#look i'm trying to be as understanding as possible because i don't want to alienate an ally

[loquora]

I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month) and their terrible, very bad, no good stance on genAI (generative artificial intelligence) and why I won't be writing anything for this challenge again.

I'm very aware that I am an active and vocal genAI hater. But I am willing and open to hear about positive and useful things LLMs (large language models) can do. There are valid scientific uses for the technology and some really fascinating medical and academic breakthroughs that come from LLMs. But the use of genAI in creative writing context is complete bullshit.

Come with me for the breakdown.

The first part of their statement:

NaNoWriMo has made it clear they are not just tolerating genAI in their month long writing challenge, but that those of us who don't are 'classist' and 'ableist' because we don't.

The post was later amended with a list of reasons why they make each of those claims. We'll start from the top.

GenAI uses the technology in a way that is morally, ethically and environmentally bankrupt. See, all LLMs have to train on something. When you're using it to, say, detect cancers you can feed it images of cancer scans so that it builds up a dataset of what those look like to predict future scans. But when you want to generate text, images and video you have to feed it text, images and video. Those things came from people, actual people and actual artists who overwhelmingly did not agree to train anything with their work and can no longer wrest their work from the machine now that it's been stolen from them.

It also isn't 'intelligent' at all, considering it has that word in the name. Think of genAI like an alien learning our language with absolutely no frame of reference for what it's learning. It can predict that the letters "w-e" and "c-a-n" often come after the letters "y-e-s" because the phrase "yes we can" will come up often in training data, it's a common phrase. But it doesn't actually understand what any of those words MEAN. Just that they often follow one another so that when prompted it will, statistically, try put those letters and words together again.

So when it comes to actually writing or responding to prompts what you're getting is the most likely outcome based on a massive amount of data input. It is not actually giving you feedback on what your writing looks like, it's giving you the most statistically possible response based on input. It's fake feedback, a thousand other feedbacks crammed together and extruded into a goo that looks and sounds like feedback but is actually meaningless. ChatGPT doesn't understand your writing sample anymore than a phone tree understands your anger and desperation when you continue to say "OPERATOR" as clearly as you can to try to get through to a real human. Both understand you input a word and will output based on that, but context, emotions, cultural mores etc. are all beyond it.

This is why AI is so absurdly shitty at things like math, counting letters in words and identifying words that start with the same letter. It's mashing together a million math problem answers betting on the likelihood that statistically someone has already answered that question enough times in the training data that it can spit the correct answer out at you.

TLDR: If you're using genAI to get feedback on your writing you're not actually getting feedback on your writing at all, but the most statistically probable set of words that relate to feedback. So right off the bat the idea that genAI is going to help you be a better writer is just flat wrong. It doesn't know how to write, it doesn't even know how many Rs are in the word 'strawberry'.

Second point has the same issues as the first:

I actually agree with them on the point that if your brain doesn't handle certain writer activities well it's perfectly okay to use an outside source for help with it. GenAI isn't actually helping you be a better writer, though; it can't. It doesn't understand anything you write nor can it provide meaningful feedback when it's just spitting out statistically probably words to you based on your input. So while the point here is actually good on the surface, the solution of using genAI to help people who have trouble with certain aspects of writing is still not correct.

The final point:

Again, this is a very good point... if it wasn't being made in conjunction with a defense of generative AI WHICH DOES NOT HELP OR SOLVE THIS ISSUE. In fact, because of the known issues of bias in how genAI LLMs are built they can make issues for marginalized writers worse.

I genuinely have no idea how this very true paragraph about people who are routinely pushed out of traditional writing spaces is helped by genAI. Their entire point thus far seems to be that genAI is a 'cheap' alternative to some traditional writing aids but considering genAI doesn't work like that it's all dead in the water as far as I'm concerned.

If NaNoWriMo was actually concerned with solving these access issues to things they consider critical to writing in general, why not offer a place for real people to read and critique one another on their platform? There are myriad other technological solutions that don't cost huge amounts of water AND actually help aspiring writers!

All of this to say that you should write for yourself, write what you enjoy and get better the same way generations of people before you have: by reading other people's work, talking to and exchanging time with other authors and writing and rewriting in your own words until you're satisfied.

Wasting water asking genAI to do things for you that would make you a better writer to do yourself or with trusted allies is just that, a waste.

[jesncin]

Coddling Colonizer Guilt

"Performative diversity is when MAWS features a Native American variant of Lois Lane in the multiverse episode only to end the season on a Thanksgiving episode."

...is something I like to joke with my friends as a shorthand for referencing MAWS' squeamish approach to politics while still trying to reap the clout of "diverse representation". I want to get my thoughts out there and perhaps start a discussion over why this feels off.

Some disclaimers: Firstly, I'm not Native American. Understand this is an observation I'm making from an outsider perspective with no personal authority. I'm just a disappointed Asian Lois Lane fan. Secondly, I know the MAWS crew/creators had no malicious intent in any of these (what I consider) poor writing decisions. I'm simply here to challenge and analyze these narrative and visual choices.

MAWS takes a fairly controversial take on Superman mythos so far. Unlike Superman's historic roots as an allegory for Jewish immigrants with Clark coming from a Kryptonian socialist utopia (leading the imperfect people of Earth to a better tomorrow), MAWS chooses instead to reimagine Superman as a descendant from a planet of "alien invaders". If the leaked(?) concept art (warning potential spoilers for s2) is to be believed, Clark is the direct descendent of the leaders of the "Kryptonian Empire". Supposedly gone are the parents of Superman being scientists that warn of the destruction of their home planet- instead we have the "proud, loving, brilliant" "leaders of the Kryptonian Empire".

While we don't know if this is the direction the show is going in, there are already cryptic hints of it being planted and thematic elements set up that point to it being a possibility. Clark had spent a majority of the season wondering what/who he is (being incapable of talking to Jor-El's hologram because of a language barrier) only to find out his supposed origins in episode 9. He's devastated learning that he's an alien invader and, once he regroups with his friends, angsts about believing he's a weapon sent from Krypton to invade Earth. Asian-Lois Lane and Black-Jimmy Olsen assure White-passing-alien-man Clark Kent that he's different and not like other colonizers. Clark ultimately saves the day, proving he's an exception. It's curious then that the season ends on Thanksgiving.

As I've mentioned before, MAWS is exhaustively squeamish with getting political. Whatever happens in the show that resembles "themes" is quickly contradicted with very little consistent internal logic. One minute Superman is supposedly a threat that "wipes out good American jobs", should "go back to where he came from" and Lois makes a hope speech about how we shouldn't treat people who "are different" and "don't look like us" (??) with cruelty (so Clark's an immigrant going through xenophobia?) and the next he's a redeemed colonizer (a more prominent thematic arc). One minute Clark is "different" and scared of being othered- likened to a gay couple and allegorically closeted, and the next his friends call him out for being a lying liar for not disclosing his marginalized identity within a week (the narrative frames Lois and Jimmy as being in the right). This show's writing is non-committal with what it wants to say, and largely goes on vibes. That is to say I don't think the writers intended for the themes of colonizer guilt to accidentally tie into Thanksgiving as a set piece for their final episode.

I'm sure the reason the writers chose Thanksgiving as their final episode is because it's "relateable". Half the episode is dedicated to slice of life family reunion shenanigans and the dang turkey still not being cooked through. But in choosing Thanksgiving, the writers told on themselves here with their biases. The existence of Thanksgiving implies the existence of genocide (of Native American people) by colonists in the MAWS universe. And yet Black Jimmy Olsen doesn't know what racism is (Mallah and the Brain give him a judgmental stare as Jimmy admits he can't relate to being violently marginalized) and Asian American Lois Lane doesn't understand immigration and xenophobia (constantly being entitled to Clark's immigrant identity, being incapable of comprehending why he would keep it a secret, because secrets are lies). The MAWS crew wanted a "relateable" set piece but in doing so ended up reinforcing the historical revisionism the holiday entails. A foreign colonizer sharing a meal with his friends of color on Earth, whose culture, history, and identity are all white washed.

I would like to challenge this idea that Thanksgiving is somehow the "relateable" choice. Why pick this holiday? Why not celebrate Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning (as some Native Americans do)? Why not pick any Jewish holiday as a nod to Superman's creators (ignoring this version's colonizer interpretation for a second)? Why not pick Lunar New Year, a holiday celebrated by many people including Koreans (Seollal in South Korea)? It could've been another fun opportunity to showcase Lois' heritage, and create a fusion of cultures from Jimmy and Clark's families. At its most non-political and secular, why couldn't they pick any weekend? This is what happens when a show doesn't consider its world building and setting in a holistic way. MAWS will nod to xenophobic rhetoric, portray allegorical queer marginalization, and make the vaguest nods to systemic bigotry (Prof Ivo displaced a whole neighborhood! Yet we never hear from those figurative displaced people). But it does nothing to discuss any of that on a deeper level. Its characters of color don't know what racism is and Thanksgiving is just a fun family reunion, guys.

All this and they had the audacity to sneak in a Native American Lois Lane in the multiverse episode?? Why is she, out of all the Lois Lanes in this screencap, the only one in full traditional wear? Why isn't she in a smart casual business fit like Black Lois and STAS white Lois? Would she not have been recognizably Native American to the non-Native audience otherwise? Isn't this tokenizing? Do you think she has a xenophobic dad in the military like Korean American Lois does?

But that fits MAWS' approach to diversity, doesn't it? Surface level cultural nods, maybe make Lois wear a hanbok one time, and let the audience eat it up. Never mind that both Korean American Lois and Native American Lois have been stripped of their culture and history in every other aspect.

I use the word "relateable" a lot here, but I think the important question to ask is "relateable for who?". 'Immigrant' is too charged a word, so MAWS universalizes Clark's marginalization to "being different". Superman isn't even an immigrant in this version, that was all a smokescreen for the twist that he's actually a descendent of colonizers! Being wracked with colonizer guilt is way more relateable to the white audience than being an immigrant, surely. Thanksgiving is more relateable than celebrating any culturally specific holiday our "diverse reimagining" could have represented. Characters of color being functionally white (in a way that doesn't threaten middle America) is way more relateable. MAWS is a show that doesn't want to delve into Native American history. It would rather put a Native American Lois hologram on a pedestal and call it a day.

[thyrinea]

Till - An Alien Stage analysis

Vivinos just dropped the teaser for Round 6. And after watching it a couple of times, I feel like I can finally understand why people were telling that this round is potentially the most emotional one yet. So here are my thought about Till as a character, and what we might expect from him in the upcoming Round. But before you go on and start reading, I want to make two quick disclaimers:

My native language is not english and sometimes I might make some mistakes, and I'm sorry for that. I'll try to make everything as cohesive as possible on this post so we don't have any miscommunication.

In the analysis, there will be a small mention of suicidal thoughts and a whole section on human experiments. If you're uncomfortable with those topics, please don't continue.

If you're ok with everything, thank you for continuing and I hope you have a good read! (Also, if you want to add something please feel free to chat with me! I love to see more theories and takes on everything)

Let's start this analysis from the very beginning, or at least the first event that we know of in regard of Till: his time at the adoption center.

(Timestamp: 00:22 - 00:24 - Teaser)

From what I gathered, this scene was first seen as a sneak peek from Vivinos' patreon and it's most likely one of, if not the very first time both of them - Till and Ivan - has seen each other. As a "troubled" kid, it's dificult to catch the eyes of someone and make them willing to have you, and seeing the discounts placed on his captivity window, we can only assume that he stayed in the adoption center for quite a while now. It's no wonder that Till is watching with awe as Ivan is being escorted away: he probably got adopted and is leaving the establishment to live somewhere else, leaving the rest only to hope to be the next chosen one. We all know that in reality, being adopted by the aliens is not a synonym to having a good life in this scenario. But for a child who has been locked in this tiny room for possibly weeks, still not knowing how society works for them, it's a dream to finally be able to get out and possibly be loved by their adopted "family". So imagine Till finally getting out of this place, after all he went through there - being rejected, seen as an unwanted individual - only to get trapped in an even worse scenario: Being used as a human experiment.

(Timestamp: 00:06, 00:11, 00:16, 00:19 - Teaser)

We can see those images are depicting something that happened after the adoption center because he's older now. We don't know how much time he had to experience those events, but if we go back to Round 2, there are some instances where he is far younger and can be seen with green stickers similar to the ones on his neck shown in the 4th image. Not only that, even on his performance on Round 2, we can see them on display. So there is a chance that he had to deal with all of this for years. Yes, he was not alone during everything, but we don't know what happened to everyone who was in this same scenario. All we know is that the faces seen on the panel during the teaser, was never once seen again.

(Timestamp: 00:19 - Teaser)

It even seems that one has perished in one of the images shown in the teaser. For all we know, everyone but Till might be dead by the time Alien Stage begins for the main cast... And living in fear not knowing if you're going to be the next one to die during an experiment is a really terrifying reality he probably had to face. And yet, during all that, he even had to go to Anakt garden to train to become a singer, and possibly go to Alien stage.

(Timestamp: 00:57 - Round 2)

At least, somewhere around his time on Anakt garden, he found something worth living for: Mizi. She became his beacon of light. We don't know what happened but knowing Mizi's character, she has probably shown him what happiness looks like, maybe became the first one to interact with him and show him he's someone. Not a product, not an experiment, but an individual. And he really wanted to continue having this feeling again. To be happy, just like her, with her. This admiration that flourished from him is most likely what made this crush Till has for her blossom. It's kind of an unhealthy dependancy if we put the spotlight on this relationship, he would even go as far as refuse to escape from everything with ivan - who is shown to be the only other person who interacts with him, that he considers a friend - and have freedom if she's not present. It's as if he doesn't know if he can truly be happy if she's not around. I'll make another analysis on Ivan and Till's relationship on the kindergarden once Round 6 goes live. Trust me, if I start talking about them here, I would literally not shut up and the analysis would have another 1000 words. But for now I really want to emphasize how both are seen as "weirdos", and started talking more because they really only had each other. Despite the differences and the bickering, Till holds Ivan close to him as well.

(Timestamp: 00:19 - Teaser)

And now, We're on Round 6: Where Till has nothing to fight for. His whole life was purely a tragedy - he had seen and experienced some of the worst things that a human could go through in this world, and despite trying his best to fight against all odds, he's back on square one. He's been defeated. Mizi is missing, and in his eyes, possibly dead. And now he is going against his childhood friend, literally the only person he has left, on a battle where he knows and only one will get out alive. I won't be surprised if in the beginning he'll be willing to sacrifice himself for Ivan to win and live. Through the whole teaser, the voice singing in the background is muffled. Till is so out of it that he's not able to realize what's going on, even the shots he's in is in pure black, as if nothing around him matters anymore to him. That is, until the voice in the end gets clearer and we can finally see the stage for the Round. Can't wait to see what we have in store on April 5th. My theory is that this might be a 2 pov video, and later we'll get to know more about Ivan's take on everything. Specially because finally he might be able to make Till see him for once. Who's going to die? I hope no one. But we're talking about Vivinos... We can expect anything on this project. All I know is that I might die if we get some parallel to the meteor shower scene shown in black sorrow.

[divine-donna]

pretentious(?) cinephile patrick zweig.

call it a college au i guess

technically, he's a business student. he's just minoring in cinema studies, which was your major. you always hated the business school kids that came into your literature class (because film is literature) and thought it would be easy. and then they'd be surprised that they were failing because they didn't do the readings and when they participated, it was with shallow commentary. you don't even want to recount how many racist, misogynistic, queerphobic things were said in the class (in general too).

which is why patrick zweig pisses you off.

patrick zweig actually loves film. and unlike the other business boys, he understands that wolf of wall street is a cautionary tale.

"i wouldn't want to end up like him." he said. "doesn't mean i can't enjoy the movie."

patrick zweig actually has good taste in film. okay, maybe not "good" taste because "good" is always subjective. he's a bit of a film snob. you can't believe that he likes Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. you really hated the movie, mostly because it felt like an eternity. that might have also been because you were high watching it. sometimes weed has that effect.

at first glance, he seems like the kind of guy to dismiss foreign films because of subtitles. except you learned that he regularly consumes—and seeks out—foreign cinema. he grew up on foreign cinema.

"my dad's big into french films. that's how i started watching them." he explained to your french cinema professor.

you swear he's in every cinema studies class possible. and he recognizes you too.

"excited for this semester (y/n)? i'm looking forward to the syllabus."

now, patrick being patrick, he mostly skims the readings. rarely does he closely read. he finds himself getting distracted easily. and it's not really helpful with the multiple times you've worked with him whether it's as discussion leader or doing a group project.

there's the rare occasion you've seen patrick zweig in business class. and to say the least, he looks miserable. sometimes, he's so bored that he's doing the readings for your class.

"why don't you switch majors?" "because business school is just to appease my parents."

you don't 100% believe his answer. or maybe he's right in thinking that it will appease his parents. you're not all too knowing about his home life. you guys just have class together. until...

"wanna smoke?"

a joint before your screening. you guys were watching Spike Lee's School Daze for the race and american film class. he's never seen it. you have. maybe the colors will pop even more if you took a hit.

"sure."

so you guys find the smoke corner and light the joint. you inhale and make small talk. patrick zweig isn't the asshole he seems to be. he carries himself with such douchebaggery that it seems to be a defense mechanism. and you learn during that smoking session that he isn't really pretentious. he's just really passionate.

"i hate Prometheus." he says. "what? how can you hate Prometheus? Prometheus is so good! it's like right up your alley!" you cough as you inhale. "listen, i may be a film snob. and sometimes i can be an asshole about it. but ridley scott is a bigger asshole than me." patrick takes the joint to inhale. when he blows, the smoke sort of billows around him. it frames his frankly gorgeous face. "lean into the haunted house of the Alien franchise. don't try to turn it into something deeper when it already had such interesting themes."

School Daze was a watch. patrick had a lot of thoughts, but he seemed to barely express them in class. he saved it for his letterboxd review.

"you have letterboxd?" "duh." he glances at you as you guys are walking to the bus stop. "what's your username?" "ppzweig." "you can't be serious. that's so immature of you!" but also so on brand for patrick zweig. "i made the account a long time ago okay! i'll follow you back if you follow me."

so you do follow him.

you learn quickly that patrick reviews for nearly every movie he watches. the exception are rewatches (if there isn't anything left to say) and films that just didn't really interest him or were terrible. oh and you see through his reviews that he really hates tarantino. actually very surprising! patrick always had something to say though. you loved terrorizing him when he walked into class.

"hey so why did you rate Alien: Resurrection four stars?" "what happened to hello? how are you?"

side note: i did make a top 10 list of films that i think patrick would have. idk how character accurate this is but he strikes me as such:

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Trainspotting (1996)

Night of the Hunter (1955)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Amélie (2001)

A Clockwork Orange (1972)

Boogie Nights (1997)

Taxi Driver (1976)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Lady Snowblood (1973)

[imagobin]

Head canons for Zoldyck siblings reactions to sibling reader hinting they will leave the estate one day and then actually leaving and sibling reader was close to them so 🦄🦄

Omg the drama that could come from this fhgkd thank you for your request! Sorry it took a bit :'3 But I really love this, hope you enjoy what I came up with!

🔯Zoldyck Siblings react to you leaving HCs🔯

📍Illumi📍

Illumi's reaction would definitely be the strongest, he loves all his siblings to quite the obsessive level, so if he ever caught you hinting at the mere possibility of leaving he would not like that at all.

Not only because you're a very capable assassin, and losing such a powerful family member wouldn't be good for business, but because he worries of what you'll even do in the outside world. "Why would you want to leave? You have everything you can wish for here... we all care about you, while out there people will just use and betray you. Trust your big brother, it's better if you stay with us."

You do trust him, he always has plenty of good advice to give, but you also want to do your own thing, discover yourself, so you don't let him convince you.

Illumi would start keeping closer attention to you, monitoring your movements so he can catch you if you ever try to leave, and persuade you to change your mind.

But of course, he can't be there constantly to ensure you don't run away from the family, he's got work to do.

You leave while he's on one of his longer missions, and once he comes back and learns you've ran away he is really disappointed, though of course he doesn't show it.

He wonders if he'd be able to bring you back, or if you'll ever come home on your own. He tries calling you over and over, but naturally you don't pick up, you know how Illumi is, you can't risk him finding out where you are, or he'll somehow get there in record time and take you back home.

Predictably, Illumi wants to track you down and get you back, at any cost, you can't just run away like that, it's incredibly immature and will only serve to worry everyone.

---

🎮Milluki🎮

You could be more direct at hinting you wanted to leave when it comes to Milluki. He might be somewhat of a mama's boy, but he knows when to keep his thoughts to himself. He's not really a fan of family drama.

When you asked him if he ever had a desire to explore the outside world and try new things, he'd looked at you as if you were some sort of alien. "Nah, I'm good staying here. I guess if there could be some stuff worth checking out, but I can get everything I'm interested in right here, so I don't really care about it... do you?"

You softly admitted you did wonder what was out there, he shrugged and the topic was swiftly put to the side for something you both cared about, like anime or games.

The day you do decide to run away though, Milluki will finally understand the sense of that question. He can't help but wonder if you would've let him in on your plans if he'd answered in some other way.

He wouldn't have tried to stop you, he doesn't really care about keeping his siblings from doing things, unless he's ordered to by his mom or dad.

He does think about you sometimes, and texts you occasionally, though you don't always reply. He's happy whenever you do, though you never talk of your whereabouts.

Milluki is okay with that, and makes sure nobody finds out you two are still occasionally in touch, which honestly isn't too difficult since the others rarely come into his room anyway.

He COULD track you down in no time, but won't do so unless someone asks him to, and so far, nobody has, since Illumi prefers to do things his way.

---

🪀Killua🪀

You were the one who accidentally got Killua interested in seeing more of what the world had to offer. You didn't mean to, but the way his blue eyes would light up every time you told him about cool places and fun things normal people did made it impossible for you to stop talking about it.

He ended up running away even before you did, and that only motivated you even more to do the same. Hearing about how much fun he was having while hanging around with Gon... made you wish for friends too.

When you finally left the estate yourself, and called Killua to let him know, he was really excited, wondering if you'd run into each other at some point. "Hah! Took you long enough! And to think that you've wanted to get out for longer than I have... I'm glad about it though, I wonder if you'll find some friends too, but they certainly won't be as cool as Gon!"

You do eventually meet up with him, and he's thrilled to see you again, though he's a bit nervous about introducing you to Gon, fearing he might get along better with you.

It all goes sort of well in the end... because you and Gon talked lots about Killua and your respective experiences with him. It made the white haired boy really embarrassed, but he was also glad that Gon didn't have the time to know you better.

You catch up with Killua as well, ask him what he's been up to and such, then he asks you if you've heard from the rest of the family as well, and you shake your head. You haven't talked to anyone else... aside from your occasional exchanges with Milluki.

After a day spent together, you part ways once more; the boys have their own goals and you got yours after all. But you promise each other to definitely keep in touch and to meet up some other time.

---

🧸Alluka🧸

Alluka was forbidden from setting foot in the outside world due to her dangerous powers. She was the one person you would've absolutely loved to tell everything about it to.

Unfortunately, since she was constantly kept under surveillance you couldn't do that. You tried once, and your mother immediately scolded you, saying Alluka couldn't get those sorts of ideas in her mind.

When you ran away, you didn't have time to say goodbye to Alluka, and due to her isolation, nobody even bothered to tell her you'd gone off on your own. She just wondered why you'd stopped coming all of a sudden.

She only learns of you escapade once you meet up with Killua the second time, and see her there with him. She is overjoyed to see you again. "Y-y/n!! I'm so happy to see you again! I was so worried something had happened to you... nobody would tell me where you were... you've been well, right?!"

Alluka hugs you tightly and you apologize for disappearing so abruptly. You assure her you've been well, and that you're very happy to see her with Killua... outside of that cursed room at last.

You spend a calm day together with her and Killua, where she tells you all about the fun places he's been taking her to. You can't help but be proud of Killua for what he's doing, and you're also excited for what the future has in store for Alluka.

Predictably, once it's time for goodbyes again, Alluka begs you to stay with them instead, not wanting to lose you another time. She gets a little pouty about it, until Killua explains to her she can't choose what you do with your life.

She accepts those conditions and asks you to at least call, because she does want to hear lots from you from now on.

---

🪭Kalluto🪭

Kalluto never stayed away from his mother for long, so, much like with Illumi, you'd have to be careful about what you talked with him, knowing that if you said anything weird, he was definitely going to tell Kikyo.

He did catch you looking at a few books that could've given you away, but you always managed to change topics, and with Kalluto being the youngest, he didn't really feel like he had the right to press you for information.

Besides, he had no reason to doubt your loyalty to the family given how close to everyone you were, you even took time out of your day to spend time with him! Something his other siblings didn't really do that often.

That's why when you did leave, it hit him the hardest. While Killua's departure had been tough to handle, given how he'd always wanted to be noticed by him, your departure felt like he'd lost the one sibling who truly saw him. Things felt much lonelier for him without you around, and he couldn't even call you, because he didn't have a phone at the time.

Kalluto eventually joins the Phantom Troupe in hopes of getting strong enough to take both you and Killua back to the family. What he wasn't expecting, however, was meeting you during that process.

You're super happy to see him out and about, but he didn't leave the estate for the same reasons as you did. "Why... did you run away? Were you not happy with us? You made mother really upset... you made me upset... you made me feel lonely."

Hearing Kalluto state how he felt when you left does make you feel a bit guilty. You assure him you still love your family, but you realized you'd never be able to do your own thing if you never left the estate.

He struggles to understand your perspective, and still hopes you'll go back home one day, but he doesn't want to argue with you, so he accepts it. He demands for your phone number, so you two can still keep in touch.

---

[rin-fukuroi]

Hey~ I don’t know if you would agree to write a work with this character, but I feel real despair that there are practically no decent works with this character. Gepard leads in sex. Please… Maybe incest with a yandere or deflowering? I'm so tired of reading Gepard passively and no one understands me.

Hi! (o˘◡˘o)

I think I can help you with that. How about everything at once? I hope this heals your wounds, because I'm also outraged by the fact that many writers describe Gepard as a shy and passive guy as possible, when he is completely different. No, of course he's charming and sweet, but damn, he's the CAPTAIN. He's a man with a core, stubborn and principled, a man who has managed to earn trust, which means he is firm in his beliefs and a sense of justice is not alien to him at all. Of course, he can be gentle with his beloved, but come on, who didn't imagine how his hand in this metal glove squeezes someone's (for example, ours) throat? I imagined it! I don't care about the rest. I'm very glad that I'm not the only one who loves dominant strong men, so I was happy to write this work for you. I hope you like it~

𝐀 𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐞 [𝐆𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐝]

Please do not translate or publish my works without my permission.

If you want to support me and read my other works that won't be on Tumblr, you can always do it on my Boosty~

Fandom: Honkai: Star Rail

Pairings: dom!older brother!Gepard x sub!fem!reader

Warnings: NSFW, incest, yandere, stalking, flogging, light choking, petting, loss of virginity, rape (?), rough public sex, creampie, references to pregnancy.

▶• ılıılıılıılıılıılı. Poylow, BAUWZ, Nito-Onna - Hate You

Note: English is not my native language, so I apologize if there are errors in the text qq

art by @tksm_66

You love your family, really. Your sisters have always been so kind to you that you could even call them your friends, despite the age difference, but at some points they still made you remember that they are your relatives. Serval can be overly caring, but a Lynx, on the contrary, is freedom-loving, so sometimes you have to return to the role of an older sister, looking after her. And yet you love them. Even Gepard.

Why «even»? It's hard to say exactly where your strange relationship originates from, because you didn't immediately realize that there was something unnatural in them. Does older brother take care of you? Well, all relatives take care of each other, don't they? Does he like to spend all his free time with you? You're probably close enough, and that's great. Does your older brother kiss you, hug you, and take a bath with you? Oh, it's very sweet that he cared and loved his little sister so much as a child.

But your childhood ended a long time ago, and your relationship has not changed at all.

Gepard trying to be unobtrusive, but it turns out to be very lousy. You know that he secretly looks into your phone, studying each of your correspondence, but you don't say anything, because your brother just doesn't want you to get involved with bad people, right? Gepard doesn't want you to live separately, despite the fact that you have been on your feet for a long time and can afford it, but you keep silent and agree, because he just wants you to be there because he wants to protect you. Gepard forbids you to go on dates and get to know other men, but you don't mind, even though you don't understand what he cares about it. Gepard suggests that you take a shower together when the two of you return home, because he always meets you after your shift, despite his own unstable schedule, and you… agree, because this is your brother, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

You're confused. Seeing the relationships in your friends' families, you gradually begin to pay attention to the fact that even between a brother and sister there should be a distance that you and Gepard don't have. Are they crazy or are you?

— Geppie's just worried about you, honey! Don't pay attention, one day he'll definitely calm down, you just have to show him that you have really grown up and no longer need his care.

Serval's words are firmly embedded in your brain, because during this recent conversation, you still didn't understand that, in fact, even the older sister confirmed that what you told her was not quite right. You didn't talk about sharing a bathroom, you didn't talk about how Gepard kisses you on the corner of your lips when he leaves for work in the morning, you didn't talk about how he violates your personal space. Probably, deep down, you really knew that it shouldn't be like this, so you didn't tell the truth.

You love your older brother, you really do. That's why you decided to talk to him first. For some reason, it was so disturbing and exciting to start a conversation, but you are a family, and he'll understand you if you are only sincere, right? It should have been like this.

— You're still young and don't understand that living away from your family will only harm you. I take care of you, I give you everything you want, why do you want to run away so much?

«Because your concern is suffocating me. Because you only give me what you want. You limit me, control me, and forbid me to live my life. It's wrong, it shouldn't be like this…», — you'ld like to say it out loud. These words were already on the tip of your tongue, ready to burst into the air, but they remained buried deep in your throat when you humbly swallowed every objection and dissatisfaction.

— I'm sorry, brother…

His big palm on top of your head and the cold metal from the plate on Gepard's uniform pressing against your face made you feel so… uncomfortable for the first time.

That's why you don't want to go home right now, and you got off early on purpose so you wouldn't have to meet Gepard. You'ld like to share his warm feelings, but you can no longer deceive yourself. It burden you.

You wander among the exhibits of an empty museum, preparing to close, but you don't stop at anything, too immersed in your own thoughts. Even almost all the employees have already gone home. Quietly, calmly. You were not mistaken when you decided to choose this particular place to cool your head a little. But even here, for some reason, it seems to you as if your brother's gaze is following you at every step. You don't remember the last time you went out without him, because Gepard seems to be doing everything on purpose so that you don't even cross paths with your friends on the way home, spending your evenings in his company.

Why are you just now starting to realize how sick you are of his company? It must be terrible to even let the thought that you want your brother to disappear, but… wouldn't it be easier for you to breathe without him?

— Oh, isn't that my old friend's little sister? — a sweet melodious male voice breaks into the silence that presses on you, and at first you don't even understand if this person is addressing you, just briefly turning back, casting an incredulous glance at the stranger. The tall blue-haired man grins, clapping his hands before coming closer as soon as the bright green eyes notice that you have stopped. — Well, that's right! Y/N, yeah?

— Do we know each other?.. — you're frowning, crossing your arms over your chest, trying to look and sound confident, but your posture is as scared and constrained as your thoughts continue to swarm in your head.

— Oh, didn't my dear friend tell you about Sampo? — the theatrical man pretends to be sad, then breaks into a sly grin again. — I suppose it's never too late to introduce ourselves to each other. Although I already know your name, and you just heard Sampo's name… hmm, does that mean that we know each other now?

— P-probably… — you mumble softly, backing away slightly as the tall man bends over, carefully studying your face.

— This is the first time I've seen you not in the company of my friend.

— And I actually see you for the first time, — you smile crookedly, causing Sampo to respond with a soft laugh.

— Don't be shy, my dear friend! — oh, you're wondering why Gepard didn't tell you about this man. — So how can Sampo serve you?

— Huh?

— Oh, what should Sampo do?… The museum is closing soon, and I'm spending time with my new friend for the first time…

— Do you… work here? — you raise an eyebrow in disbelief, to which the man perks up, proudly resting his palm on his side.

— That's right, that's right! Sampo Koski is at your service! — it's unlikely that you'll find a common language with this person.

— May I ask how it happened? I'm sorry, but you don't really look like…

— Ah, it's a long story! — Sampo interrupts, grinning nervously and looking away. — You mean I don't look like a law-abiding citizen? How many times has Sampo heard this, and every time these words break my heart…

— N-no, I didn't mean to offend you, — you stretch out your hand to the man who dramatically clasped his forehead with his palm, but almost immediately pull it back.

— You're so sweet, unlike your brother. Although his indifference and callousness, of course, has its own special charm, — the man's facial expressions change like masks, and now he is smiling again, closing his eyes and leaning closer to your face. — So, I could leave the museum open for a while longer, and we could chat a little longer!

You wrap your arms around your own shoulders, warily meeting Sampo's gaze when he opens his eyes, and you are already opening your mouth to gently refuse the man, when suddenly, with a dull clap, someone's big palm lands on the shoulder of your new "friend".

Sampo straightens up instantly, turning around anxiously. The man's face instantly contorts into an awkward expression when the green eyes meet the cold, sharp gaze of the Captain, who furrowed his eyebrows in anger. You feel your heart jumping in your chest, and your fingers go numb as you convulsively squeeze the hem of your skirt, watching your brother's fist tremble, about to hit Sampo.

— Calm down, calm down, my friend, I was about to leave!

— Why are you with him? — for the first time, you hear the burning anger in your brother's voice when he addresses you, making you cringe in place as soon as the sharp gaze of his blue eyes pins you to the floor.

— I… We were just talking… — tears come to your eyes, and a sharp lump squeezes your throat, muffling your voice, but as soon as you see that Gepard is looking at the nervously grinning Sampo again, your body moves by itself, and you rush forward, convulsively grabbing your brother by the elbow. — I swear, he just came over to say that the museum will close soon! Nothing more!

— Ha ha ha… That's how it was, Sampo didn't want to inconvenience his new friend.…

— Friend? — the blue irises seem to be covered with an icy crust when Gepard squeezes Sampo's shoulder harder, ignoring your pathetic attempts to pull his hand away from the poor man, who now seems to get what he deserves.

— W-we're not friends, this is the first time I've seen him, Gepard, please! — tears slowly begin to roll down your cheeks, and your fingers press harder into the metal on your brother's glove, before he still seems to listen to your pleas, and lets go of Sampo, but still does not take his eyes off him.

— You'd better get as far away as possible, because as soon as I talk to my sister, you'll be next.

Sampo decides not to answer anything, so as not to inflame the atmosphere even more, and just nods briefly, walking behind your brother and turning to you one last time, folding his palms in front of his face and arching his eyebrows in a guilty apologetic expression before hurriedly leaving.

Silence. While you were here alone, this silence was alarming, but now it terrifies you to the point of chilling shivers running down your spine. You've never been afraid of your own brother like you are now. You didn't do anything wrong, you were even honest with him, but… for some reason, the feeling that you made an unforgivable mistake doesn't leave you, becoming more and more distinct as Gepard continues to remain silent, not even meeting your gaze, but just looking somewhere in the aside while you guiltily examine his angry face.

— Brother, I…

— I asked you, — Gepard interrupts, addressing you in a stern tone and finally turning his head, turning his icy gaze on you. — Do you need this? Is this the kind of life you want? So that this trash can just come up and talk to you? Although, I can see that you didn't even mind at all.

— No, it's not like that! I just came here to get some air, and he…

— To get some air? You didn't wait for me, — a big hand in a white glove painfully grabs your wrist, and tears come to your eyes with renewed vigor, blurring the image of your brother looming over you with complete disappointment in his gaze. — Why, Y/N?

— Because I'm tired! — you're choking out, stuttering and sniffing. — I'm not a child anymore, and you are… I can't take a step without you, you're watching me, acting like… — you stop, not daring to say what you were going to say, and Gepard bends even lower to your tear-stained face, staring intently into your reddened eyes.

— Like what? Finish it, Y/N.

— Like… — you inhale the air intermittently, then exhale it back just as jerkily before continuing, hastily trying to blink tears from your eyelashes so that you can see your brother's face as clearly as possible. — Like you're my boyfriend.

The man's lips tighten and the grip on your wrist loosens slightly as the blue eyes continue to stare at you without blinking. You really said that. You were afraid to even admit this thought, but these words slipped out of your mouth by themselves, finally voicing what had been bothering you all these years. Gepard has crossed some line that you didn't even know existed until you felt that his presence was making you suffocate. This has to stop. Now.

— I don't understand, is this a bad thing?

— Wh-what?..

— No one knows you better than I do, and they never will. I won't let that happen, — Gepard's eyebrows furrow, and his free hand settles on your waist, pulling you closer to his body. — Why do you want other men so much? What can they give you that I can't?

It's like a bad… bad, bad dream. The ringing in your ears drowns out Gepard's words, and your brother's arm falls limply from his elbow until he presses you against the wall with the painting. The grip on your wrist strengthens again when Gepard forcefully lifts and presses your hand against the cold concrete, pulling you out of your stupor and returning you back to the disgusting reality from which you are trying to fight off with your free palm, but it also suffers the same sad fate.

— Let me go! I don't understand what you're talking about.… We are a family! — you squirm weakly in Gepard's grip as he shackles your wrists above your head, freeing one hand to grab your throat with it. Not too much, but enough to obstruct your breathing.

— Exactly, Y/N, we are a family, — there seemed to be no trace of the sweet caring Gepard. A completely different person is looking at you now. Obsessed, violent, completely inaudible and not listening to what you're trying to tell him. — But you stopped appreciating what I do for you, you don't appreciate how much I value you.

— I appreciate it! But you're my brother, damn… Let me go, Gepard, please… — you start crying again, writhing in your brother's grip, still hoping that he just had a bad day, and if he sees your tears now, he will be the same again… And your pathetic hopes are justified when you feel like a gloved hand releases your neck, allowing you to take a full deep breath.

— I've been so stupid all this time when I thought you understood me. I thought you were old enough to make the right choice, but no, you are still the same child in the body of an adult who has never been punished for misconduct, so now you can afford to be naughty.

— Gepard?.. — you call out to your brother almost in a whisper, anxiously trying to look into his eyes, but his gaze is fixed somewhere down while he hurriedly pulls the belt out of his trousers.

— If you haven't managed to grow up, then, as an older brother, I'm obliged to raise you, — after these words, you don't even have time to open your lips to answer anything, at least something to Gepard, before you are forcibly turned around and pressed face to the wall, and your hands are painfully wrung behind your back tearing a plaintive cry out of his strangled throat.

— Gepard! Brother, I beg you… that's enough, let's go home! Forgive me!

He's not listening. You can't see his face, but you can feel the weight of his gaze on your own body as he lifts up your skirt and casually pulls your underwear down your legs.

— Forgive you? I'm not mad at you, Y/N, — even his voice is cold, sending uncontrollable shivers through my skin. Gepard is silent for a moment, but the back of your head is squeezed by some unpleasant premonition, before your ass is struck by an unbearably burning pain from the whiplash of the belt. The air is knocked out of your clenched lungs, and your nails reflexively dug into your own palms when the walls of the museum heard your heart-rending scream.

— G-Gepard! Please!.. — you scream when you feel some movement behind your back, realizing that your brother swung again, after which another portion of pain stung your flesh.

— I'm just disappointed...

The man mumbles indifferently, ignoring your attempts to escape and hoarse screams, interrupted by coughing when you start choking on your own tears and saliva. And then Gepard strikes again.

— And I have to correct my own mistake.

Blue eyes coldly watch as your flesh turns red, and the stripes from the belt swell on your skin, but Gepard strikes again, and then again, without losing sight of a single shudder of your poor body. You've always been a defenseless little sister to him, whom Gepard so desperately wanted to protect. For himself.

How can you get to someone else? He raised you, he gave you a love that no one in this world is capable of giving you, he was there for you, sharing joys and sorrows with you. You have to choose him. He doesn't accept any other outcome.

The last blow turned out to be more painful than all the previous ones, as if all the disappointment and anger that you awakened in Gepard were now imprinted on your body with pulsating bruises and burning pain, pulling more and more tears from your squeezed eyes.

— I didn't want to hurt you, Y/N … — Gepard says with a barely perceptible note of sadness in his voice, bowing his head and pressing his forehead to the top of your head. — But otherwise you'll slip away from me… I can't let that happen.

You just sniffle and sob softly, pressing your face against the wall, feeling the blood rise to the places where Gepard's fingers continue to press into the skin of your wrists with force. Has he always been like this? Your brother couldn't have changed in a few miserable minutes. You just didn't notice, did you? You didn't notice how obsessed he was with you.

— I should have punished you, but… let me make it up to you and show you that I can be more than just a brother to you.

You barely catch your brother's words because of the ringing that continues to crash into your ears, but for some reason his gentle, guilty tone involuntarily tightened your stomach and nausea rose in your throat, as if now you missed the words that you should have heard, but you don't want to listen so much. You hear the metal belt buckle hitting the floor of the museum, catch the muffled rustle of clothes, feel Gepard's warm palm making its way down your stomach and settling between your legs, and reflexively squeeze your hips, opening your eyes in fright.

— N-no, what are you…?

— Relax, Y/N. I know you, I know what you like… — the rough pads of your fingers press on the dry clitoris, sending an unpleasant wave of pleasure through your body. — If you think there's something I can't help you with, then that's not the case. If you need a lover, I'll be him for you, — Gepard's lips press against your hair, and his fingers gently massage the treacherously trembling lump, slowly sliding down between the folds until your brother feels the sparsely released moisture, exhaling contentedly and returning back to the clitoris. — See? Your body reacts to me, doesn't that prove that I'm not just a brother to you?

— Stop it, please… I can't… — you break into sobs, clenching your teeth and closing your eyes in resignation, feeling something hot and hard pushing insistently between your closed thighs. — Please, at least not here…

— Are you afraid that someone will hear us? I sent Eris home, we're alone. Unless your new friend decided to stay and watch.

— I… I'm a virgin, brother, please… — even a whisper sounds so hoarse, coming off your tongue after screams tearing at your throat, but you still find the strength to speak, without losing hope that this will stop Gepard.

— I know. The fact that I'm going to be your first man should finally make you look at me differently, shouldn't it?

— I… don't know… Ng-h! — you cry out in pain as Gepards's hips press against your bruised bottom and his cock penetrates between your thighs before sliding back out, now resting against your narrow entrance.

— It's okay, just trust me, — Gepard says soothingly, gently but persistently pressing on your closed thighs with his knee, effortlessly forcing them apart.

Resilient hot flesh slowly enters the vagina, stretching the virgin walls, and your body is hit by a new, unknown pain. It's too big. You feel your walls bursting at the seams around his cock, indifferently continuing to make its way deep into the vagina, accompanied by your stifled sobs and exhausted screams. The incessant movements of your brother's fingers massaging the clitoris slightly dampen the painful sensations of the first penetration, but this is still not enough.

Gepard's hot breath burns your scalp when it finally enters you completely, stopping for a few seconds, giving you time to get used to it. As if a few measly moments would be enough to get used to the idea of your own brother's cock inside you, whose hands never loosened their grip, holding your wrists firmly against your back.

— Just be patient for a while. I promise this pain will go away, don't you believe me?

You're not answering. Impotence is so disgusting that you feel like you're about to throw up, and maybe Gepard would even stop if it turned you inside out, but it doesn't happen. Your head is so heavy, and even behind your closed eyelids you can feel everything spinning uncontrollably. You are afraid to open your eyes, afraid to believe that what is happening now is real.

But no matter how hard you try to deny it, everything is happening for real. Gepard really carefully kisses the top of your head, really pulls out his cock from your insides, leaving only the head bleeding from the ejaculate in the vagina, then slowly filling you again, and his fingers really massage your clitoris, causing treacherous arousal, from which you are overcome with even greater nausea.

Why are you pleased? Because he's your brother? No, that's not right. You should hate him, should hate yourself for your body not obeying, enjoying the even still slightly painful languid thrusts.

But you… enjoy it.

Every time when Gepard comes out of you, tiny drops of blood seep out, mixed with the transparent juices of treacherous arousal, trickling down your thighs. You hear your brother's voice murmuring reassuringly into your hair, but you can't make out a word, catching only the nasty ringing that has settled in the depths of your ears.

You're so narrow inside, so warm and pleasant, just like Gepard imagined. He's a little embarrassed to admit even to himself that he did sometimes imagine your first sex when he took a shower with you. Your body has changed so much, you have become such a beauty, isn't it natural that he was aroused by your naked body?

And now it belongs to him.

Your brother feels so good that he inevitably becomes greedy, speeding up the pace, just assuming that now you won't be hurt anymore. This bliss that he is experiencing now is so alluring and seductive, he just can't help himself. Of course, Gepard would like this to happen in a more intimate setting, under more pleasant circumstances, but the anger that you made him feel while talking to Sampo has been reborn into this perverted desire that he cannot control.

Just once… Just once, won't you let your brother show weakness?

— No one… I won't let anyone talk to you, see you, touch you anymore… — thoughts break out of Gepard's tongue by themselves, and he doesn't even notice how his thrusts have become rougher, and his groin began to slash into your mutilated ass.

You're so hot, it's so hard to breathe, but what scares you even more is the strangely growing feeling in your lower abdomen. You don't know what it is, but for some reason you are sure that you should not give in to it, you should resist. However, it still wins up over and over again, spreading in scalding waves under the skin.

Your pulse vibrates so clearly under the pads of Gepard's fingers, and something comes out of your strangled throat that sounds more and more like the moans he dreamed of. It's too much, you're too good, too perfect. He can cum inside you, won't you mind? If suddenly you can get pregnant from him… How wonderful your children will be, can you imagine?

A few more careless thrusts, a few rough presses on your clitoris, and your brother feels you clench even tighter around his cock, and your back arches even under the pressure of his hand.

— That's it… Feel it, Y/N... Remember that only I can give you such pleasure… — a restrained moan, more like a growl, escapes from the man's throat, and the last ruthless thrust makes your chest painfully crash into the wall.

Your insides feel numb, but you still feel something viscous filling you when your brother's cock freezes and now pulsates so clearly in the spasming walls.

— You're mine… Do you hear it, Y/N? You belong only to me… — Gepard whispers to you as the last drops of sperm flow out of the urethra of his cock. — I'll never leave you. I'll never betray you. Just don't… don't try to replace me anymore.

You open your eyelids slightly, watching the tears fall from your trembling eyelashes and hit the floor under your feet.

If this isn't a nightmare that looks so disgustingly like reality, then what is?..

[milawritesstuff]

hi girly,

can you pleaseeeeee write a story about pedri where he cheat with reader on his toxic ex (i'm not promoting cheating but idk pedri for life)

You opened the door and in the blink of an eye Pedri rushed into your apartment. Just a few minutes ago he had messaged you asking if you were home and now you turned your body as you closed the door and saw as he threw himself on your couch.

-Que pasa? What's going on? You asked.

-I can't take it anymore, we argue whenever things don't go her way. I told her my parents are coming to stay over for a few days and she didn't like it. She says we need our privacy. It's just a few days.-

You bit your bottom lip and studied your best friend. He had his face cupped in between his hands. You could tell he was frustrated. You took a seat next to him and placed your hands on his knees.

-They can stay here with me, if you want. I'm at work all day and won't bother me. Actually I could get some cooking lessons from your mom.-

Pedri turned around and smiled at you. That smile that always melted you. If a person's facial expression could be your home, that would be yours. Where you felt the safest, when he smiled. -It's not that, I can put them in a hotel if I wanted to, but they're my parents. We have privacy all year, and she can't even agree to just a few days.-

His facial expression finally seemed to rest as he stared into your eyes, almost as if he was waiting for you to say something that would magically fix everything for him. You offered him an apologetic smile because you really didn't know what else to do or say.

Pedri and Alba had been dating for a little over a year now and unfortunately you saw this coming miles away. But you knew your best friend liked her, no scratch that, you knew he was in love with her. So you did what any best friend would, you stayed quiet.

You said nothing when little by little she began to alienate all of his friends and when she asked him to move in with her and leave his brother behind. And Pedri wasn't stupid, he had done the same. He knew what was happening, he knew he was losing friends but its quite possible he was too intoxicated with her to know better. But now that she had tried to mess with his parents you knew things would be different. Maybe now she had taken it too far.

-Why don't you talk to her? Explain how important it is for you to spend time with them?- You offered a solution to his problems without throwing Alba under the bus, despite every bone in your body wanting to do so.

-She won't understand. She's hard headed.- He said.

You laughed and widened your eyes at Pedri. -Then I don't know what you can do Pedri. You either talk to her and try to talk some sense into her or you put up with it and I get my free cooking lessons from Rosy.-

The two of you laughed as your arms touched. He turned to look at you, -Even when you think you don't know what to do, you do always know how to make me feel better.- He said as you smiled in return. You felt your heart skip a beat and bit your bottom lip.

-I'm sorry.- He said.

-For?-

-It should have been you, not Alba. It should have always been you.- He leaned in a little closer to you.

-Pedri, I - - I don't know what you're talking about.- You answered.

But before either you or he could say anything you felt the warmth of his lips on yours. His shaky yet firm hand on your jaw as he pulled you in closer to his body and as your lips parted his tongue went hungrily inside to find yours.

I knew it was wrong and he did too. But for once I didn't care. I knew he would probably regret it too, and that tomorrow he would be back with Alba but for tonight he was mine.

We got lost in between wet kisses and slight moans. Eventually me on top of him as he leaned his back on my grey couch. He raised the long shirt I was wearing towards my waist and with a slight moment dipped his fingers under my underwear making me moan into his mouth. I closed my eyes and held on to the back of his neck as his long slender fingers made his way deep inside of me once, twice, over and over again. His chest raising high.

I moaned. And felt Pedri' warm mouth as he whispered into my ear -I've missed your moans.-

[dreorig]

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

Can you see what I see?

You and Eddie have been friends for a while now, but you never told him about your schizophrenia as you thought that was unnecessary — until you saw Eddie talking to an alien head attached to his shoulder.

Content/Warnings: eddie brock x male reader | mainly comedy | talk about hallucinations | the slightest mention of prejudice | some violent words. you know, it's venom | not really fluff but kinda. not sure how to label this | nsfw language | suggestive content

Word count: 1.5k

Notes: i'm on the schizophrenic spectrum and this is self indulgent, sorry not sorry. sometimes i see things that you're not supposed to see and i just fuck with it, which made me think that i wouldn't really freak out seeing venom. and now we're here. there's no smut or anything but eddie's a bottom i gotta say (i feel it in my heart). it's mostly silly because we might face the horrors™ but we stay silly. enjoy heheh :)

You had decided to visit a new friend of yours (possibly a crush?), Eddie Brock. It's not like you had anything better to do.

Approaching his door, you just pushed it open, knowing such formalities as knocking on the door were inexistent between you both already. Right away you saw Eddie sitting on the couch, playing what was undoubtedly Yakuza — handsome and with a good taste in games, of course you wanted to kiss him each time you caught yourself staring at him. Oh, he also had a weird alien-looking head popping out of his shoulder talking about a delicious brain it had eaten once. You just shrugged.

"Hi, Eddie!" you closed the door behind you, walking towards the kitchen in hope of finding a clean glass because you were thirsty as hell. "Dear God, this house is a mess! Mine's probably worse, though."

Hey, you found the glass!

"Y/N, what are you doing here?!" Eddie asked with a very alarmed voice, following you.

"Eat him!" you heard the head shout.

"Stop that already! He's my friend! I'm not eating him!"

You stared in confusion as you saw Eddie arguing with the head. You leaned against the wall, rather bored, waiting for it to go away. You sipped your water instead of saying anything, perhaps that cold water was just what you needed. Eddie didn't need to get dragged into the mess that was your mind. Just a little bit and the hallucination would go away.

Eddie suddenly stopped saying anything, unlike the head, and looked at you in some sort of shock, which was cool because it looked like you were finally slipping back into reality and seeing what Eddie was really doing and saying.

Wait— shit, if Eddie was staring at you like that then maybe you said something without noticing? It was okay, you could just play it cool. You smiled and raised your cup, "What? Can't a guy drink his friend's water?"

"You… you're not scared?" Eddie asked, looking like he had seen a ghost.

Oh, okay, you definitely muttered something about your hallucination without noticing. What good would it do trying to gaslight him into believing you said nothing now? You should just say the truth.

"Nah, not really. Years ago I would be but it's just a part of my everyday life now. Nothing to worry about. Sorry if I scared you."

"Y/N, I don't—"

"You? Scary? He's funny, Eddie. I told you to not eat him."

You began, completely ignoring Eddie and looking at the head, "Look,— can't believe I'm arguing with an alien head that is not even real— most people are just normal with normal minds and normal thoughts, like Eddie. What normal person wouldn't be alarmed if I suddenly said I'm seeing a freaking alien head attached to him out of the blue? It's not even like I'm a cool dude with abilities that let me talk to ghosts like Norman or anything, you're just another hallucination."

Now imagine how confused poor Eddie was. Hallucinations? Normal people? Eddie being a normal person? Who even was Norman? He wanted to understand what was going on but with you and Venom arguing it was almost impossible.

"I'm real! And I'm not an alien!" the head shouted, sounding very insulted. "I take it back, let's eat him!"

Eddie has had enough, so he tried his best to just whisper, "Venom, would you just shut up for once and let us talk?!'

"Fine, but keep it in mind that if he offends me again I'll rip him apart and eat his brain with chopsticks!"

You stuck your tongue out to the alien as childish as you could and it did the same — why was its tongue so long?!

Eddie just sighed as Venom finally disappeared. He was really confused. What were you talking about? Were you an agent? Perhaps you had your own symbiote? Could be the only reasons why you weren't scared at all. He got closer to you, putting his hands on your shoulders and looking into your eyes.

"Y/N, you're not scared of what you saw, right?"

"Nope."

"And you've seen it before?"

"Yep."

"Then you know what it is, right?"

"Duhh, of course. Another hallucination of mine."

"You have hallucinations?"

"Yeah," you chucked. "Every now and then. It's not a symptom that affects me too much, though."

"Symptom?" he tilted his head. "Of what?"

"Oh well, I haven't told you but I have schizophrenia. Before you say anything, I swear that I'm not violent or a threat and that's just some really hurtful prejudice people still have against us that—"

"Y/N," Eddie released your shoulders to hold your hands. "Right now, I'm the last person who could say anything. And honestly, It's not something that bothers me in the slightest."

"Hah, he's insane just like you, Eddie!"

You put a hand on your hip, pointing a finger to nowhere specific, "Hey, you! I don't know where you are but don't you talk about Eddie like that!"

"Ah, so…" Eddie cracked an embarrassed smile. "I'm afraid he's kind of right, I'm not the most sane person at all. And that's why I was so shocked when you opened the door."

"He? What," your eyes widened. "Dude, so you really heard that voice, too?! And I'm just not hallucinating you arguing with that head?!"

"I did, yes. Now you understand my surprise in seeing you? I know what I'm going to tell you sounds like a very crazy story but you gotta believe me."

"Man, haven't I just told you I'm a schizo? Nothing sounds crazy to me. Spit it out because now I'm hella curious."

Eddie hardly knew how to behave. You were the first person to see him talking to his symbiote without thinking he was completely insane and screaming or paralysing after seeing Venom himself. In fact, you looked like a child who was very excited to hear what cool story his parents had to tell him this time.

"What you saw is a symbiote, his name is Venom and we're… kind of bonded. You see, he needs a host and that's how I ended up in this position. I won't hurt you— hell, I'd never. You just can't tell this to anyone, please."

"That's so cool, dude!" You grinned wide. "You don't sweat it, my mouth is sealed! Do you mind if I ask you a few things?"

"It's the least I could do." He chuckled. "Go on."

"You control the symbiote?"

"Not exactly? It's more of a mutual work. Although he takes control over me sometimes, this stubborn creature."

"You're just too soft, Eddie! I gotta do everything myself!"

Only then you remembered the symbiote could talk. You asked, "Hey, Venom, would you mind showing up? Please?" 

"Ohh, then Eddie says the same I did and now you suddenly think I'm real? Don't feel like doing so."

"Oh, c'mon! Pretty please? I wanna apologise."

Within seconds Eddie was completely enveloped by the tall and imposing symbiote, who crossed his arms. "You better."

You were beaming with happiness. What a magnificent day. When would you be able to look at a symbiote so closely again?

"Venom, buddy, you're amazing! Truly! I'm sorry for calling you an alien and doubting your existence. You must understand I'm a little out of touch with reality sometimes and I thought you were part of this mess. Now I'm very aware of who you are, though. Are we okay?" you offered Venom a hand shake.

Instead of shaking your hand, he picked you up and hugged you tight. "Hah, I like you, little man! No wonder why Eddie wants you to kiss him."

As if you weren't already happy enough. You smirked, "He does?"

"He does!"

Eddie could advocate for himself but he was so embarrassed that now he preferred being in full Venom mode, this way you wouldn't see his clearly red face.

"Venom, would you mind letting me see Eddie again? Please? I need his help with something."

"More like he needs your help."

Venom let go of you, then just like he had appeared, he disappeared and Eddie was the one in front of you again. He looked so cute with his flustered face that for a moment all you could think about was how even cuter he would look bouncing on your cock.

"Hi, Eddie. Heard you wanted me to kiss you," you took a step closer, having your face just a few inches away from his.

"I- I mean… perhaps? Maybe. I do, yes. Only if you want," Eddie avoided your gaze when he mumbled.

You held his waist and gently pushed him against the island, making Eddie gasp softly when his back hit the cold marble of the countertop.

"Oh, I do. I want to kiss your hands, your forehead, your cheeks, your neck and, last but not least, your lips. I want to kiss you everywhere. And do a few more things other than that if you allow me to."

Eddie felt his hands shake in anticipation as he wrapped them around your neck and closed his eyes. "Fuck, yes, please."

You chuckled before finally leaning in to kiss Eddie.

[lazypanartist]

HELLO i fucking LOVE ur stobotnik and their kid series!!! its what initially got me to watching the movies and into the sonic franchise as a whole!!! can i request a stobotnik and their kid whos sort of like maria.... like they genuinely love the world and humanity despite (ahem) everything Ivo says. Maybe add in a sprinkle of shadow who sees reader and is taken aback by how similar they are to maria, and now stone + ivo has to deal with their kid having a new guard dog/brother HDSHSDH love ur writing, hope u have a good day!!

AHHH I'M SO GLAD I COULD HELP YOU GET INTO THE SERIES!! Super touched 💙💙💙

*Frantically googling Shadow's personality + Maria Robotnik*

*Having a Crisis™ because WOW OKAY*

Anyways! I've been working on this since the request rolled in, and am 100% invested. Willing to take related requests ^-^

Stobotnik + Sweetheart! Child, + Guard Dog Bestie! Shadow

Note: this is long. Like, LONG long

Your fathers have always loved you, if a tad.. oddly.

Papa Ivo doesn't understand your interest with the rest of humanity.

"What if one of those disgusting cretins gets my baby sick? What if someone actually wanted to hurt you?"

"No, it's far safer for you if you stay by his or Papa Stone's side. Or in the lab. The lab is VERY safe, you know. Well idiot proofed"

Not that he's calling his baby an idiot, of course -

Baba Aban, however, seems to understand you.

Of course he respects Papa's wishes, keeps you close when you do go out, but he tries to sate your interest in humanity best he can.

Always open to questions, and will try to answer everything as age-appropriately as possible.

"What does Papa do all day?"

"He builds things for the government."

"Why?"

"Because it pays well enough to raise you and keeps him busy."

"Why doesn't Papa like other people?"

He.. doesn't have an answer for that one. Not really.

"Just because" sounds too shallow, and "Because people can be horrible" is almost worse.

"To keep you safe."

It's not a lie, but it's not the truth, and the way you huff lets him know you're onto him.

Lets Ivo know before you two are finished with errands, in case you bombard the older man with questions next

They both try and keep you entertained in their own ways

Papa Ivo tries to keep you interested in his machines, how they can be used to better your life

Baba Aban takes you out for errands and helps teach you in the kitchen

Life is as balanced as it can be, considering your solitude growing up

Both dads help you set up a little greenhouse in the traveling lab

"For self sufficiency!" - Papa Ivo

"To give them a new hobby." - Baba Aban

"To keep me busy." - Baby You™

You know what's up

SO since we don't yet know how Shadow calmed tf down in the movie, bare with me here.

After the events of Movie 2 and then the unearthing of Project Shadow, you and your dads are living in the Crabmeat base deep in the Pacific

You and Baba Aban still surface occasionally for groceries and supplies, while Papa Ivo throws himself into his work to distract himself from his latest defeat.

During one surface visit, looking around the Seattle streets while on the back of Baba Aban's motorcycle, you see a strangely familiar figure on a similar vehicle.

You tug on your das's sleeve before gearuring toward the hedgehog

"Baba.. that's not Sonic, is it?"

He looks, does a double take

"Uh.. no."

He's stopping near the same lot the two of you are, and Baba instructs you to message Papa

"Found another alien hedgehog, will update"

He seems wary when the two of you approach, glancing between you as Aban steps closer, an arm in front of your chest to keep you back behind him

"Who are you?"

The hedgehog glares, and you slink just a bit closer to see him

"I am the ultimate life form."

"Decided by who?"

"That's none of your concern."

The two are almost circling one another now, Baba keeping you behind him, even if just barely

"It's my concern if you're here to.. to destroy humanity, or whatever."

You eye him from behind your dad, but he just huffs a laugh

"Destroy? I was created to preserve your human lives."

Your eyes widen again, catching his own before he glanced back towards your Baba

"Is that a problem?"

You tug at Aban's sleeve again, and he slows his movement, letting you peek out more from behind him

"No.. I don't suppose it is."

You finally slip out from behind him, smiling, and Shadow is hit, mentally, with the image of Maria, smile - the same energy as your own

A certain kind of sad loneliness, with an undertone of care

He doesn't know why he thinks of it that way

All he knows is that it feels like home again

The two of you see each other a few times after that, while out on errands with Baba

Papa wants to meet him - of course - but doesn't want another Knuckles situation

(He's very glad that the echidna didn't try and go after you for revenge - after the emerald was taken away, he wasn't sure he could have saved you)

So he lets you - and Stone - approach him on the surface

Not that you know explicitly that you're helping.

Neither of your dad's know about Maria - at least not explicitly - and Shadow still hasn't voiced why he's so attached to you

He finds himself following you whenever he sees you on earth

Of course you're with Baba every time, kept at arms length from Shadow, but he keeps coming back

Papa allows it because he hasn't made any threats

Baba allows it because he seems genuinely friendly

And doesn't seem to recognize him

Finally - FINALLY - Papa asks Baba to help bring him to the base

Respectfully, if possible. He wants to keep the peace, even if it's just for your sake

You get to be the lucky one to invite Shadow to the base

You smile when you ask if he'd like to come, and all he can see is Maria inviting him to see a new breakthrough from her grandfather

He says yes

Immediately

Your smile gets wider

"This is the first time I've invited a friend home!"

His poor, walled-off heart cracks just a little, and he gives Stone a Look™

Baba just glanced away before offering him a ride in a (rented) car

The two of you sit in the back, just talking to each other, while Stone contemplated how he got to driving one of the aliens.

To his home.

With his child in the backseat next to said alien.

As long as you're happy, and Ivo's happy, then he's sure he'll be fine

Shadow is still vague with answers around his past - every time you try and engage him about family, friends, childhood, home - he thinks of Maria

He still tries to answer you - he grew up in space, with his best friend and her grandfather.

She was.. sick. Very sick. And she died.

Conveniently leaving GUN out of the convo.

He sees the sadness you have for him - the same Maria held when she told him to go - and decides that he'll make space for himself in your life

If you let him.

ONLY if you let him.

The three of you make it back to crabmeat safely, and both of your dads hover, but let you interact how you want

Shadow sees a lot of Gerald in your Papa, but won't say anything.

He can't

Not yet, at least

He ends up staying the night, nested on your floor next to your own little fort, facing the door even in his sleep

Ivo tolerates it, if barely

He brought the hedgehog here to study, not to befriend his baby

"What if he has.. space rabies?!"

Stone just rolls his eyes as he shuts your door most the way, alarm systems all in place for the night

"This is the first time they've had a friend over, Ivo. We'll know if something goes wrong - just let them have this."

"This" turned into "a live-in best friend" rather quickly, to both parents' surprise (and your absolute delight)

Eventually, he caves.

He starts answering questions truthfully, the pain still rather fresh in his mind

He tells you about Maria, about GUN, about his purpose and pain

And you're there to comfort him

He's not graphic, and you don't push, and he appreciates it more than he'll voice, even to you

He figures that as long as you're willing to be there and listen, he'll be there to keep you safe company

Both dads are.. annoyed

Ivo thinks this new hedgehog is overbearing - always at your shoulder, keeping you company when he's supposed to be, never seeming to let you out of his sight

Stone thinks he's up to something, the way he lingers between streets when you're out, watching from the shadows (ha)

In reality, he's just trying to keep you safe

Your dads seem to figure that out when one of Ivo's ridiculous predictions comes true - you wander just a bit too far from Baba to look at some UV lights for your plants on Crabmeat, and someone grabs your arm as they walk past, jostling you enough that you yelp

Shadow is there in half a second, sending the aggressor to the floor before tugging on your hand, coaxing you down so he can look at the bruise forming on your bicep

Baba Aban is there a second later, lowering himself and helping Shadow turn your arm before helping you back up

"We should leave."

The three of you are silent until halfway back to the base, when Baba tilts the rearview to look at Shadow while he's druving

"Shadow.."

"What?"

He always glares when he talks to anyone besides you. Typically toward the floor or their chests, but right now he's looking your Baba in the eyes through the mirror, watching your father's gaze soften

*Thank you."

And thank YOU anonymous requester for all of this!

The requests for Sonic Movieverse, and this particular headcanon set, are wide open! Please send me reqs! I'm fixating like a mofo right now!!

[feroshgirlsims]

Chapter 2.2 - Happenstance

[POV: WILLIAM]

"You can't cast Disintegrate on an entire universe," William grumbles. 

"Of course I can," Vlad scoffs, "I literally just did it."

“No,” William glares, “You didn't. You'd need a magical item. Specifically, the Owl of Undoing and Christopher already said you can't have it." 

Vlad raises his brows, and William understands the look: Why are you defending him? Christopher plays a paladin. You don’t even like him; you’ve been cheating on him for months. 

Or maybe that’s just the guilt talking.

"I know what he said,” Vlad takes a swig of his barley bale. “That's why I pickpocketed him three sessions ago. Check your notes. I think you’ll find you already made the decision when you let me roll for it."

Asshole. Yes, William complains about Christopher. Yes, he feels trapped. But Lairs and Llamas wasn’t the place to sort that out. "Fine," he snaps, crumbling up a page of his notes. "You do it. Your enemies turn to dust, and everything resets to a single, non-magical universe."

"That doesn’t make sense,” Candy purses her lips. "How can we be sure the world has no magic? I mean, isn't that a little like saying there are no aliens? It doesn't make sense. There probably are aliens and magic, too. We just haven't discovered them yet."

Vlad grins. “Yes, William, isn’t it possible that there are more magical fish in the sea?”

William does not dignify this with an answer. Unlike Vlad’s family of loud, co-dependent lunatics, the Reddings operate via refined passive-aggressive avoidance and socially acceptable threats.   

Christopher scoops up the dice and flings it onto the map. It skips and rolls to a stop on the worst possible number. "Natural 20!" he exclaims. "I look for a portal that takes me and my fellow paladins back in time to undo Vladislaus's spell."

"Some things can’t be undone," Vlad chuckles. “Why waste your time?”

"Because you’re wrong," Christopher insists, his gaze sharp, "Natural 20 means I automatically succeed."

“Technically—” Gunther begins.

“Nope,” William holds up a hand. Gunther joined their table after Vlad sent their last player running through the quad in tears. He was exhausting, and they’d had enough of his But the Rules speeches to last a lifetime. “Not technically. We are not doing that tonight.”

“So I succeed?” The hopefulness in Christopher’s voice makes William shift uncomfortably.

But Vlad just laughs and hums a little tune. “Oh, do tell, William. How does the natural 20 work out? Can Christopher go back in time and undo all the damage?” 

William grinds his jaw. “No. There is no such thing as magic, which means even with a natural 20, Christopher’s move doesn’t work.”

Christopher slumps in his seat. 

“So the campaign is over?” Candy asks. 

“Y-yes,” William croaks and then clears his throat. “I just want to know how your characters start their new lives while we wrap up."

"I start a conspiracy theory newspaper about aliens and magic,” Candy smirks.

“Hmmm,” Gunther rubs his chin. “I think my barbarian queen becomes a personal trainer. And then she meets this cool, casual academic with black-framed glasses who—”

“That’s enough,” William interrupts. “Christopher? Are we—er—you alright?” He swallows hard, his resolve weakening. Why is he trying so hard to protect the feelings of someone he doesn’t care about? “The end can be a fresh start. It doesn’t even have to be an end,” he finishes, ignoring Vlad’s dark look. 

Christopher surges to his feet. "Honestly, fuck you, Straud. You ruined this for all of us! Especially for Will, who planned it."

William hates being called Will. He's told his boyfriend this a thousand times. But the guilt over being defended when it's obvious Christopher has no idea what’s going on keeps him from pointing it out. "Sit down, love. You don't want to do this." 

"No, I do. I want Vladislaus to know he's fucked up and selfish!"

"He knows,” William deadpans.

"Yes," Vlad agrees, "I'm quite aware of my faults. Now," he leans forward, resting his elbow on the table to prop up his chin. "Are you defending William because you're fucking him or because you're hoping this might excite him enough to tell you he loves you?"

It's the wrong thing to say. Or maybe it’s the right thing, considering that Vladislaus thrives off of chaos. Christopher charges around the table, dragging him out of his seat. 

“Is this what you want?” he shouts.

Yes. 

No.

No. Christopher doesn’t know what’s at stake, and William doesn’t need a white knight. He needs his boyfriend to have enough common sense to know when he's being goaded. “Don’t!” he shouts. 

But he’s too slow.

Christopher cocks back his fist and punches Vlad straight in the mouth.

(Love this Lairs and Llamas set by @valhallansim! Also, my IRL dnd group is really just a spy v. spy situation where we mostly plot against each other and then sometimes band together to fight a dragon we name after bad ex-boyfriends)

PREV | NEXT

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Wally, standing on Clark's back midair: Clark I need you to know that this is the most inconvenient thing you could have possibly done. I mean, I respect the enthusiasm but come on man

Bart, lounging on Conner's back midair: We left a note and everything! We said "Hey there's a bunch of super fast aliens invading earth. Please stay here or they will kill you. We've totally got this. Thanks. Love you lots. Signed The Flash Family."

Wally: I don't understand why that didn't work

Ace, jumping on Jon's back to try and get him lower to the ground: Hey, so are we talking just to talk or can they hear us?

Wally: They wouldn't be able to make out any words but they can kinda hear us. At this speed our voices would just be extremely high pitched ringing in their ears.

Bart, watching Kon's face contort into a grimace in slow motion: Which is why we're talking. Cause it's SUPER ANNOYING, isn't it Kon? Good. Be annoyed Conner Kent. BE VERY ANNOYED.

Ace: Right. So. We can't move these guys because there's no leverage fifty feet in the air. And we can't leave them here like sitting ducks or they'll be killed. And they're moving like an inch a minute, no both of you shut up I don't care how long it actually is it's a minute to us, so what exactly are we supposed to do with them??

Wally&Bart:

Bart: Okay hear me out-

Wally: Oh god-

Bart: No, no, it's good. Maybe. Probably not but listen anyway.

Bart: What if we glue a bunch of cotton balls on them and try and pass them off as weird looking clouds?

Wally:

Ace:

Ace: I can see an art supply store from here.

Bart: Wally?

Wally: I'm thinking

Ace: You're thinking....?

Wally: I'm thinking that if they didn't want to be covered in glue and cotton balls then they should've read our note

[demonqueenart]

hi! first of all, i'm so sorry you're feeling the way that you are. you've helped open my eyes to things i admittedly didn't know (dan's comment at wad, for example) or didn't notice. i'm glad you're receiving at least some support from other phans! i don't know if this helps at all (and it's not me trying to excuse dan), but i wanted to add some context to his "third-world country" reference. as an american, i can tell you that we grew up learning "this"third world" as the proper term. most of my colleagues, friends, family members, etc. STILL use it casually to refer to developing nations/the global south - we were literally taught to use it in school. of course it has since become obsolete, as the wording is incredibly offensive. i know about this because of my time in academia, but this awareness hasn't at all spread to the general population (especially in dan's/my generation of millennials and older). as smart as i do think dan is, i wonder if that's also the case in england. he has the responsibility to educate and inform himself and he needs to acknowledge that he's hurt and alienated a large proportion of his fanbase, so i still hope he'll do that soon.

as for the tour, one of my my best friends is mexican (and lives in mexico) and she was really disappointed during ii when they had to cancel the announced mexico dates. they had assumed the dates would work out, but - if i remember correctly - were presented with a lot of visa/permissions issues. they tried to make it work but it didn't, and they waited much too long to tell anyone. my guess is that they wanted to avoid a similar disappointment this time and not give anyone false hope, nor accidentally say anything negative about those countries as they explain their reasoning (which, of course, just comes off worse - ignoring is never the issue).

other artists have had similar issues with asian and middle eastern countries as well, as there is increased censorship and visa requirements. i've spent four years of my life in asian countries (and a few months in south america) and know that there are phans there who'd love to see them, but it might not be feasible.

ultimately, however, dan and phil owe everyone transparency and need to acknowledge if they're having difficulties with bookings in other countries and why. they usually go back and add dates later, so fingers crossed that they're trying to work out some dates in latam and may yet still add them.

It’s the lack of transparency that is the issue here. How am I supposed to trust them when they won’t tell me anything in the first place? And if they expect me to assume for the best, I don’t think I can do that. Not with all the time they tried to bury their mistakes when people have been hurt as if it’s nothing. I’m sorry but if they’re choosing to look good in the public eye before choosing us, then I don’t think I can trust them anymore. And it’s not that they’ll look bad when they’re talking about this stuff, but the fact they have never once talked about it ever really makes it feel like they want to keep this shut. And that hurts a lot.

Thank you for your perspective tho. I think it helps seeing where they can possibly come from.

Auto-message: This ask’s purpose is to acknowledge dnp’s past/present exclusivity, not to cancel them! But to embrace mistakes that they’ve made so that 1. we won’t exclude people in need in this community, and 2. we can normalize bringing up exclusivity so that improvement can happen. Hopefully this will one day help dnp realize that this is a safe space for them to talk about their mistakes, so that this space can become safe for people of all kinds too <3

*If you don’t understand what is happening, scroll through my blog for context. And I’ll be taking time to answer my asks, so don’t think I’m ignoring youuu*

[randomfoggytiger]

"Proving" Mulder Knew He Was the Father of Scully's Baby

(Had to get this out before the next part of Mulder's Alien Baby Baby Trauma series; so... here we go~!)

Mulder knew he was the father of Scully's baby before Three Words began; and his reticence had everything to do with his PTSD, guilt, and fear and nothing to do with feeling replaced by his partner's child. His ending monologue in Existence further proves this, concluding Mulder's emotional turbulence: "I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both knew."

But how is that to be proven?

Cutting Out Context to Bait the Mystery

According to the script (uploaded here by @x-files-scripts, thank you~), Scully very casually mentions how far along she is separate from her concerns about (and to) Mulder. Mulder doesn't react to this information at all, meaning whatever his reticence and withdrawal were rooted in had nothing to do with feeling replaced as the father of her child.

Throughout their conversation, Mulder tries to keep Scully from digging deeper into his emotions or trauma, deflecting with humor or emotional separation. Scully finally directly addresses his distance; and (though a bit out-of-order from how it aired), the scene below makes two things very obvious:

SCULLY: Mulder --

MULDER: (cutting her off) -- whatever you're going to say, Scully, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be cold. Or ungrateful to you.

SCULLY: I don't know if you can truly understand what it was like.... And now to get you back....

MULDER manages a smile, finally. But only barely.

MULDER: You act like you're surprised.

Scully manages a chuckle, but she's truly worried about him.

SCULLY: I prayed so many nights. And my prayers were answered, Mulder.

MULDER: In more ways than one.

MULDER looks to Scully's stomach. Which she touches.

SCULLY: Yes.

MULDER: I'm so truly happy for you. I know what it means to you --

SCULLY: Mulder --

MULDER: (cuts her off again) -- but I'm having trouble processing any of this. I don't know why I'm here, or where I fit in anymore. I feel strange. Like this can't be happening.

SCULLY nods. Anything she had wanted to tell him will wait.

SCULLY: That's what I've been saying to myself for the last eight months.

What Scully "had wanted to tell him" had nothing to do with her child's paternity nor was that even a concern because she, as mentioned above, says "the last eight months" effortlessly. (An important note: because they kept no show bible, the writers forgot Mulder was missing three months and buried another three; but the intent behind that line is the same even if there isn't or wasn't a numbers problem to quibble over.)

"The last eight months" comes at the tail end of the conversation without a remark or quip from Mulder's perspective, meaning this wasn't news enough for him to comment on or even react to. Scully's statement bookended their discussion, meaning she wasn't drawing it out longer or forcing information down Mulder's throat that he wasn't ready to process. Since that is the case, both knew the problem wasn't her pregnancy (though it was a stressful factor) but was another, bigger concern.

Devil's advocate: Scully was trying to tell Mulder the baby was his-- Gillian Anderson's expressions debunk this theory, but we'll press on-- and the months referred to was how long Mulder was "gone": in which case, Scully being hugely pregnant would have been a huge tip off for her partner regardless; and Mulder, for as much as he is avoiding the obvious this episode, is not stupid.

By cutting up the script-- taking out important context and removing crucial lines-- the audience is left to speculate on information that what was intended to be understated yet obvious (though unconfirmed until the finale episodes.) Chris Carter and Spotnitz have already stated they'd baited Scully's pregnancy as much as they could (one such interview here, credit to @babygirlmulder1018 for the upload~) while always planning for Mulder to be the father. The problem with their method is that they sacrificed necessary clarity for ambiguity, leaving the actors to scramble or fill in the butchered gaps as much as they could with implied body language. Three Words Mulder's affectionate, though fleeting, glances at Scully's belly or Scully's heightening worry for his well-being are debatable clues, all dependent on the viewer's interpretation (even when rewatched with hindsight.) The key to any good mystery is to have all the puzzle pieces in place so that it makes sense when you go back and see them all line up. Cutting out important clues early just to bait the mystery is foolhardy, especially when those gaps are never filled-in with any answers; and The X-Files show, while built around unsolved or unresolved mysteries, always provided a likely explanation (even if that explanation was later revealed to not be entirely true.) It's a shame that this premediated action thoughtlessly skewed the reading of the scene so badly that it took away from its original intent-- Scully's worries over her partner as he becomes more and more lost in his trauma-- and turned it widely into a "bet he's jealous or feels left behind because Scully moved on without him" interpretation, muddying it for viewers over the decades to come.

It's not the first time a script has been stripped of its original intent to fit the vision of the showrunners (often to the frustration to the various writers, actors, directors, etc.); but there is a marked difference between the tampering done to, for example, David Duchovny's personal ideas and scripts in keeping with the mythos of the show (Cinefantastique: David Duchovny on "The Unnatural" and "Hollywood A.D.") and specifically removing an important piece of dialogue to intentionally blur a scene for "the mystery" without that action serving any goal other than obfuscation... and, ultimately, confusion.

Mulder Himself Proves He Knew

According to the script, Scully's concerns started in her partner's hospital room when Mulder's non-reaction snags her notice twice in a row:

"His reaction is so underwhelming that Scully has to laugh" and

"The doctor has to chuckle, looking to Scully. But Scully isn't humored now. She reads something in Mulder past the humor. And Mulder catches her sensing it. That he is deeply troubled."

"Mulder catches her sensing it" is a crucial piece of information, smoothly setting up the scene at his apartment-- Mulder doesn't ice Scully out (always responding to her pleas with mustered up but equal sympathy and sorrow) but he avoids her eyes as much as possible, not wanting to be read, to be "exposed." THAT is what concerns Scully-- never before in their partnership has he evaded eye contact, likely seeking it more often than any other person on the planet. But Mulder (also likely more than anyone) knows that eyes are the window to the soul; and he doesn't want his bared yet.

The tricky part of the ensuing scenes is not to mistake his avoidance of Scully's detection with his avoidance of the baby. Mulder is avoiding everything equally-- but he will still spare a moment for his partner or his baby here and there before snatching away his focus again, dodging any opportunity that might lead to vulnerability.

At his apartment, Mulder turns aside whenever he can or spreads a plaster-fake grin on his face when in conversation;

but it melts into sincerity after he finally acknowledges the baby in the room. It's not quite happiness, but it is a form of contentment and a little pride (similar to his look on the couch in Empedocles.)

When Scully wants to commit anarchy over Kersh's tyrannical terms, Mulder squashes that impulse flat, sparing a strained but still sincere smile as he directs her attention to the pragmatic fact of her baby.

(It's not until "Agent Who?" comes across Mulder's radar that he starts to stiffen against Scully's reticence. Again, not about the baby.)

The last significant mention of Scully's pregnancy is in her kitchen at her apartment. TLG drop in to do their research... and to refocus Mulder on his impending miracle ("a certain blessed event") and away from his crazy mission. Mulder's amused at first with their commentary (as is Scully), giving an exaggeratedly suspicious, comedic squint (which Scully follows up with a witty repartee on his investigative methods)--

until he figures out his partner's ulterior machinations. (The tensions that trail them both the rest of the episode are because of Scully's interferences and not-- again-- because of the baby.)

Those are the only direct references to the baby in Three Words, although Scully does tag along on his madcap mission with TLG); and Empedocles starts out in the spirit of the kitchen scene above-- Mulder squinting about the pizza man, ribbing Scully lightly, and enjoying getting ribbed in return-- but with the added bonus of some unfiltered, heartfelt moments of a man fully embracing fatherhood.

So why, if the original intent of the struggle of Three Words wasn't about the paternity question, does Mulder still struggle with doubts the rest of the series. Well... what were his paternity doubts?

Paternity Doubts

Mulder knew (logically) that his partner wouldn't run into the arms of another man or through the doors of the nearest IVF clinic just because he was chucked six feet under; but that reassurance gave him nothing to stand firmly on since both of their lives revolved around clones, aliens, and even a little girl that was born (and died) to serve an agenda.

Scully had been used over and over against her consent and was ultimately stripped of her fertility; and even though Mulder once said "never give up on a miracle", the IVF had failed, and there had been months of regular extracurricular activities since without even a thought of a baby on either of their radars. But somehow, the minute he vanishes off the planet, she finds out she's pregnant? The exact same somehow he was abducted and somehow returned and somehow resurrected? It doesn't add up; and Mulder's motto has always been "I want to believe."

"I have the same doubts you do, Scully," he said in the Pilot; and those doubts haunt him in Three Words; and (although they are temporarily set aside during the off-screen conversation Mulder has with his partner before Empedocles) they remain, along with his fears, buried under the surface-- as demonstrated by his opening monologue in Essence: "Is it the product of a union? Or... an answer to prayer-- a true miracle? Or is it a wonder of technology, the intervention of other hands? What do I tell this child about to be born? What do I tell Scully? What do I tell myself?"

Furthermore, the events of Essence and Existence make a bit (only a bit) more sense if those events-- Zeus Genetics, Billy Miles, Lizzie Gill, Krycek, the Super soldiers, and other such nonsense-- are put through another lens: trauma.

The Other, Bigger Concern

If Mulder knew the baby was his, why did he distance himself?

Simply put, PTSD.

Three Words very specifically chooses Mulder's flashbacks as his first scene (post here), providing motive to any future decision he makes. Being torn apart for three months and buried another three before being resurrected on a chance is a lot to grapple with; add in a pregnant partner who is clearly expecting a miraculous baby amidst a set of tragically unmiraculous events and looking to her recently resurrected partner for not only their old relationship but more and you get a PTSD-riddled, paranoid, and very panicked Fox Mulder.

Empedocles begins after the aforementioned off-screen conversation; and quite plainly establishes Mulder in his new paternal role, bringing Scully (and the baby) gifts like he has any other significant moment in their relationship (and also because it's no longer acceptable to bring triumphant caveman hunting trophies back to the domestic den.) This episode not only goes out of its way to give him a first-time "feeling his baby move" scene, but further cements Mulder's role by showing him standing sentry outside of Scully's door, doting on her hand and foot back at her apartment, and including their baby nonverbally in Scully's gratitude speech. These benchmark moments are then followed up by him briefly forgetting his baby in Vienen, not wanting to leave its side in Alone, and cycling back to his paternity worries in Essence-- further proof that his initial distance and on-again-off-again dance is rooted firmly in trauma rearing its ugly head to continually mess up his temporary peace.

That trauma follows him (mostly unacknowledged) the rest of Season 8, coming to a head (and exploding) during the events of Essence and Existence. When his security in Scully's science and himself are completely eroded, Mulder is left blindly grappling for any explanation from any nearest and newest source currently in front of him (handing off Scully to his sworn enemy should have been the tip-off point to both she and Skinner, prompting them to put a stop to his spiraling before doing anything else... but I digress.) His hot-and-cold attitude is back (referring to their child as "your baby") even though his fiercely protective love and interest hasn't faded one bit ("will do anything to protect it.")

Deep down, Mulder always knew (or at least hoped) the baby was his-- "the truth we both know," after all.

So, What Does This Mean?

Probably nothing in the grand scheme of things, but a rippling domino effect in the minutiae. It explains Mulder's distant-then-doting attitude, the manifestation of his PTSD and impending parenthood, and even why he was happy to have Scully firmly glued by his side throughout Three Words (even if he couldn't meet her eyes at times.) Scully's pregnancy was a change for both: almost overnight she needed more from their relationship. However, once she realized how displaced and harried Mulder was, Scully relaxed the pace for both of them (off-screen...), allowing Mulder to finally recover, regroup, and continue on. Once that understanding was reached (again: off-screen), Mulder started to take his journey more gently (upsetting and resettling himself whenever Scully's health scares or his impulsive actions blasted him up, down, and sideways) while Scully refigured how to fit their new normal into the life she built in his absence. Like always, teamwork and their unspoken; and, overall, it makes Season 8's there-and-gone-again MSR bits that much more in-character and enjoyable.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[ghelgheli]

17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)

from the end-of-year book ask

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.

SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.

But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.

This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.

When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.

None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.

So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.

What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.

The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.

Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.

Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.

What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.

ty for ask✨🐐

[sorry-i-like-romantic-fabriz]

This post here lists everything that makes Riz "canonically AroAce". OP refuses to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with them, so I'm responding to it separately with my own post. This post isn't about denying his possible/potential aromanticism, this post is about debunking the "canon" everyone insists makes Riz irrefutably AroAce. As always, I'm not here to tell anyone Riz cannot possibly be aromantic. I'm just trying to push back against the concept that Riz can only be interpreted one way and one way only. Here we go!

"He doesn't want relationships. That is canon." He's disinterested in them, that is not the same as being against them entirely. He doesn't relate to his friends obsession with them, but moreover he specifically doesn't relate to being horny 24/7.

"He made up Baron because he wasn't dating anyone and felt pressured." He was feeling (unintentionally) alienated by his friends and didn't wanna seem "different". They were saying he'd understand the obsession specifically with sex, once he was in a relationship. They weren't saying he HAD to be in one.

"His entire nightmare forest experience was 'you are different from your loved ones because you don’t want romantic relationships like they do'. " That was by absolutely no means the entirety of his nightmare experience. His fear was being abandoned by his friends, something Kalina antagonizes him about throughout the ENTIRE SEASON. Yes his disinterest in relationships (which he clearly equates with sex) was part of his fear, but not the entirety of it.

"Baron is literally part of his imagination telling him that he does not experience romantic attraction." Baron appears for less than twenty minutes throughout the entirety of the season. While Baron is his "Roemaence Partener", and while yes Baron also antagonizes Riz about his disinterest in relationships, Baron is more a representation of Riz desperately trying to fit in rather than one saying "you don't experience romantic attraction".

"Everybody uses asexual to mean aro/ace, because they are not aware of the term aromantic." That's just straight up untrue. While it is a frequent misconception, insisting that that is what people ALWAYS mean is ridiculous. Which connects with your next statement:

"Brennan isn't exactly deeply entrenched in queer labels." While I can't argue about Brennan's knowledge of anything queer, Brennan knows about: sexuality being a spectrum, gender being a construct, polyamory (which I feel means he knows relationships are complicated), and he did a whole fucking campaign with drag queens of various labels.

I feel like insisting Brennan has absolutely zero concept of there being a difference between Ace and Aro is just to fit your belief that there's absolutely no way Riz could be anything but AroAce.

"Him using the word asexual does not and should not erase the explicit aromanticism of riz's character." There is no clear, canon information of Riz's romantic identity. Only his sexuality. Tbh if Murph made the conscious decision to make Riz asexual, I feel like he also knows Ace and Aro are not one in the same.

Look, I'm not denying that Riz could be AroAce. There's canon to support that interpretation along with the canon that states he's asexual. I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong, what I'm saying is your interpretation is not the only correct one.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

[neolxzr]

imo there’s a difference between “queer coding” and very specifically playing to both sides whether or not the writers/artists/directors intended to make a character queer or not. I think that for enstars specifically, with the new valkyrie event, while people are happy that some characters such as shu and mika in the new event are being shown expressing their love for each other and their views on their sexuality and expression, people are frustrated that it is not explicitly said because of the company’s need to not confirm a character as queer in order to not alienate (homophobic!) fans. Because at the end of the day in happyele’s eyes, if that homophobic fan spends a lot of money on the game then they’re worth pandering to (shrug emoji) And I mean some people also just don’t like shumika

anon i understand where you're coming from but i think you are wildly missing the point in my original post

my point is EXACTLY that if you need the characters to walk up to the screen and say "i'm gay" or "i'm [insert some 21st century-friendly label]" or "this is my boyfriend" for it to count as queer media in your eyes than i think you need to do some reexamining about what exactly your views on queer media as a whole are

plus, they DO do this. they explicitly talk about queer themes out loud many many times in enstars. shu says to mika that they should, together, create the happiness that his grandfather was never allowed to have, after they spent the entire story detailing shu's grandfather's queer romance story. they probably kissed in hermitage, and the lyrics to acanthe talk about them kissing. rinne proposes to niki in every other story they appear in together. he told him to do a striptease during nightclub. tori has very explicitly gay feelings for eichi. arashi narukami exists. eichi, while talking to arashi in pretty mission, says "people like us," confirming himself to also be some form of queer. kuro calls keito an old word for spouse or husband. and SO many more examples. this is not "queer coding" or subtext, its just text.

in any case, authorial intent is generally of no interest when it comes to examining media. the conversation of what the author could have meant by something is wildly less interesting than the conversation about the ways in which the audience can interpret it. what the writers intended should have little to no place in the discussion. what we should be talking about is what the thing itself is saying, both implicitly and explicitly.

expanding your view on what exactly can be seen as "queer media" can only do you good. and it would do so much good to not give a shit about the possibility that homophobic people will also like the thing and interpret it as not queer. that is literally not my problem whatsoever, and it shouldn't be yours either.

what it seems like to me is that no matter what pieces of queer media will always be criticized in some capacity. if they're not explicitly queer enough, they're just bait and have no merit. if they are explicit, then they're promoting stereotypes, or its rainbow capitalism, or it's fetishization. there is no winning. the standards for queer media are absolutely absurd, but they don't HAVE to be. you don't have to look at a piece of media through this kind of silly cynical lens if you don't want to.

the discussion about a work loses so much interesting and important nuance when you try to shove it into a box of "good representation" or "bad evil queerbait." thats just really really boring way to view stories