#fatphobia isn’t funny

[deadwardianpoltergeist]

why did they bring back the “haha moxxie’s fat” joke that wasn’t even funny the first time

[icepop680]

I need a tv show with a fat main character. Not a Fat mc, but someone who goes throughout life as a fat person. Their weight is never even mentioned. They are treated the same way a skinny main character is.

[chaifootsteps]

I feel like even the critical space is far too forgiving of Hellaverse’s fatphobia.

We have the dumb “Moxxie is fat” jokes, but fans argue “oh he isn’t really fat and that’s the joke!!!” but 1. It still portrays being fat as a bad thing and 2. Could literally encourage eating disorders. And then they’ll say “oh but it’s hell!!!!” yet forgive Stolas for being a 🍇ist. Ok…

Then we have Blitz’s fatshaming portrayed as “funny,” but when Mammon (who is actually fat) does it to (the very skinny) Fizz, it’s bad???? What are you trying to say Viv?

There are three (3) fat characters in the Hellaverse that are actually plot relevant, and all of them are portrayed negatively. Mimzie is a petty, “ugly,” fair-weather friend and basically a reskin of Toot from Drawn Together (and Toot is whole existence in that show is “she’s fat and ugly). Adam is a sexist douchebag with no depth beyond that and being a glutton. Mammon is also an exploitative douchebag who is … also a glutton.

The last straw for me was the “sexy” Valentine’s day merch, where everyone got skimpy outfits and playmats EXCEPT the lone fat Helluva Boss character, Mammon. He remains fully clothed and is portrayed as a joke in all of his merch. I guess part of it is “Mammon loves money” but that can still be the joke WITH him being allowed to be “sexy.” Hell, it’d probably be funnier if he was wearing lingerie and dry humping a sack of cash! And don’t say he isn’t sexualizes because “Mammon’s evil” because 1. even the “heroes” like Stolas and Blitz are still kinda shitty and literally murder people for fun and 2. Crimson, Vox, Stella, and THE LITERAL RAPIST VALENTINO get “sexy” merch.

I feel like everytime I bring this up people think I’m overreacting. And yes of course this is small potatos compared to exploiting and underpaying animators, spreading nasty rumors, etc. But then I remember MULTIPLE ex employees have said Viv likes bodyshaming people at meetings “for fun.” Like as pathetic as it sounds, Viv and the fandom’s fatphobia have done a number on my physical self-esteem. But more importantly, it spreads hateful messages about fat people’s very humanity

It really says something wild that Mammon could be depicted humping a sack of cash in a thong and it would be a more respectful depiction of a fat character than what Viv's gone for here.

[dante-winning-archive]

DmC: Devil May Cry Thoughts

So I finally decided to experience the DmC Reboot, and my overall verdict is: Not As Bad As I Expected. 

I took notes, so let’s break it down. This is over 3 pages in a doc btw, so buckle up I guess. Hope it was worth the wait.

What I Liked

Level Design

This is probably the game’s biggest strength. Great amount of variety, and the atmosphere of each level was great. 

Limbo is a really cool concept. 

The twin’s special abilities (like Dante’s grappling hook type weapons) made for some really cool platforming. 

The typography really works in this game. Like, words and phrases appearing in the environment to taunt Dante or just provide additional flavor to whatever is happening. Very comic book. 

The Bob Barbas boss battle had a really cool neon techy aesthetic, which isn’t something I would have expected for this game. Neat!

The game show levels leading up to Lilith’s boss fight were cool too! 

The Succubus boss battle made really good use of the environment. 

Enemy Design

General demon mobs are automaton-like, which is pretty neat. I’m not a fan of that sort of aesthetic, but I respect the creative direction. 

All the bosses had decent variety in terms of design and battle mechanics.

Item/Weapon Design

I think this was another pretty strong point for this game

It’s a small thing, but the designs of the orbs were nice.

Rebellion’s shape shifting is neat. Rebellion doesn’t really have any cool powers like Yamato does in the mainline games, so it was nice to see it do something besides being a big sword. 

AQUILA IS SUCH A COOL WEAPON

Ebony and Ivory were pretty, but didn't seem particularly useful what with all the other weapons Dante had at his disposal.

Misc

Combat looks dynamic and satisfying, and I can see the influence it had on DMC5’s combat. 

The voice acting is good

Occasionally, it was genuinely funny

The Vergil gameplay at the end? INCREDIBLE. 

The music was good. Nothing really stood out to me, but it did enhance the game. 

What I Disliked

Lilith

I really hated her character design. And I’m not saying it wasn’t effective character design, or that it was bad. I just personally didn’t like it. 

Her weirdly pulled skin, the corset piercings, the way her skin bunches up around the tops of her gloves… ugh. 

And maybe that’s the point! I’m probably supposed to find it offputting! But I hated looking at her. 

Pregnancy is a really intense squick of mine, so all that was just no! No! No! No! 

I wish I could unsee her boss battle

Minor Design Complaints

Dante’s DT design was a little disappointing, especially considering how well designed everything else is. 

Yamato’s design was also lackluster. 

Misc

The fatphobia was disappointing but not surprising, especially considering the year this was released. 

Mundus sex scene… ew

The sniper abortion scene wasn’t as shocking as I expected it to be, but it sure was there

The way Vergil pronounces Yamato lol. Ya-MATT-o

Pronouncing Mundus differently was a little weird. The mundus amungus…. 

Mundus’ boss fight was uninspired. Wow, a giant statue trying to squash Dante on a platform. Never seen that one before.

A lot of this game has a ‘gross’ factor, which I’m not really into. That’s just personal preference, because I do think it mostly works in context. Just not my thing. 

Characters:

In general, I found the characters to be pretty one-dimensional. 

The Twins

The two of them working together in Mundus’ tower, one in each world, was really cool. If you’re going to have twins in a setting with two worlds overlapping, having one in each is (chefs kiss). Being able to play as both of them to achieve the goal would have made it even better. 

I really enjoyed the scenes they had together, but there just weren’t enough of them. 

It was nice seeing them share physical affection (in the form of a mutual shoulder pat)

But “I loved you, brother” just didn’t have the emotional impact I wanted it to have. 

And the issue is really… they’re strangers. They may be brothers, but they barely know each other. Their relationship just didn’t get as much attention and buildup as it should have. 

Vergil

He’s so friendly and helpful sounding at the beginning, it was kind of cute. 

But it is revealed he’s pretty cold and calculating, willing to sacrifice Kat because saving her wasn’t worth the risk to him. 

His mad hax lol 

give him his hat back, cowards

Even though he was carrying Yamato around, I wasn’t sure he could even fight until the very end. He just seemed so weak. The thing about the twins is that they’re equals on the physical level. IDK, it was just weird to see a Vergil that didn’t fight. 

honestly, a way more interesting character than Dante.

Dante

A devil-may-care character that learns to give a shit? Always a classic. 

As unnecessarily edgy as he seems, his poor coping mechanisms make sense for how he grew up. 

Kat

An assault survivor, because of course she is. It’s just disappointing. Was it necessary? Was it??

Overall, she’s fine. No real strong feelings about her. 

Despite having a ‘role’ (guiding Dante through Limbo and helping him escape it), her job could have been given to Vergil and the game would have worked fine. Maybe even better. 

Sparda and Eva 

Having Sparda outlive Eva and be responsible for hiding the twins was an interesting choice. I also like that we have confirmation for what happened to him (eternal torture). 

I would have expected an angel and demon to be a power couple, but they seemed to have been beaten pretty easily. For plot, I guess. 

The Story

I wasn’t really all that invested, tbh. There’s nothing wrong with the story, but at the same time there isn’t really anything notable about it (except Vergil’s bit). 

It’s a hack n’ slash, so I’m not expecting a masterpiece, but it was pretty one note.

WHY is there a war between demons and angels? Where did the Nephilim come from, how many were there, what role did they play? More importantly, why should I care about any of this? 

The twins avenging their parents should have felt like… like taking on a mantle to continue their cause, and I really didn’t get any of that. There wasn’t any weight of legacy. And the main games handle that so well. 

Overall, I just felt like there wasn’t enough emotional impact, especially between the brothers. There wasn’t enough time to really grow to care about the three protagonists, imo. 

Dante's character arc is... learning to give a shit, I guess, but even then, his decision to be the protector of humans feels really out there. Did he really show that much growth throughout the game for this declaration to really feel deserved? Rewarding?

Likewise, Vergil's shift from revolutionary to would-be king is equally abrupt. Like maybe the entire point of it was to be out of left field, but from a storytelling standpoint... an out-of-nowhere twist like that just doesn't feel rewarding. Having more time with Vergil as Dante throughout the course of the game, to have a subtle buildup so that when you look back and say 'the signs were all there and I missed them', that would have been really good. Like, disregarding the fact that any fan of DMC knows Vergil is going to abandon everything for power.

Vergil’s gameplay and story at the end was a lot more compelling than the rest of the game combined. It’s literally the only thing I’m interested in learning more about. 

Final Thoughts

The game was… alright. Not as bad as I expected it to be, but I’m not sure I would call it good, either. There were a lot of really interesting concepts that just didn’t reach their full potential. The ‘hard’ elements like design and combat were there, but the characters and story were lacking. Making a DMC game heavily influenced by the Divine Comedy is a great idea! 

I think that there are two things that really held this game back. 

Making it a DMC game. As its own thing, it could have been really good. Could they have told a story based on the Divine Comedy with twins named Dante and Vergil without stepping on DMC’s toes? Probably not. But with some changes, it could have worked.

The marketing. I didn’t see it in real time, but we’ve all heard of the weirdly homophobic marketing for this game. And I think that really soured people’s opinions of the game. Still does, tbh. ‘Dante is not a gay cowboy’ as if that isn’t his entire appeal….

Anyway, I don’t think it quite deserves the hate it gets. If you go in knowing you’re not getting a ‘real’ DMC game, it’s not bad. 

Rating: 5/10 

[raccoonfallsharder]

One of the funny things to consider: in the MCU Rocket makes fat jokes about Thor and Quill (Quill wasn't even fat). Imagine Rocket letting his instincts take over on earth during winter season then realizing "oh... I get it now... i feel so warm and content... not hungry and angry like usual"

sweet nonnie ♡♡♡

let’s fuckin scrub those cheap, clumsy, poorly-written and atypical jokes from canon. the truth is the infinity war & endgame writers did the guardians SO fuckin dirty and my boy would never have made those jokes because (1) he would’ve understood too much about what thor was going through to mock him for anything right then and (2) he’s so insecure about his own body that he isn’t gonna risk holding anyone else’s up for scrutiny and (3) i doubt he’d have any real adherence to terran fatphobia any more than he understands weird terran ideas of gender binaries. too many bodies in space to have that kind of beauty norm

also comics rocket fucks so many different body types. all sizes are sexy to him

so now that we’ve cleared that greasy shit out of our brains, let’s focus on the important part, which is the fact that rocket has been eating more and more while he’s been staying with you this autumn. you’ve noticed that he’s finally been able to stop hitching up his loose pants, and on the rare occasions that he lets you hug him (grumpily, but you can tell he likes it ‘cause of the way his tail twitches) you realize you can no longer feel his ribs. he’s less sharp and pointy and you feel like his fur’s getting thicker too. healthier, more lustrous.

plus he’s in a better mood.

one night while you’re both eating snacks and watching movies on the couch, he looks down into his bowl of ice cream or popcorn or whatever and is like

“have i been actin’ weird lately?”

you frown. “what do you mean?”

he shrugs and turns his eyes back to the screen, takes another bit of whatever snacks you’ve been sharing. “i dunno. i feel—“ he hesitates ‘cause he’s never been good at examining his emotions. “i dunno,” he repeats. “i feel like i been bein’ less of a jackass, i guess.”

you snort. “i mean. i hate to call that weird, but… yeah, okay.”

“m’not as…” he trails off, groping for words. “hungry, anymore, either.” it doesn’t sound like he just means for food, but you doubt he wants to unpack that just yet.

“well,” you say slowly, “you have been eating more. maybe it’s all related.”

he looks down at the little paunch over his belly. “m’gaining weight.”

“does that… bother you?” you ask carefully, not knowing if any of his plentiful insecurities might revolve around his size.

he looks nonplussed. “nah. why would it?” he grins. “m’still just as fast and mean and smart. can still build a bomb in three seconds, beat drax an’ quill at poker without ‘em ever catching me cheating, and charm the hell outta you.”

“okay, okay.” you roll your eyes. “still just as modest, too.” you shrug. “anyway…” you’re not sure exactly how comfortable he is with the whole raccoon-thing yet, so you hedge your words. “lots of… people… put on an extra layer for the winter. to keep warm.”

“huh,” he says, like he’s intrigued. like the concept is completely alien (which in a way it is, of course). he looks down at his belly again, then up at the tv. “don’t think it’s that,” he decides after a moment.

you half-smile. “then what is it?”

he shrugs and doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. “think i might just be…” he hesitates. “…happy?”

[storiesbyrhi]

Angel of the First Degree - Chapter 9: Halloween

Eddie Munson x Chubby!Reader 6680 words Series Masterlist

Previous Chapters: 1 - Valium; 2 - Carrie; 3: Honey; 4: Starcourt; 5: Buzzkill; 6: Monsterous; 7: Prizes; 8: Interlude

Warnings: Anxiety; fatphobia including internalised; drug use; bullying; body issues; discussion of body function and fluids; period shame/stigma; disclosure of sexual assault (chapter 2); disordered eating and thoughts of food; shitty/abusive/critical parents; porn magazines; smut; reference to suicide (specifically Virginia Woolf’s); no beta; grief/mourning; warnings updated each chapter

Synopsis: When Eddie Munson finds you in the midst of a panic attack, it is the beginning of something. A fic featuring body and sex positivity, Eddie in a dress, soft small moments, scary big truths, and all the usual special feelings you’d expect from one of my stories.

Chapter Summary: ♫ Boys and girls of every age. Wouldn’t you like to see something strange? ♫ Nah, but it is the spooky season and that means two things: softness and smut.

Author’s Note: So, turns out I've been writing the school year as they run in Australia (Semester 1 runs from January to June, Semester 2 from July to December). But in the US, the school year isn’t the same as the calendar year; the end of the academic year is around May/June… so… Yikes. I can’t change it now so we will have to just pretend the US is the same as Australia. Sorry and thank you.

The Jack-o-lanterns were sat on a line of broken bar stools, plastic outdoor chairs, and other trash nobody at Forest Hills had ever bothered to take to the dump. Eddie had come home with them the night prior, pupils blown and a manic grin on his face. 

It had been almost midnight when Eddie had ducked out after someone called the trailer looking to score. It was worth the drive, financially speaking, so he’d kissed you in your sleep and disappeared into the night. When he got back, you were bundled up on the couch on the porch.

“Angel, what are you doing up?”

“Woke up and you were gone,” you’d said, voice sleepy as you got up and let him help you jump from the porch. He kissed you deeply.

“Sorry, bub. Just made a couple hundred bucks though. And look at this,” he’d said too eager to show you all the Jack-o-lanterns piled in the back of his van, wax dripping from some.

“Where… did you get those?”

“Stole them. From Jason Carver and his bougie neighbours.”

The next morning, he’d lined up them up and called Jeff, Gareth, and Gene. Only Jeff was free, asking if he could bring Esther.

You sat next to Esther in a couple of fold-out camping chairs, drinking Dr Pepper and watching the boys smash the pumpkins with an old baseball bat.

“Why are boys like this?” Esther had asked you.

“I thought maybe it was just Hawkins that did it to them? Like, nothing better to do than dumb shit?”

“Oh, no, babe. They’re like this everywhere.”

Esther was kind, funny, and fit into the group of lost sheep well. However, she wasn’t so lost herself, but actually very fucking cool. You were sure if she had wanted to try out for cheer, she would have made the team. But when she transferred mid-year, started dating Jeff and sitting at the Hellfire table, she showed no interest in being friends with the cool kids. You knew it pissed Hayley off. Esther was the most beautiful girl you’d ever seen.

“We can hear you, you know?” Eddie said, pointing the bat at you. “You tellin’ me you don’t want a go? That this is too dumb for you?”

You smiled at your boyfriend and shook your head.

“Here’s the thing about me,” Esther said, standing and taking the bat from Eddie. “I’m happy to admit when I’m a hypocrite. This is dumb boy shit. But… when in Rome.” She took a swing and the bat hit the pumpkin with such force that it exploded entirely. Eddie started to laugh hysterically and Jeff pulled her into a kiss.

“Come on. Have a go,” Eddie said as he came over, leaning down and holding a hand on each arm of the chair. He kissed the tip of your nose.

Giving in to the peer pressure, you took the bat from Esther, who had pushed Jeff into her chair and perched herself on his lap. “You got this, girl,” she encouraged.

Eddie put a fresh Jack-o-lantern on a stool and came to stand next to you. He lowered his voice and leaned in close. “This orange motherfucker is meant for you, angel. I swiped it from Andy’s.” Eddie kissed your cheek and stepped away from you, giving you space.

Deep breath in, and long breath out, you held the bat up and swung hard. Andy’s pumpkin caved in and went flying, breaking into chunks in the air. Jeff, Esther, and Eddie all cheered.

After leaving the pumpkin pieces for the trailer park animals, you all drove into town for lunch at the diner. It felt like a double date, which was something you used to dream about. It seemed like such a lovely and special and awesome thing. As you sat in a window booth, Eddie’s arm around you while you fed each other fries and listened to Esther tell you stories about Chicago, her weird scientist dad and the top-secret job that brought him to Hawkins, you discovered it was lovely, special, and awesome

…

Summer had ended, ushering in the Halloween hues and crunchy leaves of Fall. Senior year was moving at a snail’s pace, but the finish line was in sight with final exams only a month and a bit away.

When Eddie was at Hellfire or band practice, you were doubling down on studying, determined to do well. All the colleges you had applied for demanded a certain level of academic success, and nothing was going to stop you from getting the hell out of Hawkins.

You and Eddie hadn’t spoken about what would come after high school. Eddie was on track to graduate, so in theory, he could leave the haunted small town too. The fear that ran through you when you thought about asking him if he would, if he would come with you, was paralysing. What if he said no? What if he wouldn’t leave Wayne? What if it was the end of you and Eddie? So, you entirely ignored anything post 1986. You didn’t know if it was on purpose, but Eddie was doing the same.

To be entirely honest, you weren’t even sure if Eddie knew which colleges you had applied for. He would be stupid to think you hadn’t applied at all, but you couldn’t remember ever mentioning it. You felt like there would be an undoing at some point, but that point was not now, so it didn’t matter. Eddie’s philosophy of mindfulness, living in the moment, was certainly rubbing off on you.

For the first time in a long time, you had a little more pep in your step. Zest for life. All that anti-emo bullshit. It did mean, however, that you were genuinely excited for Halloween and all the spooky fun that went with it.

“What do you mean you’ve been to Jason’s parties before?” you asked, the image of Eddie anywhere near a basketballer’s house not able to even form in your mind.

“You wouldn’t believe how much people pay for shit at those things,” Eddie said. “Trick is to rock up at the right time. Just as the shitty beer is running out, but before anybody sobers up. I can overcharge and they’ll buy anything,”

“I have never seen you at one.” You didn’t make the cheer squad in your Freshmen year, which in hindsight could have been when you really committed to losing baby weight and to demonising food. When you made the squad in Sophomore year, it felt like the start of something good. Being a cheerleader granted you invites to Jason’s big Halloween parties. That year and Senior year though, you definitely didn’t see Eddie there.

“You didn’t go wandering down the garden path and into the shadows looking to score though, did you?”

You shook your head. “Did Jason know?”

“Probably. Where else would it be coming from? Can’t start a fight with the only supplier willing to risk holding in that part of town. Crawling with cops and neighbourhood watches,”

“A begrudging symbiotic relationship,” you joked.

“Yep. But, not this year. Fuck ‘em. They can find someone else. We’ve got better things to do, yeah?”

Gene’s parents were going to Nashville for a wedding, leaving an empty house over the Halloween weekend. His parents weren’t worried; Gene wasn’t really the type to throw a rager. They imagined the worse that could happen was someone would spill bong water on the carpet or drip wax on the good buffet. Those Hellfire sessions needed mood lighting, after all.

It was Gene’s last chance at a little infamy, Senior year and all that. He spent the week inviting pretty much anyone that wouldn’t be invited to Jason’s party to his own. Freaks. Geeks. Weirdos. And the formally invisible. By 10:30 pm on Halloween, the house was packed. You and Eddie, however, had not yet arrived.

Wayne had cooked an early dinner, saying something about needing to line your stomachs before hitting the bottles. He left soon after. “Where’s he going?” you’d asked Eddie as you washed the dishes and he dried.

“You know his mate John, the one that-”

“Just got divorced,” you finished. Wayne talked a lot about John, because John talked a lot about the divorce and how she moved back to Indy with the kids.

“Yeah. Wayne is going over to keep him company. You know, ‘cause the trick or treaters remind him of the kids and he’s gonna drink himself into oblivion if someone isn’t there to stop him,”

“Jeez. Wayne is like… an actual angel. Honestly.”

Eddie nodded. “Yep. Sayin’ that though, John’s buying the beers and steak, so it’s a win-win.”

You showered around 7:00 pm, sat in front of the mirror and did your makeup. It would take Eddie a lot longer to get ready, so you wanted time to help him. As you smudged brown eyeshadow along your face, giving the appearance of dirt, you started to feel it – that hot, uncomfortable sensation. Insecurity. Dissociation.

Leaving your hair for last, you tried on the costume like you had half a dozen times before. Now, too late to change your mind, you hated it. The pants pulled around your thighs, nothing like the character you were dressed as.

You hated it most when it was like that. Feeling ugly in the shitty lights of a change room was one thing. The chafing between your thighs and the self-consciousness of gym class was another expected, and gratefully over, thing. But when it surprised you like that. When you had already tried on the clothes. Seen your reflection. Thought of yourself one way. Then BAM. Hideous. Fat. Revolting. Out of fucking nowhere. Yeah, that was the worst one.

Before Eddie got out of the shower, you quickly changed back into sweatpants and a t-shirt, sitting down in front of the mirror.

Eddie came into the room, dripping water and barely holding the towel to cover himself. You’d been living with him for a couple of months by then, so you’d seen him naked, but it still made you blush.

“Alright,” he said, hitting play on the tape deck, then looking around the room for his costume. “Let’s do this thing. Where are my ears?” Eddie looked up at you and clocked it immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked, coming over and kneeling next to you, taking your legs and hugging them.

There was no point in lying; he knew you too well. “I, um, I don’t know about the costume,” you admitted.

Eddie thought for a second. “Okay… Do you want to swap?”

You shook your head. “No. You look cute. I just…” Shrugging, you avoided eye contact with both your reflection and Eddie. “Esther says she’s not wearing a costume. She’s just bought a cute dress,”

“Yeah, but Jeff is pissy about it. Don’t tell her I told you, but he was suuuuper jealous when I said that we have matching costumes,” Eddie told you in that soft voice he used when you were sad.

“Did you tell him what we’re going as?”

“No. It’s a secret, right?”

“Yeah,” you replied, nodding. “It’s just… It’s the first time I haven’t fully hated myself in two years and maybe I should have gone as like, an angel or something?”

“Okay, first of all, you’re my angel, nobody else’s. Second of all, we’re way more original than that. But, I’ll do whatever you want, honest… but can I tell you something first?” Eddie asked.

You nodded; Eddie grinned, stood up, and started to pace. It was his awkward storytelling pace.

“The first time I saw you in that,” he started, pointing to your costume. “I almost jizzed myself,”

“Eddie!” you squealed, covering your face.

“Seriously. And with the props. Babe. You’re the dream girl. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. We’re gonna be the best dressed couple and everyone is gonna be soooooo jealous. And we’ll drink some of Gareth’s freakishly good pumpkin punch stuff and sneak into an empty room and you don’t even need to worry about what you look like in it, because I’m gonna have you out of it so quick.”

You laughed because he was ridiculous.

Eddie slipped his hands into his back pockets, looking at you with a toothy smile. “I promise. You’re an A-grade hottie… But I don’t want you to be… you know, uncomfortable. So, whatever you want.”

Chewing your lip, you looked back at the costume. Eddie watched you stand up and take off your sweat pants, step into your costume, pull it on, and zip it up.

“Those aliens don’t stand a fucking chance,” he said, crossing the room to grab you in a hug, kissing you. “I was like, 12 or 13 when it came out, you know? She might have been my first real crush. I’m not fucking with you when I say this is doing things for me,”

“Things?”

“Oh, you need me to be more explicit?” Eddie teased. “You were hiding at ‘jizzed,’ so I don’t know if you can handle more.”

You pouted dramatically. “I can,”

“Yeah? Can you handle… this?” He cradled the back of your head, moved you so your neck was exposed. Eddie nipped at your skin and made a dumb growling sound that made you laugh. “Whaaaaaat about this?” He unzipped the costume, pushing it front your shoulders and down.

It stopped being funny at that point and started being something else.

Eddie kissed down your chest, freeing you of your bra, then dropped to his knees in front of you. With your hand on his head to keep yourself steady, you let him slide your clothes and underwear off. Standing entirely naked in front of him made you feel infinitely hotter than the costume had.

“Baby,” he whispered, kissing the freckle under your belly button, then pushing his forehead against the softness of your belly. “I love you,”

“I love you too,” you whispered back.

Since the night in the secret place, Eddie had spent a great deal of his time angling to get between your legs. He’d tasted you, heard you, felt you, and nothing else he spent his time on was as good as that. There was always studying for exams, Hellfire, and Corroded Coffin. The real high though, was you.

His mouth was on you fast, your legs shaking almost as quick. When you stumbled to move to the bed, lay down for him, Eddie shook his head. “No, no, stay here. Can you stay standing?” he mumbled. “Here,” he said, offering his hands as aids. You threaded your fingers through his, let him hold you up.

“Uh-huh.”

Naturally, your legs wanted to part for him but there was only so much you could do without stacking it. You had to let Eddie press his face into you entirely, had to let him work for it.

It felt good, but it wasn’t enough. When you whined out Eddie’s name, he looked up at you and grinned. “Come ‘ere,” he instructed, pulling one of your legs over his shoulders, wrapping an arm around it, keeping his other hand in yours still.

Better.

Like that, with him being not so much in front of, but under you, it felt like you were melting onto Eddie, into him. It felt dirty; you would have blushed but your mind was pop rocks in Coke.

As soon as you unlocked your knee to help you grind, you felt your legs turn to jelly. “Eddie!” you squeaked, hopping backward and falling onto the bed, stopping your orgasm before it even had a chance to bloom. You were laughing, and when Eddie popped up and saw your happy face, he fell in love just a little harder.

“Okay, I’ll come to you,” he said, smiling and crawling up onto the bed. His towel was discarded on the floor. “I, ah, there’s something we could try. If you liked that, I mean,”

“I liked that,” you said, still a little breathless.

“So, okay, so I’d lay on my back, like this,” he explained, moving to be flat on the bed. “And you would sit here.” He pointed to his face, then winked.

You tried to picture it, but you couldn’t calculate the physics. “Um, same problem though? I can’t hold myself up, when it like, gets… good,”

“No, that’s the point. You don’t need to. You just sit,” he corrected. Eddie knew what you were thinking but he didn’t know if it would be better to let you say it and face it, or if he should quell the doubt before it gained traction. “I saw it… in a movie,”

“A movie?” The suspicion was audible.

“Okay, porn. It was porn. You got me,” he said grinning. You laughed, but he could still see the doubt in your face. “I, ah… I actually got that one because, um, the girl looks a lot like you.”

It was a half-truth. Eddie had gone to a buyer’s house to sell him some ket. The guy was already stoned out of his brain and Eddie almost felt bad for contributing to the problem. Then he saw the porn playing on the T.V. set. The girl did look like you. Too much. Eddie popped the VHS out of the machine and replaced it with another sitting close by. The dude on the couch hardly noticed.

“You mean…”

“Yeah,” Eddie confirmed. “Or I can just-” Like he always did, he started to offer an out, an alternative. Safety, always.

“No! No. I, ah…” A pause. A self-affirmation. “I wanna try.”

After a few rounds of the usual ‘are you sure’ cycle, you swung your leg over Eddie, resting on his stomach first.

“Can you close your eyes?” you asked.

Eddie nodded and tried to contain the grin, but as soon as his eyes shut and he felt you move, there was no chance. His mouth would be well and truly open in a second anyway.

It was instant, as soon as you were close enough, Eddie’s arms were around your thighs, pulling you down with enough force that you couldn’t have hovered even if you tried. With all your weight on him, Eddie was a happy man.

Oh.

Fucking oh.

It was a hard yes for both of you.

When you arched your back and leaned your arms behind you, Eddie opened his eyes to watch you. With your belly stretched and your hands pressed against the mattress on either side of Eddie’s hips, you looked like a goddess.

The heavy breathing, the moaning, and the way your body was grinding into him were driving Eddie insane. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he started to wriggle under you. Entirely lost in the feeling, you hardly noticed, but he was rock hard and on the verge of tears. He felt so goddamn good.

Syllables wouldn’t come out when you tried to say his name, so when you felt how close you were to cumming, you curved yourself forward and sunk your fingers into his hair. Eddie smiled; you could feel it.

Higher and higher and higher. You squeaked and shook, then felt yourself sensationally shatter. There’s no word for the sound you made, somewhere between a growl and a scream.  Breathing heavy, you rolled off Eddie and looked over at him.

His face was glistening. A feral grin told you everything you needed to know.

“Babe,” he whispered, wiping his face on the back of his hand and moving to lay on his side. “Babe.”

You giggled. “I know,”

“Oh, I know you know.”

You wanted to be closer to him, so you scooted over and mirrored Eddie’s position. It was a picture you never would have predicted for yourself. Not only entirely naked with the light on but laying on your side, gravity pushing your belly to pool on the bed. You didn’t care though, Eddie was grabbing your face and kissing you deeply.

His mouth tasted different, like you, you figured. It was hot and made your kissing needy. Eddie felt the exact same, and the sensation of his painfully hard cock pressing against you, tip leaking, excited you both.

Eddie wrapped his arms around you to close the space between his body and yours. His hips bucked up, letting the friction work its magic. Carefully, he pushed you back onto the mattress, climbed on top, one leg between yours.

As he kissed your neck, rubbed himself against the coarseness of your pubic hair and warm softness of your lower belly, he asked, “Is this… okay?”

You nodded. “Yes. Please.”

Eddie chuckled at the manners, thrusted a little harder. “I’m… I’m so fuckin’ close,” he muttered, barely audible.

Wrapping one leg around his waist, leaving the other for him to straddle, you kissed at whatever you could – Eddie’s cheekbone, the side of his head, his hand when he brought it up to your lips. He whined and bit your neck when you sucked in his index and middle finger, not letting go.

A string of fuck and baby and I love you and you feel so good. Eddie repeated them over and over, words slurring more with each round.

Where the sound of your orgasm was half growl half scream, Eddie’s was half growl half moan. Deeper, then stunted by him holding his breath. You felt the warmth and the stickiness between your body and his. It was simultaneously gross and nice. When you started to giggle uncontrollably, Eddie pulled himself from his post-cum haze to look at you and commit the moment to his long-term memory.

When he sat up, he moves his eyes slowly over every inch of you. You watched his hands hold your sides, dragging downwards. He stopped at your belly button.

“Ah, sorry,” he said with a snort.

“What?”

Eddie pointed. The messy white that was spread across your stomach had pooled in your belly button, like a little cup. When you saw, you made the same snorting sound he had.

“I want… to…” But he stopped himself.

“You gonna say something weird?” you asked, entirely excited.

Eddie moved slowly, like he could hurt himself. He dipped his finger into your belly button, making you laugh again.

“Warm,” was all he said.

You scrunched your face up and shook your head at him. “I thought you were gonna do a body shot,” you told him.

“Do you want me to?” he asked dead serious.

“No, I just thought-”

“Because I will,”

“Eddie, I-”

“I mean, if you dare me, I guess I have to.”

You were laughing. “Eddie!”

“Here we go!”

“EDDIE!” you squealed, but he was leaning down and sucking the fluid from your belly button. Squirming at the feeling, you were unable to tell if you were genuinely a bit disgusted or kind of into it. You settled on feeling weirdly natural.

“How was it?”  you asked as Eddie sat up.

“Salty? I’ll start eatin’ more fruit or whatever.” When you frowned, Eddie laughed and shrugged. He’d explain it another time. “Do you want to have a quick shower?”

“Yes,”

“With me,”

“I got it, Eddie,” you told him.

Running the soapy sponge over the curves of your body made Eddie hard again. He blushed, a little embarrassed at how he was playing the ‘horny teenage boy’ role too well.

“I like it,” you whispered, your back pressed to his chest, hot water hitting the front of you. “Makes me feel good,”

“Good. You make me feel good too… Somethin’ very satisfying about cleaning… me… off… you,”

“We should hurry up though. It’s gonna take a while to get ready and it’s like, eight now,”

“Gimme one more minute with you, then you can get out? Start getting ready and I’ll be out in a sec?”

You knew he was going to jerk off as soon as he was alone, but you were into that too.

Back in the bedroom, you were about to put your underwear back on when you had a better idea. Searching through your clothes, you found what you were looking for. Standing in front of the mirror, you liked your reflection.

It took a while to re-do your makeup. The shower had fucked it up a bit, so you started fresh. When yours was done, you sat Eddie down and did his for him, doing your best at making him cute.

“Ears,” you instructed when you were done. Eddie put them on his head. “Perfect.”

…

With an hour or so until midnight, you and Eddie arrived at Gene’s house. Making your way through the crowd, you were relieved to find that most of the focus was on how objectively weird Eddie looked. Eddie – the cult leader, town freak, edgy drug dealer – dressed in a fluffy orange outfit complete with tail pinned to the ass of his pants and ears on a headband. He made for a kind of deranged but beautiful ginger tabby cat.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Gareth screeched as Eddie walked into the kitchen.

Gareth looked like a witch as he stood over a giant pot, stirring the potion inside. It smelt good, Halloweeny, and there were people buzzing around waiting for it to be ready.

“I’m Jones!” Eddie yelled at him.

“Jones?” Gareth saw you then, “Holy shit,”

“Keep it in your pants,” Eddie warned.

“You look… um, good,” Gareth said to you. He looked back at Eddie. “Why Jones and not like, the xenomorph,”

“We’ve got one already,” Eddie replied. You turned around to show Gareth the toy xenomorph stuck to the back of your Ripley jumpsuit.

Gareth laughed. “Alright. Well, fuck. You guys look good. You want some of this? It’s the second batch of the night,” he offered. People around groaned, annoyed that they’d been waiting longer.

“Dungeon Masters get first drinks,” Eddie yelled at everyone and nobody in particular.

Bidding Gareth, who was actually dressed as a D&D character – not a witch, goodbye, you let Eddie take your hand and lead you through the house and out the back to where Gene and Jeff had built a semi-stable somewhat dangerous fire pit.

The circle of people around the blaze, most of which were Hellfire warriors, cheered Eddie’s arrival. Eddie stopped at two chairs occupied by people he didn’t recognise. “Scram,” he ordered.

“Eddie!” you reprimanded.

“Sorry. Scram, please,” he corrected. The people left, and you shot Eddie a look as you sat down. “Don’t give me that face. Mean and scary, remember?”

“Man, you’re not really giving mean and scary right now,” Jeff called across the fire. He was dressed as Freddy Krueger. Esther was sitting next to him, pretty in a dress.

“Yeah, dude, what are you?” Dustin asked, confused at the appearance of his hero.

“Jones from the USCSS Nostromo. This is Ripley,” Eddie explained, nodding to you. You smiled and waved happily, not radiating Ripley energy in the slightest.

“At least you look cool,” Jeff said.

“And we can all agree everyone looks better than Mike,” Gene added.

Mike was sitting next to Dustin, nursing a bottle of beer he was a bit nervous to be drinking at all. “I told you – I’m Billy from Gremlins,”

“I might buy that if you had Gizmo with you. But you’re just wearing your normal clothes,” Gene said.

“Why’s Esther get a free pass?!” Mike argued.

“I’m Freddy’s victim,” she said with a shrug. It was a good enough cover. “Come tomorrow I’ll be dead. There’s a costume change later.” There wasn’t.

“Whatever. Maybe I’m just growing up,”

“You saying I’m a baby, Wheeler?” Eddie challenged, holding his tail up and spinning it.

“No! I just mean-”

“Yeah, whatever man. Where’s Sinclair? What did he come as?” Eddie asked. A silence fell over the group. “He’s at Jason’s, I’m guessin’,”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “He went as Magic Johnson.”

Eddie could see that Dustin was hurt; he imagined there was a fight about it all. Ultimately, Eddie didn’t really begrudge Lucas. He knew the kid loved basketball, and he was finding his own way. Mostly, he just didn’t want to see him get hurt like so many people that come into contact with the popular kids did.

“Are we supposed to know who that is?” Gene said.

“He’s a basketballer. Lucas’ hero,” you said. Lucas had told you about him once, shown you some pictures he’d cut out of magazines and newspapers. He was important, Lucas had said, not needing to explain why to you.

“Are we supposed to know who you are, Genie?” Eddie added, looking at his friend.

“I’m Jack!” he said, clearly outraged at not being recognised. “Torrance?”

“Where’s your axe?” you asked.

“Fuck. I knew I forgot something.”

Midnight came and went, ghost stories were told, and you and Eddie got suitably drunk on whatever funky shit Gareth had conjured.

“I’m serious, Gee. Anythin’ you want. Jus’ name it. Name it! I need ta know wha’s in it,” Eddie begged.

You were sitting between them on the couch, back against Eddie’s chest as he angled towards his friend, his arms around you, and your legs up on Gareth’s lap, where he held them steady.

“Anything? Pshhh. Such a fuckin’ liar, Munson. Your Warlock? You’d never give ‘er up,”

“Yeah, alright. I’m fulla shit. But you can… Borrow her? For a couple shows? Or… Or I’ll make you DM!”

“I’m already gonna be DM as soon as you graduate,” Gareth rebutted.

“Which he will,” you added.

“Okay, so then jus’ tell me for like, a graduation gift?” Eddie pleaded.

“Tell me! An’ not Eddie. An’ I won’t tell him,” you offered, knowing Gareth would jump at the opportunity to get one up on his friend.

“Hey!” Eddie said, instantly pulling a sulky face.

“You won’t tell him?” Gareth asked. You shook your head. “Alright. Come ‘ere.” You leaned forward and listened as Gareth whispered all the secret ingredients to his pumpkin punch.

Later, when Gareth left to go ask a girl named Gracie to dance (she was dressed as Princess Leia) Eddie pulled you back so you were entirely in his lap on the couch.

“You gonna tell me?” he asked.

“Ah-huh. Later,” you replied, leaning in to kiss him. “He didn’t make me promise sooooo, like, that’s on him?”

“Totally. Rookie mistake,” Eddie agreed.

“Roooooooookieeeeee mistake,” you repeated.

Eddie held your face in his hands and kissed you, he tasted like secret ingredients and Dustin’s mum’s Halloween sugar cookies.

“Are you drunk enough to dance yet?”

“Fuck it. Come on, angel. Show me whatcha got.”

Eddie kept you upright as you danced and twirled around him. He held your hand and spun you under his arms as you sang the words to songs Eddie wouldn’t be caught dead listening to under any other circumstances. Papa Don’t Preach. Manic Monday.

You were breathless when a slow song came on.

There is freedom within, there is freedom without. \

Eddie held you close as you wrapped your arms around his neck and rested against him, letting him sway you around the living room, barely avoiding all the other couples.

Try to catch a deluge in a paper cup.

Eddie winked at Gareth, who still had Gracie with him. His friend blushed and buried his head in Gracie’s neck. Eddie’s attention came back to you. He started to sing quietly.

There’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost. But you’ll never see the end of the road while you’re traveling with me.

A little louder, and you could hear others in the room join in.

Hey now, hey now.

The others heard it too, and suddenly everyone was singing along.

Don’t dream it’s over. Hey now, hey now, when the world comes in. they come, they come to build a wall between us. We know they won’t win.

It’s a moment that never would have happened at Jason Carver’s party.

As the second verse began, Eddie whispered, “Wanna go somewhere, just us?”

You nodded, floated along behind Eddie, hardly watching where you were going as your boyfriend navigated the house. It was late, or early, depending on perspective; people were looking worse for wear, passing out or trying to find an exit. Eddie knew where he was going though, he’d been there before. Gene’s parents were cool and had let Eddie crash in the guest room a couple of times. He knew, therefore, that the door locked and the bed was a queen double.

The light was on in the room, but whoever had been there was long gone. They had been there though. A forgotten bag of candy spilled out across the bed and floor. Someone’s Dracula cape was hung on the back of the desk chair. A pair of devil horns were on the ground. Although the quilt has been disturbed, the bed was still made.

Eddie locked the door and switched off the light. You screamed a drunk little sound, then immediately started to giggle. “Hold on, don’t move. I’ll get the lamp. Don’t, don’t fuckin’ fall over.” He found the lamp, turned around to see you standing very still with your eyes closed. Eddie snorted. “What’re ya doin’?”

“Huh?”

You felt Eddie’s hands around your waist, shaking you a little. When you opened your eyes, he was smiling at you, a Cheshire cat if you’d ever seen one.

“Why’d you close your eyes?”

“What?”

He was too drunk to be bothered with the line of questioning and you were too drunk to meet him halfway.

“You wanna lay down with me?” he asked instead. Eddie was starfishing on the bed before you really answered. You laughed as he took off his furry pants and jacket, leaving him in an old Iron Maiden t-shirt and his boxers.

Following suit, you stripped of your Ripley boiler suit, almost going for a second round of costume in a white singlet and a pair of white underwear. Eddie noticed. “Fuck. Did you do that on purpose?”

“Mayyyyyyyyyyybeeeeeeee,” you said, standing at the edge of the bed, any shadow of self-consciousness drowned in punch and song.

“Angel,” Eddie purred, sitting on the bed, wrapping his arms around your hips and kissing your belly. “Such a good girl.” That’s all it took to make you come undone.

Everything was easier when drunk. Muscles relaxed. Insecurities forgotten. Everything was more difficult too. Bad coordination. Losing focus when a sound was deemed funny.

“Are we gonna forget this?” you asked Eddie.

He stopped what he was doing, popped his head up out of the blanket. “I’m not gonna forget goin’ down on you while ya dressed as Ripley.”

He looked deranged. His painted-on whiskers were smudged and his eyeliner was more raccoon than tabby cat. You couldn’t help but laugh, your belly shaking with the movement.

“You look funny,”

“Funny? I don’t look sexy like this?” Eddie repositioned himself, rested his cheek against your tummy and watched you.

You shook your head. “But you can still touch me,” you offered.

It was Eddie’s turn to laugh. “By the grace of god almighty Ozzy himself, I can still touch her,” he joked, raising a hand up in prayer.

“Actually, maybe, if you want…”

“Yes. I want,” Eddie answered, nodding frantically.

You cackled. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say,”

“I would do anything with you. To you. From you. Fuckin’ whatever.”

Still laughing, you moved out from under him and sat on your knees, your weight resting on your folded legs. Eddie watched you in awe; he loved how your thighs spread and your eyes sparkled and the white singlet pulled across your chest, making the fabric almost see-through.

“It’s your turn,” you told him, moving again. Eddie’s lips parted as you got off the bed, kneeling on the floor beside it. “You come here,” you instructed, patting the edge of the mattress.

“You don’t have to,” Eddie told you, already moving to where you wanted him. His legs slid down either side of you, and you immediately liked the feeling of having your head on his thigh.

He was already hard, as he always was whenever he went down on you, but the sensation of your warm breath so close to him made it painful.

“Want to,” you whispered back to him.

As soon as your hand made contact, Eddie’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. It was enough to drive him insane, but then you made a tentative kitten lick and he moaned, falling back on the bed and clawing at the quilt.

In the rare times you were alone in the Munson trailer, you’d sneakily watched some of the old porn VHSs that were stashed deep under Eddie’s bed. Partly, you wanted to know what he was into. Mostly, you just wanted to see what it was like. Whilst you weren’t into porn, it did give some idea of what to do with Eddie.

“Is this okay?” you asked him, popping him out of your mouth. He whined at the loss of contact. “Is this good?”

“So good, baby,” he managed to get out, waving his hand in the air. “S’perfect. Love you.”

You had been thinking about it long before Halloween. Obviously, Eddie was going to be all yesses and nods and smiles, but if you were honest, you were a tiny bit afraid. Not of him. Never of him. It was more that everything else you’d done, it had mostly been done to you.

Being a recipient was easy, especially with Eddie. What if you weren’t as good as him though? What if you couldn’t make him hard? Make him cum?

When you felt the buzz first hit, the thought had appeared in your head and it looked like an illuminated lightbulb. If that’s how the night was going to end, you’d use the inhibition blocker of alcohol to take that step forward.

The thing about it though, was that he tasted good. It felt good. Powerful. Beautiful. A little bit slutty, but in a very, very good way. And all for Eddie. Just Eddie.

Eddie, who was reacting perfectly – squirming, panting, and mumbling incoherent sentences. He loved you and you were such a good girl and fuck, baby and oh my god. When his hand started to pull at your hair gently, you looked up at him, confused.

“Bab-baby, I’m gonna, gonna, you shhhhould, fuck,” he tried to warn you.

“S’okay,” you told him, keeping your firm grip on the base of his cock and letting him slip back over your tongue. Resolute to swallow, you closed your eyes as his orgasm hit. There was too much though; it spilled from your lips.

Eddie watched as you let him go, watched you cover your mouth with your hand and at least swallow what was left. He sunk to the floor, caging you between his legs.

“You okay?” he asked, his big brown eyes so beautiful you wanted to cry.

“I liked it,” you reported. “Did I do good?”

“Did you-? Fuck, baby…” Eddie grinned, head tilted. “I’m gonna just say it, an’ you can just deal with the embarrasin’ words and shit, okay?”

“‘Kay,”

“And I say all this with so much love. And respect. I respect the fuck out of you, ‘kay?”

“Yep,”

“Come ‘ere.” Eddie pulled you into his arms, earning a surprised squeal from you. Entwined on the bedroom floor, sobering up but drunk on love, you were in your own world. “You were born to suck dick.”

It was a risky review to give, Eddie thought, but when you did the little shoulder shimmy thing you did whenever you were proud, he was a happy man.

“Just yours,” you told him, looking up and fluttering your eyelashes.

“Jesus Christ. I love you.”

Smiling him an I love you too smile, you sat for a while longer. Eddie went in search of water for you both, returning to find you passed out in the bed. He climbed in next to you, snuggled in, and quickly followed you into the dreaming.

Next Chapter: 10 - Royalty

End Note: I had to publish this chapter earlier than intended because I've seen references to Eddie and Alien in two different fanart pieces, and I freaked out because I had that part of the chapter written over a month ago. Honestly, that fandom hive mind is real.

Fic Taglist: @jeff855 @b-barnes04 @eddie-munson-is-a-sweetheart @nerd-squad-headquarters @word-wytch @harrys-tittie @munsonsmel0dy @sidthedollface2 @eddiethesexy @bardicfrustration @orpheusredux @munsonsgirl71 @a-time-for-wolvess @eddieswifu @rosaline-black @thegirlwhohides @emotionaldreamer @e0509 @briasnow-blog @kiyastrf94 @erinsingalong

All Eddie Taglist: @solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @munsonlives @sweetpeapod @depressooo-expressooo-blog (has your url changed or am I tagging the wrong person?) @thorfemmes @hawkins-high @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob @mymoonisalways-in-scorpio @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @onehotgreasymechanic

[paganminiskirt]

Pardon the bullshit GTA philosophizing on main, but I think there’s something interesting about how Michael and Trevor are always going on about which one of them is really the hypocrite - what’s the right way to conduct their morally vacuous, inherently exploitative profession, is it embracing the backstabbing pyramid scheme structure wholesale at the expense of actively committing violence or is it taking the violence to the darkest possible extreme while attempting to subvert and contain the exploitation by sticking to your guns and staying with your family.

When we meet Michael he’s living in LS with a yacht and a stock sharing habit. Surrounded by a version of a consumer culture that’s so ridiculously exaggerated that you can’t walk five steps without being reminded of it. Anti Capitalist media often utilizes metaphors of gluttony and consumption, pigs devouring greedily, the rich being “fattened up,” etcetera. Michael himself is called fat a lot, and one of the key facets of Los Santos’ satire is the constant exhibition of excessively portioned fast food. There’s a whole vein of fatphobia to be mined there, but that’s a post for another time - for now, all I’m trying to say is Actual Food Consumption is used as a metaphor for Wealth Consumption.

Trevor… is a businessman, technically, but his attempts at business are comical. “Trevor Phillips Industries” is something we’re supposed to laugh at, as is his barking to Ron about how he has to get the business off the ground because he wants “merchandise / a big fat dividend / a depressed blonde wife.” It’s funny because Trevor isn’t Michael, running around in a suit with a bulletproof vest under it trying to pretend he’s something he’s not - Trevor is a bulgy eyed, drug addled crybaby who wakes up naked at parties and chases women twice his age when he’s not literally eating people.

And I feel like the cannibalism is a factor of his character which possesses significance that’s often overlooked; it’s as if Trevor’s doctrine of Honesty Above All Else necessitates a version of capitalist exploitation that’s so unvarnished and terrifying that you can’t possibly present it as anything else. In the “Kill Trevor” ending, Michael uses Trevor’s cannibalism as a reason for why he deserved what he got, but like… it’s not dissimilar to what Michael and his ilk do. It’s just uglier.

[transboysokka]

Chris watches Howl’s Moving Castle for the first time

* Another one I’ve heard mentioned a lot and know nothing about

* HOLY SHIT GIANT MOVING CASTLE?? idk what I was expecting

* Oh, so Howl’s a bad guy?? omg is he a werewolf I s2g if he’s a werewolf named howl…

* Claiming Sophie on behalf of the Trans Community

* Oh no is that him why is he dressed like some anime guy, he reminds me of the beast in beauty and the beast after he turns human. Is this a beauty and the beast adaptation??

* Don’t let him seduce u Sophie be strong!!!

* I do love the wild fantasy elements of all of these movies, and this one feels like it’s gonna do some worldbuilding. Into it.

* What is with these movies and creepy old ladies?

* NO THATS SOPHIE WTF

* I do think maybe I have a weird phobia of old people? Wild way to find out

* Jesus Christ I just know that scarecrow is alive

* Oh maybe not

* JESUS

* Aw he’s so sweet

* This studio loves to animate flying things and old ladies. But hey, this is the first one I’ve seen that doesn’t start with someone moving somewhere new, so we’ve got that going for us

* Lmao the scarecrow did bring her a house

* This castle freaks me tf out and I haven’t even seen inside. Real Baba Yaga energy

* Bye Turnip, what a cutie

* Okay so the fire is a cute lil guy

* Magic door? Into it. So where is she really and why is it so Cottagecore

* “Calcifer said I could come in” “I did not!”

* That bacon looks so good and I don’t even eat bacon

* I love the idea of something being built into a spell to keep you from telling anyone about it

* I love calcifer and I love Sophie’s dynamic with him

* Turnip is back, yay!!

* I bet he’s under a curse too

* I wonder if he’s the missing prince!!

* I could probably paint that lake

* DONT LIKE THE WEIRD FLYING HOWL BIRD WTF

* I’m really intrigued by him as a character though

* omg that’s Christian bales voice as howl lmao no wonder these dubs are so uncharacteristically good

* omg I’m looking at the English cast kw this SLAPS

* goddamn am I having gay thoughts about a weird anime guy noooo

* I’m crying why does howl have to be such an ugly dog

* how does the Lauren Bacall witch fit in that little carriage thing if she’s so huge, I swear this is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long timd

* ok but I still don’t really get why Sophie had the spell cast on her in the first place, she wasn’t bothering nobody before

* I’ve gotten some antisemitic vibes from characters in other ghibli movies so far and I’m not a huge fan of the fatphobia with the villain, I just gotta say

* Lmao the dog isn’t even howl?

* wait why tf does the castle have a mouth

* why is the bad witch tagging along dump her ass

* So Sophie is young when she sleeps? I don’t get that

* Ok…. So she’s just…. Young again?

* Creepy?? Toy cave??

* Wtf why are these movies so confusing

* I might be imagining it but Sophie does seem to be gradually getting younger

* I love how gung-ho Howl is about his family and his house. Love that in a man.

* Found family themes just Get Me, u know?

* On one hand I don’t Get What’s Happening with the war, but also… I Get this movie

* Also still don’t get the aging and de-aging and I’m not sure if it’s only supposed to be metaphorical or what

* So… why did he eat her hair??

* I gotta say that I love that the only sound the ugly dog makes is us a dry cough

* Maybe the dog is called heen bc he has chicken feet and heen is like hen

* DONT EAT THAT GLOWING ORB HOWL

* yeah I have no idea what the fuck is going on right now

* Wtf howl is just… right there?

* Why was his heart even gone in the first place? Seems like he had it the whole time anyway. Did he know calcifer had it? Like I really don’t get any of that

* TURNIP IS THE PRINCE I CALLED IT

* Lol why is Sophie his true love

* And now they’re just gonna end the war???

Okay that was definitely more fun than any of the other ones I’ve seen so far. CONFUSING AS FUCK like I don’t get it at all but it was really fun. Really funny, with GREAT characters, and I was loved Billy Crystal Fire Guy, so glad I happened to watch the dub.

Also I can’t explain it, but this one is just For The Gays

I’ll watch Princess Mononoke next

[lifblogs]

Isn’t it funny that we as a society love Santa but hate fat people? By “funny” I mean absolutely strange. I guess with Santa people probably think it’s okay because he’s not a real person, whereas “we should be worried about fat people’s health.” Fatphobia is so weird.

[redwiccanrobin]

Willow Park is important

(TW: fatphobia, eating disorder)

Since I was young, I’ve always been a big girl. It’s something that I’ve struggled with for a long time. Something that I was always hyper aware of. Something that others made sure I was aware of.

The older I got, the more insecure I became in my skin. I hated myself. I hated my body. I felt like I was betrayed by it, so I went and betrayed it right back. For half my life now, I’ve battled an eating disorder. All because everyone around me made me feel like I was disgusting for the way I looked. And I internalized it all.

I started The Owl House on a whim. I didn’t know too much about it. Was just looking for a cute little cartoon. Something I wasn’t prepared for was Willow Park. Willow, who was kind, funny, athletic, smart. Willow who was bigger than her friends. Yet, her weight is never mocked, scrutinized, or pointed to as to why she doesn’t deserve love or understanding.

The show makes it clear that she is deserving of these things. She’s loveable and makes those around her feel safe. She has a boy who likes her. A boy who gets flustered around her, blushes around her. It’s such a small thing but it meant the world to me as a fat person. Because I’d been either turned away in disgust or fetishized for my weight. Never have I experienced an in-between.

I think of me as a small child. How she would watch shows and take note of how none of them looked like her. How, at five-years-old, was looking in the mirror, rubbing her belly and thinking it was too big. I wonder how that little girl would have turned out if she had The Owl House growing up. If she could see this bigger girl being embraced for everything that she is. What would she think? How would she feel? It wouldn’t have made those insecurities go away, obviously. But it would have made her feel less alone in the world. Would have told her that she would be loved, platonically and romantically, no matter what. And isn’t that the beauty of representation?

[endlessfurore]

wait what has actually happened with the fob/mcr feud stuff my whole dash is just vague references to something happening

i’m putting this below a read more bc it’s going to get long and i don’t really want to recap all this but i’d rather do it myself than have more people totally misrepresent the situation, so.

okay so mcrblr has been for some reason passing around a bunch of polls about how comparatively good the members of mcr are at different kinds of sex.

aside number one: my personal stance on this is that i think it’s weird to speculate about the guys’ sex lives, even as a joke, but given that none of them will see it, it’s whatever. i’ll scroll past it and move on. if pressed i do think that kind of joking should probably be kept to a closed discord server where everyone is in on the joke, because doing it on here means it will inevitably break containment, but again. not my circus, not my monkeys.

anyways. a mcr blogger is like “this sex discussion is so funny, what if it was expanded to include more of bandom” and then used patrick stump as an example. from what i can tell they were trying to satirize the way mcr fans were talking about the guys’ sex lives. they said some stuff in a now deleted post that included things like “patrick would light candles and play marvin gaye during sex [subtext: in a lame way]” and “he looks like a mouse” (note that this is something mcr fans very commonly say about gerard)

that post broke containment and fob fans interpreted it as suggesting that patrick is bad at sex and thus is fatphobic, based on the fatphobic idea that fat people are sexually unappealing

aside number two: fatphobia in bandom is a real issue and nothing i have said has meant to trivialize that. it is absolutely something that has contributed to the way people have treated and talked about both patrick and gerard. but it is not what i see to be the true crux of the situation i’ve been observing here.

okay now let’s go back in time a bit. last year mcr toured again for the first time in a decade. mcr fans understandably went crazy. at some point along the way, i started seeing posts from fob bloggers complaining about specifically mcr fans talking shit about fob and praising mcr at fob’s expense

aside number three: i am a fan of both fob and mcr. i was a fan of fob first. i saw them last week and cried. i do not think either band is better than the other, but if pressed, i would say i personally like mcr more, because i identify more heavily with them/their storytelling. i follow people who like both, people who like mcr and not fob, and people who like fob and not mcr. i myself have never actually seen a mcr fan hating on fob specifically. from my perspective, most mcr fans either like fob or don’t really talk about them. i did see a few posts claiming that mcr was doing things no other band had done or could do (objectively untrue, but understandable hyperbole from big fans) but as far as i could tell fob was never namedropped.

so yeah every now and then i would see some vagueposts about mcr fans from fob bloggers. once polls became a thing the “feud” would come up whenever a bandom poll would get passed around, people would complain about the results, etc

back to the present. op of the post doubles down. a mcr blogger says something like “patrick is a normal size for a 40 something man” which they clearly meant to mean “being fat is within the range of normal bodies” but was interpreted as “i can’t be fatphobic bc patrick isn’t fat. he’s normal and fat people aren’t normal”

i’m too tired to keep typing and it’s 1 am and in 7 hours i am getting on a plane for a one day round trip to see my grandfather before he dies so i’m logging off now. sorry i didn’t finish explaining but i feel like this is probably enough that you can bridge the gap to where we are now. if you have more questions you can dm me or send another ask. i do have more analysis of the situation i just really can’t deal with trying to distill it right now. most of my posts about the issue have been meant to encompass the entire months in the making feud that i believe has lead us to this point, not the specific post

if you’re going to be like why are you involving yourself in bandom drama when your family member is dying it’s because i can’t do anything about it and i was TRYING to use tumblr as a distraction. also like i said the feud has been months in the making and as someone who likes both bands i was really sick of ppl acting like we were enemies

[radicalfemimist]

Just had the displeasure of seeing a “trans girl Katara” tag, and it really makes you think, doesn’t it?

In canon, this character explicitly faced sex-based oppression. This character, who suffers from eldest daughter syndrome on account of being born and raised as a girl, who has to call out sexism multiple times during the series and who initially isn’t allowed to learn to use her powers to fight because she’s a girl. This character who mourns the loss of her mother and subsequently, her childhood, as she had to take on many of the responsibilities her mother would’ve had— even more so once her father had to leave.

The foundation of her character is built on her womanhood, and the oppression and trauma she faces because of it. This character who is often misunderstood by the fandom, discounted as a motherly character as if she herself isn’t still a child who makes plenty of reckless or irresponsible decisions, or villainized for the crime of distrusting the fan-favourite, ex-villain boy.

So to make her a “trans girl”, or a man, as I’d prefer to call it— to erase the sex-based oppression she canonically experiences…

Not only is that incredibly disrespectful to the character herself, but to the real life women whose experiences mirror Katara’s, and to the progress the show tried to make by showing powerful female characters, by directly calling out sexism on more than one occasion. The progress that the merchandise of the show didn’t mirror, because little boys didn’t want to play with girl-action-figures and they didn’t care about the little girls who would.

Even separating my radical feminism from this post, it’s inherently a disservice to the character. You’re exchanging her canon oppression for a so-called “oppression” you consider more flashy. It’s not enough for her to just be a woman, because you need the brownie points. Just like it’s not enough for, example, Zuko to be gay— he’d also have to be trans, as I’ve seen too many times. It’s not enough if you can’t stack on whatever you think makes the character more “oppressed” and “woke” so you can allow yourself to feel empathy for the character.

It reminds me an awful lot about how it didn’t matter that J.K Rowling’s writing had elements of racism and antisemitism, homophobia and fatphobia. It didn’t matter until J.K Rowling was “transphobic”— and then all of it suddenly mattered, because the more cards you can stack against someone you don’t like, the better. And in the interest of being woke, they’d claim that J.K Rowling was never a good writer to begin with— as if she didn’t build a fantastical world that was loved by millions, and as if she didn’t have to overcome sexism to get her book published to begin with.

(The similarity of course, being, that these cards and labels are the same. The more, the better— two ends of a spectrum, one against and one for.)

It’s funny how basic human empathy is turned off once you don’t like someone, how J.K Rowling’s struggles and talents were ignored and dismissed the minute she was disliked. How I’ve seen multitudes of people bashing Noah Schnapp’s appearance and acting ability, and claiming he shouldn’t have been cast as Will Byers in the first place, as if he hadn’t been 11 at the time and a phenomenal actor.

Because admitting to any positive qualities someone may have means you like them, apparently, while admitting to any negative means you don’t. So black and white; this world we live in.

Do not try and instigate with this post, or with me. It’ll do no good for you or anyone else. Do not try and put words into my mouth that differ from the ones that I wrote, one that I hold onto no illusion that they will be understood. But still, this is not a discussion, it is a train of thought. If it bothers you, simply scroll past.

[ging333rgesus-v-uphurglingelwiwi]

BrBa is just old white men dicking around with the forbidden and idk if everyone already knew this but I'm very late to the party sooooo: Hank Schrader is not The Hero - The Optics of Breaking Bad

- as of s4 e13 (i know what happens tho so don't bother)

corny ahh title. deal w it. writing this has been upside down 4, 3, double hockey sticks. this is like my 4th draft. live laugh ʟoʙoτomize me.

Hank Schrader is hailed as morally upright, within and independent of the show’s contexts, The/A Hero of Breaking Bad: the True protagonist. It’s not a position I miscomprehend or refute (Hank is granted idealisation from an unideal world), in fact its synthetic with my lens. Hank is a poʟice officer, well off, cisʜet wʜiτe man. He is both the conventional protagonist and the everyday man (Youtuber Aleczandxr notes this). A familiar figure that emulates; and evokes conventional American Dream aspirations. Audiences have an affinity for that which they identify with. And that is our conventional Euяoceиtяic narrative (poʟice officer, well off, wʜiτe cisʜet), one I think is inherently persecuting (as to facilitate priviʟɢe [ — the intersection of defining and prevalent social and surplus marginalizing systems/edificial societal mechanisms through aʙʟeιsϻ, ʜoϻopʜoʙιa, яacisϻ, classism etc]). This isn’t a consequence, rather a mechanism, one people embrace per convention.

Hank is thusly: The American Hero, but not The Hero.

Here’s the [obligatory (very skippable)] full scope of Hank Schrader: (summary for the detailed list: ur boy porkie manifested destiny or whatever.) —Hank is well off, liked, chemically balanced, no personality, mood or neurological disorders, middle aged, in good health/not immunocompromised, only temporarily disabled but otherwise ablebodied, experienced, has access to resources and opportunities, no prison record, good wife, stable relationships, supported, married, financially secure, able to work/working, largely unaffected by fatphobia/average size, mentally well (he is suffering from ptsd but he's relatively ok), an underdog of sorts/not too elevated in status, "civil[ized]", has a position of power, admired, holds conventional values, does societally encouraged/praised things, comfortable, has consistent cash flow, a stable home, employed (and when unemployed, still has opportunities from his pseudo-former employment), presumably from a "good" home, [monoracially/visibly] wʜiτe, english speaking, from america/the global north, a citizen, a [seemingly] cisʜet man, neurotypical, not an addιcτ (i think. . . minerals.), housed, working in corporate, working within capιτaʟisτ bounds, benefits from capιtaʟism, is an arm of the state through carceral punishment, and is gender conforming, etc (probably). —

He is the posterboy for our idea of the everyday man, [he’s] what is platformed by society. The face of every cop movie, buddy comedy, success story. The cool uncle, the funny cop, the good guy. Somebody with potential and the opportunity to win. Inherently coloured as good, deserving, to be protected and an audience surrogate/point of empathy.

Though there is some obfuscation with colouring Hank as intrinsically good, as anticipated accusations of overthinking, sensitivity, harmlessness, time periods etc are sure to shield him.

And I still don’t disagree.

It’s part of his package, a facet of those who would fight to protect what they love and a loved facet of what they protect. Hank is after all - mundane, benign, and as such all that he does is coloured with that levity (the interpersonal/social conflated with the societal). The brushing off, the sidelining and the normalising. He is the normative, facetious functioning of a Euяoceиtяic system. He allows for indulgence and mindlessness, a comfort in the consɜяvaτιve. The most honest and even insight into the accepted optics of the everyday. As I wrote in my previous drafts: Hank is then, to me, [not a Messiah, but] a conduit through which the societal intricacies of Breaking Bad are elucidated & is a holistic representation of BrBa socially, alongside its accompanying norms. Meaning: the optics and scope of the universe and its circumstances.

Opposingly, those diametric to Hank, The Other[s] - comprising the [neglected] bulk of “us”/our population: poc, druɢ addicts, criminals, financially insecure ppl, the impoverished etc (hierarchical levels/positions separate the outliers too - eg. Gus is blk, but rich, or Jesse is a criminal, but wʜiτe); are beneficiaries of mistreatment [through him and his system], dehumanized (due to their position being conflated with inherent moral failing. failure to conform to accepted standards means failure to be good) where Hank is The ultimate huMan [as one so human/so good, Hank sees it as his rite, and has been bestowed with the power to judge, use, punish and execute those who fail at righteousness by not being like or as good as him], relegated and commodified: backdrops through which purpose is assigned.

Hank being rendered a microcosm necessitates nothing is exclusive to him however; and so goodness is granted based on proximity or adherence and support of those with [at least some] conventional characteristics.

His antithetical contradictions (representationally abounding in canon) however, are those I see as the humane center and sympathetic party[s] of BrBa (they are without agency, and compelled by the world around them. pure in a sense, their true sin having been born who they are). For the ‘us of “us”’ (the Everyday Man among the rest of a disenfranchised majority) who are aligned to the secluded relatability of BrBa: [ - those bubbled within the narrow segment of our population living firmly within upper class/”civil” society] BrBa is about revelry, playing at the forbidden and costuming yourself in it. As I explored in drafts previous: There was a conflict in interest and feelings in Hank’s clash with Walt (convention vs freedom, ideal vs risk. — People flirting with the idea of danger/lawlessness - adorned by another wʜiτe man they can identify with (so its not too bad). An equal battle in which the moral nature, alignment and priority of the viewer is teased). The platformed curators of BrBa aren’t comprised of or inclined/prioritizing those predisposed to [aforementioned] exploitations compounded through identity, circumstance and powerlessness (in and out of canon). Being underprivileged, impoverished, struggling and having inaccess to luxury or comfort are abstract or at least somewhat distant to the comfortable average person who is BrBa’s us.

The viewers who rendered BrBa a piece of siɢϻa revelry identify with Walt, but they respect Hank and/because they are him [rn] (i.e. he feeds into siɢϻa tenets and he’s the personification of the system). 

This disregard, disassociation and commodification [from the empowered] is a salient facet of Hank's aforementioned dehumanization. Firstly, Hank’s occupation is that of an agent of the for profit prison industrial complex that disproportionately targets those he dehumanizes, who are oftentimes born into restrictive positions of oppяɜssioи and dehumanization (left to diɜ, starve, work for minimal pay, ɑbuse druɢs, be tɜrrorizɜd by gangs etc), secondly, my first recollection of Hank (which was in his first scene me thinks) is him saying the aиτi-mexican b-sʟuя, and later saying the [siиopʜoʙɩc] c-sʟuя, not to mention his frequent semi self directed abʟɜιsτ sentiment.

This, like everything, is not unique to him, with Jesse dispensing ʜoϻopʜoʙιc sentiments as well as other sʟuяs and his catchphrase being ʙiτcʜ, Brandon saying the r-sʟuя; (i probably missed other characters), as well as other characters espousing "bigoted"/marginalizing sentiment: Walt listing his son's cerebral palsy as one of his problems (im sure there are costs and consequences for Jnr's [should i call him Flynn?? im going to call him flynn] condition but they're seemingly no more severe in canon [so far] than a child without cerebral palsy), Marie and her 3rd world comments, etc. POC aesthetics also influence the speech, persona and lifestyle of Jesse, Skinny (sksk) and Brandon; (yo), and dogwhistle illicitness and non-normativeness/deviation.

Euяoceиtяicisϻ is never positioned as erroneous or [a] mockery - ‘cracker’ or gringo is never weaponized or employed, “ϻisandяisτ” (aиτi conventional or even aиτi toxic masculinity) disparagement or jokes are never propagated, wʜiτeиess is never funny. Wʜiτeиess is never commodity, never stripped of its humanity to be worn and discarded and used. 

The only time it is, is in Texas[???] (or México?? im still confused about where Hank went). — BrBa is already heavily influenced by poc culture, especially Latin culture/México, with the only poc group (and the least platformed) unmarred by illicitness (imo/as far as i can see) being Native American ppl (who are called indians in canon just to add), but are still used as props and a playing field for the affairs of those within the establishment (cooks and poʟice investigations, ʙяiʙinɢ and tip offs, ϻuяdɜяɜd bodies and sτoʟɜn belongings).

- (obligatory deviant rundown:) Someone like Gus is assumed to be innocent bc of his civility, his class status, his business and his poʟice affiliation (respectability politics). Despite this, he’s heavily suspected by Hank. His criminal activity and empire are seen as objectionable, but the people he affects are negligible and barely helped (funrun lmao) – the war on drugs and controlling and persecuting illicitness and underground establishments are what is seen as actually important. Walter being left to die of cancer by a for profit healthcare system is just, but him dealing to pay for his treatment is objectionable. Saul is unsuspecting due to his agreeable personality, charm and conventionality. The deviant life that is claimed by the system is fine (Tuco, ATM guy, the twins, Gale) but Hank’s grievous injury is evil and horrific. The justifications Walt supplies for meth are warped but Hank’s indulgence in the taboo through the cigar is recreational fun. Little children can be neglected by impoverished crackhead parents that will never be afforded help, but are seen as rotten apples when they grow up to become Combo’s or live as Tomas’. Someone like Jesse is braggadocious and recalcitrant and wears the demeanour and conduct of the disenfranchised to intimidate and rebel, along with his friends, which doubly signifies their criminality, as well as being heavily involved with poc. Jesse aims to sell to the impoverished and vulnerable people in rehab, and he breaks the sobriety of his close friends. Andrea is dissuaded from drug use by Jesse (a pink man), and only has this done when Jesse discovers her child, who he sees as good and unworthy of exploitation or suffering. And most of the “good poc” are in the force, with the others being found within the confines of the criminal underworld or engaging in illicit activity like the sτoͷɜя janitor. — Deviance itself is seen as an antagonist force that is to be purged and punished, and deviants are seen as less valuable, and as aforementioned, less human than those whose harm is validated, prioritized and platformed. 

So, Hank finds himself in a spanish speaking, poc centric region in which his staunch and unflinching wʜiτe[hegemony] alienates him. People speak Spanish despite and because of him, he is mockingly called wʜiτe boy and told to learn the commanding language, he is spoken down to and disregarded by his peers.

The Euяoceиtяic audience, like their audience surrogate, probably feels slighted on his behalf, like the natural order of things has been undeservingly and unjustly slanted.

‘Hank is in a hostile environment in which the people mistreat, belittle and alienate him. He is supposed to/deserves to be on top, he isnt actually supposed to face hardship and adversity’ - are his supporter’s probable reactions.

Well, Hank is getting what he gives.

Hank is visibly uncomfortable and affronted, attempting to brute force this world according to his world’s ways, unable and unwilling to be subsumed and relent to something not his own.

But his Euяoceиtяicisϻ does him no favours. He is faced with the dehumanized as Human. Stripped of his ultimate power and authority - his domineering status as The HuMan. The Hero.

Outside of his little, slim bubble, Hank is just another Euяoceиtяic, wʜiτe cop, and no friend of those he sneers at.

In this way, the typical “wʜiτe person in the hood” narrative we’re so used to, in which the aesthetics of the outliers are appropriated and the natives uplift, embrace and teach the whiboi (white saviorism lite) are more reminiscent of Hank’s Euяoceиtяic predeterminations: the ppl he sneers at are different to him, they’re alien, he doesn’t like their ways, they don’t embrace him/his norm, a norm he considers correct. They’re different. They are wrong.

This elicits more of a: scary outliers feel, the unsafe unknown, the dangerous other- the other as wrongness, an inherent, hostile and anti-wʜiτe/right wrongness (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1qYecnkrBk). 

A guy who went from desecrating the body of a deceased drug dealer of colour and proudly posing with his lifeless body was brought back to earth with Tortuga and his head on a tortoise, and was further grounded by the violence and carnage befalling the officers around him.

Suddenly, a guy who sees it all as bad guys and good guys and boring until it gets fun was faced with the harsh nature of morality and the value of human life, humaneness and the sentience of others.

This ofc did not change him, as he still defensively says that people like Flynn who are in crutches should be in the hospital, which is reinforcing of his previous masking of Flynn’s condition as an accident garnered from him playing football. He mistreats Marie (like all the time. seriously), he treats Jesse as disposable, he mocks Gale and his passions despite his gruesome murder, and is ofc informed by a history of promulgating that the world would be better off without addicts, inferring that they are subhuman, that criminals deserve inhumane treatment and misfortune and treating the suffering of the disenfranchised and their aesthetics as unimportant and less than. 

There’s ofc more to say, for example - his aиτi-mexican jokes with Steve and his employees, his reactionary humor, his mistreatment of people with less social power than him like Steve and Marie when he’s feeling disempowered, his humiliation of Wendy, excusing and assisting his kleptomaniac and compulsively lying wife, him getting promoted to Texas before Steve despite being more reckless, the corruption of the DEA thru advising Hank not to tell the truth, bailing out his wife and providing Hank with work after ass*ulting Jesse (as well as their exploitative interrogation practices), his wife’s very aиτi-addicτ sentiment and her readiness to condemn Jesse for Hank, as well as her entitlement and blaming when he was in surgery (it was a trauma response. ik), including other stuff that’s probably slipped my mind. — Hank’s position as someone granted inherent goodness allows for the moralizing of his hypocrisies and vices. He is assumed to be operating from a place of goodness, so the consequences of his actions are good, and the people they harm are deserving.

However, I’ll conclude through saying that the vulnerable, as I’ve touched upon, are equally human, with often limited or no power to subjugate others (and are therefore pure or innocent in terms of their lack of power as oppressors and agents/arbiters of harm).

We see through characters like Jane (a conventional individual) that when given the opportunity, they can thrive, be happy and conform.

Though the potential for conformity is not why I see the disenfranchised as BrBa’s moral heart. I see people who breaking bad truly revolves around: the silent and overlooked victims of the war on drugs, the system and carceral punishment; glimpsed as Jesse sold them blue. I see poor people, some dirty, some homeless, some gaunt and ɑddicτɜd. I see poc, I see immigrants and sickly individuals, children, women, old people. Disenfranchised and marginalized further as they’re sold druɢs, unalived, kept in poverty and imprisoned. All rendered pawns and things that have violence and autonomy enacted on them, despite the crux of the show happening within their space, being interwoven into their world and concerning their people, culture and lifestyles.

People who never got an opportunity to be anything other than what they are (until they were embraced by the system).

I see the disenfranchised as a representation of a struggle for existence and humanity.

As a song I like quotes [Montessori's Own Handbook]:

The ancient philosophical discussion as to whether many of us are good or evil Is often brought forward in connection with my method Considering that to leave children free is a dangerous mistake Since they have in them innate tendencies to evil. The tendencies which WE stigmatize as evil Are often merely those which cause annoyance to us adults. It is we who provoke the children to the violent manifestations Of a real struggle for existence And wrest from them the objects of their desire. Evidently, the question of absolute good and evil Intuitive ideas Goes beyond such limitations as these

We can always say that we have made a contribution To the cause of goodness By removing obstacles which were the cause of violence and of rebellion Let us render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's And unto God the things that are God's And unto God the things that are God's

This is the prevailing morality that informs BrBa and our internalization of it. People who may as well be infants under a punitive, guiding authority being expected to conform, provide and assist the mechanism of wʜiτe supremacy.

And therein is born a friction: the stories of the sidelined underclass fighting for the right to exist humanely.

And most importantly, therein lies BrBa’s most sympathetic/empathetic parties, and the disempowered moral center of the show. — Where the evolution (and devolution) of inherently unadultered people takes place.

Hank is no Hero, he is not selfless, he is not noble, he does not fight for the oppressed or those who cannot fight for themselves, he fights for the establishment, and his social praxis is one of Euяoceиtяicisϻ. He is the social and societal edifice of Euяoceиtяicisϻ and the establishment, unmotivated by bettering or elevating others, but by preserving the norm and convention.

There is no True Hero of Breaking Bad. Perhaps glimpses in the actions and lives of those disempowered and attempting to do/be good - Skyler, Andrea, Jesse, Mike, Peter, Brandon etc. (But at the end of the day, they're all human. And despite the norm's classifications: there are no absolute goods or evils)

If i were to go into the detailed complexities of the racial and social nuances and optics of BrBa I’d be here all day and I don’t want to bc its taken me literal daaaayss to write this and I’m tired and I don’t like Hank. I laughed when he got popped. I laughed. Anyways, bye or smth. I hope this made sense. If it didn’t, too bad. 

XP

[starswallowingsea]

This is why i physically can’t stand enstars fans they see one thing that doesn’t fit their agenda and then automatically assume it’s bait like no you sardines for brains I just have a different opinion I know it’s baffling in this democracy we live in I know and funny how you probably assume that because I offended the untouchable god akira who is an oh so perfect writer his bigoted arse isn’t going to fly from japan to congratulate you he chunky needs to get out he can barley write the day that man leaves happy elements I’ll rejoice and pray to the god I haven’t believe in in the last year again 🥳

1. I also implied that I was baiting you (which I am) (and you've fallen for it hook, line and sinker)

2. You don't have to agree with everything I or anyone else says. That is not the point of any of this. But every ask you've sent me or Cryn or Robin has clearly demonstrated that you do not have even the most basic of reading comprehension skills to understand that sometimes characters can be queer without using specific words.

3. You're the one bringing up Akira man what's your damage? I know Akira wrote Remplacer but it's beyond just Akira's stories you know. I'm personally a fan of Yuumasu's writing myself.

4. Nice fatphobia buddy. I'm sure you're real fun at parties

5. That would be you! Its a nickname you've been given by me personally actually since you seem so dead set on calling Enstars queerbait

6. Since you sent two asks I'm just going to block you now. If you have something else you want to say, say it with your whole chest or not at all. Love and light.

[starvels]

* I mean, if we wanna go FOUR (4) levels deep we can explain Nat’s comment as

An (poor) attempt to deflect Tony’s misplaced ire away from Steve (who I choose to believe WAS NOT commenting on Tony’s weight and was in fact honest when he denied he was, because his initial question is pretty innocuous** and Tony takes it…there.)

and was (rudely) fishing for information for WHAT Tony was doing to himself, because if he’s bringing his weight/body image up essentially unprompted and so Nat wants to know what kind of disordered eating Tony was partaking in (tho she really should not be doing it on the team comms!! And Thor should not be joining in!!!)

Still, it’s not great and Occam’s razor says, Nat and Thor are being fatphobic because the writers are, but we are a collective! We shall fix this!

(Or we can also say Nat also has internalized body issues that are a blind spot for even her, as a ballerina/public figure/spy/woman she’s joking around about it because duh, that’s what you do? And then they both learn not to do that? idk bleh)

*https://www.tumblr.com/starvels/723125240072454144/cw-fatphobia-body-shaming-disordered-eating

**(Steve’s comment is like, “how’s the suit holding up Tony?” And then Tony accuses him of asking about his weight and Steve is like “…no?” And then Nat and Thor jump in)

((If we want can further explore Tony’s food issues with one of the more funny/humorous elevator comments when Steve is musing out loud that he hopes “Tony isn’t cooking dinner tonight 😑” and then goes “is this line open?? Oh, uh, I love you cooking Tony I’m kidding ❤️ hehe.” And the joke can be “Tony is bad at cooking” or “Tony is making weird diet food and no one likes it/it’s not enough to eat”. ))

yeah!! your 4th level thoughts are good and i agree.

we can layer it so intricately. i would definitely be compelled by this interp and more conversations around how nat cares abt tony but doesn't know how to vocalize it. how this team as a whole cares so fucking much abt each other but they are out of touch/never been in touch w talking abt it frankly and things come out wrong and yeah, they say things because of their own hangups and ascribe them to each other in a very messy fun sort of way.

steve's comment is p innocent, yeah! it's just taken some place that to me is a non-sequitur unless you as the author are actually fatphobic and think this is a funny think to bitch charabout.

but that aside, obvs i fucking love talking abt s/t and food. #food as a metaphor for love!!! always!!! it's a love language and there should be more about it.

i bet all the avengers like UNHINGED things bc they are silly, strange lil supers. more exploration on this yespls.

[ran-orimoto]

I can’t understand your ass opinions, really. You say you ship Junpei with Izumi but I spotted you somewhere else saying with your friends you ship him with the 02 Hawkmon gal (02 is garbage and you supporting it as best season shows it). You are a fake shipper :). Time to get your mask off your face and don’t fool others shipping the Junzumi pairing. With no respect. I would disappear if I were you.

Anon, I’m sure you are the same dude being so devoted to me you send me an ask each week to fill some emptiness in your chest. I’ve been ignoring your asks but this kinda echoed in myself, because I want to clairify a matter even if, of course, I have got no obligation to apologize about anything. We are talking about silly fictional characters we play with and my creativity has got the right to flow in whatever wat I want to make it to, as long as I obviously act respectfully in the regards of everyone surrounding me.

Now that I’ve said this, let me explain something I’ve probably already underlined.

I like Junzumi, indeed, I love Junzumi. They have got a chemistry that has got so much potential it’s so funny to play with. Junpei is so loyal and adorable, doing whatever he could for her, and she is so cheerful and exuberant yet she also has got such a high control on her feelings. They give you a lot of room for you to come up with new stories about them, about their development, about such intense teen dramas that can come from Junpei himself.

Yet, this is what Junzumi was until the bonfire episode (and MAYBE the Trailmon episode). The second half of Frontier isn’t only embarassing when it comes to their development but also adds a not-so-subtle fatphobia and rudeness sent from Izumi to Junpei…Without a logical reason in the economy of the series? Now, I know what the writers intended to do, I can see it as the situation between Junzumi had seriously gone so far, maybe further than what they had planned (?). They had to restart making Izumi a love interest with shallow relationships and making her go against the changes she intended to go through at the beginning of the series. Their choices are so forced and also so confusing, since I can count on my fingers the times second half Izumi acted so coldly in Junpei’s regards without her needing to. The biggest example I can write about is the scene in front of Ophanimon’s castle in which Junpei was just saying they had to do their best.

So. I ship the Junzumi from the first half. The healthy Junzumi. One of the most beautiful relationships I have ever seen in a Digimon series since they really are so connected on so many layers and levels, from their spirits to their elements, from their backstories to their loneliness, (even if they deal with it in different ways, which is interesting). And I also ship the Junzumi from “A train of hope”, like I have made you all understand. There, they are the Junzumi from the early episodes all over again and at the same time you can see them more comfortable around each other, Junpei more aware about what she is like, what she might like doing: you see them developed as young adults in their relationship and needless to say that drama’s segment makes me so emotional💕.

However, considering the second half too, I’m the first one who says that Junpei deserves much better than Izumi….Chiaki could have been better??? Who knows??? Rain x thunder? Heck, I love my son so much I just want him to be happy and if he could find a better woman he could give his endless love and devotion to, I would be all for it. And if he could also make Izumi feel like utter sh1t, may it happen, honestly? Not because of unrequited love, but because of the way she treated him in that second half. I wanted a moment where Junpei just snapped at her, I don’t even know!

I have got so many headcanons about them post- Digiworld because I love imagining Junpei being so frozen to her for a while to fall with her later all over again, in a much deeper way. That’s *cough* Junzumi for me. Them going through so much hardship due to their selfishness but eventually finding each other.

In conclusion, I’m like a tightrope walking and swinging from a side to the other. I adore Junzumi, they are my ToP 1 shipping because of their potential and I will keep on giving them love for as much time as I want since they bright up my days, but this doesn’t mean I wouldn’t jump on another ship (* cough* Chiaki x Junpei) if Junpei found his love in someone else (* cough* water ass Chiaki). He deserves the love of this world, for real.

And omg are you really whining over me and tw friends liking imagining a crossover between Junpei and Miyako? Are you saying I should draw Miyako putting a whole riceball in his mouth as the caring and lovely girlfriend she would be to him?