#it would mean nothing unless you know all the characters and all their stories

[anni-aughta]

bye i get so sad when i think abt how few people have watched cr and gotten to experience how insane and cool and amazing it is

[vexwerewolf]

Should I read homestuck

tl;dr: no

actual answer: yes, but with some extremely important caveats.

Firstly, because Adobe shitcanned Flash, you can now no longer experience Homestuck in the form it was intended upon release... unless you download the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. This act of unbelievable, nay, saintly generosity by Homestuck's most dedicated fans allows you to experience Homestuck as it was intended - as close as is humanly possible.

"As close as is humanly possible" is the key phrase here. One indelible part of the original Homestuck experience was UPDATE! Homestuck would sometimes go weeks or even months (and later, years) between updates. I wasn't on Tumblr back in the day, but at the peak of Homestuck, even if you knew nothing else about it, you'd know when an update dropped because Tumblr's net traffic would increase something like three to fourfold. People would go apeshit bananas about whatever new revelations the Huss would drop on us.

You also need to realise that Homestuck is a product of its time and while its takes on sexuality and gender identity was pretty progressive (for its time), Huss did use the r-slur a bunch.

While we're on the subject of the author, Andrew Hussie (of whom my current understanding is that they have not changed name but go by they/them nowadays) is, in the most diplomatic possible terms, a very unique person. They are, at times, a visionary storyteller with genuinely fascinating ideas. At other times, they come off as kinda spiteful towards their readers.

Without meaning to dip into spoilers, some story beats seem (in my opinion) almost intentionally calculated to upset, irritate or mock certain fans. It never rises to the sheer vicious contempt that Steven Moffat had towards Sherlock's fanbase, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth whenever I go back.

Additionally, and this is where a sort of birds-eye-view spoiler is unavoidable, the story suffers from the Game of Thrones pitfall of repeatedly increasing its own complexity by adding new plot threads without resolving existing ones, eventually leading to fatigue on the part of both the reader and the author. The arcs of a lot of characters just straight up get abandoned, while a couple of characters take an unnecessarily large amount of screen time.

There's one character in particular that the author openly states within the narrative (the author exists within the world of the story. It's... a whole thing) that they favour, and whose behaviour the story is warped to accommodate. You'll know exactly who I'm talking about almost the moment they show up.

Another reason I say that it's not really possible to read Homestuck as it was originally intended is because a lot of the shit that happens in it fits into the zeitgeist of the internet at the time any individual update was written. There's a whole section in the late middle third that is inextricably and very specifically tied to how it was like to use Tumblr in 2012.

Additionally, a lot of things have soured with time. There was the whole Hiveswap debacle (it was first announced in 2012. We got the first act in 2017. We got the second act in 2020. We do not even know if the third act will ever come out.). There were the legal threats. There were the Epilogues and Homestuck 2, which were... how do I put this? Not universally liked. There's been nearly a decade of discourse since Homestuck ended, and a lot of things haven't grown better with age.

All of that being said.

You should read it.

I cannot express to you just how big an impact Homestuck has had on internet culture. Even people who claim to hate Homestuck unconsciously use slang that it invented. Its unique ideas on storytelling, character design and narrative chronology have, in both subtle and unsubtle ways, changed the way millennials and Gen Z tell stories.

A lot of people were inspired to tell stories because of Homestuck - one example I always give to Lancer players is that Kill Six Billion Demons started as a comic on the MSPA forums (before it was homestuck.com, it was MS Paint Adventures), so Homestuck is in an indirect but demonstrable way responsible for the existence of Lancer. The sunglasses that Gideon Nav from the Locked Tomb wears have been explicitly stated by Tamsyn Muir to be Dave Strider's. Toby Fox made music for Homestuck, and worked on large parts of Undertale while living in Andrew Hussie's basement.

We also know someone in the Bluey creative team is a Homestuck, because...

There are subtle but direct references in Bojack Horseman, Hazbin Hotel, Steven Universe, Adventure Time - and those are just the ones that it's easy to prove! In a more general sense, I think there's a lot of cartoon series, movies, games, etc. that would either be very different or wouldn't exist if Homestuck hadn't happened.

It's certainly influenced my work.

I think, being very cautious to manage your expectations, that you should read Homestuck. At the very least, a lot of things people say on Tumblr will start to make, if not sense, a different kind of nonsense.

[pendarling]

What Ruins Romance Between Characters

Also keep in mind I’m not a professional writer. This is just a list of things I think absolutely destroys chemistry

Lack of Communication & Proximity: It should be a no-brainer that the two characters in love would also want to be together as much as possible. However, for some authors, what they don't do is just that. Automatically, these characters become more like strangers than people that are dating/married/pining for each other. If you want to build romance start with them actually talking and putting them in situations that demand them to work as partners.

No Show of Physical or Verbal Affection: Another no-brainer. How're you going to want your reader to love them if they don't show it? Even enemies-to-lovers will always figure out a way to make a scene more tense and filled with desire as long as your characters are giving us hints that they want something more than just what they currently are.

One-Sided Pining: Do not have one character doing all the romantic gestures! Readers will think the receiver of the affection is undeserving of their partner. I can assure you, nobody wants to see only one person doing all the heavy-lifting in the relationship. It's boring, sad, and will likely make readers want that character to leave the relationship asap.

Wildly Different Perspectives/Nothing in Common: You're bound for writing a breakup if this is the situation of your characters throughout the entirety of the story. Unless they slowly come to understand one another and meet in the middle, this romance will fail.

Arguing More Than Loving: If your characters are constantly arguing with no intentions to stop it, they are no longer compatible for each other. You are writing a toxic couple that hate one another and forcing them together is unlikely to make the average reader want to continue any further. I've seen some writers do an excellent job of a couple arguing but always trying to be better for their significant other. If you want them to argue solely because this is enemies-to-lovers, some time soon they're going to want to stop being an asshole to the person they like.

Better Romance With Other Characters: If Character A is supposed to be with Character B, but Character C is becoming the ideal, then I'm afraid to tell you the romance will not work between A and B. To avoid this, make them communicate less, have less in common, spend less time together and give more attention to Character B. Take away the roles that make Character C more compatible and give it to B. This doesn't mean you should completely change C, it just means you need to do everything you can to put the focus back on B, and if that's too much then consider ending whatever B and A have.

Too Slow/Fast to Fall in Love: Characters that take 20 seasons and 3 movies to confess is insanely slow. We are starving for the romance that was promised in the story, eventually readers will stop reading because that is not being satisfied. Pacing is incredibly important and you need to take into account the behaviours Character A will have with Character B. Also, don't make them instantly fall in love, I feel everyone in the writers and readers community know this very well. That's not how people work, you actually have to try to know each other first.

Only Together for Sexual Gratification: I don't even have to do a lot of speaking for this. Unless the characters become part of each other's lives outside of the bedroom then the chemistry does not exist.

Lack of Trust/Keeping Secrets: There has to be someone that knows their partner more than anyone else. Keeping secrets will show the readers that Character A does not love their partner enough to trust them with important information. It's fine if they're keeping a few secrets maybe-- major ones-- to protect Character B, but constantly lying and being unwilling to share is the beginning of what we call "falling out of love." Even worse is if Character A went ahead and shared their deepest insecurities with Character C.

Priority is Not The Significant Other/No Sacrifices: All relationships have done something that must be done in order to make the relationship work. If Character A will not give up something that they know upsets their partner/crush then they are not ready to be with someone. In order to love someone you must devote time and have interest in them. If your character chose some external desire over Character B, then this will not work. Their greatest desire should be Character B.

Unrealistic Standards & Expectations: We can't have characters choosing each other for surface-level wants to be satisfied. Readers will end up seeing characters changing their entire personality for their partner and their entire body to fit an image they were not made for. If your readers know Character B very well and it's that Character B would never turn away a friend for example, and suddenly they cut ties with all their friends because Character A doesn't like them, then I'm sorry but this is toxic. You can't change someone's characteristics in the middle of the story to help Character A.

No Conflict: What relationship is truly perfect? There will be arguments and setbacks that need to be explored. This is a fun way at having a deeper level of understanding on why your characters are having a conflict of interest. It's quite stale when everything is happy-go-lucky with no issues, you don't need to make them breakup or anything just a simple disagreement can show a ton for readers on the complexities of Character A and B as people who operate differently together.

Underdeveloped Character with No Goals: Some shows I've watched put time and effort in flushing out one character and completely forget about their life-long partner. Uhm, hello? What's going on?? If you write Character A with their entire lore and family tree or whatnot and then-- oh side note, they also really love Character B-- excuse me, who's Character B? Give us some sign that Character B is capable of thoughts and has dreams of their own. Do not make it revolve around Character A either.

Couple Do Not Interact with Anyone Aside From Each Other/No World Building: Similar to the point above, if these characters only know and see each other, you will lose readers. We are sick and tired of stories where the overarching story has been reduced to two people. If the story is about them, then introduce us to their lives outside of their partner. Can they operate as a functioning creature with thoughts without their partner? Do they have friends and family? Do they go to work and school? Are there fears they have? There's tons of material to choose from, pick anything.

Too Much Interference: Although it's fun to watch two characters do anything to get closer to each other it can become annoying when there's simply way too many characters and situations that separate them. We want all that hard work to be rewarded to Character A when they finally get what they want, Character B. Even a little bit of talking alone, being alone, finally away from the chaotic world is more than enough. Let your characters be alone.

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~~~ MASTERLIST

[azulsluver]

okay bully twst au, but what if we enjoy the bullying? mc perhaps didn't get enough attention as a child and thinks even the worst attention means love?

shymaso anon

Took my sweet sweet time for this!

This could be towards canon of reader’s personality in this AU, all thoughts are welcomed though. So I’ll try my best to go through various versions if asked.

tw. yandere, bully!characters, cheating, abusive + unhealthy relationships, subtle violence, emotional dependency, degradation, drowning, stalking (cameras).

Edit: I FORGOT KALIM AND JAMIL

Welcome to the team •shymaso anon ⸂⸂⸜(രᴗര๑)⸝⸃⸃

Riddle Rosehearts trains you to be the best.

He knew you would understand him, in his own way, Riddle believes the two of you were destined as you nod and responded to his lectures.

Every mistake you took his punishments without hesitation, hands gripping at your locks as your battered face looks up at him with mercy. Letting the collar he summoned around your neck choke you blue but you cling to him like a source of light. Riddle can crumble right there and now.

You’re not making his feelings any better as soon as he learns of your past. It just encourages him to be harsher, understand that everything he did is for you, us! Riddle however, would be much generous of your tolerance. Cooing rather than yelling at you for dropping something. You mustn’t be too clumsy, Riddle expects the best performance from you after a three hour long session.

It’s kitten licks once he’s over his brutish tendencies, doting you like the perfect spouse you were meant to be. All your wounds tell a story, how rough the two of you had it (even if the injuries are yours solely), what’s a better love story? Riddle built you solely for the sake of your relationship, the moment you let yourself be known that his teachings and rules are one to be taken serious. He’s groaning in his hands by how perfect you’ve become.

Riddle makes you dance on eggshells, because you rather keep your mouth shut and let it be he takes control of every move you make, all the things you eat to wear will be supervised by him. You love him too much to say no.

Trey Clover has you under his thumb.

Doesn’t Trey know better? Of course he did, he always does. Trey understands the way your mind worked before you could, you like the way he insults you, no amount of tears can hide that familiarity of fondness from him. Like a child being sent to time out, Trey will open his arms to you after you learn your lesson.

See? He feeds you, he provides your need once your good. Because good, obedient things like you deserve nothing but his presence. Isn’t that enough, he’s enough, you really can’t get away from him either way.

When your feelings get hurt, he will dig himself into your comfort zone, find him, Trey will console you the best he can before flicking your forehead. Kiss his cheek as a thank you, he’ll remind you that no one else will do these sorts of things when times get rough. Only Trey will. So he’ll wait until you decided to show up at his doorstep.

He knows you can’t separate the difference between love and abuse, you don’t need to, all he’s worried about is getting you away from everyone else. They’re hurting you so much he’s running out of medical supplies to patch you up. Stay with him, in his arms, his home, as you eat, sleep, think, see him everyday.

Trey will gladly give you his attention, just give yourself to him. Don’t fight it, the thought never crosses your mind.

Cater Diamond comes to a conclusion.

He’s quick to pick up your behavior. Don’t call him an expert, but Cater can spot a neglected child like you a mile away. He at first would pass you by, you got a lot going on man.

Unless you attract his attention, Cater pops up once in a while to see how things are going. Let himself relax, hand supporting his head as you ramble on your day, Cater doesn’t bother to pretend he’s listening nor interested. He is however, eyeing the bruise on your neck. Cater can do a lot without interrogating or forcing you, your reluctance is adorable, keep up that nervous smile as he takes a couple of pics of your bloodied nose and forehead.

Cater considers you to be helpless, for a person to accept their loss and let the world decide whether you’ll die or live under their hands. It’s awful, but he won’t do anything to stop it. You make him think a lot. He won’t show it nor express his opinion, but Cater wonders if you know what true love is. He knows this sick obsession he has for you is nothing compared to the real thing. But you won’t complain, so he crushes your skull with his hands just to be in your personal space. That look on your face is priceless.

Years of conflict battles in his mind, should he revel his true self to you? He’s so dull, you don’t seem to care much as long as he’s speaking to you in that monotone voice. You’re so strange.

A long ride of emotions go through him, he knows you won’t laugh in his face or push his boundaries, he’s made sure of that by drilling it in your head that Cater Diamond can easily put you six feet under if you tried. You’re sweet, kissing him up and consoling him, he feels terrible that he had to push his way through when you so happily let him in.

Ace Trappola tests your loyalty.

No normal person likes to be pushed around, Ace figured you must’ve been some sort of masochist.

One of the many things he did to get on your nerves was ditch you for his group. Did he invite you to hang out? Sorry, you must have heard him wrong, but you can always latch on to them later if you’re that lonely. Ace doesn’t miss the way you take that opportunity, sticking to his side and only talking when someone asks you a question. Either that you basked in his presence.

Ace tested the waters little by little with new schemes, pushing you into tight spaced closets or putting bugs in your clothes. Forcing you to touch something be set on fire or nudge your gut too harshly to set you back into reality. And all of it, you come running back to him.

You make him feel bad, the more he has you in his arms, shaking as you beg him to not leave you over and over. How brainless can you be? Who are you to tell him what he should or shouldn’t do with you, how dare you make him sick to his stomach as he brings you closer while rubbing your back tenderly.

Don’t whine too much when he throws an arm around another person, exclaiming how pretty they are compared to you. He has no problem saying all of these things in your face if you dare look his way. Please look his way Look at how sweet the kisses are, it’s not rough and mean when he does it with you!!!

Deuce Spade tries again and again.

With Ace not mouthing his ear off, Deuce can happily hold you close to him. Your finger nails all dirty from clawing the floor and face swollen from the metal bar he used after finding you talking to someone that wasn’t him or Ace. You’re doing so good, listening to his sorries as he preps kisses on your lips.

The fear of your rejection is nonexistent, cuddling up by his side with an arm around you, you’re showing Deuce the submission he sought out for. You’re docile. And it makes him happy, you’re happy.

Deuce will promise to never hurt you again, as long as you stay by his side he will never leave you. So don’t mind if he gets angry sometimes, it’s the heat of the moment, he didn’t mean it, don’t cry he’ll wipe your tears with more promises. Deuce loves you, so, so much.

You bring yourself back, you’re getting more beat up than usual. He finds it in his heart to push you away during times like these, but you insist. He needs you just as badly as you needed him, the two of you finding comfort in one another as he runs a finger down the scars on your collarbone. The bruise ring near your throat has him in a trance. Your body knows and accepts it.

Unfortunately you accept Deuce. You could say the blind leading the blind fits perfectly.

Leona Kingscholar lets you stick around.

Are you throwing yourself at him? Do you seek his attention purely for your own desire, Leona can see the way your eyes shine brighter after seeing him. Does his cold nature entice you, does it make you lean close to his claws as they scratch at your cheeks and chin?

Leona’s tail will fester in a slow yet excited tempo, each time you come back to him after he tells you to fuck off just to bring him a snack. He guess he can entertain you for a while, just don’t get used to it, he has better things to do than playing babysitter with you. ….Oh come back, it was a joke, can’t take humor well now he sees.

Sing him his praises, tell him how handsome he is even when he points out your flaws. Snuggle against his palm like you crave the hurt, his fangs snarling when you pull back. Leona won’t deny it any longer, such a sweet thing is too good to pass up. You don’t run away when he gets too rough, Leona has to remind himself how fragile magicless toys are, he’s not looking to break you so early on. Not that he needs to, you don’t seem to search for any sort of attention but his.

You must remember that Leona can’t always be there to keep you in check. Going days without seeing you, when needed that look, his hands on you in whichever way, bend and twist till you felt like screaming.

Patience is key, Leona decided it’s better that you stay with him, only. There isn’t any reason to leave, he’s got everything covered, so don’t listen when he whispers to you in the dead of night that he’ll toss you once you serve it’s purpose. It’s a way for you to tightly wrap your arms around him with a cry.

Ruggie Bucchi is complexed of your relationship.

If it weren’t for his fondness of you, Ruggie would have left you to fend for yourself. He’s putting in effort, alright, Ruggie doesn’t have time to be at your side everyday of the hour. You stress him out so bad.

He keeps to himself about his feelings regarding of your relationship with everyone else, as Ruggie makes himself of some use, the back of his mind tells him he isn’t enough. It should be a good thing! You’re getting the attention you crave, but Ruggie wants to be your attention, so he gets more aggressive with you. Ruggie often drifts to what more can he be than your side job of a babysitter. When it becomes too much he’ll ghost you for a couple of weeks to calm down.

Ruggie never thought he would find himself with you of all people, he’s so use to pushing you away, only interacting with you since you cry too much or Leona told him to check up on you. He’s angry at you for messing with him, you must forget who’s in charge of the situation (he’s expressing himself here).

In a perspective, Ruggie is cleaning up everyone’s mess, you, you’re getting the privilege of being a pain and no one is stopping you. Ruggie wants to stop you, not that he cares for your well being, but extra work isn’t rewarding him…..enough. You thank Ruggie for tending to your wounds but never ask him to talk about his day. Being under the food chain is nothing, but to you, doesn’t he deserve a better place than that?

Choosing him will make him annoyed, cheesy, yet annoyed. How much longer must he play pretend until you lay your head on his chest and indicate his love for you. Ruggie would rather eat mouthfuls of dirt before confessing. You make his head hurt, so he goes back to distancing until he’s ready to deal with you again.

Jack Howl swears to change.

It’s like a slap to the face. Whether you directly or hint it to him, Jack feels like the worst person in all of Twisted Wonderland. He’s supposed to be good, not bad and treat you like shit.

Your belief of any sort of attention is love, bad love, is good enough—Jack will have a meltdown. Did he not succeed to make you comfortable? He prides it in himself to change your views, Jack will show you what love is. But it’s not easy when he’s too shy to hold your hand. He has to be pushed in the situation to even touch you, you’ll take it the wrong way of him not wanting to touch you at all, that’s not true!

Protecting you is his job, not full time. If he could, Jack sets rules for you, one is to stop interacting with anyone that hurts you. Don’t show him that blissed expression after being tugged and called a bitch, it makes his tail stiff. It’s degrading, and he’s not the one being degraded. You make him feel like a joke, his actions aren’t enough that you actively search for more of that abuse, Jack would kill you.

He isn’t perfect on the ideally healthy relationship. He slips up time to time when it comes to your well being. He swears he knows best, because you’re just a fuck up that let’s everyone walk on you. He’s doing it again-he’s being mean; all is forgiven when he’s holding his head to your lap as he mutter an apology.

Jack may not have a good grip of your problem, but he wished you seek him out other than their abusive behavior. Jack is good if you’re happy and he thinks you did good. Focused on his happiness, you’re a little addicted to his controlling energy, just don’t say it to his face.

Azul Ashengrotto finds you in pathetic.

Fucked up trauma and you decided to come for him to cope. Azul is nerved by this fact, who enjoys suffering the worst kinds of attention, you’re clearly not loved enough, where is your respect??

Azul will blabber on, as if he’s not walking into your little world of misfortune. Sneering your way and rolling his eyes, it makes you attach to him in an instant. Is that attractive to you, to be an asshole who walks over you as a crumb of attention. Through all the scoffing and insults, Azul falls deeper to fill in that hole. Let his hand tighten around your forearm for getting in his way. Or getting in your personal space and accusing you of being a pervert. Just keep seeking out for him, he’s hungry to indulge unintentionally.

As a NORMAL person, Azul begs the Gods to stop him from continuing this madness. You plague him, and it’s insane he lets this continue any further. He should’ve stopped you, himself, anything from calling you a nauseous to pretty in seconds.

But you keep bothering him, finding a way to be at his side. He doesn’t push you away, warning you to make the best out of his time before he decides to do something more important than pleasing your desperate self. His doors are always open to you.

If you want it so badly then fine. Azul, behind closed doors, will allow you to look at him, touch him, put your head on his thigh as his index rub circles around the fading bruise on your neck. Glance up at him lovingly, thank him for giving such good attention. Azul can purr under all this affection.

Jade Leech is all too happy.

You accept every slap on the wrist as a necessity. Your wrong doings of not giving Jade his usual attention span, taking it with tears threatening to fall from your puffy eyes. You know not to cry because he’ll make it a big deal, wipe your tears and accept his love.

Without a doubt, Jade isn’t afraid to confess to you, fingers dragging against the marked skin of teeth that blossoms a deep and dark color. He does it because he loves you, you know? Isn’t this what you’re use to, his love taps are a reminder, he loves yoouu. Listen to him tell you how much he wishes to leave you in the crashing waves of the sea, that’s just him telling you how you aren’t strong enough to care for yourself.

Jade wants you to realize that you aren’t capable of making it on your own, he’s your proof of it. Be sweet and let him pinch your cheeks for taking his procedures so well.

What a poor thing to sap on his abusive techniques, Jade wonders if you truly enjoy the attention, how far is it to love before you’re screaming for him to stop and let you go? Is it until what little is left of your self respect that has you begging for him to look at you? Jade is happy to do so, you’re so entertaining to have around!

Be aware, since Jade fully understands how you react to his actions he’ll have no issue stripping it away. Mommy didn’t praise you enough; so he won’t tell you how good you did for letting him dunk your head in water. Daddy never apologized after a fight; he won’t even leave you a note and remind you how undeserving you are to him.

Floyd Leech makes the most of it.

A darling that throws itself at him isn’t that bad, Floyd can make use of it. You’re just lucky you’re so cute and biteable. If you run for him and let him chase you it may last, catching him pent up to the point he wanted to rip your tendons isn’t though.

Floyd constantly calls for you when he wakes up, have you by his side when he sleeps. His attention is overwhelming, don’t go complaining this late, you’re far too gone the rabbit hole.

What other factors does it come with? Don’t be boring on him now, make Floyd work for it, make him confused, surprised, intrigued. Spice it up by hesitating when he questions if he can get inside your rib cage. Your face is the highlight of his day, shrimpy knows how to please him. Floyd will outright confess his gratitude for you, it’s him calling you out for your own unhealthy coping, down to each flaw and how it makes you more enjoyable.

He’s great at reading the room it’s just he doesn’t put that knowledge to use with you, whether you can put up with it during a long period of time Floyd is there to terrorize you until you had enough. He’s a hundred percent positive you would get fed up, having to live in fear he would get aggressive, or sweet, it depends.

With so many choices and your endless possibilities of a reaction Floyd is like a child receiving their first ever birthday gift. It’s new each time. It gives him something different to experiment, he’s not stopping yet before you get on your knees and beg him to leave you be.

Vil Schoenheit takes advantage of you.

This is exactly what Vil feared. He doesn’t know if he should enjoy this or correct you, not when you seek him out like he so badly wishes he can do. Vil envies you, if he didn’t have a reputation to uphold he would smother you to death with his unhealthy dose of love, you’ll like it.

Vil finds it hard to be rough with you, not getting on his nerves and you openly encourage him to do more. To be Vil’s comfort is embarrassingly giddy when he thinks of it at night, he was keen on the thought that he wouldn’t go so low to let you eat it. His attention that is. But stopping anytime soon is not easy, he can just eat you up for making him act like some rabid animal.

This means Vil can take out his frustration on you without you begging for him to kill you. A sane person would’ve insulted him till their last dying breath, that he’s a monster for even picking on the weak. Naturally, someone like you shudders at Vil’s remarks.

Vil wants YOU to be desperate for his attention, not the other way around. Treat him like a God, grovel on your knees and kiss him up. Don’t mind the way he discreetly rolls his eyes to the back of his head with a hand covering his mouth. His words are mean and untrue, pushing his heeled shoe on your head so you don’t look up at him. Not yet.

Who knows who’s gaining what in this situation. You’re getting what you wanted, and so is he, in a farther abnormal substance. Vil has your deprived mind in his greedy hands, directing you his reasons as to why he does things. Factually, someone like him shouldn’t have to explain to the likes of you.

Rook Hunt declares his innocence.

Rook would never hurt you! Everything he does is from the honesty of his heart, it’s not his fault you can’t take criticism. Oh but you do, you try to change and Rook notices that.

A tube of lipstick can do a lot on a person, once you listen on his advice Rook is smitten. The hurt in your eyes and the next day you’re looking up to him for approval. He sighs with a hand on his chin, it wouldn’t hurt to tell you that the color looked alright. You can always touch up on your brows once and a while you know. Rook loves this side of you. He loves every expression and attitude you throw his way, you make his time so enduring.

He’s always greeting you with open arms and grabby hands, burying his nose in your hair to take a deep inhale of your scent. You smell different, new shampoo? Or did you hang around another person? Rook will try to ignore the subtle threat in his gut, as much as he adores this quirky behavior of yours, letting you be used as a pawn isn’t in his favor. He can admire from afar but he’ll want the real thing with him sooner or later.

See, Rook isn’t like those viscous things. He can treat you just like them if you ask nicely. But he’s too busy grabbing your face and rubbing his cheeks against yours. “Your skin is a little oily”— while blushing madly, the thought of your dead skin cells are touching his makes him merry.

He’s gross, but don’t comment on it too often, can’t you appreciate his affection and kindness. He’s not tearing you apart after all, he can hold himself better! Rook wants to let himself be free with you, but doing so will make you run no matter how much you reassure him of your decision. For now, let him play with your emotions for a while, show him more of what you can give him. It’s fair.

Epel Felmier loves you to death.

Epel can suffer through it. You don’t know what you’re doing to him, giving him the thumbs up when he tugs at your hair to face his way. What a sicko!!

He won’t shy from it, a little, but he’s precise on his feelings. Whispering in your ear how disgusting you are for exploiting yourself to other men and women. You love the attention don’t you? Epel can provide that for you, he can do anything to prove to you that he’s better than the others. So stop looking at them and kiss him better as an apology if you wanna start…

Are you enjoying the attention or is he? Epel is clingier, his grip on your fingers hurt because he’s too busy announcing his future with you. A nice little thing waiting at his beck and call, allowing him to degrade you when his days are busy and rough. He’s going off, you’re not sure if you like the idea but it makes him happy. You need him happy or he’ll make sure you don’t get any sort of attention.

Epel needs to be in check, he’s still young about love and how it works. Since he’s so stubborn it’s difficult for anyone to tell him off, calling your partner a dumbass because you didn’t pick up his thick accent isn’t very nice.

Typically, he goes to his elders for help. Epel has a hunch that you being okay with all of this isn’t normal. They all tell him differently on how to handle you, make the best of it or be more strict in case you’re trying to trick him. Any type of lying is met with his fist to your gut…. He’ll give you a kiss on the cheek and apple slices as an apology once he finds out you actually love him back.

Erratic, one might say, Epel thinks with his heart than head, much like Deuce. He has a problem with controlling his emotions, it’s overwrought to be this depressing over you and himself. If you can survive Epel’s errors of ways he might just put a ring on that finger.

Idia Shroud bites more than he can handle.

Gwaah, you’re so miserable he has to look the other way at how embarrassing you are. Seriously, Idia is mean, sure, but that’s because you can’t stand up for yourself. Will he be able to? Only the future will tell, but he’ll just respond with the fact it didn’t happen so it’s not his problem.

All the yapping but he’s keeping you locked in his arms as he plays games for the next three hours. Pinching at your side to stop you from squirming, he reminds you that YOU wanted this. Idia personally believes that you accepting his weird behavior makes you a weirdo but 10x worse, in reality he’s stabbing his nails against the palms of his hands from exploding. His hair gives it away.

You’re not like a cat, a cat would hiss and scratch from all the abuse you’ve been through. Rather a wet dog that comes crawling with the hunger of love, no matter what kind. Even if that love hits you, tells you how little worth you are, it’s love in some way because he’s watching you through the cameras. You have to be teasing him for how many times you call out his name during your naps. He’s so glad you took in the plushies, your face is worth a shit ton once he gets Azul to bargain a pay.

Idia will deny you of attention, it’s so embarrassing to come up to him of all people. Don’t say weird things out loud in public will you? It freaks him out, he’s a loser at heart but that’s because he respects privacy (not yours though).

Behind closed doors he’ll gradually open up to you, it’s more than he can handle when you’re so eager to have him around. Idia will learn to enjoy the attention, it won’t soothe his heart nor the bursting of flames of his hair that tickles your skin every time you hug him after he degrades you. You’re going to be the death of him.

Malleus Draconia spoils you rotten.

Searching for that nasty push and shove isn’t on his list. Malleus, confused as to why you enjoy being bossed and thrown around like some ragdoll. If it makes you happy….he guess he can play along.

Malleus pays attention to your body language, what makes you squirm into his arms when he tells you he’d gauge your eyes out for looking at another person. Not that he would do so, he likes your eyes so much! Malleus prances around on your idea of the ideal relationship. You’re scraping whatever he gives you, Malleus is showing you all of it. He’s happy you feel the same.

He doesn’t correct you, because he himself doesn’t see the problem of the two of you, it’s love, let it be. With no one to tell him, Malleus is selfish of your free will. You always let him touch you, hold you, bruise you (accidentally). You’re practically letting him eat from your hand as he does with you, if you like getting hurt he’ll let his nails leave trails of scars on your back. But tell him you like it, he wants to know he’s doing good.

You won’t be needing anybody else’s attention but Malleus, he takes up most of your time and day. You’ll be taken with him at this point, that is if you willingly move in with him. Malleus grows more paranoid each day seeing that you run around looking for more, greedy thing, he’ll hold back so much before locking you up forever.

Praise him. Malleus returns everything you do, all met with luxury as long as you stay by his side. If you stop responding to him he isn’t a happy camper, look, look at him, do you want to get roughed up?? You won’t mouth a thing so he might as well show you how far his patience wears.

Lilia Vanrouge plays it like normally.

You bring something new to Lilia like a box of chocolates. Why wouldn’t you want his love, it’s all tease until he grows bored enough to put his hands on you.

Lilia juggles your inexperience self in a loop, he’s keeping you on your toes. He can’t scold you when you find it deserving, he wants you to know it’s intentional, being mean that is. Just because he’s looking you up and down doesn’t mean it’s good, no. Lilia will train your mind to recognize the difference of rewarding you for the sake of your sanity and punishing you for doing bad.

Don’t take his word for granted, Lilia absolutely loves it when you coddle up to him, you cling to his every word and do silly tricks without asking. Your oblivious nature to his cruelty entertains him, there isn’t any backing down or settling less once he takes notice of your questionable quirks. In fact Lilia is sure he’s seen these types of response before, poor things handed to the wrong people, as if he’d make himself better for your sake.

Getting a little too deep with your private background, Lilia is curious as to what makes you nostalgic. Were any of your parents present? Did they look over your achievements, your hobbies, the things you like and dislike to eat? Would you cry on his shoulder if he asked? Lilia wants all the answers, so he can see and mirror that exact moment. He’s just a little nicer about it, it’s all jokes remember that.

Silver makes you see differently.

You don’t find the time for the Silver haired man. He speaks to the animals and sleeps most of the time, there isn’t much to look for. Silver however, tries his best to stay awake when you come around. Looking more presentable and making small talk when you decide to speak to him and not his father or Sebek.

When you’re so used to it, you expect the worst to happen. Falling and breaking your nose, but Silver gracefully catches you before you fall. Like the fairytales you use to read as a child, it feels like a dream being held so gently and cared for. Silver would randomly send you notes from a dove, often times telling you how nice your hair looked or that your smile is pretty. Once consumed by the dirty look and pinches you’ll crave Silvers voice.

He bids you farewell on days you want to be left alone, to isolate and cry for hours. He waits patiently by your door with a nice homemade meal he learned from a book. Silver is the definition of comfort. You’re saying that probably because it’s genuine affection, not that you’ll know any better.

Your body is always somehow mangled or damaged, noticeable, yet Silver doesn’t berate you for letting it happen. Instead he takes your hands in his and pull them close to his mouth as he tells you to stay with him. He won’t let them hurt you. He promises. Promises are silly, but you couldn’t help but nod.

Silver will take what he knows from his father about love. If it meant locking hiding you for your sake then be it. You’re like danger magnet, Silver will defend you to the best of his capabilities. Your Prince Charming is all you could ask for, through the guilt he feels, stuck in his throat because he knows what he’s doing isn’t right. Your’e too far gone to see it, soon, he will too.

Sebek Zigvolt gives in to your delusions.

Clueless. Someone has to tell him in his face and maybe write it down, Sebek doesn’t read too well with humans oddity. Sebek does acknowledge your submissive character, he refuse to praise it though.

Going for him is super easy, Sebek is yelling most of the time and has his hands somewhere on you while he’s at it. No one butts in to stop him, he’s a little slow when you act all meek and agree without a hint of sarcasm. The irony of it. Sebek continuously falls for your trap, once he puts the pieces together you’re in for it.

At first he’s real smug about it, as expected you come to him of all people for attention, Sebek is great at socializing! Second, don’t forget who has the upper hand, he’ll dangle it around but the bait will fall in. Sebek tries to be the mastermind behind it, but he’s not successful enough if he keeps giving you exactly what you’re after. He slaps himself every time it happens, self control is important in a knight, so he stays by your side with the intention of ignoring you.

But that doesn’t work out, you make him so pissed he’s not even sure why!? Looking at him all needy, your scent is overwhelming too when was the last time you showered? (He deeply inhales whenever he gets the chance). You’re purposely trying to get him to fail his lesson. A lesson he made up entirely.

Doing nothing is something to him. Being near him is setting him off. He’s straightening his posture and giving you his best glare. And without thinking he’s opening his big fat mouth to lecture you,.

[stardustizuku]

Unfortunately I came across a very strange and misinformed video about Black Butler.

It’s not good. Don’t watch it. Unless you wanna ruin your day, in which case have fun.

Despite it all, I watched it. What left me wondering, however, was how off the mark the person who made the video was on, well, everything.

From their insistence that the Book of Circus Arc theme or point is non existent, to reading Ciel’s character so badly they genuinely thought the Green Witch Arc did nothing for his character development.

While baffled, it also made me think on how someone could read Black Butler so badly.

Sure, you can say that there’s no real way to read or interpret something “in the wrong way” but interpreting The Hunger Games as a pure battle-royale action story would make you believe it’s bad.

“Why are we focusing so much on how the capitol preps them?” Or “Why isn’t Katniss winning everything?” Or “I wanna know more about the rebellion” All questions that miss the actual point of the story - which is criticizing (not solving or ignoring) the way that media distracts us from violence via spectacle.

The same thing applies here. While there is no “right” way to consume media, there’s things that the author makes clear they wanna focus when creating a story. Things that, if you understand, make the story you’re reading actually make sense.

And in Black Butler there’s three things that you have to understand to properly get what Yana is saying.

Sebastian is the protagonist

Ciel and Sebastian’s relationship IS the story.

And that relationship is, fundamentally, a positive one.

A quicker version of it would be:

Black Butler is a love story from the POV of Sebastian, and you have to ship it to get it

- but that’s not entirely true.

You can still look at it as a complex but ultimately positive rship and get in broad strokes of what it’s conveying. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Although, it helps much more than a platonic framing.

(That said, interpreting their rship as father and son, still isn’t the best way to go about it. Mostly because by its very nature of “soul consuming” their relationship is extremely sexually charged. And hey, if you’re into that I don’t judge. However, if you’re desperately trying to interpret their rship as NOT romantic to the point you fall back on heteronormative patriarchal ideals of nuclear familiar as framing device, I don’t think this interpretation bodes with you)

Now, having all that ground work:

Why do I say these are the key components to understand BB?

Okay so, first,

1. Sebastian is the Main Character. The protagonist.

There’s a lot of people who wanna argue against it, claiming he’s either the villain or the antagonist. Both wrong.

He does not function as an antagonist. Even if, and an emphasis on if, you consider Ciel to the protagonist, Sebastian isn’t a narrative antagonist.

If you wanna go back to Creative Writing 101, be my guest. An antagonist is directly defined by the protagonist. It’s the opposing force. If the protagonist wants A, the antagonist wants to stop them from getting A.

Sebastian’s catchphrase is “Yes, my Lord”. He never opposes Ciel, in fact quite the contrary. By the mere fact they’ve created contract, it means that they’ve both agreed in the inevitable outcome.

People want to frame Sebastian as the villain, because Ciel having his soul taken by a demon, would be a BAD END in the context of their moral compass. They see Ciel as a frail victim of abuse, who’s being tricked by Sebastian, who wants Ciel’s soul.

Which is an. Interpretation. A bad one. But still one.

The narrative (and whether the narrative fits your personal moral compass and lack of critical thinking is irrelevant) treats Ciel as an agent in his own destiny. The abuse he suffered was the moment in which he had no control. It’s only after he meets Sebastian that he can rid of both his guilt and his despair, and do what he wants.

In this case though, it’s revenge.

The famous “Asthma” scene shows this. If Ciel is taken back to his past, he becomes helpless. Swarmed with pain and memories that make it so that he can’t even react. Sebastian is his saving grace. If Ciel didn’t have him, and the power he wields to rebuilt what’s broken, he would crumble once more.

If Ciel has a panic attack, because of all the pain he has, Sebastian picks him up and says “you are not a helpless child anymore, you are not a victim anymore, you have the power to do anything. So, what do you wanna do?”

Ciel’s answer is to kill them.

A proper analogy would be to say that, if Sebastian offers a gun, Ciel pulls the trigger. They are both at fault. Sebastian, strictly speaking, is not here to directly cause Ciel’s downfall, but as a tool Ciel uses to plunge into the abyss.

If, again if, you were to frame Ciel as a protagonist, Sebastian falls closer to the “Voice of reason” character. Not a literal voice of reason, but a literary one. If you have a protagonist and an antagonist exchanging ideals, the Voice of Reason serves to engage with the protagonist on their own ideals.

That said, Ciel isn’t the protagonist. The story quickly falls apart if you interpret it as such.

Things such as Ciel’s character arc being…shall I say odd?

It’s not that his character arc isn’t there, but it’s never lineal. His goals stay the same, the only thing that happens is that we start to peel back the “why”s of his goals. Throughout the series it’s never about Ciel understanding himself better, he knows who he is, he knows what he wants, he knows why he wants it. He doesn’t ever need to uncover these, but simply remember them. Because it’s always about the audience understanding Ciel.

He knows he wants revenge.

In the Circus Arc: He knows that he needs Sebastian because without him, the pain of the abuse he suffered would be too much to bear. But WE are introduced to it.

In the Book of Atlantis: He knows that with this new lease he does not want happiness and peace, he wants revenge. The one being told this is the audience.

In Green Witch Arc: He knows that their revenge isn’t for his family, the real Ciel or guilt. It’s because he wants it. He’s angry, he’s upset, and this is entirely for him. The one being told this is the audience.

Except. Not really. The one either discovering or remembering these key moments - is always Sebastian.

Sebastian is the one who reassures him that he now holds the power of a demon to override the pain. Sebastian is the one who remembers that to override that pain, Ciel wants revenge. And Sebastian is the one who discovers that that revenge isn’t built out of grief or guilt, but for himself.

We are witnessing it all, through the eyes of Sebastian.

This is why we have an extremely vague idea of who Ciel is, Sebastian does not have the whole picture.

If you haven’t been reading this manga with your eyes closed, you’ll realize we have a better grasp at Sebastian’s character than that of Ciel. We get a lot of insight on how he thinks and what he values through light hearted dialogue he has with the servants. You even see the character development in these little interactions.

Think about how when he first arrived to the mansion he magically created food with no regards to taste, but when he meets Bard he states that food is created to see whoever will eat it, smile.

That is character development, more than you will be able to see from Ciel.

Because Ciel’s character, while not static, doesn’t go from point A to point B. Mostly, cause it doesn’t need to. He went through that when he lost the real Ciel and got Sebastian. Everything we are watching is the falling out.

Now, given the fact that I’ve told you that it makes more sense for Sebastian to be the protagonist/main character, and that he 100% isn’t either a villain or antagonist in ANY of the interpretations you can get:

Do you believe me?

If you don’t, you’ll probably believe Yana herself.

This is from the first Volume, where Yana herself describes the process of making Black Butler. The primary idea behind the creation of BB was a butler as a “hero”.

If you go back to the introductory chapter, you notice that Ciel is barely mentioned. He’s simply the one to give Sebastian impossible tasks and standards that Sebastian must find how to overcome.

Ciel is properly introduced until the NEXT chapter. The second chapter has this formula too, introducing Lizzie as a problem to overcome. Although, to Sebastian the best way to “get rid of the problem” is simply to indulge her.

The issue here being that the problem isn’t as simple as a business meeting but something directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s past. Each time that Sebastian has to solve a problem, it chips away at Ciel. While with Lizzie he shows a persona, once he’s alone with Sebastian he acknowledges the toll it took on him. It serves to build Ciel as Sebastian’s master, and how some problems aren’t as simple as discarding a tablecloth.

The third and the fourth, are a unified narrative, with a similar premise to the first chapter. Ciel gets kidnapped and Sebastian must find a way to retrieve him without raising suspicions.

If the first chapter is to set up what Sebastian must do as a butler, the third and the fourth serve to set up what he must do as a demon.

The entirety of the volume, and up to Book of Circus Arc, is about how Sebastian tries to follow the increasingly absurd orders that Ciel has - it is not about Ciel trying to solve them.

That’s how they work, we follow Sebastian for the most part, because he’s the one having to come up with the solutions.

If anything, in early Kuro, where the emphasis was more on a slice of life conflict, Ciel is the antagonist. He’s the one creating problems for Sebastian to solve.

What’s more, in the second volume, the very first chapter is one from Sebastian’s POV. So far, we hadn’t gotten an entire chapter from Ciel’s POV. In fact, I would find it hard to point to a single chapter where Ciel is the POV throughout. The reveal of real Ciel and the flashback is the closest contender.

But once we move past early Kuro, and into Book of Circus, this set up changes.

It’s fairly easy to assume that Ciel is the main character, because from this point on the conflict of the plot sorta surrounded him. We spend a lot of time with him and with his story. The enemies start being people directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s trauma. Rarely, if at all, we get to see Sebastian before he met Ciel.The framing device for the story, is Ciel.

This is where point 2 gets intertwined.

2.- Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship IS the story.

The story begins at the point where Sebastian and Ciel met. Who Ciel was before he met Sebastian, informs why he’s the way he is when he does. You have to know all he went through to understand why he’s a brat, why he lashes out. However Sebastian’s past doesn’t matter…because Sebastian himself doesn’t care much for who he was, before he was “Sebastian”. That’s also part of the narrative.

Unlike Ciel, he doesn’t seem opposed to revealing information from before the contract. He talks about how pets from where he is from are gross, he talks about how he knows how to dance because of other places he’s been to, and alludes to the life he's lived before.

Just that, to him, they're footnotes.

He makes allusions to a very bland, uninteresting life, up to the point he meets Ciel.

That’s why we don’t know more about his past.

As for why we focus on Ciel’s story…okay maybe we need Creative Writing lessons 102

I studied Dramaturgy for about 3 to 4 years. And something you notice is how play-writing is the quintessential story telling. It’s making it work with the bare bones of a story.

Some other mediums have more finesse, more depth, or more spectacle - all amazing things that work for whatever they’re created for. But understanding a play, how and why it works, helps understand the fundamentals of any derivative story telling medium.

Particularly, conflict.

Conflict is dialogue and dialogue can take many forms. A story, in its essence, is a dialogue between two opposing ideas.

Take Batman, for example, who embodies the ideas of justice and order. On his own, he’s not a well rounded character.

If you ONLY present him, in a vaccum with nothing else, you don’t have a character. You have a list of characteristics that you’re supposed to know.

You only know who he is when you have dialogue with another character.

I say Dialogue, but it doesn’t necessarily mean spoken language at one another. Dialogue can mean fist fighting, playing tabletop games, talking to other people about the other, or even just a competition. The idea is to simply to compare and contrast both ideas.

If you want an example on how tabletop games serve as dialogue, watch the video “Well, Someone Had to Explain the Liar’s Dice Scene” by Lord Ravecraft

Another example, were we to retake Batman, you have him fight Joker. Who’s the embodiment of chaos and randomness.

In the following picture, you get far more information than the one previously shown. While the Joke fights with daggers and fake guns, Batman only uses his fists. He doesn’t use the tricks that Joker does. His serious demeanor, contrasted with Joker’s glee at the dangerous situation. The fact that Batman has a deathly grip on Joker’s shirt, while the Joker doesn’t, which shows a desperation to catch him.

You are being shown, through a dialogue, who Batman is.

It’s so much easier and much more effective to explore a character through another character.

This is the reason why Shonen has a tendency to make incredibly good gay ships. If you want to explore Naruto’s personality, and his feelings of inferiority, you HAVE to have him interact with Sasuke.

If you wanna understand Hinata’s passion for volleyball, you have him enjoy himself the most with the only other crazy motherfucker who’s as obsessed with volleyball - Kageyama.

And I think that originally, Yana had this problem.

Sebastian was the protagonist, but she had little room to develop him as a character in the confines of the manor, dealing with random enemies.

She likely tried to create Grell as someone of the same stature as Sebastian. Someone who could be this other person to engage dialogue with and show or allude to his past a bit more.

The problem being that Sebastian didn’t care for his past. Or really, engaging with anyone. He sees everyone as below him, but when confronted with Grell who isn’t below him, he doesn’t wanna talk to her.

So you’re stuck in conundrum.

How do you have dialogue with a character, that as a character trait, doesn’t really wanna have dialogue?

Well, Grell also solves the problem. Because only the moment she gets him to start any semblance of a dialogue - is questioning why he’s serving Ciel.

And this is the moment when it’s perfectly cemented that the focus of the story is their relationship.

Why is Sebastian here? Why does he stay? What did he see in Ciel that made him want this extremely convoluted contract?

THATS the dialogue.

THATS the conversation we’re having in Black Butler.

We need to know Ciel because understanding who he is, let’s us know WHY /Sebastian/ is here.

Then slowly, with the introduction with the Undertaker, we find out Sebastian’s conflict.

Which is…

He’s scared of losing Ciel. It becomes apparent with the constant imagery of the Undertaker taking away Ciel and at some point even obtaining r!Ciel’s body, that he’s worried it might happen.

But he can only be worried that Ciel might be taken away if he wants to stay near Ciel.

And that’s his character arc.

Realizing that he actually likes Ciel, cares for him and the role he plays a butler that he doesn’t want this to end.

In the first chapters, he doesn’t feel a need to protect Ciel anymore than what’s strictly necessary. Just don’t die, that’s about as deep as his involvement in chapter 4 gets.

But by the Green Witch Arc, he feels a need to protect Ciel from ANY harm.

This is why I also said

3.- Their relationship is fundamentally a positive one.

In broad strokes, Sebastian to Ciel is the person who allows him to survive. He’s not worried about giving up his soul since he’s already dead. While Ciel to Sebastian, is someone who’s making him have fun. He’s slowly becoming more and more attached to Ciel and the life he has with Ciel.

Their relationship is not that of just a predator and prey, but also of master and pet.

In the terms that Black Butler itself would call: Sebastian is a wild wolf acting like a collared dog.

Ciel is aware that the wild beast will eat him at the end of the day, but if he clings hard to leash for now, he might just be able to have Sebastian maul his abusers.

Sebastian as a dog, currently finds that he enjoys being a chained dog.

(This is demonstrated in the Green Witch arc where he quite literally says, he doesn’t wanna be a wild beast and prefers to be a butler)

And much like the actual DOG Sebastian, Ciel constantly interprets his attempts to get close and protect him, as an act of aggression.

This push and pull of Ciel’s perception of Sebastian and Sebastian’s true motives is what feeds the story.

And the briefs interludes were that isn’t the case (what other people call the “plot”, but I would refer to as the connective tissue) such as Sullivan and Wolfram, the other servant’s past, the grim reapers and the like, serve as a parallel to Ciel and Sebastian relationship. Either to signify how they care for each other, highlight their weaknesses or fears, or explore how they feel.

It’s no surprise that Sullivan and Wolfram are parallels to Ciel and Sebastian. A sheltered sickly child who seeks the protection of a cold hearted machine that only knew how to kill, but who eventually found he cared for her genuinely.

Undertaker and Claudia’s relationship being heavily paralleled with them, even though we aren’t 109% sure what they had but heavily implied it was a romantic attraction from the undead supernatural creature and a Phantomhive.

Everything is a parallel.

That’s why, like the approach of the terrible original video, is flawed.

Trying to interpret Black Butler as action scene after action scene, with mystery after mystery with the only connective tissue being the mystery of who burned down the mansion - is missing the trees for the forest.

That’s not the point.

And if you’re too much of a prude to engage with gothic horror in its gothic horror game, I see little point as to why you even bother to engage with it at all.

A lot of people, including the person who create the video, simply refuse to acknowledge Black Butler IS the story of Sebastian and Ciel as a close and positive relationship, romantically and sexually charged. The reason for it being that they’re “put off” by it.

Part of me wonders how much that is genuinely true, and how much is just performative outrage. It’s like ignoring the fact that Cersei and Jami are in an incestous relationship and try to frame it as “platonic love”, because the idea of it is THAT off putting.

But regardless of that, if you don’t like the fact that it’s as canon as canon can get, I would reccomend you don’t engage with the story at all.

As I’ve explained, the entirety of the series is about them. If you refuse to see Sebastian and Ciel as, at the very least, a duo that cares deeply for the other - you aren’t reading Black Butler.

I have no idea what you’re reading.Perhaps your own biases and subconscious stigma with British aesthetic. At that point, watch the fucking British Royalty Gossip Magazine. You’d find more substance there.

Just don’t be like the person in the video, please? Don’t play dumb. Don’t ignore the fact that Yana is a Shotacon, don’t ignore the fact Sebastian is a hero, don’t ignore the fact that the entirety of the story is based on Sebastian and Ciel’s dynamic.

Because if you do, you are ashamed. You are ashamed of what this story is about. You don’t wanna engage with the text, you want to engage with yourself. You wanna project into Ciel whatever traumas and experiences you have, for the sake a vanity project, where you come out as the morally superior.

You don’t wanna talk about Black Butler, you wanna talk about how good YOU are. How you “don’t sin” by watching it “without all the gross unholy stuff”.

Which is the exact opposite of what BB is about.

So, if you don’t want to, save us all the humiliation fetish and leave.

[walpu]

hey, hey, I don't know how many times I've read your post "pre-relationship" especially aventurine part (omg i love how you write abt him 😭). I wonder how it will be once they are in a relationship and the kissing part please :3 thank u and have a nice day!

THANK YOUUUUU

Hope you'll enjoy this post too💛💛💛

being in a relationship with Aventurine

characters - Aventurine notes - gn!reader, fluff, hurt/comfort (do I even write something other that hurt/comfort for him lmao), no beta

can be seen as a part 2 of this post but it can stan on it's own as well

Aventurine

It would take quite some time for Aventurine to move from the pre-relationship stage with you. Will dance around the subject, throwing hints and flirty remarks but as for making an actual move? Oof.

Would cling to your side and shamelessly say something like "aww, can't get enough of me? people may think we're dating <З unless that's what you want them to think haha"

Pathetic. /affectionally.

But seriously, he really wants to be sure that you like him before making a move. That you like him, not his money, not the idea of him. At least that's what he tells himself. And while this is part of the reason, the actual thing is that he's simply... confused. He's already more vulnerable around you than he ever was around anyone else. And dating means being even more vulnerable.

While he yearns for this genuine connection he's also a scared of it. Tim Kreider wrote the line "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known" about him actually.

It would take some time for him to get used to being in relationship. In the previous post I've mentioned that he, most likely, had some short flings in the past. I seriously doubt that he ever had any serious relationship before you though. It's so new to him. At first it would seem like nothing has changed between the two of you at all. Surprisingly, it looks like he even became a bit more distant.

Aventurine doesn't want to attract any unwanted attention to your relationship since it will only endanger you. Plus he doesn't want to overwhelm you. Plus he doesn't want to overwhelm himself. Plus he is scared shitless.

He can't help but feel that he looses everything he holds dear. After all, it's been like that for all of his life. And he simply can't loose you.

Mini spoiler for his leaked character story, but there is a moment there when he looks at the aventurine stone Diamond gave him and he realizes that despite the fact that he worked so hard for it, now that he has it, it holds no real value since it doesn't fill the emptiness inside of him. Logically, he knows that this won't happen with you. He loves you too much. But there's this subconscious fear inside of him that he's just so messed up inside that he simply would not be able to love you like you deserve.

Be patient with him, this mans doesn't know what he's doing. Don't give up on him and he'll crawl to your side, holding onto you for dear life.

Once he will calm down a bit, he'll make it up for all those times when you were the one reaching out to him. Texts you, calls you, arranges spontaneous dates.

In the beginning of relationship would spoil you with expensive gifts. He knows what it's like to have nothing so he doesn't want you to ever feel this way. And the best way to prevent it? To make sure that you will have anything and everything. Maybe it's a subconscious way to bribe you. Maybe. Not like he realizes it himself.

Once he'll feel more stable and more confident, his gift giving tendencies will get less overwhelming. He still like giving you gifts but now he picks and chooses. His sugar darling deserves only the best, after all.

Acts all clingy, playful and unserious but actually listens to your every word and is ready to fulfil your every need.

Is actually very caring. Shows his care by pestering you and easing you tho.

If you feel down, will sit stay by your side. May randomly start tickling you, if you're ticklish. If not, will find another way to touch you in a playful and somewhat annoying way. After you cheer up a bit, Aven will put his chin on your shoulder and hugs your waist, softly asking what happen and why is his dearest darling seems sad.

As for kisses. Aven will loooove covering your face with butterfly kisses. And not only your face. Will randomly grab your hand and kiss your knuckles and fingertips. If you've made a mistake of exposing your shoulder then be ready for it to be kissed endlessly.

Adores kissing those parts of your body that are usually covered with clothes. It feels fore intimate for him.

And if you have freckles or/and beauty marks. Oh well. Will trace them with his fingertips, connecting them with some invisible lines and sometimes gasp playfully, saying that he found his constellation. Just a silly little guy being a silly little guy.

So touch-starved it's unreal.

Has very mixed feeling about his tattoo being kissed. Would feel... weirs if you would kiss it during your casual cuddling session. He exposes it for the world to see, yes. But still, when it attracts attention of someone who knows the meaning behind it... Makes him a bit tense, it catches him off-guard. However, if you kiss it after a lovemaking session or when he shares some painful memories with you, he will feel reassured.

Will slowly start crawling out of his shell when he's with you. Before he only shared some brief memories of his past with you, now he'll start slowly opening up about other, much more painful stuff.

It still happens randomly and out of the blue. He remembers something, he tenses up. But now, instead of repressing this feelings, he shares them with you.

Don't push him too talk, he'll slowly open up on his own.

Loves waking up next to you. Especially if you're still asleep. Seeing the sun shining on your face fills him with love and tenderness. Only with you by his side he feels truly safe.

[watsittoyah]

The Devils Playpen

A Obsessive!QIMIR X BLACK!FEMALE OC STAR WARS SMUT FIC

NEXT

This is complete fiction, I do not own any characters of the star wars franchise however I own all characters of my own creation, as well as plot.

That being said, the themes will be dark, Qimir will have obsessive and possessive qualities. This story will be borderline grey morals, there will be trigger warnings in the beginning of every chapter that will be gruesome/sexual.

You’ve been warned little flower if you’d like to continue, please read forward, if not put this work of fiction down and go read the holy word…welcome to the Devils playpen…

Chapter 1) When The Predator Becomes Prey…

(Song: Obsession By Exo)

Warning: Mentions of suicide. Stalking, choking of non sexual nature. Oral sex, shibari, threats of r*pe, Light Saber play (don’t be dumb you know what that last tag means)

I walk past a woman with long and short locks but she brings no excitement to my inner beast.

How lucky she is.

I hiss internally as I walk inside of the apothecary. Once I’m inside I inhale deeply, letting the poison I desire call to my senses.

However I smell something else. Something sweet? Sticky? I let my eyes fall onto a man hunched over in a corner. I don’t bother with manners of averting my eyes.

My curiosity has a scratch and I want it itched.

“Hello?” I call out to him in a soft voice. The man appears to be sleeping and I walk closer but keep my distance. His scent still smells sticky and sweet. Like those man eating plants over on Plexart.

“Hello, sir? I’m here to buy some supplies.” I say as I stare at his sleeping form. I flick an empty bottle over and it shatters causing him to finally stir from his slumber.

“Oh, sorry.” He stretches and does a big yawn before he looks over at me. When our eyes meet, he runs his fingers through his mop like hair and gives me a lazy smile. “Oh, hello. And you are?” He asks as he stands fully.

I take note that we have a significant size difference. He looks to be 5’11 while I stand at 5’4.

“I’m here to buy supplies, unless you aren’t the owner of this shop.” I ask in a gentle yet bored tone. He clears his throat and nods. “I am, I am. So what can I get for you? Ah, pick your poison.” He jokes. I however don’t laugh or crack a smile.

“I just needs a few things on this list. Whatever you don’t have, I’m sure I can find on my travels.” I hand him a piece of paper and our fingers brush against each other. He feels cold to the touch.

Interesting…

“Hm, this is quite the list. Might I ask what are all of these for?” He asks as he looks at me.

No, he’s studying me. Which makes my inner beast stir.

“Just some tools on helping me hunt. Nothing major. I don’t mean to be rude but I do need to be on my way.”

“Right, I will get on this for you now.” He starts on my list and I decide to look around and figure out if I’m going to kill him or let him live since he brings a spark of something out of me.

“Can I ask you a question?” The man asks, which causes me to give an internal sigh. “What is your question sir?”

“Qimir, you can call me Qimir. Anyways my question for you is, what methods do you take to hunt your prey?” This question peaks my interest because the way he says prey I think he knows I hunt a different kind of species.

“There’s many ways to do that. Poisons, bare hands, even a simple isolation tactic. But the best method…is simply a mental attack. That works on any kind of prey.” I say with a hint of a smile on my lips. I look up and see Qimir staring at my lips.

I bite my plump bottom lip, which makes his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows.

“Forgive me for prying, but the items on your list, they are interesting. Bunta Root? That grows-”

“In one specific place I know, but I figured this place would have it here..” I look away from him and glance out the window.

In a matter of days, I will be at her door and I’ll she can’t escape me. I can’t wait to see her eyes widen by surprise. She’ll think how did a beast like me, hunt her down to the very last of her days.

Will she beg for her life?

Will she plead that I do it quickly?

The possibilities will be endless when I finally get my hands on Zen.

Zen…

She was once a great ally to my people at least until she got them killed.

Genocide, her and those moral less Jedi committed genocide to my people and I need to make sure they pay. She’s the final one and I just know, she knows I’m coming for her. Especially when the word went around on how her partner’s body was discovered.

I’ll never forget how his eyes had ballooned in his skull after I cracked his head open. I can almost picture his head hitting the concrete over and over and over. His brain matter was all over my hands, staining my nails with his blood.

If I close my eyes tonight will his ghost haunt me?

Will his soul ask me why I took him from his lover so soon?

I blink and I’m no longer in that glorious gruesome memory.

I turn and Qimir is standing close to me, almost making me flinch. “Excuse you.” I snap at him. He looks me up and down and cocks his head to the side.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…you remind me of someone I once knew. The resemblance is just uncanny. You look…exactly like her.” He whispers softly as he takes in my entire appearance.

Instead of stepping back, his scent makes my stomach grumble which makes me flick my split tongue against my inner cheek.

“Trust me Qi, if you knew me…you wouldn’t be standing so close.” I say to him letting my split tongue slither past my full lips. I notice his eyes darken from my movement for a split second.

“Why is that? I find you quite the interesting creature.” He says as he reaches out to touch my coiled curl. I jerk my head back not from his attempt to touch me, but from his scent.

I want to split my jaw open and take a chunk out of him. His scent had changed somehow. He smells like spiced sweet fruit.

I see a smirk on his lips and I want to bite him. I want to bite his flesh and rip i-

“Excuse me?” We break eye contact and I see a woman, she looks exactly like the woman I had passed when I came in here but her hair…it’s short. And she smells… sour.

I grow bored with her and move away from Qimir. But as I move away he grabs my wrist. I look down at his hand and then at him. “Don’t go anywhere. I’d like to finish this.” He lets my hand go and he moved away from me swiftly.

I narrow my eyes at his back as he talks to the woman. As I glance at her with boredom I can smell that she’s anxious? Scared?

Oh, maybe I can have some fun with her after all.

As Qimir talks to her, which tells me something is going on, I run my hand along the counter and ‘accidentally’ bump into her, causing her things to clatter to the floor.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Miss. Do forgive me I am not myself.” We lock eyes and in that moment, she’s frozen in place. Her pupils dilate. I can hear her pulse quicken. “I..it’s okay.” She stutters as I hand her her things.

“You are so pretty.” I say as I take in her whole face. I see her blink a few times and I study her presence.

She’s nervous, hmm her body is smart to be nervous, but is her brain?

“Oh! I’m sorry, I give compliments before I even give my name. I’m Akasha. And you are?” I see the apple of her cheeks deepen in color after I compliment her.

“I’m-” She looks away from me and at Qimir but I clear my throat and she looks back at me, trapped in my spell. “I’m Osha.” She whispers with a small smile. “Such a pretty name. I don’t mean to over step, but would you like some company on your travels?” Before she answers me, Qimir clears his throat.

I cut my eyes at him and he’s staring at me, in a way that makes me want to challenge him. “I thought you wanted your things in a hurry, Akasha.” He says my name as if he’s accusing me of something .

“Suddenly I am in no rush, especially when it comes to making new friends.” I stand as well as Osha and I step towards her. Inhaling her fear.

Her scent is starting to ripen, oh I need to sink my teeth into her, before she spoils. Before she-

“Mae, if you don’t mind. I’m just handling this customer and then I can get back to you.”

Mae?

I look back at the woman and she looks down at her fingers, fidgeting with them.

“Okay, Qimir.” She says with hesitation in her voice. She looks at me and I wink at her. “So, pretty one, might I ask, what brings you to an apothecary?” I ask as I lean against the counter, looking her up and down.

I wonder how her teeth taste.

“I’m just here to thank Qimir for the item he gave me. It helped me greatly.” I listen to her pulse and it quickens.

Oh you little liar.

Now I’m excited to know why she’s lying so much.

“You’re welcome. I hope I can help anyway I can to help you please your Master.” Qimir says as I feel him behind me. I look back and he was leaning forward, playing with one of my curls.

How did I not notice him this close to me?

I flick my hair from his touch and he sniffs his finger tips.

Did he just sniff his fingers?

“Akasha, since you’re making friends, how about being my friend?” Qimir asks as he stares me deep into my eyes.

Hmmm…

“I like being friends with girls, Qimir. They’re are nice and sweet….” I look at his lips and I can imagine biting them.

“But with boys? I tend to be a bit too rough with them. And you?” I look him over his slim athletic build. “You look like you break easily.”

I see him lick his bottom lip and I swear I hear a slight groan in his throat. He then lowers his voice so only I can hear.

“You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Akasha. I tend to play rough with my things. Sometimes they break and sometimes they…turn to ash in my clutch.”

Excitement licks my veins as I inhale his scent.

Mmm it’s mixed with sweet, spice and arousal.

“Sounds like a threat, and a fun time. Maybe…” I lean in close to his ear, as he leans in to hear me. “…I can teach you how to play with your toys nicely by making you my new toy. Would you like that, Qi?” I flick my tongue against his ear and I hear a deep groan vibrate from his chest.

He’s about to answer me but Osha/Mae clears her throat and I feel both Qi and myself glare at her.

I look away and take a deep breath. “How about you talk to her and I’ll be back for my things. I have something to grab on that list that I know you don’t have here.” Before he can stop me I leave the shop and place my hood back upon my head.

••••

“I need Daroon moss for my special powder. Maybe if I’m lucky I can find some on the outer banks of this place.” I mutter as I continue to walk further into a crowd but my muscles tense as I feel I’m being followed.

Who would be stupid enough to follow me?

I decide to cut the chase short and duck further into the crowd.

They continue to follow me and that’s when I notice his scent.

The sweet spicy arousal.

I slip into an alleyway and I stand there counting as his scent get closer. That smell. If I were an addict, I would beg for a hit of that scent on a daily.

As soon as he is in arms reach I snatch him in close then push him to the ground. I then quickly take my boot and press it firmly against his throat.

“I don’t know about your other customers but I don’t like to be followed around stores or crowds.” I press down with a bit more pressure, just so he can answer me.

He winces in pain. “S….sorry. But I did…tell you I wanted…to finish this.” I go to step down harder but he grabs my ankle and twists, causing me to lose my footing.

He then pins me under him and I feel his full weight on top of me. “Get off of me.” I hiss. “Not until we finish this, conversation.”

“This conversation is over!“ I scream at him. He looks deep into my eyes and he gives me a wicked grin. “I’m sorry, but you seem to still think you have control of this situation. When clearly I’m the one on top. But I’ll be nice. The conversation will end after I tell you this…I’ve decided that I want you to be my new toy. And when I want something I take it.” I see a flash of something wild in his eyes as I feel his hands go for my throat.

His strength takes me by surprise as he starts cutting off my air supply. “Let…me…go!” I scream knowing it’ll cause at least someone to come find out why I’m screaming.

But…

No one comes.

Not even a curious onlooker.

He squeezes tighter and I try my best to fight him off. But it’s like an animal is wearing his skin and attacking me. I can feel him clearly aroused as he chokes me out on the ground.

Wait no, it can’t end this way.

I can’t die this way underneath this sick son of a bitch.

My vision starts to blacken around the corners. Qimir slowly starts to fog up into darkness, and just when I’m about to pass out, I hear him say these haunting words to me.

“You’re exactly what I’ve been looking for, Akasha, why would I ever let you go?”

•••••

I jerk awake and cough to clear my throat. I go to move except my body is tied up. But in a way that makes me look spread out like some attraction.

I glance around and see I’m somewhere unknown. And I’m completely naked. The panic starts to set in but it stops as soon as I smell his scent.

“QIMIR!” I scream his name as my eyes try to look for him. “I know you’re near! I can smell you! Show yourself!” I scream, in hopes that someone will hear me.

Someone did…

He did…

“I see you’re awake. Good.” Qimir says with a soft smile on his face. “What the fuck is going on! Where am I? Why and I here!” I shout at him, ignoring the cutting sensation from the ropes.

He pulls up a chair and sits down right in front of me. He stares at me as if I didn’t just ask him a barrage of questions. “You know you are a heavy sleeper. It was like I was dragging a dead body in here. Oh! This is my place by the way. It’s on a remote island so no one can disturb us.” He smiles big as if kidnapping me was something to be proud of.

“Why am I here?” I spat at him. Qimir looks at me as if I’m a piece of art to be gawked at. The way the ropes bite into my skin, I know they’ll leave marks and burns.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re here because I want you here.” He brushes his thumb against his bottom lip and continues to stare…study me. I begin to feel uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Why am I tied up like this? I’m not some prized piece of meat!” He leans forward and strokes his hand against the fatty flesh of my thigh. “Because you look pretty….You are a female Venus Fly. Rare even when your people were alive and thriving. What was the ratio? For every fifteen boys, only three girls would be born. And I do like to collect rare things. But you? You, Akasha not only are you rare but you’re deadly. I have great use for you.”

I give him a bewildered look. “You’re fucking craz-” He gets up knocking the chair over and he had his hand gripping my jaw. “Don’t call me that, I’m not crazy. I see we have to start some lessons on teaching you how to have manners and respect for others.”

“GET OFF OF ME YOU BASTARD!” I scream at him, but all he does is smile. “You know now you’re screaming and yelling but soon you’ll worship me like a God. And I’ll be sure to reward you.” He takes his other hand and he trails his three fingers down my bare flesh, slowly getting closer to my exposed pussy.

“Stop.” I say as I feel him near my pubic hairs. “Do you know how much restraint I had to have, tying you up like this? The temptation I had to open this pretty little thing and slide anything it in just to watch your reaction?” He parts my wet lips and I feel my clit spasm.

“You wanted to sodomize me? You’re no better than-“ He makes me eat my words when he slides his middle finger inside of me while he uses his other two fingers to rub my lips.

My body responds to his touch which makes me angry. “S…stop.” I stutter to him. He leans in close to my ear. “Your lips are telling me to stop but these sets of lips seem to be telling me another story. As a matter of fact, how about her and I get better acquainted.”

Qimir slides his finger out of me and my pussy misses the violation. I see him get on his knees for me and he looks up at me, as if I’m a deity of some sort and he’s is there to worship.

I watch him lean in close to inhale my sex and I want to shrink back from him but in my attempts the ropes dig deeper into my skin.

“You smell so sweet, I wonder if the taste is the same.” He leans in and I feel his tongue flicking across my clit.

I clamp my lips shut to keep from moaning but he makes it a challenge as he grips my roped hips and buries his face deep into my pussy.

My eyes roll back as I feel his tongue twirl and flick across my clit. He presses his tongue flat against my pussy and my body tries to rock to find more friction.

“Careful, one false move and you could cause more rope burn, Akasha. But you like a little pain and pleasure don’t you?” Qimir asks as he opens my lips wider and slides his tongue deep inside of me.

This time I let the moan slip out. I feel him smiling against my sex and I don’t care. I need a release. I need to use his face.

“P…please.” I moan out as I look down at him, eating me out. He shakes his head and now he’s only using the tip of his tongue. “If…you…want something…then…say…Master.” He says lazily twirling his tongue.

“Please Master.” I whine. “I need to come.” He gives a deep guttural chuckle. “Look at you, moaning like a bitch in heat. I won’t forgive you for calling me crazy. But I’m not that cruel of a master.” He gives a hard suck to my clit causing me to groan and then he gets up off of his knees.

I was breathing heavy as I watch him grab something from his table.

A light saber.

My body tenses from the memories in my past of how much damage something like that can cause.

He lights it and the hue is blood red. He brings it close to me and I fight the urge to flinch. The heat from the saber could melt even the finest hairs on a person or animals skin.

“Don’t worry, my little flower. I’ll never use this part on you…just this part.” He turns the saber off and flips it so the handle it near me.

“Tell me, will you let me be your master? Will you let me teach you how to be the perfect predator?” As he asks me, I feel him rub the handle of the saber against my swollen clit and I shudder as I stupidly nod.

I don’t say a word from the fear and in his eyes I can tell he knows I’m afraid of the saber. “Akasha…you had a lot to say earlier. Why aren’t you being so colorful with your words now?” He slides the handle in slowly causing my eyes to roll back but my body stiffens again.

“Does this scare you? Does this give you pleasure?” He strokes the handle against my entrance and I let a nod go. “Pl-”

“Ah, what do you say?”

“Master…please. Don’t do that.” I moan out as he slides the handle in slowly. “Don’t do what? Slide the handle of my saber inside of the needy plump pussy? You don’t want me to make you feel good?” He whispers against my ear as his hand finds my throat.

The fear I have gets clouded when starts to slowly fuck me with the saber. I feel the build up in my lower stomach as I moan.

“See? Your body likes to feel good. It likes when I do this, but imagine how it’s going to feel when I use the real thing. When my cock is penetrating deep into your walls.”

He goes faster and my moans become more lose my from lips. My thighs burn from the rope and from the tension I have in them.

You can hear the wet noises coming from my soaking wet slit and I don’t care. I want a release.

“You’re taking it so well, my little flower. I bet you want to come don’t you?” I nod quickly as he slows down the pace. I try to buck my hips but I can’t from my restricting position. He raises a brow at me then. “Yes! Yes I do Master. Please!” I beg and plead.

He loosens his grip on my throat and he fucks me harder with the saber making my climax about to hit the tipping point.

“I’m gonna come.” I breathe out as I feel the anticipated tingle. But he stops, he yanks the saber out and tosses it across the room and I give out a shriek of frustration.

“Now would a crazy person deny a creature such as yourself the pleasure of coming? Don’t answer that, you might tell me the wrong answer and piss me off-” He grabs me by my tangled curls and yanks my head back, causing the rope around my shoulders and shoulder blades to tighten.

“You belong to me now, Akasha. Your pleasure, your pain, your very existence is mine. And when I see fit to let you come, it will be on my cock, my mouth, or my fingers. Do you understand? You can speak.” He orders as he looks me in my eyes.

“Yes.” I say through clenched teeth. “Yes what?” He asks with a raised brow. “Yes master…”

“Good girl.” He lets me go and kisses my temple. “Get some rest, we have some training to do tomorrow.” He lets me go and simply walks away, leaving me strung up like some prize that’s been won.

The very second I get the chance, I’m going to kill Qimir. I should’ve known that his scent would lead me to the devils playpen…

[schoenht]

↳ if he wanted to, he would.

characters: ace trappola, lilia vanrouge, rollo flamme, silver, azul ashengrotto

synopsis: things that he does because he wants to or without being told to do so.

a/n: SHOUT OUT TO MY MOOTS THIS IS FOR YOU @taruruchi @linabirb @kunikame @lunavixia this is my early Christmas present to you all :D

Takes you out on spontaneous dates with nothing on his mind but you.

ACE never has a set plan in mind. Sure, he is not as impulsive as others but that doesn't mean he won't show up to your dorm at literally ungodly hours of the morning, just because he wanted to annoy you. (He's just a softie and will not admit he wanted to see you really badly.)

But Ace also loves taking you on dates. They are his favorite things because you're there and he can find little things about you that he never noticed before. Like the way your eyes sparkle at the sight of something you want, how your lips try to hold back from either sighing or laughing at a horrendous pun you made, how meticulously you scoured through every aisle to ensure you got the quality object you wanted.

Stays with you in silence, even when you're feeling at your lowest.

Dates are also a perfect time for him to spoil you. Never will you have to pay, except for the one time he forgot his wallet. Other than that, he refuses to let you pay. It's not much that he can do, he cannot get you the moon just yet, but memorizing your order, looking at the way your face lights up at your food. And every second he can take to be in your presence is a second he would fight for.

LILIA loves you and he doesn't need words to show it, albeit hardly being against it. But he also knows you and how you work when you're overwhelmed. There is a peaceful silence that you require and instead of getting up in your space, trying to hug you, he will give you options.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Do you want a snack? A plushie?"

"Do you want a hug?"

Writes you pages upon pages of his adoration for you. The expression "[one] could write hundreds of books and still not a number would suffice" comes from his actions.

You could lash out, you could stay silent. He knows, he can feel it. So he will stay there quietly unless you tell him otherwise. There is nowhere else he'd rather be than at your side. You're his lover, why wouldn't he stay? Even if you think you're a burden to him, you never will be. He has the strength and the compassion to hold you up. He always wants to hold you up, to love you at your lowest and at your highest. He's there no matter how many things come between you.

ROLLO is not too expressive, nor is he too reserved to interact. He prefers to release his adoration through ink and paper. The diary he has is barely finished and it is all because he is to focused on his journals that are written about you.

He studies your face when you're not looking, when he watches the moon with you. The moon itself pales in comparison to your beauty and while he doesn't think his sketches do you justice, they are enough to remind him of how precious he holds you to his heart. Every single bit of you is a part that he adores.

There is no shortage to the little things he sees about you. The things you don't notice? He does. Every single one. He writes it down with such careful handwriting, it feels like a caress to the cheek. He has love letters, poems, stories, date ideas, he has everything in those notebooks. They are stashed away in the back of his closet.

Makes you little crafts that remind him of you.

But one of those notebooks has one specific purpose and it will be your present for the day he gives his everlasting devotion to you. That notebook has love letters that could fill oceans with how many waves upon waves of adoration he has for you.

SILVER cannot keep himself awake most of the time and he hates himself for it because the dream version of you couldn't hold a candle to the real you. So instead, he makes himself stay up to create things. He is a soldier, a protector, yes, but with you, he is so incredibly soft.

He starts by crocheting you your favorite plush animals. He gives you paintings of landscapes that remind him of your eyes. He draws your face in a small sketchbook so many times, he has every part of you memorized. He annotates books to commentate on them with things he thinks you might like. He makes fake flowers out of pretty paper. He even makes you a blanket at some point, draping it over your shoulders when you study for finals.

Silver cannot stay awake for long, but heaven knows that he will do his absolute best to show you that he would move galaxies for you. He fears that the small crafts aren't enough, that you won't like them.

Would fly halfway across the world for you, just to see you for a minute.

But every single one of them holds a tiny piece of his heart. When you know you have enough, that is when you'll know he has given his whole heart to you.

AZUL isn't as open to showing love as most are. He tends to struggle with showing his vulnerability, even after all this time. He's afraid of losing his reputation but also afraid you'll find him too cheesy. So his acts of love comes in acts of service.

He's had to go across the world several times for his meetings and each time, he brings back some souvenir for you. But he knows that's not enough. If he misses you to the point where he would swim back, he couldn't imagine vice versa.

So, he has started traveling back to see you. He would drop a meeting, get on a jet, and get to your doorstep with flowers, just to see you for a minute. Maybe it's a hurried reunion but there is no denying the look in his eyes: the man is in love with you.

"You came from halfway across the world, just for me?"

He has to pause before he smiles a little. "I would do it several times, if only to see you for a minute." He definitely buries himself in an octopot once he leaves, but the sentiment is so incredibly sweet.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

is “villain” the best word to use in a scene description or a dialogue prompt between characters?

since I came across this poll and gave my little opinion on the matter there, I thought I would make a separate post about it too.

now what I’m not gonna do is tell my fellow writers what to do or what not to do. however, if I may, I hope you’ll allow me to give you my advice.

writers — especially those who write about superheroes, fantasy, etc — you may have used the word “villain” in your works before, and you may have thought nothing of the word itself; I mean, it fits best, right? a bad guy in a story where characters have superpowers is a villain.

I mean that’s the word for it. because for us, these are fictional works about fictional characters.

but…

for those characters in your work, the world you created for them are real for them. I mean… your characters don’t know they are fictional characters in a fictional world, correct? (unless you specifically write a story in which the characters know they’re fictional characters in a fictional world).

therefore you might want to ask yourself how realistic it is for these characters — who have no idea they are fictional characters and think they are real people — to call bad people “villains”

how realistic it is for us — real people — to call real-life criminals “villains”

what are the chances of us reading the news with the headline “two villains caught and in custody after a robbery attempt”?

the word “villain” just… doesn’t sound realistic in real world.

ask yourself how realistic you want your stories to be, as a writer who created a world in which the characters don’t know they are fictional.

how realistic it is for your characters (who think they are real people) to say, “there’s a villain around. we have to go.”

for your characters, they aren’t fictional characters, they are real. and these fictional worlds are real for them. if we’re not calling real-life criminals villains because they are real people to us. would your characters call someone who were real to them villains because they were bad?

now ask yourself how realistic you want your stories to be, as a writer — of course, a story where characters have superpowers or the one where characters live in a fantasy world aren’t so “realistic” for us, but if, as a writer, you want your readers to feel as though they live in that world you created while they read your work, you might not want to subtly remind them they’re reading a fictional work by directly referring to the bad guys as “villains”.

the key to professionally writing a story is that you make your readers forget they are reading a fictional story.

the key to professionally writing a story is that you make your readers feel as though they actually live in that world you create and are a part of that story.

there’s a reason most (if not all) superhero movies we see don’t include a scene where the hero refers to the bad guy as “a villain”. and that reason is that, for these characters, what happens in the movie is real to them. and also because the studios want their audience — us — to feel as though we actually live in that world. they don’t want to keep reminding us that “hey, this is a movie, it’s not real” by having the hero call the bad guy villain.

reminder: the world you create are real for those characters, and it should feel real for your readers to.

words to use instead of “villain”

murderer

monster

bad people / bad person

killer

son of a bitch

dick

cunt

dickhead

convicted

abuser

prick

dangerous (person / people)

predator

rapist

violent (person / people / man)

manipulator

traitor

unreliable

liar

troublemaker

troubled

unstable

corrupted

psychopath

capable of horrible, violent things

[felassan]

Shinobi602 comments on ResetEra:

"If Anthem was a runaway success, you'd be seeing a very different BioWare right now who'd be all in on the live service model. They're running uphill because they've got goodwill they need to earn back after the fact, but its failure (plus Fallen Order's success) is what allowed them to pivot right back to what they're good at: single player character driven RPGs. Silver lining but still." [source]

User: "I don't think its unreasonable to have hoped that a Dragon Age game would have similar gameplay to previous Dragon Age games." Shinobi: "Veilguard does have similar gameplay though, just not the exact same gameplay." [source]

"Open world doesn't automatically mean better. Inquisition's open world zones were basically Bioware's response to Skyrim and anticipating that's what players wanted. The big zones were cool but they were also bloated and full of uninteresting quests. Andromeda also took Mass Effect to huge open world zones and they had the same result. It was ass and the game benefited nothing from it. It's better for Bioware to stick to what they do best which is tighter, more structured play spaces." [source]

"they'll do what they think they're good at. Inquisition was highly rated, but the big open areas were also flawed. If they felt that's not what they'll excel at, that's fine. There ARE larger open areas in Veilguard though. If that's your very strict definition on what will make the game good apparently." [source]

"If you're sole definition of a Dragon Age game is that you can take direct control of companions and a tac-cam, it's understandable. But I think it's completely false that this is somehow unrecognizable as a Dragon Age game. There are tons of different aspects that define the series outside of that." [source]

"It's been evolving and changing for over a decade." [source]

"They did say there are some "killer cameos" they're keeping secret. My mind's going to several different possibilities..." [source]

User: "Yeah, they need to wrap up this story in this game. I'm already a little annoyed that we are getting another "the veil is torn and demons are wrecking havoc" story. They cannot stretch that to a third game." Shinobi: "It's a lot more than that. It's not a repeat of Inquisition or anything." [source]

"This might genuinely be the most in depth CC in a mainstream RPG that I've seen." [source]

"Yeah this is more like Inquisition, though you could still change out companion helmets in that one." [source]

"They did confirm tavern songs are back so that's good news, and The Swan (Minrathous tavern) has a bunch." [source]

"Yeah there's a good amount of veterans working on Veilguard. Though I always find that to be such a weird qualifier, and it seemingly always comes up with Bioware in particular. As if there aren't tons of talented non-Bioware devs from across the industry who could join the team and still write and design a great game. Like nah, it can't be a good game unless it's got people who've been there for 20 years! 😄" [source]

"There are also rune items you can equip that provide different effects and act as their own abilities basically, plus ultimate attacks for each class specialization (so 9 total), plus finisher moves and things like elemental combo detonations for extra damage." [source]

"there are definitely 'open areas' you can explore around in. It's not more linear than ME2." [source]

User: "Is my reading of "mission-based" it being like ME2/3 correct?" Shinobi: "Yeah, in that regard, it's more structured like Mass Effect, which I think is to its benefit. DAI just suffered way too much from open world bloat. I think the tighter, handcrafted structure works a lot better." [source]

User: "How big are the areas? Like the first game where you open the map and pick a location?" Shinobi: "Don't know exactly. But that's what I was told. There are several open ended areas that are explorable in the story. Plus a hub area." [source]

"I think if fans have been yearning for a quality Bioware game like they were used to before, this is that. Tight design, great character models, environments, animations have gone next level, combat fluidity, etc...it's all here. I compare it to the jump from ME1->ME2. [re: the jump in quality/fidelity/presentation.] This isn't a spoiler, as Game Informer said, it's a full on action RPG, and you can still pause and issue commands. But this is not DAO. Preferences put aside, Bioware's moved on from that ages ago. This isn't BG3 at all. But they've put a huge emphasis on making combat feel good to play. As in engaging the player, more real-time, more Mass Effect. It's a meaty, single player RPG with lots of systems going on inside. Also, like they said, this is the prologue, the beginning of the game. Keep that in mind if you don't see everyone's powers unlocked or intense pause and play. If you keep all that in mind, I think you'll really like this." [source]

"But it's a big jump for Bioware. [re: animations]" [source]

"[rogues are] flashy, jump around a lot, etc." [source]

"Party members can definitely get knocked out in battle" [source]

"It's important to note that what was shown was completely level 1 combat, and likely on easy mode for demo purposes. There is way more to it in more advanced battles. When it opens up with way more abilities, unique momentum attacks, ultimates, and other...things they haven't shared yet, on higher difficulties, it will look and feel way different." [source]

"It'll be rated M. It's got its share of nudity lol." [source]

User: "should we expect a comparable level of dialogue role playing as we had in Inquisition? I don't mind the changes to combat but there seemed to be more auto dialogue here than I remember from Inquisition or Tresspasser." Shinobi: "Yeah. That was just the intro. They just like to keep the pace going for a big start to the game." [source]

"This isn't accurate at all though, and it keeps getting perpetuated. Yes, there's been departures like Casey Hudson, Aaryn Flynn, Mike Laidlaw, etc, but I could easily list dozens of people at Bioware right now that have been there for 10-20+ years, some even longer. Do they just...not count for some reason? The entire core team building Mass Effect right now were OG leads on ME1-3, been there for over 20 years. And even outside of that, like, does this really matter? Do you know one of the game's premier VFX/lighting designers worked for ILM? Or one of the cinematic leads is an alum from Blizzard? Or one of the creature animators was a senior creature animator on Horizon Forbidden West? Talent is talent. And if we look at the industry through that lens too, sure, tons of studios are just "X, Y, Z studio in name", in many ways. There's no studio in the industry that holds on to their entire team for 30-40 years." [source]

"They do have that data. And I think even this thread would be shocked at how tiny of a % of players took direct control of other companions. Or went into tac-cam. Not just Inquisition but the whole series." [source]

[mirohlayo]

just a little blurb before writing my next lando fic

word count : 823

-

You are comfortably seated on Lando's soft sofa in his apartment. He invited you to spend the evening at his place, like almost every evening since it has become a habit for both of you. You've been friends since childhood, so obviously he took pleasure in inviting you to sleep at his place every night, and cook your dinner together at the same time. And then watch a few films and series on your big TV.

Like now. Titanic plays before your eyes, while you devour the film as if it were the first time you watched it. Even if in reality you have already discovered this film hundreds of times. However, you have always liked this love story and you have always wanted to experience these same feelings in real life.

Love. You loved love. You know that love is found everywhere, in moments of success or when you are in the presence of your family and friends. You were aware of that. No, you were talking about love. Romance, soft touches filled with innocence, eager looks, passionate kisses, tenderness in every action.

This is the love you dream of so much. Being able to confide in yourself without being judged, finding comfort in this person, maybe even feeling at home in their arms. Love is like a waking dream for you, and you wanted to feel all of that from a young age. After all, you were lulled by the love stories of young princesses and their prince charming.

You were so lost daydreaming about these ideas about love that you didn't notice Lando approaching you. “What’s got you thinking like that?” He smirks as he places a tray filled with sweets and fruit on the small table in front of you, accompanied by two glasses of water. “Nothing, I’m just thinking about how I still haven’t experienced perfect love.” You focus on the movie again while Lando comes to sit next to you.

“The one you’ve dreamed of since you were little?” A hint of obviousness lurks in his voice as he taps his laps to invite you to lay your head on them. "Precisely. I don't even remember when was the last time I went on a date" Lando sighs softly, running one of his hands through your hair. You make yourself comfortable in his embrace. “Oh, seeing how those guys were I understand why you stopped.”

He was right. All the men you met on your dates were beyond terrible. Not one to catch up with the other. Between the one who only alluded to sex, the one who only spoke about himself, or even the one who made the most sexist and problematic comments in the world. No doubt about it, all your dates have been failures.

And when you came home completely tired from these dates, Lando was always there to comfort you and keep you company. Deep down, he was happy. He was relieved that those men hadn't stolen your heart, because he hoped he was the only one who did. But he will never admit it to you. Well, unless he has the courage to do it.

As you actively watch the film, you can't help but admire the romance between the two characters. It's so... beautiful. "You know Lan, I'm a lover of love". Your sentence had come out softly from your mouth, and your eyes were still scanning the screen intensively. It's like you're whispering to yourself.

He lowers his head to look at you. Maybe it was at that moment that he realized that this would probably be his last chance. "Good. Because I'm filled with so much love". A silence settled. You didn't really understand the meaning of his sentence, so you just didn't react at first. But when the click came, you slowly got up to face him.

“What?” You don't really know what to say, if those words he said are what you think. If he really insinuated it in that sense, the meaning you would so much like it to be. "I'm filled with so, so much love sweetheart. Just for you". A soft smile appears on his face, while his gaze is simply tender when he sets his eyes on you. You can even swear you can see hearts forming there.

You stifle a small laugh, your heart beating at the speed of light. “So you mean I can be in love with you?” He ended up laughing stupidly, almost kissing you right then and there. “Of course, baby. That’s all I ask for.” And finally, it's you who ends up placing your lips on his, in one of those passionate kisses that you dreamed of so much.

And with Lando by your side, it seems right. Finally, you will be able to experience this romantic love story that you wanted so much, because you have the most perfect prince to offer you everything you dream of.

[physalian]

“How do I know if my story needs work or if I’m just being hard on myself?”

As I sit here accepting the fact that at 70k words into Eternal Night’s sequel while waiting for my editor for Eternal Night itself, that I have made an error in my plot.

Disclaimer: This is not universal and the writing experience is incredibly diverse. Figuring this out also takes some time and building up your self-confidence as an author so you can learn to separate “this is awful (when it’s not)” and “this is ok (but it can be better)” and “this isn’t working (but it is salvageable).”

—

When I wrote my first novel (unpublished, sadly), years ago, I would receive feedback all over the chapters and physically have to open other windows to block off parts of the screen on my laptop to slow-drip the feedback because I couldn’t handle constructive criticism all at once. I had my betas color-code their commentary so I could see before I read any of it that it wasn’t all negative. It took me thrice as long as it does today to get through a beta’s feedback because I got so nervous and anxious about what they would say.

The main thing I learned was this: They’re usually right, when it’s not just being mean (and even then, it’s rarely flat out mean), and that whatever criticisms they have of my characters and plot choices is not criticism of myself.

It did take time.

But now I can get feedback from betas and even when I hear “I’d DNF this shit right now unless you delete this,” I take a step back, examine if this one little detail is really that important, and fix it. No emotional turmoil and panic attack needed. I can also hear “I didn’t like it” without heartbreak. Can’t please everyone.

The only time I freak out is when I'm told "this won't need massive edits" followed up by, in the manuscript, "I'd DNF this shit right now". Which happened. And did not, in fact, require a massive rewrite to fix.

So.

What might be some issues with your story and why it “isn’t working”.

1. Your protagonist is not active enough in the story

You’ve picked your protagonist, but it’s every other character that has more to do, more to say, more choices to make, and they’re just along for the ride, yet you are now anchored to this character’s story because they’re the protagonist. You can either swap focus characters, or rework your story to give them more agency. Figure out why this character, above any other, is your hero.

2. Your pacing is too slow

Even if you have a “lazy river” style story where the vibes and marinating in the world is more important than a breakneck plot, slow pacing isn’t just “how fast the story moves” it’s “how clearly is the story told,” meaning if you divert the story to a side quest, or spend too long on something that sure is fluffy or romantic or funny, but it adds nothing to the characters because it’s redundant, doesn’t advance the plot, doesn’t give us more about the world that actually matters to the themes, then you may have lost focus of the story and should consider deleting it, or editing important elements into the scenes so they can pull double-duty and serve a more active purpose.

3. You’ve lost the main argument of your narrative

Sometimes even the best of outlines and the clearest plans derail. Characters don’t cooperate and while we see where it goes, we end up getting hung up on how this one really cool scene or argument or one-liner just has to be in the story, without realizing that doing so sacrifices what you set out to accomplish. Personally I think sticking to your outline with biblical determination doesn’t allow for new ideas during the writing process, but if you find yourself down the line of “how did we get here, this isn’t what I wanted” you can always save the scenes in another document to reuse later, in this WIP or another in the future.

4. You’re spending too long on one element

Even if the thing started out really cool, whether it’s a rich fantasy pit stop for your characters or a conversation two characters must have, sometimes scenes and ideas extend long past their prime. You might have characters stuck in one location for 2 or 3 chapters longer than necessary trying to make it perfect or stuff in all these details or make it overcomplicated, when the rest of the story sits impatiently on the sidelines for them to move on. Figure out the most important reasons for this element to exist, take a step back, and whittle away until the fat is cut.

5. You’ve given a side character too much screentime

New characters are fun and exciting! But they can take over the story when they’re not meant to, robbing agency from your core characters to leave them sitting with nothing to do while the new guy handles everything. You might end up having to drag your core characters along behind them, tossing them lines of dialogue and side tasks to do because you ran out of plot to delegate with one character hogging it all (which is the issue I ran into with the above mentioned WIP). Not talking about a new villain or a new love interest, I mean a supporting character who is supposed to support the main characters.

—

As for figuring out the difference between “this is awful and I’m a bad writer” and “this element isn’t working” try pretending the book was written by somebody else and you’re giving them constructive criticism.

If you can come up with a reason for why it’s not working that doesn’t insult the writer, it’s probably the latter. As in, “This element isn’t working… because it’s gone on too long and the conversation has become cyclical and tiring.” Not “this element isn’t working because it’s bad.”

Why is it bad?

“This conversation is awkward because…. There’s not enough movement between characters and the dialogue is really stiff.”

“This fight scene is bad because….I don’t have enough dynamic action, enough juicy verbs, or full use of the stage I’ve set.”

“This romantic scene is bad because…. It’s taking place at the wrong time in the story. I want to keep it, but this character isn’t ready for it yet, and the vibe is all wrong now because they’re out-of-character.”

“This argument is bad because…. It didn’t have proper build-up and the sudden shouting match is not reflective of their characters. They’re too angry, and it got out of hand quickly. Or I’m not conveying the root of their aggression.”

—

There aren’t very many bad ideas, just bad execution. “Only rational people can think they’re crazy. Crazy people think they’re sane,” applies to writing, too.

I just read a fanfic recently where, for every fight scene, I could tell action was not the writer’s strong suit. They leaned really heavily on a crutch of specific injuries for their characters, the same unusual spot getting hit over and over again, and fights that dragged on for too long being unintentionally stagnant. The rest of the fic was great, though, and while the fights weren’t the best, I understood that the author was trying, and I kept reading for the good stuff. One day they will be better.

In my experience beta reading, it’s the cocky authors who send me an unedited manuscript and tell me to be kind (because they can’t take criticism), that they know it’s perfect they just want an outside opinion (they don’t want the truth, they want what will make them feel good), that they know it’s going to make them a lot of money and everyone will love it (they haven’t dedicated proper time and effort into researching marketing, target audiences, or current trends)—these are the truly bad authors. Not just bad at writing, but bad at taking feedback, are bullies when you point out flaws in their story, and cheap, too.

The best story I have received to date was where the author didn’t preempt with a self-deprecating deluge of “it’s probably terrible you know but here it is anyway” or “this is perfect and I’m super confident you’re going to love it”.

It was something like, “This is my first book and I know it has flaws and I’m nervous but I had a lot of fun doing it”.

And yeah, it needed work, but the bones of something great were there. So give yourself some credit, yeah?

[coffeegnomee]

Writing this because I don’t see anyone analyzing the Kab lore and I’m genuinely intrigued as to how people are viewing it.

It’s just such an interesting and all over the place story atm. I have a huge amount of faith that she will make an amazing story by the end of the season. I’m willing to let her cook. She has to get practice in this somehow.

But also she’s just so all over the place. And not really embracing the depth of mcrp, but that's a different story.

This started from having a hard time drawing the line between lore and not lore because I refuse to just say “Kab in the box was lore and everything else is not” even though I’m pretty sure that is like exactly how she views it. 

Because the moment Red killed her she went to chat and said something like “chat it only took me three weeks to get lore on the server!” Like girl it’s been lore. All of it is lore. 

And then the box arc was just like, enter the box angry at Red because he’s forcing you to hide, go through your friends and realize you care about them, go through the rest of the team and remember you f-ing hate all of them, including the friends at the start. Leave the box angry at Red, using pacifism as a cover to get close to Woogie to destroy Red. 

Like am I crazy to say that she didn’t change in the slightest because of the box and you could take that whole arc away and nothing would be different? 

But what IS interesting about that is how she never got over Red killing her. Never. I think she hoped that the box would soothe her out of that hate and come to a different conclusion, but by the end the (almost too real) rage about him killing her, especially after she made him that armor, pervades to this day. 

Now THAT’S lifesteal, holding the hurt until it has a real resolution, not trying to get yourself over it quicker. As Red said last season “we make our best content when we actually hate each other” (not a direct quote, Zam said it) and as uncomfortable as that is to blend real hate into the ability to tell a story, there is real truth to that, that unless you, You the Writer, actually Care about the stakes of the story, you’re not going to write a good story. And nothing makes you care more than actually caring.

But Kab puts up these walls around herself to delineate character vs streamer. She is, to her credit, quite good at being in character, to the point where when she drops the character it is so jarring to be told none of it is real, this is just lore. It’s wildly jarring. And makes it quite difficult to find her character to be endearing? At least for me. Because she consistently does little things to break the fourth wall like clearly having left the box to get materials. Girl PLEASE why did you not just include getting materials and being paranoid about being caught as a PART of that story?? Sigh. 

So she, in her mind, has a very clear distinction for what is her character. And a distinction for what she herself is willing to do. And that separation makes basically everything she says “in character” a lie; like she can say what she wants, be dramatic and make a cool tragic character, but that will not have a real meaning on who she is as a character on Lifesteal as a whole.

And what I find fascinating is that despite that, she is a mirror to whoever is in front of her. She absolutely becomes whatever the person in front of her is. 

She comes out of the box saying she will use pacifism to get to Woogie. But then Flame blows up spawn and she feels bad, so she talks to Zam and within 5 seconds you can tell she’s fully dedicated to that task. She fully embraces being pacifist. Because Zam is pacifist. 

But then Zam leaves to practice MCCR and next thing you know she’s talking to Wemmbu and within 5 seconds he convinces her to kill Planet publicly and with everyone online, breaking her away from pacifism. 

This also despite the fact that Wemmbu is Shit at instigating people like Zam and Pangi. He tried SO HARD to get them to kill him or change their views. But one devil on the shoulder to Flame got him to blow up spawn and one second with Kab got her to cave and kill Planet (TWICE! And get Mid’s heart!). SOOOO interesting how his approach works so wildly differently on new members vs old. 

So she mirrors whoever is around her. What a fascinating character trait out of the master manipulator. Is it manipulation? Or does she really fully and truly emotionally believe what she says in those moments? Does she come back with manipulation ideas after to fit whatever impulse she had in the moment? 

And then there’s the Mapicc castle. I 100% believe she was the one to blow it up. Maybe I’m just projecting. Maybe it was wemmbu during the window he had his pc and when he didn’t. Maybe it was someone else.

But she just declared herself evil. It’s only natural to try and instigate chaos and get the members blaming each other for things that you did. 

But she was SO GOOD during that conversation. Brainstorming and giving ideas for who else it could be, pinning the wemmbu heads on Mid but also pulling back and saying it couldn’t be her for the explosions, trying to work out the timeline. Like in so many ways she sounded like Spoke making up a story and being Unhelpful(TM). And she went out of her way to drive to her office just to have this conversation.

But also she seemed so helpful, so genuinely trying to brainstorm and pick apart this juicy puzzle in front of her. And therefore just curious, not manipulative. 

GAH I just can’t decide! She’s either completely brilliant or completely incompetent and succeeding by accident!

And it’s even more interesting given the thought that she came into Lifesteal riding the high of MoneySMP and how she pulled off a betrayal arc super well. But that was Kab vs rando content creators in the mcyt space. 

Now she’s Kab vs the very people who defined betrayal in mcyt. Everyone on lifesteal shares her ability to lie and manipulate. The thing that once made her unique is the very fabric of the server she is on. She thinks she’s got a leg up on everyone, but she’s merely on the same playing field. And that’s so dang interesting. Because she still doesn’t consider herself to merely be on the same playing field. She still thinks she’s better at this than anyone else. 

She said during the stream where Mane destroyed the Mice base (7/23/24) that she likes playing cocky characters because it makes the fall all the greater. But she just IS that cocky at times. Every time she’s jumped she’s giggly and cocky about being slick and avoiding being killed again because she sits on the respawn screen. 

So she’s cocky and willing to cause chaos, but she’s not the progenitor of chaos. She is not a worldender. She only causes chaos when someone nudges her towards it, not out of an internal desire to be chaotic and an understanding of the need for chaos on lifesteal.

And perhaps it’s because deep down, she cares about the people on the server. Not in the way Zam cares where he feels awful about everything he does that is evil and repents and has remorse over his actions. 

But she is affected by her caring. One of the most interesting moment of Kab lore was when she saw the photo of Mane standing in the blown up Mice base. 

KAB: “wow […] I knew he would blow it up, but like seeing the image is still like, fuck”

CLOWN: “really?” 

KAB: “THIS HASN’T HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE” 

CLOWN: “hasn't it happened to you like twice?” 

KAB: “he didn’t blow it up last time [...] I think, I think I have to leave. I think I should leave. I’m putting like hannah and red and leo at risk right now” 

It’s an involuntary reaction, something that is intrinsic to her core. She immediately went to: I should stop being on this team so I can save Hannah and Leo. I don’t want to see them get hurt. 

And this is before she knew Woogie was wanting to leave the Mice because he thought she was a threat!

This was before Red killed her! 

She came to this conclusion that she was dangerous to her friends outside of them agreeing with it. 

And she never brought this back up when she was in the box. She to this day thinks she did nothing intrinsically wrong (ie dangerous to others) by antagonizing Mane. At least as a character she refuses to accept this. But for a second there Kab Kaboodle came through and knew that to be an intrinsic fact. And then she didn’t expand on it. Missed opportunity tbh. 

And then I’ll end with an analysis of the Mane conversation after he blew up the base. Because it’s so interesting to see Kab banter in lore (though I suppose from her pov it wasn’t lore yet because this was before Red killed her) and see her say Way Too Much. She says she’s a master manipulator but girl you leak freaking everything. 

So, she says what she said above, then a few minutes later gets in vc with Mane.

MANE: “you didn’t think I had the guts.. To blow up the base of [unintelligible]” 

KAB: “[talking over him] you didn’t blow up the other one”

This whole conversation Kab interrupts Mane so much. She has to say things, to prove herself. Even when staying silent would give her so much more information.

MANE: “I’m gonna be honest, I was just looking for a reason” 

Every pvper on lifesteal ONLY acts evil when they have a reason. It’s so consistent. It’s never “just because”.

Kab says she put posters up of him bc she thought it was funny. 

 MANE: “yeeaa I find it funny too um. You said you're not scared which, I- I find pretty amusing” 

KAB: “ok!” 

MANE: “because you're obviously pretty scared” 

KAB: “you’re not scary. Dude. like your strength of the sword doesn’t fucking scare me dude. When you actually get smart and shit then then come talk to me” 

Super cocky. Super dismissive. Just looking for a power dynamic to make her regain control over the situation. That’s not manipulation that’s just a power grab.

MANE: “Ok. I’ll talk to you when I get smart I guess but I mean, I dunno, according to these dogs here you've been at, at the deepest level of the cave for for a while, almost like you’re hiding. [pause, Kab freezes and pulls up coords] am I right about that? That seems pretty scared to me. I dunno. But um” 

Mane absolutely cooks in this conversation but Kab just refuses to be affected by his lines and instead mocks him for being stereotypically tough guy. And yet she got scared there. She brought up her coords. 

KAB: “[scoff] alright buddy” 

MANE: “I dunno the way that you’re like, you're like interacting and the way that you’re like going about this is not the way that I would go about it personally”

KAB: “well, we’re very different people” 

MANE: “I mean. Okay. how do I rephrase this. The way that you’re going about this is not the way any other person has gone about this before” 

KAB: “thank you!” 

MANE: “it’s not a complement.” 

KAB: “I think it’s a complement. I appreciate that” 

MANE: “I’m calling you stupid.” 

KAB: “I try to be original” 

MANE: “you’re being stupid” 

KAB: “maybe in your eyes yea” 

MANE: “cause you’re gonna make a new base, I mean, you haven't even stopped to question how I found this one, which is quite interesting.” 

He’s calling her stupid for not asking more questions. Especially after she just called HIM the stupid one. He’s clearly smarter than he looks

KAB: “oh I know how you found it” 

MANE: “how did I find it” 

KAB: “my team already told me, I’m not telling you” 

Instead of fishing for more information, playing dumb, Kab instead goes for posturing that she is far smarter than him. She could’ve used this to make him think she’s stupid or to actually learn how he found the base so she can be safer in the future (later she tells chat the she has no idea how he found the base). And interesting move out of someone who wants to manipulate people. Usually you would want to play dumb, not play cocky.

MANE: “[scoff] you don’t know how I found that base” 

KAB: “okay! You can believe that” 

MANE: “yea, because if you did, there’s no secret to keep from me. Like the way I found the base myself”

KAB: “[interrupting] girl you know I don’t use that base right?” 

MANE: “okay. That’s your teammate’s base” 

KAB: “that’s fair. That is my teammate’s base. I more feel bad for them rather than me.” 

MANE: “yea. Yea. I feel bad for them too. It would suck to like, like, if I had a teammate, you know, especially considering like the fact that you, you- overall you’re team’s isn’t like the most skilled um if I was always suffering the consequences of my teammate’s actions who obviously doesn’t care about what they say” 

He’s using the info Woogie gave him to make her feel bad/see if she does feel bad AND SHE DOESN’T HIDE A SINGLE THING!

KAB: “girl if you’re trying to guilt me it’s not gonna work” 

MANE: “I’m not trying to guilt you, I I’m just saying like, if I was your teammate I- I would feel horrible, you know? You’re like” [.... devolves as mane is like if you want to loose teammates you can, and kab goes don’t mansplain to me (again, being cocky. refusing to be scared)] 

MANE: “even if you’re not scared, you’re putting your teammates in jeopardy, which you clearly already know, which is very interesting, very interesting trait for someone who cares about her team. So. I just wanted talk to you and get your consensus on the situation” 

He was fully going to stop the conversation there. But she just missed the cue and started to willingly gave him more information because her adhd ass thought that was a question not a statement /pos

KAB: “yea.. I’m I’m not overly fussed. It’s inconvenient. and that’s about it. It’s inconvenient” 

MANE: “for who?” 

KAB: “me” 

She’s revealing that her motivations on lifesteal revolve around herself. She cares more about herself than teammates in the long run. Like I said earlier, she intrinsically does care about people, but on lifesteal in particular she will first care about herself. 

MANE: “oooooh. See but you just said you care about your teammates and [unintelligible]”

KAB: “I do, but let’s be real two of them don’t log on very often and Leo’s been doing his own thing anyway. So” 

MANE: “oh. I guess you’re team’s already disbanded so” Mane brings back up how he just wanted to see what she thought about it. Again she just keeps talking.

KAB: “I think you’re being predictable and I think that’s helpful” 

MANE: “aw yea bro, glad I could help out”

[…more chatting] 

MANE: “If hiding doesn’t mean that you’re scared, I don’t know what hiding means” 

KAB: “I mean not everything has to have and emotional reaction” 

MANE: “I mean it’s not really an emotional reaction: if you’re hiding you’re scared of something” 

KAB: “scared is an emotion” 

MANE: “nah, fear is an emotion” DAMN SON. he really can just drop the dramatic bars bro. 

KAB: “fear is an emotion. I say being fearful and being scared is the same thing.” 

MANE: “if you weren’t fearful you wouldn’t be hiding” 

KAB: “that's not necessarily true” 

MANE: “how” 

KAB:” okay-” 

MANE: “hold on hold on hold on. [wanting direct clarification] Before we get into that, you’re saying that you’re not scared.” 

KAB: “no. [laughing at him]” 

MANE:” You’re not scared at all”

KAB: “no. I’m not scared at all” 

MANE: “Okay. as long as we get that out of the way” 

KAB: “I’m just not an idiot. But I’m not scared at all, no.” 

MANE: “okay. Ooooh, so you’re saying like the smart thing to do is hide” 

(/genuinely realizing this in real time. He did not understand this until this very moment)

KAB: “I mean, yea. Let’s be realistic. You are much better at pvp than I am and you have more hearts than me [ect] I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to keep my survival. HOLY SHIT I JUST REALIZED A PARALLEL. You’re a lion and I’m a rabbit” [derailed, mane says he got what he wanted, thinks she got something out of it too] 

KAB: “can I ask you one thing quickly?” 

This, I think, is the only thing Kab actually cared to ask this whole conversation. She was not being purposeful in anything else, just responding to what Mane was saying and saying things. But she wasn’t really listening to what was happening, she was too focused on looking tough and explaining herself. Until this moment.

MANE: “mmmhm?” 

KAB: “why did you go after my base and try and kill me? Was it the posters? Is that why?” 

MANE: “well, the posters were just a good reason” 

KAB: “you just want to do it?” 

MANE: “I’m gonna be honest. It’s just fun” 

KAB: “oooh. So I did categorize you correctly. Ok cool!” 

MANE: “[sad] ooh. okay.“ 

Leaves call KAB: “yea Mane is just as predictable as I thought he was”

Clown comes back in vc KAB: “[explaining the convo] he just wants to. He just thinks it’s fun. He’s just a crazy villain. I told you!” 

But like, I don’t think it’s that. I think we learned that you can get Mane to hunt someone very very easily, just give him a small excuse and he’ll gladly do it. Which is useful if you want a villain or want someone to hunt you. So in that way he is super predictable. But he isn’t “a crazy villain” the posters were just an excuse, an excuse he had been looking for. Because he wants an excuse. That is very different than pure “it was for the fun”. 

The fact that she comes to the conclusion that he’s just a crazy villain after that conversation is crazy. I feel like she just was looking for confirmation for a hypothesis she had rather than really looking for research to see who Mane is. 

Which is a huge flaw for someone who wants to figure out why people are the way they are so you can manipulate them. 

I feel like Mane, if he is smart, learned far far more information about her than she did from him.

The tension for the Kab lore here lies in how this will all blow up in her face. I think she will cling to things and copium her way into believing she won no matter what. But she will have been absolutely destroyed. 

And I keep getting hit with her being incompetent because she like, wildly, and I mean WILDLY, makes wrong assumptions about the older Lifestealer’s motivations.

Which is crazy to me because she WAS a viewer! She, in theory, (but probably not in practice because no cc has enough time to watch another smp with as much attention to detail and analysis that we do) should have a really solid understanding of the crew, and she self reports that she does but she’s been wrong so many times. 

Like not only does she get Mane completely wrong here, but when Spoke logged on one night and said he was betraying the empire because of jepex she flat out believed him??? And like brought it up again later like it was true. 

She thinks Zam has a huge plan of becoming evil. She had this whole moment in the box where she mansplained to chat that we are being fooled by him. We were being gaslit by him into thinking he isn’t planning on being evil at the end. And it was just so painful to watch because she’s just so wrong. 

Because Zam has never ever thought of his lore like that. He’s reactionary to the extreme, believing he will take the current lore to the end of the season regardless of how early it is in the season. He becomes evil by the end more often than he doesn’t, but it’s not premeditated. And she should know that. 

And she assumed that Red wouldn’t kill her. Like, no, I didn’t see it coming either, but it was a very Reddoons move. To take it personal when someone causes him anxiety. There were other small assumptions she made on older life stealer motivations that I can’t remember now. 

But to clear it out, what motivates Kab Kaboodle?? She hates not being believed. That’s what I took from all this. This is her trigger, the thing that will motivate her forward. 

Because she does lie and manipulate. And that relies upon being believed. So when someone believes something that isn’t true about her (like Red’s assumptions that she was leaking info to Clown) it hurts a hell of a lot more. 

But because she lies, nobody will ever believe her when she desperately tries to get them to believe the truth.

So yea. What do you guys think about Kab and her lore? 

[linktotheheart]

I feel like so many people misunderstand BOTW/TOTK Link especially (Zelda too, but that's another topic entirely)

His lack of expressiveness IS a personality trait. It's a direct result of the pressure on his soldiers to be a perfect soldier, hero, and savior. No, he's not Skyward Sword Link, and never will be, because his story is completely different.

"But [other Link] hugged Zelda when he got her back!" and this Link maintained a respectful distance as his princess's subordinate - but ALSO out of respect for Zelda as a person, because she spent her whole childhood having her agency denied and he wants to let her initiate even something as simple as platonic contact whenever possible. He's being kind!

(And yes, I know that primarily only the "he is a knight and she is a princess" part is directly supported in the actual game, but I'll remind the people making comparisons that the dynamic was COMPLETELY different in their favorite comparison game, Skyward Sword. But also... look at the gentleness with which Link interacts with Zelda, the tenderness that he shows so few other characters - Mipha probably being the closest example. Look at the way he looks to her first to see what to do in every scene they're in together, unless he's protecting her from an immediate threat to her life. Notice how outside of that, Zelda IS usually the one to initiate any physical contact)

I also personally hate it when people describe quiet, not very expressive people as "lacking personality" because... my partner IRL is like that. If she expressed herself at all around most people, it's in a very flat, reserved way. I've seen how it hurts her that people treat her like she doesn't have a personality, like she isn't even a full person - and I know that's real life and Zelda is fiction, but come on, do you think all the people that aren't highly expressive and extroverted don't hear that about very popular characters and internalize it?

Being reserved is a personality trait. Being cautious and not impulsive is a personality trait. In fact, I'd even say just because you as an expressive, extroverted person see Link as a blank slate to project your own personality onto, doesn't mean he actually is or was even intended that way.

(I also think this is a very US-centric point of view, honestly. There's plenty of cultures where even BOTW Link would be considered at least close to average - Finnish culture specifically comes to mind, even if he's still slightly exaggerated in that regard as, y'know, a character.)

Idk, this is as much a silly little vent post as anything, it's not that serious, etc, but whatever

(and don't get me started on "oh Zelda got no agency in TOTK and she learned the powers she was struggling overnight". No, it's called a time skip, and just because she learned her powers before the 13th hour this time - which yeah, she would get them easier this time with a mentor who could actually use the same powers, and having already learned to use her light powers - doesn't mean it just "happened overnight". And... she didn't express agency? She was actively influencing the entire flow of the timeline, changing the actions of her ancestors by convincing her ancestors to act, learning to control her powers and fighting Ganondorf, and finally expressing the ultimate form of autonomy in choosing to sacrifice herself to save the world. Some of the criticisms of TOTK didn't even seem to play the same game. Just because a heroine isn't a pop feminist badass who *gasp* wears pants and easily and perfectly kicks every villain's ass, doesn't mean she "has no agency" and is being sidelined. Like, a princess engaging in courtly politics is neither powerless nor "doing nothing")

[whoishotteranimepolls]

I've been waiting to respond since you made that post mocking us for wanting problematic characters banned from your polls because apparently you are not taking legitimate criticism of anime seriously. Because it is full of poor representation of minorities and lgbtq+ and you and all of your followers are laughing about it like it's nothing.

I will start with Yamato because everyone acts like one piece even though it's so full of misogyny. Having a trans character is amazing when I don't even think Yamato is actually trans. I'm pretty sure it's a translation error and everyone has latched on to it. So again that is not good representation if it's not confirmed representation and even if it was confirmed, it's not good representation. Yamato because of the one piece art style by default Yamato is full-blown a fetishization of trans people because all one piece characters if they are drawn, female presenting are drawn like sex dolls. So unless they go through an actual gender transition and not just a pronoun change. There cannot be good representation with Yamato because Yamato is a fetish, not a fully fleshed out character. I mean to boil it all down. I don't think the author is capable of having any good lgbtq+ representation one piece is just not a sophisticated enough story and the characters are just too shallow for that to be possible

Bleach did a similar thing with Yoruichi acting like it was so amazing to have a character of color and she is supposedly bisexual but she's just waifu bait and it reeks of misogyny and fetishization of BIPOC. She's a furry to top it all off. It doesn't help that the bunny chick from my hero is basically the new gen version of the same character, but at least she is disabled too. So at least they tried to do something with her character other than waifu bait

So I would like to know why every character I've seen promoted as great representation in anime for either the BIPOC or LGBTQ+ communities seem to only be horribly fetishized, useless, waifu bait. Not actually a good character.

And even when Japan is dealing with its own ethnic minorities and indigenous populations it still does a horrible job by playing into the Noble Savage stereotype Hollywood likes to play into. Have you not seen the anime Golden Kamuy? It's about Japan's own first Nations tribe and it's So disrespectful to that. I swear they could not have had a single person from Hokkaido, much less a member of the actual Ainu people involved in the creation of that anime or manga. And yet I've seen so many people brag about that anime and manga and how it's so good for diversity. When again, every single Ainu character acts like a bad native American stereotype from like a 1950s American Hollywood western. It's that bad and don't get me started on the fan service in that show. It's at a level that could be considered exploitative but it's okay. Some of the characters might be gay so it's representation. To top it all off it reinforces white colonial beauty standards because the main Ainu character is specially because she's half white and has blue eyes like her white dad and she talks about how she's going to be a new kind of better Ainu for the future because she's white passing. That show is a reductive racist dumpster fire and I can't believe anyone says otherwise.

But you said you won't ban characters unless the fandom becomes too toxic. But you really should consider looking out for the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities by not promoting toxic problematic characters and actually banning these toxic problematic characters and shows

Fandoms vs Illiteracy #1

Feel free to critique the essay but not the person nor the person's intelligence. Do not call names, degrade the person, or personally attack them in any way. The purpose of this series is to critique/analyze the arguments contained in the essays.

For those unfamiliar with the characters mentioned, here are pictures. The names are in the alt text.

And here's one of the promotional images for season 2 of Golden Kamuy

So now that everyone is a little bit more familiar with everything mentioned in the essay and knows the rules, feel free to do your own research and respond.

[undeadcannibal]

Hi! Hope your doing well.

I was wondering if I can have some headcannons of for Ghost, Price and Gaz reacting to their s/o trying to hand hold back tears and slowly starting sobbing in front of them?

Summary: How Price, Gaz, and Ghost would react to their S/O sobbing. Genre: Headcanons, request(s) Characters featured: Price, Gaz, and Ghost Warnings: None! A/N: Heya Anon, I’m doing well, thanks! Hanging in there the best I can. Hopefully you’re doing well too! I hope you enjoy this because if you couldn’t tell, I’m emotionally constipated when it comes to comforting others, fml. OTL  ( Gif credit: xxx )

Price―

He’s concerned enough to put off all work until after you’re feeling better

Lowering himself down to your level, much like Gaz, he’ll speak soft, encouraging words to you to try and figure out what’s wrong.

If it’s too difficult to explain, or you’re just feeling overwhelmed with negative emotions, it doesn’t matter. He’ll be there for you regardless.

If you want to sit in his lap, you can. If not, he’s there by your side, either letting you sob it out into his shoulder or if you’d prefer, he’s distracting you with personal stories and exaggerated tales he’s heard from others.

If that doesn’t work and you’d rather just cry, that’s fine too.

Price is wrapping an arm around you in a half-hug and resting his chin on top of yours as you sob and break down. Letting the stress out physically.

Sure, it pains him to see you in such a state, but he also understands it’s healthy to feel emotions like that, and even healthier to release them.

I can also see him being the type to get you somewhere comfy like the couch or bed so he can get you to lay down with some pillows and blankets with him.

Will also absolutely shower you with constant praise and sweet nothings during the worst times.

Gaz―

Seeing you holding so much back triggers his empathy to the point he’s nearly crying with you. Yet, he doesn’t want to be selfish and ruin the moment.

Instead, he’s speaking to you in a soft tone, calling your name to try and gain your attention, he’ll take your hands in his own. Stroking his thumbs over the back of your hands as he tries to understand how you’re feeling.

If you can’t bring yourself to talk about it - or don’t want to - he doesn’t press further and instead assures you he’s more than happy to be a support system regardless.

When you start to break down more, falling into an all-out sobbing altogether, he’s cooing soft words to you before asking if he can do anything.

If you want something, he’s jumping up to get it without another word. If you’d rather him be there to hug you, or just be there for silent support, he’s cool with that as well.

Though, part of me personally feels he’s the type to sit you down somewhere comfortable yet secluded, leaving to brew you a fresh cuppa. He feels when he’s at his worst, making and drinking a hot cup of tea helps soothe the soul a bit.

Ghost―

He’s quick to notice you are doing your best to control your own emotions. The struggle was clear as day on your face

Your bottom lip tended to tremble every so often, and he’d catch the tears welling up behind your lashes

At first, he’s unsure of what to do because usually, he’s shit at helping others deal with complicated emotions, always has been ever since his got twisted and reconstructed time and time again.

But, the more he saw you struggle, he’d feel the urge to try and be there for you as best he could

At first, he’s unsure of what to do. His first instinct is to leave so you can have some space, but the more rational part of him stops him from leaving, knowing that just because he likes to deal with his own issues alone doesn’t mean that it’s the same case for you.

The more you begin to struggle, the worse he feels that he’s doing nothing to help you, so he starts off small. At first, he asks if he can touch you, then with your permission, he’ll reach out to hold your hand. You can squeeze it as tight as you want, he won’t let go unless you want him to.

He's shocked when the barriers finally start coming down and your sobs begin to rack your body. Unsure of how to help until he’s just acting on pure instinct.

His hands were designed to deliver pain. And he only knew harshness. But, knowing the pain of having to struggle alone, he didn’t want to let you go through it all alone. Carefully taking you in his arms, he pulls you into his lap so he can stroke your back while you let everything out.

He doesn’t feel intelligent enough emotionally to offer supporting words, but he does sit there with you, hugging and rubbing your back and hair for as long as you need.