#back trajectories

[soosdraws]

“then why do you draw, fujino?”

[manichewitz]

people who only want gay characters to be played by gay actors just dont understand the appeal of two ostensibly straight actors playing two ostensibly straight characters yet having so much chemistry together that they actually want to make out with each other more than just keep with whatever weird subtextual thing is already going on

[crybaby-bkg]

“I thought I was supposed to be the one worshipping you today,” you say in a gasp, eyes fluttering close as you grip the sink counter tight in front of you. Bakugou only huffs a little laugh, his nails digging into the fat of your ass before he taps his palm against the flesh hard, eliciting a little hiccup from you.

“‘S my birthday, so what I say goes.” he tells you muffled, the vibration of his words making your knees quake. he has to hold you up, but he doesn’t care, finds the weight of you pressing back into him something he can get drunk off of.

he woke up nearly right after you did, trying to squeeze you close to him in bed but you scrambled out of his hold, promising to make him breakfast instead. you hadn’t expected him to follow you, to press you against the sink, to nip at your neck and kiss his way down to where your underwear rested on your hips. hadn’t expected him to drop to his knees, to worship, to kiss, to taste you. hadn’t expected him to lick you so sweetly with such a rough tongue through the fabric, for your arousal to bleed through onto his waiting tongue.

“Better than breakfast,” he mutters against you, thick fingers spreading you wide to get a good look at your winking hole, how it drools down the inside of your legs. he spits on it, diving back in to follow the trail, his lips puckering as if kissing you in such an intimate way, you think your vision goes black for a moment.

“Make me cum,” you whimper to him, his lapping pushing you up onto your toes, your hips digging into the sink counter. you reach a hand back to hold his face still with a grip on ash blond locks, grinding yourself against him until his face becomes sticky, but he grins all the while. rolls his tongue from his mouth, lets you use him because there’s no better present than being able to please you.

it comes out as a gush, your pleasure. sprays all over his mouth and chin and neck, your cries stuttered and high, your eyes clenched shut, your entire body shaking from the stimulation that overtakes you.

“Even better than birthday breakfast.” Bakugou grins, nose slightly scrunching at the tug to his hair when he slurps at your hole that still drips for him, spitting back the contents once more. he doesn’t catch it this time, just watches the thickness of his spit mingle with your pearlescent stained cum, thumbing open your cheeks to watch your hole clench and unclench from the scrutiny, the wetness slipping down your thighs.

he kisses you once more, a smacking sound, humiliating, before letting your cheeks go. not without another smack on the roundness of them, nipping at the red and warmed mark of his palm that he branded on you just moments before.

“A lot fucking better.” he tacks on once more about the stupid breakfast. you glare at him over your shoulder, even though he’s the one who’s keeping you held up right now with his firm grip around your still twitching hips.

“You’re gonna stop shading my cooking, asshole.” you bite at him, unable to hold back a shudder when you catch his devious grin, the bottom half of his face and neck still wet from your squirting.

“You caught that?” he asks with an innocent cock of his head, pressing another innocuous kiss to your warmed flesh. you tug at his hair a little harder this time, knowing it’s something that the birthday boy loves, especially by the way he’s damn near leaked through his white boxers.

“Shit head.” you mumble, but he only grins wider, his eyes flickering with the promise of devouring you whole today. just as a little birthday treat, he supposes.

[gayofthefae]

Will haunting the narrative as both the innocent who was wrongfully destroyed AND the one that got away.

Season 2 Will impacting everything Mike does from that point forward just as much as Will's death impacts everyone.

El thinks of him when she confronts Brenner about the mind flayer, we know things like that. But Mike also thinks of him when he tells El he loves her.

They're all thinking of him. The last time they saw him.

The way he was never the same.

But Mike is thinking about the last time he saw him.

Losing him.

The way they were never the same.

(The way he can't get him back)

Yes, Will's disappearance changed everyone's trajectory forever. But he also changed Mike. He also made Mike's personal and romantic life impossible to return to after him.

He haunts more than just the people who mourn his death.

(The sole purpose of Mike's season 2 separation from El in the first place is so that he can never truly go back after Will)

[yesloulou]

Daniel Ricciardo talks about fame and attention after Drive to Survive

[yrsonpurpose]

When you hold me, it holds me together.

[kindaorangey]

wait you guys... iwbft2 being an adult novel also means that jimmy could actually call lister a faggot on page in canon. life could be a dream

[palidoozy-art]

:) Slightly fleshed out sketch.

The campaign epilogue for Kjosev. My boy got his happy ending with a wife and three daughters.

[sreppub]

I try to brainstorm thesis topics (I'm years out of school and I've been on the fence about going back) and they keep coming out as vaguely relevant surface topics with underlying psychological horror narratives. then im like is this telling me something or am i just incredibly cool

[shopwitchvamp]

So as gauche as it's gonna be, I'm gonna be back to posting & boosting preorders despite everything :[ Like especially because I have all these amazing guest artists who put their hard work into designing for this set & have entrusted me with their artwork.. I don't want to let them down by having the collection fall flat. I wish I'd chosen different timing for these preorders but unfortunately there wasn't realistically any other time that would work since we'll be moving early next year. I hope you'll all understand that I've gotta keep trying to push forward. Thanks as always for your support, everyone 🖤

[clonerightsagenda]

The thing about my contract requiring author talks is that at some point someone is going to ask me irl 'where did this idea come from' and I am going to have to decide whether to include 'I got mad at the Magnus Archives' in there

[thatswhatsushesaid]

characters who are oriented towards survival and self-preservation often look to other characters who are in more stable positions socially (and are similarly interpreted by some readers) as being exclusively self-interested. which is, i suppose, not a completely inaccurate interpretation. prioritizing one's survival is a type of self-interest. but it is self-interest that comes from a place of not wanting to, you know. die.

--- this post has been added to my dreamwidth meta archive here: https://thatswhatsushewrote.dreamwidth.org/4706.html

[after-witch]

an older InuYasha fic rec!

I am feeling mighty nostalgic lately, and was determined last night to find this older InuYasha fic I read ages ago with an original character and the Band of Seven--and I finally found it!

Destined to Kill by SatineSatire

I think it's a great example of an "older" fandom fic with an original character worked into the story that feels plausible.

[serpentface]

Question about Couya! Since she is a bastard what are the reasons about her being brought into the main family by her father. Was it genuine care for his child or a way to save face politically/socially? Is her birth mother alive? Do you think she would have had a better life growing up anywhere else?

This is in large part due to how cultural perceptions and legal punishment of adultery varies between male and female citizens, looped into the very strictly patrilineal kinship system.

By legal definition, the word for 'adultery' applies only to situations where a man has an affair with a married woman, or a married woman has an affair with any man. Other forms of affairs (eg a married man having an affair with an unmarried woman) are wrapped into a broader set of sexual misdemeanors and aren't often charged or punished in practice, and the punishments are comparatively minor (if an unwed woman's father pursues charges, the man in the affair is likely to just pay a fine). On a social level, extramaritial affairs in general are certainly not Approved of and seen as lowly and dishonorable, but the average response is significantly less harsh/more willing to entertain Nuance with men than with women.

In this society there's differentiated shades of bastardry depending on the contexts of the child's birth, as well as a distinction for 'nameless bastards' (has not been claimed by their biological father or maternal grandfather, or claimed in adoption).

a) A child born to an unmarried woman via an unmarried man: non-issue for father, potentially serious social harm for the woman (especially if she has never been married and expected virginal, much less severe as a widow or divorcee). The child will not be notably disadvantaged in of themselves (their status will depend more on whether they are claimed and thus provided the social security of a family patriarch), the father will experience no hard disadvantages in claiming them.

b) A child born to an unmarried woman via a married man: mild sexual misdemeanor for the father carrying levels of social shame, even more serious social harm for the woman (often framed as not just loose but a manipulative Seductress of a married man). The child might experience minor to moderate social disadvantages, the consequences of the father claiming them are purely social and will not typically be severe. (Couya is this)

c) A child born to a married woman via an unmarried or married man: both man and woman have committed a crime and can be severely punished. The biological father can technically claim the child but will be disincentivized from doing so. This is the form of bastardry most comparable to the conventional definition, in that it is heavily stigmatized and has effects on concerns of kinship and inheritance.

In addendum to this, if the adulterous wife's legal husband claims the child, this may be punishable if determined to be active concealment of adultery (which is also a crime), and has EXTREME social consequences either way. (Either you're a cuckold too stupid to notice that your wife has been skipping out on you, or you're a MEGAcuckold adultery-accessory willingly rearing another man's child after being horribly shamed by him).

(This is separate from adoption- a man who marries a woman with an unclaimed child after the fact (whether it was a product of adultery or just a general out of wedlock birth) and claims the child is an adoptive father, he is not concealing adultery or being cuckolded.)

A child born in an affair can be considered an heir to their biological fathers (descent and kinship is fully patrilineal and on a Basic level it doesn't matter who the mother is), and can very smoothly and legally be claimed when the affair was not considered criminal adultery. The concern on that front is social perception rather than material legal consequences or kinship issues.

Couya's birth mother was an unwed servant working as a housekeeper for her father Saizen, so the Crime of adultery did not take place. It would be considered a minor sexual misdemeanor, and the woman's father was not about to pursue charges against a nobleman who could Ruin him (and had also formally expressed that he would claim the child, which meant he would not be saddled with a nameless bastard granddaughter). So the concerns here were entirely social.

The affair might have started beforehand but the pregnancy that produced Couya occurred after his wife's third viable pregnancy ended in the premature birth of a underdeveloped boy deemed necessary to euthanize (and tbr would Not have survived either way). This was after Livya Haidamane had a couple early term miscarriages, two viable but very difficult pregnancies wherein one child was very weak and sickly for the first several years of life, and struggled to conceive every time. A lot of people are going to be at least a little sympathetic to a married man having an affair and claiming a bastard in this context. It's definitely ideal and practical to have more than two children, and his wife (while not outright infertile) clearly could not reliably bear healthy children. (The average response is going to be "Well he shouldn't have done it but like, I get it")

Couya being claimed by her father was a mix of genuine care and saving face. Initially it was MUCH more the latter than the former. Saizen made attempts to hide the servant's pregnancy and to keep his own wife out of sight during the late term (to prevent the baby appearing after his wife had been seen Extremely not pregnant). But there's some levels of care involved, he could very easily have fired the pregnant servant and had nothing to do with his bastard and she would have no recompense whatsoever. The choice to keep and claim the baby and ensure its entrance into the world bore as little social scrutiny as possible is an act of care for his own progeny.

This was Not an act of care for Couya's birth mother (beyond the fact that concealing her pregnancy would benefit her in hiding that she is not only Not a virgin prior to marriage but had a child). She probably would have been about 17-19 at the time and was fired a few months after giving birth, and most likely never saw Couya again after this point (if she did, it would most likely be in the context of seeing her as an adult Odonii in public and noting her to look Scarily familiar). She has an Okayish chance at still being alive, she'd be around 50 (and a person who survives the high infant mortality and birth casualty rates stands a good chance of hitting their 60s), though she could very well be a casualty of the drought+famine.

Whether or not Couya's life would have been better is kind of a mixed bag. She had an awful fucking childhood in large part because her adoptive mother Livya Haidamane hated her. (Livya was ultimately a pretty horrible person but not just like. An Evil Bitch. She had A Lot going on and Couya was a living breathing insult to her and reminder of like, every one of her dashed hopes and dreams). Couya is also autistic and presented very intense symptoms as a child in a society that is Not equipped for a mass-understanding and support of cognitive differences. But she still did have an immensely privileged life with profound physical/economic levels of security inaccessible to the vast majority of people in this region, including her birth mother. Saizen also actually Liked her and cared about her, he just wasn't a routine physical presence in any of his children's lives.

Had she been left with her biological mother, she would be in a very disadvantaged situation as a nameless bastard to an unwed mother. Her biological grandfather may or may not have been willing to claim her, and her mother would have great difficulties in finding a husband (which is ultimately necessary for the security of women in this society). I think her mother was a relatively kind person but not like, a perfect angel. She would probably have complicated feelings about her bastard daughter, especially one whose very existence materially disadvantages her and was very, very difficult as a child. So this probably would not have been a good situation for Couya either.

If you broaden the question to ANY other family completely divorced from the circumstances of her birth, yeah it definitely could have been better. But in her case it's like either "Life of grotesque socioeconomic privilege but in an abusive household" or "Life of profound socioeconomic disadvantages in a household that Probably wouldn't have been this abusive but certainly wouldn't be healthy". There wasn't really a good option for her.

[ceruleanblueshells]

yes break ups hurt but have u ever been told by ur closest friend that they dislike the character that u secretly most relate to

[saltyvg-draws]

DRAGONS ROOST GOES CRAZY!!!

more trigun art babey!!

everytime vash loses his grip on his humanity i'm there in the background losing my mind cheering and clapping

i'm still experiementing with this semi-lineless style! but it's tons of fun :D