#in order to ostensibly be more perfect

[ganymedesclock]

Honestly PK’s relationship with the void is actually kind of interesting when you consider Radiance’s implicit center-of-worship/base of operations was on top of a mountain as far away from it as possible, she calls the void her Ancient Enemy and greets it with the implicit assumption none of the vessels are individuals or even pawns of the wyrm nearly as much as they are pawns of said enemy which has been trying to destroy her all along.

PK, conversely, seems profoundly and personally obsessed with the stuff, possibly even to personal detriment. I’m reminded somewhat of the fate of Marie Curie whose fascination with radium led to great insights, but also left her massively overexposed to it.

He built his palace as close to the abyss as you’d get; his honor guard as well as some flying novelties (?) or service drones that propagate throughout his castle are effectively just great volumes of void wandering around. That the Abyss itself contains a great lighthouse that was personally attended by a royal retainer as well as a small personal office overlooking the great abyssal shore adds almost a quieter note of personal tragedy to the far greater horror that went on down there- that even to PK’s flawed worldview, the Abyss was not a place of great dishonor before he enacted the vessel project there. He liked it; he wanted other people to come down there and see it. In one of his writings he calls it “power opposed” but specifically in the context that he was sure he could get some pants on this thing somehow and put it in society.

PK is... thoughtlessly callous in many ways and one of the big ways is this belief of a civilizing force, that for him, the nicest possible thing he thinks he can do for anyone seems to be fitting them into a perfect, tailored box where they do exactly the work that is good for them and good for everyone forever. There’s a reason that Hollow is subtextually the Favored Heir, the inheritor of the kingdom to whom PK literally left all of Hallownest when you look at the message attached to the Worldsense bench- and they were literally a martyr being sent to spend the rest of their life chained inside of a seal as a sacrifice. A King without a throne or a crown or any political sway. And that up to a point, PK convinced himself this was not only the right and proper thing, but that he himself was... breathtakingly unprepared to grieve Hollow. Like it did not occur to him this might actually be a bad thing even when previous steps of it had horrified him even.

So I think it means a lot that PK has this notion of civilizing the Void. That it could belong in his big divine order that everything fits in. It’s foolish, and, from the POV the game takes- that of his own voidborn children- it’s immensely cruel, that Hollow who was offered A Place and A Meaning was no happier than others, and we see the Collector who also seems to have been born and shaped to PK’s design only to be reshaped by someone else’s- the noble who Kept them in the Tower of Love- resulting in a being that has deeply warped ideas about safety and protection and what it means to love someone else.

Like as the inspiring post said, PK absolutely has no illusions about the void’s ability and willingness to destroy him. But his fascination with it- before his other issues get involved- is almost one of the most ‘innocent’ things in his personality.

[balteus]

actually re: fromsoftware politics. i do think it's very interesting that the anti-colonialist RLF, ostensibly considered the 'good guys' of the game, were initially explicitly called the communist faction. armored core always has been a series critical of oligarchies and hyper-capitalism, but it's... very interesting to see just how blatant that is in ac6 specifically

you'd think that fromsoftware would eventually drop the ball on the "the ruling class will kill you and cannibalise itself in order to stay alive" considering that they're considered elite AAA devs rn, but thinking about elden ring and ac6's narratives, they've really only gotten more obvious about it - the horrors of colonialism and genocide and the sympathy given to the rage of its victims is something that's actually insane to see, to me, from such a big studio - fromsoft doesn't even attempt to be centrist about it.

for example, the frenzy flame ending. the only thing melina can tell you to dissuade you from pursuing it, ie literally destroying the world forever, is that there's still beauty in the world, apart from the suffering the golden order had caused. at no point however is the sheer despair of the people that the flame represents villanized. if anything, it's portrayed as a self-fulfilling prophecy, it is a tragedy. the only villain is the order who slaughtered all of these people, the flame of despair is something that emerged in them as they were buried alive. and the flame isn't even intended as a revenge upon the world, it's simply a means to end the pain they feel for being subjected to this.

their grief isn't something for the player to judge, it isn't something they're forced to overcome, it's simply a physical manifestation of the reality that was forced upon them. and these people, the merchants, are still kind to us, even knowing the order that we pursue. (in fact, the true, considered best ending of elden ring, is literally just sacrificing yourself in order to achieve complete anarchism. and getting a cool wife to endure the loneliness of space along the way)

in ac6 then, ayre is so terribly forgiving towards us, knowing what we are, knowing what made us, knowing what we participate in. some of this undoubtedly is because of her narrative role, she has to be a sympathetic character. but we do get to see her rage at the end, her grief for her species being seen as nothing more than a resource to be exploited or burned fully vocalized. but the RLF is sympathetic too as resistance fighters who want their home back. the only criticism the game ever leverages towards the RLF is that they're actually not radical enough in their pursuit of freedom, and that criticism is made by a villain.

it's so... i almost want to say optimistic? other games would have tried to pull a "ooh but what if the good guys did bad things (poor attempt at moral grayness)" but no, the RLF is justified at every step of the way. idk it makes me feel things. i dont particularly want to portray fromsoftware as these bastions of political correctness or sth - they're not perfect and i don't expect that ever lmao, but it's so fucking weird that their games are this progressive and have been for a long ass time.

[literalite]

mistki's the land is inhospitable and so are we (2023)!! as edits featuring mine and some of my friends ocs 😁 had a lot of fun with this project... rough explainer of how/why each song corresponds to each character/s under the cut because i love symbolism and talking! sorry it is long

bug like an angel - sapphire

without spoiling too much of her story and arc... sapphire's life is not easy. she's hurt by people she cares for and who care for her, although inadvertently, and in turn hurts people who she cares for and who cared for her, also not by her own volition. it's kind of a terrible truth that you will harm and be harmed by the people you love, even when you and they truly don't want to. it's up to you how much you're willing to take and deal. you can't keep every promise you make and you can't right every wrong. but you have to keep trying anyway. that's sapphire's strength, and the core of her goodness and why i personally consider her one of my favourite ocs. i chose to depict bug like an angel in mitski's more positive interpretation here and in that light i think it works best for saph

buffalo replaced - heiya

well first and foremost the vibes of the song fits heiya perfectly fhgjk but also lyricism and tone... yep. quick breakdown of heiya's background since i doubt i'll ever be able to do it properly she's an interesting character for me because she like a lot of my other characters has lost. everything. she had a wife and a child and they were both killed and she had to leave her home again and again and unlike how some of my others would have taken this she has never flagged in her unwavering dedication to preserving hope. for herself for her people for the future etc etc. which is a very fucking difficult thing to do! the world changes faster than you can keep up with it sometimes but for heiya she will not let herself tire and be swept away in it all. people rely on her. she's a guiding star as much as she is a woman. she's a lover and a fighter and thats what buffalo replaced means to me! so

heaven - vinny and caleb

i feel like of all my oc couples so far they have like. the sweetest most kind of simply mutually trusting dare i say straight forward love. they just love each other so much and thats all. the world could end around them when theyre together and it'd be okay truly. also yeah vinny is ostensibly in heaven now bye angel i feel like this one was pretty self explanatory. me and who WHEN

i don't like my mind - sunny

he just like me fr (said in denji voice) anyways wow ha. unstoppable unending guilt due to past actions that haunt your every waking moment? throwing yourself into any and all distraction just to take your mind off it, filling your time with other shit so that past sin doesnt for once echo in your awful and hollow brain? this song is perfect for sunny honestly just that sentiment also the "please don't take this job from me".... sometimes the coping is worse. you can be proud of something because you can do it better than anyone else even if that thing is terrible

the deal - wolfgang munch by @gunthermunch

Wolfgang Amadeus Munch. umm this will make more sense later on but it still kind of makes sense now i think. he doesn't want to be himself he keeps . leaving and moving and running away from his own memories his own self in reaction to others. if he could pawn it all off he would. if he could be better in an instant without having to feel every agonising second of change he would! but thats not how the world works. or is it. read munch by gunthermunch thats an order

when memories snow - lilian

i feel the older you get the more your past kind of swells up and trails behind you... at least for lilian that is shes very linked to the different versions of the girl/young woman she used to be. for her its a double edged blade, a lot of her own strength is drawn from who she was and what happened to her throughout her life. they haunt her but she's haunting it back in her own way

my love mine all mine - saige, bellona, ari

stares you down okay so usage of this song very much almost verges into spoiler territory but uhm. uhm. starts twitching basically the whole dynamic here is . sometimes when you love you will sacrifice. and while that is usually a good thing sometimes it is not but sometimes it still is. sometimes you pay your dues for love and sometimes someone else has to pay for your love as well. and whether that is worth it to them remains to be seen. but it's all about love still. whether that's a worthy cause is up to you i suppose

the frost - yoshiki and hikaru from hikaru ga shida natsu

fun fact (or not so fun fact since i had it listed as such) this slot was originally meant to be taken up by a gojo/geto edit and while it still works for them frighteningly well i swerved to do another black and white haired doomed gay pairing gfhjkl; i really recommend yall to read hikaru ga shinda natsu/the summer that hikaru died because honestly it speaks for itself! it's SO good i love it so bad

star - ari and luca by @anjitrait

wow these two did not deserve the horrors the narrative (me) slammed down onto their heads. they're kind of the most married of all time to me but like of course under pressure even the strongest most loving of bonds will warp. they've been together for roughly a decade and a half now. they know and love each other as totally as you could possibly imagine. despite it all i am yours, no matter. are we picking up what i'm putting down chat

i'm your man - nayef and sióar by @lucidicer

after the album dropped like at least 3 people swung into my dms with a ?this you?? about this song which. i mean the fucking dogs that start barking halfway through the song. are you kidding me. but anyways sioyef and devotion. sioyef and putting yourself in your lover's hands and looking to them like they are a god. this is super self explanatory. you know

i love me after you - redacted and ophelia

HM.... all i'll say here is that sometimes the homoerotic tension filled high school friendship where both parties have something very wrong with them but in totally different directions can be. scarring. bad. sometimes love just isn't enough when you don't know what you're meant to do with it and when you've lived in survival mode all your life. but that once the dust clears you can scrape yourself off the ground get up keep going and that isn't gonna be the end for you there. or for love, even. sometimes shit just ain't meant to be and thats ok

[prettypeppermint]

crane's paradox.

for dr. j. crane.

The water dribbled down your back like tear tracks, shushing your steamed and tender skin. He moved the showerhead in methodical circles against your rosy shoulder blades, large hands pilfering at your kelpy locks.

He sat on a stool adjacent to the tub, loving you with water--a language of change.

Despite the serenity taking place behind you, the scene before you was one of demented horrors--every irrational terror rationalized before your eyes. The water was black and bottomless, ostensibly swallowing your naked body up--oxidizing your skin and fermenting your organs. Your legs twitched periodically, trying to feel for the confines of the tub but getting continuously tricked by a vast emptiness. Faces emerged from the depths, twisted and morphed into something barely human. They groped at your waist and chest, each hand a searing blaze against your flesh.

The water rippled frantically as your every fiber trembled, frozen in a rock-solid state of shock. You couldn't blink.

The more he washed, the more blood trickled down the various valleys and edges of your form, swirling with the ridges of each tiny stream that eroded at your scalp, your back, your face. Ghosts of self-inflicted clawing stung your face.

Jonathan was wordless--a silent force of love. You didn't even realize he was there with you. You often felt alone, even in love. But feeling alone in fear was an entirely new feeling of dread.

"You were a bad girl today, angel.” The words barely permeated your foggy skull before you realized he was lifting you out of the water, “Bad girls need treatment so that they can be good again." He cradled your languid figure against his chest, drops of rose-tinted water leaking from your calves and the tips of your toes as they dangled across the nook of his elbow.

"I'm so very sorry it all turned out this way," he cooed, setting you down on the foot of his bed--the crisp snow hills of his duvet. He towered over you as he brought a towel to your locks and began drying them off with the touch of a feather. "But when you go exploring in forbidden places against my orders"--he makes his way down, patting each arm dry before wiping down your breasts--"you'll end up getting hurt."

Your eyes were forlorn and affixed on a faraway place, hallucinations still warping themselves into the tendrils of his hair and the wall behind him as he moved. He began dressing you in a set of white, lacy undergarments he had picked out for you prior. "And you know how much I detest seeing my angel hurt."

He slid the material up your legs and hoisted them over your hips with a trained dexterity. After clasping the brassiere between the place where your shoulder blades would kiss, he leaned down to press his tongue to the crest of your shoulder. Your skin was still radiating a firey warmth from the bath.

"But isn't something about it so thrilling? The thin membrane that separates fear and desire? The cerebrum keeps the left and right brain from ever touching, yet in doing so it maintains the unabridged function of the brain as one; they communicate through proximate isolation. Funny, isn't it? How that slim distance maintains the entire equilibrium--the entire function of the organ. Tell me, my love--would there be a Thisbe and Pyramus without the wall that separated their passion for each other? It's fascinating--the way in which the truest form of love prevails in the slimmest, most dire times of pain and fear. Oh, how I adore seeing you like this--at the mercy of my creation. So perfect--so effortlessly lovely and delicate even in this state of absolute terror.

"Let me love you--let me ease the pain out of you. Let me break the membrane that separates us, and we can join as one."

The last words grazed the chill of your earlobe as his breath teased at your pulse. You weren't sure when he'd wrapped his arms around you and locked you against his torso, but you began unraveling in his firmness. Your tensed muscles relaxed, and the visions began to subside. You saw them dissipating from the air; like mist having gone from an autumn morning before the leaves and birds awoke to notice the absence of the chill; like water swirling down the drain.

"I'm scared," you managed to croak. It came out dry and barely intelligible from hours of coaxed silence. He embedded shushes into the crown of your head.

This wasn't the work of the toxin; it was the hollow pit of desolation it left you with afterward.

"Jonathan, I'm scared," you repeated. The last consonant got lodged in your throat as a stifled cry scraped its way out before it. It was a foreign sort of comfort--crying into his skin and melting against his hold. "I'm so scared. What did you do to me?"

But Jonathan didn't do anything to you; it was you who snuck into his lab despite the rules he set for you. It was you who walked into an untimely experiment of torture on Scarecrow's most recent lab rat.

He pulled you into a kiss, the span of his fingers stretching around the entire back of your head. It was soft yet hungry, yearning yet kind. You seemed to be caught in all sorts of dichotomies today.

"You know I would never lay a finger on you," he muttered against your lower lip, "You're too soft--too delicate. As long as you're with me, I promise nothing will ever hurt you again.

"Now let me take care of you," he lulled, gently laying you back against the cool sheets, "Let Doctor treat you."

His lips gently ghosted the thin skin above your belly button before he looked up at you with an almost alienating, stoic countenance. "Say it."

Something went cold in the blue of his eyes--a shadow cast by a passing cloud.

"Please," you whispered, "Please fix me, Doctor."

x.

[goodqueenaly]

Realistically speaking, how would Brienne or anyone else react to any speculation or reveal that she is Dunk's descendant?

To be clear, I don’t think Brienne (or anyone else in the main story, for that matter) will ever find out that she is a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall. If the Dunk-Tarth connection plays out the way I think it will (and much of my speculation in this post is going to be using that theory as a baseline), then we’re talking about a romantic/sexual relationship that happened some 80 years prior to the start of ASOIAF; even if Brienne’s ancestor was conceived at a different time from what I imagine, this ancestor certainly has to have existed by 259 AC, when Dunk died at Summerhall. We’re talking, in other words, about at least the better part of half a century, if not close to a century, of difference in time from the birth of this ancestor to the main novels - far too long, probably, for anyone with living memory of this relationship to report on what happened. Too, if Dunk conceived a child with Daella who was in turn passed off as the child of Lord (?) Tarth, then who apart from Dunk and Daella themselves would have known that this affair happened? I suppose it’s remotely possible that someone could, say, get a supernatural vision of the past including this relationship, but I don’t see how this vision would fit into the narrative without feeling awkward and unnecessary. Ultimately, I don’t think Brienne needs to discover the answer to a question neither she nor anyone else around her is asking; this is a mystery we as readers, observing all (or, at least, all of what we’ve been told) of Westerosi history at the same moment, care far more about than anyone in the current novels does. 

Anyway, putting all of that aside, it’s difficult to know what Brienne might think if she learned that she was a biological descendant of Duncan the Tall. On the one hand, if Dunk conceived a child with Daella while he was a knight of the Kingsguard (not to mention while Daella was married to (again, presumably) Lord Tarth), then Brienne might struggle with the idea that her ancestor broke his Kingsguard vows for the sake of a sexual affair (and again, with a royal princess, no less). After all, cultural memory on Tarth does not simply idealize the heroic figure of Ser Galladon of Morne- literally referred to as “the Perfect Knight” - but specifically links that perfection, in part, to the obviously chaste romance between Ser Galladon and the Maiden - the beau ideal of unconsummated chivalric devotion. Nor indeed might Brienne look kindly on her would-be great-grandfather using (so it might seem, at least) the closeness of his role as Daella’s royal guardian to pursue a sexual relationship with her. After all, Brienne had experienced severe shock and disillusionment upon learning that the knights of Renly’s camp at Highgarden who had curried her favor, and even (as Hyle Hunt did) treated her as their equal, had only done so in order to claim her as a sexual conquest in return for a monetary prize. Would Brienne sneer at Duncan the Tall, with respect to his affair with Daella, much in the way she did (at least initially) at Jaime - that he, Dunk, had “scorned and soiled” that “rare and precious gift” Dunk had (in part ostensibly) received, to be a knight and a knight of the Kingsguard? Would she consider Dunk no better than the sleazy knights who had viewed her, Brienne, as no more than a source of casual sex - that her great-grandfather had had no more respect for her great-grandmother’s virtue and his own honor as a knight than men like Ben Bushy and Will the Stork had had for her virtue and their honor?

On the other hand, it would of course be wrong to characterize Brienne as a person who has no concept of romantic attraction and love, even - and, indeed, especially - in the context of knightly service. Brienne’s desperation to serve Renly, and especially to join his Rainbown Guard, stemmed in no small part from Brienne’s very strong, though obviously unrequited, romantic love for Renly. Likewise, though this paragraph is naturally too brief to cover the complex relationship between Jaime and Brienne, her experiences with him have inextricably intertwined romance, chivalric duty, and the meaning of knighthood. (Nor, to be fair, should we ignore the fact that, according to Yandel, “[m]any of the folk of Tarth, highborn and low alike, claim descent from” Galladon of Morne, necessarily implying that Galladon had any number of romantic relationships that resulted in children.) Would Brienne compare her own desire to serve Renly as an expression of her love for him to, as it may have been, Dunk’s romantic devotion to Daella, framed and abetted by his service as a knight of the Kingsguard (when, indeed, he may have been sent specifically as her protector and sworn shield to Tarth)? Would Brienne understand where, perhaps, Dunk’s own romantic feelings toward Daella may have developed and evolved as his knightly service to her continue, when she, Brienne, had herself seen a notable change in her feelings toward Jaime as her quasi-knightly role with him progressed?

Moreover, all of the above speculation is without having a clear understanding of how the Tarths (much less anyone else in Westeros) remember Dunk (not to mention, for that matter, Daella). The presence of Dunk’s shield in the Evenfall Hall armory remains the only direct allusion to Dunk that we know of on Tarth today, a frustratingly vague reminder of his (presumed) time there. We have no idea what Brienne thinks of Dunk as a person (as opposed to simply the possessor, unidentified by her in the moment, of a shield she much admired as a child), much less as a person with a direct impact on the history of her House, and still less how the reputation of Dunk may have changed (or not) over the course of the better part of a century since he had, perhaps, lived there. Because we don’t know Brienne’s opinion of Dunk, we cannot at all say how such an opinion might be impacted by the revelation that Dunk fathered a child who would go on to (presumably) be one of Brienne’s grandparents. 

[preromantics]

(had to google common kinks because my brain is dead lol sorry)

But

Starker + voyeurism?

Or

Starker + anonymous sex

Oooh let’s try anonymous (errr kinda I took it to a glory hole place)!

-

It started as a joke. It was definitely a joke.

Someone — Peter can’t even remember, because Thor and Bruce had reverse engineered some long lost Asgardian hard liquor and gotten every person in the compound, enhanced metabolism to Actual God to regular human totally shitfaced — someone had complained about the lack of sexual partner options available to bonafide superheroes.

Peter is 97% sure he did not make the original complaint, but less sure if he privately or verbally agreed with the overall sentiment.

Anyway, someone had complained.

Tony, who fell on the human spectrum of easily-shitfaced-from-Asgardian-jet-fuel but also on the unfortunately superhuman liver side, had indulged his one social drink and promptly disappeared to the lab.

A few hours later, the assorted and still standing heroes of Earth had been led on a little drunken excursion by Tony to the compound sublevels. The group arranged a wobbly and cheerful single-file line ordered by height and wove through the gym and past the boxing rings to the locker room style communal showers.

Peter, who did not have the advantage of height compared to the collection of his coworkers (friends?) who were still standing, had been one of the last to see what all the parading had been about.

The last shower stall had been partitioned into two, with shiny new floor to ceiling doors.

The new middle partition — proudly gestured to by Tony in his best Vanna White impression — sported a single hole in the wall.

“This dial here can adjust the size to your… needs,” Tony was saying, giving a practical demonstration of the lever that opened and closed the hole like the aperture function of a camera lens.

Peter would’ve taken notes, but the rush of the alcohol and the implications and the Tony of it all caught up and deafened him with white noise.

—

So, it was a joke. 30 or so assorted superheroes, Avengers and otherwise, knew that a gloryhole existed in the communal showers on level B8 of the compound.

Theoretically, any of them could use it.

Peter wondered obsessively if anyone had tried it, joke or not.

He found himself lingering after a hard workout or training session, eyes closed under the spray of one of the normal shower stalls, and senses on high alert for the echoey pad of footsteps to the end of the room.

Eventually his curiosity graduated and he found himself walking down to the partitioned and private stalls, too. Ostensively just to look. Just to see if one door was closed and not the other. Just to see if anyone might be paying attention and follow him down.

Not that Peter would use the hole with anyone. Probably.

He wasn’t even sure what side he’d pick, or what he’d do — again, not that he was thinking about it.

He absolutely, definitely did not let his exploration take him into the farthest side, the door shutting with a final-sounding soft close clink, the lighting going dim in the stall.

A small green light, unobtrusive but obvious once you knew where to look, had startled him. Occupied.

(He definitely did not enter the little stall five more days in a row until on the fifth he gathered the courage to drop to his knees to asses the height of the hole relative to his mouth and fiddle with the adjustment knob.

Tony was, if nothing else, always the perfect engineer.)

-

Peter was hyper-aware when he was sharing a workout with anyone else. Waited to see if they’d follow him into the locker room.

Sometimes they did and he showered knowing someone else was a stall away. But no footsteps ever wandered to the end of the line of shower stalls.

He wasn’t disappointed, exactly. It was just. Whoever had complained that superheroes couldn’t get laid easily was speaking the truth.

Occasionally he would be working with Tony in the labs, on the rare occasion they were at the compound at the same time, and find himself wondering if Tony remembered the superhero glory hole he’d created several floors below him.

He’d wonder if Tony ever tried it.

He’d wonder if Tony ever thought about Peter trying it. If he’d seen Peter stumble away from the drunken group field trip presentation with blotchy red on his cheeks.

He’d wonder if Tony knew the height was perfect for the distance from Peter’s knees to his mouth.

He’d wonder if he was going a little crazy about the whole Glory Hole Joke.

-

“If I sit in this chair for another minute my back is going to spontaneously throw itself out,” Tony announces from his lab bench.

Peter smirks at him, sparing a glance up from his pipette and beaker. A quip is on his tongue, the perfect time for an old man joke, but the words die in his throat.

Tony is stretching slowly from a sit to a stand, arms over his head, faded t-shirt scrunching up under his armpits to reveal a few inches of soft belly skin dusted with hair.

“Gonna go get a workout in before lunch. Dinner? Midnight snack? Honesty no idea where we’re falling in the meal spectrum right now.”

Peter swallows around his dry throat. “Dinner,” he says, though he also has no clue what time it is. “Probably.”

Tony jerks his thumb toward the elevator across the room. “Maybe I’ll see you down there,” he says.

It sounds so casual. Maybe he will. Peter wants to die a little with how much he wants to see Tony on Floor B8. A little further past the gym than Tony has in mind.

“Maybe,” Peter agrees, turning back to his pipette, which he’s pretty sure has been steadily dropping too much of the base into his reactive acid this entire time.

-

Peter spends 10 minutes cleaning up his lab bench and another 5 staring blankly at the elevator doors.

The cheerful and non-descript elevator AI asks him what floor he wants three separate times. Peter is glad it isn’t FRI or KAREN. They’d have called him out by now.

“B8,” he says.

He walks out of the elevator with purpose, resolved to head to the rowing machine and get a pre-dinner workout in with Mr. Stark, shake off his nervous and pent-up energy until it’s sweat out of his system.

There’s a small snag in his plan. Tony is running on the omni-directional treadmill, back to Peter. He has Starkphones in, completely sound proof.

Peter licks his lips at the sight of the sweat on Tony’s back, the way it causes his shirt to cling to his spine.

He makes a split second decision, borne maybe of too many late night fantasy scenarios to count. It’s easy to walk past the treadmill and cross to the other end of the facility, past the boxing rings.

It’s easy to walk down the line of shower stalls, the overhead lights pinging on instantly as he walks further and further, steps getting quicker.

It’s — it’s not perfectly easy, he has to stop and take a breath before he walks into the farthest partitioned side of the glory hole. But then it is done: the door softly closes, the little green LED flicking on, and all Peter has to do is sink down to his knees.

All Peter did was walk across a room but his heart is beating wildly like he just went stealth mode on a dangerous stake out.

The reality is Tony didn’t notice Peter even enter the gym. He might finish his workout and go up to his own expansive compound rooms to shower. He might shower here, the echo of water driving Peter insane with mental images, and never even glance down to see the subtle green light.

He might see the green light, know that Peter is there, and leave anyway.

Peter bangs his head softly against the wall, nose catching the human-sized opening awkwardly, and resigns himself to letting his legs go numb from the knees down while he waits with all his hope in his throat, anyway.

-

A soft noise, the woosh of the main locker room door, makes every hair on Peter’s arms stand up.

He swallows, pitching forward in his enclosed stall as if that will bring him closer to the source of the noise.

It could be someone else, though Peter has no idea who could be on the weekend roster.

There’s a rustle of clothing he barely needs to strain to hear. The soft thump of something hitting the ground. The hiss of the pipes, not on a human frequency, before the spray of the water gushes out of a distant shower head.

The shower is over quickly, Peter notes, though time has gone soft and slippy. He closes his eyes.

Footsteps. Toward him. The slight air sound of a door opening. The well-known click of the private stall door shutting.

Oh, god. There is someone across from him. Peter forgets to breathe for a second entirely and has to fight from making a sound as he chokes between two inhales.

He can no longer distinguish the small noises from the rushing in his own ears.

The first movement in the hole nearly startles him; just a play of shadows as someone gets ready on the other side.

Then: a cock. It slides through, half-hard, resting thick and plump along the bottom edge of the hole as it passes through. The owner of the cock feeds it all the way, the fat head bending downward and then bobbing up. Toward Peter.

Peter inhales; the scent is clean and his lungs struggle to fill all the way. He rocks forward, drawn to the half-comical, half-arousing reality of the anonymous cock through the hole.

Is it really anonymous? Statistically, Peter thinks it should be Tony. He was in the gym. Would he know it was Peter on the other side? Tony invited Peter down to workout, so the odds were decent the other way around.

Tentatively, Peter darts his tongue out to lick across the head of the cock. It’s flushed darker than the root, and the salty sweet of it blooms on Peter’s tongue.

He may have just licked Tony Stark’s fat cock head for the first time. The idea of it thrills Peter to his bones, his own cock throbbing against the zip of his jeans.

There’s a chance it isn’t Tony.

Peter licks a bolder stripe across the head, swirling around the ridge. His saliva glands are over active, he’s practically drooling already at the idea of this.

There’s a chance it’s someone else. Peter may never even find out.

His cock twitches at that, too. Fuck. He wraps his lips around the entire head, drenching it with his own slick excitement as he opens his mouth up further and slides down several inches in his eagerness.

He gags, pulls back, and returns immediately.

The man on the other side of the wall is silent, but a slight bang against the wall — the slap of someone’s hand to the partition, as if Peter’s already doing such a good job they can’t help it — makes Peter shove more of the warm cock between his lips to muffle any of his own noises.

If he moaned, he’s sure someone could pick out the octave of his voice and just know. They’d know Peter is twenty seconds into this and already drooling for it.

Tony would know for sure. The thought makes Peter palm his own cock, wishing he’d thought to unzip his jeans while he waited, but not wanting to stop to focus enough to do so now.

He would’ve felt so pathetic, waiting alone, pants undone and cock half-hard with anticipation. Now, he’s stuck curling his fingers against the denim of his fly and worrying he might leak precome through his briefs and jeans by the end of this.

He tongues along the bottom vein of the cock in front of him, marveling at the weight of it and at the stretch of his lips around it as they drag slickly up and down. The angle is decent, but still strange, his neck stiff as he tries to bob back and forth to take the entire thing.

The cock in his mouth is definitely fully hard now, pulsing and flexing against Peter’s tongue, the tip bursting an addictive drop of precome every few passes. The taste is such a contrast to the soap-clean skin of the length that every taste forces Peter to swallow back a moan.

His nose mashes slightly against the wall when he focuses enough to take as much as he can down his throat. It feels deliriously good, a sense of terribly slutty pride coursing through him every time his nose hits the partition over the hole.

He’s slid all the way down when the owner of the cock abruptly slides back out.

Peter’s mouth opens around an unvoiced protest, barely catching a whine from spilling out before the cock slides back in, fucking back between Peter’s parted swollen lips and down his open throat.

He does moan at that, deep and hopefully muffled by his mouth full of cock.

Peter catches on quickly: he can keep his mouth open, his forehead and nose pressed hard against the wall, and the stranger on the other end can simply fuck his mouth.

It’s so simple to stay still, dragging his tongue back and forth and dragging his hand over his own trapped cock while he gets efficiently face fucked. It’s almost dream-like, two pinpoints of focus — the stranger’s pleasure and Peter’s pleasure — taking up all the space in his brain.

A hand slaps the wall on the other side again, harder this time, the cock in Peter’s mouth tensing and pulsing before his throat is coated with come.

Peter comes in his own pants, hips frantically bucking as he swallows down several continuous seconds of anonymous come. He bangs his head on the wall, hard, trying to balance and keep his position at the same time.

When the cock slides out from between hips lips, dragging and lingering on Peter’s bottom lip for a moment before disappearing, Peter falls back against the tile and inhales sharply.

He waits for the click of the door on the other side of the wall and for the padding of the feet to disappear. He doesn’t even have the mental energy to try and figure out if he recognizes the sound and weight of the softly echoing feet.

He forgets about dinner, peeling himself off the floor eventually and floating all the way to his room.

-

In the morning, Peter is slow to rise, feeling heavy-limbed and not awake enough to revisit the previous night.

When he finally manages to roll out of bed and head to the communal kitchens, the line of Tony’s back at the breakfast bar greets him first.

Peter flashes to the sweat-soaked gym shirt from the night before and swallows around a suddenly dry mouth once again.

“Hey shortstack,” Rhodes calls from the other side of the counter.

Peter gives him a tired salute, covering for his slight startle, and heads for the fridge behind Tony.

“You two see any ghosts while you were rattling around this place all by your lonesomes last night?” Rhody asks.

Peter just catches himself from overpouring his orange juice onto the counter as the dots connect in his head. He never did look at the weekend security roster.

Surely Rhody can’t mean he and Tony were the only—

“Ghosts? No, just me and Pete, who ghosted me for dinner.”

Tony turns and grabs the freshly poured orange juice glass from Peter’s hands, catching his finger tips as he pulls it free and sparking heat up Peter’s fingers in return.

“For me? You didn’t have to,” Tony says, catching Peter’s startled glance with a too-wide smile.

He takes a wide gulp, only breaking eye contact to turn around and set the glass down.

Tony slaps the counter with a small, satisfied groan. “Delicious,” he says brightly.

Rhody rolls his eyes and turns back to his phone and eggs.

Peter stands still. The slap echos over and over again in Peter’s head as he flushes. Oh.

——-

WELL I said I was going to answer these on my phone and I did. Oops. Will edit and whatever on my computer tomorrow hahaha.

[johannestevans]

The Devouring Gaze in The First Omen

The horror of surveillance and surveilling in Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen (2024).

Cap via ScreenAnarchy.

I was saying the other night after we came out of the cinema that for the past few years, it really feels like I can trust horror films more than virtually any other film — horror films generally have a specific, presumed audience of older teens and adults who know what they’re in for, and subsequently, they don’t always fall in the same trap of overproduction that other films fall prey to.

When I watch a lot of new horror releases, even though they are as much part of unnecessary franchising as a lot of other films, I tend to be able to trust that they’ll be a bit more original, a bit more flexible, a bit more intelligent in their use of lighting —

And but for a few flaws in the aforementioned franchise connection, The First Omen is a gorgeous exploration of all the mindbending and nastiness the horror genre has to offer.

This is hardly the first horror film to bring a young novitiate to Rome as the core of its initial premise — this sort of foreign transplant of an American to a much more religious, much more “classical” feeling European nation, particularly the centre of the Catholic Church outside of the Vatican, is a staple of the genre.

Why is it that a young, new nun makes such a perfect protagonist in a horror film like this?

She’s youthful, naive — sheltered. Her desire to be cloistered in part comes from the fact that she has been raised by and with the church for the whole of her life, and now an adult, she wishes to continue in that vein forever more.

She represents the power of the Catholic church to passersby, veiled and wearing vestments, even as a novice without being fully pledged and committed — she covers her hair to show her commitment to God and to Christ, she covers her body, and yet while she wears this uniform, while she serves as a symbol of the Church and its power, she is not yet privy to its secrets, or the information known to pledged members of the order, the sisters more superior to her, let alone the priests and other clergy.

Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) has one foot in this new world, and at the same time, it is a world that she’s always been a part of — part of the reason that Luz (Maria Caballero) invites her out to the disco is ostensibly to give her a taste of the real world, having only existed within the church’s bounds and its confines. Margaret has been in this world her whole life and has known that some information was kept from her. She knows that she’s sheltered, and yet the extent to which she’s truly ignorant not only of the wider world but also of the church evades her.

What does it mean for a nun to take the veil?

The veil on a nun’s hair is a reminder of her submission to Jesus Christ — a reminder to herself, a uniform she wears to be ever-reminded of the commitment she has made, and at the same time, it is a sign of her consecration, an indication to anyone about her that she has been set aside in service to Christ and the church, that she is not available as a wife or a sexual partner: she is a bride of Christ.

To take vows as a nun for some women is a way to avoid the weight of men’s gazes on her body, on her hair, on any part of her but her face — she is made to some extent invisible, a small part of a larger body, blending in with the black and white camouflage of the other women around her. Her identity is no longer her own but sublimated by the larger whole, and the only outward indication should be one thing — her submission to Christ — or the other — the authority she wields on behalf of the church.

So much of the First Omen is about Margaret’s fear of being seen, of being observed, of being looked at. In one scene after another, we are aware of her on her own, the only subject of the viewers’ gaze on the screen, locked alone in a room, or in a bed positioned in the room’s very centre; she is paranoid at times, looking over and over her shoulder for an observer she doesn’t catch or find, and occasionally finding an unexpected one, another young woman, another novitiate; when she is strapped down to be victimised by the bestial jackal kept in the church’s cellars, when she is strapped down once again to give birth, she is observed by dozens of veiled spectators.

These veils, I would point out, are quite different to those ordinarily worn by the nuns and worn by men and women alike — resembling black funeral veils, the veils over their heads in the cellar, when Margaret is impregnated and then when she is giving birth more resemble, in my mind, those veils worn by those feasting on ortolan, where the head covering is worn to shield them from the watchful and judgemental eyes of God, for taking part in so disgraceful an act. They wish to gaze upon their act of sacrilege, in their belief to be necessary to draw people back into the church’s fold, but not to be gazed upon by God, whose gaze is meant to be omnipresent and inescapable.

Margaret does not want to be gazed upon by these foreign parties, and she fears this constant watch she is certain of and frightened of — a gaze which, in retrospect, is clear has always been on her, a continuous surveillance that has plagued her throughout her life, as a successful progeny of Satan.

And yet, like her manipulators veiling themselves whilst wishing to observe, she does want to gaze at herself.

Margaret and Luz go out in sexy dresses designed to make them feel attractive in themselves, to make themselves look beautiful and desirable to others, but they still wear wigs to cover their hair, carrying on some form of their consecration even whilst seemingly going against their vows — and Margaret does not just feel gazes on her, but gazes on those around her. Gazes on Luz, on other women, on men.

Within the convent, we’re frequently aware of Margaret’s gaze as she looks at the other sisters, watches these older and more committed nuns laughing and smoking cigarettes, listens to them cracking jokes as they peel potatoes and chop vegetables, watches a nun bouncing on a trampoline — these are versions of these women that would never be permitted to be seen outside of the convent. Margaret and the children cared for by the nuns are privy to these moments, but not passers-by or random people in the street, those who would see these nuns primarily in moments of gravity and piety, where they would be representing the same gravity of the church itself.

We see Margaret’s horror as she watches Sister Anjelica’s brutal triple-barrelled suicide; we see her frequently stopping to stare at Anjelica and, at the same time, rush to cover Carlita’s eyes and turn her gaze away. In the scene where the pregnant mother is giving birth, Margaret frequently moves between one window and the other whenever her gaze is interrupted, desperate to keep watching.

There is power in a gaze.

Almost every horror film about the Catholic church, particularly ones that involve either young nuns or young children (or, in this case, both), are often in various ways metaphors for child abuse, sexual or otherwise. There is a lot of textual abuse of children within the course of this film, with implications of beatings and flagellation, but most of all in the ways that the girls (Margaret and then Carlita) are forcibly held down by the sisters, isolated, kept apart and lonely.

They live in fear of the power that the sisters around them have over them, and to some extent, fear themselves, feel shame and guilt for the ways in which they act “crazy” when these psychotic symptoms — their hallucinations, their constant flinches, their imagined noises, their paranoia, their sudden and unexpected outbursts — are either rooted in the demonic impact of their birth circumstances or might be brought on by the trauma already inflicted on them.

This abuse of Margaret, of Carlita, of others around them, each abuse is one power or other taking advantage of their more vulnerable position, represented first by gazes upon them and then by acts against their autonomy, beginning with shame, isolation, then acts of violence or restraint, and then graduating to the ritual rape of Margaret by the jackal-like demon, and her unwilling C-section.

Margaret, the whole of her life, has been watched and gazed upon by the church and by its agents — by the nuns who cared for and abused her, by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), by these secret watchers intent on using her for her later powers, her potential ability to give birth to the Antichrist.

She fears this gaze, frequently turns away from it, and at the same time, she craves to wield such a gaze herself, to have the knowledge behind it that those around her do. The gaze is representative of a larger issue — the number of gazes upon her at any one time represents the amount of powers over her, the number of those who have designs on her she is not aware of or able to control, the number of invisible hands that might be leading her in one direction or moulding her into one shape over another.

Every eye on her is yet another power she cannot resist, and is powerless to escape — every eye on her is hungry, a devouring gaze that seeks to consume aspects of her, not only the submission she has desire to offer to God, but her personality, her body, its autonomy.

It is no surprise, then, that in the aftermath of the purifying fire and smoke, which hides both her and Carlita from view — from the eyes of those in the church or the eyes of God, who is to say? — she, Carlita, and her new daughter flee to a house in the snowy mountains, isolated together, in the hopes that no one will see or look upon any of them… nonetheless, they are tracked and surveilled and never truly safe from the church’s devouring gaze.

[muzzleroars]

I'd love to hear more info on god! Who are they/is he? How does the trinity work, kinda like a shared mind? And what lead to their Split? :O

(see this!)

i view this god as being in line with the christian god as he is conceived, who exists as one being made up of three facets (ostensibly) in harmony - he is the father, the son, and the holy spirit, but they are not one another and all have their own unique way of processing the universe as he created it. the father is the disciplinary facet, he is the being of god who exercises his immense power and seeks to have his laws adhered to, but only in order to create harmonious universe. he is creator and lawgiver while also parental, the one who made the decision to bring about the universe and all that reside within it. the son is the "human" being of god, one that is given to compassion and has an understanding of the suffering of all the beings that he has made as god. he is forgiving and wishes to walk with all he has created, but he is sorely detached from those lesser beings and cannot fully comprehend their limitations. the holy spirit is god's will, his creativity and the holy light used to make the angels as well as give life on earth its soul. this being is much more mechanical and analytical than the other two, and he determines the best course of action for god to take dependent on his thoughts and feelings. each of these beings have always existed together as one, and they are impossible to separate from the other and must maintain as consubstantial with the presence of a single godhead. essentially, god is a hugely complex entity that must be made of three inseparable entities to carry out his functions in a similar fashion to clockwork, both internally and externally. WHICH. is how he falls apart (sad!)

the schism in god started a long time ago, at lucifer's fall - the decision that god the father and god the holy spirit made was, for the first time, out of sync with god the son. internally disregulated, this caused the grief he mentions in his testament and plants the seed of a growing, devouring issue in him as a whole. god begins to overreach continuously in enforcing his laws, his anger winning out over and over with his punishing facet beginning to become a more substantial part of his being to over take the other two. because of this, internal dissension forms as the entity of god attempts to piece together what his true desire is in a creation that is slipping increasingly out of his hands - hell is entirely out of control while human beings become ever more corrupt and divorced from his vision of them. the deity demands perfection, he has given them all the laws they need to be obedient, but the father is ever more consumed with failure, the son is demanding more mercy each day, and the holy spirit is constantly trying to calculate what will right this ship, all without reaching a consensus. god soon reaches a critical failure of these entities to reconcile within him, and so the holy spirit forces a decision as the most viable answer to god's problems...and that is that he himself is the problem. he is an imperfect being, who created an imperfect world. he is the root of failure. his decisions will only serve to continuously compound the issues now present.

so his own will rips him apart from the inside out, severing the entities needed to continue his existence as god the whole and shattering heaven in the process. the corpse of god still exists somewhere in heaven, far out in the ninth sphere and a long way from any now habitated place, though it is not stationary. it has never been seen, but the husk left behind is a tangle of the three entities that once existed as a one, twisted in their attempted escape and eventual collapse, difficult to perceive for any length of time. whether he's FULLY dead is also pretty hard to say, but new creatures are popping out of what's left, crawling around the wastes of heaven and not so dissimilar to angels in their structure though they are much less restrained in their design and symmetry.

character-wise, i don't have him fully worked out yet, although i don't think i'll ever delve too deeply into him as he is, fundamentally, unreachable. what i can say is that he kept himself at a great distance from the angels, especially after the war in heaven, and he was seen largely as unknowable even to the seraphim that surrounded his being. however, beneath the divine serenity he projected, he was consumed with his own anger and isolation. nothing was what he wanted. nothing could be properly loved by him. nothing is as he is and yet he doesn't want them to be and yet he doesn't want them like this either. he sits so impassable, so constant as the angels see it, but he is infinitely reaching out, forever sending himself toward all and making himself bitter at every inch. he needs. he is a being who needs infinitely, he created angels and humanity to be loved and worshiped, but he doesn't feel it. it's not enough. god needs infinite love, beings that do everything as he wants it all of the time to achieve that glory. but his tendrils go further and further away from him and find nothing. he is the archetype of the parent who dreamed of their children, and excluded everything but that dream. he withdrew his love the moment they failed to match his expectation, never looking inward until his own will struck him down as guilty.

[absolutebl]

Hey ABL. Just sent my doctorate for examination and for the first time since 2019 I have WAY too much time on hands. Can you suggest some binge watches? Got into bl last Feb so stuff before that would be great. Warmly, M

CONGRATZ!!!

10 Older BLs Worthy of a Binge Watch!

(in no particular order, prior to 2022)

1 Seven Days: Monday-Thursday & Seven Days: Friday-Sunday

Japan 2015 (grey)

Never doubt my ability to recommend this show. One of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes (rare in Japanese BL). The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses.

2 To My Star

Korea 2021 (Viki)

In the mood for something more grown up? TMS is a touch quirky to get into, but utterly charming once it hits its stride. This is the ultimate grumpy/sunshine pairing plus the most appealing light-filled kitchen of our dreams.

I don't like season 2 but others do. It is very clever.

3 We Best Love: No. 1 For You & Fighting Mr. 2nd

Taiwan 2021 (WeTV)

How about a uni + office BL? Brilliant acting saved this show from a messy (pretty classically manga) narrative with a lot of angst. You have to buy in to a yaoi aesthetic with this one, accept that things move fast and occasionally confuse, but that everything will be okay. It’s the ultimate pining seme meets the ultimate tsundere uke. WBL successfully manages to combine the best elements of Korean, Thai, and Japanese BL as it exists right now. Couple that to the insane chemistry from the leads, and we have one of the greatest BLs of all time, cooking higher heat to a recipe I doubt anyone else will ever be able to replicate since only Taiwan is this flexible.

4 He's Coming to Me

Thailand 2019 (YouTube)

With only 8 8 eps and from GMMTV this is short, high quality and bingable for Thailand. Boy and ghost boy fall in love, must solve ghost’s murder. Peak pining but also pretty tame, features my favorite sweet but important coming out sequence in all BL. The third in my precious triumvirate of unbeatable Thai BLs, that are only nominally BL because the story, acting, and production values are so good.

(Together with Until We Meet Again & A Tale of Thousand Stars - those 2 are longer so I don't consider them as bingable, but if you want something to get really stuck into? Go to town.).

5 Color Rush

Korea 2021 (Viki)

A unique paranormal twist elevates this classic high school drama into a pitch-perfect allegory for the queer coming out experience and one of the best BLs of all time (I will fight you on this). Here's my battle essay.

Original trigger.

(Don't bother with season 2.)

6 HIStory 2: Crossing the Line

Taiwan 2018 (Viki)

Lin Pei Yu directs this sports romance (volleyball) with a good boy/bad boy pairing, and my hands-down favorite of the HIStory franchise. There is no clear seme/uke. Ostensibly it's high school set but Taiwan doesn't care about age appropriate actors. It's a very soft sweet romance with some ridiculously easily overcome conflict. There's great kisses but it's medium heat. The side dishes are the stepbrother trope but they’re very tame, and there’s no other triggers. It's not just my favorite of the franchise, it’s one of my favorite BLs with a perfect happy ending.

(The second H2 is also pretty good.)

7 Cherry Magic

30-sai made Dotei Da to Mahotsukai ni Nareru rashii AKA Cheri Maho

Japan 2020 (indie subs)

The sweetest fluffiest magical realism BL, packaged as a pinning office romance, very low heat (practically chaste) but the cutest. It’s truly great.

8 Light On Me

Korea 2021 (Viki)

Korea does an elegant pastiche of traditional live action yaoi but all tropes are cleverly deployed to bolster one of the most riveting love triangles ever put on screen… and I don’t like love triangles. LoM strategically tailors classic BL tropes to 2 different semes resulting in pristine pacing, plot, and character development, explicitly serving narrative (not just to tick boxes). LoM is a master class in trope drops. (If you write fanfic or romance you should study this show.) Full review.

9 Be Loved In House: I Do

Taiwan 2021 Viki

A cute classy office set BL with a few plot raised eyebrows, but no other concerns. ALL THE TROPES plus a general sweet softness that’s pretty rare from Taiwan, who usually prefer to go hard, but all their signature domesticity.

10 Lovely Writer

Thailand 2021 (YouTube)

Thailand criticizes itself and the BL industry while simultaneously giving us classic seme/uke with great chemistry in a one-two punch of “we love it, but are we supposed to? and must we think this hard, yet enjoy it SO MUCH?” This show won’t appeal or make sense to those who don’t already have at least some Thai BL watching experience. What Lovely Writer does, at heart, is reexamine Thai BL has done to queerness, but in a very gentle way that has more to do with Thai BL growing up than any actual queer authenticity. It’s not parody or pastiche, but it is self reflective and trying to correct for some chronic mistakes. Whether it is ultimately successful in this matter is going to depend on the watcher’s relationship to BL and queer identity. But that’s what makes this show beautiful, interesting, and thought provoking. And I, for one, applaud the effort even if I didn’t personally connect to the characters.

If you wanted 2022 included here's my top 10 from 2022:

[decepti-thots]

What is a book that you hated but read anyway? & What is your favourite book this year? & Favourite YA novel?

(for the book meme!)

Book I loathe: It Came From The Closet is this massively overhyped essay collection that is (ostensibly) about queer analysis of horror film with a bunch of big splashy names contributing essays. I read it last year and it genuinely, not joking, made me angry. Because it's a perfect example of a very common lazy way to cash in on presenting yourself as being some kind of queer trailblazer (it's literally 99% just personal essays by people with very little to say, who have very badly grafted on barely-there connections to their favourite horror movie) so everyone has to buy your Very Important Book... while ignoring the years of pre-existing but less-known work that people without your name recognition have done so you can pretend it's more novel than it is. The intracommunity version of 'Disney's seventh first queer character' lmaoooo. Terrible collection. Finished it purely so I could, in good faith, call it terrible across the board.

Fave so far this year: Hmmm. I think... I really enjoyed The Employees by Olga Ravn, which is a surreal scifi satire of workplace culture. I picked it up after going through the Ursula K. Le Guin Award's shortlists for the past couple of years to add interesting looking things to my reading list, and it really compelled me; it's formatted as a bunch of directly transcribed employee statements which are undistinguished except by number (and are not always in 100% chronological order), and the way it plays with a permeable sense of identity and unclear narration for the reader to try and work out who is doing what and when works very well.

Favourite YA novel: I no longer read much YA as an adult, but easily the answer is the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett, which are in some ways the platonic ideal of YA to me tbh. If I have to pick one book out of the series, I'll pick the second, A Hat Full Of Sky. Love love love that series (though I still haven't read the final book, published posthumously, because :((( sad. One day...)

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.198 thoughts

[Alright, Keep Your Secrets]

(Contents: speculation - Sun/Luna/Soul)

After last week's chapter, I imagine most of us were expecting this week's chapter to be about Top discovering his soul and pushing Unstoppable further than ever before. I at least thought we'd see a bit of a capstone of his story with Haruka and his mother's illness, his reconciliation with the fact that he needed the help of others to win the day and that he can't survive alone like he thought, and the determination to reach greater speeds because he knows that Haruka's armor will be there to catch him just like she did when they met

All of those would have made a great finale to this arc and Top's re-introductory storyline, but for whatever reason, that's not what Tozuka decided to do. There will likely be time for Top to wrestle with his demons next chapter, and Top worrying about going all out only to be reassured by a friend who can stop him at his fastest could end up feeling like a rehash of the Creed fight, so instead Tozuka chose to give us just a little teaser for what's to come now that souls have been officially introduced into the game

Soul's discussion with Luna is both extremely cryptic and illuminating. While we now know that there's a greater gap between Sun and Luna's goals than just a difference of opinion, we are somehow less clear on her goals in the first place than we ever were before

Once again, I think we may be operating under some kind of misconception. Beast told us that the world began with only Man and Earth, that human souls were placed on Earth by God. This tells us that after the Earth was (presumably) created by Sun and Luna, they created human souls to inhabit it, and that these souls came into existence with the birth of UMA Soul

However, Soul is now telling us that his creation granted people potential. This sounds like something that would have been a subsection of UMA Change's powerset, but no, it's Soul's purview. This suggests that souls themselves may have already existed prior to the Earth's creation, but Luna introduced UMA Soul to create rules and stipulations surrounding the soul that would encourage growth

"There isn't a single Rule in this world designed to aid your survival." That's what Beast said, but Soul is making it very clear that Beast isn't as in the know as he thinks he is. It seems like Soul himself is the Rule designed to aid humanity, the Rule that allows humanity to become more than a collection of disparate spirits floating around a molten dead rock. Whether Luna always planned for humanity to overthrow Sun or she just wanted to see something more interesting, I think there's a good chance that Sun wasn't pleased with this decision

This is likely where their goals split; Sun may have decided that the world was as it should be after introducing the souls to Earth, but Luna saw no meaningful future in that state, so she created a new lifeform, the UMA, to drive an ever-evolving, more lively planet. It was then that Sun retaliated - if Luna can make Rules, so can Sun. And so he did; Death, Change, Luck, Justice, War, all were created to torment and hold back the coming advancements of the world that threatened Sun's vision of perfection. Like children playing in the schoolyard, Sun just kept making up new Rules that continuously put Luna at a disadvantage. Whether they made a formal agreement after this on how to proceed with their wager or if they already had it and Luna broke it first, we won't know for some time, but I'm getting the impression that Sun isn't as petty towards humanity as we initially thought, rather he's petty towards Luna and using them as a proxy

Also, Soul's more amenable attitude towards Fuuko suddenly makes a lot more sense when you know that he was made by Luna - ostensibly, Sun is the one who told all of the UMA he created to make humanity suffer, but if Luna created Soul, he most likely never received that order. Soul doesn't seem to be rooting for the Negators or anything, but he also doesn't seem too invested in being their enemy. What part of Sun's agenda he plays, again I don't know, but his allegiances seem pretty different from everyone else's. He's not fighting so Sun can win, but he's also clearly not giving up any ground to Luna. Perhaps it's the fact that he doesn't know Luna's plot, so he doesn't trust her or Sun and is instead fighting for the sake of his UMA brethren?

I'm really hoping we don't have to wait too long to get more info here, because Soul and Luna are suddenly waaay deeper characters than they seemed to be in the beginning

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

...

Wait, is that why he's Sun and not Sol?? So we wouldn't get Sol and Soul confused???

[rollercoasterwords]

Would you mind talking more about your concept of Lily as a character. Shes very barebones in canon and much less vivid than any of the marauders.

Feel free not to answer if this is rude or weird or something.

sure, i'd be happy to talk more about lily! i think ur right that she's not necessarily well-developed in canon; mostly we just hear about how she loved harry sooooo much + was such a perfect loving mother that she died for him, etc. which i think is boring lol

but we do know some other facts about her + can infer different interpretations from canon, so some of the things that i view as central to her character are:

- intelligence + competency. we know she was in the slug club + was skilled in potions, and slughorn says she was one of his best students. so i usually characterize her as very magically competent + proficient + also very good with potions. i also tend to characterize her as just generally a practical, levelheaded person.

- outspoken + brave. we know she stood up to james for his bullying when no one else would, and that she didn't care what he thought about her despite being one of the most popular boys in her school. we also know she spent her youth fighting death eaters + joined the Order ostensibly of her own accord, all of which in my mind points to her being someone who takes no shit and makes a good leader, so i usually characterize her as bold + outgoing in my writing.

- forgives + sees the best in people. to me this aspect of her character is evidenced by her relationships with petunia, james, and snape. we know that she tried to maintain a relationship with her sister even after petunia was nasty to her, which i think shows that she doesn't hold deep grudges and is empathetic enough to understand that people who lash out are often just hurting. she fell in love with james even though he was a prick while they were kids, which also speaks to her not holding grudges and being willing to forgive if someone shows they're willing to change. and i think similarly her relationship with snape shows her desire to see the best in people; even when he began to hang out with blood supremacists, she still tried to remain friends with him and urged him to behave differently, because she saw the best in him and believed he could be a better person. it wasn't until he'd fucked up multiple times and essentially showed that he wasn't going to change that she stopped forgiving him. i view this characteristic as both a strength + weakness of lily's, depending on the circumstances.

these are all my own interpretations of canon, of course, but those are some of the characteristics that i tend to imagine as central to her character, regardless of what universe i'm writing her in!

[paragonrobits]

here's a headcanon that materialzied after realizing that Fall-From-Grace's official alignment doesn't make much sense in light of her characterization; FFG isn't actually Lawful Neutral at all and she's actually Lawful Good, but due to her nature as a demon and fighting uphill against literally being MADE of pure evilness and chaos, despite having spent a while as a genuinely good person it hasn't sunk in deeply enough to ding the appropriate buttons

lets consider alignment as a literal term; a collective weight of your beliefs and actions which determines which aspects of the multiverse you're on the same side as. FFG, as a succubus, is literally made of evil and chaos, and she explicitly struggles with her nature, being described as the most tormented of the party. Given that the party's other members are continually struggling with unspeakable horrors or agonizing emotional horror on a day-to-day basis, that says a lot.

Now, I honestly can't read her as Lawful Neutral despite that being her official alignment because of her stirring support of mercy and forgiveness as essential to true law and order, to the point of her having an argument with Vhailor over it. They ostensibly have the same alignment in Lawful Neutral, and yet their viewpoints couldn't be more different.

A Lawful Neutral person believing in mercy as essential to true perfection and proper law is highly unusual; lawful neutrals may range from robots enslaved to programming fulfilling thier directives, or people who do as the law bids because its the law, while a lawful good person cares about the morality. Lawful Neutral people, in general, do not generally seem to do that; the letter and/or spirit of the law IS morality, or at least stability in society, or acting upon code and/or law, and without active altruism, kindness being involved; if you do, that's where Lawful Good comes in.

That's the big dividing point between being Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral; both may abide by a code or an understanding of law, but being Good means you care about people and get forgiveness. Neutrality doesn't do that.

So FFG's emphasis on mercy feels VERY odd, so it makes sense that she's actually Lawful Good in terms of her actions and mindset, but because she's a succubus she hasn't been able to completely become the polar opposite of what her nature demands she be. (And there is a tragedy in that. She has worked, and labored and done nothing but good, but deep down being a good person HURTS her; she can't escape the monster she was born to be, and that torment holds her back.)

[droppingartintotheinfinite]

Ok! So! Big Goncharov revival has happened on tumblr recently, and I’ve decided to take the opportunity when it’s handed to me to talk about one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Bear with me for a moment.

For those unfamiliar, Goncharov (1973) was a movie directed by Matteo JWHJ0715, a (then closeted) bisexual filmmaker from Italy. Martin Scorsese then lent his name to it to provide a popularity boost for the American release, which is where we get the common misconception that he directed it.

It stars a Russian mob boss named Goncharov (no first name given, for reasons I’ll discuss later) who’s brought a few key members of his gang to Naples, Italy in order to get revenge against Italian mob boss Mario Giglioli. (A good breakdown of the movie’s plot can be found in @mst3kproject’s review, which I would link here but tumblr is being weird)

Along the way, we’re introduced to his wife, Katya Goncharova, his right hand man, Andrey, Mario’s wife, Sofia Giglioli, and a few others.

Goncharov is an almost nauseatingly stereotypical man. What stereotype, you ask? Why, all of them! He’s a tall, heavily built man with a thick accent and a tendency to reference “Mother Russia” in tones of alternatively nearly reverential praise of Soviet era Russia and harsh condemnation of the Russia he leaves during the movie - the Russia directly after the Soviet Union’s fall. The way he does this is heavy handed and obviously written by a man who’s never visited Russia in his life in any era, to the point where my own lax education on the country doesn’t actually leave me unqualified to analyze the film, despite the majority of the main characters originating from it. (Though I’m sure there are great analyses to be made on the cultural inaccuracies within the film, especially given how many are entirely deliberate- but I’ll get to that later)

He’s also exhaustingly heterosexual, and very much being so with an eye towards to the beliefs of the time. There are many scenes in Goncharov that are hard to watch today, and many of the scenes between Goncharov and Katya are among them, especially the dinner scenes.

Here, you may be saying, “But Sol, didn’t you say the director was bi?” And hey, hold your horses, we’ll get to that.

Katya, Goncharov’s wife, is on the surface an ideal 70s housewife, if a bit more murderous than the average due to her mafia husband. She makes him dinner every night, defers to his whims without argument, and spends most of their shared scenes standing behind him, never beside.

She also violently murders him to avenge her lesbian lover, but as I’ve said, we’ll get to that.

Mario Giglioli, Goncharov’s rival, is just Goncharov with an Italian accent. I think if they could have cast Robert De Niro twice and had him play Mario as well as Goncharov, they would have. He has a german shepard and Goncharov makes one of his henchman steal it near the start of the film. I am unhinged about this man.

One of Goncharov’s few named henchmen is called Icepick Joe. He’s an ostensibly minor character who gets a bizarre amount of screentime covering his personal journey of *checks notes* petting Mario’s dog, stealing said dog, murdering his wife, stealing Mario’s dinner, and dying alone due to the poison in said dinner while the dog abandons him to run off into the woods.

He is quite possibly the most important character in the entire movie.

To explain why, I have to introduce two more characters, who fans of the film have no doubt been waiting for me to bring up since they started reading this post.

But first, let me talk about Goncharov’s marriage for a bit!

Goncharov and Katya are often said to have a loveless marriage, but the truth of the matter is a lot more complicated than that. There are moments throughout the film where it’s implied that they care about each other deeply, and that in any other circumstances they might have a perfectly healthy relationship, but they’re so mired in the idea of being the perfect mafia man and the perfect mafia man’s wife that everything they say or do is filtered though so many layers of performance that any actual affection they might hold for one another is suffocated under it.

No one in the film ever refers to Goncharov by his first name. There are a few contenders for what it might be - he signs his name N. Goncharov, which some have hypothesized could stand for Nikolai, some of the early promotional material called him Ivan Goncharov… but there’s nothing sufficiently internally consistent for it to be stated as his first name with true confidence.

This is deliberate. In an interview, JWHJ0715 stated: “[Goncharov] is a man consumed by his work. He’s forgotten how to be anyone other than Goncharov, mob boss, and the lack of a first name is part of this. […] Goncharov is a man who’s lost his identity in favor of the image he projects”

Katya, conversely, is only ever referred to by her first name, even when speaking to characters who would be expected to use her last. It’s not quite as complete an erasure - there are a few moments where she’ll be introduced as Katya Goncharova instead of just Katya, but the vast majority of the time she’s referred to as either Katya or “Goncharov’s wife”.

This, too, is part of an erasure of identity, though in a different way. Katya has so thoroughly separated herself from the role she plays as Goncharov’s wife that in the few moments she is referred to by her full name, you can spot a split second of confusion, like she doesn’t know who’s being spoken about.

There’s a sense that Katya is unable to be herself with Goncharov, that she’s become so caught up in the person she thinks he wants that she can’t be the person she actually is, and it’s masterfully played as this slowly poisons her ability to care for him and eventually leads to her faking her death and later killing him.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

(And, uh. Also ahead of my ability to write. This is getting long, so I’m going to break it here and post the rest later.)

[sapphixxx]

Adding onto the translation post I just rbd, interpreting exactly what Marika meant to come from sending the tarnished away so that they might return able to kill a god, and how that relates to her demigod children warring with one another, I think you gotta remember that Marika is a smith. The process of forging steel involves heating it red hot, beating it to shape, quenching it. All of these must be done to exacting degrees with a purpose in mind, otherwise it will be brittle and easily broken, soft and easily bent, or simply the wrong shape and proportion altogether. A perfect order does not spring into being just as a perfect sword doesn't--they must be made through that brutal tempering process. And if that process is not done correctly, just like steel, that order will be easily broken, bent, or otherwise be inadequate when met with challenge.

The conflict between all of these forces is not a failure state, it is the forging process. The failure only comes from the demigods collective inability to forge something strong and lasting from the furnace of warfare. The shattering of the Elden Ring and return of the tarnished can be thought of as iron being broken, with the pieces smelted back to red hot, and returned to the anvil once more. Even if any of the demigods had succeeded the tarnished would still have played this role of heating that steel for the ostensible new ruler to test and improve what they had made. And, failing this, it would be up to the tarnished to take up the hammer and prove something greater could be made.

I think this also provides interesting perspective on the significance on Marika/Radagon's relationship to Rennala, and the product that union--Ranni, who represents the force of cold. Fighting the Carians was the heating, marriage was the quenching, and the product of that were powerful children and a stronger order. Chief among those, Ranni, in the current events, represents that quenching cold in this cycle of forging. Malenia and Miquella, equally, serve to test and be tested in the furnace against those Carian children. In order to beat the game, again, the furnace must be stoked by literally burning the tree.

In the end, the goal is not merely cosmic "balance". If anything, a return to homeostasis is precisely the opposite of these themes, and attempting to recapture it was the downfall of many key players. Simple pure conviction is not adequate, either, because otherwise the contradictions within that dogma (and as shown in literally every character and concept in this game, there are always contradictions) will cause it to rip itself apart. There is no end point which can permanently be reached and comfortably sat upon. This universe is one that is constantly churning, and requires the way of things to be capable of moving with it with successive generations. Only something which, like a sword, is hard enough to hold an edge, but not so rigid that it snaps, flexible enough to return to its shape when met with resistance, but not so soft that it permanently bends, and lethal in sure skillful hands, is capable of being an order that can stand the test of time.