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starcurtain · 14 hours

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A Look at Ratio and Aventurine... and Ratio/Aventurine

I was morally obligated to use this picture.

Anyway, I got an ask about my understanding of Ratio and Aventurine's relationship both in canon and as a ship that I have been holding on to for a while now because... phew, there's like... a lot to talk about there... But I felt I should at least give it a try, so here is my attempt to comment on the intersection of two of Star Rail's most complicated personalities. Long post is longgggg; you have been warned.

First, Aventurine's canon relationship to Ratio:

In the interest of not hitting tumblr's image limit, let's just throw out some of the information we have in one go:

It's pretty complimentary. (Yet somehow...)

The implication of the infamous "Keeping Up with Star Rail" video is that Ratio understands Aventurine better than anyone else, and Aventurine knows this. At the very least, putting all shipping aside, Ratio is the person who can explain Aventurine's behaviors best. He's the person Aventurine chooses do so. This suggests significantly more knowledge of each other's lives than the game first led us to believe.

Other people (read as: my GOAT Owlbert) perceive respect from Aventurine to Ratio, and although I read them as a bit sarcastic, the 2.1 mission logs not only repeatedly confirm that Aventurine views Ratio as smart and reliable, but that Ratio is reliable "as always," again indicating a longer and closer history of collaboration than we get to actively see in game. The devs were working hard to tell us "Penacony isn't Ratiorine's first rodeo," which is interesting--given Topaz's voiceline recommending the Trailblazer avoid working with Aventurine whenever possible, we're led to believe through 2.0 and 2.1 that not many people will willingly work with Aventurine more than once, let alone many times.

While going through psychological scrutiny from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come his Harmony-infused self, the "Future" Aventurine suggests that Ratio and Aventurine are quite similar, and that Aventurine puts a surprising amount of trust in Ratio, to be willing to hinge such a dangerous plan on something as untested as Ratio's ability to act. At the very least, Aventurine's own psyche is pondering on Ratio and whether or not their connection has any emotional meaning.

But despite all this evidence suggesting Ratio and Aventurine spend significantly more time with each other than we get to see in game, Aventurine's own thoughts cast strong doubt on whether he and Ratio are actually close.

Aventurine's "About Dr. Ratio" voice line suggests that Aventurine believes Ratio does not particularly like him. He seems to think that Ratio would prefer to stay away from IPC operations where possible, and it's "unfortunate" for Ratio to be stuck with Aventurine as a conversation partner. He's tolerated, rather than enjoyed. His overall impression seems to be that Ratio mostly views them as distant coworkers.

When the "Future" Aventurine suggests Ratio did not betray Aventurine willingly, actual Aventurine immediately pushes back:

(Personally I'm on the fence about whether this was real doubt or just a ploy to continue sussing out Sunday; see my other post about this scene for some more thoughts.)

But if we take this statement to be played straight, it implies that Aventurine doesn't fully believe Ratio will side with him, even (maybe especially) in dire circumstances. If this statement is real doubt, then despite considering Ratio the person who best understands him, despite building an entire life or death gamble around Ratio's loyalty... Aventurine still doesn't think Ratio even likes him.

Aventurine's not stupid or blind, so theoretically he should be able to read the situation better than that. But actually, there's plenty of evidence both in the game and outside it to suggest that Aventurine is not the most accurate judge of his own relationships to others and is a down-right terrible judge of his own worth as a person.

"Future" Aventurine suggests that one of Aventurine's deep inner flaws--the truths that he rejects about himself--is a massive inferiority complex. This is backed up well by the mission text, where Aventurine's thoughts about himself spiral into self-harm, and the scene in the maze, where "Future" Aventurine taunts our Aventurine with the unforgettable fact that his entire life was only worth pennies:

There's also pretty consistent self-deprecation, with both "Future" and real Aventurine noting several times that he's a pathetic mess of a person that other people don't trust or like.

The overall impression 2.0-2.1 left me with is that Aventurine is perfectly capable of respecting and caring for others, but virtually incapable of accepting other people genuinely respecting and caring for him.

Part of this seems to stem from the directly-stated sense that he's a failure whose only worth is in transactional exchanges, using and being used by others (there's so many layers to this--internalized racism even), but I also suspect that much of his inability to accept genuine connection from others is defensive behavior.

Aventurine's true self, Kakavasha, is deeply hidden away, like the ghost of the child that manifests from his Harmony delusion in the Dreamscape. Although Aventurine clings to that person, claiming that he has "never changed," he actively coats over his beliefs, his kindness, and his authenticity with the mask of a "cavalier gambler," with glitz and glamor and showy distractions. No one gets to see Kakavasha. No one gets to know him, because being buried deep in the dirt is the only way to remain untouchable, and fiercely keeping one's distance is the only safe bet. (For both Kakavasha and any fools who would doom themselves by daring to care for him.)

So: Canon is telling us that Ratio is one of, if not the, closest people in the world to Aventurine. But canon is also telling us that that still means absolutely nothing at all, because Aventurine won't let himself be close to anyone living.

Aventurine's senses of self-worth, trust, attachment, and safety have been warped so badly by ongoing and untreated trauma and mental health issues that, at least until the end of 2.1, I just don't think he was capable of even accepting genuine friendship from Ratio, let alone anything more.

(Interesting side note here: Ratio is actually one of the people Aventurine calls "my friend" the least. He only says it directly to Ratio a single time in all of their lines of dialogue across 2.0 and 2.1, and even then, does so only when right outside Sunday's door, while almost certainly being spied upon by the Family. Anyone who knows how often "my friend" is peppered into Aventurine's dialogue otherwise should know that the absence of the phrase is actually pretty telling. It almost feels like canon Aventurine's not even sure he can call Ratio his friend, at least to Ratio's face.)

Which makes Ratio's canon relationship to Aventurine quite sad and ironic:

From start to finish, Ratio canonically esteems Aventurine more highly than almost any other character in the game. I'm not even talking about shipping when I say that there is no character Ratio is closer to in the entire game.

At present, Ratio has only four voice lines about other characters, and of those four, Aventurine's is the only one that isn't someone from the Genius Society. The only one. Ratio's voice lines are also notably, uh, not very complimentary. Herta is "talented but not helpful to others" and "sees no one as her equal" (read as: she's self-absorbed). Screwllum is a "monarch, rather than a genius" (with the vague implications of being a tyrant), and Ruan Mei is overly ambitious and "fooling everyone."

Meanwhile, Aventurine is "our man" (who is "our" Ratio? who?) whose success "can't all be chalked up to luck," implying that part of Aventurine's success must come from skill. Ratio notes that Aventurine questions his own ability... but as far as Ratio's evaluation goes, he seems to doubt that Aventurine will ever experience a downfall. For someone who thinks 99% of the people he meets are mediocre failures scrambling around in the filth of existence, to be recognized as skilled and unlikely to fail is quite obviously glowing praise.

Then, of course, there are numerous moments that echo Aventurine's hints, implying that Ratio spends significantly more time with Aventurine than we see on-screen, that he knows Aventurine extremely well, and, although he tries (vainly) to pretend he isn't, he's clearly quite concerned with what Aventurine thinks of him.

Especially this last one. "No wonder that gambler likes you so much" is pretty intentional on the devs' part, confirming that Ratio and Aventurine are having off-screen conversations we players are not privy to, which obviously would indicate a closer relationship than the in-game cutscenes could cover.

Then, Trailblazer has the option to flat out ask Ratio to "rate" Aventurine. (Star Rail ship bait is not even subtle.)

At first, this line might read as all over the place:

"The bosses say we're partners but I wouldn't say that" -> Read as: Ratio wants people to know how their relationship is classified but doesn't want to admit to being actually invested.

"I see myself as the teacher to everyone I meet" -> Read as: Ratio at least pretends that he doesn't view anyone as his equal; everyone is either above him--geniuses--or below him--students.

"Aventurine is not that bad of a student" -> High praise; even Ratio can't pretend Aventurine's untalented.

"Actually, Aventurine's probably in metaphysical danger" -> Read as: Ratio is aware of the "void" Aventurine is experiencing and his mental struggles.

The ultimate takeaway of Ratio's "rating" actually says more about Ratio than Aventurine. When it comes down to it, Ratio's choice to answer this question for the Trailblazer instead of dismiss it tells us that Ratio has spent time quantifying and trying to define his relationship with Aventurine, is willing to at least discuss that relationship with other people (when we have no evidence he ever discusses any other personal/non-academic matters with anyone), and that Ratio pays attention to Aventurine's mental states.

Canon Ratio is not beating the allegations, I'm afraid.

But actually, I think the biggest tell about Ratio's canon relationship to Aventurine is that Ratio's behavior completely changes the moment Aventurine appears in the game.

In every single one of Ratio's other appearances, two facts are hammered home again and again:

First, Ratio hates interacting with fools and "noisy" people. He wears his plaster bust so that he doesn't even have to see them. Canonically, we're informed by both March 7th and Argenti that Ratio brought and was wearing his headpiece in Penacony. Curiously though...

The players never see it throughout 2.X--probably because 90% of Ratio's scenes are with Aventurine, and Ratio is never shown wearing his bust on screen with Aventurine--even in their very first meeting in the Final Victor lightcone. Aventurine clearly knows of the bust, but despite Ratio verbally going on and on about how Aventurine is the most "flashy" and "devoid of logic" person Ratio knows... the devs deliberately send their message: Ratio has chosen not to cut himself off from Aventurine.

Aventurine can be more "clamorous" than a screaming peacock, but Ratio will still not put up walls against him. This isn't accidental. The devs had every opportunity in the world to go the opposite route and make jokes about Ratio refusing to take the bust off in Aventurine's obnoxious presence; instead they decided that Ratio apparently has a glaring, Aventurine-shaped exception to his "I don't want to perceive you fools or be perceived by you" life rule.

This "willing to tolerate shenanigans only if Aventurine is involved" behavior continues basically throughout all of Penacony's plot. In 2.3 for example, if you turn around and talk to Ratio again on the Radiant Feldspar, he flat out says:

But there's no actual explanation for why he's there in the first place. He mentions he was assigned to watch over "the IPC's ambassadors," which theoretically should apply to Jade and Topaz, yet we never see him interacting with them in any capacity. He's never even shown in the same room as Jade or Topaz, and he's not shown doing any other form of business for the IPC on the Feldspar either. Theoretically, he could have been on the Feldspar to meet regarding the Divergent Universe... except Screwllum wasn't there yet, and Ratio doesn't mention a single word about the Divergent Universe to the Trailblazer.

The only person Ratio talks about in his dialogue on the Feldspar is Aventurine, and the only non-Trailblazer he talks to in 2.3 at all is also Aventurine, replying to him and only him in the group chat.

He looked like he might give it a shot to try to befriend Boothill and Argenti at the end of 2.3... but immediately changes his mind and leaves without saying a word to them.

It's not really a stretch to suggest that the only reasonable excuse for Ratio to attend the party on the Feldspar was if he was there for Aventurine, a behavior that he himself notes is out of character. ("A waste of time" he says, as he stands there anyway.)

But, second and even more importantly: Ratio's single most defining character trait is that he believes people need to pick themselves up. The entire point of his debut appearance in the game was to present his philosophy that if the powerful or privileged intervene to continually "save" the mediocre, ordinary people will never learn for themselves or get the chance to grow. It is in times of desperation, he says, that fools exceed their limits and reach greatness.

This is why, in 1.6, he insisted on Asta and the Trailblazer being the ones to solve the attacks happening on the space station, without relying on Screwllum or the other geniuses. Although Ratio did actively intervene a little (using the phase flame to save the researchers from death), he did so only from behind the scenes, where his actual help would not be noticed by those affected and where it had no impact on their decision-making or their struggles to solve the mystery.

He let Asta and the Trailblazer panic. He let them flounder. He even deliberately misled them at points, claiming that Duke Inferno must have kidnapped the researchers (when it was actually Ratio himself who re-routed them).

Ultimately, Ratio let Asta and the Trailblazer grow from their experiences.

This is also why he lets the Trailblazer go blazing in to fight Ruan Mei's faux emanator of the propagation, despite knowing that Trailblazer was not actually strong enough to win. Ratio watched and was ready to intervene... but in the end he did not, because it was the Trailblazer's fight to lose.

Ratio's most defining character trait is that he believes standing back and observing is the true kindness, rather than inserting oneself and denying people their autonomy or opportunities to grow.

Buttttt... then there's Aventurine, and suddenly the story is completely different.

Suddenly, Ratio isn't an observer but becomes essential to the plan. He's even walking around making big claims about being the manager of the task, flexing all of his C+ acting ability to actively carry out their mutual ploy.

In 2.3, he claims he was just there to watch, and his Penacony sticker asserts he's only "a supporting character"--yet we have never seen Ratio take a more active role in the entire game. Unlike with the Trailblazer in 1.6, he's not primarily watching events unfold from shadowy corners. He's in Penacony as Aventurine's active partner in crime.

And, even more telling--he later jeopardizes their entire mission just to ask if Aventurine needs help.

What? Huh? The character who is famous for the voice line "You look distressed. Is something troubling you? If so, you can figure it out for yourself" is suddenly offering his assistance entirely unprompted?

The guy whose motto might as well be:

Is suddenly out here throwing his own core philosophy out the window to solve Penacony's mystery for Aventurine and save him from himself in Aventurine's hour of greatest need?

A lot of people get hung up on the second half of Ratio's letter, the part about staying alive, which of course is very sweet. But I think the second half causes people to forget that the first part of Ratio's letter is, quite literally, the answer to Penacony's mystery.

Ratio gave Aventurine the answer.

This is like if your professor just gave you and you alone the score key to the final exam and then turned around to insist he "doesn't play favorites."

Of course, Aventurine is brilliant and didn't need Ratio's answer about dormancy, which makes the fact that Ratio went out of the way to give it to him even more odd. Ratio despises unnecessary repetition. If he wasn't dead worried, he would never have given Aventurine an answer that Aventurine had the power to find on his own.

And, as far as canon tells us, Ratio has never done this for anyone else.

The difference is night and day. It's literally the Gordon Ramsay meme, with everyone else in the entire game being the "fucking donkeys" to Aventurine's "Oh dear. Gorgeous."

So: Even if we entirely put aside shipping, if we look strictly at what we're given in canon:

Ratio treats Aventurine with more respect than he treats most other characters in the game.

He involves himself in Aventurine's struggles in a way that he flat out refuses to do for anyone else.

He compromises his own beliefs purely out of concern for Aventurine.

So, at least as far as we've been shown in canon, it is accurate to state that Aventurine is the closest character to Ratio--and unlike Aventurine (king of self-gaslighting), Ratio isn't even good at acting like he doesn't care.

Frankly, the whole thing is a little sad. Ratio's behavior is so blatantly out of character that a smart person like Aventurine should easily be able to determine it is genuine, but Aventurine's personal hang-ups and ongoing trauma make it difficult for him to even see that authenticity, let alone put faith in it. Even in canon, Ratio is mostly unable to help himself when it comes to Aventurine, which is especially unfortunate given how badly skewed Aventurine's perception of himself and others is by the start of Penacony's story.

PHEW! I finally made it through canon content!

Now there's just... everything else... 🫠

Well, to be honest, I don't think I could ever manage to put all my thoughts about this ship into one post. Probably not even fifty posts.

So rather than trying to say everything there is to say about Ratiorine, what I want to focus on is how fantastically these two characters just fit together. Like puzzle pieces that need to be mirror opposites in order to link, these two characters parallel each other while also perfectly filling in each other's voids. It's some of the best character pair writing I've seen in a long time (though I'm still sort of convinced it was at least 50% sheer luck on Hoyo's part), and my perspective on their ship can really be tied to my underlying perception of Ratio and Aventurine's characters as remarkably similar individuals:

It's obvious that Aventurine is not a healthy or well-adjusted adult man, but like... neither is Ratio.

Both of these characters are "not quite right" marginalized people who, at least in my interpretation, have essentially given up on even faking normality and are now just vaguely play acting their way through being functioning members of a universe that is entirely unequipped to accept them for who they are. In a world full of cyborg cowboys and people with wings growing from their heads, the game still manages to somehow convince us that Aventurine and Ratio are odd ones out.

Kakavasha can't even exist in the dystopian capitalist hellscape of the IPC's machinations. "Aventurine" isn't even a real person, just a never-ending performance, a slick, devil-may-care persona without a single ounce of substance.

Ratio, meanwhile, is a world of one, rejected from the only place he thought he could find validation and acceptance but unable to lower himself to fit in anywhere else.

Aventurine is so bad at making genuine connections that he turns everyday conversations into gambles because he doesn't believe people will care enough to keep talking to him without tangible incentive.

Ratio's insistence on treating everyone as students, not as equals, also means he has an excuse to never emotionally engage with anyone he meets. (This is not at all a textbook method of intentional avoidance to prevent any chance of social rejection. Not at all.)

At the end of the day, Aventurine and Ratio both come across as desperately lonely, and so caught up in their own situations that they really don't have the ability to climb out of that hole on their own.

Preventing them from even being able to maintain any form of relationship is also the fact that neither one of them can even find justification. Neither one of them has a reasonable answer to the question "Why am I alive?" anymore, because Aventurine's reason died on Sigonia and Ratio's reason died with an IPC invitation instead of a Genius Society letter. Though their differing perspectives have led them on opposite paths pursuing their own answers to that ultimate question of "Why should I keep living?" (Aventurine was headed toward giving up before the end of Penacony, while Ratio has invented an immeasurable, impossible goal to distract himself from feeling purposeless), both of them are pretty much miserably unfulfilled in their current lives.

They're also both violently allergic to emotional vulnerability and to having any of their flaws or true desires actually be perceived. Both of them put up insanely high walls. Aventurine pushes boundaries with everyone he meets to provoke their hatred in advance, before they can come to disdain him for his "real" flaws. He acts out harmful racist stereotypes to use others' preconceptions for advantage, manipulating every situation he's in--incidentally affirming the stereotypes against his people by doing so.

Ratio puts a physical wall of plaster between himself and others, but the plaster bust actually doesn't have anything on the mental and emotional gymnastics he's engaged in to justify his isolation from the world, doing everything in his power to convince himself that he's isolated by choice, that it's perfectly logical for Veritas Ratio to have nowhere to truly belong, no one to truly belong with. He's so mundane after all. Of course the geniuses don't want him, that's just commonsense. But everyone else is so... different, so foolish, so illogical... It just wouldn't be reasonable of him to try to become one of them either, to be their friend instead of their distant educator. (You know, if you never try to integrate with others, then they can't reject you. Ratio has learned his lesson.)

Somehow, Aventurine and Ratio are two of the most competent and successful people in Star Rail's entire universe and simultaneously also two of the most misfit, reject, dysfunctional messes in the game. Like... Blade has a better support network than Aventurine and Ratio combined. The 7000-pound murderous mech with a disabled, genetically-modified war veteran who never got to live a normal human life hiding inside it is more capable of making friends than Aventurine and Dr. Ratio.

Which is why I love that the devs decided to make their canon backstory: "Some absolute treasures in the IPC and the Intelligentsia Guild had the galaxy-brained idea of pairing Ratio and Aventurine as strategic partners." The game's writing really said: "These two characters are so socially stunted, they have to be assigned a relationship like it's homework."

They may not have it all figured out yet, but the fans see the design: Now that Ratio and Aventurine have each other, they're not alone anymore. I have never seen two characters better fit the "Is anyone going to match my freak?" meme only for the actual answer to be "Yes."

Ratio is "plays chess with himself" levels of loner weird? No problem--Aventurine is "Wanna take bets on who's going to die today?" weirder. Ratio wears a plaster bust to ward off idiots? Aventurine transforms into a monster on command, which is pretty much guaranteed to achieve the same effect.

Ratio wasn't chosen by Nous? That's fine, Aventurine's one job as a "chosen one" was to save his people and now they're all dead. Nobody can keep up with Ratio in conversation? Watch a single comment from Aventurine turn him into a fumbling mess on live television.

Ratio's inability to relate to the experiences and development of any peers his own age have left him extremely isolated and with a permanently scarred sense of self-worth? Wow, I wonder if Aventurine knows exactly what that feels like.

They just... fit.

And, changing focus a little here at the end: While I personally think that recovery from trauma requires internal motivation and self-kindness foremost, I also think that Ratio and Aventurine's relationship should be considered from the perspective of how they help to fill each other's gaps.

Unlike any connection at the Genius Society who will always evoke unpleasant memories of Nous's rejection, Aventurine isn't going to make Ratio feel intellectually inferior. Aventurine has nothing but good things to say about Ratio's intelligence, and it's even apparent that Ratio felt comfortable enough to at least mention his Genius Society woes to Aventurine, something he explicitly does not do with anyone else.

Even when it comes to social interactions, Aventurine isn't going to make Ratio feel inadequate, because honestly? Aventurine's almost as bad at them as Ratio. Aventurine is much better at faking it socially, but when it actually counts? When he's trying to be real with others? A solid 70% of the people who meet Aventurine still end up wanting to strangle him. The guy tried to apologize for threatening to detonate the Trailblazer like a bomb by buying them a model train...

Then there's this:

Aventurine is the only character explicitly called Ratio's equal in game, and more than just treating him respectfully as an equal, Aventurine also exhibits one extreme appeal that no one else in game has ever shown to Ratio: Aventurine makes Ratio feel needed. For Aventurine, Ratio is not a forgettable after-thought as he is to Herta and most of the other geniuses. He's not just "some weird guy who scolds me about school" like he is to the Trailblazer. Ratio's intellect and skill were integral to Aventurine's plan from step one to the very end. Ratio has a place in Aventurine's plots. For a character who directly assesses worth by how beneficial a person can be to others, the fact that Aventurine can make Ratio feel wanted and valued probably produced some of the strongest personal fulfillment Ratio has had in years.

On the opposite side, Ratio's in a unique position. Out of every relevant character in Aventurine's story, Ratio is the only one who has nothing to lose by choosing Kakavasha over "Aventurine." Ratio doesn't profit off Aventurine or take any expensive gifts from him, like the Trailblazer does. He doesn't need Aventurine's luck for anything at all. He'd be able to work for the IPC even if Aventurine wasn't in it. Ratio certainly doesn't want the glitz and glamour of a shallow gambling hustler persona. His work doesn't require Aventurine's continued involvement like Topaz's and Jade's does. He'd probably prefer not to know any Stonehearts at all, thank you for asking.

Outside of deliberate-acting insults about Sigonians for Sunday's sake, we're not told that Ratio has any connections to--and therefore has no preconceived biases against--Sigonians. Being a person who values self-determination and a refusal to live in mediocrity above all else, he would have nothing but esteem for how far Aventurine has managed to come despite the harsh circumstances of his life. Ratio probably wouldn't even think Aventurine's belief in Gaiathra is that strange; one of Ratio's doctorates is actually in theology.

Unlike literally everyone else in the universe who needs "Aventurine," we have every indication that Ratio's respect and admiration will only grow when he finally gets to meet "Kakavasha."

Loneliness, rejection, betrayal, a lack of understanding from others--all of these can leave wounds that only genuine, deep bonds with others can heal.

On death's doorway, in the darkest shadow, when Aventurine had to make the choice between passing on to be with the family that loved him and choosing to return to a reality without them... Ratio's letter was there, telling Aventurine the exact thing he needed to hear to choose life: Someone is waiting for you to come home.

If the resounding rejection of Star Rail's Nihility is belief in humanity's power to make meaning in our own lives through our connections to others, then the ultimate message of Ratio and Aventurine's arc in Penacony is that no one needs to be alone. The world is not as empty as you fear.

And that is a message that Ratio and Aventurine can learn best through each other.

(I just... love them so much...)

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cosmonauter · 1 day

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ahh, i hope you like it @liv-does-stuff !!

bestfriend james who has no boundaries with you!!

james potter thinks you are the best friend he's ever had. normally people tell him that he's too clingy, and they don't like him hanging around them all the time. and it's not a problem for him, but he just wants someone to let him hug and touch without being awkward about it.

so when you two met, he felt like the luckiest person on earth because you don't think it's weird when he hugs you from behind and kisses the top of your head.

you don't judge him for demanding cuddles and sleepovers at least two times a week. you even encourage him to be touchier!

his favourite thing to do with you is bathing together. since he's a headboy, he has unlimited access to the prefect's bathroom, which means that the two of you bathe together as often as possible.

he's especially excited to meet you today because he was informed about a new couple in school, and he really wants to gossip about it with you!

so while he is cleaning his bed of sirius' socks and peter's sweets, because you're sleeping over today, sirius decides to ask him a question, "are you meeting up with them again? don't you think it's a little weird that you guys bath at the same time in the same room, even though you're 'just friends'?"

"why would it be weird? they wash my back and i condition their hair for them. it's logical and they don't mind it aswell. it's actually really nice, and besides, don't act as if remus and you don't shower together!"

remus sighs, "james, sirius and i are in a relationship with eachother. aside from that, i totally agree with pads, it is weird that you take baths together. what's even weirder is you touching while being in said bath!"

"you guys just don't have the connection that my dove and i have. it's okay though, don't be sad about it! maybe one day you'll reach the same trust we have in each other.", james throws a towel over one shoulder and picks out a shirt for you to wear, and matching pants, so everyone you come across in the halls knows about your superior friendship (and that you're his, but he wouldn't admit that to anyone, not even under torture).

"i'm going to the bath, padfoot don't eat anything on my bed, my dove complained about the crumbs last time, and i promised them to change that! they're sleeping with me today. bye bye!"

he closes the door before any of them can say anything and runs to the bathroom as fast as he can.

as soon as he arrives in the prefect bathroom, he already sees you taking off your clothes.

while you are struggling with unzipping your pants, he comes up behind you and grabs your waist, pulling you into an embrace. your naked back against his broad chest sends electric shocks down his body and he shivers against you and presses your body closer to his.

"jamie, can you help me with my zipper? it isn't moving any further and i can't get out of my pants like that."

james would do anything for you, if you never stopped looking at him with those puppy-eyes, "of course, sweetheart. stay still."

he moves his hand away for a moment to turn your body facing his. while his one hand moves towards your zipper, the other one steadying your body by holding your hip, he grins at you and you smile back up at him.

he tugs a few times, but the pants don't budge. you notice his forehead getting sweatier, so you suggest to "take off your shirt jamie, it's to hot in here for you to be wearing it!" while tugging it up his back a little.

he pulls it off and throws it to the side, giving you a grin, "if you wanted me naked, darling, you just had to ask."

you scrunch your brows together, "if i wanted you naked, you would already be.". he snorts, and keeps tugging at your jeans.

suddenly an idea blossoms in his head. what if your zipper got stuck on something from the inside of your pants. so, of course, he sticks his hand down your pants to find a little string, connected to your underwear, being held hostage by said zipper.

"darling, you just have to pull your trousers down together with your panties. see, just like that..", he slowly eases your trousers over your butt, enjoying the feeling of your body under his hands.

you shiver against him and moan out," thank you, jamie. i should've thought about that." you blush and hide your head in his chest.

"don't worry about it, my love. i'm happy to help you as much as you need.", he smiles down at you, while you start tugging down his zipper to take of his trousers.

as soon as they fall to the floor, james picks you up by your waist and throws you into the water.

" james, you idiot!!", you scream at him while trying to splash him with the water. "i'm sorry, i'm sorry angel! i'll jump in okay? will that make you happy?"

"they are definitely fucking, i'm telling you!"

"sirius, calm down! what if they hear you, huh?"

"oh come on remus, they wear matching pajamas and use silencing charms every single time they have a 'sleepover', they won't hear a thing, trust me!"

"you're right, love, but still."

"wormy, what do you think?"

"i think they're both idiots, who really don't get why it's so weird."

please tell me if i need to change something, or if you have some tips on getting better. i hope you enjoyed it :))

#best friend james potter #james potter fluff #james potter x reader #james potter smut #james potter #marauder era #marauders #marauders x reader

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tinalbion · 1 day

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'𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐄𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐞' ||

Part 2 of 'The Sweetest Sin'

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Logan Howlett/ The Wolverine x afab!Reader

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞! Minors, DO NOT interact! Smut with plot, afab!reader, mutant!reader, unprotected p in v, outdoor sex, cowgirl, doggy style against the Honda Odessey, creampies, some possessive Logan, canon typical language, angst, feelings, talks of death, Deadpool and Wolverine spoilers, Cassandra doing her little finger fun, domestic Logan and Wade, happy ending

𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: 9.1k

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: You, Logan, and Wade are taken to an unknown hideout in the borderlands, and you find some unlikely help to take down Cassandra. There's definitely tension between you and Logan now, but you know there's something in him that can't deny that shot of getting back. Will anyone be able to convince him, and if so, what does that mean for you?

A few readers on Ao3 requested a part 2 to this and I wanted to make a part 2 SO badly! So here it is! I hope you enjoy it!

You didn't recall falling asleep in the back of the piece of garbage that was the Honda Odyssey, you didn't even remember Deadpool showing up and snuggling between you two as he passed out, waiting for one of you to wake up. Surprisingly, he didn't bother to wake either of you, not when it was clear you two just fucked your brains out in this God-forsaken vehicle. What a shame he hadn't been invited, but Wade was proud of his little Peanut for stepping up and being the big man, in more ways than one.

As Deadpool slipped in between you two, somehow managing to make himself as comfortable as possible, none of you felt the car move, or drive away from its parked state, nor did you feel it when someone obviously picked all three of you up and took you into this strange place.

You awoke to a strange room, discarded on a random bed in the middle of a strange building, looking as if it were any other apartment with several roommates. It was lived in, that was for sure, liquor bottles and beer cans were spread about the place. You looked around and couldn't imagine who would be here but all three of you had made it here, so that must have meant you found the people you needed to find. Or at least, they found you.

The three of you must have been thrown onto the same bed considering you woke up next to Deadpool, passed out, cuddled under a golden blanket, but there was no Logan. You looked around and saw him standing near a window, an open liquor bottle in his hand as he leaned against the wall, staring into the morning light. A small smile played on your lips as you carefully pushed yourself off of the bed so as not to disturb Wade, and then you walked over toward Logan.

He obviously heard you coming but didn't acknowledge you, not yet, he was still wallowing in self-pity as he drank away his feelings yet again. The vicious cycle continued.

You stepped next to him and stared out the window for a moment, adjusting to being awake as you let out a yawn. “Any idea where we are?” You asked softly, your head turning to meet his.

Logan shook his head. “Nope, but they're pretty well stocked, that's all that matters to me.” I scoffed and threw his head back, taking a large swig of Jim Beam.

With your hands fidgeting, he could tell you wanted to say something, probably about yesterday and what you two had done. He figured it was coming, and he'd thought about it for the while he'd been awake; he had every intention of remaining by your side, even if their timeline was going to shit and the X-Men were dead, he had you, he realized that now.

“Go ahead and say what you wanna say, bub, may as well before the Mouth wakes up,” he grumbled softly.

You chuckled at the nickname, finding it fitting for Wade, but you sighed and nodded. He was right, you weren't sure where this would end up for the both of you, so you had to say what you needed to say.

“Logan, I know that you're probably wanting to forget yesterday ever happened, and I get it, but I never will. The fact still stands: I love you. Nothing's gonna change that, I don't care how bad you think you are, I see more than that.”

Logan sighed and looked over at you, catching your gaze as you stared over at him, and his expression softened at the mere sight of you. How blind he'd been to your dedication, your love, your kindness… he wasn't used to being wanted anymore, he was used to being the town fuck up, the one everyone could sneer at and blame for their problems.

“You really are somethin’ else,” he sighed and shook his head, not sure what to say to your words. “But I don't wanna forget yesterday, I just… I want to go back to our world and have it fixed. Then maybe… maybe I'd be worth your love for me.” He didn't look at you, his eyes stared out the window, the bottle still in hand.

You sighed and stepped closer, your hand now resting gently on the back of his shoulder. “Logan, I–”

“Thor!” Wade gasped suddenly, pulling you both out of your conversation. He looked around in confusion and stared over at you both. “Oh, well lookie here, if it isn't the lovebirds.”

You groaned at Wade and shook your head. “Don't start,” you warned.

“Oh no, I'm not starting anything, I swear! Just wondering why it smelled a lot like sweat, bodily fluids, and regret in the back of that car,” he said, his tone chipper, knowing very well what happened in the back of that damn car.

Logan turned toward him and glared at Wade but said nothing, you, on the other hand, let out an annoyed groan. “How about figuring out where we are instead of grilling me about what happened in the Honda?” You asked with a sharp tone.

“And where’s the fun in that?!” He asked with a laugh that followed. “Come on, I mean, I normally don’t kiss and tell, but you sorta made it quite evident all over those seats. Was he any good, Baby Lee?” You could imagine the face he wore under that mask, the way he stared at you, expecting something out of his question, all you could do was laugh.

“Wade, shut up,” you huffed, but you gave him a face that indicated that Logan was in fact very good, and you hoped Logan didn’t see the face you made.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get all the juicy, wet, intimate details later.” Wade just laughed and looked around, checking the place out. “Well, do we know where we are?” He asked.

“No clue, but I like it here,” Logan replied gruffly as he held up the bottle for Wade to see.

As soon as Wade was about to speak, there was a commotion coming from across the room as if someone was about to enter. You and Wade ran toward the door and got into a fighting stance, but the woman burst forth and immediately put Wade in his place as she easily flipped him over and held her sai sword to his throat as you backed off, raising your hands in surrender.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Deadpool gasped and held up a hand. He scrambled to his feet and stared at the woman, who seemed to retract her blade from his face, but she kept her eyes on him. She was dangerous, poised, and ready to strike if needed.

You looked over at her in awe, admiring her, until someone else walked into the room, and the tension only picked up once he laid eyes on you both. His gaze was hidden under a pair of sunglasses, but that didn’t make his stare any less overwhelming.

Then a small card flew through the air, glowing a hazy purple until a hand reached out and caught it. The man who stepped forward still seemed intimidating, but more boyish in nature, though your body relaxed slightly as it seemed they didn’t mean harm. All three of them stared at the three of you, and you couldn’t help but look back at Logan, who seemed slightly on edge by their presence. He lingered in the back near the rest of the liquor bottles, away from the crowd of people.

“Okay… Look at you… all. You must be the others. Terrific.” Deadpool was unsure of who these people were, but after hearing about other survivors in the borderlands who worked against Cassandra, he had higher hopes.

As they went down the line and introduced themselves, you remained in the middle, sticking close to Logan like a protective animal while you kept your attention to the new people ahead. Deadpool did a lot of the questioning, but whenever they spoke of taking on Cassandra, Logan always had something to say, and he would have rather spent his time wallowing away in here, surrounded by the booze.

“You know, we never had a Wolverine up in here,” the card dealer called Gambit stated. But I can tell you now, it’s just a common courtesy to ask before you drink up all of my liquor.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t give a fuck,” Logan replied and slowly lifted the bottle toward his lips.

Before you could say anything to scold him in any way, Gambit chuckled to himself and with a quick snap of his wrist, threw one of the playing cards directly into the glass, causing the bottle to shatter. You took a step toward Logan, knowing he could have gotten angry if he let it get to him, but he tossed the broken bottle neck aside and grabbed another full bottle.

“Boo boo boo,” he said in a sing-song voice, smiling like the cocky son of a bitch he was.

“Look, now that that’s settled, we came a long way to find you three-” Deadpool started.

“There’s four of us,” Elektra corrected.

“Wait, is it Magneto?” Deadpool gasped, hoping and praying it was one of the strongest X-Men. “Dear sweet God in heaven, let it be Magneto, because with him-” Wade pressed his hands into a prayer and sighed.

“He’s dead,” Blade said, completely deadpan.

“Fuck! Well, uh, who brought us here?” Deadpool asked, feeling a little more hopeless than three seconds ago.

A voice came from behind them all. “That would be me.” A slender figure came from the shadows of the staircase and descended, walking into the room, everyone was insanely quiet as she revealed herself. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Your eyes watched her, and you felt something familiar looking into her eyes. Deadpool, on the other hand, seemed almost speechless.

“Holy shit, Logan, that’s her, that’s X-23. She’s the one I told you about.”

You were there for that uncomfortable conversation yesterday, hearing how the Logan from Wade’s universe had sacrificed himself for this child, who they presumed to be his daughter, her genes taken from his DNA. Made in a lab. Experimented on. Like the other mutants you’d known, she wasn’t safe. But Logan had saved her and many other kids who grew up in that lab, giving them a fighting chance as he sacrificed himself, finally being granted the peace he probably wanted in that universe.

The thought of it made your heart ache, imagining the scene unfolding, but you looked back at Logan and saw the conflict in his eyes, the intense look they both shared. You looked between the two and felt something you couldn’t quite place.

The rest of the group began to talk about how they could get out of the Void and back home, all while you, X-23, and Logan had somewhat circled around one another, sticking to the back of the room. You looked at her and saw just how much of Logan was in her, it was almost a spitting image, and your stomach twisted.

Your attention was taken back by the group talking about getting through to Cassandra, and they wanted to get the ending they deserved, they would fight for the freedom they deserved. Deadpool had somehow convinced them to fight through Cassandra’s defenses, get to Juggernaut’s helmet, and get her to send them back. Deadpool laughed happily and looked back toward the three of you.

“X-23, what’s it gonna be?!”

“The name’s Laura. Let’s fucking go.”

Deadpool clenched his fists together with glee and repeated: “Let’s fucking go.”

The group had all decided that they’d leave in the morning, whether they wanted your and Logan’s help or not, it was already set for them. They would get what they fought for or die trying. Logan had to commend them, even a little bit, they were brave. Stupid, but brave. As they all scattered a bit to come up with a plan, Laura lingered for a moment and stared at you, then at Logan, and then she walked off with the rest of them.

When they all walked off, leaving you two alone in the room, Logan grumbled in annoyance and stalked off toward the exit. You called out for him to wait, but he didn’t listen, he was feeling confused and hated the way that Laura looked at him, like she knew him, like she had already formed an opinion about him. If she was smart, she’d stay away, but no one ever really did. All they did was complicate things, and bring him more pain and suffering, so he planned on getting blackout drunk alone.

Logan sat out by the fire as he held onto a bottle of Johnny Walker, his eyes glued to the embers, his mind miles away from everything. You figured since Wade was too busy with everything going on, he was distracted enough to give you enough time to talk to him alone since you’d been interrupted earlier. You took your time and waited to see if anyone would call out for you, thankfully they didn’t need you, so you stood up from one of the chairs near the poolside and walked toward the door as quietly as you could.

Your steps weren’t muted in the slightest with the leaves crunching beneath your steps, but you stopped and hid behind one of the nearby trees as you saw Laura walking toward Logan already. You didn’t mean to intrude, but you also didn’t want to piss him off and bother him either.

He lifted his head to see Laura and waved his hand dismissively. “Hey, I’m not lookin’ for company. Get out of here.” He grumbled.

Laura laughed. “You remind me of him. Angry, drunk, mean-”

“Sounds like a great guy-” Logan interrupted.

“I wasn’t finished.” She looked back at the fire and stared at it for a moment, collecting her thoughts, and she wasn’t good with sharing them much like he wasn’t. “He showed up when it mattered the most. Couldn’t help it. You might not know it, but you’re a good man, Logan.” Her voice was soft but stern, telling him how she viewed him, no matter the universe, there was that strong belief she had that this Logan was no different.

Logan just chuckled and shook his head. “You might not know it, but apparently I’m the worst Logan.”

“I got to have a life because of you. I got to grow up because of you. A lot of kids did.”

“A lot of kids didn’t grow up because of me,” he retorted, his gaze still set on the fire before him. “Trust me, kid, I’m no hero.”

Laura sighed and looked back over at the man. “That suit says different.”

Logan looked down at the destroyed suit, the one he wore every single day beneath his clothes as a reminder of the pain he’d caused. “Yeah, ya like it? Scott used to beg me to wear it. So did Jean, Storm, Beast. All of ‘em. Wanted me to be part of the team. Told them they all looked fuckin’ ridiculous.” He sighed and his shoulders slumped slightly. “I couldn’t have them thinkin’ I wanted to be there. Then one day, I was off on my own, then the humans came and went mutant hunting.” His expression dropped, there was no longer sarcasm or disdain, but pain and sorrow.

“I can guess the rest,” Laura said softly.

You still stood behind the tree and listened closely to what Logan was saying, finally realizing that he was acknowledging what happened to you both, the losses you both took. You slowed your breathing so you could hear him properly, afraid that if you’d done anything to cause a distraction, you would never get to hear this again.

“No, no. Let… let me say it, I n- I need to say it.” Logan’s voice began to break, his eyes turned glassy and he felt the sting of tears welling in the corners of his eyes, but he stared ahead and recalled everything. “By the time I stumbled home shit-faced from the bar, it was too late. They were dead, every…” He paused, his voice wavering with pain, the dryness in his throat stung as he tried to come to terms with it all. “This suit’s all I got to remind me of who they were. And what I did. And when I look at Star, it hurts because I see the disappointment, the hurt I caused…”

You tried not to cry too loudly as you leaned your body against the tree, you sighed softly, wiping away the falling tears as you finally heard Logan admit to it all out loud. When you were back home, he avoided talking about it like the plague, but having this young woman here who could very well be his daughter of sorts, looking at him like that, it made him want to open up. And that made you happy. It wasn’t opening up to you, but he was opening up, and that was something beautiful in itself. You let out another small sigh and closed your eyes as you leaned your head against the tree.

Logan sniffled but took another long swig of the drink in his hand and tried to steel himself once again. Laura looked over at him with understanding, she had witnessed pain in her Logan’s life as well, and she understood as well as he would.

“We’re headed to Cassandra’s at sun up,” she finally said.

“Have fun” Logan huffed. “Not my fight.”

Laura leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees as her gaze was intense. “We won’t pull this off without you.” She stood up in a swift motion and began her walk back to the hideout.

Logan looked over at her and sighed. “Hey, whoever you think I am, you got the wrong guy.”

The young woman stopped and turned back to look at him, her face still reserved as she saw the shell of a man sitting in front of the fire. “You were always the wrong guy. Till you weren’t.” She turned back and made her way back to the hideout, leaving you and him alone once more.

You waited for a few moments as he continued to sit by the fire, his eyes still glued to the flames that flickered and licked away at the firewood, and with a deep breath, you barely moved out from your spot when you heard Logan’s voice.

“You can come sit down,” he said firmly.

Shit. He knew you were there, this entire time, he knew. And just maybe… he finally confessed all of that to Laura because he knew you were there, you needed to hear it come from him, even if it was indirectly. Logan sat on the large log and continued to listen to your footsteps, he could even hear the sound of your heartbeat quickening as you got closer, but he didn’t say anything about it.

As you sat down on the log beside him where Laura had been, you didn’t look over toward him yet, you continued to stare off at the fire until you felt it was right to speak, but even then you were unsure. “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” you said softly. “You may have felt as if you’d abandoned us, but, you didn’t. I know things are complicated for you, feelings and emotions, but I know you wouldn’t have let them all die on purpose. And I'm not disappointed in you, if I was, I wouldn't be here.”

Logan looked over at you and sighed, his hand still wrapped around that damned bottle as he just stared. “I heard them screamin’ for me, Star, as the mansion burned to the ground. They all screamed and I hid. I hid because-”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t cause it, you didn’t allow the humans to come in and do what they did. How would you have known?” You asked, swinging your body to face him, staring with intensity. “How were you supposed to know?”

“I should have known!” He spat in defense. “I should have and I didn’t! I could have, I dunno, sniffed them out and followed my gut instincts when I knew something was off. But instead, I got shit-faced and ignored it. Ignored them and you.” He hung his head, the bottle lowered, and he placed a hand over his face as he tried so desperately to keep the tears in. This wasn’t who he was, he needed to live with this guilt, he needed to live with it every day to ensure he’d never forget.

Your gaze softened as you scooted right next to him, then wrapped an arm around him as you leaned your head on his shoulder. “Logan, you beat yourself up for it but just know, even in the end, they still cared about you. No one thought you were a bad guy, you’re not a bad guy, you’re in pain… and I hate seeing you in pain.” You sighed and closed your eyes, holding onto him with as much strength as you could muster as your hand rubbed comforting circles across his back.

The edge he always had was breaking, the hardness from the anger he felt daily had been calming down thanks to you, and it was only for a moment that Logan finally allowed himself to sigh heavily as a few tears fell. You wouldn’t comment on it, you’d give him the time he needed to recuperate and pull himself back together like you always had, giving him the support and the space he needed.

But you couldn’t stop your own tears from falling, ones not out of sadness, but out of acceptance. You heard that Logan confessed aloud how terrible he felt, how conflicted he’d been because of all of this, he wasn’t able to process the tragedy you’d both lived through so easily. It hurt you the most because you had to see the man you loved suffering, blaming himself, and adding more to his trauma. But you wanted to be there, you had to be there for him, to prove he deserved the good with all that bad, and as you’d told him in that car, you would be there every day if you had to to remind him of that.

“I got you, Logan,” you whispered softly, smiling as your eyes remained closed and your arm tightened around him. “I’m glad I got to live, I’m glad I got to be here for you when no one else could be. And Wade, he doesn’t seem all that bad, either, he’s a lot like you in a way. He wants to help, deep down.”

Logan scoffed and shook his head, almost offended by the comparison, but he didn’t respond, he just sat back and listened to you, your voice. It grounded him in moments like these now, and he was thankful he had that. After a while, Logan’s arm wrapped around you and pulled you closer to him, his side pressed against yours as you both looked at the fire. He allowed himself this personal pleasure as he nuzzled against your hair, your scent making him think of the good days before it was all so fucked up, and it was peaceful. He hadn’t experienced peace in so long.

“I hope you can forgive me,” he said softly, his lips pressed to your hair as he gently kissed you, his eyes still fixated on the flames.

“I have nothing you need forgiveness for, Logan,” you replied.

His arm tightened around you, your face pressed against the fabric of his damaged suit. He relished in the feeling of you in his arms, the way you fit so perfectly against him, the scent of your hair filled his senses as he closed his eyes momentarily. He exhaled as he reached up to slowly stroke your hair, playing with the locks between his fingers.

“I hope they can forgive me,” he said sadly. “I think about that every day, wondering if they’d see how much it fucked me up, how bad I wanna take it back…”

“Oh, Logan, they wouldn’t blame you, okay? They would never blame you, they cared about you despite how you pushed them away, not wanting to hurt them, and you took care of them till the end. You can’t say it’s your fault when it wasn’t, it was the humans.”

He sighed again and pulled your head closer, kissing your hair once more. “I know that I hurt you though, I know I hurt them, but I hurt you the most. The one person who I had a chance to show that I was more than what I thought I was, and I fucked it up. I took it all for granted…” He sighed heavily and tried to fight back the negativity, but it was sinking in again, but you caught on.

You sat up, pulling away from his grasp as you placed your hands on either side of his face. “Logan, stop, don’t do that. You were suffering, okay? And I get that, you weren’t used to people being there, treating you like you deserved. That’s why I stayed, I always saw you more than others may have thought. You were in need of someone to be there for you like you were there for others. Like Rogue, like Charles, you were there for them despite feeling you shouldn’t be. Let me be here for you, please, Logan.”

He sighed heavily and tried to accept your words, the emotion behind them tearing away at him, clawing through to the depths as he sat there with you looking at him as if he was the most important thing to ever exist in this timeline, and the next.

“I think we should try to get home,” you said softly as your hand came to rest on his chest. “We should help them get to Cassandra. We can’t run anymore, I’m tired of it, aren’t you?”

“I’m tired too, Star, tired of runnin’,” he mumbled as he placed the bottle down beside the log, wrapping both arms around you and pulling you in tightly. He buried his face into the crook of your neck, feeling the weight of his mind channeling through his embrace. He rested his head on top of yours as he sat there with you in his arms, wishing you both could go back and he could do things differently. His fingers gently massaged your scalp as he held you tight against him, stroking your hair and allowing his fingers to caress your head gently.

“I know,” he replied gently, his voice low and husky. “You don’t have to.”

You couldn’t stop yourself from pressing your face to his chest, feeling safe in the comfort of his arms as he held onto you, and you let out a small hum of contentment as you felt Logan allowing himself to feel what he wanted to feel instead of what he thought he deserved. “I don’t wanna let you go, Logan,” you whispered softly.

Logan pulled away to look at you, his gaze locked with yours as he offered a ghost of a smile. He slowly reached out, his fingertips gently traced along your jawline, his touch sent a shiver down your spine.

“Logan,” you said softly, “should we…?” You trailed off, the feeling of his fingers against your skin taking over your entire mind, causing you to lose your train of thought.

He noticed the way his touch affected you, the way you responded so well to a gesture so simple, it made a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as his eyes were still locked on yours. “I know, I know, but can you blame me? Especially after yesterday?” He asked, his fingertips still tracing your jawline, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.

“What if they see us?” You asked him, not really believing that would stop either of you at this moment. The tension between you both was palpable, and he didn’t want to lose this feeling. You bit your lip in contemplation, trying to decide if you two would have enough time to get away with anything.

“I know,” he said huskily, his voice strained with his own internal battle. “But you’re makin’ it damn near impossible to hold back when you’re lookin’ at me like that, princess.” Logan’s breath caught in his throat as he heard your heart beginning to beat faster within your chest, only signaling that you wanted it, too.

You let out your own sigh and nodded, the blush creeping into your cheeks as your attention was now solely focused on him. “I can’t blame you, I feel the same right now…”

“Then why are we fightin’ this? If we really are gonna go after this bald chick, what if we end up stayin’ here or worse? You think I could forgive myself for not showin’ you just how much I need you?” One of his hands moved to your side, resting gently on your hip until his fingers dug into you. “I can’t fight the hold you got on me, doll. Give in to what we both want,” he murmured, his words a soft plea.

“Logan,” you sighed softly as you leaned in closer, thinking of all the ways you wanted him, all the ways you could show him just how much you loved him. Your eyes stared into his, half-lidded, filled with desire as you fought back to push him down right there.

The way you said his name like that, tinged with raw desire, it was all the encouragement he needed. Logan’s hand on your hip tightened further, and a guttural moan escaped his throat as he closed the remaining distance between you both, pressing his body against yours with a restraining need. He kissed you back with a fervor that surprised even him, his mouth devouring yours as his hands dug into your skin.

Your breaths were short and fast, wanting nothing more than to taste him, to feel him, wanting to enjoy every moment you had with him before tomorrow. You couldn’t silence the soft groan you released against his lips as your hands reached up and tangled into his shorter hair, pulling on his gently while your tongues battled one another.

Logan’s chest rumbled with a primal groan as you pulled at his hair, the feeling of your fingers buried in his locks sent a pleasurable shiver down his spine. He deepened the kiss, his tongue invaded your mouth as he claimed it with his own.

He let out a frustrated growl as his hands gripped your sides, pulling you flush against his body as he made you straddle his waist, spreading your thighs wide open with his large hands. His eyes stared into yours, taking that moment to look deep within yours to make sure this was what you wanted, that he was what you wanted. He’d give you the opportunity to take it back if you wanted, even just that one day with him would have been enough for him to live off of. He leaned in, his lips brushed yours hesitantly. “You really want this?” He asked, checking one more time.

You nodded in confirmation and pushed your lips against his, kissing him deeply to only signify your answer as his arms wrapped around you to pull you closer. He deepened the kiss between you both, his tongue slipping into your mouth as you moaned against his lips. His hands roamed across your back, settling at your backside as he pressed against you, showing you how hard he already was. He broke the kiss briefly, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his voice hoarse with need. “Need you to take those off,” he instructed.

You pulled away and shrugged out of your top, undoing the intricate latches and buttons, making sure each part of the uniform remained intact as you tossed it aside as Logan worked quickly on his. You were both impatient and wanted nothing more than to tear at each other, to feel each other in that closeness once more, feeling his hands and mouth on you in ways you’d only dreamed of. Once he was back on the log, his pants undone and slightly pulled down to accommodate you, he pulled you back into his lap while your soaked folds rubbed gently against him. Logan hissed through his teeth, his fingers dug into your hips as he encouraged your movements, coating his cock in your sweet juices as you ground your hips against his.

“Yes, just like that,” he grumbled, his head leaned back with his eyes closed.

You continued to rub yourself against him, slowly and gently pushing against him, almost having him slip inside of you to only then pull away. He was dripping with pre-cum as he twitched with every lost touch, he needed you and did not like how long he had to wait.

His eyes rolled back and he let out a guttural groan as he felt the warmth of your wetness rubbing against him. “Fuck, I need you, no more teasin’,” he demanded, his voice strained as his fingers dug into the flesh of your hips. “Please, sit on me.”

The moan you released was almost feral as you lifted your hips, slowly sliding down onto his cock, which caused you to groan out his name a little louder than intended. He was impatient and thrust deep inside of you, his hands slamming you down onto him. “Oh fuck, Logan, you’re gonna ruin me…”

His grip never loosened as he guided you up and down on his thick length. “Good, that’s the plan. Wanna ruin you for anyone else,” he growled possessively, his eyes locked onto yours. His pace quickened as he slammed you down onto him again and again, and it was funny that you thought you had any control here.

Your body slumped forward as he wrapped his arms tightly around you, pulling your body against his, your hands and breasts pressed tautly against his chest as you leaned your head against his shoulder. His hips fucked up into you, pulling out those sweet sounds he heard from you yesterday, smiling like a cocky bastard with every gasp and whine you released. He went on like this for ages, dragging it out, slowing his pace when he saw you were getting too lost in the moment, and he laughed at your faces when you got upset with his teasing.

After a while, he pulled you into a heated kiss, groaning against your lips as he playfully bit your bottom lip, swiping his tongue against yours as his hips continued to piston up into yours. You were soaked, his thighs covered in your slick as he felt his abdomen tightening.

“Please, Logan- Coming soon!” You managed to say between each slap, his hips relentlessly pounding into you.

“Look at me, wanna see your face.”

You snapped your head up, your gaze locked onto him as you tried your best not to break the stare, but it was difficult to hold on when he was pounding into you mercilessly. His low grunts and growls mixed with your gasps and whines only made everything so much sweeter. His face contorted in pleasure as his thrusts became erratic as he buried himself deep and growled as he released. His entire body stiffened for a moment as he finally chased his release, filling you up as your walls milked every last drop. “Fuck,” he growled as he leaned his forehead against your shoulder. “

You continued to ride him until you had finally chased your release shortly after his, and your cries died down to soft moans as your hips gently slowed to a gentle grind, smiling as you nuzzled your face against his. You hummed softly and closed your eyes, cuddling on his chest as you both took a few moments to rest.

“You okay?” he asked after a few moments, his eyes slightly opened to look at you.

A smile spread across your face and you nodded. “Better than okay,” you sighed in reply. “You?”

He grinned and pressed a kiss against your forehead. “Also better than okay. Not ready to pull out yet,” he mumbled and shifted his hips upward once, causing you to moan softly at the feeling.

“No one said you had to,” you replied with a smile, hugging him as you rested against him.

Logan’s eyes opened and he looked down at your mess of hair. “Weren’t you just worried about them seein’ us?” He asked, teasing you now.

You scoffed and smiled as your eyes remained closed. “I think the only one I’m worried about is Wade,” you grumbled and shifted a little, pushing yourself off of him to look into his eyes. Your smile only grew as you reached up to cup his cheek, feeling that overwhelming sense of comfort wash over you. He was allowing himself to feel for you, he was slowly tearing down that wall, and he was becoming Logan again. “Are you gonna come with us tomorrow?” you asked in a whisper.

His face peeked up at yours, his eyes filled with uncertainty while he rubbed comforting circles against your back. “Look, I dunno, I mean, it’s not somethin’ I should be involved in…”

You sighed and rested your head against his shoulder. “Laura is right, you know. You are a good man, you’ll come through.”

Logan sighed and sat back with you wrapped in his arms, his softened length still buried inside of you, and here you were talking about all this complicated emotional shit. He looked past you, over your head at the building where the rest of them were, thinking of your words and Laura’s. If this was to happen, if he were to do this and fight alongside them, alongside you, then maybe he was worthy of wearing the suit. Logan leaned in, kissed the side of your head, and sighed again. “We’ll see,” he replied gently. “But first, I think I wanna have more of you.” He pulled back further to look down at you, smiling as you met his gaze. “Get up, put your hands on the car, princess.”

Your eyes widened as you pulled back to look at him. “On the car, huh?” You asked with a playful tone.

“Don't question me,” he said with a smile, bringing his hand down on your backside, and giving you a small slap. “Up.”

You huffed and slowly pulled off of him, smiling as you both stared at each other while you stood over him. Then, you made your way to the hood of the car, standing with your legs spread apart and hands splayed on the hood. You looked over your shoulder at him as he approached, half of his suit hanging off him. He stopped behind you, slowly pumping himself in his hand as he looked at your body. All of the curves, the dips, the way you reacted just for him, it drove him crazy. The fact he'd been missing out on this for so long had made him feel foolish, how could he have looked past this the entire time?

Logan growled appreciatively at the sight of you bent over the Honda, your back arched and your hair hung over your face as you looked over at him. He ran his hands over your rear, squeezing gently before he parted your cheeks to reveal your back entrance and your dripping wet core. "So beautiful..."

"Mhm and all yours, Wolvie, now come on, don't make me wait, I need you." You hummed seductively, looking over your shoulder at him, your legs shaking with excitement.

Logan's eyes met yours, filled with primal possession. "All mine..." He growled possessively. He lined himself up with your opening and slowly pushed inside, his hands gripping your hips for leverage while he took his time, gradually pushing deeper and deeper until he was fully sheathed inside you. He started to move, pulling out slowly before slamming back inside you with a grunt. He set a brutal pace, pounding into you from behind with powerful thrusts while his hands never left your hips, holding you in place as he took you hard and fast.

"Fuck, you're so tight... so fucking perfect..." Logan's grip on your hips tightened as he increased his pace, his movements became jerky and uncoordinated. “Tell me you’re gonna come, princess,” he gritted out, his voice strained with passion as he reached between you both and began to play with your clit.

You could barely contain your cries and moans of pleasure, you were no longer afraid of being found out, you were too lost in the pleasure of it all. Your body shook and reacted so well to his touch, it was as if he’d navigated your body so well over the years that he knew which of your buttons to push. It was impressive, he had studied you, it seemed. Your head turned to look over your shoulder, your eyes lust-filled and hooded as you tried your best to speak between each hard thrust. “Logan, gonna come soon-” you cautioned.

Logan let out a feral growl and buried his face in the back of your neck, his arms wrapped tightly around your middle to hold you even closer as he rutted against your ass. He continued his assault as his hips bucked wildly, nearing his edge as he made sure you were close behind. “C’mon, pretty girl, I know you can give me another one,” he hummed against your neck, kissing it as one arm still clung around your middle, and the other played with your clit, already clenching against him.

You couldn’t hold on anymore while his large fingers rubbed you so well, or the way he fucked into you as if his life depended on it, you came undone within moments. With a final few thrusts, Logan buried himself to the hilt and found his release, yours chasing soon after as he spilled himself inside of you, and growled low against your neck. His body convulsed with the aftershocks, his hips slowly ground against your ass as his arms tightly wound around your middle again. Your breathing was heavy, and your body was warm thanks to him, but you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Logan collapsed onto your back, his body heavy and languid as he nuzzled into your neck, still holding the majority of his weight so as not to crush you. His arms released your waist as he slowly withdrew from your body, allowing you a moment to adjust. You stood up and tried to regain your balance, your hand gripped onto Logan’s arm, smiling as he helped steady you until you were well off on your feet.

Something inside of him awoken as he looked down at you, covered in sweat, smelled of smoke and his scent, looking up at him like you were… He was a fool, but you accepted him, every part of him, he was your fool. “Sorry, I’ve been so fuckin’ blind, Star,” he mumbled as he pulled you against him, wrapping his large arms around you as he placed a kiss on your forehead. This was the softest he’d ever been, he didn’t want any of the others to see, but you were worth getting caught for. Logan sighed and stood there with your face buried against his chest.

“So, you coming with us?” You asked once more, your voice soft, and vulnerable, but you wanted to have him there with you.

“Don’t push it,” he warned, a playful edge to his tone. “C’mon, we gotta get you cleaned up.”

“So does that mean you’re coming back inside?” you asked with a smile.

Logan shook his head and looked back at the car. “Think I’ll sleep out here for some peace and quiet.”

“Could I join you, then?”

How could he deny you? He smiled and nodded once, rolling his shoulders. “Since you asked so nicely,” he replied and kissed your head again, then walked over to hand you the top half of your outfit. He helped you get back into it and smiled down at you when he zipped up the front half, his hand lingering on you a little longer than usual, his eyes stared down and traced over your features, he just couldn’t believe he had reasons to look elsewhere when you were right here.

“What?” You finally asked with a smile on your lips, staring up at him curiously.

Logan just hummed and shook his head. “Nothin’, c’mon, let’s go and clean up.”

You turned from him first to walk back to the hideout, but you peeked over your shoulder at him, smiling wider as you held out your hand for him, waiting for him to take it. As he stared at you, thinking of all the things that he should have done, the look you gave him had wanted him to think about the future. To fight for a future if you were in it. So he slid his hand in yours, gripped it tight, and gave a gentle squeeze as he trailed along beside you as you both made your way inside as quietly as possible.

The battle was exhaustive, you had fought alongside your new friends, making sure they were safe enough to get the package to them, and then you followed behind Wade and Logan to confront Cassandra. Wade was knocked out on the side of the room as Logan was stuck on all fours, Cassandra sticking her weird hate-filled fingers inside of Logan’s mind. His yells and guttural screams of torment caused you to panic until the bag flew into Wade’s hand as Laura disappeared from the window.

You were frozen as you heard his yells, the echoes of the screams you heard from your friends as they pleaded for their lives, you felt the guilt Logan carried with him as you watched the scene unfolding, but the call from Wade snapped you out of your daze.

“Baby Lee, here!” He groaned as he slid the bag toward you, the heavy metal helmet hitting the side of your foot.

You bent down and snatched it from the bag, then you ran up behind Cassandra as you plopped the large helmet over her head while Wade scrambled to your side, recovered from being knocked out, and held onto her tightly. You stood close by to ensure she remained in his grasp, and boy did she scream when she was pulled out of her little mind games. The large, dark veins within her skin pulsated, her eyes glazed over and turned red as she screamed.

“You’re gonna send us home, or I’m gonna twist your fuckin’ head off!” Deadpool threatened, his arms wrapped around her as he also held the helmet in place.

Cassandra just laughed. “I can’t send you home unless you get this thing off my head… And as soon as you do that, I’m going to boil your brains on an atomic level… Either you kill me or I kill you, both wonderful options.” She said as she patted Wade’s arm.

The boys began to argue back and forth on who would end up killing the woman, but after a moment of back and forth, as you stood by and grumbled at their theatrics, Pyro came in and shot Cassandra four times in the stomach, bringing her closer to death than the other two actually did. After Logan punched his lights out, the blood poured from her mouth and she stared up at Logan in shock as he looked at Wade.

“Hey, hey, if I take this helmet off, do you promise not to kill us?”

“I promise I’ll kill you first thing!” She gasped and looked at you and Logan, smiling as the blood dripped from her mouth.

Logan sighed, looked at them, and demanded that he take the helmet off to the point where he yelled at Wade, demanding once again to remove it. “I am wearing this suit and that means a lot of things, but most of all, I’m an X-Man. And I know your brother. As much as I wanna kill you, every bone in my body wants to FUCKING kill you, he would not let me stand here and watch you die!”

He placed his hands on the helmet and sighed. “This is for him, this is for Charles.”

He appealed to Cassandra, speaking of Charles as you stood off to the side, your expression filled with sadness, hearing about the professor again, feeling that heartbreak again. You felt bad for the woman before you, you wished she could have had that love she craved, but you just wanted to get all three of you home and back to your worlds.

As Cassandra spared you all, she gave you a head start of four seconds to jump through the portal back to New York, and all three of you ran. You wished the best for your friends as they watched you from below, but you could feel the excitement pumping as you ran and took off, flying through the air beside Logan.

Maybe you all had a shot at being happy again, this time, together.

You went for the last slice of pizza at the same time Wade did, and you both stared each other down as your hands rested on the box. It had been a few weeks while you and Logan lived with Wade and his roommate Althea, you and Logan still waiting on an application for your own place to go through. Al didn’t seem to mind and neither did Wade, in fact, he preferred if you two stayed, but you needed your own space. Besides, sharing beds wasn’t exactly what you’d call fun with a blind woman who snored like a chainsaw going off in a construction zone, and an ADHD-riddled bigmouth who seemed to talk in his sleep. So for now, you all shared your dinner nights together at the table, and you and Wade were having an intense stare-down.

“You know, Baby Lee, I should get the last piece because I ended up having to do the dishes because someone couldn’t keep it in their pants,” Wade began his argument, smiling with a raised eyebrow.

You stared at him deadpan and continued to hold your ground. “Then what about last week when I had to do them because someone ended up putting his suit in the washing machine and fucking up the whites in the load, so I had to fix everything?”

“Well, now that’s just not fair-”

“Wade, give her the damn slice,” Logan grumbled as he chugged a cold beer, glaring over at the merc.

“Oh, now that’s just favoritism!” He retorted.

You smirked as you leaned slightly against Logan, showing him you appreciated the backup, but your eyes never left Wade’s. “Yeah, Wade, give me the slice,” you said sarcastically.

What you both didn’t seem to realize as you bickered, Blind Al had snatched the slice and ate it herself, giving a small bite of it to Dogpool, who sat eagerly on Al’s lap. You two didn’t seem to mind much as Logan chuckled to himself, looking over at Al as she chewed away at the cheesy goodness while your argument grew more competitive by the minute.

By the time you figured it out, you looked over at Logan with a pout and back at Wade. “This is your fault,” you grumbled.

“My fault?! Look here, missy-” Wade huffed and threw an empty solo cup at you.

You gasped and looked at him with a shocked expression, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners. “Oh that’s it, Wilson, you’re dead!” You laughed and launched toward him as he bolted away from you.

Dogpool made some silly yapping noises as Logan sighed and shook his head, finishing his beer, watching as the life in your eyes came back, it had been steadily returning since your first time with Logan. He noticed the little things that changed in you, and you noticed the changes in him, too. He sat back with a smile as you and Wade fought like children, sort of enjoying the life that surrounded him now, appreciating the ways he and Wade were alike, the way you took care of them both, and just happy with the fact that Logan had felt as if he’d found peace.

That night, you were snuggled against him as you always were, head resting against his chest as you clung to him, but he’d been awake just looking at you. He would stare down at you, brush your loose hairs away from your face as he saw just how peaceful you’d looked, the way you could sleep without having to worry or remain on edge. He felt the same too, he felt safe now, and with you here, there wasn’t anything in the way to stop him. With you here in his arms, he felt that all was right, he’d gotten the ending he wanted, and he felt that your friends would have wanted him to be happy in some capacity.

You stirred slightly, blinking slowly as you stared up at Logan, meeting his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep?” you asked softly.

His smile grew slightly and the corner of his mouth twitched. “No, I just was thinkin’ is all.”

You hummed in response and readjusted your body, looking up at him comfortably while you pulled the blanket up under your chin. “About what?”

“About how happy I am.”

“Happy, huh?”

He chuckled and nodded, pulling you closer against his chest as his large arm wrapped around your back, his chin resting gently on your head. “As much as I thought this wasn’t possible like I wasn’t allowed to feel happy while the others… well, you know. But, I think it’s okay, this is okay…”

You smiled and closed your eyes, listening to his steady heartbeat as you placed your hand against his chest. “Everything is gonna be okay, Logan. I know it is because you’re here, and Wade is here for us, too.”

He scoffed and nuzzled against your hair, closing his eyes, and smiling as he inhaled your scent, the inviting smell of you mingling with his own. As he lay there with you in his arms on the air mattress, he thought that you were right about it despite him not wanting to admit it, everything would work out in the end. It had so far, all thanks to Wade fuckin’ Wilson.

“That’s good enough for me,” Logan mumbled softly.

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cosmerelists · 23 hours

Text

Bridge 4 Discuss Terrible Pickup Lines

As (sort of) requested by @dewypeach and @imtheseventh

So back when @cam-ulu29 asked for a Kaladin flirting list, I ran a poll about whether it should be a sincere, sweet list or a list full of terrible, out-of-character pickup lines. The former won by a MILE, but some people were interested in the latter. Dewypeach & imtheseventh in particular suggested doing something with Bridge 4 either suggesting terrible pickup lines or having Kaladin try them out. So here's something like that!

Skar: Worst pickup lines you can come up with. Go.

Lopen: I suggested one for Kaladin, but it wasn't terrible--it was really good. He acted like it was terrible, though--does that count?

Kaladin: It WAS terrible.

Kaladin: And...weird.

Kaladin: I'm not going to flirt with Dalinar. He is my boss. And married. And old.

Lopen: So what I said, right, was that Kal should look Dalinar right in the eye, all serious-like, and say, "My relationship with my father is terrible. Will you be my new Daddy?"

Moash: [spits out drink]

Skar: No!

Lopen: Listen, it would work! I can read a man, and I KNOW that would work on Dalinar!

Kaladin: I DON'T WANT TO FLIRT WITH DALINAR, MY MARRIED ELDERLY BOSS

Lopen: Okay, okay! If you prefer to flirt with Navani, you just gotta roll up with something like, "So I heard you like long, thick towers. It just so happens that I..."

Kaladin: NO

Moash: See, the thing is, Kal, you're attractive enough that you could probably get away with a really bad pickup line.

Moash: I bet you could tell someone that you want to "Plunge straight into their their Honor Chasm" and I bet it would work.

Kaladin: That would absolutely not work.

Moash: You say that, and yet...

Rock: Moash has point, though! We are all well-known now, yes? All good-looking (except maybe for Lopen, who is unfortunately very short). I think men like us get away with some pretty bad lines, yeah?

Letyen: "You did a bridge run straight into my heart."

Moash: "I wanna explore YOUR chasms."

Kaladin: (What's you and the chasms, man?)

Lyn: "Let's...bridge this distance between us."

Teft: "I'm from Bridge 4. Do you want to get a drink?"

Skar: "Let me show you how good I am with my spear."

Sigzil: "You prefilled the forms in my heart."

[They all look at him]

Sigzil: What? In Azir, that's a very effective line.

Moash: Is that true, though, or are you making up Azir stories to trick us stupid Alethi?

Sigzil: [sips drink enigmatically]

Kaladin: Fine, fine, okay!

Kaladin: If I wanted to "pick someone up" with my Bridge 4 cred, I guess I'd try something like...

Kaladin: ...

Kaladin: Uh... How about: "My days in the bridge crews were horrible and dark. I barely survived. I lost a lot of friends. Good friends. It haunts me still. But now that I'm out, I've decided to live. And that means doing things that make me WANT to live."

Kaladin: "Like going out with you!"

Kaladin: [Looks at them expectantly]

Moash: Oh, Kal...

Lopen: Even your pretty face can't save that one, gon...

Skar: The thick tower line is looking better and better...

Kaladin: WELL YOU GUYS ARE THE ONES WHO BROUGHT IT UP

#cosmere #cosmerelists #bridge 4 #stormlight archive #Kaladin #Moash #Teft #Skar #Leyten #Lopen #Rock #Sigzil #Lyn

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creatingblackcharacters · 1 day

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on the topic of fandom racism.. wanted to ask an outside opinion on this.

so without much detail bc i don't wanna get this person harassed or something, i'm in a fandom where most of the characters are japanese and look pretty similar, so the diversity is Not Great. recently i saw an artist, who is white, draw a character with slightly darker skin than the rest of the cast as Black, where he was ambiguously brown before. my problem with this as an outsider is that i think that plays into a ton more stereotypes than if he was just tan or something. this character is regarded to be misogynistic, overly sexual, and especially to his #fffff white japanese (girl) friend.

i, as a white person, would like to approach this artist and ask if that's really the message they wanna send, but god forbid i do not want to sound like those people that believe in "black-washing" or just hate to see more diversity in an anime lineup. would it be white knighting to point this out, or approach that, hey, maybe your only person of color in this cast shouldn't be the one that acts Like That...

Hm. I see what you're saying. I'd suggest a few things, which is really my go-to for everyone white fighting fandom racism:

1) first, look out for the voices of Black fans in that space and see what they're saying. If they are perturbed by what they see, then I would amplify their voices and support them first. Let them know they're not crazy. They're the ones experiencing the harm, let their voices be the ones prioritized. If no one Black has said anything, that could be a sign that this entire fandom isn't safe for that kind of feedback (which... Often.)

2) look at that person's page to see how they treat this character. Do they actually offer them depth? Are they a fan? Have they shared anyone's good perspective of him? Do they actually care about him, and think his being Black serves a better narrative? Or is it really just this character is a douchebag and now he's "Black" because they wanted some diversity points without thinking about it. Hell, does the original media do right by this ambiguously brown character lol? Because that can often be the larger issue too.

3) does this person positively interact with Black people at all? Like people, opinions, topics, politics, anything at all? Or is this their Token Black Blorbo Barbie™? Because that's a red red flag lmao.

4) if you still feel strongly about it, send them a DM. I'd say make sure to be genuinely polite, not because you should be respected more because of it, but so that it's on record that you wanted to give them the space to amend ("Hello, I mean no harm, but I was worried that this may-") You're white too, so it'll be safer. DMs are really a kindness, a last chance for grace; sometimes people are just like "fuck it, that's a racist and imma treat them like it". And I don't begrudge them that, this shit is exhausting and enraging.

5) accept that you may very well approach with the best intentions, and this artist may very well act a complete asshole* about it. They may make excuses, the classic "I would never be racist", they may accuse you of all those things that you just said, try to cast you as the problem, and their friends may very well make you out to be the racist for pointing out the racism. Welcome to fighting antiblackness and racism in fandom 👍🏾 it's a minefield out here.

*keep in mind, even if they "respond sweetly", the whole "thanks 💕" schtick is still them being an asshole. Racism in sweet words is still racism.

6) if they do respond like an asshole, it is not a reflection of you, but of them. 👍🏾 They are now purposely choosing racism. Block them and move accordingly.

#creatingblackcharacters #thatsjusttips

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afsosville · 2 days

Text

You know what would've been nice? Shen Jiu ending up on a different peak that's actually good for him. Maybe Qian Cao, or the beast taming peak could've been hella therapeutic. Or the alcohol/brewery peak to drown away all his sorrows. But what if he stayed fucked up, in a way that's actually good and productive for society? Yeah, I wanna toss him over to Yin Hui and let him run wild! I've seen many iterations of Yin Hui, the fanon peak for espionage and poisons in fanfics. By extension, Yin Hui is also covertly the assassination peak, and I wish this peak got more attention around here tbh. Why do I think this peak is the most well suited for Shen Jiu? BECAUSE ASSASSINS. Duh.

So here comes a baby demonic cultivator Shen Jiu and the Yin Hui peak lord immediately wants him. Shen Jiu would be more readily accepted by his peak martial siblings, and no one would bat an eye at Shen Jiu, his standoffish personality or shady past. A lot of Yin Hui disciples are from questionable backgrounds since the Yin Hui peak lord naturally has to be very particular about selecting their disciples. Yin Hui was established to protect the sect and its people by any means necessary. Sure, the rest of the sect may fight against the supernatural, demons, and the undead, but Yin Hui fights an even greater monster: people.

The Yin Hui peak lord manipulated things so that the first impression the rest of the sect has about Shen Jiu is 'that new badass Yin Hui disciple that killed the criminal Wu Yanzi and saved the future sect leader!' (Seeing as Wu Yanzi would be the very sort of ppl they assassinate, he's already getting goated on Yin Hui too.) So Shen Jiu is known as that new prodigious disciple from Yin Hui and is getting some goddamn respect! And just because of his association with his peak, fewer people are inclined to question his background and whatnot since there's an understanding that the identity of the YH disciples needs to be heavily guarded. The Yin Hui peak lord finds out about the Qiu's soon enough, and they erase any and all traces leading back to Shen Jiu. Even framing it in a way that makes it look like WY did the massacre. Any credibility Qiu Haitang could've had for Shen Jiu's murder accusations is thrown out the window. (Ain’t no way in hell the Yin Hui peak lord is going to name SJ that stupid trauma inducing name like a certain Qing Jing peak lord, that's for sure.)

I'm pulling in elements from MDZS over here. In my version of Yin Hui, they have disciples who practice demonic cultivation, but they make sure it's in a safer way that won't hurt them. There's a surprising number of disciples who have damaged cultivation and chose to cultivate the ghost path. The previous generations of Yin Hui peak lords have created Wei Wuxian's inventions in this AU, and is used by the rest of the peak, like the compass of ill winds, paper metamorphosis, the spirit attraction flag, and empathy. I lowkey want a Wei Wuxian that's native to SV to be the Yin Hui peak lord, now that I think about it. He's good with his kiddos and would be an awesome shizun. And ofc, Shen Jiu is a reflection of his environment, so he's certainly making an example out of Wei Wuxian, one of the only positive influences in his life.

Shen Jiu still has his violent tendencies, so nothing has changed about that, but he learns to take that pent-up energy out on missions instead. And he does them well. It even gives him an edge. Everyone else thinks he's just reallyyy good at his job, as expected of the talented head disciple of Yin Hui!!

He really does try his best to not be an ass (bc he gets the love he deserves on Yin Hui) and ends up venting in a different way (coz he knows better than to take it out on people who don’t deserve it.) His shizun really gave him the free reign to kill sl@ve trad3rs, human tr@ffick3rs, r-ists, and other scum whenever he wanted, in the name of stress relief lol. If killing a particular person becomes politically complicated, like the Old Palace Bastard, then you best believe he's going to scheme like the little schemer he is. He's going to Nie Huaisang the OPM.

Since Shen Jiu is not salty about his fucked up cultivation, and his martial siblings respect him, they get along just fine. His cultivation is some parts similar to Wei Wuxian's: Shen Jiu is a ghost cultivator influenced by music. Sure, he may not be that great of a spiritual cultivator, so what? He's pulling up like the Yiling Patriarch with his demonic cultivation and a haunted guqin of his own.

And guess what? Shen Jiu enjoys teaching. He's training miniature assassins, spies, and the art of demonic cultivation, so forgive him if he's more than a little enthusiastic about it. I imagine that he's exactly like Shifu from kung fu panda when it comes to teaching. Still extremely harsh and strict when training, but outside of actually teaching, he's an attentive and caring shizun. And yes, he completely does act like a father figure who is proud of his murder babies, and ends up being called A-Ba so much that all of Cang Qiong thinks he's officially adopted every single one of his disciples. (After being saved by SJ on a mission, NYY persistently begs SJ to take her in even though he desperately thinks Yin Hui isn't a good fit for her. And then, after being under him for a while, she's completed her first mission successfully, has smn else's blood on her face, and is smiling brightly.

Ning Yingying: "I completed my mission shizun! Are you proud of me?"

Shen Jiu: "..."

Some other peaklord: "Haha like father like daughter! She's definitely your girl alright!"

Shen Jiu: "...!?!" )

Yue Qingyuan is conerneth about his Xiao Jiu, but as long as he's happy, who cares. Shen Jiu has a better relationship with the other peak lords, so when asked about why he visits brothels, he straight up tells them that it's the best place to gather information in the dark. He doesn't have that mentality of "why explain myself when no ones finna believe me anyway" He actually trusts them and is more honest with time. Shen Jiu does come clean about killing the Qiu's at some point, and the peak lords are all like-

"I didn't hear shit"

"See, I'm blind in my left eye, and 75% blind in my right-"

"Completely understandable, Shen shidi!"

They don't even ask why he did it and just assume he had a valid reason, and he absolutely fucking did.

Oh, Shen Jiu gets accused of playing dirty? Liu Qingge, he literally kills ppl and makes poison as a daytime fucking job ofc he's gonna play dirty! Shen Jiu tried killing you that one time on the well mission? Bro you good? The fact that you think he tried to kill you and failed?? You just insulted an entire peak of disciples and their ancestors. You would've been dead before you could even think of sensing their killing intent if it were true. And there was a witness too, doofus. Be fucking for real. Nahh coz there definitely would be more people who are taking Shen Jiu's side whenever the two of them fight.

Shen Jiu uses a shit ton of versatile weapons because most of his fighting and cultivation prowess comes from his wits and adapting to fighting with different styles/methods. He is kinda similar to Xie Lian bc both of them lack spiritual energy/qi (damaged spirit roots in Shen Jiu's case), but that does not mean they are weaker. It just means they learned to train their body and minds instead of relying on cultivation/qi. He has a massive arsenal of weapons along with the demonic cultivation.

Yin Hui has got to be my favorite fanon peak, and Yin Hui! Shen Jiu plauges so many of my waking thoughts, I can't stop-

I can add elements from my other hyperfixation into this AU, the Avatar Chronicles. Which are the written books from ATLA. The criminal organization Kyoshi joined, the Daofei, for example, could be a good plot point. Or the Platinum Affair from the Yangchen books. If you don’t know what the Avatar Chronicles are, just ignore this last part lol.

#shen jiu #original shen qingqiu #og shen qingqiu #svsss #mxtx svsss #scumbag self saving system #the scum villain's self saving system #scum villain #scum villian self saving system #this fic idea was birthed bc of this thought:#sj saying yor's line from spy x family #terribly sorry for the interruption. but tell me #may i have the honour of taking ur life this evening?#and that was that #svsss au #yin hui #svsss crossover #why is this so long

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enanansbbg · 17 hours

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Anhane’s relationship, and it’s complexity:

this was originally uploaded onto twt, but I wanted to reupload it here because I was very proud of this analysis, so please enjoy and feel free to add anything I may have missed or skipped over!

With that being said, here we go! ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

Let’s start with the basics. The pure power of their aibouness, and its connections to vivid street.

To begin, you must understand what a partner is in VBS terms. In this case, it’s ‘a person who brings out parts of you never knew existed’.

In relations to Anhane, this is based off pure raw emotions. This is shown through An’s abandonment issues and Kohane’s want to make her heart pound.

Kohane wants to recreate that feeling she felt when she first heard An singing inside of An, to ‘make her heart pound’, while An’s abandonment issues cause her to fear Kohane’s rapid growth may lead to Kohane abandoning her.

This also plays into a certain factor about Kohane and the idea of her and angst, I believe.

Many people want Kohane to have some kind of angst event, especially related to her backstory, but that would go against all her motives.

See, Kohane’s pure movies for pursuing music—for working to surpass Rad Weekend all tie back to An. It was hearing An singing at WG that made her heart pound and An asking her to be her singing partner that caused her to even consider music as an option.

From here, their relationship develops into a lot more, and it’s when the idea of partners ‘bringing out an ugly side of you’ comes to play.

You can see even in the maim story An not seeing Kohane as an equal. It only gets called out and resolved in Singing in Sync.

Singing In Sync, ep. 1 and 3

🎧: “In the unlikely event that something does go wrong, I’ll cover for you and get you back on track, okay?”

…

🎧: “I failed as her partner…I couldn’t protect her…

…

🎧: “I mean, she’s my partner…And I wanted to guide her so that she could sing without worrying…”

…

🥞: “You don’t think of Kohane as one of the team.”

An telling Kohane “I’ll protect you if you mess up” subconsciously puts the idea into Kohane’s head “I’m not good enough, so I’ll probably mess up” This is what caused the entire issue in SIS to begin with.

But it’s once An tells her “you can protect me too” that Kohane is able to subconsciously think “I have the power to make her heart pound too”

Singing in Sync, ep. 8

🎧: “If I miss a cue at the next event…”

🎧: “Could you cover for me?”

🐹: “An… Sure, I can do that!”

After this we get Awakening Beat. Kohane is able to come out of her shell and fully adapts the idea “I can make her heart pound too” and has a large boost in confidence because of it. An both brought her confidence down and back up in the spam of one rotation.

Awakening Beat, ep. 8

🎧: (“It’s like she’s not even the Kohane I know. Could this be because she’s completely resolved herself?”

🎧: (“But even with just that, she can really change this much…?”)

However….In the same event, An’s insecurities begin to bloom and in Bout for Beside You, An has to face them for the first time.

Awakening Beat, ep. 8, BFBY, ep. 4

🎧: (“I was just gonna tell her she did amazing… That I never knew she could sing that amazingly, but…”

🎧: (“What’s going on? I just can’t get the words out—”)

…

🎧: “Kohane is…going to leave me behind?”

Here, An realizes her and Kohane ‘perfect’ relationship is more complicated now. While Kohane’s adapted the idea of “I want to make her heart pound”, An opens to idea of “I wont he able to make her heart pound anymore” (they doki doki more than ddlc i swear)

At the end of the event, An ask Kohane the golden question. “If I were to leave somewhere far away, would we still sing together?”

BFBY, ep. 8

🎧: “But what would you do if I said that I’d be going somewhere far far away someday?”

🎧: “And I wanted to reach greater heights just like what Uncle Taiga did exploring the world. If I were to go to someplace even greater and far far away from here—”

Of course, Kohane affirms this. Naturally, Kohane takes a lot of pride in being An’s partner, being the only partner for her. (as said in ORS) She wants to keep singing with An forever.

BFBY, ep. 8

🐹: “Even so, I would want to keep singing with An-chan!”

🐹: “No matter where you go or what you become, I’d still want to be with you!”

🐹: “I want to properly stand beside you and sing with you!”

We’re gonna skip ahead a bit and jump up to KIUAN, where we get our lovely “She looks like Nagi-san” line, the line that killed every Anhane shipper in the tristate area.

But what makes this line so special? Well, for that let’s discuss what made Nagi’s death (and the lie surrounding it) so impactful.

Nagi was someone An looked up to highly. So, when she was suddenly told that Nagi moved, not even saying goodbye, to pursue her music career, it left a mark on An. Added to the fact that Nagi wasn’t returning An’s messages or calls, just completely disappeared.

Now, looking to Bout for Beside you and KIUAN, you can see the importance of these lines. An fears that Kohane will improve so much that she leaves without a word, never talks go her again and just moves on. It’s why she looks so distressed.

VOT ep. 8, BFBY, ep. 8, KIUAN ep. 7

🎧: “…Aww. I wonder what Nagi-san is doing over in America? I wish she’d give us a call at least.”

🎧: “Ah! Maybe I’ll send her a text then! I wonder if she’ll be surprised~?”

…

🎧: “But what would you do if I said that I’d be going somewhere far far away someday?”

…

🎧: “…She looks just like Nagi-san…”

And, it’s why she can’t even believe Kohane when she says just how important An is to her, how much she loves her and wants to sing with her because Nagi said the same thing and now Nagi is gone.

This manages to reach a resolve in WTWG, where An ‘fights’ Kohane, takes all those raw emotions out in a healthy way, through her song.

An’s card in WTWG is more than just ‘An takes her anger out on Kohane’, because in truth that’s not entirely what she’s doing. Instead, it’s An’s raw emotions taking form.

An wants Kohane to grow, she wants Kohane to thrive fully, but that fear of abandonment—Fear that Kohane will leave and never speak to her again makes her want to hold her close and never let her go anywhere.

So what about Kohane?

Well, starting with thr WTWG card/story, Kohane wants to be An’s best partner. As she states, ‘to make An’s heart pound’.

So, to be vulnerable here is to accept all of An’s raw emotions. Let her lean on her and feel everything because to Kohane, that makes her a worthy partner.

She says over and over throughout the fight that An is amazing, that she wants to be like her, how much it makes her heart pound. Really, it reminds me of Kohane’s colorfes story.

WTWG, ep. 7

🐹: (“An-chan…really is amazing.”)

🐹: (“…Whenever I hear An-chan sing, it really makes my heart pound like nothing else. It makes me wish I could sing like her.”)

In it, Kohane goes to Vivid Street, but everyone thinks she’s An. This happens after she thinks about what it would be like to be An, but only going through this dream does she realize that she doesn’t want to be An, she wants to be her. She wants to be An’s partner.

Colorfes Kohane ep. 1 and 2

Record Store Onee-san: “You caught me off guard, using polite like that, An-chan!”

🐹: (“Did she just say An-chan…?”)

…

🐹: (“—An-chan’s so cool and strong…and there’s times I wish I could be like her…”)

🐹: (“I have to be me! Because—”)

🎧: “—Y’know, I was thinking, your singing is always so amazing, Kohane.”

🎧: “Whenever I hear your singing, it makes my heart race. The tension rises, and it makes me feel like I have to start singing right now!”

🐹: (“Because I’m An-chan’s partner—!”)

And to be An’s partner, is to drag all those raw, vertical emotions out of An, just like she does in WTWG.

In conclusion, Anhane explosion their relationship is so complex and strong and I love it

#pjsk #colorful stage #project sekai #prsk #anhane #an pjsk #an shiraishi #prsk kohane #azusawa kohane #kohane azusawa #shiraishi an #character analysis #ship analysis #analysis #vivid bad squad #vivid bad squad analysis #vbs an #vbs kohane

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paraphwrites · 1 day

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so obviously the time period a character comes from impacts them. but i adore the analysis of dbda and loneliness so now i want to analyze the characters + their time period + loneliness

edwin. so, edwin is from the 1900s. he was raised with the knowledge that he would join the military, that he would get married. this was an accepted part of life. now, i do not wish to analyze the full scale of edwin's relationship with violence (at least, not here), but i do think it's interesting that edwin goes out of his way not to inflict harm on others. this is potentially because he was raised in such a way where that was the norm, and he always knew he did not fit traditional male standards. he has always preferred knowledge and books to fighting and sport. this would have been incredibly isolating, especially as a young boy in a school for children of military members. additionally, as a queer person, edwin would have been entirely socially isolated from his peers. whether they picked up on it like simon or just thought he was un-manly, the point stands: edwin would not have fit in with his peers and seemingly had no friends when he died. which is very sad. and very lonely.

crystal. crystal's parents neglected her for their work. she lashes out. she lashes out and pushes people away (or in front of traffic). she is volatile and destructive and she is like this because she lives in an age when parents are expected to care for their children, and her parents still actively chose not to. crystal is especially traumatized because even tho she is in upper class which may have a higher rate of willful parental neglect, the expectation is still that parents love their children. moreover crystal is psychic, and that's never really been fun. she'll be completely different from all her peers in a fundamental way which she probably never talks about with any of them! so, like, of course when david, a demon, comes along, she lets him in - she's finally with someone who understands and makes her feel less lonely. someone else who's weird and angry and pretty and supernatural. and then he, too, betrays her. there is also almost certainly a race element, which may further disassociate her from her peers, seeing as the upper class is usually very white.

jenny. so jenny grew up as a lesbian in the 90s. now, i don't know much about washington state, but i do know that they legalized gay marriage in 2012. which means for over half of jenny's life, she was living with the knowledge that she would never get to live the same type of life as her peers; though the white picket fence americana dream may have been less prevalent by the 90s, it still was very ingrained in american society - especially small town society. i wonder if part of jenny's gothic fashion is to distinguish herself from other people - if she cannot have the same lives as them, then no one will make the mistake of assuming she will.

so the night nurse is lonely in a very unique way. she is lonely because she does not have a proper conception of an actual human life. she has no friends or relationships - nor does she want to; she does not know what they are like. and, i think, because she exists so outside of time and removed from society, that it makes her inherently lonely. she is lonely because somehow she was created and somehow someone convinced her that her only purpose in life is to collect lost children and she is satisfied with this but she is also alone. she has no time period to be contextualized in, and that in itself is the context.

niko is lonely because her dad is dead and her mom lives in a different continent. and i think that because she is able to utilize manga and cartoons as a form of escapism, it allows her to fill that void of devastating loneliness a bit more. she lives in a world where if she doesn't want to think she does not have to. she is not obligated to be courageous. however, she also lives in a world where she is able to choose to self-isolate, even if that isn't good for her. so when she is sad she hides away because she can and it's scary and she doesn't want to do it alone but she doesn't want to do it with her mom. i've seen people saying crystal is such a teenage girl but niko? niko wants her mom to comfort her but doesn't want to talk to her mom. niko is horribly lonely and it's only a gay victorian twink who can get her to smile again. niko is lonely because she exists in a world which allows her to be and it takes someone who is not from this time to help her move past this

charles. god, we all know how lonely charles is. biracial, abused by his father, probably bisexual, good with people yet killed via hate crime, morally upstanding. charles is the epitome of loneliness because he grows up in such a particular moment of time. he lives in the 80s. feminism and queer rights have been radically shifting in the past two decades. the 80s have huge amounts conservative pushback from these movements. so, yeah, being gay isn't a crime anymore, but gendered expectations are being reestablished in a new harmful way. so, yeah, charles is growing up in a time of progress, but he's also growing up in a household which will absolutely be anti-progress, and ergo charles is stuck in this dichotomy of he could hypothetically have everything but that would mean losing everything, too. he's lonely because his dad beats him. he's lonely because his mom doesn't say anything. he's lonely because he has a piercing but his dad locked him in his room for three days after it. he's lonely because he attends a boarding school which rich racist pricks. he's lonely because never once in his life has he admitted how the intersection of all his identities puts him in a situation where he is completely alone. and he isn't alone -he's got edwin- but their experiences with loneliness are vastly different.

as i have said a stupid number of times, dead boy detectives is a story about loneliness. and the writers made these characters so damn brilliantly because they all make so much sense in the context they were raised in.

we are all shaped by the context's we're raised in. everyone is raised at a different moment in history in different environments with different families. human experiences are so unique that everyone is inherently lonely. but lonely does not mean alone and lonely does not mean forever. it means when you were fourteen you cried yourself to sleep but now you're twenty and know how to play cricket and your friends come to all of your matches. it means you were raised in a world that was cruel and unforgiving, AND it means that because of that you don't have to be. dead boy detectives teaches us that we're all horribly lonely, and maybe that makes each other a little less lonely

i'll take some of your burden if you'll take some of mine, and whatnot

#the conclusion was a bit bumpy #but you know what i'm saying #dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #save dead boy detectives #crystal palace #analysis #renew dead boy detectives #niko sasaki #jenny the butcher #character analysis

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frommybookbook · 2 days

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Earlier today, some friends and I were discussing one of those Star Trek captains memes. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that pit the captains against each other with pithy descriptions that glorify and champion the men and shit on Janeway. The ones where Picard is describe as the wise teacher and scholarly diplomat; Kirk is the brave trailblazer and lovable rogue; Sisko is the take-no-shit commander and more-than-human uniter; Archer is the quick thinking explorer and the avenging do-gooder; Pike is the empathetic Boy Scout and the quippy everyman…and Janeway is an irrational murderer and erratic loose canon. And, as usual, I went on a bit of a rant. They (looking at you @redsesame, @epersonae, and @emi--rose) told me to share it here so, if you trudge through this whole thing, blame them.

Does Janeway make some questionable decisions throughout VOY (Prodigy!Janeway is a different conversation for another time)? Yes, absolutely. But here’s the thing: every captain does. What I still love about her though and will champion until I'm blue in the face is that Janeway owns her decisions more than I think any other captain does.

Picard and Kirk hide behind the Prime Directive a lot. That's the reasoning Picard gives for not interfering in the drug running in “Symbiosis” and leaving the Ornarans trapped in dependence on the abusive Brekkans. His line, “Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous." is a cop-out we hear from him time and time again, especially to Dr. Crusher, as she is the one who most often calls him on his bullshit.

Kirk does the same thing. We still this when he leaves Shanna and the other thralls behind in "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and when he forces Elaan of Troyius into a marriage she clearly doesn't want because it's "for a greater good." And all the while, he's got Spock at his side giving him confirmation bias that he's following regulations.

And Sisko, Sisko makes some of the most horrific and destructive decisions of any captain and uses not only the Prime Directive to fall back on, but he's got the Dominion War to blame. He poisons an entire planet to get back at one man he feels betrayed him in "For the Uniform" and don't even get me started on his actions in "In the Pale Moonlight".

Enterprise is so unjustly shat on by the fandom that I almost hate to bring some of Archer's questionable choices into this conversation but I'm going to do it anyway. Similar to Sisko and the Dominion War, Archer has the threat of the Xindi in his back pocket to excuse some of his worst behavior. If Tuvix is the worst thing people can point to for Janeway, then we have to talk about Archer and Sim, the simbiont created solely to be a living tissue donor for an injured Trip, a procedure that will kill the living, breathing, sentient Sim. Archer orders Sim created against the arguments made by Dr. Phlox. He rationalizes his decision with the same argument for the greater good that we see from all the others. He says to T'Pol before Sim is created "…we've got to complete this mission. Earth needs Enterprise. Enterprise needs Trip. It's as simple as that." And it doesn't end there. When Sim is grown enough for the procedure and has figured out what's going to happen to him, he challenges Archer himself, arguing for his own right to live, and Archer sticks to his guns. This exchange directly between Archer and Sim is haunting.

Archer: I must complete this mission; and to do that, I need Trip. Trip! I'll take whatever steps necessary to save him. Sim: Even if it means killing me? Archer: Even if it means killing you. Sim: You're not a murderer. Archer: Don't make me one.

Not only do all of these captains (except Archer, who arguably writes the damn thing himself at the end of the series) have the Prime Directive to fall back on, they also have Starfleet/the Federation/Vulcan High Council right there on speed dial to validate their choices and hear their excuses and give them another commendation. They all know that ultimately, they can turn to someone higher in command to turn to for help.

Janeway is alone. She is alone with her crew 70,000 lightyears from home with only her training and her own moral compass to guide her. Yes, she claims the Prime Directive a lot but she also goes with what she feels is right and she is clear about that with her crew. When she makes the decision to split Tuvix, despite what everyone else says, she sticks to it and more importantly, does the procedure herself. Picard would have forced Beverly to do it, saying Doctor I gave you an order, your conscience be damned, and Archer does the same to Phlox with Sim, but Janeway takes the tool out of the Doctor's hand and says it's my call, I'll do it. When everyone is angry and mad about her destroying the Caretaker's array, she stands up for her decision and says yes, I did it, because it's what my Starfleet training said to do AND because I think it was the right thing and it's on me to make the hard choices.

She also can admit when she made the wrong decision, which isn't something we see from the other captains. In the season 5 opener, "Night", we see her in a depressive state because she's questioning her decision to effectively strand her crew in the Delta quadrant but she comes out of it when she's reminded by her senior staff that the crew believes in her and trusts her, she should do the same for herself. When the Doctor has a mental crisis in "Latent Image" after questioning his own choice to save the life of Harry Kim over that of another crew member, Janeway admits she did the wrong thing by first deleting his memories of it so he could get back to work and then sits with him for days while he works through it because that's what captains do.

And she does all of this without the backup and support of Starfleet. She doesn't have anyone higher on the chain of command. She's 70,000 miles away from the admiralty and her support system. There's no one higher than her to give her a break from making every decision.

To quote my fellow Missourian Harry Truman, for Janeway the buck stops with her in a way it doesn't for any other captain and she is painfully aware of that and owns that and that is why I love her and she's my captain.

#captain janeway #star trek #this got real long #i'm aware #but janeway is my captain #and i will defend her to my death #because so much of the criticism she gets is because she's a woman #we all know this

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miwiheroes · 2 days

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Mike and El's conflict is not just about him not being able to say 'I love you.'

It's about the fact they just don't understand each other anymore. Even if he was truthful about loving her in the end, it doesn't matter. Their relationship's building blocks are still broken. Here's why:

"I guess I just don't really understand."

"I mean, you've seen it, I've been bullied my entire life."

"I know what it's like."

"I understand"

"Just please don't tell the others okay? They won't understand."

"Eleven would. She always did."

"No. You don't."

"What don't I understand?"

"I am different." "You think I'm a monster too."

I really don't think anyone truly realises what the Mike and El fight in season 4 does to their relationship. Yes, it is basically all about how El tells Mike that he isn't loving her in the way that she needs, and that Mike just thinks of her as his superhero rather than a human being. However, this is a total break down in their relationship as a whole.

Their whole relationship was built in season 1 and 2 on a certain type of shared trauma, attachment to the person who gave you care, fascination and most of all, understanding. Mike was attached to her in season 2 and season 1 and had the first inkling that he might have liked her because he thought, 'finally someone who understands me'.

That understanding is gone. I repeat, it is gone. In this scene, with the broken diorama, it is established that the fundamental building blocks of their relationship too, are broken.

Many people think that by the end of season 4, Milkvan is completely fixed. Because Mike said 'I love you' and y'know what, let's say he meant everything he said! What if he did mean that he loved her? (even though that's not the case but walk with me here).

That still doesn't resolve everything.

Wait. But that was their only problem, right? That was all their argument was about, right?

Wrong. Their argument was also about El not understanding Mike, Mike not understanding El. And this part isn't fixed. Mike still calls her a superhero in his speech even if he is truthful, he still makes her feel like she's not a human being.

But:

"You make [me] feel like [I'm] not a mistake at all. Like [I'm] better for being different. And that gives [me] the courage to fight on."

Mike likes the words that Will says, and if he believes the lies that he's telling him, then that means he also likes having that sense of understanding between him and El. But in reality, it's not there. He feels warmth for feeling like he's being understood/ he understands someone else, but it's not El. It's Will.

"I am different. I do not belong." vs. "You make [me] feel like [I'm] better for being different."

When Mike finds out that it's not El that he makes feel like she's not a mistake, and that it's actually Will, he's gonna have a lot of questioning to do. Because, as Finn said:

"There's probably a mutual understanding and acceptance there, I think." (in relation to someone asking about mike's feelings here)

Mike will find that understanding he craves so much in a relationship. Will already believes that Mike understands him and makes him feel like he's not a mistake. Mike will find that understanding with Will, because it's mutual.

Uh so yeah, this is truly why I think for Mike's arc and El's arc, it makes no sense for them to be endgame, because they simply don't understand each other. But it's not anyone's fault.

#byler #byler endgame #stranger things #anti mileven #byler proof #byler evidence

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bloop-bl00p · 2 days

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Alastor could have been Native American

Before anyone screams racism, removal of representation, or whatever I redirect you to my post about the Voodoo representation of the show.

→ HERE ←

First thing first, Alastor is not a Wendigo but his cannibalism aspect led to fans believing the contrary, a belief that was pushed further with him being a deer. Wendigoes aren’t related to deer at all, they mostly look like men who are visibly starved and all. The deer thing came from pop culture.

Now you’re gonna ask..

“You’re all for representing properly religion and culture why would you want him to be American Indian if he’s not a proper wendigo?”

He could be a skinwalker with small elements of wendigo.

Here’s a small rewrite

It’s not related to Hell’s Safe Haven, I’ll be doing something different, feel free to take the idea for your oc if you want. But remember, Always do research :)

Why a skinwalker? They are shamans who started as healers but broke taboos from the culture which involve using their ability for harm and curses. If you’re smart then you should see where I’m going with this.

Rather than being an “evil voodoo man” Alastor could have been a shaman who transgressed important rules and became a skinwalker, one of these taboos is murdering a close relative to align with darker powers which pretty much fits for Alastor. Obliviously, you don’t villainize the whole culture, you can still show that shamanism, when not perverted by skinwalkers, can do good. Alastor’s mother could have also been a shaman and went to Heaven.

He could still have been a serial killer, stalking and learning the routine of his victims before killing them. Then he could have died in the snow because hunters noticed his activities in the forest, thanks to their dogs smelling the putrid flesh of the bodies he was carrying around, and then he got shot. Or you can have it that he managed to escape but got lost and had to eat part of the corpse he managed to get with him, but he also had to use their skin to not try and protect himself from the cold in vain partially linking him to Wendigoes.

In Hell, he could have looked like a starved disturbing-looking deer, starved because of wendigos and deer because that’s the animals he favored the most to lure people. In terms of powers, he could have the ability to reproduce people's voices through electronics mainly using radios to do so. A cool detail could be that these voices sound slightly disturbing and fake.

He completely took a more charming and refined aesthetic once in Hell to appeal to and manipulate others more easily. Skinwalkers are described as carrying bones I guess that could help for a possible redesign. Since his appearance is quite scary he could wear a hat to hide his face.

The actual critic

This is really a surface-level thing, it's a first draft based on Wikipedia, but you can’t say that it’s not remotely much more cohesive than whatever Viv is doing with Alastor.

This is something that absolutely frustrates me with the Hellaverse, Viv has very surface-level concepts, and she doesn't do enough research to bring them to their potential. It happens with Voodoo, the Goetia, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the whole pantheon of biblical figures.

What she does is she takes these cool ideas and slaps them onto her oc without much thought.

Take an example with Andrealphus, he teaches math and geometry so one of my first thought is to give me space manipulation. This means he can basically change your location in an enclosed space, turn an entire room around, and twist it to his liking. With his knowledge of maths and geometry, he knows what to do specifically to make you land exactly where he wants which makes him extremely hard to fight inside a house, especially if it’s a big place.

He could also completely reshape the laws of geometry and physics, how funny would it be to see that he lives in a small house, not taking much place but then you go outside and discover it’s basically a whole castle? It’s generic but it makes sense and makes places for lots of interesting scenes for fights or just aesthetics.

Vivziepop chose to give him ice power, for some reason. I mean math isn’t really an attractive notion in terms of supernatural abilities but you can still do something interesting with it. Unless his castle is a geometrical wet dream, I don’t see a possible link between the two. It’s a matter of creativity and the willingness to do research to cultivate it, she doesn't have that.

If you just slap very specific labels (like voodoos) on a character without thinking about how it could work for them and affect the world around them (if voodoo works then the Lwas exists), then not only you are not doing your “job” as a writer but you are just doing it for the aesthetic. It’s not wrong to do if it’s mundane things like saying that one character knows how to speak Latin, but in some cases, you gonna have to be careful about what you write in your stories.

#anti vivziepop #vivziepop criticism #vivziepop critique #vivziepop critical #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin hotel rewrite #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critical #helluva boss rewrite #hazbin hotel alastor

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starcurtain · 3 days

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Hello! I just saw your latest post and you might have been referring to my ask if it was the one about Ratiorine's differing philosophies or of what philosophies they abide by (existentialism, absurdism, etc) then that's me! If you weren't referring to that I apologize for the confusion. Sending it off anon this time so maybe it doesn't disappear 🥲

Sorry for the ask disappearing the first time; I'm not sure what happened, and I was so sad because I had been carefully holding on to it to answer it! I'm glad you were able to resend.

I do have to say first that philosophy is not my area of expertise, so there may be much more qualified philosophy buffs out there who can answer this more accurately than me, but I'll give it a go with my personal understandings of the characters:

First, Ratio is the easier of the two I think. As many people have said, he's a good fit for existentialism. His entire shtick is basically believing in the power of the individual to improve and enrich their own life, to fight valiantly regardless of the hardships imposed by their life's circumstances, and to make themself into a better person by their own choices.

It's important to underscore that this means Ratio believes in self-determination, in the idea that people's lives are not foreordained but are actually actively shaped each day by personal decisions. Therefore, people have inherent freedom to decide the course of their own lives by accepting what they approve of, refusing to accept what they disapprove of, and harnessing their own individual power to ultimately achieve self-actualization.

Essentially, Ratio works under the impression that life is not guided by something as intangible as destiny, and no matter where you start off in life, what ultimately happens to you is within your control (or at least within the control of whoever controls you). This is likely a small part of why it grates on him so badly that he wasn't recognized by Nous, because the fact that one can dedicate everything to a goal and still not achieve that goal runs contrary to his central philosophy.

If he believes that people have the power to determine the course of their own lives, then what does it say about him, who fought so hard to do exactly as he claims even idiots can do--seize control his own fate--and yet didn't succeed? Are there some things outside of man's power? It's enough to make even a renowned doctor question himself, and Ratio decided to come out on the side of "It's a personal failing, not a flaw in my philosophy." He literally said "Skill issue" to himself.

Changing tack a tiny bit here, I think it's also important to emphasize that there is a difference between existentialism and nihilism even though these philosophies dovetail. Again, I'm not an expert in philosophy, so my understanding is very limited, but the basic idea of existentialism is that "existence comes before essence"--that is, things start as a blank slate and gain nature and meaning after the fact. We are not created by some grand design, nor is there any inherent "purpose for living." Things just exist because they exist.

This is where existentialism intersects with nihilism, at the starting point that existence is inherently meaningless. But, in my personal opinion, nihilism as a philosophy fails to move beyond that. Pure nihilism is ultimately self-defeating because it leaves us with no motivation to commit to growth. It's a philosophy antithetical to the continuation of life as we know it. Existence is meaningless and any meaning you personally derive from existence is also meaningless, so why bother attempting to derive any meaning at all? This complete apathy is the Device IX that Star Rail paints as so dangerous.

And Ratio is not this way at all. His philosophy absolutely reaffirms that life can have meaning, so long as people create that meaning for themselves. He simultaneously asserts that anything that people create is not meaningless ...which basically means that meaning itself cannot be meaningless. (If that makes any sense to anyone.)

Frankly, I would argue that this philosophy may be a core part of why Ratio has not been recognized by Nous so far, rather than simply his "being a good person." (Nous is a robotic AI super-computer, why would THEY care about the presence or lack of human empathy?) Ultimately, Ratio's central philosophy about people being capable of determining their own fates and purposes also applies to his understanding of knowledge--knowledge is not something which is inherent in certain beings from birth or limited to the purview of the "special" (geniuses), but is attainable by all people. People are not "born talented" or "born untalented," they are simply "educated" or "uneducated," with the only barrier between these categories being one's own personal willingness to change. The mundane can become the divine--if they work hard enough at it.

Thus, knowledge is not wealth to be hoarded, but a currency to be spent to enrich other members of humanity.

(By the way, completely random aside--it also surprises me that everyone relates Ratio to Alhaitham from Genshin when they literally have such a glaring fundamental discrepancy in their understanding of the concept of wisdom... But anyway, back on topic!)

Ratio may (sort of) respect the members of the Genius Society, may recognize their incredible knowledge and abilities, but at the heart of the matter lies a single all-important question: Does Ratio even really believe in "genius" as a distinction (other than as a concept to insult himself)? Does he truly believe there is barrier between brilliance and idiocy that "ordinary people" can never cross?

He speaks convincingly about geniuses being different from "the ordinary," but if his core belief is that people have the power to pull themselves up out of despair and achieve greatness through effort and self-development, rather than some form of luck or god-given talent at birth, then... do born "geniuses" even really exist? Is there really an insurmountable difference between brilliant and mundane?

If knowledge is the equalizer of all sentient beings, do we not all have at least the initial capacity to become geniuses?

I personally think this central distinction about the capacity for knowledge among all humanity is the actual deciding factor in Ratio's rejection from the Genius Society, because, at the end of the day... how do you become a member of the "Genius Society" when you fundamentally reject the distinction of "genius" as an exclusive category from the start?

Ratio wants to share knowledge and uplift everyone (even if he thinks most people are starting off at the rock bottom known as idiocy).

His mission is diametrically opposed to the concept of a "Genius Society" in the first place.

He wanted in to the cool kids club because he desperately craves validation and acceptance, but the philosophical values of the Genius Society are ultimately incompatible with his own. In short, he would have to cease to be "Veritas Ratio" to succeed in joining the geniuses.

Okay, okay, back to the original point again, and just one more note about Ratio: Even though existentialism also goes hand-in-hand with absurdism, I don't think Ratio is far enough down the philosophical rabbit hole to believe in the wider definition of absurdism. Although I think he does agree with the inherent meaninglessness of existence, I don't think he views existence itself as truly irrational and the universe as as manifestation of unknowable chaos. I think he'd at least like to imagine that there are some ontological principles and inherent laws governing the operations of reality, and I think he does believe that certain things can be predicted with the application of enough thought... He certainly seems to believe in some form of "objective truth," at the very least.

I think he'd at least like to believe the universe is semi-orderly, even if he might deep down admit this is also wishful thinking.

So, to me he reads as a strong metaphor for pure existentialism, with deliberate rejections to both nihilism's apathy and absurdism's lean toward solely subjective reality.

PHEW, this is already long and I still have a whole other character to talk about... I had more to say about this topic than I thought. Sorry for the long read!

Anyway... Aventurine.

I've seen all sorts of things thrown around for Aventurine's philosophy, and while I think he does inherit a bit of Acheron's absurdism by the end of 2.1, I actually don't think Aventurine is an absurdist, an existentialist, or a nihilist.

I think Aventurine is a struggling fatalist.

He doesn't like it. We see him actively question it, but ultimately, he does come back to the concept of destiny over and over.

First, I think it's important to draw a clear distinction between Ratio and Aventurine: Ratio's existentialism is a philosophy that technically works even in a theological vacuum. Nous doesn't have to exist for Ratio's philosophy to function. Ratio's belief in the self-determination of humanity is, in fact, somewhat opposed to belief in aeons in the first place, and only works because technically the aeons of Star Rail used to be human (or were originally human creations). It's essentially an atheist viewpoint.

But Aventurine is a religious character. Like, he's just... religious. That's a fact about him. Even though we do hear his doubts, at the end of the day, he actually believes in Gaiathra, and believing in a omniscient supernatural being that is not human in origin (is from outside the aeon system) comes with a whole set of philosophical foundations that most aeon-worshipping characters just don't have in Star Rail. (Sunday is the obvious exception here, by the way.)

Kakavasha's like the one practicing pagan in the middle of an atheist convention. Awkward.

Being more serious: Religion requires faith. Faith requires the ability to believe in things you cannot verify with empirical facts. To believe in things you can only feel, never see. The belief that a goddess is watching over you, blessing you, and guiding you requires you to also accept the idea that events in your life are not always in your own control--that some of what occurs to you is decided by powers beyond your comprehension.

In essence, faith requires belief in fate. And that leads to fatalism.

No matter how much he doesn't like it, no matter how much we see him struggle with it, Aventurine does actually seem to believe in the concept of fate. He believes that some events in life are destined to occur, that some things are outside of individuals' control, and that ultimately not everything can be changed.

This is the dead opposite of Ratio's mindset: No matter how hard we fight, how far we push ourselves... in the end, sometimes people fail. Sometimes the only answer to our endless struggles is that we die, as we were destined to, before ever achieving the greatness we sought or the futures we were promised.

As an aside, I don't think faith or religion are necessarily the only factors connecting Aventurine to this particular philosophy either. Even removing theological aspects from the conversation, his extreme focus on the gambling aesthetic suggests a strong connection to fatalism too--if not a goddess, then one's fate may as well be in the hands of luck itself, of the whims of the rolling dice--or the push and pull of "powers that be," those figures of authority in the room where it happens, who make their shady deals according to preset rules and expectations, every bet resulting in an ultimately predictable outcome.

(He keeps gambling and gambling, hoping that he'll get a different result than the one he knows is inevitable...)

This is, of course, an inherently pessimistic mindset, a perfect dark-mirror to Ratio's deep-down optimism. Fatalism puts humanity into a position of powerlessness. All hopes and dreams are given over to the goddess, by whose judgment and whims the actual events of one's life are decided. Pain and poverty are inevitable trials. Suffering and death are foreordained.

And yet Aventurine has to cling to this, as much as he doubts it, as much as he hates the idea that things in his life are beyond his power to control.

Because if fate doesn't exist... If it wasn't destiny, if the tragedies of his life weren't trials from the goddess, if things weren't supposed to go this way... Then every single thing in his life really is meaningless. Everything he suffered, everyone he loved and loss, his mother's and sister's sacrifices, the torment he went through--just sheer bad luck. All of it, completely and utterly meaningless.

How can you convince yourself to keep living, in the face of such supreme and all-encompassing Nihility?

This is the central struggle of Aventurine's character, the actual mental and emotional journey we see him undertaking from 2.0 to 2.1. He is literally on the precipice, swinging between a viewpoint that he hates--his fatalistic belief in destiny--and an entirely self-defeating philosophy--nihilism--whose only possible final outcome is suicide.

This is what his talk with Acheron at the end of 2.1 is all about. This is how she saves him. In that final cutscene, we witness Aventurine reach a mental compromise, managing to finally reconcile his necessary faith in the concept of destiny with the reality that life may truly begin meaningless--but beginning meaningless does not mean staying meaningless, and believing in destiny does not bar you from making your own choices or finding your own purpose in life.

Later on in Penacony's story, we literally see Acheron use Ratio's philosophy to reject the same nihility that crept into Aventurine's:

Acheron wards off nihility's apathy through an absurdism all her own, but one which manages to enclose both Ratio's and Aventurine's otherwise incompatible mindsets: We have no way of ever knowing for certain whether the events of our lives are fated or mere nonsense. We have no way of knowing if our choices are our own or foreordained. But we don't need to know this to find meaning and value in them. Whether life is nothing more than unpredictable chaos or a predetermined pattern of cause and effect, what matters is what you make of it.

Ultimately, I think that this post has really helped me recognize just how well Aventurine and Ratio work as philosophical foils.

They really are perfect opposites.

Aventurine's fatalism is deterministic, while Ratio's existentialism is self-deterministic. Aventurine's philosophy is inherently pessimistic; Ratio's is inherently optimistic. Ratio's philosophy operates on a core belief in the freedom of humanity to decide their own paths in life, while Aventurine hates but does ultimately believe that people aren't really in control, that even if no gods are guiding us, we can't rise above our own natures. Ratio's philosophy makes meaning from growth; Aventurine's makes meaning from loss...

And they both struggle with fundamental doubts in their own philosophies, core questions that are directly tied to their own lives. Aventurine worries that his faith might be misplaced, that destiny might not exist, and that everything he suffered might have been in pointless, empty vain. Ratio faces the crisis of recognizing that his core belief in the power of humankind to determine their own paths and make their own meaning might not actually apply to everyone--because it doesn't seem to apply to himself.

It's literally only by bridging this philosophical binary with Acheron's anti-Nihility absurdist rhetoric that we can reach some sort of healthy outcome. That's why it takes both Ratio's note and Acheron's comments to finally lead Aventurine to acceptance. Ratio probably needs a little bit of Aventurine's "If you didn't make it into the Genius Society, there's got to be a reason" mindset to finally reach some peace with his situation too.

I'm not even a philosophy expert and even I can see that there's really only one takeaway here: These two characters were totally written with each other in mind.

Aventurine and Ratio need each other on core metaphysical levels! 😂