasts. And how, if it wasn't for that small difference he would have ended to be as psychotic or as heroic as the other is placed out to be.

That whole 'two sides of the same coin' kind of theme is what could have gone well, and what could have also led Jinwoo to ask himself just how far he is willing to kill, and if-- the longer his emotions keep fading and he more his blood lust for humans becomes rampant-- such actions could one day come turn him over to a new leap and end up with him becoming the villain of what he once tried to protect.

There certainly are some pieces there that make Jinwoo loose that sense of empathy as the stories go on. And this isnt to defend anyone but rather just see it from another perspective on how Jinwoo slowly drifts apart from reasonably thinking to committing the justice he thinks is deserved of what he views, no matter the cost or what others may think. (Guess I could say he slowly begins to act more and more selfish because he has already been ruthlessly hurt by those around him.)

From the very beginning his trust is broken by Mr Kim, and the fights with the Lizards and Taeshik are all justified as him trying to protect his life, and none of the others seem to be less justified as well, but theres a point in the story, The International conference, where Jinwoo doesn't really care about cooperation and rather would take things on by himself if it means his family is protected. (Yes, showing weakness at that conference would have been bad, but I don't really think a lot of people would have been down for killing another hunter right now, especially against the one who decimated Thomas and sent him straight to the ER. So no, that little exposition of 'I will kill anyone here who touches my family' would have caused literally the whole world more problems than actually solve them.) or if it means he can place judgement on others like how he did at the side stories with the murder case. And again, that isn't to defend any of the criminals or the people that tried to mess with him, but rather its to say that we, or humans really, have laws, and the enforcement on them for a reason. Jinwoo, for the most part lived in a world that was lawless, as it was said by the lizards, no one would know what happens when you die, so Jinwoo and other hunters had to make their own justice by themselves.

But those psychological differences and Jinwoo's own similarities to Taeshik were just swept under the rug pretty fast in favor of "well the others where shit" instead of taking the time to show that "hey, maybe Jinwoo's one solution methods of killing those he hates might not be so well when you consider that he could impose his own morals or opinions into others by force of death since everyone in the world has biases and often negates or lacks the information to change their view, and that isn't any different for Jinwoo. So instead of killing he could at least approach the subjects with a bit of more self control and finding a better solution that isn't *checks the side stories* fucking sending them to the shadow realm to be tortured."

And going bac kto the post that it was talking about (DAMMIT I RANTED OFF TOPIC) Jinchul could serve to reinforce that point by showing Jinwoo that yes, there is a system that will take care of those who threaten him and take advantage of others (KHA) and that there will be people to also judge his actions which he has to take into account more and more as he begins to loose his own emotions. Someone that could be there to protect him from, quite literally the biggest threat he has ever faced, which end up being Jinwoo's own self and the responsibility that comes with controlling death itself.

BUT IM NOT THE AUTHOR SO TO THE TRASHCAN YOU GO---

[feralfiendsvn]

HE HAS A PET TIGER!? (I’m new)

Yes, and no!

Squishy is both a domestic cat with a tiger coat, and a whole ass Tiger. Her form depends on how Trevor is feeling. If he's stressed out or scared, she's padding around as a Tiger.

He's good at hiding his emotions, so he will seem as friendly as normal, then Squishy plods up and it's just. Yeah lmao, he's lying to you.

Exposition dump explanation belowwwww

In this universe, Demons, and Fiends (Trevor is a Fiend) are such energy heavy beings, that sharp spikes of traumatic emotions, has a small chance of just straight up creating life. These beings are called "Laguna". They can feel their persons emotional state, and essentially are service pets.

There's two types.

Demon made Laguna, which only have one form. The form can be anything from Earth or Pit (The Demons home world).

Fiend created Laguna, which have two forms. A smaller more friendly form, and a larger more aggressive form. The forms must be from the same family, but don't necessarily have to be from the same time era. Through Fiend Laguna pets, science has been able to give proper form and coats to extinct species.

The smaller form tells how well a person handled the traumatic event externally. While the larger form is how well they handled it internally.

Example. A Fiend's Laguna pet can be a chicken, but they become upset, and their pet shifts into the bigger form, and it's a whole ass T-Rex. Externally they handled the trauma well, internally they didn't really process it at all.

-

Both versions can be given up by their owners if they feel they've moved past their trauma. There are people who care for Laguna pets and help get them to people with similar trauma that the pets were made from.

[jacksgreysays]

Would you ever write academy students having and history class, and learning just how many regimes Team 7 changed, and how "natural disasters" influenced something or another

Hi violetablood! :D

I sort of did this in one of my long ago Three Sentence Fic but I don’t think that’s a proper response to this ask so let’s see…

In a realistic Naruto world, I actually don’t know how important history would be in the academy. Because, I read this somewhere in regards to Boku no Hero Academia, but basically both the hero students and shinobi-to-be are at trade/vocational schools, which means their curricula would be focused towards their future roles in society more so than general knowledge. And not to say that history is useless to shinobi (especially regime changes!) but except for maybe the broadest of timeline regarding the Elemental Nations and somewhat uh… patriotic Konoha and Land of Fire history, I don’t think the Academy would teach much history to their pre-teen future soldiers. Like. These are elementary school kids, the majority of whom will either never leave Konoha or at the very least never leave Land of Fire (or, in a realistic war, be little more than cannon fodder, oof). There’s probably some kind of further education opportunities for those who enter Intel or those who are trained for deep cover, but otherwise I feel like more information is given as needed for whichever impending mission a shinobi gets deployed on.

All of that being said, Team Seven’s regime changing shenanigans are definitely part of the curricula mostly because they have SO CRUCIALLY changed the political, economic, and literal landscape of MULTIPLE COUNTRIES, in addition to being the top of a chain of dominoes that literally led to the creation of a BRAND NEW SHINOBI VILLAGE (and yeah, Land of Birds would be a minor village, but it’s still a whole new village). And also the alliance between Sand, Mist, and Leaf. Which, you know, fingers crossed, lasts for a long time.

The “natural disasters” would probably be part of the further education opportunities given they are probably still ANBU classified and thus would only be relevant to the previously mentioned specific shinobi. Although, I suppose that also depends on how much the “natural disasters” have changed geography (which I imagine is taught a little more widely taught in the academy. Or, at the very least, the breadth is a little wider even though, again, not everyone will leave Land of Fire). Because an earthquake is one thing, but a river having changed paths is another.

… although, to be honest, all of the above is me trying to excuse, diegetically, why I wouldn’t write this fic. Or at least, not as an entire fic devoted to this concept? Like, such a scene would be a part of a larger fic to sort of expositional dialogue something about the worldbuilding. Similar to how the “transcript from Nara Satori’s ‘Lectures on Elemental Chakra’” in Primadonna Girl (fills the void up with celluloid) was meant to bring the concept of specific ratios of blended elemental chakra leading to certain “extinct” blood limits to imply that Shikadai has Magnet Release but doesn’t quite know it.

So a scene in which academy students are learning about a certain genin team affecting international politics via regime changes would have to serve a greater purpose than just glorifying said team’s shenanigans. Like… take the Primadonna Girl universe: on the one hand, of course the propaganda machine that is “protect the village and the Hokage with your life” would want to mention such things like the Great Uzumaki Bridge and how the Nanadaime personally saved the life of the Daimyo of Land of Spring. But would they want to even risk Her name being brought up? All the students know that The Last Loyal Uchiha aka the head of the Konoha Military Police was genin teammates with the Nanadaime and that the Rokudaime was their sensei, but would the academy want to risk students then wondering who their third genin teammate was? How struck from the records would Her name and actions be? Does a certain level of enterprising students investigating flag member of Intel? (Is that maybe even a good thing? Are there ANY clan members who run interference, who watch which clever students find the truth and what those clever students do? Does an older Shiho secretly make copies of those censored reports so that one day the truth can be restored?)

And then, non-diegetically, I suppose the reason why I wouldn’t write it is because it would be either SO MANY CHARACTERS to juggle (an entire class, plus their teacher?) or just a straight up lecture—which I greatly struggled with in the previously mentioned “Lectures on Elemental Chakra”—with the students only tuning in every so often. Or, like, talking over it. And then—even if it is the next generation kids—that’s still a lot of OCs to fill out the numbers. Even with Shino being their teacher. SO MANY CHARACTERS!

… buuuuut now that I consider the whole… political ramifications of school curricula in Primadonna Girl, it does make it more appealing. Because the propaganda/intel/counter-intelligence would be one of the many arenas in which the pro-Shikako and pro-Naruto camps would be duking it out, and I guess that would be an interesting way to get Shino’s (and Chiyako’s and maybe Kiba’s) POV or even what side they’d be on, because I don’t think I’ve yet brought up their opinion of the whole situation.

And if this IS after the (fills the void up with celluloid) installment, then it would be interesting to see how Shikadai does or doesn’t react to the gaps that may or may not be in the history that he now knows is where is secretly banished aunt is supposed to be. And if Shikadai does react (or pointedly DOESN’T react) to certain things then that pulls in other students noticing his behavior (ie, Chouchou, Inojin, and Boruto)

So, like, I guess the answer is maybe I would write this fic under extremely certain circumstances?

[bestanimatedmovie]

Sorry in advance for dragging on the Wes Anderson discourse, and sorry if this is the wrong place to send this!

I am definitely not here to try to defend his honor or something - even as a kid I found it weird how his live action films seem to be filled with white people - but I finally read that Isle of Dogs article you linked and found it… strange.

The author of the article critiques the supposed disregard for the Japanese language demonstrated by the title, when plenty of articles written by Japanese journalists point out it’s a pun referencing a demon island in a well-known folktale. She has also decided that there is a racist stereotype that Chinese people eat dogs, and China is also in Asia, therefore Anderson can’t differentiate between Asians and that the film portrays the Japanese as dog-haters? (It doesn’t.)

The sushi preparation scene appears to be pretty much universally praised, with comments in the youtube clip linked in her article even pointing out cultural details foreigners might have missed, but the author seems to believe the scene portrays the Japanese as “cruel savages”. I don’t know, a lot of the points in the article, at least in its Isle of Dogs part, feel like weird projection.

The more general criticisms – the white savior stuff and not subtitling Japanese – I get, even if I don’t completely agree with them (Tracy felt more like a self-deprecating stereotype of an American busybody who accomplishes very little, and the fallibility and subjectivity of translation is a major theme of the movie. International audiences get the basic dog story with some simple outside exposition, while Japanese viewers also get a ton of extra stuff the core audience is not expected to pick up on.)

Anyway, these articles by Japanese-American journalists convinced me to watch the movie when it came out (they are both also at least somewhat critical of the film, but seem much better informed):

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-isle-of-dogs-gets-right-about-japan, https://www.vulture.com/2018/03/what-its-like-to-watch-isle-of-dogs-as-a-japanese-speaker.html

Don't apologize, I love having these conversations, and you certainly raise very interesting points. I already said what I personally felt watching the movie here.

Here are the articles you sent for those who want to read them, and I decided to do a quick search on my own of Japanese articles.

The Japanese wikipedia article briefly mentions criticism of stereotypes, whitewashing, insensitive (specifically the mushroom cloud) and "English supremacy". Sadly the article linked in the sources no longer exists. Reading reviews I found mixed impressions, but from what I read a lot of people did feel a lot of love for Japan from the movie. The fact that the dogs spoke English was one of the things I found people disliked the most, and I also found several people mentioning stereotypes and in general a bad feeling (as well as people saying it didn't feel like stereotyping). Several people also said it felt more retro than futuristic, but not necessarily as criticism.

That said, everyone praised the stopmotion, which I agree was something impressive. Another thing many people praised was the music (the Japanese drums, the Akira Kurosawa homage).

So yeah, mixed impressions but I'd say more positive than negative.

These are the articles and reviews I read, you can run them through google translate.