#i guess that went into my factoring but i was just thinking with my dick on this one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starwalker03 · 11 months ago

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I have plot bunnies. Was wondering how time traveled WMLP Dick would explain having a healing factor like Slade's (Good luck with that Dick) ended up day dreaming into a new au and living up to my namesake. So idea: A government is trying to recreate the experiment that got Slade his powers and make their own unit of Deathstrokes. Dick or the team is investigating human tracking and human experiments. Dick infiltrates the facility but gets caught (suspend your disbelief here). Evil scientists decide to use Nightwing as a spare subject. Most of their subjects are dying anyway, and he's around the right age and health standard. May as well get some more data before they kill him. Slade who came to shut down the experiment for more personal reasons, finds Dick before the Team does.

I have this image of Slade finding Dick curled up in a cell. The roots of his hair are turning sliver in patches. Dick puts on a brave face and tries to barter his way out but Slade can see how exhausted he looks and guess what happened to him.

ooooooooooooooooh yes. mhm mhm yes very much.

I love a good plot bunny. nom nom nom. This is going in the sladick server for sure lmao.

Nightwing in the YJ show is always so fun to mess with because he is definitely Nightwing, like he's not some strange other version of the character with the same name. The story is very different, his role as a hero is very different, his experiences are very different, but he is still quintessentially Nightwing. I tend to blend all my canons together a lot to make stories but the YJ canon is really fun to mess with on its own sometimes, especially with nightwing.

He's just so young and like, different (?) to how he is in other storylines. like Nightwing of YJ is not Nightwing of Teen Titans. they're just not the same. and what we see of his relationship with Batman is so interesting. And then on top of that the timeline for the batfam is so weord to mess with because within five years Dick becomes Nightwing, Jason becomes Robin, dies, Tim becomes Robin, and there's no actual proof that Dick left Gotham for his own city, so for some reason he became Nightwing but stayed in Gotham but Bruce still went and found a new Robin? like. what?

ramble aside, Nightwing being captured and experimented on and saved by Slade before anyone else is so fun. I'm imagining this as like, post season two maybe? or actually no, cause by then he's quit as team leader. so imagine just before season two, maybe Kaldur has already started going undercover in the Light, and Dick gets captured. It falls under the radar a little because he's very independant and things with the light and the reach haven't started to boil over yet, so they assume he's got caught up in some other mission. unless of course he gets kidnapped on a mission. the absolute panic of that. THey've already lost one leader (Kaldur) under mysterious circumstance and now they've lost Nightwing too? Wally and Artemis having already retired from heroing and hearing about their friend going MIA is a Thought. M'Gaan and Conner being out somewhere else doing some other mission.

ooooh wait. in season two Dick has had to fall back on a support position as leader of the team, because they have had to start splitting up on multiple missions and the only way to effectively lead everyone is to be at the mountain on comms and computers. this would be a fun explanation for that. Him getting kidnapped and experimented on, Slade finding and saving him, helping him heal and figure out what's happened to him, and Dick skedaddling as soon as possible because he doesn't want to get double kidnapped and he can tell Slade is very close to doing exactly that.

showing up at the mountain after running from Slade, who has been giving chase... oh that's fun. makes me think of a series by mizufallsfromkumo called Gravity.

Anyway. He's barred from field action for a bit while the league makes sure he has a psych eval and stuff, cause that sounds like a procedure they'd have in place after someone is kidnapped and captured. And because of that no one learns about the fact that he's kinda sorta a supersoldier now and he wants to keep it that way. and then the season starts and he finally gets back in the field and everything. and when Slade shows up in the show he immediately spots Kaldur'Ahm and is like 'yeah there's no way this turned evil shit is real' and he hunts down Dick while he's on patrol to be like 'well hello there. so this can go two ways...' because he now has leverage.

him using Kaldur as leverage to make Dick strike a deal with him, so this time there's no running away. Dick showing up as renegade months later and no one putting two and two together because he's wearing a mask and he's not supposed to be a supersoldier.

I've realised I already have two different fics that follow a very similar plot to this lmao. one is from whumptober 2021 and the other is just only a few chapters in and I haven't had a chance to get back to it lmao.

What Kind of Man? is the idea of Dick handing himself over to Slade as payment for his silence about Kaldur and Artemis. Oh, Well, Call Off the Dogs, We Found Her in the Woods involves Dick getting kidnapped and experimented on to make him a supersoldier (and will eventually involve Slade).

Also if this is an idea you vibe with I would reccomend the series I linked before (although I think it's been discontinued? it's unfinished at the least) and also An Active Imagination by @withthekeyisking-writer. oh! and Dia a Hero by Foreverwhelmed.

I swear I had more recs to give... Oh! hang on...

Black and Blue Looks Good on You by Soul Tinkerer

and Persuasion (which is on hiatus) by Averia.

okay that's all I got rn byeeeeeee

#dc comics #fanfiction #dick grayson #young justice #angst #deathstroke #nightwing

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tsuchinokoroyale · 6 months ago

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Are you in RI often?

I think I went to Providence once when I was like 9 years old on what ended up being a hilariously homophobic family trip. So the Royale family decided to go to famously gay city Providence in June, and there were definitely some pride activities going on. My parents were very frantically trying to cover our eyes from the leather clad bears, but there were three of us and two of them so I saw them and I was like “what is the problem here.”

This imprinting of morality is pretty funny in retrospect. If my parents didn��t try so hard to cover my eyes, I would never have glanced over to see what the fuss was about. And then it wasn’t like “egads those hunks are wearing fetish gear!” It’s like “oh there’s some people over there? Crossing the street without looking first, I guess? Idk.” I couldn’t have told you what was “wrong” about the picture. It’s not even like it was hardcore dicks out fetish gear, there were men in less clothing down by the beach. The only thing it did was make me nervous that my parents might be homophobic when I put all the pieces together later in life. Like these hunky leather bears weren’t even a major factor in me realizing I was gay.

But that honor would go to Season 3 Episode 19/21 of Fox/ScyFy television series Sliders, hilariously called “The Breeder” in which Kari Wührer (( who I only knew from the lyrics of the iconic Rural Juror song from 30 rock )) becomes host to a parasite that loves breeding hot men. This process is not as sexy as it sounds.

Imagine this: you’re a pre-pubescent preteen home sick with a fever and you put on the TV just to have something on while you sippy on some soupy. You’re like oh dangggg, hot babe in a towel, yeah boys my age are into that. And then That Happens™ and your feverish brain is like Women Are Scary Actually. Less of a coming out and more of a staying in, really.

I turned out gay for more normal reasons later in life but I do attribute this show as being the turning point in my life and I’m so grateful for that ❤️

But no I’m not in RI often

#asked and answered babey!

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zahri-melitor · 9 months ago

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I guess we're doing WFA discourse today. (riffing off Ink here)

I think the things that I've had to make the most peace with about WFA are two factors: it's not written for me - I am not its target audience; it's not actually intended to be a continuation of preboot-but-now worldstate and treating it like it is leads to a lot of frustration.

The biggest problem and why it's developed such a haterdom around it: the early indications were the opposite.

Let's use a popular fic example in my circles. If you read the comments for Red Letter Day you'll immediately catch that there are two quite different audiences reading it. One audience is caught up in the mystery of WHAT happened on Red Letter Day. They're enthralled in the mystery of 'what has Dick forgotten, and how much is this going to hurt'. The second audience basically knows, from the clear contextual timeline clues Silver dropped, what Dick was trying to remind himself about with Red Letter Day. Their mystery is 'what's in that letter' and is enjoying the anticipation of watching Dick repeatedly make mistake after mistake that is going to make the revelation of what the date means so much worse, and the meta story being built in what various characters are determinedly not saying. I love this story, it's so clever in how it manages to provide a compelling, different narrative to both audiences. It's something that takes a lot of skill.

Part of the problem with WFA is a lot of comics-loving Batfam audiences went in expecting a story pitched at the second level that I've just described. And when it hits them that the plot is aimed at the first level, they feel let down. Because, let's be honest; the first season has a bunch of indicators in it that look like they're winking to people who can recite large chunks of DC timeline off the top of their head.

It's when you look deeper and analyse those indicators, and it strikes you that basically all of them are common fandom talking points that pop up frequently in fic; that they're largely 'fandom by osmosis' points that everyone knows. It's paint-by-numbers background to set up a new universe, rather than picking up and running from a fondly-recalled 'better time'.

It was a breath of fresh air, in terms of characterisation, when it came out. But it's light and insubstantial and deliberately so, and it's not particularly interested in being the worldstate that people want to read into it.

(Also, just going to say it: probably the best comics currently being published to onload WFA fans to mainstream published comics? Taylor's Nightwing, followed by his Titans. It's hitting at that low stakes middle ground that's not challenging for new audiences but still hooks into main continuity events)

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3raaaachachacha · 2 years ago

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9:59 pm

Choi Yeonjun x female reader / 493 words / angst / fluff

Warnings: none

⊱ ──────────────────────── ⊰

You were over men. Most men thought they were so hot that they could get any women they wanted. Yet you proved them wrong. You rejected many of the popular men in your class. You didn’t care though. They didn’t interest you. All of them were the same. Cocky, overly confident for only having a small dick, and dumb compared to your intellectual level. Not that you were a genius, you just knew how to actually have an interesting conversation about various topics, while most men only could relate to sports, classes they didn’t pay attention to, and drinking.

Sometimes you hated college. You needed a ‘wow’ factor, someone to blow you away, yet all men failed you. That was, until you met Yeonjun. You were hanging out in a group of friends as you couldn’t keep your eyes off how amazing he looked. You didn’t want to admit it, but you thought why not see where it goes?

You felt someone grab your wrist as you turned to the side only to see Yeonjun, staring down at you. Your eyes went wide from surprise as you swore, he was just in front of you, “Want to get out of here? This group hang out is boring,” He suggested with a smirk to his pink lips.

You scoffed at his forwardness before pulling your wrist away from his grasp, “Forward much? Why would I want to leave my friends to be with a guy I barely know?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Have I given you a reason to not want to?” He challenged, biting his lip, already loving how feisty you were.

“You haven’t given me a reason yet,” You spat back with a smirk, surprising liking where this was going for only speaking to one another a few times.

“I can give you more than one reason if you trust me?” Yeonjun winked down at you before extending his hand, “Come on, I’m not as terrible as you think I am.”

You chuckled from his statement as you raised your eyebrows, intrigued by his statement, “I’d like to see you prove that,” You moved past him, rejecting his hand as he turned to follow.

“Come on,” He took you by the wrist again, “I swiped Soobin’s card,” He winked at you as your mouth dropped, trying not to smile, but failing with delight.

“Let’s go before he notices and turns around,” You tried to compose yourself to make it seem like you weren’t enjoying every second of this, “I can’t believe you.”

The two of you turned on your heels, his hand holding your wrist again, “What can I say? I like being bad.”

Maybe Yeonjun wasn’t like other guys? Maybe he was just what you needed to feel a spark of hope in the male population. Guess you would see where the night takes you and make your decision on him. Or maybe you just like bad boys. One or the other.

⊱ ──────────────────────── ⊰

- Admin 🦋

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kmp78 · 2 months ago

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“I was referring to a 28 cm dick on a man who ("allegedly") likes to strangle and play "r**e" maybe not being ideal as a woman's first. 😶”. Oh K, so much wrong with this comment I can hardly wait! 😂

1. Allegedly is not fact. You got that right. All of that crap was from gossip and hearsay. Any high quality sources or reliability factors? Any proof at all? No? 🥱

2. It was from a million years ago which preceded VK. All young men experiment with sex. So do women. Except you I guess. No judgement. 😉

3. You have NO IDEA what JL or VKs sex life was actually like at any time in their relationship. Now there’s a fact. 🤨

4. Multiple research studies averaged that almost 50% of females have experienced rape fantasies. In a consensual bedroom scenario, the “rape FANTASY” is not an act of anger or violence as an actual rape is but from the pleasurable feelings that safe domination/submission provide the partners during the sex play. I enjoy it myself. 🤭

5. With consent, for some in the moment all that is needed is a hand around the neck during an intimate moment. Many women find that gesture erotic in itself as it instantly adds an overt power dynamic into a sexual act. “I wrap my hands around your neck with love…” (it’s not a fucking noose around their throat) Like it or not, this practice has become fairly common. All one has to do is say no if it’s not for you. (That’s me.)

6. Whatever you may think of him for other reasons, he is not stupid or an ogre or a violent man and does have a very gentle side. A man entering into the physical part of a true dating relationship with a sexual neophyte is not going to deflower and introduce sex to her by way of brute force, rape or erotic asphyxia. Sex fantasies, toys or kinky practices may be introduced gradually with mutual understanding, consent and agreed upon safeguards. To believe he did anything different is pure conjecture, possibly for your own ummm pleasure. 🥰

7. You seem overtly preoccupied about the size of JLs dick and how that fits into a woman. Apparently the thought is both fascinating and repulsive to you. Go figure. It is pleasurable, I guarantee. What you are misunderstanding here is that happily, our bodies were made to perform the sex act successfully and often. God’s great idea. Virginal VK was perfectly capable of accepting her partners big dick from day one as the human vagina can double in length during arousal and pleasantly lubricate itself to welcome it with pleasure ! Kindly remember, JL has dated tiny women and tall ones. No one ran away screaming if they belonged there in the first place.

8. Jalery went on for many years ! If VK had gotten her way, she was apparently willing to stay forever! Do you really think that any sexually interested unmarried man without children, JL in particular, would stay in a dating relationship where he was not enjoying their sex life? As for VK, it is highly doubtful bad sex was the straw that was breaking the camels back for her either. And if she was unhappy with it but accepted it, well that’s every woman’s choice and responsibility to make. Wake up. She enjoyed that part of their life, whatever it looked like, or she would have split years before it all fell apart for other reasons.

9. Did you know that “90–97% of the general population report having sexual fantasies and using them to stimulate their desire or intensify their arousal?” Maybe it’s you that is doing something wrong and not JL for a change.

And just an aside, all of your innuendos about his level of poor cleanliness, crabs, syphillis, Petri dish bacteria, dirty hair, dirty hands and all the rest are simply put, made up bullshit. While you see him active and out and often full of hair products or sweat, he is actually quite clean, very well showered, “hygiened” and manicured. Dream and scream on. Neither makes things real that simply aren’t. Have a good night all !

1. "Allegedly" in this instance ain't the same as JL "allegedly" fucking Alexia Arquette. Not all "allegeds" are the same. 😂🙄

2. I didn't know men who like to play r**e and dominate a partner suddenly stop liking that stuff anymore... 🤔

3. Yeees, I probably got the actions ans personalities of a dirty 40-smthg town WHØRE and a barely 19 yo twinkie mixed up. 🤪

4. STUDIES DONE BY WHO?! JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND HARVEY WEINSTEIN?! 🙄

5. "All you have to do is say no" 💀💀💀

Wait, this is groundbreaking! Why haven't ANY OF THE WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN S-A'D OVER THE PAST 90 MILLION YEARS ever thought of that?! 😱

6. The point was that if his weenus is 2-fucking-8 cm long, there ain't no way to make it a fun experience for a 🍒. 🙄

7. I'M the one preoccupied? Not the man who can't walk on stage without either fondling it or scratching it like he's got syphilis of some shit? 🤔

8. Did ANYONE AT ANY POINT say VK didn't stay cos she was head over heels in ❤️ with him?! No! Wtf are you even babbling about?! 🙄

9. "LEEEEEEAVE JAREDNEY ALOOOONE!!" 😭

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androgynousblackbox · 3 months ago

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The Horror of Our Love. 5 [Radioapple, Appleradio]

A town

"We reached Hogsmeade in the morning and stayed at a little hostal. I talked a little with the owner about the current situation with Hogwarts. Since the closing and clean up, the castle has been empty for the most part as a historical point of contention. The locals think that is haunted by ghosts that refuse to leave the place, both because they have seen a few ghost floating around the grounds, and also because nobody manages to stay there after the sun is down without being affected somehow. Nosebleeds, headaches, ringing ears that feel like screeching and some people even threw up.

They say it's a curse left behind by the tragedy of what happened. I heard of cases like that. Sometimes you have a place where too much bad stuff has happened and it just gets tainted by it. It seeps into the walls. Sometimes even muggles can feel it. I mean, it could be, but I am not putting my money there for now.

In the tabern next to where we stay at there is a little homage to the people who died that night. The article of what happened frammed and hanging from the wall, the wall drawn over by the message left behind by the people of the town that knew any of them. There is even a message for professor Magne. He tutorred the daughter of someone in here and they always appreciated that. He wasn't a bad teacher, I guess. A hardass for sure. He could be a real dick if he wanted to. But it could have been worse.

Officially speaking, the school has been effectively abandoned. All the portraits have been donated to other places so they don't rot alone. All the plants and creatures that needed actual care have been relocated so they wouldn't die. Its kept standing and cleaned up merely for its historical importance. An old relic of a time where magic schools were not really a thing and all wizards and witches had to learn to control their magic on their own, if they didn't had the privilege to count with a coven already. Hogwarts was the first of its class and that counts for something.

Not entirely officially, there is a tour guide that operates during three days of the week to show people the biggest scenes. The place where students slept, the big library, the potions classroom, the headmaster's office and, of course, each of the places in which they discovered a different body part of the school staff. That wasn't a specific perk that was announced, but every person that went into that castle knew very well why it wasn't in use now. I wouldn't be surprised at all to know that was a big reson why people kept coming to town. Morbid curiosity can be very profitable. My entire line of work has confirmed that for me thousands of times. I can't say that isn't a factor too into why I accepted this case in the first place.

The money from these tours supposedly goes directly into keeping up the castle and all of it's protections in place so muggles still can't find it. I hope it does something because it wasn't cheap, that is for sure. The group that we were going out with had a bunch of old people that maybe actually cared about the history and so much more young people, freshly out of their own schools, laughing and talking way too loud for my taste.

We talked with a few of them. They seemed good kids, just annoying. To be fair I thought the same about my own classmates when I was their same age, so what do I know. They told us about the curse in place and how they were planning to totally sneak out to some place where the guide wouldn't look, to see what happens after hours. They never did that in the end. We did.

Anthony had prepared us already with a bunch of anti-curse amulets, most of them made by his grandma, plus some potions and a few spells that were popular in Italy. He also had enchanted salt in case some kind of evil spirit decided to attach itself to us. It may seem a little too much, but when it came to these kind of things I would trust Anthony with my eyes closed. I had better grades in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but it was always pretty obvious to me that he was the actual better student because he cared about that. Not that our professor cared about that if he couldn't see it on a examen or a paper.

If it wasn't for me and our agency, I have no issue believing that he would have made it his business to protect others whatever way he could. He is just awesome like that.

Truly unfortunate that it all went to waste. There was nothing at all when the sun went down and I mean nothing literally. They were using illusions spells to make it seems like the school was still in use. There were curtains, chairs, mattress on the bed, even fires on the chimneys. The moment the tour was over all of that dissapear and the whole castle was just rocks on top of rocks, no sign of life besides us anywhere. It was cold as shit despite the entire day just being okay.

We explored in our own, just to be sure. Nothing on his office. Nothing in the library. Nothing in the place where he supposedly never slept in anyway. It was a nice try.

After that came the interesting part. We went to the girl's bathroom in the second floor. There was nothing there. All the mirror have been taken out, but the snake themed metal engravings were still there. We pull out the radio from the infinite bag of Anthony and hold it in front.

The radio asked us where we were. I told it that we were just moving it to a more secure place, one where we would be sure nothing would happen to it until professor Magne came pick it up. Anthony then asked him if he still remembered the first time that he found Luci. Going up to that bathroom when he knew no one was watching and try to open the passage, even knowing that it could all be a bust.

The station changed on the spot. Light steps, like that of a child, over rock could be heard. Back then the drenage was always making some kind of noise. Far away in the distance, through the windows and the hallways, the voices of students could be heard. Everything as it was when there was life here. The first words that younger memory said were in a different tongue, dragging out the s sound like an actual snake. This was the first time we actually got to hear it like anyone else would have if they had been there, rather than the filtered memory of professor Magne.

The passage opened up for us. Despite all the years without use, our obstacle moved easily out of the way. Without anyone using the bathroom, there was no water to splash our feet with, not like the kid version playing in the radio was. Up ahead there this big circular door with snakes interwined. I was carrying the radio, so I had to throw a look for Anthony to prepare himself in case we needed to. If there was a trap, a curse, or worse, the man itself there with his monster boyfriend, Anthony was going to be my first line of protection until I could throw the radio away. If I was lucky I could break it on the face of that asshole.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. When we went inside it was different than what was described to us. All the statues of the past motherfuckers that kept enslaving Lucifer for generation were gone. Can't say I don't get that one. But now there was a huge chimney on the side of a wall that I have to imagine made it more liveable. It was big enough to fit a full man, but when I went to inspect it the bones that haven't fully burned were either too long or too short to be of any human.

I told Anthony to keep his guard up as he went to behind the bigggest statue, the only one that remained, where the nest had to be in. Torches lighted up to our presence as soon we started descending the stairs, all across the place. Or more correctly, when I came down with the radio after Anthony. Whatever magic remained in the place had recognized a part of professor Magne.

It was just as big as it had to be in order to contain Lucifer, but there was more than that there. Toys, wooden toys, plushies. A box of used crayons. Blankets that looked newer than everything else there, pillows with cute shapes that were still soft to the touch. On the same corner where there was someone had hanged a sheet with sparkles all over that shinned against the lights. Right under there I caught glimpse of a storybook for children, one that had a cartoony snake on the cover happily carrying an apple to a tree, where the paw of a cat was waiting. The hungry smart cat was the title.

When I touched, I knew it was another of them. Call it intuition or whatever, but a big amount of magic was printed all over the thing. I put it on our bag, just for now, and kept searching. The place was surprisingly clean despite being clearly abandoned too. I was ready to see at least something rotting and half eaten by rats, but I have to give it to the man: he knew how to keep the lair of a man eating snake clean. Not really a good thing you want to put on a resume.

When it was clear we had nothing else to see, we came back to the door and kept going forward. There was an extension there that took us through a tunnel of dirt. The shortening spell still worked there. It didn't took us more than 15 minutes to reach a wooden entrance. I kept the radio in front of just in case the security system was still in place. If for some reason I got stuck there, Anthony had the task of pulling me out somehow. Lucky for us, those precautions were not necessary.

On the other side there was a normal hallway. On the wall there were empty spaces where pictures were before. I came to know face to face the infamous duck statue next to the stairs and Anthony said that professor Magne could eat a bag of dicks for eating it. I was inclined to agree. At least looked ridiculous enough to give the place some personality besides the antlers mounted on the wall. Besides those few details, everything else had been emptied, but here is the catch: it wasn't dusty enough. Not like things were in most of the rooms at the castle that nobody had even thought of touching. I would say… maybe two years worth of dust, more or less. The sheets and curtains were not nearly as old as the ones on the nest at the castle. There was even still a bottle of wine in the fridge.

They had either stayed here on that period of time or were living here the entire time after killing all the staff. It could have been either way with that guy. Just a spell or potion to hide his own face and he could do whatever he wanted here, an invisible dead man that nobody would care about. I need to see later in the death toll around this area or if people were dissapearing before. Someone had to die to make that book.

There were three bedroom in total, two upstairs and one downstairs. The last one was a repurposed office with no real bed, but there was a lot of blankets and pillows concentrated in the middle. The floor was a enlarged mattress that still squeaked under pressure. The wardroves were empty, except for a few socks at the back of the drawers.

Upstairs was the guest bedroom. Nothing different about it. A bed, a desk, wardrove, a bathroom. Nothing left behind there. But the third room was something else. I never knew a single place could be so damn pink. The bedframe was a cute unicorn, decorations of cute animals filled the walls, the white desk had crayons and markers now dry up. Some toys were still on the floor or in the bed.

I have two theories about what the hell this is about. One of them is just kidnapping, plain and simple. Some kid that bastard left without parents end up here and probably was still with them. Maybe to train them into continueing his legacy or something. Another one is… well, still fucked up. That naga that he made me babysit more than one time and he kept in a fucking cage during class. If she was actually smart enough to be treated like a kid with her own room, then that guy still kidnapped the offpring of some poor naga parents and made everyone believe she was just another animal to keep around.

After we cleaned up the whole place, no traces of another of those items anywhere, only then I sat down at the table with the little book. When I first opened it up, the pages were white, but soon they started to fill out with words and what looked to be kid's drawings as illustratons. It quickly became obvious that the words contained there had nothing to do with whatever was originally on that book. No hungry cat anywhere, smart or otherwise. However, there was a snake. There is always a snake somewhere now."

"Once upon a time, there was a kind wizard. He was the youngest of seven brothers in a renowed magical family, whose lineage went many years back. All of them were destined to greatness, or so they were told, but the kind wizard had other ideas in mind.

Close to their village there was another bigger one, full of muggles. They hunted, they catched fish and had crops from where to eat. But sometimes they got sick, hurt or struggle to gather enough food for everyone. The kind wizard would help them out whenever he could. If there was a bad crop, he would give them new life. If they only had one beast to feed three families, he multiplied them. If there wasn't enough clothing or a house got too cold, he would help them through the winter.

At first, it was entirely in secret. The muggles knew that their luck had turned around, but didn't know there was someone behind it. But the more time the kind wizard spend with them, it was a secret that everyone just knew about. They started coming up to him with requests. Cure my coughing son, save my dying cow, help us find our dog. The kind wizard could not always do everything, he was just one man after all, but there was still a lot that he could do.

He developed a close relationship with them, becoming a friend, a confident. They called him a miracle worker despite numerous protest from the kind wizard. Among their people, the kind wizard fell in love with a woman and both of them couldn't wait to form their own family.

Unofortunately, that is not what happened. The more people came in from other towns, the more distrust it started to grow around the kind wizard. They didn't understand the idea of magic, so they feared it and started fearing the wizard as well. Suddenly all his good deeds were seen as suspicious. People remoured that any of their disgraces were actually caused by him, just so he could come in and pretend to be a hero.

It didn't took them long to come to the conclusion that if the kind wizard had the power to heal, then he also had the power to hurt. They were not going to stay arms crossed while that risk existed.

One silent night, some muggles followed the kind wizard back to the village where his brothers and their families lived. They saw their magic wands, them flying in the sky with brooms, cauldorns preparing potions and did not understand it, so they deem it evil. The fact that there were kid wizards living among them did not stop them. They are tainted already, they said. There is no salvation for them.

The fires consumed everything.

The wizards luckily could defend themselves, some even managing to enchant the muggles so they would forget all about their village, but the damage was already done. They couldn't stay in the same place any longer. The kind wizard tried to get back to his wife, to their future unborn child waiting for him, but his family had other plans for him.

The secret had been find out. As long it wasn't anything serious, his father was willing to let him have fun with the muggles on his free time. But now his actions had consequences for everyone else and they couldn't let that slide. His father had a terrible idea.

He trapped his son, the kind wizard, in a bizarre form and lock him up on a castle where once his ancestors founded a school for wizard. There he would be punished to serve and obey the children of all his brothers for as long he was alive. The kind wizard was beyond heartbroken. His only comfort was to think that his wife and their child could be safe away from all of that, not knowing in what he had been turned into.

During many years, he spend his time alone and restricted to that prison with no hope of ever changing it. The future generations that came to his door only wanted very specific things from him and none of them included friendship. He had resigned to this lonely fate when one day, surprisingly, one of his descendants came to find him and this was certainly a weird wizard.

Weird in how he was the youngest of all others before him. Weird in how he never was scared of the form the kind wizard had been cursed with. Weird in how he had no plan, no order, nothing to demand from the beast in front of him that a little bit of company and a chat.

At first, the kind wizard didn't know what to think. For as weird as this new kid was, surely he would get bored and leave him there? Surely, one day he would stop coming in. How much interesting can an imprisioned cursed wizard can be?

And yet, the weird wizard kept coming in. He brought books and games and gossip to talk about. For the first time in a long time, someone was laughing on his old cold prison and the sound was beautiful, hopeful. The more the weird wizard kept growing, the cursed beast could not do more than to wait for him and wish to hear his voice again. Despite his best efforts to deny it, he still had the heart of a kind man.

Eventually, they fell in love. The weird wizard promised that one day he would be the one to break the curse and show him everything the world had to offer, everything that he could only know about by hearing others talk about it. All pretty words that the cursed one wanted to believe in, but didn't know if he could. It had been many years since he had been turned into a slithering form, condemned to communicate only in a tongue that few wizards of the world could understand. It was hard to believe that any of that could truly change.

The weird wizard had no such doubts. To him, his love was beautiful and majestic, a marvel worthy of admiration. He couldn't care less about what the rest of society could want out of them. This was their happiness and that was all that mattered.

Their marriage was a secret private ceremony with only the best friend of the weird wizard present as a witness. They exchanged rings that promised never to take off to symbolize their union, that couldn't be recognized in the ouside world. The weird wizard prepared a home where they could live together, without worrying about intruders.

For a good few years, this was enough, but there was a persistent thought in the mind of the weird wizard. Since he was weird, the idea kept growing and growing until it wouldn't leave him alone. There was something that felt missing from this little happy life they both had managed to build together. Something that the kind beast had already lost and something that the weird wizard barely knew at all. A sense of family that would be completed with a child, their own child.

They couldn't just make a baby in a cauldron. They couldn't just order one to come in the mail. They both wanted it to be created by both of them. The weird wizard explorar all venues possible, until finally, finally, he found a solution.

The spell originally had been created to allow a vampire woman to have the babies of her human husband. An old family secret that had been passed down until it reached one of the friends of the weird wizard and into his ears. There were still obstacles to surpass. The spell had to be modified to adapt to their own circumstances. They were both very much alive, neither a vampire, but the weird wizard was persistent and knew that he could do it.

If most people got to have children with the ones they loved, then by all means he should be able too. After a lot of trial and error, experiment after experiment, the weird wizard started noticing some changes on himself.

His previously brown hands were turning into solid black as coal. His eyes that were once round were becoming slit and red just like his love. His appetite was becoming more inclined to certain kind of food that ever was before. A simple spell to hide those feature would be put in place and up to the next try. Just in case, the weird wizard carried gloves and obscured glasses with him.

There were many failures along the way. Some more painful than others. Some seemed to be a success until they weren't. Those were the worst. But despite everything, they kept trying. Giving up at that point just wasn't an option at all. One way or another, now they wanted this baby more than anything else in the world.

Until one day, one of the eggs from the cursed wizard started growing inside the weird wizard, just as they were hoping for. They waited, week after week, to see if this egg wasn't going to survive like all others and they would have to change the spell again. Meanwhile, the belly of the weird wizard kept growing. The day that their baby gave her first kick it was like they could finally breath again. None of their previous attempt had reached to that stage.

The cursed wizard couldn't be a more happy father. He dotted on the weird wizard as much as he was able to, providing with everything necessary to keep the baby growing, while the weird wizard was so imensively proud he couldn't contain himself. Many children come to this world by mistake, without their parents intending to, but not this one. Theirs was a true labor of love, a testament of their perseverance. Not to mention, proof that if he wanted to, the weird wizard could do what nobody else could before. Having his own baby gave him hope that someday he was going to be able to break the curse and take his love away. Those were joyious days, the ones of waiting.

Whatever form she took, whatever features she gained from any of her parents, they were both going to give this child all the love this world had to offer, because she was now their entire world. For as long any of them lived, she was going to be protected from anything or anyone that could hurt her. That was their promise to her. One they were going to keep no matter what.

When she was born, it was the happiest day of their life. The weird wizard hold her on his arms for the first time said and said what he had wanted for so long:

Welcome home, Charlie."

[Note from Husk: On the last page, with the same letters used for the rest of the story, the book asked: Did you enjoyed the story? With a yes and a no waiting to be marked.

I took one of the crayons I found upstairs to mark on the yes. The book went back and forth itself, creating new pages with new phrases to speak to use. All the illustrations that were there before were gone now.]

"It has been a while since you wrote, little one."

[Note from Husk: I considered just playing along for this book to keep thinking we were who it thought, this "little one". But if at any point it realized we lied, it was going to close itself off and tell us nothing. I figured that telling the truth was our best option. Using the crayon, I wrote my own name. For a few seconds the book did nothing, but then moved to a new page.

Writing with crayon sucks. Later we managed to test it out and yes, this thing won't respond anything at all unless we use the crayon. Any mark we make will just dissapear.]

"You have the same name as one of my students."

"I was one of your students. Grown up now."

"Why do you have this book? It was supposed to be for someone else."

"We are trying to know where they are. Professor Magne asked us to keep getting all his horrorcruxes together until we can find him or he find us."

"Do you know about Luci?"

"Yes, you told us."

"Us who?"

"Me and Anthony. He was also an student. We just want to know where you are now."

"Am I not in Hogwarts currently? Or Hogsmeade?"

"No. You dissapeared after we graduated."

[Note from Husk: The book took a full minute to show me anything new.]

"The curse must have been broken. Did you ever saw Luci outside of the school or the town? How about Charlie? Where is she?"

"No, I didn't. We don't know who is Charlie."

"You have met her before. She liked you. You showed her magic tricks with cards."

"The naga that you had during class."

"Not a naga. Just happened to come out looking like one. She was safer as a magical creature I had the permission to handle than as my child."

"Safe from what?"

"Everyone who wouldn't understand, either her or Luci. Nobody questioned a permit. Everyone questions other people's children. Where they came from, where is the father, what do they eat. I couldn't risk my family facing that scrutiny."

[Note from Anthony: At this point I wrote with another crayon.]

"Anthony here. Could you show us more about Charlie and the story in the book?"

[Note from Anthony: I thought he was going to show us more of those cute illustrations that he had before. Somehow it didn't ocurred to me that the book would literally suck us inside. My bad.]

#appleradio #radioapple #duckiedeer #hazbin hotel au #lucifer x alastor #harry potter au

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cherryxblossxms · 8 months ago

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So, crack thought.

I went down a rabbit hole of thoughts, as one often does with unmedicated ADD. Horny thoughts have been rampant today, starting with breeding kink. Then I thought about, well maybe you don't want kids so hubby/bf gets a vasectomy. And then of course my mind eventually floated over to Buggy.

Just for the sake of hotness factor and enjoying it as fiction, I like to consider that Buggy can still somehow creampie you even when his dick is detached. After all, if his limbs can still separate and work without being connected to his heart or more importantly the blood supplying it, then why couldn't his cum magically teleport too?

So obviously, the next step in my what-if, ADD-induced rabbit hole train of thought was: if his cum COULDNT magically teleport like I'd like it to, what if Buggy's "vasectomy" would actually just be him detaching his balls when he's fucking you so that he cums dry???? I guess??????, and then reattaches them afterwards?

Anyway I think my brain is melting

#rorschach voice: im not locked in here with you youre locked in here with me

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baejax-the-great · 5 months ago

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So I read Ajax by Sophocles because I admit I procrastinated but you kept…well, having an energy about it so I was curious. And man it really is all quite frustrating. Achilles' arms being given to Odysseus is frustrating, Ajax's death is frustrating, the treatment Tecmessa receives from Ajax is frustrating, Agamemnon's xenophobic speech against Teucer is frustrating, Odysseus having to make an elaborate argument just to get a funeral for Ajax is frustrating. This is probably the most frustrating Greek play I've ever read

I read Sophocles's Ajax two years ago in a single Sunday morning so my memory of it is not fresh at all, but I agree that it was a frustrating play. It's one of the last extant written works regarding Ajax's myths from classical Greece, which does make it interesting in my eyes. Most works written prior regarding Ajax weren't saved, or in the case of the Iliad, were tampered with (probably to suit Athens' political needs, something that Sophocles also would have been very sensitive to as he was part of the political elite in Athens).

I wrote something to this effect before, but it seems over time the Ajax myth flattened from being about a complex, tragic character who in reaching his goals also prevented himself for ever being recognized for them to being about a dumbass, I guess. I think the myth of his suicide is partially responsible for this--suicide is a difficult topic, and it's difficult for some people to understand why anyone would go through with it. I think this is one factor in what made authors dismiss him as stupid or just crazy.

Sophocles went with the "crazy" version. He also wrote Ajax as kind of a brutish dick. I think I read that he was the first to suggest that Athena purposefully drove Ajax mad, and that Ajax tortured the livestock believing they were Agamemnon and company. Other versions might have said he was mad, but it was more suggestive of "in a place where one might commit suicide or lash out and kill livestock." Mad is such a vague word.

Sophocles' version is also the only version I believe where he is threatened with a denial of a funeral. A lot has been written about this and historians basically dismiss Sophocles as making shit up because being buried was not seen as a dishonorable way to handle the dead in Mycenean times, and so there is no reason to believe that Ajax receiving a burial rather than a pyre would be reflective of his dishonor.

Anyway, I'm just kind of rambling now. It is an interesting play in that Athena really opens with "Fuck this man in particular," and man, does she follow through. It's a tragedy. Nothing good happened and nothing is learned.

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hiscules · 1 year ago

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It's a hard life, but my birdie thought otherwise (Part 1)

Context: There were many times that I have had sexual encounters where a certain body part proved unreliable where it must really count. I may or may not tell those stories but let me start with this: a short but boring story that just happened last night.

So I and my partner were not really in the mood lately. Let me rephrase that, I am always horny and I am not so sure with the other one. My sex life lately only consists of one blowjob per week. And from previous experience, this is also uncertain and it depends on some factors such as tiredness, mood, time, and whether we fought or not. So sometimes, it can be only one blowjob... for 2 weeks.

At times I entertain my intrusive thoughts, especially when there's nothing to do. Like does my partner not attracted to me anymore? Or does my partner get sex from other people? Or are we in that stage of our relationship where you no longer have sex? Thoughts like that. I highly doubt the third one since we are a fairly new couple, so probably not that one. But I think, the most probable answer might be that my partner's libido might be decreasing? something like that. I said decreasing because, well from what I've read from my partner's blog, my partner's kind of a slut. I mean, my partner enjoyed sex. And I can cite more than one entry where you can really ascertain that my partner's libido is nowhere depleting. So I think I am kind of overthinking again but well that's just how I am wired.

Anyways, yeah this weekend I stayed in our place and I went in my own home Tuesday afternoon. I kind of expecting my one allotted blowjob last Sunday night since Saturday is a no because my partner's tired from a lot of things, so I kind of expecting that it might be Sunday night or Monday morning before my partner goes to work. Monday night is a no because tired from work. So if not Sunday night or Monday morning, then I'll go home with no sex again. And guess what, we did not have sex.

So Monday afternoon, I jerked off worth 3 days of cum since I was so fucking horny and I cannot wait another night and be disappointed again. That was a mistake. I should have not done that. So, come Monday night, we were on the bed, the air is buzzing, we are smiling and laughing, we are touching. And yeah, my dick was hard at first. Really hard. But then, it got soft. It got soft in the middle of my one beloved, allotted blowjob for these 2 weeks. IT. GOT. SOFT.

So yeah, there goes my long-awaited blowjob. And nope, I didnt cum. Fucking piece of shit.

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darkaviarymc · 8 months ago

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So why tf are you living with a zionist? And why tf did you get married to one in the first place?

I've gotten anons asking invasive questions about my relationship with Troy and why I have yet to end it, and I've deleted each one. I don't know if you're the same anon, but I'm guessing you follow me because my latest #aviisleaving post has no notes and was less than an hour old when I received this ask.

But.

Due to recent events in this fandom, abuse has become a spotlight topic. I don't know if I would call my marriage abusive or not. But whether or not it is, my situation and my reasons for staying in it for the time being is similar to what abusive victims face. There are many reasons not to leave, to bide your time before leaving, and to not be able to leave at the time or even at all, and I think it's an important discussion to have.

I'll start by explaining why I'm with him in the first place. We used to be closer ideologically. He wasn't always this far right and (this is where I make a confession that idk if I'm actually ready to make, but here we go) I wasn't always this far left. Seven years does a lot to change people, for better or worse. I was a left-leaning centerist, he was a right-leaning centerist, and we met in the middle to either compromise or peacefully agree to disagree.

We were both nerdy autistic weirdos with the same taste in music, same sense of humor, and enough ideologically in common to make peace. He got along well with my daughter and was quick to let me know that, if we ever got married, he'd consider her his kid as if she was his own.

I'm hyper-romantic. I see romance basically everywhere I look, and I fall in love hard and fast. He wasn't used to having a woman (my egg hadn't cracked yet, we'll get to that) who wasn't an absolute bitch be interested in him, so he fell harder than he ever had. We also both hated our situation at home, and I wouldn't pretend that wasn't a factor. We rushed the relationship and got married before we'd been together a year.

Everything changed for me when I realized I was queer.

I found the community I'd been denying for my whole life, and I learned a lot. He was an ally then. A flawed one, but he was willing to try. He was supportive of me when I came out, first as bisexual and then as nonbinary.

But everything changed for him when the wreck happened. He was driving with our mutual best friend in the front passenger seat when he lost control on black ice and slid into oncoming traffic. Our friend died at the scene, and Troy's injuries left him permanently disabled. He's since regained his independence, but he'll always struggle with his left arm.

We both took solace in our faith (I'd still consider myself a Christian, feel how you feel about that, I've heard it all) but he got lost in Christian Reddit, then Christian TikTok. Christian TikTok led to Evangelical TikTok, which led to transphobic, homophobic, MAGA, and zionist TikTok.

He ate that shit up. He fucking chugged that kool-aid. It gave him something besides himself to be angry at.

Grief opened my mind and closed his. It softened my heart and hardened his.

It just went downhill from there.

And now I can't live with this. I know he can't either, and the only reason he hasn't initiated a separation is because 1) there's no biblical grounds for divorce because I haven't cheated on him, and 2) he doesn't think a fat, autistic, disabled nerd in his 30s with a small dick and $30,000 in medical debt could ever find a godly wife. His words, not mine.

So if I want what's best for myself, my daughter, and yes, even for Troy, I need to be the one to leave.

So why haven't I yet?

First and foremost, money. We live in a society blah blah blah. Our society isn't friendly single mothers, queer people, or disabled people, and I'm about to be all three. I need to be 100% certain that I can support not only myself, but a high support needs autistic teen daughter who will likely never be able to live independently.

We currently only have one working vehicle, and aren't in a financial place to remedy that. I will need my own form of transportation if I'm going to be on my own.

All of my preparations (housing, transportation, moving logistics, etc) will have to be enacted quickly and perfectly. Surgical precision packing, moving, and stocking up on groceries so I don't have to leave the house for a while within 24 hours. Why? Because his family can't have any forewarning. I would not be safe. Currently, I'm not safe emotionally, but if I mess up even one step off the plan, if I'm not perfect in my exit strategy, I won't be safe physically, and neither will my daughter. I won't elaborate further on that.

Not only do I have to leave perfectly, but I have to be 150% positive months in advance that I can keep perfect. Because he has friends and family in places that could be dangerous for me, not the least of which is CPS. I fully expect to have them at my door by the end of the first month. I can't give them cause to take my daughter, even if it's the smallest, stupidest thing. Especially since they'll already have a small, stupid thing. Namely, my queerness and my disability.

Because I'm under no impression whatsoever that Troy won't out me to every single person who I can't safely be out to the instant he gets the chance. I will have no more help from (and possibly no contact with) my family. I will be completely alone. My support system will be gone forever. I have to be emotionally, mentally, and financially ready for that.

And I am none of those things right now.

And until I am, I have to do whatever I can to keep myself safe enough to bide my time for the right opportunity.

#aviisleaving #tw abuse

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longeyelashedtragedy · 1 year ago

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How would you describe Frank's relationships at home with his family even though he seems to be so messed up and lost in his mind. Do you think his kids probably notice it(a factor could be that his older kids (taking account that their mum is his ex) don't spend as much time with him anymore looking at social media.

Another question is where do you think it went wrong for Frank with his relationship between him and his ex?

Sorry for the specific questions but I just wanted to hear a different point of view as I'm doing research for a fic 😅

Thank you and I love your writing btw!!!!

great question!

i have to say, i hope this part isn't projection because i am so weak for a footballer being a Good Dad, but from what i've seen (and i might have read him saying something to this effect, though not in these therapy language words) he made a conscious effort to Break the Cycle with his daughters and not be a complete controlling dick like his dad. i don't think we know anything at all about him + his younger kids (except for, where the fuck did they get curly hair from lol) so i'm talking about the older girls.

it's interesting, because my dad had an actual abusive and cheating father, and before my dad had kids he said he hoped he only had girls because he would have no clue how to teach a boy to be a Man and would probably fuck it up. luckily, he has two "daughters" so that worked out for him, and he's an amazing dad. i wonder if frank was the same, it could be?

as for the girls i don't know if they just are older with their own lives and don't want to be pictured online anymore, and he respects their privacy, or what. he does reference them in the diary of a ceo interview if you have watched it (if you haven't, and you're writing a fic, i totally recommend it--the two hours fly by i swear)--that now they're at high school graduation age and he's been giving them advice about the future and sometimes they have Disagreements where he agrees to disagree (i bet they're about politics lmao). it also could be that he's sort of depressing to be around right now? like, on instagram JT and Jody Morris and that crowd are always hanging out and playing golf and going to chelsea games and shit and frank is never there which makes me feel he's sitting around in a depression cave lmao.

as for the home life in general it's hard to know but the shit he and christine used to say about each other was cringeeeee. these days they just seem like they're kind of quiet and mind their own business and other than all their money they seem kind of normal? like "dad complaining about women Shopping all the time and facebook wine mom" vibes instead of nouveau rich celebs vibes.

elen! that's an interesting one. i'm not a fan of their relationship. like i feel like he and christine make sense as a couple/(marriage of convenience)in a sense but he and elen didn't make sense to me as a couple. if you read the parts about her in his book idk they're just...weird feeling? it had a very Wow a Hot Spanish Model is Interested in Me??!?!?!?!?! vibe to it and it was sweet i guess but weird. i can't see this dude being married to elen at all really. i think, and i actually think he says this in diary of a ceo as well, it really went wrong when his mom died :( as he said he spent the next year in a complete numb freeze state, was full of random anger, trying to repress his emotions etc, and many things suffered from that including his relationship. i think that could break a relationship up easily, especially if maybe it wasn't that solid to begin with?

(**it's VERY interesting that with both of the Ladies frank had insanely long periods of being...together but Not Married...HMMMM)

these are just my thoughts--let me know if you have any other Discussion Topics, omg. and i'm very curious about this fic 👀

#anonymous #answered #long eyelashed tragedy

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angorwhosebabyisthis · 2 years ago

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honestly like. the more i take it apart and examine it, while going into it entirely is going to be A Post or Three of Its Own and will probably get its own thread: i think one of the reasons nine in canon upsets me so much is that i genuinely related to the version of him that made sense to me, when i tried to apply some continuity to his character from before his imprisonment vs after. he's actually the muse i wrote for the most prose for in this fandom, even more than five--which is saying something!--and he came to me pretty easily.

[longpost and Decidedly Harsh toward canon's depiction of him, but less ARGFMSKDKDKFK HATE than usual so much as 'man the awful way these people handled him was a waste.' believe it or not i'm actually pretty attached to him, but as the secret Better Version that lives in my head lmao]

the arc of his character could have been such a good one about how men and boys and the people around them are harmed by toxic masculinity, and examining the ways in which that's held up by other cis men, every other configuration of gender and AGAB, and both. he came through loud and clear to me as an example of a poorly socialized, abused, isolated homeschooler with very little life experience, who is throwing bits and pieces at the wall that he's cobbled together from the outside without understanding the experiences behind that kind of thing, to see what sticks. all this while having suppressed and sublimated his emotions so much that he doesn't actually recognize what he's feeling, and goes 'well, i guess this trauma reaction to killing people means i like killing people. let's go then!'

like... in canon, you can kind of see how the seeds of his trauma, and baseline personality, from before his capture might have gone septic in the process the way it does in canon. if he was already the kind of person who would spit that result out on the other side. the writers used his Acute Trauma as an excuse to go 'anyway his cêpan was a sexist dickhead under the guise of ~respecting women,~ and he got captured by pursuing a normal teenage crush and blames himself for it, and then he went through solitary for a year. so now he's a gleeful sexual predator who harasses john and thinks women are meat!'

and this becomes even more glaringly obvious when you set it next to how the aftereffects of his trauma are (not) depicted. this kid spent a year in solitary confinement--broken up by the intermission of mercy-killing his adopted dad after watching his torture--while not being fed enough and hurting himself on the forcefield on the regular. he's not going to immediately come out of that Ripped and an Incredible Polished Fighter; he's not going to come out of that a ~charming edgy debonair lovable asshole.~ this kid knows what the fuckin hat man looks like, dude. that's shit you come out of an emotional, physical, and psychological wreck, and not in a 'haha look how rude and boundary-pushing and violent and sleazy i am uwu' way.

he is barely going to be able to walk out of there on his own two feet. he is going to be hallucinating and not remember how to tell faces apart. he is going to freak out at anything like an enclosed space. he is going to be food-insecure. he is going to be constantly finding ways to self-harm when he feels at all out of control, and once again not in a 'haha i'm so quirky and edgy' way. he is going to have obsessive rituals and get stuck on repetitive thought patterns because you run out of shit to think about after a year with nothing to do but pushups, even before you add in the shiny new PTSD events to obsess over. which tend to take up all of your brain space even when you aren't isolated with them for long periods. he is going to be doing weird fucking shit after he gets out, bizarre and frightening shit that's not just 'being violent and a dick,' and other people will probably notice.

and all of this is before you factor in his backstory! (which, by the way, is not conducive to him coming out of his imprisonment an Unstoppable Highly Trained Killing Machine. he was taught how to actually fight opponents for Three Whole Ass Weeks before he got captured, and none of that was training against human-shaped opponents. i don't care how many pushups he does over how long, he still has had zero practice fighting Other People and that's immediately going to fuck him over in a fight. it's one thing to have him be dangerous because he makes up for lack of skill with being completely fucking berserk with zero regard for his own safety or anyone else's, but he's not going to be an unstoppable whirlwind of death. and you're not going to build muscle while you're being starved.)

and like. i could go on for a long time about how they fucked up his character to the point where seeing him onscreen anywhere outside his novella makes me instantly want to flip a table. but i think so much of what it comes down to--and i don't say this casually, i mean after laying out and examining all his scenes in the first series--is that he doesn't actually have an arc. he doesn't grow. the entire point of his character's existence is to be an awful person and never be held accountable, self-examine, or allowed to face any kind of real consequences for it.

it's genuinely fascinating to examine all the different methods they use to do this (which is for a whole post of its own), but he's not an exploration of culpability or responsibility--for past, current, and future actions--the way five's arc is. he's just a parade of all the abuse tactics and rhetoric the authors could think of, both direct and via enablement by people around him, to pour into one guy. nine is literally The Missing Stair: The Character.

contrast this with five getting nailed to the fuckin wall for things that are often, arguably, much less horrific or unhinged than what nine does. he's treated like a ~broken, irreparably insane monster~ by characters and narrative both. he's punished brutally and endlessly over and over and over and over no matter how much he tries to grow, or make amends, or even lay down and take everything that might be done to him as punishment because he Deserves It for, [checks notes] repeatedly having been groomed and manipulated for years. If You Can't Tell I am a Little Bitter

and it's not just other characters who suffer for it. the creators are SO invested in nine never being accountable, by himself or anyone else, that he is PUNISHED FOR IT when he makes even the slightest effort to unpack. when he has a moment of vulnerability during a breakdown over fucking up, he is restrained in exactly the same way as when he had to watch eight die. this so that he can have his self-blame literally beaten out of him to make him 'stop moping.' the writers don't care about his trauma, or being compassionate or fair in their portrayal of it, or letting him heal. the only thing they care about here is getting to write a Missing Stair as a good thing, and trying to get you, the reader, in on it by forcing you to like him.

anyway just. man. they did nine so fuckin dirty and their version of him brings down every other narrative around it. i know i rant about nine a lot but justice for my boy

#lorien legacies #LL number nine #LL number five #LL crit tag #the crit files #nine is a platter of sushi the writers put in the microwave and [horse staring out over the ocean meme] man #also if you fix this SO MUCH about his parallels and foils with five snap right into place and it is CHEF'S KISS UGH #also lifts up john's arc in the process to 'kid with some pretty ugly qualities buried under Nice Guy surface; who has to grow past them'#'and does'#instead of 'oh gross wtf'#dyn: lost boys #like frankly i feel like it's pretty shitty to both neglected/abused homeschoolers and survivors of solitary confinement #to go 'ya that's what made this guy a sadistic bullying bigoted creep uwu'#instead of you know. establishing the traits of /his/ that would be brought out by that #there's also just. so much to be said here about how in the process of giving nine a pass for his cruelty and toxic masculinity #the writers also give a pass for perpetuating the cruelty of toxic masculinity toward men and boys against /him/#also like this kid self-harms in a variety of ways when he needs control and it's a pattern that starts from his very first scene #Writers Address Literally Any of This Instead of Portraying Men Self-Harming as Quirky Badass Peak of Masculinity Shit Challenge #LL tag

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estellamiraiauthor · 2 years ago

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The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 5)

Welcome to the annotated re-read for Chapter 5! If you’re just joining us, check out previous chapters here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, or get your copy of the ebook here or paperback at any online or local bookstore of your choice!

Chapter 5 is a pretty important chapter in terms of both the story and the backstory, and I think was one that got rewritten a lot… so pull up a chair, this might take awhile?

Chapter 5 picks up where Chapter 4 left off, with Teru arriving at Rei’s apartment building, internally commenting on how quiet it is here compared to the izakaya (Japanese-style pub) where the rest of the band went after the show. Looking back, I think there are quite a few lines like that throughout the book, about how DIFFERENT Rei’s little world feels from the world Teru’s usually a part of.

Rei has cleaned the room, and prepared some expensive-looking cognac… this was kind of a nostalgic throwback, since the first time I ever had cognac was from an expensive bottle someone had given my boyfriend-now-husband as a gift, and that was a nice memory, so I kind of made it a nice memory for my boys, too. I get a LOT OF FLAK for this scene too… not only is Teru going to a stranger’s house, he’s accepting alcohol from said stranger??? Look, all I can say is, he’s 21, it’s Tokyo in 2000, the attitude toward alcohol in general and the murder rate are just completely different from the US, at least. I can’t really speak to the rest of the world but―again, this isn’t a children’s book designed to teach stranger danger. *sigh*

Related note: None of this was really conscious, but I definitely think Rei’s love language here is gifts. He likes being able to buy expensive things for Teru and to give him both things and opportunities… Teru’s probably more about “acts of service” (yes, I did JUST Google that, so forgive me for not being an expert… just sort of occurred to me through the cognac that Rei likes to take care of Teru through THINGS a lot). Maybe that’s one of the reasons there seems to be such a divide over whether people like them as a couple. I guess I show my love through gifts a lot, too, and it really is my sincere way of showing love, but I also get that like “material things” aren’t supposed to be as good as other ways of giving to a person. Meh. For what it’s worth, Rei’s gifts aren’t only material things (also songs and things that would mostly be an “expense” in terms of time and spoons), but I do think the fact that he started out in the industry dirt poor is also a major factor… now that he does have money, he likes to be able to use it to spoil Teru. I don’t really think that’s a bad thing.

ANYWAY. Getting back to the chapter, Teru does call Rei out on being a dick to Bara. This was definitely added later on, because I wasn’t super crazy about Chapter 3 even then and was trying at least to show that the characters also knew that it was a really immature way to deal with the situation and introduce SOME kind of consequences in terms of early tension in their relationship… but in the end, everyone (including Bara, although we don’t know that yet) ends up in a better situation because of it, so the consequences are kinda limited. Again… meh. I don’t love what I did there, period, this doesn’t really fix it but I tried to acknowledge that it was a dick move?

Rei is a lot nicer to Teru than in their original meeting… I think there are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly is probably just that Teru hasn’t outright rejected him yet… he’s here AGAIN, isn’t he, which indicates at least some respect for Rei as a musician, so Rei lets his guard down a tiny bit. He’s also had a little bit to drink, which does a lot to calm anxiety (at least for me… these poor characters are both just amalgamations of my own complexes, sorry-not-sorry?), and while it’s not really spelled out explicitly on the page yet, chronic pain also plays a big role in his mood swings… we can assume that this is a ��good day” in a variety of ways. So he does give Teru some constructive criticism, but it’s all things that Teru is perfectly aware he needs to work on, and it’s mixed with praise, so doesn’t come off as harsh (I hope?).

Going back to the poor guitarist who became the singer I talked about in Chapter 4, one of the biggest things that guy struggled with was just… how to be a frontman? How to work the crowd? How to not be awkward on stage when it’s really just you, and you don’t have your instrument as a sort of shield? So the focus of this particular “singing lesson” isn’t really singing (at this particular level, no one’s classically trained anyway―it’s much more important to be able to deliver an entertaining show), it’s about staging and how to work the crowd.

And this last part of the chapter is where I did a lot of rewrites, because I knew I needed to be sort of gradually peeling away the mystery of Rei, but I went back and forth a lot on how much of it I wanted to be intentional, and how much to be accidental. In the earlier drafts, too, I was still kind of working out exactly what I wanted the extent of his injuries to be.

One of the things that I knew from the beginning was that he couldn’t ONLY be scarred, because in visual kei that would pretty much be a non-issue. Japanese fans are SUPER good about protecting musicians’ privacy. I know a guy here who has never been seen professionally without his makeup on, whose full name has never been made public… and people have SEEN him without his makeup (I have, too), people KNOW what his name is, but you can’t Google him and find a picture or anything… it’s just a line of privacy that people won’t cross. So Rei could absolutely go on stage in full makeup and a mask, and have a career like that, and it wouldn’t be an issue. I knew that there needed to be another physical and/or psychological reason why he needed to find another voice for his music.

Phantom of the Paradise was another HUGE inspiration here. I STILL tear up almost every single time during that scene where Winslow (the Phantom), who has also lost his voice in the accident that disfigures him, is given a mechanical voice by the villain, Swan. It’s heartbreaking (although, SHOULD it be? Should disability be heartbreaking? That’s a bigger topic for another time I think… but whether it’s right or not, that scene makes me cry), and so I wanted to do something similar, that would still give him the ability to play music, but not necessarily in the way he wanted to or the way he had done before.

So anyway, getting back to the chapter, Rei is coaching Teru on the staging, and at one point he gets a little frustrated because Teru doesn’t GET what he’s trying to say, and Teru gets frustrated in return because it would be a hell of a lot easier if Rei would just SHOW him rather than give him really specific verbal instructions… again, I think Rei is mostly frustrated at himself at this point, because of COURSE it would be easier if he could just show Teru what he wants him to do, and it would be MUCH easier if he could just do it all himself anyway… so he sort of catches himself and calms down, because he really doesn’t want to explain why that’s not a good idea, but his anxiety and frustration have been sort of ignited again.

And then Teru is kind of… naive, I guess. Clueless. I don’t think he’s really trying to overstep the bounds of general manners, but he sort of knows, at some level, that he’s asking something that maybe Rei doesn’t want to talk about, when he asks “Is this what you do before a show?”―note the present tense, and then Rei answers in past tense: “It often helped me to work on the staging before I went on.” And Teru doesn’t quite pick up on that, I think, or if he does, he assumes (without even noticing he’s assuming) that maybe Rei just isn’t in a specific band right now. He wants to ask more, but again, kind of knows that if Rei wanted to talk about it, he would, so he doesn’t, until Rei offers (gifts again!) to pay for the band to record “Yami no Hanabira” as a CD single.

Now, that’s a very expensive gift, and Teru would absolutely know that―remember, the band has only put out demo tapes up to this point. That’s not an easy gift to accept, especially from someone you still don’t really know. And it gives him an opening to ask the question he’s been wanting to ask without really being rude―it makes it easy at this point in the conversation to FINALLY ask why Rei just doesn’t sing the song himself.

And all he says is, “I can’t.”

Teru doesn’t get that. I think he really, legitimately doesn’t get it, and thinks it’s Rei being critical of his own voice, which (whether it’s actually medically plausible or not) is beautiful, and Teru tries to say so.

And that’s what makes Rei’s frustration too much to bear, and we finally see a little bit of his temper, as he bangs on the desk and screams “I can’t” again, in what must definitely seem to Teru like a massive overreaction, and in the process, his cloak falls from his shoulders and Teru goes to pick it up.

Up to this point, he hasn’t really seen Rei up close―he knows that he wears a mask and wig, but again, this is visual kei. He could just be Being Extra™️, or could be trying to hide his identity because he actually is famous, or at least Famous In The Scene? So when Teru rushes to pick up the cloak, because he’s just an excessively kind person (acts of service, I guess?), that’s when he realizes for the first time that the mask is not just a prop, because at that distance he can see that there are scars on Rei’s chin and neck that the mask doesn’t cover, and also notices that his right arm is paralyzed.

This scene was REALLY hard to write, because we’re in Teru’s POV and I needed Teru to be shocked, and a little saddened (see “disability probably shouldn’t be sad but a lot of us still think it is” above), and to sort of convey that shock to the reader through strong visual imagery, but couldn’t seem like either repulsion or fetish-y attraction. No idea if I got it right or not, but I think I stayed true to what I was trying to do with the character at least… maybe not everyone will LIKE that, but that’s OK.

And the first thing that comes to Teru’s mind here is how he felt when Hide, lead guitarist of X Japan, died. Kind of a… secondary grief, I guess? At least for me, it’s a different feeling to lose a celebrity you admire than a loved one. It’s still grief, but it’s harder to explain WHY you’re sad, I think? And I think we feel the same kind of sadness when a disaster occurs or even when we learn about something that happened a long time ago, like I remember feeling really sad when we had to read a book about the Titanic in third grade. I think that’s sort of what Teru feels here… mourning something he can’t really miss because he never really knew it, but is still legitimately sad about?

Somewhat fun aside here: It’s not on the page, but my headcanon is that Teru dyed his hair pink when Hide died, and just kept it that way after it stopped being a conscious tribute. I kind of think he just felt sad, and wasn’t really sure why or what he could do about it, but wanted to do something, so he dyed his hair. Before that I think it was just blond like Yasu’s.

Anyway, I also wanted to set up the really kind of overwhelming death rate in visual kei… Hide is the most famous example, but there are really just an astonishing number of suicides, car accidents, sudden aneurisms, and other accidental deaths in this particular scene, and that’s going to come up again later.

And poor Teru is empathetic to a fault, so even though he doesn’t know exactly what happened to Rei, he agrees to perform “Yami no hanabira” at their next concert and record the single, even though (as he acknowledges in the very last line) that isn’t really something he can or should promise without talking to the rest of the band.

I definitely don’t think Rei intended to use that to manipulate him or anything. He didn’t intend to reveal that much to Teru at this point in time, and as much as he isn’t above manipulating people, I also think he’s just way too proud to ever INTENTIONALLY make someone feel sorry for him. I think he does have a plan in terms of which songs he wants the band to play, what he wants to put out as a single or save for an album or whatever, but as far as the relationship, he’s still very much in denial that he HAS anything more than professional feelings for Teru, and is 100% playing everything by ear.

So. This was a pretty important chapter, sort of setting up an important part of the main plot and also starting to hint at Rei’s backstory. The last couple of pages were one of the hardest scenes to write, just in terms of setting the right emotional tone. I hope I didn’t mess it up too badly? :P

#the stars may rise and fall #annotated #writing process #retelling

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