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kookicrumbs · 3 years

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╰ pink love

pairing: jungwon x fem!reader genre: fluff word count: 2985 warnings; like one super minor curse word (hell)! just some cutesy stuff for ya today! summary: jungwon and y/n go on a build-a-bear date! a/n: i really wanted to do something sweet beacuse i love fluff a whole lot, so please enjoy c:

“Are we there yet?” I pout, tugging on Jungwon’s sweater. I attempt to sway him with my best puppy eyes, but he continues walking, pulling me along with him.

“This honestly reminds me of a movie,” He laughs out, “Since when did asking a million times get us there faster?”

I’m not actually that annoyed, but it’s fun to tease him. “What if this is all a movie? Ya think we can break the fourth wall?”

“I don’t know, I’d consider us powerful enough to. If this is a movie, I’m obviously the main character. Since you’re my girlfriend, you can be my sidekick!”

“Ohh, ha, ha, ha. If I’m the sidekick, pigs can fly.”

He puts on a shocked expression, pointing up into the air. “Did I just hear an oink all the way up there?”

“Shut up!” We giggle, shoving each other with our shoulders. Our footsteps match each other as we pad through the open-air mall. Warm sunlight drifts down, encasing us in a soft bubble of relaxation.

“Hey look, I think that’s it!” Jungwon tightens his grip on my hand and we take off towards the familiar shop. As we run, the eyes of other passerbys follow us, but I don’t take the time to feel embarrassed; life’s too short for that.

My legs are shorter than his, so I nearly trip several times. The universe is totally watching out for me today though, because we manage to arrive at the store’s entrance without suffering from a single scratch or bruise.

The Build-A-Bear logo passes overhead as we make our way inside. We are still glued together, buzzing from the excitement of our date. We’re going to make bears for each other! With any other guy I might have found it cheesy, but when Jungwon suggested we do it, my heart fluttered in a strange way.

“Hello! Welcome to Build-A-Bear Workshop! My name is Kiana,” A sunny looking lady welcomes us with a large smile on her face. The cute bobble headband perched on her hair seems to wave at us as well. “Will you two be needing any help today?”

Jungwon throws one arm over my shoulder and presses me tight to his side. His dimples peek out playfully as he responds. “I think we’re okay right now, we’re gonna make some bears for each other. This is my girlfriend!” He looks so proud as our eyes meet, and my stomach twists. Even though we’ve been dating for one and a half years now, whenever he looks at me like that, it feels like the day I first met him.

We’d been at the movie theatre, not together, but coincidentally there on the same day. Jungwon was sitting in the seat in front of me with a couple of his friends, while I was there with my own. His buddies were being idiots and throwing popcorn and other snacks at each other, when a whole bucket came flying at me. Being my easily scared self, I screamed and jumped backwards, simultaneously kicking my legs out and up. It took a few seconds to realize that my feet hadn’t collided with Jungwon’s seat, but instead his head.

I’d been absolutely mortified, and my friends’ muffled laughter didn’t help with that. I’d expected a huge tantrum from him, considering his friends seemed the type to start a huge fight over it, but his reaction was the complete opposite. In fact, he was apologetic and blamed it all on the buffoon who launched the snack at me.

I immediately caught feelings when he laughed and complimented my kick; apparently he knew taekwondo, and he thought I’d be good at it. He got that from a poorly done, unaimed kick to his own skull. To this day, I think I knocked something out of place there, but what can ya do.

Regardless, we ended up exchanging numbers, which is something that confused the hell out my friends and I. A month later, we started going out. I’ve dated some questionable people, so getting the chance to be with someone like Jungwon is a dream come true for me. Another plus, I finally get to check “Build A Bear date” off of my date idea list!

“You guys look adorable together!” Kiana gushed. My cheeks heat up, but not in an awkward way. “We have all our plushes over there. You can take a look and pick one, and then we’ll get that all filled up for you.”

“Thank you!” Jungwon and I say at the same time before strutting towards the plushies.

“We should split up so our bears, or whatever we pick for each other, stays a surprise! Okay?” I’m already looking at each option, and I begin to wonder how I’m ever going to pick just one.

“Since it looks like the queen has already laid claim to this particular piece of territory, I’ll go browse the accessories so I can get your plush decked out in a gorgeous outfit.” He winks and makes his way to the rows of plushie-sized clothing.

The variety of options is amazing. There’s the classic bears, but there’s also other cute things, like lobsters, giraffes, and seals. I’m a sucker for the classics, so I want to pick out a bear for Jungwon.

Two specific bears are in a fight for my love. One is a simple vanilla color with rainbow sprinkle accents, and the other is a pink bear with heart shaped ruffles. Oh god, do I just… buy both? No, that’s be stupid. Eeny meeny miney moe, a classic just like the bear.

I’m not disappointed when my finger lands on the pink bear, meaning I made the right choice and won’t have to switch to the vanilla bear out of a previously hidden lust for it. Awesome.

I peek my head around the aisle and still see Jungwon sorting through racks of outfits. In the time I’d spent picking a plush for him, he grabbed a basket and began filling it with stuff I couldn’t make out. Comfortable with the fact that he isn’t looking, I sneak over to the filling station, the pink bear clutched tightly in my hands.

“Hi! I’d love to get this guy filled, please!” The man working at this station has a name tag that reads, “Jordan”, and he looks equally nice as Kiana.

“Good choice,” He leads me to a filling spot. “Are they for you or for someone else?”

My chuckle causes the worker to smile. I reply while he gathers a few items. “My boyfriend and I came here for a cute date, so it’s for him! This one is super cute so I had to get it for him.”

“Aww, I’ll have to write that down. I'm sure my partner would find it a great idea too!” Jordan sweeps his arm across in a grand gesture, showcasing the variety of hearts and other button-looking objects that sit before him.

“Would you be interested in adding a sound to your bear? You can pick from any of these or you can record your own.”

I pick quickly, sure of what I want to do. “Mm, I’d like to do a recording, if possible. Make it extra special, right?”

“Of course, let me grab that for you and you can record your message!” He gets the heart and let’s me know what to do. Once again making sure Jungwon is not nearby, I record my message and hand it back to Jordan. He puts it in the bear, a small smile playing on his lips. Did he hear me?

“Alright, perfect. Any scents or are you ready to stuff?”

I choose a sweet raspberry scent and get the bear stuffed. It’s fun to push the pedal and see the stuffed animal become plumper, until I finally fill them all the way up. Hugging it feels like hugging a cloud.

I thank Jordan and hide the bear behind my back as I go to the dressing area. Jungwon seems to have moved on, as I spot him at the plushie picking station. I wonder what he’ll get me. Knowing him, it’s going to be adorable.

His eyes meet mine and I suppress a squeal, making sure the bear is out of sight. My strange salute makes him smile and he turns back to picking a plush for me, but not before making sure I won’t look while he gets one.

“So, what would you wear…” I whisper to the pink bear. He seems fashionable and needs something that fits his personality.

Each outfit makes me want to curl up and scream. They’re all so cute and tiny, and I can’t help but want to grab a whole bunch. I create outfits in my head, imagining each on the plushie. Letting the bear try them on seems like a step too far. Instead, I pick up a white button down shirt, pressed pants, little shoes, and a pair of heart shaped sunglasses from my pile and get to dressing.

Putting everything on the pink bear proves to be a struggle. “Come on… tuck in your tummy!” The bear’s legs don’t want to squeeze into the pants I picked. Looks like Build-A-Bear needs more size options. After a somewhat graphic commotion involving lots of pulling, pushing, and whispered yelling, he is finally clothed.

“Jungwon better like what I picked because I don’t think that’s ever coming off.” I brush off my shirt and hope that no one was watching my heated argument with an inanimate object.

I swiftly finish up the washing part of the process, which consisted of pressured air being blown at my plush. I enjoyed seeing the bear’s fur waving around luxuriously. It really fit his vibe. I end up having to consult an employee about what to do next since my amnesiac brain likes to forget simple things: it’s naming time.

After I scan the pink bear’s tag, a naming screen is brought up. I’m given suggestions like Mr. Cuddles, Tiny, and Snuggles, but I choose to make his own name. What do I name you?

Maybe Love? Too plain. Bear? Way too basic. Pink? Pinky? I clearly don’t get around to naming things very often. If it hadn’t been for my siblings, I would have named our dog Cat.

I rack my brain for anything. At this point, the next thing that pops into my head is gonna be his name. No turning back. And my brain provides. Sir Loves-a-lot is inexplicably forged in the depths of my mind, and it shall be the name of this honorable bear.

I imagine a knighting ceremony for Sir Loves-a-lot and enter his name into the computer. It goes through and I get a printed certificate with his name on it. I’m extremely excited to give him to Jungwon and see his reaction.

Jungwon seems to be finishing up at the washing station, so I pay and wait near the entrance of Build-A-Bear. I swing around my finished bear, which is tucked neatly into a bag so Jungwon can’t see it yet. Our date is soon to reach its peak: when we get to see our finished products.

“Hey! Look what I have!” Jungwon skips over to me in a playful manner. His joy envelops me as he gets nearer. His eyes are alight with what looks to be the same thing I’m currently feeling. Is it love?

I show off my bag, my competitive side instantly coming out. “I’ve got yours right here too! If you want to see it… you’ll have to catch me!”

Adrenaline shoots through me as I take off running, Jungwon quickly shifting into a quick runner. My laughs impair my speed as I hiccup and yell, Jungwon’s voice matching my own. We both giggle like idiots while our shoes run thin on the hard ground and our bags crinkle with the whip of the wind.

“Got you!” Jungwon takes care not to throw me onto the ground, instead grabbing my shirt and pulling me to his chest. He lets out an umph as I knock into him full force, still reeling from the sudden shift in direction.

“Jungwon!” A shriek of laughter explodes out of me as we tumble to the concrete with a soft thump. No one is around as we breath off our fit of giggles, still in a heap.

“Looks like my bear made it.” He lifts up his unscatched bag. “Can I say the same of yours?”

A strike of fear hits me, but quickly dissolves when I see my bag looks fine. “I am pleased to report that Combat Bear Number 2 has survived.”

“Combat Bear Number 2? Don’t tell me that’s his name. What a mouthful!” He puts a hand to his chest and sighs dramatically.

“Don’t be stupid, I named him Sir— wait! Don’t try and cheat!” I softly whack him on the shoulder, earning a look of faux-sadness.

“Ouch. But you named him Sir… something. What a noble name! Of course, nothing but the best can come from you.” He holds out the Build-A-Bear bag. “But I’m actually dying to exchange these, so swap?”

“If that isn’t the most relatable thing ever.” I hand him my bag and he gives me his. “You can open mine first!”

“Ooh, don’t mind if I do.” He eagerly opens the bag and pulls out the tissue-paper wrapped bear. The material easily comes off and he holds it up. His eyes seem to glow with delight.

“Oh my gosh.” Jungwon swipes at Sir Loves-a-lot’s fur, fascinated by the heart-shaped ruffles. “He’s so cute! His clothes are... so tight,” His face betrays his confusion, and I snicker as he speaks, “but he looks hella fashionable! I really hope mine will live up to these standards.” He seems to get nervous so I hold his hands to try and calm him down.

“What do you think I named him?”

His mouth shapes into an “O” and he pulls out the certificate. His previously timid face transforms immediately as he reads it.

“Sir Loves-a-lot? Why?! So cheesy but so good!” He crumples onto himself, his head coming to a rest between his knees. I’m overjoyed by his reaction and I press forward to hug his side.

“I love him so much. I’ll cherish him forever.” He looks at me pointedly, almost like he’s trying to tell me something. He switches course though, gesturing to the bag that lies at my feet. “Now open yours!”

I cross my legs to get more comfortable, and I open the bag, wondering what he made for me. My heart dances when I see what he chose. It’s a blue bear with stars in her fur and white wings protruding from her back. I didn’t even see it when I was picking my bear for him.

“Woah…” I hold her up, noticing a soft scent coming from her fur. When I lift the bear up to my nose, I can detect citrus. “Jungwon, you made her smell like lemons! I love lemon… and—and look how pretty! All the stars, and the color… she’s perfect.”

I look at the certificate, all bright and new, and see her name: Mrs. Lovey. Mrs., not Ms.

Jungwon looks at me innocently. “What do you think, am I making my point clear? The future is never far away and I—”

I can’t help but turn away as I feel a prickle in my eyes. Never will I ever cry on a date.

“Awww! Don’t cry, you’ll make me cry!” Jungwon leaps towards me, catching me off-guard. I end up falling backwards with a yelp, but he throws his hand under my head and catches me before I can slam into the concrete.

We stare at each other for what seems like hours but is in actuality only seconds. The silence is loud, but Jungwon slices right through it when he whispers to me, “Is this a kdrama?”

“And… off!” I sit up, hugging my bear closer to me. I’m overwhelmed by Jungwon’s confession. He wants us to really stay together. As in, I’d be his “one”.

“Is—is that what you want too? It’s okay if not, I’ll understand if you wouldn’t be ready, even in the months it would take to get there, unless sooner is better, and I—” He rambles, more emotional than I am, before I put a finger to his lips.

“Yeah, it’s what I want too. I think we should go with your plan, um, wait a little longer since we’re so young and I don’t want to scare my parents.” That earns a laugh out of us both. “But the answer to “would I want it?” is definitely yes!”

Jungwon hugs me tightly, squealing in my ear. I squeal right back, suddenly lighter than ever.

“Dude, I want to say something. Yep, here I go. I— I love you!” Jungwon yells out to me, loud enough to wake up everyone half-way across the world. My heart expands when he says it. I want to scream it back and kiss him under the blue sky, but he continues speaking.

“Okay, look, even though I would have totally respected you for saying you wouldn’t want what I want, I’m feeling so relieved right now. Like whooh! I could jump off a plane! Ride the biggest wave! Sir Loves-a-lot here would come with me, wouldn’t you?” He high fives his bear.

I’m confused when his eyebrow raises. “Did you put a sound in him? Why didn’t you tell me?” Truthfully, I’d forgotten too. However, I smirk as I remember what I recorded.

“Press it.” I urge him to push on the bear’s paw, and he does, putting it near his ear so he can hear it better. The clear sound of my voice comes through, bringing waves of pink, soft love to both Jungwon and I.

“I really, really love you.”

#jungwon #yang jungwon #enhypen #enhypen fic #jungwon fluff #jungwon fic #enhypen scenarios #enhypen fluff #jungwon scenarios #fluff fic #kpop fic #kpop imagines #kpop fluff #enhypen writers

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fanficsandfluff · 3 years

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That Damned Laugh

To the anon who informed me of Rainbow Rowell's RACISM, i am writing this for my love of the characters, not the author's writing skill or fame. fuck her. i am still very much aware of what she wrote about and how she portrayed a character, but i cannot stop this inspiration when it comes to me. (wait to be clear to everyone reading this who hadn't seen the anons and my discussion, carry on wasnt the accused racist book. that was something else.)

If you, anon, end up seeing this and maybe don't like what I'm doing or whatnot, I'd love to hear from you again.

For those of you who maybe do practice Death of the Author, I hope you enjoy!

Fandom: Carry On

Characters: Simon Snow, Baz Pitch

Words: 1,905

~~~~~

BAZ

Simon Snow does not laugh, full stop.

(Well, to be fair I'm not a cackler much myself, but I do at least guffaw from time to time.)

Snow spent so much of his youth being weighed down by the 'Chosen One' moniker and being tormented by yours truly. Still, I know of that little list he kept of things he liked about Watford and all its experiences and people. It seemed he did take joy in most of it all. After all, I'm sure he had fun at Bunce's house on many an occasion.

But just being around him and in this way for a while now, you start to notice. He's seen me laugh. A few times, in fact. And hard. I'm not very proud of it; what that man can do to me and make me do. He doesn't like when I cover my hand over my smile. It's habit, though, I've reminded him countless times. The fangs and all. We're working on it.

But Simon may just smile or huff. I've giggled with him on our particularly soft nights or togethertimes.

All this to say... I've found a new hobby/goal/obsession recently.

Make Simon Snow laugh.

My cheekiness all these years has kept my humor to cruel, lowbrow tones. Maybe it makes me less funny, I don't know. But once or twice I'd nail a comeback or snarky one-liner (of course with a bit of flirt thrown in) and Snow will giggle and shake his head. But that's all I've achieved! A small, pandering, boring -- though still admirably adorable -- (Damn that Snow) giggle.

I've moved on to physical humor. I tried throwing myself dramatically over him when he's in bed, but he just seems to think it's all part of my Pitch flair.

Today I made a minor breakthrough.

I was in the kitchen trying to mix myself a smoothie. Bunce has been gushing about a smoothie craze for weeks now, so I finally figured why not. The damn lid wasn't on tight enough. Not-yet-smooth smoothie shot everywhere. There was a pause as it happened, my one hand on the Liquify button, my other resting nonchalantly atop the lid that didn't do any lidding, dammit.

Snow looked up at me from his seat by the kitchen counter, eyes drawn from his phone. A beat. He barked out a laugh. A much louder one than I think I'd ever heard him make.

"Put a sock in it, Snow," I growled, to keep with my facade, though inside I was jittery with glee. I wanted to hear more.

Snow convinced me to binge a new show. Crime Minds. Something like that. No, criminal. It's Criminal Minds.

You wouldn't expect this to be a series fit enough for a cuddle, but Snow and I are an unexpected couple. So it works.

A few dumb jokes are littered throughout the show, in between corpses and the same police station set being reorganized and shot from different angles every episode. One such joke was so inconspicuous and so nothing that I cannot even recall it now. But both Snow and I chuckled at it. Then Snow made an additional comment to it, making me laugh. And soon we were both giggling together like schoolboys, like we had early on when we were maybe still a bit bashful with each other.

He shoved his face into my ribs and snorted when I whispered the new inside joke much later on in the episode. I was also grinning like a madman, but the soft tickle his action gave me didn't exactly---

Oh.

In bed. Perfect. Lovers fool around all the time in bed. Not fool around as in sex--well, no, of course sex, but I mean they also play around-- never mind.

SIMON

Baz has been acting off lately. I can't quite put my finger on what it is. He seems distracted. More like how I act. I'm always thinking of something else, not able to stay focused on one thing for long. He's like that, but trying to act like he isn't.

We're doing something odd today. We're in bed at sunset. It's hardly sunset, as a matter of fact. The sun isn't seeping orange and red into the flat yet. Penelope took us out on a hike today. It tuckered the both of us out. Baz drained a buck when we got home.

I'm laying perpendicular to Baz (or is it parallel? composite? I could never remember mathematics), my legs resting over his stomach. He's reading and I'm playing a puzzle app on my phone.

BAZ

Now's the time, Baz. Just do it, don't think.

His socked feet are right in front of me. There's only been a handful of times we've sat in this position, half of them being my lower half resting on Simon's sturdier upper half. It's now or never.

I stare at his feet for too long, zoning out and forgetting that I was left staring at them, so it definitely looked like I have a fetish for feet. Which I don't. Focus, Basilton.

I take a finger-- no, two fingers. I scratch quickly at his heel. His leg jerks, foot being pulled back.

"What?" he asks me, as if I hadn't been plotting this for weeks. As if I just did it to get his attention.

"Something on the bottom of your sock, love."

Simon went right back to his head hanging upside down off the side of the bed, phone held out in front of his eyes.

Well, that proved one thing. He's ticklish.

He places his ankles right back where they originally were, crossed, atop my stomach. I try again, this time on his arch. I apply more pressure.

"Bahaz!" Simon shakes his foot out, "Is that how you start a foot massage?"

"Would you like a foot massage?"

"No. Not if it's going to tickle like that."

My cheeks heat up. Damn that buck. I'm rosier than I usually am.

"You're ticklish?" I ask, coolly. I barely stuttered.

"I wouldn't try it," he's back to looking at his phone again, "Penny did once and I nearly broke her elbow or something. She wouldn't stop talking about it for days."

"So you're very ticklish, then."

"Don't," this is the first time Snow seems to tense up.

There's a moment of quiet between us. A tense quiet. I lunge for his ankles and he shoots up into a sitting position. I scratch at his arch with four fingers now and he screams.

"Baz!" Simon whines a bit and he somehow yanks his legs free, not without losing one of his socks in my grip.

SIMON

He's grinning at me. No. Sneering.

I still hate when he does that. Reminds me of back when I wanted to throttle him. Sometimes I still do.

"Baz," I warn. His whole posture changes into a predator's, like he's the lion and I'm his fresh zebra. The new stance sends a shiver down my spine, with his shoulders hunched and all, ready to pounce.

"Baz... Baz, Baz, Baz..." I say over and over again because he's smiling at me, and then I start to smile, too, "Bahaz!" I try once more, but his name is all that's coming out, and now I'm giggling. I'm nervous. He did this to me.

BAZ

He's already giggling and I haven't even laid a hand on him.

"Yes, Snow?" I respond to his many calls of my name before I lurch forward, sending my whole body crashing on top of his and trying to pin him. I dig my fingers into his sides and don't stop for as long as I can maintain contact through his squirming.

"Gehehet off!" he's already crumbling, words being broken up with short laughs.

I slide my fingertips to his stomach and scratch there; Snow bucks. It gets even better when my cold fingers make contact with his warm skin beneath the shirt he's wearing. He yelps like I've never heard him yelp (like he's burnt his finger, but he's also 11-years-old again), and he dissolves into loud, beautiful laughter.

"St-Stohohop! Baz! I'm going to end you!"

"Isn't that how we always said it would end? Snuffing each other out? I'm perfectly happy that it's now going to end in my favor. You should've told me you were this easy to defeat earlier on, Snow."

"Shut up!" he cackles, legs kicking wildly behind me, as my body is thrown over his torso. Now I have both my hands buried into his sides, squeezing and squeezing. I get curious, my cheeks still burning with blood, and I lean down to his neck and... (no, I don't bite) I start nibbling. Snow loses it.

His whole face scrunches up, as I watch when I pull my head back. His smile is huge and bright. And the laughs bubble up from his stomach, releasing softer into the air like he sucked a little of the joy from it before releasing to keep for himself.

"Dohon't do that!"

"I thought you love my kisses."

"Not tha-HAAT!"

He shrieks again, hands too slow to stop my face from moving in. I nibble and even lick a few times, careful not to touch him with my fangs.

Did I mention that my hands are still tickling at his sides and ribs while I'm nibbling? Oh yes, I've waited so long for this sound. I wasn't going to make it come out lightly.

I blow a raspberry and that's when Snow's laughter catches and turns all hiccuppy. The noises are infecting me, starting to make me giggle. I shift, and my face now descends towards his stomach, which is bared after I rucked the shirt up.

SIMON

"TYRANNUS BASILTON G-GRIMM FUCKING PITCH-- OR WHATEVER YOUR LONG STUPID ARSEHOLE NAME IS--"

He's laughing at me. I keep laughing even without him tickling me.

"I swehehear I'm going to fucking kill you and your whole family if you do that dohown thehere--" I'm hiccuping. Crowley, how embarrassing.

BAZ

He's got me. I can hardly breathe from laughter. I keel over into him or he into me, but soon we're a laughing pile together on top of the mussed up sheets on the bed.

I make a loud snort and that reels us both back in again, laughing til we're red in the face and til my cheeks hurt.

Simon is giggling away, taking deep breaths to try and calm himself, but he just keeps on giggling. I'm able to sit up a little more and Snow's head is in my lap. He's beaming and looking up at me through squinted, teary eyes.

"That was fun," I say, and I don't think it's the brightest or smartest thing to say. But I say it.

"I love you," Snow's smile is still wide, like he's drunk from it. There's a moment where I feel like I've died again, color drained from me.

It doesn't seem to bother him, that he's said that. For the first time. I run my fingers through his reddish curls once, letting them tangle in the locks towards the back of his head. I hunch myself down so I can kiss him.

"I've wanted to hear that for so long," I whisper.

"That I love you? You haven't figured it out by now?"

"No, you idiot," I say with nothing but fondness, brushing my nose along Simon's jaw, "Your laugh."

#carry on #carry on: the rise and fall of simon snow #simon snow #baz pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #snowbaz #simon/baz #simon and baz #fanfiction #carry on fanfiction #carry on fanfic #fanfic #ticklish!simon #ticklish!simonsnow #lee!simon #ler!baz

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gameofdrarry · 3 years

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Wizards Hearts Smut Recs: Magic Sex Toys

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here. Players could opt in to an additional suit of 13 cards, all themed around various popular smut tropes.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 Beautifully Unbound by breath_of_mine (tsundanire) Rated: Explicit Words: 54933 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Blaise Zabini/Narcissa Malfoy, BDSM, Praise Kink, Dom/sub, Subspace, Safewords, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Blindfolds, Impact Play, Spanking, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Mental Health Issues, Therapy, Consensual Kink, Light Bondage, Angst, Holidays, Young Teddy Lupin, Mystery, Auror Harry Potter, Accidental Bonding, Bonding, H/D Erised 2018, Community: hd_erised, POV Alternating, Telepathic Bond, Gay Male Character, Bisexual Male Character, Dom Draco Malfoy, Sub Harry Potter, Bearded Harry Potter, Dirty Talk, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Gloves, Massage, Sex Toys, Mistletoe, Family Dinners, Misunderstandings, Past Relationship(s) Summary: Auror Potter is sent on a mission to clear out deadly artifacts from a Death Eater Safehouse with Draco Malfoy. What could possibly go wrong? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Three Wishes by PalenDrome (nerdherderette) Rated: Explicit Words: 10161 Tags: Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Godparents, Wish Fulfillment, Explicit Sexual Content, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Hand Jobs, Butt Plugs, Sex Toys, Implied Switching, Light Angst, Humor, Fluff and Crack, Confessions, Auror Harry Potter, Ministry of Magic Employee Draco Malfoy, Be Careful What You Wish For, Thirsty Draco Malfoy, POV Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, H/D Sex Fair 2020 Summary: Draco meets his fairy godmother and is granted three wishes. Unfortunately, they all keep coming back to the same thing. [excerpt]: Pop! "Oh, wow," Vince says, and is that sarcasm Draco hears? "I never saw that coming." "What?" Draco opens his eyes. He's prepared for the theatrics of the puffs of smoke—Vince, despite the sudden career change, was never blessed with an overactive imagination—but what he was not prepared for was the sight of Harry Potter, bare-chested and dressed in arseless chaps, his hands bound and mouth wrapped around a ball gag while lying face down on Draco's sofa. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 The Four Ds of Apparition (or: Destination, Determination, Deliberation, and Dicks) by eidheann, firethesound Rated: Explicit Words: 36638 Tags: Apparition, Dick JokesAurors, St Mungo's Hospital, Acronyms, Sex Toys, Crude political statements, Inappropriate use of office equipment, Inappropriate use of shoe boxes, Inappropriate use of hats, Misuse of national anthems, Obscene floral arrangements, Seamus's sticking charms, Dicks, cocks, Penises, Willies, Pricks, Phalluses, Comedically large numbers of unattached dicks Summary: After transferring to the Apparition Department, Harry's life becomes one big dick joke. And all his friends are arseholes. So is Malfoy, but what else is new? AKA Harry Potter and the eighteen twenty dicks. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 in advance by M0stlyVoid Rated: Explicit Words: 3563 Tags: Wax Play, Kink Exploration, Safe Sane and Consensual, Gags, Bondage, Blow Jobs, Kink Negotiation, Dom/sub, Dom Harry Potter, Sub Draco Malfoy, Shibari Summary: Draco's been scared of fire since the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry likes wax play. This is how they work together to face Draco's fear and get what they both want. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Have yourself a kinky little Christmas by keyflight790, tsundanire Rated: Explicit Words: 21433 Tags: Drarropoly: A Drarry Game/Fest, Secret Admirer, Secret Santa, 12 Days of Christmas, Consensual Kink, Other Additional Tags to Be AddedSex Toys, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Harry Potter, Bottom Harry Potter, Light Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, Praise Kink, semi-public wanking, Aural Kink, Dirty Talk, Awkward Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Draco Malfoy, Masturbation, Masturbation in Bathroom, Work In Progress, Angst, Mental Health Issues, Switching, Cock sleeve, instructions, Dealing with mental health, Tattoos, writing on dicks, praise!kink, non con, brief non con display of nudity, Mutual Masturbation, Public Masturbation, Loud Sex, Unaware Pansy Parkinson, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Public Sex, Public Nudity, Public Rimming, Sex on Ministry Time, Inappropriate Use of Ministry Time, slacking on the job, These two are so inappropriate, The Writers are having too much fun, This whole thing is NSFW, Consent, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, conversations about consent, Clearly expressed Consent, Potions, Lust Potions, Overstimulation, Orgasm Delay, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Public Hand Jobs, Public Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking, Consensual Sex, Anal Sex, Anal Play, Anal Plug, Writing with your BFF, This is what happens, Harry Deserves a Magical Ending, Draco Deserves Happiness, Dom/sub, This Fic made my life, and cleared my skin, writing this fic made me the happiest, and did my laundry, Art, Digital Art, mzuul Summary: As the holidays loom, Harry feels the weight of everything and everyone he'd lost. Working as an Auror, while exciting hadn't filled him with the same kind of satisfaction he'd assumed it would. It takes one extremely kinky secret admirer to pull out a side of him he'd been pushing away since his youth, and actually make him want to come into work everyday. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Asking For A Friend? by RoonilWazlibMalfoy Rated: Explicit Words: 13734 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Daily Prophet, Drag Queen Draco Malfoy, Gay Harry Potter, Size Queen Harry Potter, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Epistolary, Fluff and Smut, Sex Shop, Sex Toys, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Masturbation, Nipple Play, Nipple Clamps, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Felching, Discussions of Fisting, Gay Bar, Sex Advice Columnist Draco Malfoy, H/D Sex Fair 2020 Summary: Asking for a friend? Don't be shy! I'm Genna Russ with advice! Draco Malfoy, drag queen and agony aunt for the Daily Prophet, is very happy with his life. He loves his job. He loves his drag queen persona. And he loves the fact that the wider Wizarding world doesn't know who is offering them sassy advice with their morning news. When he starts receiving letters from one Harry Potter – letters that are too racy to publish – he does the only thing he can do: he replies. His carefully constructed secret life is at risk of being blown wide open, but he just can't help himself. Draco never did have any self-control where the Prat Who Lived was concerned. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Ligabus Filium by Tessa Crowley (tessacrowley) Rated: Explicit Words: 41534 Tags: Post-Deathly Hallows, HP: EWE, BDSM, Top Harry Potter, Dom Harry Potter, Bottom Draco, Sub Draco Malfoy, Virgin Draco Malfoy, Whipping, Riding Crops, Gags, Dildos, Creative use of Time Turners, Creative use of Howlers, Creative use of Amortentia, Listen it's the running theme of the story ok, it's filthy bdsm smut what do you want Summary: It should be careful, deliberate, but it isn't. Like every other part of their relationship, it happens gradually and then all at once, before they even realize it. And when the little blue threads bind them together, there's no going back. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Obsessions Release by katie_delaney Rated: Explicit Words: 27783 Tags: Deepthroating, Dom Draco Malfoy, Top Draco Malfoy, Dancing, Breathplay, BDSM, First Time Summary: Harry is convinced Draco has given him a love potion, on confronting him he is forced to face an inconvenient truth about himself. Will be very smutty/moderate bdsm, tame in first chapter. Warnings for breathplay. Set during the Half Blood Prince through to the end of the Deathly Hallows. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 in the flesh by M0stlyVoid Rated: Explicit Words: 1462 Tags: Masturbation, Accidental Voyeurism, Roommates, Sex Toys, Loud Sex, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, idiots to lovers, Denial of Feelings Summary: Draco really should have knocked. He's really glad he didn't. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 You Make it Hurt So Good by bangyababy Rated: Explicit Words: 1938 Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Daddy Kink, Spanking, Anal Fingering, Sex Toys, Magical Sex Toys, Punishment, Dirty Talk, Light Dom/sub, Dom Draco Malfoy, Bottom Harry Potter, Safe Sane and Consensual, a bit of fluff at the end Summary: “Harry,” he said, a clear warning. “What are you going to do about it, Daddy?” Draco is in a bad mood. Harry knows just how to draw him out. ❤️ Read on AO3

#drarry #drarry recs #game of drarry #wizards hearts #wh masterlist

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the-phoenix-heart · 3 years

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I posted 30,022 times in 2021

234 posts created (1%)

29788 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 127.3 posts.

I added 830 tags in 2021

#sorting hat chats - 344 posts

#sortinghatchats - 344 posts

#percy jackson - 31 posts

#pjo - 31 posts

#hp - 23 posts

#harry potter - 23 posts

#ask meme - 14 posts

#wandavision - 7 posts

#sortinghatshitpost - 7 posts

#beautiful - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i liked the idea that finn was the first one to really rebel and live and that poe was the first to show compassion to a st give them a name

My Top Posts in 2021

You know who I’m most curious about in Wandavision?

Ad man and Ad Lady.

These are the same man and woman in each of the fake ads in Wandavision, but there’s one important detail that everyone is forgetting about with them.

They have children.

There’s a big deal made about the fact that other than Billy and Tommy there are no other children in Westview, but there are children in the ads.

And it’s not like these are fun and just for the audience, we’ve seen them pop up on the TVs at HQ, so what gives with them, and where are they? They probably aren’t in Westview proper, but they have to be somewhere nearby because the ads they’re in have to do with Wanda’s memory so what gives? And most of all why do they have kids when there are no other children? This show is too smart to make an effort not to show kids but then include them in the ads.

And also, I gotta ask, why ads? Why are they forced to do ads?

I don’t have any answers, I just wanted to get it out there, and I can’t wait to see what’s done with them.

55 notes • Posted 2021-02-06 15:49:06 GMT

Sorting Hat Chats - Princess and the Frog

I’m hoping to finish this up in one night, mainly because I was talking about Disney villains with my mom and Dr. Facilier and he’s probably my favorite Disney villain. Anyway, here is an explanation of the system I’m using right here by @wisteria-lodge.

PRINCESS TIANA has already been sorted before (probably by @sortinghatchats) but I feel weird not sorting her. She’s a Snake Badger like they said, although I’m tacking onto that sorting a bit. Her primary is Burnt and so she has a Lion model. What sold me on her sorting is the scene where Dr. Facilier tries to tempt her into giving up the talisman. I’m a Lion primary, if he started saying that stuff to me, I probably would’ve taken him up on it. But Tiana is a Snake primary, and that scene is when she unburns, when she realizes that what she cares more about is love and her family and Naveen. Even when she first sees her restaurant made reality in the scene she immediately looks for Naveen in it.

As for her secondary, yeah Badger. She works herself to the bone. I honestly think she’s a little exploded until the end.

PRINCE NAVEEN is a Snake primary. He starts out immature and hedonistic but then he realizes all that matters is Tiana and his friends. His secondary was harder to piece out between Badger or Snake, but I’m gonna go with Snake. He’s lazy, but also he’s musical. I think he hands around in neutral most of the time.

And now we get to who I REALLY wanted to talk about: DR. FACILIER. There are LAYERS to Dr. Facilier that we don’t see much of in the movie but are there in the subtext, which I won’t get into much here. Anyway, he’s a Bird secondary. He performs a Snake secondary, but he’s all about his long convoluted plans. When he’s being interrogated by his “friends” he talks about how this all just minor mishap in a major operation and as soon as he whips up another spell it’ll all be good.

As for his primary, he’s a Lion. Partly by process of elimination, but mostly because he has dreams, and there not something he can easily put into words. He wants power and wealth and to “take over” New Orleans in some ambiguous sense. I think what he really wants is security, from his friends on the other side and society. But either way I’m reading Lion from him, partly because him being a Lion Bird would be why he fascinates me so.

So...

Princess Tiana - Burnt Snake primary that gets better, Lion model/Slightly Exploded Badger secondary that also gets better

Prince Naveen - Immature Snake primary that matures/Neutral Snake secondary

Dr. Facilier - Lion primary/Bird secondary, possibly exploded

See the full post

56 notes • Posted 2021-09-27 01:56:54 GMT

Top 5 sexiest sortings? Sending it right back at you bc I need time to ponder my answer xDD

LMAOOOO This is what I deserve. We're going to go in ascending order so starting with number five, and of course we all know that all sortings are sexy blah blah blah let's get into it! (Sidenote I had a draft where I also did the unsexiest sortings but since everyone else is posting their sexiest sortings I jumped in)

5. Snake Bird - SNAKE PRIMARIES ARE SO SEXY GUYS I CAN”T EVEN. Fyi Snake Badgers are not on here because they’re more romantic and the Badger sec cancels out all the sexy lmao. But this is the villain sorting, what ISN’T sexy about that. You DON’T want a sexy independent slightly crazed maniac who is in some sorta lust for you with this intricate plan and all the details sorted out? Shut up yes you do.

4. Bird Snakes - Despite the fact that they are a rare breed, they are in fact sexy because of how well put together they are and their flexibility. They have contingencies, they are riding the waves. They’re confident in themselves (usually). They play the field and they look good while doing. They don’t actually have to look good but it is their vibes I’m talking about.

See the full post

68 notes • Posted 2021-06-09 10:58:09 GMT

You know I am working on ranking all the Barbie protagonists from most to least favourite, so I am curious what are your top 5 Barbie protagonists?

Oh nice! let's do this!

5. Ro - Such a sweet girl, so caring and beautiful. If you don’t love her then you’re a monster.

4. Genevieve - Above Ro because I remember adoring her as a child, but I haven't rewatched 12 dancing princesses yet so I can't properly say yes that she is a favorite. But considering how awesome she is, I think she's up there.

See the full post

77 notes • Posted 2021-09-07 17:46:53 GMT

Sorting Hat Chats - The Weasleys

(It’s here!! It’s finally here!!)

Oh boy oh boy. So many of you have been waiting for this for SO long. But I’m finally doing it. All of the Weasleys...All of them (except for Rose and Hugo and Molly Jr and Fred Jr and-).

I will be talking about Weasleys who have already been sorted and will link to the some of the original sorting posts, but not all of them.

And finally here is a description of the system I’m using right here by @wisteria-lodge.

We’ll start with the oldest Weasley ARTHUR WEASLEY. Arthur Weasley is a pretty easy sort in my opinion. He’s very much the guy who goes with his gut and does things because he’s interested in them. He’s not very structured in his way of thinking though, so I say he’s a Lion primary. Some may argue because he likes muggles he’s a Badger primary, but I have to disagree. Arthur likes muggle OBJECTS and he while he likes muggles, he’s more interested in them as experiments, or as one might be interested in monkeys. They’re like humans but he just wants to know about their behaviors and how they use things (and considering he cant figure out a rubber duck he’s not doing a good job at it).

Speaking of him liking to know about behaviors and tools muggles use, that leads me to the point that Arthur is a Bird secondary. Also notice that when the Order talks about strategy he’s usually in these conversations heavily.

MOLLY WEASLEY was the hardest Weasley to sort in my opinion. Do I sort her as a Snake primary because she’s a loving mother? Do I sort her as a Lion primary because she’s forceful about her opinions and judgemental? Is she judgemental because she doesn’t want people encroaching on her family and screwing it over or is she judgemental because she makes snap decisions by her gut? Do I sort her as a Lion secondary because she’s a skilled duelist and yells half of her lines. Do I sort her as a Badger secondary because she’s constantly cleaning and knitting and mothering every character who comes her way? Is the Badger a model/performance? That’s four sorting options already.

Now to figure her out I first looked at the archetypes and immediately ruled out Snake Badger. Snake Badgers are more subtle and mild then her, even the fiercer ones. And by doing this it actually helped me to rule out Badger as a secondary option for her. While yes Molly spends a lot of time cleaning and working, her methods do not make her a Badger. Molly never goes for the soft ball approach, she sends howlers so she can yell at her kids, and always speaks the truth plainly and loudly. The Badger secondary we see is likely a model she built after she became a mother.

Her primary was the harder one to figure out, and boiled down to who is she more like Ron, or Ginny? What big moments define her in the series? And the surprising conclusion I came to is...she’s a Snake primary. Check it out: We know from some outside the book sources and kind of the books that Molly was not involved in the original war, whether this was because of her newborn children or a disinterest in fighting doesn’t matter. While Arthur seems in his element when they’re a war family, Molly clearly doesn’t like it but puts on a front because she believes it’s her duty. Plus, her big cause fighting moments are defending children from being involved in the war-but they’re all children that she views as hers. And what is Molly’s boggart? Her entire family dead. Plus, during that time Percy was gone she wasn’t bitter about it like Arthur and the rest of her family, she just desperately wanted him back.

BILL WEASLEY is in my opinion a Snake primary. A lot of what we see of Bill is him being loyal to his family and wife and also being nice to people. I will say I think he adopted a Lion primary model for the war. Unfortunately characters like Bill don’t get much press.

Bill’s secondary is clearer, he’s a Bird secondary. He worked as a curse breaker, which likely requires a lot of precision work and planning and observation skills. Plus he got good grades in school, was eligible for an exchange program, and is very smart in the books usually. Plus he’s sexy like a Snake Bird.

CHARLIE WEASLEY gets even LESS press then Bill, but from sources outside of the books and context clues I’ve manged to conclude his house and it is...surprising. I initially sorted Charlie as a Badger primary, but-BUT I think he’s actually a Bird primary. Now stay with me here, but Charlie left his family for a dragon preserve, and when looking at his age he either left right out of school or he graduated early so he could leave as soon as he could. That’s not Badger behavior. We might be able to justify it if he visited his family regularly but he DOESN’T. He visits in the fourth book but that’s the last we see of him till Bill’s wedding. When the going got tough and things got bad in England Bill returned to the family, but Charlie stayed with his dragons and only returned for the wedding and then to wreck shit with dragon fire. And it’s important to remember he’s the only one in the Weasley family who never married in canon.

And this even through my initial sorting of his secondary into question. Is he a Bird secondary or actually a Badger secondary, and I think he’s a Badger secondary. The main thing for me is he started working with dragons, an animal based job that seems to be mostly taking care of them, not studying them or anything. And Charlie oddly reminds me of Luna, another Bird Badger who worked with magical creatures. Plus, quidditch isn’t a skill I would expect from a Bird secondary, but it might be one I expect from Badger secondary (especially since he’s a seeker like Draco). And he didn’t really come in with a plan, he just came in dragons blazing (which could be a sign of a Lion secondary but he does not have the vibes).

PERCY WEASLEY is a Lawman Lion Bird (The Mycroft variety in fact-Order over Chaos usually). Everyone says Percy belongs in Slytherin and ironically the primary sorting I think fits it the best is Lion. Percy is temperamental, arrogant, anal, ambitious, and one of my favorite Weasleys. The thing with Percy is that while he does love his family and shows concern and love for them often, a lot of that is outweighed by his ambition and pettiness. While you can just chock Percy’s hatred of Dumbledore to being weak to the propaganda of the ministry (and that IS in fact a Lion trait) I think it was him following his gut seeing as his siblings have almost been killed under Dumbledore’s watch several times. And Percy really does care about things along with being ambitious and wanting power (CAULDRON THICKNESS IS IMPORTANT FUCK YOU). People have waxed poetic about Percy before and I won’t be able to do it as well as them so we’ll stop that there.

And against the argument of Bird primary Percy, a Bird primary would take in multiple arguments and would’ve thought about what his family said. Percy didn’t.

His Bird secondary isn’t hard to see. He is the study machine and is the planner (plus he has a sense of humor that we see a few times and I do think that’s a Bird trait). Him and Hermione are very similar in that sense.

My sorting of GEORGE and FRED WEASLEY was helped greatly by this essay posted to Tumblr by @bittyblueeyes. Before, most of the thoughts I had about these two were speculation, but with this I got some numbers and confirmation. Fred is a Lion Snake while George is a Snake Bird. A dangerous combination, and frankly we’re lucky they didn’t become ministry employees because with them there they might’ve come up with something even crueler than dementors.

Let’s also get something out of the way, they model each others sortings in full. They’ve spent their whole life being lumped together and mistaken, that they’ve been able to completely mask as one another.

Anyway, Fred is a Lion Snake because he’s the one who really pushes to get stuff done and make money, and is the larger practical joker. He’s got the blend of cruelty that comes from being a Lion primary with a Snake secondary (and as added bonus this is James Potter’s sorting, who he shares a lot in common with). When it comes to his Lion primary it’s him being the more ambitious twin. When it comes to his Snake secondary it’s the fact that he’s more likely to do wordplay or pranks then George. But he also has the Snake secondary skittishness. I would also like to point out that Fred is the one to forgive Percy first, and I think that’s because he has a similar sorting (and similar Lion primary).

George meanwhile is the more family orientated one, and only family I should mention. He can be cruel to people who he doesn’t consider family. That’s why I sorted him as the Snake primary. As for the Bird secondary, while it would’ve worked to sort him as a Badger secondary, Bird makes more sense. He’s the one who refines all the plans, and tends to be the more quippy of the twins. Ironically this makes the Bird secondary the most common of the Weasleys despite the heavy Gryffindor culture they have.

RON WEASLEY has been sorted before by @wisteria-lodge over here. And yeah she’s right. Double Lion Ron Weasley, with a burnt Lion primary who usually follows Harry’s morality because Harry is the chosen one, the-boy-who-lived, and his best friend. I don’t think I can put his sorting more perfectly than Wisteria so just read hers.

I’ve already sorted GINNY WEASLEY (which you can read right here) with help from @awinterrain. But I will reiterate what I said about Ginny Being a Snake Lion. Also, honestly, I’m back tracking on what I said about Ginny having a burnt primary. She’s too...confident and okay with herself to be burnt. Her big moments in the series are usually centered around Harry thanks to JKR’s writing. Her moments are things that are very Snakey, dating around, flirting with Harry, just being herself, it’s kinda hard to explain.

And she’s a Lion secondary, her natural state is loud and honest, and her signature is spell is turning her boogers into bats to attack people it’s disgusting and violent and honestly, let her have it.

And while I could stop it there, I did want to talk a little about the Weasley family and their sortings. While the whole family is mostly varied in it’s sorting there is a heavy Lion culture in the family, not just with the primary but also with the secondary. Arthur provides the Lion primary and Molly provides that Lion secondary that has influenced their entire family. Pretty much all of the children if they don’t already have a Lion primary already can model it well (Charlie once again is the exception). And even though they don’t all have Lion secondaries, they all have the vibes of one, which I think is something of a performance they’ve inherited from Molly. When the going gets tough they try to act like Molly. I think it’s interesting to see how that interacts.

So...

Arthur Weasley - Lion primary/Bird secondary

Molly Weasley - Snake primary/Lion secondary, Badger performance or model

Bill Weasley - Snake primary, possible Lion model or performance/Bird secondary

Charlie Weasley - Bird primary/Badger secondary

See the full post

102 notes • Posted 2021-08-25 20:16:25 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)

Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!

For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip.

Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background.

So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order

PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN: Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe.

Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:

While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally.

So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut. Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day.

The Man From Room X:

We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains. Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula.

We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”. His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal.

Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with.

As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne.

He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job.

But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult.

We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it.

Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off: The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well.

The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago.

So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?

I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me.

So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast.

Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off.

Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....

Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun.

Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him. Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself.

It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share.

That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run.

The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people.

We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet.

But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped. Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn.

And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time.

This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course.

Danger Rooms:

We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student.

This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.

But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles.

Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great

Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits.

Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually.

In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...

Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process.

That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did.

Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....

This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them.

Germ Free Generation Issue 1:

So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me.

So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me

Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work.

So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity.

This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation.

So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up.

And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome.

Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her.

Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one.

Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs.

A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit.

Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.

So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise. We then get this.

So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason.

So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching.

A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear.

Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line.

We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept.

The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further.

Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species.

Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart.

Germ Free Generation Part 2:

Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon.

So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel.

They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it.

Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect.

Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it.

However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”

Germ Free Generation Part 3:

So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it.

We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha.

Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits.

Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror

The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power.

Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him.

Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge.

So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:

Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation: This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo

Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks.

Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow.

If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow

#new x-men #grant morrison #cassandra nova #shen xorn #beast #hank mccoy #jean grey #cyclops #scott summers #wolverine #logan howlett #angel salvadore #beak #barnell bohsk #the stepford cuckoos #the u-men #john sublime #marthan johanson #ethan van sciver

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alipeeps · 4 years

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New tag game: Post pictures of your first ever (fictional/celeb) crush to the latest one and tag five others to continue the game

Thanks to @minmoyu for tagging me and ooof, are you sure you’re ready for this?!! :D I have been around/in fandom for a loooooong time and at first I thought, okay, no way I can list all my crushes, there have been SO many and we’ll be here all day but then as I started compiling a list I found I was having fun reminiscing and decided, what the heck, yeah, let’s do em all... or at least all I can remember! :D

There have absolutely for sure been other more minor crushes and passing fancies along the way, but these are the big ones that I remember (and that, in more recent years, I can track by going through my posted fanfics on AO3 and even *shudder* FFNET and seeing which shows I was into enough to want to write fic about the characters).

[Quick note: with rare exceptions, for actors I am listing them by the character they played rather than just the actor. Whilst there are actors that I like in multiple roles (and conversely, characters who on paper I would normally be into but are played by actors who do nothing for me, and hence the character generally does nothing for me either), for the most part it is the character I really have the crush on.]

I’m going to put this under a readmore cos it has gotten ridiculously long:

So... without further ado:

1. MORTEN HARKET from a-ha - OKay so, dating myself badly here but... I had the *biggest* crush on Morten Harket when I was a teenager. Pretty much the entirety of my side of the bedroom I shared with my sister was covered in posters of a-ha, and Morten in particular. I even had a heart-shaped Morten Harket pillow! :D I loved a-ha’s music (still do!) and I wanted to go see them in concert when I was 14 but my parents wouldn’t let me (*sob*). I did finally get to see them in concert in the early 2000s and they were BRILLIANT live (and Morten was still very very pretty)!

2. RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON as MACGYVER - MacGyver is the first tv character I remember being really into and having a crush on, to the extent that I would record episodes of the show off the tv (onto VHS tape - yes, I am *that* old!) so that I could rewatch them (especially the ones where he got hurt - yeah, I was a whumper even then! :D)

3. KEIFER SUTHERLAND - One of my rare exceptions. I think I first saw him in Lost Boys (and loved him in that film) but it was his role as Doc Scurlock in Young Guns that really made me fall for both the character and him. I definitely remember seeking out any and all films he was in and buying any magazine he was interviewed in (and knowing far more facts about him than was probably healthy! :D) and even drawing a fanart portrait of him. :)

4. KYLE MACLACHLAN as SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER - I remember hearing about Twin Peaks before it started airing in the UK and it sounded so different and interesting... I watched it from the very first episode and very quickly developed a crush on Coop.

5. BRENT SPINER as DATA - I think ST: TNG had been airing for a while before I stumbled across it but I quickly became hooked and Data was my favourite character right from the start. I definitely remember at one point buying an (unofficial) episode guide book so that I could look up which episodes were good Data-focused ones (especially ones where he got hurt! :D) so I could go out and buy the videos that had those episodes on (at the time the show was available to buy on VHS-tape with 2 episodes on each tape).

6. DAVID DUCHOVNY as FOX MULDER - Another show that I heard the buzz about and started watching right from the start and, like so many others, I immediately developed a crush on the snarky, enigmatic, troubled FBI agent with the weird name. The X-Files was the first show I ever tried writing (one, never-finished) fanfic for.

7. PAUL GROSS as BENTON FRASER - Man, Due South was such a good show! It was so quirky and clever and funny and Benton Fraser, with his huge heart and his serious demeanour and his gorgeous blue eyes, was just so darn attractive! He also got whumped a fair bit too! :D Due South was also the show that introduced me to the music of Sarah McLachlan (I was enough of a fan that I bought the show soundtrack on CD).

8. HUGH LAURIE as DR GREGORY HOUSE - This was a bit of an odd one for me because I had grown up knowing Hugh Laurie solely as a comedian/comic actor, known mostly for playing buffoons and genial idiots. And suddenly here he was with stubble, an American accent, and a limp, and he was hawt AF! :D It caused quite the feedback loop in my brain for a while which pretty much went “Wow, House is hot.... but it’s Hugh Laurie... but he’s hot... but it’s HUGH LAURIE!!1!”

I *loved* House (the first few seasons, at least) and oof a character with persistent pain (and a self-destructive streak a mile wide!) was a whumper’s dream. House was the first show for which I wrote - and published online - completed fanfics.

8. JOE FLANIGAN as JOHN SHEPPARD - Stargate Atlantis was my first proper online fandom, the first show I prolifically and repeatedly wrote fanfic for, and the first time I ever met in person an actor I was a big fan of (and while the show was still airing, to boot!). It was also my first introduction to the online community of whumpers! A bunch of us from the Shep Whump thread on Gateworld heard that Joe was going to be at a convention in London and we decided to book hotel rooms and meet up and go to the convention together and it was AWESOME! I can still remember seeing Joe *in person* for the first time and just,,,, struggling to believe he was actually here, in person, in front of me! He was super super lovely and humble too and took time to chat to everyone at the signing table and I clearly remember my brain just pretty much fritzing out during the photo session and being intensely aware of the sensation of Joe’s hand on my shoulder....

It was also super lovely to meet fellow fans, and online friends, in person for the first time and we had so much fun, and it kickstarted me going to lots of other conventions, including specific Stargate/SGA ones where I got to know lots of other lovely fans and online friends. I’ve met Joe about 4 or 5 times in total now and he’s been lovely every time.

9. PAUL BLACKTHORNE as HARRY DRESDEN - Gosh I loved the shortlived tv adaptation of The Dresden Files. I loved the fantasy aspect, the stories, the humour, and I especially loved Harry Dresden and how often he got whumped! :D

10. DAVID TENNANT as THE 10TH DOCTOR - I had watched the Christopher Ecclestone revival of Doctor Who and enjoyed it well enough but I can clearly remember watching David Tennant’s first episode as The Doctor - on Christmas Day, at my brother-in-law’s house - and being aware, as I watched it that... ooookay, yes, I’m in trouble here... I like him... I like him a lot... :D I mean, I’m sure the fact that he got whumped so thoroughly in his very first episode had nothing to do with how quickly I fell for him... right? :)

11. ALEX O’LAUGHLIN as MICK ST JOHN - Another show that ended far too soon and just as it was getting *seriously* good. But also a prime example of my point about having a crush on the character not the actor. I looooooved Alex as Mick St John... and yet in Hawaii 5.0 he pretty much does nothing for me (the character is too stoic and the whump often too unrealistically glossed over). Anyway, in Moonlight he was my favourite kind of character - angsty, brooding, dangerous AF when he needed to be... and essentially immortal so you could whump the heck out of him and he’d recover so you could whump him again! :D

12. SIMON BAKER as PATRICK JANE - There is so much to love about Patrick Jane... his smarts, his sass, his angst... and Simon is a rare “against type” blonde crush for me (you may have noticed by now that most of my crushes follow a similar physical aesthetic - tall, slim/wiry, and dark-haired) and again here I think my crush is almost all to do with the character rather than the actor.

12. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH as SHERLOCK HOLMES - I’m almost ashamed to admit it, given the clusterfuck that both the show and its fandom became, but in the earlier seasons I had quite the crush on Benedict’s Sherlock (and okay, a little bit on Benedict himself - I did definitely enjoy some of his other roles too). It helps that I was already a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes character (I’ve read all the stories and novels multiple times and was a big fan of the Granada adaptation starring Jeremy Brett - whose Holmes would definitely count as one of my more minor/passing crushes) already. Benedict is another crush that I have met in person, at a (actually, the first!) Sherlock convention and he was lovely in person - very genuine, very articulate and thoughtful.

13. TOM MISON as ICHABOD CRANE - I was excited for Sleepy Hollow as soon as I heard about it and I was SUCH a fan for the first couple of seasons (before TPTB completely destroyed it and it inevitably got cancelled (I didn’t even watch the last season and a half)) and Tom’s Ichabod (and his amazing chemistry with Nicole’s Abbie) was a large part of why. I also quickly became a big fan of Tom himself as he came across as so witty and self-deprecating and *fun* in all the behind the scenes/convention clips etc. I was lucky enough to also meet Tom at a convention and he genuinely is that witty and charming and lovely.

14. TOM WISDOM as ARCHANGEL MICHAEL - I think Dominion was possibly the first show that I got sucked into by seeing whumpy gifsets on tumblr! :D It was such a great show and also to date the most immersive, welcoming, cast-and-crew-interactive fandom I have ever been in. The cast and crew regularly live-tweeted the episodes, and interacted with fans on Twitter, and it was SO much fun. And Tom’s Michael was my favourite character right from the start - seemingly aloof but so much going on under the surface... and some really nice whump, especially in season 2! I was heartbroken when it was cancelled after only 2 seasons (and just as the plot was getting *really* interesting).

15. OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN as LUCAS - I was hooked on Emerald City right from the first episode. It was visually stunning, so atmospheric, and really intruiging. I love love loved Adria Arjona’s Dorothy (ngl, I had a bit of a crush on her too) and she and Lucas together were just... *chef’s kiss*. I mean... what an introduction to a character... she finds him crucified, bleeding, his wrists tied with barbed wire, and amnesiac.... and the whump only gets better and better from there on in! Like the entire first two episodes are just... Lucas whump! :D And his devotion to her... Emerald City was honestly the first show where I really got into a ship. I was *invested* in Dorcas, dammit! Aaaand sadly another excellent show that never made it past its first season.

16. JASON RALPH as QUENTIN COLDWATER - Another show that I watched right from the start, was heavily invested in.... and that the writers absolutely tanked and destroyed in later seasons. *cries* Quentin was such a brilliant viewpoint character for the show and I loved his awkwardness, and his angst, and his enthusiasm, and his adorable floppy hair... and how often he got whumped!

17. COLIN MORGAN - I fell for Colin in Merlin (which I stumbled upon late, long after it had finished airing, and hence was able to binge-watch the entire 5 seasons!) and liked him enough to seek out his other works, such as The Fall, and Humans, and The Living and the Dead, and he was brilliant (and very pretty) in all of them... and his characters also seem to get whumped quite a lot! :D

18. MATT LANTER as WYATT LOGAN - Wyatt was another of my favourite archetypes... absolutely badass and competent... but also tortured and angsty and capable of intense devotion. Another show that I watched because of whumpy gifs on tumblr and the second ever show where I actually got invested in a ship - Lyatt all the way, baby!! :D - aaaaaand yet another show cancelled before its time.

19. NOCTIS LUCIS CAELUM from FINAL FANTASY XV - my very first video game crush! I was recommended to play FFXV by fellow whumpers on the whumpshire discord because it was whumpy... and they were not wrong and I loved the game and I absolutely adored Noctis. FFXV is one of very very VERY few video games that I have actually played right through to the end. And possibly the only video game that has ever affected me to such an extent... I became so invested in the characters and their world and I actually found the last couple of chapters really hard to play because it was actually upsetting me emotionally. I had to take a break for a couple of weeks before I could go back and finish it!

20. CONNOR from DETROIT BECOME HUMAN - and from there I jumped straight into another video game crush! DBH was another game recommended to me for its whump potential and I, and many others, immediately fell in love with the quirky, sassy, self-sacrificing (if you play the game right!) “android sent by Cyberlife”. The game itself is really good too... although, I have tried to play through all the different endings to the story but have never yet managed to make myself play the machine Connor storyline.... I want to complete all the story branches... but I also just want Hank and Connor to be friends and to be happy! :D

21. ZHU YILONG - Ahhh... the beginning of the asian drama arc of my fandom life! I first came across Zhu Yilong after getting sucked into watching Guardian because of pretty (and whumpy) gifs on tumblr... and I’ve never looked back. He is one of the rare entries where I am pretty much guaranteed to like him in pretty much anything he does and my crush extends beyond Shen Wei, or his other characters, and into reblogging his fashion shoot photos, and keeping up with news of his work in general. He’s just... so darn pretty! And also so... blur! :D And the behind the scenes stuff and interviews of him with Bai Yu, during the Guardian era, just made me fall for him all the more. He’s also ridiculously talented - not only a fantastic actor, but a really good singer (I love his singing voice), he plays guitar and piano, and he can paint too!!

He’s also pretty much what made me start learning Chinese... because after Guardian I went seeking his other dramas to watch... only to find that many of them are only partially, or not at all, subbed. So I thought... why not try learning Chinese and then I’ll be able to watch his other shows? :D

21. JI CHANG WOOK - My first kdrama crush, and what a good one to start with! Healer was the first drama I ever watched and can you blame me for falling for JCW... especially when I followed up Healer with The K2?! I’ve liked him in pretty much everything I’ve watched him in. Although I do wish he would go back to doing more action-based shows as he is sooo good at them... but he seems to prefer the romcom genre these days, which is something I am nottt always a fan of tbh.

22. JAKE HSU as MENG SHAO FEI - Yet another show that I got sucked into by tumblr - and also one with a great, fun fandom through which I met lots of lovely people who I still follow/am mutuals with to this day. I just *adored* Jake’s character in History and I also loved the ship - Tang Fan and Meng Shaofei were awesome and adorable together and I was totally invested in both the ship and the gangster/cop/what happened years ago story happening alongside the ship. And Jake is just all kinds of cute.

23. XIAO ZHAN - Aaaand we are pretty much up to current day now... where The Untamed took over my life in the summer of 2019 and has yet to let me go. Xiao Zhan is another disgustingly talented human being - a fantastic singer and a really good actor, and also an artist - and he also just comes across as a genuinely sweet and charming person, and a very thoughful and earnest one too. And lbr he is ridiculously pretty, and his smile is just pure sunshine.

24. LEE DONG WOOK as LEE YEON - The most recent entry to the charts.... a Korean actor I was aware of but whose work I hadn’t watched and whose looks didn’t particularly seem to grab me... until I watched Tale of the Nine Tailed and fell head over heels for Lee Yeon (and daaayum does red hair suit LDW!!) and very quickly began to find LDW’s looks very appealing (and oh my, does Lee Yeon whump well!!). And yes, I have now started watching Goblin. :D

Phew! Aaaand we are done! I’ll admit, I did think of a few more as I was compiling this list but I decided to categorise them as more “minor” crushes and not include them... otherwise we really could be here all day!!

I’m going to tag: @sarah-yyy, @arlothia, @howdydowdy, @thepromiseweheldforlife and @the-wandering-whumper!

#meme #fandom #crushes

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irandrura · 3 years

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Terra Ignota

Over the last few weeks, I read Terra Ignota. I read all of the three published books so far: Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders, and The Will to Battle.

Every review of Terra Ignota I have ever read is wrong. Or rather, every review of Terra Ignota I have ever read takes an extremely different perspective to my own, to the extent that I genuinely don’t understand how the author could have concluded that.

So as not to keep anyone in suspense, my perspective on Terra Ignota is that they are surprisingly trashy books, in a world that doesn’t make very much sense, but that doesn’t matter because the heart and soul of these texts is over-the-top soap opera drama. I think they are probably bad, and they outright offended me at several points, but nonetheless they drew me in enough that I wanted to keep reading. There is merit in that.

If you’re the sort of person who cares about spoilers, this is your only warning.

As I said, I don’t understand most of the reviews I have read of these books. I simply don’t.

I don’t understand the view that the writing itself is poetic and beautiful. Palmer has some good phrases from time to time, but overall I don’t find the prose particularly amazing. This is a very subjective point, so I won’t belabour it.

I don’t understand the view that the books are a masterful triumph of worldbuilding. From my perspective, the worldbuilding is actually kind of half-assed, and more importantly, Palmer does not seem to actually care about worldbuilding that much. It isn’t her priority. Reading the books I found myself constantly asking “How does X actually work?” or “Y sounds totally insane, could you explain how it makes sense to me?” or “Z seems like it clashes with X, please resolve this contradiction for me?”, and Palmer never answers those questions for you. If I want some more explanation for why, say, a global transportation system serving billions of people is run without oversight, from a single private residence, looked after by a man well-known to be suicidally depressed… nope, I’m not getting that. If I want some context for how hive-switching works, or how it interacts with crime, not happening. Even minor questions: in The Will to Battle, our heroes talk to a band of criminals involved in human trafficking, and I immediately wanted to know what human trafficking means in a world where borders have been abolished, geographic nations have been abolished, and every place on Earth is just a short taxi ride from every other place. This is the sort of question Palmer does not answer or even acknowledge.

And I don’t actually buy that she’s interested in the questions that I see raised when the books are spruiked to me. Are you intrigued by the question of what the world would look like if every individual could choose their own government, their own law code, unconstrained by geography? I’m intrigued by that. It sounds interesting. But this is not a question that Terra Ignota is actually interested in. It seems like it should be interested in it, and I read enough breathless expositions of how cool the hive system is that I expected Terra Ignota to be interested in it… but it’s not. If you’re interested in, say, the question of whether a permanent exit option would make absolute dictatorship more humane, as in the Masons, then I agree that’s interesting – but it is not a question that the text of Terra Ignota takes any interest in. The big worldbuilding questions raised by the hives are all window dressing.

I don’t understand the idea that Terra Ignota is a brilliant depiction of utopia. I want to acknowledge straight off the bat that I may have a bias here, because Terra Ignota’s world is premised on the, well, genocide of people like me, or at least the forcible suppression and exile of people like me, but I don’t think it’s only the fact that I’m openly in defiance of the First Black Law. Rather, I note two things here. Firstly, it’s hard to see whether Terra Ignota’s society is actually utopian because we spend so little time in it. We do not see how ordinary people live in this world, or what makes it wonderful. What Terra Ignota spends most of its time on is the scheming and backstabbing of the dozen most powerful people in the world, and everyone outside that little circle barely exists in the text. (Abigail Nussbaum noted in her review that Terra Ignota’s world never really feels like it has more than a few hundred people in it, and I agree.) It’s hard to convincingly argue Terra Ignota is a utopia or a dystopia, because we never meet the whole population. We meet a small handful of amoral nobility as they play out a space opera Game of Thrones. That’s certainly entertaining, and I give Palmer credit for making it fun to read, but it’s not really an investigation of utopia. Secondly, where we do see glimpses of the world outside the parlours of the ruthless rich, it…honestly seems rather conventional, and rather like the 21st century. People work fewer hours a week, taxis are much more efficient, movies have smelltracks as well as soundtracks, they go to the Olympics, apparently the Oscars endured the collapse of all nations and religions… but there is little in this world that seems radically different to our own. It’s all minor, incremental bits of technological progress. They’ve eliminated poverty, which is good, but I usually expect something more radical from utopia than that. What do people actually do in Terra Ignota that’s different to what any upper-middle class American might do today? Other, of course, than not go to church, call everyone singular they, and wear tracking devices.

I don’t understand the idea that these books deal with deep philosophical or theological themes. Like the hives themselves, it’s all window dressing. The narrator Mycroft is obsessed with the 18th century, and so is a bizarre anachronistic brothel that somehow every major world leader attends (cf. worldbuilding being weak, the world only feeling like it has a few hundred people in it), but they don’t do very much with this. Mycroft imagines Thomas Hobbes occasionally butting in, but his imaginary Hobbes has little to say beyond "Hi, I’m the guy who wrote Leviathan!” The characters reference Diderot and de Sade and Voltaire, but usually only on the surface level, and when they do try to go deeper, they often get the references wrong. The same for the theology. My point is not that Terra Ignota is bad: just that it isn’t really that interested in the political philosophy or the theology. It uses 18th century thought as an aesthetic. Deism, miracles, proof of God’s existence, how gods might communicate, etc., are not the questions that occupy the text. Ada Palmer is not a theologian.

But all that said, I enjoyed Terra Ignota.

I want to emphasise that. I enjoyed Terra Ignota! I am not saying that it’s bad! I’m just saying that it was not what everyone told me it would be.

Terra Ignota is a book about a bunch of very powerful, very horrible people, who all apparently go to the same brothel and are interested in the same wacky theories about human nature and God and so on, lying to and betraying each other. I think Palmer is really interested in the characters. Mycroft, our pretentious narrator who by the end of book three is genuinely losing his grip on reality and writing hallucinations. Jedd Mason, the madman who believes he’s God, but is probably just the delusional product of a radical set-set experiment. Caesar, the iron-proud absolute dictator seeking to do his duty by his ambitious, power-obsessed hive. Dominic, the sadistic sexual predator who nonetheless worships Jedd with fanatical devotion. Carlyle, the kind and compassionate philosopher-in-residence who inevitably gets tortured and abused. Ojiro Sniper, the freaky sex doll who nonetheless seeks to become the Brutus to Jedd’s Caesar. Apollo Mojave, the dead-but-still-influential space wizard who sought to cause a world war for stupid reasons. And so on. The characters are generally well-drawn and interesting enough that I want to see what happens to them.

I should emphasise Palmer’s achievement in making me want to know what happens to these people, especially because they’re all so unsympathetic. Carlyle and Bridger stand out as the most truly sympathetic characters in the novels, but by book three, the former has been captured, tortured, and now limps along, dead-eyed and broken-spirited, in the train of one of the resident sadists, and the latter has quite reasonably gone “Screw this” and used his immense psychic powers to delete himself from the book. But most of the core characters in this drama – Mycroft, Saladin, Jedd, Sniper, Ganymede and Danae, Madame d’Arouet, etc. – are mad, evil, both, or otherwise extremely unsympathetic. It is to Palmer’s credit that I want to know what happens in the war anyway. The most sympathetic of the political leaders in the text, Vivien Ancelet and Bryar Kosala, spend most of their time fruitlessly begging for peace. While they, perhaps alone of the leaders, have genuinely laudable intentions, it has been clear from the first book that neither will be permitted to achieve anything notable. The only people to barrack for, in Terra Ignota, are those noble if compromised few who seek to avoid a war – and who we all know will fail.

Book four, it seems, will finally be about the war that the first three books have been setting up, and even though I frankly want all three sides to lose – the Jedd faction, the Sniper faction, and Utopia are all deeply unpleasant, albeit in different ways – I am sure I will find it extremely entertaining to see how this all collapses.

Do I recommend Terra Ignota? I don’t know. If you want detailed, thorough worldbuilding, sincere contemplation of deep philosophical questions about theodicy, politics, and human nature, or a stirring vision of a possible utopia… no. Do not read it for those things. It does not have those things in it.

But it does have a scene where the prime minister of Europe body-tackles the Olympic president through a plate glass window and they land in a pile of people having sex mid-orgy, while the media broadcasts it worldwide.

And that’s excellent.

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sammysdewysensitiveeyes · 4 years

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Tagged by @gorogues, thank you!

Can you think of three images that are recurring elements in your writing? Are they symbolic of something? What do these images mean to you? Do you have any memories/connotations tied to them?

Hmm, I think this will wind up being less “images,” and more about common themes that pop up in my writing. Because I don’t think I repeat specific images all that often.

1. Friendship. A lot of my favorite characters are minor bad guys, not so much on the genocidal world-ending scale, more on the bank-robbing (and occasional murder) scale. They also tend to be part of groups and teams, like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Flash Rogues. Basically, I like watching these characters interact and get along and be nice to each other. That doesn’t mean that everything is peaches and cream, and that they never fight. In fact, I imagine them fighting quite frequently. But I like seeing these characters pal around, fight and make-up (and maybe come to understand each other better), and generally have each other’s backs, like a found family. it’s a side we don’t see as often in the comics. A couple of my favorite ships, namely Trickster (James Jesse)/Pied Piper and Pyro (St. John Allerdyce)/Avalanche are romances that grow out of friendships. And it’s honestly not even about just wanting to see them bang (in fact, I haven’t written any explicit sex fic for either of those ships, although some day I might), it’s about wanting them to have this strong sense of closeness and love for each other. Which of course, you could still have platonically, and I can enjoy “friendship fics” about my favorite ships just as well. I think maybe I ship some of these pairings because I want them to be the most important thing in each other’s lives, without a different romantic partner gumming up the works. Or maybe because that’s a kind of romance that I find ideal - this very close friendship easily transitioning into romantic love rather than “these two people are physically attracted to each other, and spend the next several seasons being stupid and angsty about it.” I like the Ben Wyatt/Leslie Knope type romance - “I like you and I love you.”

2. Detailed back stories - A lot of my favorites are also fairly minor characters, and as such, aren’t always super-well developed (especially depending on who is writing them). And I tend to put a lot of details into my stories, even when I don’t intend to. I can’t just have Hartley find James in his apartment in the morning, I have to say what kind of cereal they are eating and what they are watching on TV. I have so many useless head-canons about Blob and Toad playing Animal Crossing, and Pyro watching Australian soap operas and Avalanche trying to breed orchids in his spare time. Do you want to know Pyro’s opinion on Vegemite? Well, too bad, I’m gonna tell you anyway. I also like making reference back to older stories in the comics (unless I completely disagree with the portrayal, in which case I just blithely ignore canon.)

3. Characters disagreeing without either being entirely wrong. This is kind of a new thing, since I’ve been exchanging a lot of RP asks with @sebastianshaw, which is mostly my version of Pyro interacting with her version of Sebastian Shaw. And they hate each other. They clash in almost every little ficlet I write. But Sebastian Shaw is not just a strawman for wrong opinions, he’s an interesting and complex character (especially the way @sebastianshaw writes him), who is ruthless and callous, but also intelligent and competent. Shaw is cruelly observant, and his opinions about Pyro, although overly dismissive and condescending, are not entirely wrong. Pyro can be needlessly argumentative and hostile (he generally finds something nasty to say to Shaw in every interaction), but he also often has a point. I don’t know why I enjoy writing this. Maybe because it often doesn’t sit right with me when one character gets portrayed as a complete unreasonable monster, even though we actually need a few unreasonable monsters to be good villains in the comics. Or maybe because I tend to be non-confrontational and dislike arguing in real life. So I get my cathartic release writing as a loud-mouthed, opinionated Australian pyrokinetic who disagrees with everything Shaw says.

Extra bonus theme: Dumb, goofy characters being more competent than portrayed, but still being dumb and goofy. One of my pet peeves in comics is characters like Trickster (who is an engineering genius) and Pyro (canonically a former journalist and author) being portrayed as complete idiots. I like to show them (and others like Blob and Toad, who also don’t get much respect) being intelligent and thoughtful. But then I also like to show them being hilarious dumb-asses because it’s more fun that way. Like I’d actually enjoy Marauders Pyro if he was given a few moments of intelligence and sophistication to go along with his stupid face tattoo and new penchant for biting people. It’s a fine line!

Extra extra bonus theme: Everyone is gay. I think I head-cannon a lot of my favorite characters as some form of LGBT (or I’m open to imagining them that way, if I don’t directly head-canon it.) There are a few faves that I still imagine as straight, but not that many. Maybe because we still don’t get a huge amount of canon LGBT content, so it’s a matter of wanting what I can’t have? Maybe I just want the widest possibility of ships? Maybe I just want to imagine two guys banging - although again, I don’t actually write a lot of pure sex fic, and I do the same for female favorite characters. And I do this even for characters that I don’t have specific favorite ships for, like the Riddler or Loki or Rachel Summers.

Tagging: @esteicy-blog, @sebastianshaw, @allwillbeone

IF and ONLY IF you want to. Don’t feel obliged.

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hms-chill · 5 years

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RWRB Study Guide: Chapter 7

Hi y’all! I’m going through Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue and defining/explaining references! Feel free to follow along, or block the tag #rwrbStudyGuide if you’re not interested!

Crêpe-eating tourists (157): Crepes are a thin, flat pancake traditionally filled with sugar, but commonly filled with other toppings. They are an iconic French dish and are popular with tourists both for this reason and because they are typically inexpensive.

Place du Tertre (157): A square in Paris, it is in the Montmarte district, which is known for its art history.

Crusty baguettes (157): Baguettes are a French bread that is meant to be crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.

Le Monde (158): The most popular French newspaper.

Fromagerie Nicole Barthélémy (158): A famously wonderful cheese shop in Paris.

Parisian cheese shop (158): French cheese are known for being fancy and especially good.

Pisces (159): A zodiac sign known for being compassionate, artistic, and intuitive. (more)

NYU (159): New York University.

The Met (159): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a famous art museum in New York.

Joanne (160): JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books, and has been pretty consistently homophobic and transphobic on twitter.

Freddie Mercury (161): Lead singer of the band Queen, Mercury never officially came out, but he had long-term relationships with both men and women and was known for his camp performances, and there are claims that he was “openly gay”. His flamboyance and camp performances, as well as his relationship with partner Jim Hutton, essentially demanded that people simply take him as he was. He died of complications from AIDS in 1991, one day after admitting openly that he had been diagnosed four years earlier. (More)

For context within the book, he wrote “Don’t Stop Me Now”

Elton John (161): A famous British musician. He came out as bisexual in 1976, then as gay in 1992. He and his husband, David Furnish, became civil partners in 2005, the day they became legal in the UK. They were officially married on the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership, the year that gay marriage was legalized within the UK. (More)

Bowie (161): David Bowie, who was a bi British musician and actor who, in 1976, described his bisexuality as “the best thing that ever happened to me”. His wife (who was also bi, and with whom he often shared partners) claimed that he had a relationship with Mick Jagger, though his bisexuality has been consistently erased, both during his life and since his death. (More)

Again for book context, Henry’s dog is named for David Bowie

Jagger (161): Mick Jagger, an English singer/songwriter and member of the Rolling Stones, known for his promiscuity. As mentioned above, he and Bowie pretty clearly had a relationship, though his Wikipedia makes no mention of queerness. (More)

Oakley Street (161): A street that runs through an affluent borough of London.

Stonewall (161): The Stonewall Inn in New York City is a gay bar. The riots against police brutality there in July of 1969 are heralded as the beginning of the gay rights movement.

SCOTUS decision in 2015 (161): The Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage across the US.

Walt Whitman (161): An American poet who wanted to become The American Poet and saw himself as the quintessential American. His poetry often deals with his queerness, and he absolutely slept with Oscar Wilde in the late 1800s.

Fun fact; he is celebrated in the movie The Dead Poets Society, which is incredibly popular with Sad Gay English Majors and which Henry would definitely have seen.

Laws of Illinois 1961 (161): In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the US to repeal its sodomy laws.

White Night Riot (161): A series of riots in San Francisco protesting the lenient sentencing of the man who killed Harvey Milk, the first openly queer politician. The riots were the most violent queer uprising since the events at the Stonewall.

Paris is Burning (161): A 1990s movie celebrating drag ball culture in New York. It celebrates in particular queer communities of color in the late 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic was at its peak.

“If I die of AIDS...” (161): This is a real photo; you can find it here. The man’s jacket could refer to a form of protest called “die-ins”, where people with AIDS would go to a homophobic politician’s office or another public place where they were refused treatment and simply not leave until after they died. (see it here)

Chop my own tit off (162): Fun mythology fact; the Amazons (warrior women from Greek mythology) actually did this to make themselves better archers.

H fucking W (162): George HW Bush, a former US president.

George (163): George Villers was the boyfriend of King James the I/VI, and Prince George, Duke of Kent, was rumored to be in a polyamorous relationship in the 1920s.

Edward (162): Edward II was a famously gay king. He was may have been "wedded brothers" with Piers Gaveston and may have also had a relationship with Hugh le Despenser the younger following Gaveston's death. (More)

James (162): The British king known for translating the Bible and being just... indescribably gay and very deeply horny. He promoted his boyfriend, George Villers, to the highest non-royal position in the UK within a few years of starting to date him. James’s friends actively tried to set him up with hot guys for their own political gain.

Alexander (163): Alexander Hamilton was an incredibly bi founding father. He’s remembered for founding our current national banking system, having the first ever American sex scandal, and for literally never shutting up or knowing how to stop being A Lot All The Time.

Catalina (164): Catalina is an island near Los Angeles. On a more meta level, St. Catalina was a respected writer.

June (164): June Carter Cash was an American singer/songwriter/director/comedian.

Tricky Dick (164): Richard Nixon, a president remembered for wiretapping his opponent.

Taft (165): 27th president of the United States.

Eisenhower (165): 34th president of the US.

Baby (166): this is what Henry’s mom calls him; I wrote a thing about it here.

Daily Mail (166): A trashy British tabloid.

Lollapalooza (167): A music festival in Chicago known for setting fashion trends and having lots of drugs.

Joni Mitchell (167): A singer/songwriter known for her innovative use of the guitar, including unique tunings, chords, and a unique fingerpicking/strumming style. (Listen here)

Cocaine (168): A highly addictive drug. It is snorted, smoked, or injected, and while it makes people feel more confident or forget their problems, the highs from it last only up to about 30 minutes, which often drives people to take it more frequently. Side effects (aside from addiction) include a loss of appetite, irritability, and increased mental health issues.

Spitfire (168): Someone with a quick temper or willingness to fight.

High as a kite (169): Someone who’s “high as a kite” is on a lot of drugs and is still enjoying the high.

Clean (169): Drug/alcohol free.

Stiff upper lip (170): Ability to seem determined or hold it together in the face of hard times.

A levels (170): A UK test taken for admittance to college, similar to the ACT/SAT in the US

Henry V at RSC (171): Henry V is a Shakespearean history play about the life of Henry V, especially focused on the events of the Hundred Years’ War. RSC, or the Royal Shakespeare Company, is a Shakespeare theater company in London.

Travis County (171): The Texan county where Austin is located.

Surfside (171): A beach in Texas.

Adderall (172): A prescription drug taken for ADHD but commonly abused by students to help them stay awake for all-nighters or focused for unhealthily long study sessions. However, given McQuinston’s claim that Alex has undiagnosed ADHD, it likely helped him to be able to focus and helped his brain work the way it was expected to.

Almond milk (vs. dairy) (173): Texas has a huge dairy industry, and almond milk is not great for the environment.

The Gun File (173): American gun law is so deeply broken.

WASPy Hunter’s Harvard pencil cup (175): Harvard is a prestigious college in Boston; it has a reputation for being mostly rich white folks.

Iron curtains of gerrymandering (175): Gerrymandering is a form of drawing lines for voting districts to disenfranchise marginalized voters. It is a form of skewing elections to keep power in the hands of the powerful that divides marginalized votes, making people of color or poor folks the minority in their districts, therefore erasing their votes on a broader scale.

Vision-boarding his funeral (175): a vision board is typically made to inspire someone to pursue a goal.

Parks & Recreation (175): A popular American sit-com focused on the parks and recreation department in a small town in Indiana.

Leslie Knope (176): a Parks & Rec character. One of her defining traits is an aggressive, overwhelming love for the people in her life.

Mid-century rug (177): Mid-century furniture and style is characterized by lots of color and playful patterns (following the more reserved WWII period in the 1940s); it is rising in popularity again as a classy yet fashionable look.

J14 (178): A teen fashion/celebrity magazine.

Sacramento Bee (178): The largest newspaper in Sacramento, CA.

Southerness (180): In positive lights, the American South is known for its genuine, warm, unselfish hospitality.

Jane Austen my life (180): Jane Austen is a British author whose novels star lower/middle class women who fall in love with rich men. They typically try to avoid these men for large portions of the book, or at least have rather negative feelings about them due to a misunderstanding or other failure to communicate.

LSAT (181): the test taken for admittance to law school.

Carmarthenshire (183): A largely agricultural county in South Wales. As a tourist destination, it is known for its wide range of outdoor activities.

Llwynywermod (184): A royal estate in Carmarthenshire, the biggest building of which is a renovated three-bedroom farmhouse. It is surrounded by the rolling green hills common to south Wales.

Finals (in the US) (185): At US colleges, a semester’s final tests (typically worth up to 30-40% of a final grade) take place the week after classes end.

Stamp on his forehead at The Tombs (185): Tombs is a bar near Georgetown. According to reviews, and “Tombs Night” parties, where students celebrate their 21st birthday and get their foreheads stamped at the end of the night, are a Georgetown tradition.

Jumped in Dalhgren Fountain (185): Dalhgren Fountain is in the center of Georgetown’s campus. Swimming in it is a Georgetown tradition.

Summa cum laude (186): “with greatest honor”.

Ceviche (186): A seafood dish native to Peru that spread to Mexico, where it contains lime, avocado, chili peppers, onions, and cilantro.

Palm Room (187): The gateway to the West Wing, the area of the White House where most politics happen.

Hoe Dameron (190): A reference to Star Wars character Poe Dameron, a rebel pilot and the first Latino main character in the series.

Prince Buttercup (190): Princess Buttercup is the heroine/love interest in The Princess Bride,

West Hollywood (190): One of the most prominent gay neighborhoods in the US.

“Call Me” (191): The most popular song of 1980; it was originally written for the film American Gigolo and inspired by the film’s opening sequence of a character driving along the coast of California. (Listen here)

“So Emotional” (191): An absolute bop about enjoying being in love. (Listen here)

“Don’t Stop Me Now” (193): A Queen song where Mercury sings to both a man and a woman; it’s a huge bop. (Listen here)

In-N-Out (194): A fast food restaurant/burger chain native to California and unavailable in other states.

Animal style (195): Animal style burgers are an In-N-Out staple; it includes the typical burger toppings, along with mustard fried into the patty, pickles, onions, and extra spread.

French-fries-dipped-in-milkshake (195): a truly god-tier American dessert tradition.

“O captain, my captain” (196): A reference both to the idea of a lacrosse team captain and to Whitman’s poem, “O Captain, My Captain” (as mentioned above, Whitman was a deeply gay American poet).

Burberry (200): A posh British brand of clothing known for its classy, traditional pieces.

Cats that caught the canaries (200): A cat that caught a canary is a person who looks smug or satisfied.

Mother hen (201): A “mom friend” or someone who will do everything they can to look out for people they care about, sometimes to the point of it being annoying.

—-

If there’s anything I missed or that you’d like more on, please let me know! And if you’d like to/are able, please consider buying me a ko-fi? I know not everyone can, and that’s fine, but these things take a lot of time/work and I’d really appreciate it!

—–

Chapter 1 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 8

#rwrb study guide #rwrb #red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor x alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #bea fox mountchristen windsor #june claremont diaz #nora holleran #pez okonjo #English Major Brain™#English Major Brain™️#rwrb analysis #red white and royal blue analysis #rwarb #rwarb analysis #rwrb fic ref #rwrb reference

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rebelsofshield · 5 years

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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order-Review

Respawn Entertainment breaks an over decades long curse and delivers a phenomenal, if rough around the edges, Star Wars experience.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

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Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) is a Jedi survivor of Order 66. Having survived the traumatic first stage of the Jedi Purge, Cal has spent the last several years on the fringes of the galaxy, keeping his head down and avoiding detection by the Imperial warmachine and their fearsome enforcers. However, when Cal uses his Force powers to save a friend in danger, he draws attention to his relatively normal life and he is soon once again on the run from the Imperial Inquisitorius. Luckily, he is found by two other renegades, former Jedi Cere Junda (Debra Wilson) and crotchety ship captain Dreez Gritus (Daniel Roebuck), and offered safe harbor. It comes with a catch though. Cere needs Cal to unlock the secrets of a potential list of new Jedi hidden by her former master, Eno Cordova, and scattered throughout the galaxy. Cal and Cere have their own secrets though and a deadly Inquisitor follows them at every step.

It’s been a long time since there has been a good Star Wars video game. At least, a single player experience that rewards with story in addition to gameplay and visuals. This decade has already been pretty sparse in offerings after the comparatively abundant 00’s, but even more so for those hoping for some kind of narrative from their gaming trips into the galaxy far, far away. Sure, 2017’s Battlefront II offered a short and deeply flawed campaign, but for anything more substantial we would have to look back to 2011’s The Old Republic MMO or 2010’s sloppy sequel to The Force Unleashed. For a franchise that offered some of the best experiences in the action adventure genre several generations ago, Star Wars was struggling to make its mark in this medium even with the pure abundance of film, comics, books, and TV offered each year.

Luckily, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a success. It’s a profoundly satisfying experience for Star Wars fans in addition to just being a rewarding and joyful gameplay experience. It may not be perfect, and it is certainly rough around the edges, but Respawn Entertainment has created a Star Wars experience that is among the best out there.

Much of this comes from Fallen Order’s outstanding narrative and story direction. Game director Stig Asmussen and narrative lead Aaron Contreras have spun a Star Wars tale populated by endearing and compelling characters, filled with interesting mysteries, and even populated by a few trademark Star Wars twists.

Cal Kestis, despite his profoundly bland character design, quickly establishes himself as an engaging protagonist and player stand in. Due in large part to Monaghan’s performance and a strong direction, Cal is a character that has experienced world shattering trauma, but is still fundamentally good hearted and courageous. Much of Cal’s arc becomes one of finding purpose in a new, much darker, world while also coming to terms with the violent events of his own past.

Trauma and its effect on a cast of people trying to survive a cultural genocide is a major theme of Fallen Order throughout. The majority of its central characters, light and dark, are survivors of the climactic events at the end of The Clone Wars and their methods of coping often end up shaping their personal narratives but also the trajectory of the plot. Of these, Cere proves to be the most compelling. Played with incredible nuance by Wilson, Cere is an atypical Jedi mentor that wishes to guide the future generations of the Force, but is just as often plagued by her own trauma, which frequently manifests in ways that are unhelpful or potentially dangerous to her pupil. Her journey at times even eclipses Cal’s and is frequently filled with moments of triumph and great sorrow.

Despite its male protagonist, Fallen Order is filled with a cast of compelling and dynamic women characters with Cere just being one of the most notable. The game’s primary antagonist, The Second Sister, has a tragic story of her own, which slowly changes and recontexualizes the events of the game as the story continues. Most fun however proves to be a surprising late addition to Fallen Order’s party of protagonists who adds a fun wrinkle to an extended part of the Star Wars mythology.

Any discussion of the game’s characters wouldn’t be complete without the endlessly endearing BD-1. The best droid companion this side of BB-8, BD-1 in typical Star Wars fashion is equal parts friend and McGuffin, and is often key to some of the game’s best story telling moments.

Fallen Order’s narrative direction is often its best tool. Respawn blends gameplay, cut scenes, and interactive exploration to evolve a story that reaches surprisingly affecting emotional beats before headed into one hell of a finale. The fact that Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab have crafted a new Star Wars score that feels a part of the franchise, but also infused with its own themes and identity certainly helps. Cal’s theme is a new classic for the saga and it’s even more infuriating that we don’t have a release for this music a month after launch. It makes for a narrative that is fun to savor, hard to put down, but also lingers far after conclusion. I can’t recall the last time I missed characters this much after putting down a controller and I’m very eager to return to the world that Fallen Order has spun.

Now time for a confession. I have played video games my entire life and I have very fond memories of all kinds of games. I love action adventure games and my most fond gaming memories of the last decade have been from Mass Effect and Uncharted. I’m also very, very bad at them. It may be my dysgraphia, which makes hand eye coordination very difficult, or it may just not be in my skillset, but I often find even the easiest games very difficult.

So when, Fallen Order announced that it would be taking inspiration from notoriously difficult games such as Metroid or Dark Souls, I was suitably worried that it was going to leave my flustered and confused despite really enjoying the adventures of Samus Aran.

What Respawn has done with Jedi: Fallen Order is take key elements and concepts from numerous other games and spin them together in a tight and exciting package. Those familiar with each genre of game are likely to see what Fallen Order does as a considerable pairing down. It ends up being a sort of gameplay smoothie of Uncharted, Dark Souls, and Metroid in an experience that blends all well, but doesn’t come close to being among the best in the genre for any of its many inspirations.

This may sound like a criticism, but for the larger experience that Fallen Order crafts this ends up working to its benefit. The puzzles in its Zelda like temples are never enough to stump you, but encourage you think outside of the box. The climbing and exploration is free flowing and easy to navigate and offers frequent narrative rewards for players that are ambitious enough to explore. The sheer amount of optional locations in Fallen Order is impressive and it’s easy to find yourself falling down amusing rabbit holes that easy could have been blown past on quicker playthroughs. It says something that this is the first game where I’ve actually felt compelled to hit that little 100% complete marker before running for the final boss encounter.

The combat itself is amusingly layered and just technical enough to feel like it takes mastery. Refreshingly, Respawn goes the opposite direction of other recent Star Wars adventure experiences and avoids falling into mindless power fantasy. You won’t be crushing AT-ST’s with waves of telekinesis or leveling rooms with storms of Force Lightning. You are encouraged to treat each combat encounter with the mentality of a vulnerable, if skilled, Jedi. Rushing in blindly will likely get you killed quickly. Measured blocking, dodging, tactical strikes, and creative employment of Force powers is the way to success and it leads to a combat experience that may seem familiar for fans of Souls games, but also feels very in tune with the spirit of the franchise.

Similarly, the leveling system is tied more into emotional discovery and personal acceptance. It avoids making the power system in Fallen Order too much of a gamification of the Force and helps keep the spiritual and emotional aspects intact.

That being said, there is some weirdness to it all. For the amount of effort put into making sure that gameplay matches the feelings of Jedi philosophy and mentality, the fact that murdering rooms full of enemies is often the only way to progress can feel a little jarring. Incorporating some form of stealth or noncombat alternative for certain sections may have been beneficial and even more in keeping with the larger goals of Respawn and Fallen Order’s narrative.

There’s also just a general bugginess to Fallen Order. Enemy AI can behave in ways that are often very strange and counter intuitive to their own survival. Graphical pop ins and oddities are frequent. Powers occasionally don’t work in ways you would expect them to. The environment occasionally drops out and leaves you stranded behind a rock or underneath a pool or puddle. Few of these are game breaking and are often few and far between, but it can be jarring and frustrating when they are appear and often take you out of what is normally a well-crafted experience.

As a whole though, Jedi: Fallen Order may be the best Star Wars gaming experience in a generation. Its heartfelt narrative and smart gameplay make for a strong and frequently stellar experience. It has its problems, but they are hardly enough to discourage from joining Cal and his allies on this adventure. Grab a lightsaber and head on in. It’s a journey worth taking.

Score: A-

#Star Wars #Star Wars games #review #reviews #Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order #Fallen Order

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onwardintolight · 5 years

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In which Onward rereads the Thrawn Trilogy and writes a massive review (and some other related stuff)

Alright, so I know I said that the characterization vs. plot thing in new canon vs. Legends was a rant for another time, but I’ve been thinking about it nonstop since and I really need to get a few thoughts out, so I guess this is that time, lol.

I’ve recently been diving into some of the Legends books for the first time in years. Partly because I’ve started listening to audiobooks and can get a whole lot more reading done in a day than I was able to before, and partly... well, I’m just curious to revisit it. I read a number of books from the old EU as a kid, and I definitely had mixed feelings back then. On the one hand, I was delighted—more Star Wars! Yay! On the other hand are the mixed feelings, which have so faded from memory over time that all I can remember anymore is that I didn’t like how the books portrayed Leia.

So anyway, I’ve been curious to give some of them a shot again, and see what I think now (all except COPL. I’m never going back to that one). I started with two that have come on my radar through the Han x Leia fandom, Tatooine Ghost and Razor’s Edge. They were wonderful! I absolutely loved Tatooine Ghost, especially. Razor’s Edge was super fun and had some truly fantastic moments (including some unforgettable shippy ones), but it felt more plot-driven than I tend to prefer (give me ALL the deep character stuff!). Despite that, I still loved it. I already own Tatooine Ghost and I plan to get my own copy of Razor’s Edge, too.

Then I decided to revisit the Thrawn trilogy.

Oh boy.

Before I dive into that, though, I first want to say that I have many friends on here for whom the old EU is their Star Wars. I have the utmost admiration for you all, and I mean no disrespect. I support you in this being your Star Wars 100%. I’m not seeking to get into any big arguments or flame wars. In fact, I will put most of my ranting about Heir to the Empire et al under a cut, so please feel free not to engage if that sort of thing bothers you.

Honestly, I’m a big fan of focusing on positivity in fandom, of focusing on what I love and not harassing others who enjoy things I don’t. That being said, I do support a good critique. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not trying to force my views on anyone, but I can certainly express them in my own space and support other people’s right to express theirs in their space. What better space to do so than on my tumblr?

Before I go under the cut, I have one last question for my old EU stans. Based on my enjoyment of Tatooine Ghost and Razor’s Edge, and knowing I’m a particular sucker for character-driven stories, especially if they involve Leia and Han (and/or their ship), are there any other Legends books you’d recommend? Please let me know because I would love to discover more of that goodness!

Now, onto the Thrawn trilogy....

(It probably goes without saying, but major spoilers ahead)

Disclaimer: I’m sorry if I get some of the details wrong; I listened to the audiobooks and don’t have access to the books themselves right now so i’m writing out all these thoughts from memory

About Leia

So, it turns out that little me was right. Older me had the exact same reaction upon reading the Thrawn trilogy. What the heck did Zahn do to Leia? She seemed so diminished, shrinking. Hardly like Leia at all. If I had been reading a physical book, I would have been tempted to throw it numerous times.

First of all, she was set aside almost entirely for the first book. Despite the fact that the Empire was looking for Luke too, Luke got to be free and keep roaming the galaxy, doing his thing, and Leia was forced into hiding. If I remember right, it wasn’t really her choice (I believe it was Han who refused to take her no for an answer), nor did she argue it much. She just kind of followed the men in her life and let them do all the leading and galaxy-saving. Sounds a lot like Leia, right? *rolls eyes* Overall, she didn’t do much, and she didn’t have any part in the big climactic battle.

(On another note this reminds me a little of one of Zahn’s new canon books, Thrawn Alliances. SPOILER ALERT: at a key moment, Thrawn pleads with Padme to talk with Anakin and try to convince him not to do something really terrible and disastrous that probably will result in people dying, and Padme basically just sighs, throws up her hands and says something like “It’s no use. When he gets this way no one can convince him of anything” and I just want to SCREAM BECAUSE NO THAT’S NOT THE FREAKING PADME I KNOW AND SERIOUSLY???)

Anyway. *calms down*

In Dark Force Rising, Leia had a much more interesting plotline as she wins the allegience of the Noghri. I liked her better here, and she seemed a tiny bit more like the Leia I know. But it still just felt... lackluster.

In The Last Command, she’s once again pushed to the side thanks to the men in her life making the decisions in the name of protecting her. True, I understand that for the majority of these books, she’s been pregnant, and so it’s not just about protecting her, but about protecting the twins. But that didn’t stop her from doing what she felt she needed to in Dark Force Rising. And in this book, she’s already given birth. Winter’s there; she can take care of the twins (as she eventually does). When the heroes assemble and go to Wayland for the big climax of the trilogy, she’s convinced by the men to stay behind (*cue me throwing imaginary book across the room*). Honestly, it felt contrived for the sake of the plot (she has to be there for what happens next) and more than a little bit sexist.

She does eventually go, however, which made me want to cheer. I would have hated it way more if she hadn’t gotten to participate in the big last battle with C’baoth, particularly in light of the way the books had set her up as a Jedi-in-training (not very far along, but still). I was excited because surely this must mean she plays a big part in that, right?

...She does not. She basically shows up and then gets trapped, doing hardly anything. Plot-wise, she’s pretty much there to provide an extra lightsaber and moral support of the Force-user variety. I’m glad she got to be there, but... yeah, overall, I’m really not happy with how these books treated my favorite character, and one of the actual main characters of the OT. It kind of felt like she was replaced by Mara, tbh. Which leads me to...

About Mara

Mara, like Leia used to be, is a very angry person, and for good reason. But her anger came off in these books as rather petulant and irrational. Once again, it felt a bit sexist. I hope I’m wrong, but the trajectory seems to be a trope that Leia has already been subject to (in ROTJ, as much as I love that movie, and with the job finished in this trilogy): Soften the angry woman. Make her pleasant and pliable and a little bit subservient. Legends fans, PLEASE tell me this doesn’t happen to Mara. I hope she continues to be a sarcastic, independent woman who takes no sh*t. I hope she loses none of her power, even as she loves and marries Luke.

Mara had probably the biggest character arc of this entire trilogy. Unfortunately, that isn’t saying much. I really felt like her story had a lot of potential and could have been really compelling, but Zahn just doesn’t seem to know how to write characters with depth. In the end, her big moment of throwing off the Emperor’s power over her honestly just felt kind of contrived and shallow. Oh look, here’s a clone of Luke she can kill instead. That will magically make it all go away. Convenient.

I wanted to love her. I think I probably could love her, if I read good fanfic. The problem is that the source material leaves all depth to the imagination.

About Everything Else

I mentioned that Mara seems to have the biggest character arc, but that wasn’t saying much. I had a lot of trouble distinguishing any other character arcs at all. The characters all seemed to be caught up in this big plot, carried along with it and deposited victorious at the end, without any obvious growth or change (except, again, for Mara).

I suppose you could say that Luke learned to stand on his feet without the help of Ben’s Force ghost. But that was given such minor emphasis that I didn’t even think of it until this moment, weeks after finishing the book.

Aside from my rage at the misogyny, I think this gets to the heart of why I disliked these books. The motivations and emotional/personal journeys of the characters are of utmost importance to me. To me, they’re the whole point. When a book is all plot and little character, I just... don’t care. It doesn’t feel real or relevant. It doesn’t show me that I can slay dragons, too.

I know that theoretically, I could imagine those character journeys. I could fill in the blanks in my mind, or through fic. I have a big imagination; I’m really pretty good at such things.

But tbh, when it comes to these books, I don’t even want to. To me, the plot itself felt pretty lackluster. I keep using the word “contrived” but it fits so well. Things happened and decisions were made that didn’t make much sense, just so the plot could go the way Zahn wanted it to. Now of course the same argument could be made for new canon (particularly, imho, the ST movies), but at least with new canon, there’s a deliberate and largely persistent focus on character. (And less sexism.)

Other complaints:

- I got sick of C’baoth in the first book. His villainy was not the least bit fearful or intimidating. His nearly prevailing over the heroes at Wayland felt more accidental than anything.

- Don’t get me started on stupid Bel Iblis and his stupid hurt manly pride that the women in power have to coddle and bow down to before he will lift a finger to help during a genuine EMERGENCY when he was desperately NEEDED (*cue me throwing the imaginary book across the room yet again*) (I think Leia would have had a few more choice words for him than she did in this book. They instantly presented themselves to my mind, at least)

- I can understand why Thrawn was such a big deal when these books first came out, but I think Thrawn is kind of oversaturated these days, and tbh I’m kind of sick of him (I’m going to blame the more recent canon Thrawn trilogy for that). While I like a good Sherlock Holmes mystery, I’m not too big on admiring that sort of “man as a machine” type character. Rationality is not everything, not by a long shot. It is empty and, frankly, shortsighted on its own. The best part about Thrawn’s story in these books for me was seeing him make mistakes (actual mistakes! yay!) and meet his end, perhaps in part due to that over-reliance on rationality and arrogance in his own abilities.

A few things I did like:

- another main female character, yay! Two if you count Winter

- I thought Talon Karrde was an enjoyable character and I’d love to see more of him

- I remember loving the vornskrs as a kid and a little bit of that adoration returned when I read this, bringing with it all sorts of happy nostalgia

- some parts of the plot were fun and exciting, and I could understand why they might feel iconic and Star Wars-y to others

Overall, however, I think Thrawn as a character kind of represents these books as a whole. It’s all very cerebral and practical. There’s art but it only serves the purpose of the rational. To me, these books felt like they were all mind, no soul.

I know that those of you who hold these books dear may disagree, and that’s fine. Honestly, despite my serious problems with them, I don’t hate these books. I might even read them again someday, maybe. I may be convinced to appreciate them more once I read people’s headcanons and hear what people love about it. So with that said, what DO you love about it? Where do you see these books’ soul?

#I was going to tag this with the appropriate tags #but then I decided I'd rather not open myself up to the toxic variety of Legends fans #(of which I know you all are not but which do obviously exist out there)#anyway #it feels good to get all that off my chest #thoughts #Star Wars

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jess-the-vampire · 5 years

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With how u and others felt about season 4, mostly the second half(i dont hv mucn to say, it made no impact on me thats good or bad compare to other serie finales) how would you write season 4 and its plot lines(especially the shipping). Maybe ull inpire some people to do their own takes

according to your question, you’re asking me to keep all the plotlines the same, but change how they’re written.

alright, fair enough.

Here’s basically all the plots of this season:

Eclipsa trying to win the favors of her people (+ Globgor)

Mina’s whole thing

The Love Plot

i mean, that is the majority of it unless we consider minor detials that went nowhere as far as plot but maybe i can actually give them actual purpose (Like the spell that EATS DIMENSIONS that meant nothing).

it’s hard to believe the show could wrap EVERYTHING up in one season, so that’s not what i’m going to do, but i’m gonna try and see how much i personally feel i COULD give resolution to if i had the same plots, and one season left.

you can probably keep the beginning mostly the same with finding and retrieving moon, though maybe foreshadow mina slightly in these episodes, even if it’s one-off dialogue.

and we can keep moon running a mewman town atm, living peacefully, and coming across mina.

Mina however, should have gotten a flashback episode, i don’t care who she’s telling it to, or maybe even moon is telling it to someone else, that one clip of mina and solaria could’ve been expanded upon.

we could’ve seen how solaria manipulated her and how every one of her pals were killed, making her into a more interesting and dynamic threat, you could even name-drop seth in here, if not just give him a small cameo as a general they face off against.

Also, if we keep the “Moon was behind it the whole time” plot twist, give her a dang better reason then what she gave, and foreshadow it better, maybe because she doesn’t trust globgor herself, maybe because meteora wrecked and almost destroyed mewni, maybe it’s because she can’t fully trust the monsters because she’s worried of what could happen if they’re in power after past destruction like what toffee did.

and don’t easily forgive her by the end, she has a lot of things to make up for for this and you could even use it for foreshadowing if you were going for a s5.

The whole topic about star being a bad gf? Ok, good, because LHF is a good episode (And i stand by that).

What we do after however? We actually have Star LEARN FROM HER ACTIONS.

Because you know what the biggest issue with that episode is? It’s not in the episode itself, it’s the fact the episode blatantly shows us Star is an awful Gf and runs from her issues…and she never actually LEARNS from these issues in the series, the show lets her treat tom badly and then rewards her for it by giving her a new bf undeservedly

Star actually starts to try and be a better GF and person to Tom afterwards, and i mean she actually TRIES and MAKES AN EFFORT, maybe it pays off or maybe it doesn’t but having her do nothing only worsened her character.

Also, unless we’re making kellco endgame, don’t even do it at all, just don’t.

We’re gonna resolve the annoying love plot immediately, out the gate, because dragging it on for so long only hurt the show in the end. You can throw in a conflict near the end if you want but we ain’t dragging it out over and over.

Either star improves and tomstar works out and we do something neat with it at the end, everyone stays single, or we maybe pull a tomco or stomco here.

also, the moon actually does something (Because marco saying it was all bs not only makes no sense whatsoever, but makes all the interesting questions about it seem meaningless).

The moon ain’t meaningless, it actually has a freaking point in the PLOT.

There’s about to be an all out war between the monsters and the solarians (The other kingdoms are fighting against the solarians, because that’d be a freaking GREAT shot for the end of a series).

The evil spell with no name gets sent out and starts causing chaos as well.

And so we can give that dang room at St Olga’s some actual payoff, let’s do my stupid sun-moon-star theory, and those three are the key to stopping the war between them.

They do acknowledge toffee had a point about magic and what it did, but they also make a point that magic wasn’t the enemy, it was the people who used it.

they summon solaria together, and all the dang ghosts queens, and solaria (Who looks ashamed of what she sees in front of her as far as the solarians) breaks their solarian bond HERSELF( because they pledged their allegiance to her), they fall, and so does the dark spell.

and because this show already has a habit of doing dues ex-machinas, how about the three of them, with moon, and eclipsa, and meteora, and then all the other characters, just hold hands, even the ghosts, and use the magic (Everyone just pops up with cheekmarks), to heal those who were injured, allowing for everyone to be able to use magic.

Yes, like we can watch every fan-fav character just have glowing cheekmarks from using magic with everyone else.

Earlier in the season the topic of “Butterflies restrict magic to themselves and how that affects other creatures” can be brought up to prepare for this.

Magic is widespread.

And before Mina gets taken away, if we keep tomstar, they can hold hands and we can zoom in on that as they make a note of how mewmans and monsters worked together and things are changing and all that.

When it comes to Eclipsa’s plot, it’s full of good ideas but lacks a lot of the stuff it seems to build up.

ok, we might be too late for eclipsa, but Globgor i think should’ve been kept a little more morally grey, the guy is a war criminal but he’s just accepted too easily for my taste, i think we needed an episode about his past actions, what happened with shastacan and his regrets. And spend some time after with him making amends with his wrongdoings to do better for mewni and so they are less fearful of him

we can get more insight as to how monsters and mewmans feel about him, what the other kingdoms think about him, ect, if we spend a few episodes with eclipsa talking to the kingdoms to improve their opinion on her.

We don’t need to see all of them, some can remain in the background, and the spiderbite episode was good.

But the show could’ve taken advantage of showing us these kingdoms and learning about them and their opinions on all of this. Heck, you could have one episode with a few at a time where Eclipsa is working on several at once to find they all have differing opinions, we could learn more about the jaggs, the waterfolk, and the johansens this way.

you could have one episode be for the lucitors to not only provide some moon forshadowing, but go further into the discussion about what doesn’t count as a monster and what does and it might provide some tom and meteora babysitting shenanigans that would’ve been cute to see (Especially if he teased marco on it).

you could also mention celena was part demon as well if tom being one is mentioned.

oh and, this would be great set-up for the fight at the end if they are on eclipsa’s side to fight with her.

the monster racism plot, well it’s hard to make it much better cause it’s kinda flakey as is but you can keep some of the messages about the youth being better over time and tbh the sequences of everyone using magic together could really suit the message of unison to save everyone they love and care about.

Also, can we not make the MHC into flat out villains? If they are working with mina, either replace them, or put them on trial, but just…make them less flat out evil.

we can keep meteora’s lesson and such.

as far as mariposa goes, you can bring her in at the end, do a small timeskip, and we see her, and she and meteora are friends.

That or, tom could be staying with star and marco on earth a little before the trip with star and we could do the GBG episode with them as adults fine enough, and maybe tom is either sleeping or hanging with them in the episode.

Tom can be with them for beach day as well, even the tacos episode which could be funny.

also, that trip tom was going on? Yeah, that’s actually at the end or the series, and kelly, marco, and star, and janna, jackie, chloe, and pony come with and see just see a lot of fun vacation pics in other dimensions and with various characters.

this entire post might be full of rambling and i dunno how much sense it makes.

But if i could write a more epic and more satisfying season, even if i can’t wrap up everything, i’d try to do it at least a little more like this.

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svstfoe

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