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justagalwhowrites · 9 months ago

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Oral Fixation - A TLOU One Shot

It's your boyfriend Joel's birthday but what do you give the man who has given you so much? AKA You learn how to give Joel a blow job. A one-shot set in the Lavender universe.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader from Lavender

CW: Oral sex, mild age gap (Joel is turning 33, reader is 21 almost 22), mild description of past sexual encounter involving oral sex that wasn't the best, Joel is almost disturbingly happy because he hasn't been traumatized yet RIP trauma-free Joel, unprotected P in V sex, no use of Y/N, 18+ only minors DNI

Length: 4.5k

A/N: The final part of the Joel Miller Birthday Celebration! Can be read as a stand alone fic with the understanding that reader is Sarah's nanny and has been seeing Joel for about six months.

Masterlist | Lavender Masterlist | AO3

September, 2000

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” you said, all but clinging to Cassie’s arm as the two of you made your way through the adult store. You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting but it wasn’t this, neon colored silicone penises and intimidatingly tiny scraps of lace everywhere you looked.

“And I can’t believe you don’t own a vibrator,” Cassie said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be such a prude, with the way you and the DILF go at it I’m pretty sure you’ve had more sex than I have at this point.”

Your cheeks got hot but… she was probably right. You and Joel had sex a LOT. So much that it was hard to believe that, just six months earlier, you’d still been a virgin. Sure, you doubted that sex with anyone else was even half as good as it was with Joel but it felt like you’d been denying yourself a whole world of good things because you’d been reluctant to make that leap for so long. Now, you wanted to make up for lost time, something that Joel was happy to oblige.

But, because you were so new to it, you didn’t really know much and, what’s worse, you didn’t know what you didn’t know.

Which is why you’d turned to Cassie in the first place. Joel’s birthday was coming up and you’d drawn a complete blank on what to get the man. You’d never gotten anyone a birthday gift who wasn’t your grandmother or your friend. What the hell did you get a boyfriend? What the hell did you get a man?

“You, naked, ready to recreate the filthiest porn the guy’s got,” Cassie said, not even looking up from the latest issue of Cosmo as she did. “And, because it’s you, bake him a cake or something. He’ll be thrilled.”

“I don’t know that Joel watches porn,” you crinkled your nose. That made her look up.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She asked, incredulous. “Babes. He’s a man. Of course he watches porn.”

“I’m sure he would if things were different,” you said. “But he has a kid at home, we have to fight for privacy, I don’t think he’s exactly sitting down and putting on some…”

“He is,” she said, closing the magazine now. “I promise you, he is. Maybe less now that you’re in the picture but he definitely is. Stashed under his bed or in some shoebox at the back of his closet is a pile of all his dirtiest fantasies and all you have to do is gift wrap yourself, ready to fulfill them.”

So you might have done some snooping the next time you were at Joel’s before he got home from work.

Maybe.

Just a little.

And yeah, Cassie might have been right. There might have been a box - one a bit bigger than a shoebox but not much bigger - that had tapes and magazines inside. You took a quick inventory, looking at the covers of the videos and flipping through the pages of the more well-worn magazines.

It seemed both invasive and oddly impersonal, rifling through something that was mass produced and clearly not intended for you to see but was something that it seemed like you should know. The women in the magazines and on the covers of the tapes were so much more… everything than you were. More sexy, more confident, more knowledgable. It made your stomach twist.

Was this what Joel really wanted? He was older than you and you’d been a late bloomer in the romance department. Of course he had more experience but he’d never made it sound like anything was missing from your sex life. But maybe he was just being nice. Maybe what he really wanted was something more like whatever someone named Candy was doing on the back of this VHS sleeve.

It seemed like the least you could do for Joel was find a way to give him what he wanted.

So Cassie had convinced you to come to this store to figure out something to do for him for his birthday. Not that you had much idea what that would be.

“What’s his favorite color?” She asked, examining the tiny scraps of lace.

“Forest green?” You asked more than answered, examining something that you were pretty sure was a bra but seemed to be missing some key components. You were about to move on to something else when one of the movies playing on the opposite wall caught your eye. It was one of the actresses from the tapes at Joel’s, you recognized her. She was looking hungrily at a cock before taking it into her mouth, eyes closed in bliss with a satisfied groan.

Cassie noticed where you were staring and joined you, smirking a little.

“Like watching someone get their dick sucked, eh?” She teased, elbowing you lightly.

You glared at her.

“I just…” You looked back at the screen. “I think Joel has that video.”

“Really?” She said, brows raised, looking back at the screen as the woman started to slide up and down the thick cock. “Well, that’s simple enough. Just blow him, wham bam thank you ma’am, you’re set.”

“I don’t…”

“Oh don’t tell me you suck him off too much as it is,” she said. “Your sex life is already insufferably perfect.”

“No,” you said, defensive, your cheeks getting hot. “I just…”

“Just what?” She asked when you stayed quiet a bit too long.

“I’ve never… done that,” you said, looking back at the screen as the woman there hollowed out her cheeks and moaned.

“What!” Cassie yelped and you shushed her as the other people in the store turned to stare. “You’ve never…”

“Not with Joel,” you said quickly. “I did once with a guy but it didn’t go great and I really didn’t like it and honestly I think Joel might be too big to…”

“Too big?” She grabbed your arm, her eyes wide. “Babes, you said he was big but like… what do you mean too big? Gimme a ballpark, like…” she tugged you over to a wall of remarkably life-like dildos and pointed to one on the larger end. “That big?”

“No,” you said and she looked relieved for a moment before you pointed to one that was even bigger. “More like that one.”

Cassie’s jaw dropped, looking between you and the silicone dick in awe.

“That’s what the DILF is packing?”

“Can you please not call him that?”

“You big slut!” She was practically beaming. “Taking that for your first time? You deserve a medal!”

“Can we just…”

“That’s it, you’re sucking his dick for his birthday,” she said, grabbing flavored lube, throat numbing spray and a copy of the tape that was playing overhead. “As often as he apparently goes down on you? Seems like the least you can do is return the favor as he turns… what, 47?”

You glared at her and she smirked at you.

“33,” you said.

“And you don’t want me to call him a DILF,” she said, grabbing a surprisingly conservative set of lingerie and a small vibrator on her way to the counter. “Come on, we’ll turn you into an oral champ before you know it!”

You watched the video with Cassie that night after you had half a bottle of cheap wine in your system. The woman on screen seemed so… into it. The one time you’d gone down on someone was the summer before you left for college, going out with a boy you met at the movie theater when you took the kids you were babysitting there to see Hercules. He was cute, nice, didn’t carry the baggage a lot of the boys you’d gone to high school with did. On your fourth date, you were making out in his car and he’d nudged your head down lower and lower until it was in his lap. He pulled his cock out and you cautiously, hesitantly, took him in your mouth and you did try to do what you thought he wanted while taking it slow. But it didn’t take long before he was moaning and thrusting up into your mouth and you gagged as he pushed your head down further on his dick. You’d all but ripped yourself away, coughing and sputtering, and he half heartedly apologized before trying to push your head to his lap again. You didn’t go for it that time and he took you home. You didn’t go out with him again, deciding to write off men until you were away at college and hopefully meeting one who was fine with you doing things like not sucking their dick.

Which, Joel was. Or seemed to be, anyway. But if he enjoyed it - if it felt like it was something that was missing from your sex life - you wanted to give it to him. He’d given you so much, you wanted to give him everything. You just needed to figure out how to do it.

After you giggled your way through the video the first time, you started it again as Cassie gave you some tips: How to breathe through your nose, how to swallow around your gag reflex, how to use your tongue, how guys liked when you choked on it a little. It felt almost like you were in class, taking notes on a piece of scratch paper you mentally vowed to set on fire after you practiced a little with a cucumber so no one had to know that you needed someone to teach you this stuff, stuff that seemed like it should come naturally to you.

“Just use the throat spray, use the lube and breathe through your nose,” she said when she left to go home the next morning. “You’ll have him eating out of your hand.”

“Right,” you said, trying to ignore the tight knot of nerves that had settled in your stomach. “I can do it.”

You carefully selected a Joel-sized cucumber at the grocery store and tried to not feel like an idiot as you followed Cassie’s advice as you practiced leading into Joel’s birthday. It wasn’t as bad when there wasn’t someone shoving your head down on their lap though it still wasn’t your favorite thing. But for Joel? You’d deal.

The day you were going to celebrate his birthday, the reality of it set in. If there was one thing you were an expert in by now, it was your boyfriend’s cock and your boyfriend’s cock was… big. What if the throat spray didn’t work as well when you weren’t the one in control of what was going in your mouth? Worse, what if you were just bad at it? What if he had an ex who was as good at sucking him off as that porn star would be and you’d be struggling to measure up the whole time?

You were rarely nervous with Joel anymore but you were weirdly nervous as you made him dinner - chicken fried steak - and tried to not let it show as the two of you ate together and had drinks and cake while watching Alien in his living room after.

“You spoil me way too damn much, baby,” Joel said as your head was nestled against his chest, his lips in your hair. You could feel him smile against you as he kissed you there. “Best birthday I’ve had in years, thank you.”

“Well, I might have one more thing for you,” you said, sitting up from him and smiling a little, your heart pounding in your chest.

“Really?” He cocked a smile at you, his cheek dimpling. “Does it involve you naked?”

“It might,” you teased, relaxing a little as you looked at him. This was Joel, the safest man you knew, the person you loved more than any other. It would be OK. “Want to go to your room and find out?”

“Good luck stoppin’ me,” he winked, getting up and helping you off the couch. Once you were up stairs, the two of you kissed your way down the hall but he moaned as you pulled away from him and nudged him back toward the bed.

“Just stay put,” you said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Not goin’ anywhere,” he called as you disappeared into his bathroom. You looked at yourself in the mirror, forcing yourself to take a deep, calming breath before going to his linen cupboard and pulling out the throat spray, lube and lingerie you’d stashed away earlier. You used the spray first, wincing at the antiseptic-like taste of it, before you quickly stripped, balling up your sundress and bra and pulling on the deep green lacy babydoll set Cassie had picked for you. As you examined yourself in the mirror - fluffing your hair and adjusting your breasts in the sheer cups - you gave your best friend this much: she knew how to help make you comfortable. The set wasn’t too revealing or over the top but still highlighted your curves and put all the parts of you Joel seemed to like best on display.

“Thank you, Cassie,” you muttered before taking a deep breath and steeling yourself, the strawberry flavored lube clutched tight in your hand. You looked your reflection in the eye and tried to get lost in the almost-porn star version of yourself in the mirror.

“You got this,” you said almost silently, giving yourself a single, resolute nod before going for Joel’s room again.

He was sitting obediently where you’d left him, watching the bathroom door. You draped yourself against the frame, popping a hip out to accentuate your curves, one arm stretched high over your head against the wood. Joel’s mouth dropped open, his eyes going wide.

“Like what you see?” You asked more confidently then you felt.

“Goddamn, baby,” he said reverently. “Gonna gimme a heart attack, looking that damn good.”

“Well don’t go dropping dead on me now,” you teased, walking toward him in what you hoped was a sexy way and not something that made you look like an idiot. “You haven’t even gotten your present yet.”

He put his hands on your waist when you reached him but, instead of straddling him, you reached down and spread his legs so you could step between them. You knelt in front of him, holding his gaze as you did, reaching for his jeans to open them.

“What…” he frowned, looking down as you freed his cock, thick and long and hard.

“Told you,” you said, trying to make yourself sound sultry and not nervous. “I had something for you.”

You didn’t give him a chance to respond before you licked his shaft from root to tip, his skin velvet smooth and salty on your tongue. He groaned as you did and you took a deep breath as you took his tip into your mouth, sucking him gently as you did.

Even just that was a lot and, as your tongue teased him, you squeezed some of the flavored lube into your hand before you spread it over his shaft, working him with your hand, your heart racing.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned as you started taking more of him into your mouth, licking and sucking and trying to focus on breathing through your nose as you did. It took more time than you really wanted to get all of him in your mouth, swallowing past your numbed gag reflex as best you could to take his length into your throat. You moaned as you did, sucking him hard, hollowing your cheeks like the girl in the video had done and he moaned, too, his fingers tightening on the edge of the bed. “Goddamn, your mouth…”

You would have smiled at that if your mouth wasn’t open so wide. Instead, you started trying to work his cock the same way you did the cucumber in practice, hopefully the same way the girl did in the video he had.

Joel’s breaths started coming quicker, needy little pants dripping from his lips as his cock dripped in your mouth and you took the encouragement, trying to move faster as you did, trying to take him as deep as you could every time.

But Joel was big and you were almost positive he was getting bigger as you worked him, his cock swelling even further, his precome salty at the back of your throat, and the faster you moved the harder he was to take. Eventually, even with the spray, it was too much and you choked, coughing and gagging enough that you had to pull back from him, tears stinging the corners of your eyes.

“Woah, you alright?” He asked, leaning forward and frowning at you, still a little breathless as he did.

“Mhmm,” you hummed as you nodded, trying to keep yourself from coughing, massaging your throat as you did. “Sorry, I just…”

“Don’t apologize, baby, goddamn,” he laughed once. “Not after doin’ all that for me…”

You smiled a little sheepishly, feeling like you could breathe again. But the numb feeling at the back of your throat was gone.

“I can do it again,” you said, sitting back on your heels. “I just… I got some throat spray and I just need to…”

Joel’s eyebrows knitted together, frowning deeper this time.

“Throat spray?”

You nodded.

“It’s numbing?” You said, almost like it was a question. “I hadn’t really done this much before and I really wanted to do it like…”

“Like what?” He asked and your eyes went wide. Shit. You hadn’t meant to say that part. “Like what, baby?”

“Like the woman in one of the videos in your closet?” You said sheepishly, your heart pounding, everything else coming out in a rush. “I’m really sorry, I just couldn’t figure out what to get you for your birthday and Cassie suggested finding out what porn you liked and trying to recreate it so I might have looked through some of your things, I promise it was just to surprise you and give you what you wanted and…”

“Baby,” he cut you off gently, tucking his cock back into his jeans. “Hey, it’s OK, c’mere.” He tugged you up on the bed beside him and you kept your eyes determinedly on your hands. “Think you can look at me?”

You took a deep breath but listened, gnawing on your lower lip as you did.

“There are those pretty eyes of yours,” he smiled a little, cupping your cheek. “Now, I ain’t sayin’ I don’t appreciate the thought - don’t think any woman’s ever done something like that for me - but honey, I don’t want to do something you don’t want to do. I really don’t want to do something that’s rough enough on your body that you gotta numb yourself to get through it.”

You frowned.

“But you go down on me…”

“Yeah, because I like to,” he said. “Like seein’ what I can do to you but that doesn’t mean you have to do it back to me, not unless you want to. And if you do want to, you don’t need to do it so hard that you hurt yourself. It’s not good for me if it’s not good for you, too.”

You took a deep, steadying breath, and nodded.

“Besides,” he smiled a little. “Haven’t needed those videos in a while. Honestly, I kinda forgot I even still had ‘em.”

You scoffed.

“Hey, I’m being serious,” he said. “Haven’t used ‘em since you and I got together, that’s for damn sure. And for a few months before that I may or may not have had better luck thinkin’ about this sexy nanny I had working for me…”

“Oh really?” You teased lightly, heat taking the place of the nerves in your stomach.

“Really,” he said, almost unsettlingly earnest. “I’ve been yours for a while, baby. And that’s because I love you, don’t have a damn thing to do with what you do in bed.”

You smiled softly and kissed him, his lips gentle on yours for a moment before it deepened, turning hot and needy.

Joel tugged you back on the bed with him, one hand splaying wide over your back, the other slipping into the soft lace of your lingerie to cup your breast. But, before you got too distracted, you pulled back from him, making him frown a little.

“But what if I want to,” you said, biting your lip again.

His frown deepened.

“Want to what?”

“Suck your cock,” you said, trying to ignore how hot your cheeks got.

“Fuck, baby,” he said, his eyes darkening.

“Because I do want to,” you said. “I want to make you feel the way you make me feel.”

“You sure?” He asked. “Because I know I can be… a lot to take.”

You smiled a little.

“Think I know how big your cock is, Joel. And I know what I want.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he groaned, lying on his back, freeing his cock and stroking it as he did. “Gotta take it easy and let me help.”

You nodded eagerly before settling near his hips, taking his length in your hand and stroking him up and down, running your thumb over his leaking tip. When you looked at him now, you weren’t intimidated. Instead, you were hungry for him, wanting to feel him deep inside you in a different way, your mouth watering with it.

You lowered yourself over him, licking his head, your tongue wide and flat against him and Joel groaned, his fingers tightening in the blankets on the bed. You took a moment to really experience him, the taste of him, the heady concentration of the scent of him in the thatch of coarse hair at his base, the tender softness of his skin. It shouldn’t have been surprising but you wanted more, more of all of it.

So you took more, his tip disappearing into your mouth slow and easy.

“Fuck, there you go baby,” he was damn near panting with need and you smiled a little around his intrusion, at what you were doing to him. “Nice and slow.”

You moaned as you sank lower, easing more and more of him into your mouth before rising up and then taking a little more of him, your tongue pressed tight to his shaft as you did again and again.

And then he was at the back of your throat, no longer numbed, and you tried to do what Cassie had told you to do: Swallow him past your gag reflex to get all of him inside.

It worked, at first, your lips making it almost to the base of his shaft as he groaned. But it didn’t last, your body quickly trying to reject the thick heft of him in your throat, making you gag. This time, though you didn’t try and force it, pulling back quickly but leaving his head in your mouth.

“You OK?” He asked, his voice strained, one large hand coming to cradle the back of your head. You just nodded, his tip still in your mouth. “Here, gimme your hand.”

You obeyed and Joel guided your fingers to the base of his shaft.

“Just…” you could hear the desperation in his voice. “Hold on like that, don’t gotta take it all. Feel the most at the tip, anyway.”

You nodded and worked your way lower again, a little faster this time, adjusting your grip so you were still taking most of him into your mouth but not quite hitting your gag reflex. Joel’s breaths grew sharper, more desperate and you could feel him straining to hold back from fucking up into you and you couldn’t help but feel a sense of power at that, the way you could make him almost lose himself to pleasure.

You started to work him faster, your tongue pressing and curling around him, your mouth working in tandem with your hand. It wasn’t long before you found your rhythm over him, rising and falling, sucking and licking, savoring every inch of him you could take. And even though you were focused on making Joel feel good, it was making you tight and needy, too, the hand not around his cock finding your slit, fingers trailing through the wetness that had grown there.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Takin’ me so well, baby, doin’ so damn good.”

You moaned, working him harder, faster as your fingers grew firmer on your clit and you suddenly, desperately, needed all of him in your mouth, gag reflex be damned.

So you took all of him, moaning as his head slipped into your throat, sucking him hard and fast and you felt him twitch in your mouth before he all but ripped you away from him, leaving you stunned for a moment.

But then he damn near jumped between your thighs, shoving your panties to the side and pushing into you. You gasped at the stretch of him, your pussy already tightening around him. Joel’s hips snapped into yours just as fast as you’d been sucking him before.

“Ain’t gonna last,” he said, burying his face in your neck and kissing the delicate skin there. “Too fuckin’ good at that, Jesus…”

You could only moan in response, your own orgasm building quickly, your fingers tugging at his shirt as you tried to pull him impossibly closer, your pussy drawing tight around him for a second before you fell apart. Your orgasm was so powerful you couldn’t move, crying out with the force of it as Joel fucked into you twice more before he came, too, pressing himself deep inside as he spilled into you.

Joel collapsed, spent, on top of you after, still fully clothed and panting for breath as you held him close.

“Holy shit baby,” he said eventually, still a little breathless.

You laughed quietly.

“Did I measure up to the video?” You teased.

He pulled back from you, looking you over for a moment, like he was trying to tell if you were joking or not.

“Think you know the answer to that,” he said, kissing you gently as he slid himself from you and lay beside you. He tugged you against him as he settled, tucking your head against his chest. “But in case it wasn’t clear, yeah. You beat ever damn porno I ever watched, ain’t even close.”

You smiled, proud.

“Good,” you said. “Because… I liked doing that.”

You felt him lift his head to look at you before dropping back down to the bed.

“Really?”

“Yup,” you said, tracing your fingers over the outline of his pecs through his shirt. “Think I’ll want to do it again.”

“Sure as hell won’t get any arguments from me.”

“There is a downside, though,” you said, sitting up just enough to look at him.

“What’s that?” He frowned and you smiled.

“Now I’m going to have to figure out what the hell to get you for your birthday next year.”

He laughed and tucked you back against his chest.

“Just keep givin’ me you, baby,” he said. “Doesn’t get any better than that.”

A/N: I missed Joel and Doc so I wrote this. Thanks for reading them even more than a year after Lavender ended.

Happy birthday, Joel!

Love you all!

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #lavender #joel miller x oc #joel miller smut #joel miller birthday celebration

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bitdemonic · 5 months ago

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⋆.˚𝕭𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 𝕱𝐈𝐋𝐄:˖ . ݁𝜗☠︎︎𝜚. ݁₊𝕻𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐀 𝕬𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍

𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐏 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄. 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐔𝐏, 𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐒. 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐔𝐏𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘.

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𓆩ψ𓆪 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 [𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒]

↓

𝐁𝐈𝐎

Born July 1st, 1967, Pamela Anderson is a Cancer Sun, Aries Moon, Gemini Rising native (57 years of age). Her planet dominants include being Venusian, Mercurial, and Uranian ruled, a sum of how wild and untamed her celebrity became under the spotlight. Coined the blonde bombshell of the 90s, Pamela's impact is prominent in areas related to fashion and makeup, as her signature looks are referenced heavily today.

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 ⟶ 10 OF CUPS RX

Definition: Unhappiness, feelings of loneliness and disharmony in emotional aspects of life (relationships, home, personal). In terms of appearance, this is someone who's pain is evident; suffering is a part of their day to day living, ultimately their legacy or public image. Pamela's beauty had been bullied and misjudged, something she's felt since childhood [as told her memoir]—10oC can be the details of her distinct features, but it's very heavily connected to her past wounds.

Interpretations

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 This card makes sense to me, because Pamela's upbringing was both tumultuous and traumatic, eventually leading her to modeling as an escape. Spotted on the jumbotron of her hometown's stadium led to being scouted by Playboy, otherwise her first taste of freedom (liberation). During this era, she'd made the decision to dye her once brunette hair to platinum blonde [which is told by the number 10, her whole identity changed with the color].

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 "Bad girl", heartbreaker kind of beauty; barbed wire tattoo, fuller breasts/lips, and the classic Pam Anderson updo. I'll even connect the Cups to how voluminous and soft her hair looked; it reminds me of having golden ringlets lol. These features emulate the energy of what this card indicates as far as romance and relationships—despite being in "love", she looked the part of being hard to tie down. Goes hand in hand with her overall appearance being in tune to match her partner's, she'd emulate their vibe as far as being a couple [even when unhappy].

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Less is more would be the underlying definition of this card, which can be applied to Pamela's thin brows, petite frame, and tighter fit clothing—she found this to be who she was, internally and externally, but could've been judged for "breaking the mold" (i.e. norm). Considering that she just recently started exploring more with her appearance, it's safe to say that she probably never thought to step outside this comfort zone.

I'll even go so far as to say that 10oC ↺ is the ridicule and hate she was prone to receive going on live television or radio shows, it's adding onto the fact that she felt like she couldn't do/be anything right under the spotlight. Holding up appearances and feeling distress are a part of its themes, she felt humiliation all the time and felt she couldn't stop it. Defending herself was frequent back then, which inevitably led to public outbursts and meltdowns out of exhaustion (I feel for her so much man).

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Want to connect the card's imagery to the oceanlike solemness of her eyes, they've cried many tears and evidently hold lots of secrets (essentially, she's been through a lot and more often than not you can tell how much). In certain pictures her eyes are widened, almost surprised to be hurt, or sad. Could be her eye color in general, just because they're almost* the same shade. Thinking that her eyes are her best/favorite feature because of the depth they hold; definitely a profound stare that touches everyone with their stories.

Bonus: Big pointer to her current decision to abstain from wearing heavier makeup in public. In reverse, it's basically the catalyst to Pam outgrowing how she used to present herself, now opting for a more comfortable essence opposed to what we're used to. Public opinion could wane, but the whole point of 10oC is having emotional fulfillment made from emotional decisions; she did this for her, nobody else.

𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐔𝐏 ⟶ THE HANGED MAN RX

Definition: Indecisiveness, remaining stagnant, nothing different about a challenging obstacle, circumstance, or situation. With this card, we're able to understand the lasting impact and influence of Pamela's signature look; thinly arched brows, heavily smoked out shadow, glossy finished pigmented lips were a key component to her sultry glam appeal. Each step was perceived as unlocking our inner femme fatale, so much that even today her 90s era is practiced for wear.

Interpretations

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Feelings of being trapped [or "held at her will"], may've felt that she couldn't break free of an image, or like she was always going to be seen one specific way (e.g. being trashy). The Hanged Man ↺ is responsible for staying in the same place because you're actively choosing to ignore discernment (intuition); she was likely to accept the hatred and belittlement, before realizing her voice mattered most.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 It wouldn't be surprising if Pamela was quite stubborn about the way her makeup was supposed to be done, considering resistance and blockages are prevalent—either she had the formula down pact, or she's kept the same makeup artists(s) for majority of her career. The Hanged Man ↺ is also an indicator for deep colors and winged liner around her eyes but done in a precise manner (none of her makeup is out of place, smudged, or over excessive), lots of focus around her head/face area in general.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Neptune is the ruler of this card (illusions, fantasies, things that aren't "there") which speaks to Pamela's beauty having influence over the masses, both makeup and sex appeal. I wouldn't say this is a good thing, because we've been eyewitness to the harassment (misogyny) she's been subject to, it's a telltale sign that she wasn't seen as a person let alone worthy of respect (Hanged Man hanging upside down by the foot). On the other end however, this speaks for her makeup technique still being on trend despite when it first originated—timeless energy, even after our generation grows old.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Indication for the use of contour/bronzer to emphasize the structure of her cheekbone area, using enough that her face gave off the impression of being snatched. Intimidatingly daunting sometimes, she likely challenged her haters or men for the power she evoked. Her step by step could actually be quite simple, otherwise not needing many products or directions to execute it; Hanged Man ↺ showing that she's the original that others use for inspiration.

More often than not, her beauty and makeup were perceived well before her actual outfit (albeit cute). Her glam could've been a standalone in the 90s (i.e. no one else was wearing it) and it gained lots of attention or publicity. "Traction" is being channeled, which is alluding to Pam's makeup in/for "Barb Wire" earning lots of popularity for its allure (she definitely started a new wave lol).

𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐎𝐍 ⟶ THE STAR

Definition: Inspiration, happiness, spotlight or limelight, renewal (transformation/rebirth). The Star is our indication of Pamela's inner happiness spilling out into her appearance, something that she's prone to do and go all out in when she's at her best. Her clothing pieces and outfit choices set the stage to her personality [which makes sense seeing that she's Leo Venus; the Sun is its ruler and is our outlook on the world].

Interpretations

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 One thing I noticed about Pam's choice of fashion is that she typically stays comfortable no matter what she has on. She doesn't necessarily have a specific aesthetic, more so clothes that mesh well with the vibrant aura she withholds; the Star is ruled by Aquarius, the sign of originality and innovation, and she's been prone to stand out for clothes that accentuate her "vibe" [and current era]. Indicator of being capable of pulling off anything or wearing something without letting it 'wear' her.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 The Star can represent self or the essence of who you are at the core (like stars, constellations that burn off their presence in the sky), which translates into Pamela's femininity being a key to how she brought an outfit to life. In many of her pieces worn onstage or on the carpet, Pamela had a way of bringing attention to how daring she was as a celebrity [early 90s - 2000s]. More than anything this is shown in her profile of photoshoots and model campaigns; she's quite literally a star on any cover, she's effortlessly photogenic [which is another indication of this card]. Makes sense she's still dominating the camera in her mid-fifties—she'll never lose the potential to turn heads.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Not the biggest staple in terms of what makes her stand out, but I wanted to mention that I noticed Pam has an affinity with wearing pitch black (or dark) shades depending on her choice of dress. I feel like they add to the mystique she carries and if anything, the sunglasses emulate the side of herself that she's taken back from the public [after having her boundaries constantly overstepped]. The Star is something/someone that can't go without some kind of notoriety or attention, to me Pam's fashion has transcended past negativity and bullying, I feel as if you can see her today and know that things are much different than earlier in her fame. Glasses remind me of being a girlboss, and this card confirms that she's respected for it.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 This was a download as well as an observation, but Pamela would often match her style to the aesthetic of her partners; most famous would obviously be her flame with Tommy Lee (no free promo for a weirdo). Considering the Star speaks about the renewal after a difficult time and most of Pam's iconic moments are shared with him, it's safe to suggest that her fashion is connected (remembered) alongside their relationship. It may've been a larger influence on the masses more specifically during that era, not nostalgia, but a capsule to that transformative time period. Not to mention that Tommy was ultimately her breaking point—her first awakening was likely after their invasion of privacy.

Bonus: Couldn't resist inserting a few example pics of what I meant when I said she's working the camera and extremely well for her age. Mini prediction, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her on different types of magazines and runways after more recognition for "The Last Showgirl", she's going to be a goldmine in terms of bringing back certain pieces ("last minute touches") to modern day magazines ("prints"). She's entering a new season for sure, I believe she'll make every second or step count. Channeling the word untouchable.

𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 ⟶ 6 OF PENTACLES RX

Definition: Lack of generosity or charity, pettiness, abuse of authority over those with none, strings attached, undervalued. Ironically, Pamela's hand in pop culture wasn't properly recognized up until recently (past decade) and it's due to society devaluing her worth in light of scandals and modeling. This card would be representative of her quote unquote disappearance from the spotlight albeit her valid reasons why.

Interpretations

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Downplaying Pamela's popularization of the TV show "Baywatch" is something that's argued a lot for being so "controversial" (or unlikely), when the truth is that introducing her character CJ Parker quite literally boosted the ratings; classic red bathing suit, emerging from the water in that* scene, and overall being a beautiful girl with a personality to match, CJ cemented the show as an American television staple. This role alone surged Pamela into sex symbol status [albeit not a good thing], her credibility and name were on the verge of being taken seriously.

6oP in ↺ drives home the point I brought up earlier, how Pamela's acting career didn't take off due to how the public sexualized her own freewill. The number six in tarot correlates to adjustment, sympathy, and comfort which are interpreted in a negative [or challenging] sense due to the card's position—a reversal in this context indicates Pamela's presence shifting the world's view onto the wrong things. Instead of viewing CJ from the storyline's perspective, society chose to sculpt her into another sexual caricature from Pam's past (Playboy), in turn pivoting her starlight into an unwanted direction.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 "Barb Wire" was another form of media in which Pamela's most iconic moments (looks) can be found, but with the 6oP in ↺ it wasn't seen as such during the time of filming; might be a stretch but I feel like this card can indicate going back in time, considering the number six is connected to themes of recovery and pentacles are physical/time related, Pam's significance wasn't properly recognized up until the latter half of her acting career (i.e. ignoring her relevance during filming, 1996). I suggest all this because back then Pamela had already faced backlash and disrespect over the leak of private property, hence connected to why the movie tanked.

I'm snowballing this observation, but I did read that onset she had basically been non-prioritized and treated like a prop. Directors were watching her home tape before she arrived, her boundaries were borderline overstepped, and all in all she'd won "Worst New Star" at the Razzie Awards (nominated six times). This card is apparently the definition for why Pamela was constantly dragged for participating (exchange, 6oP) in a project versus applauded for what she did right. The film wasn't Oscar worthy, but other factors that deserved recognition didn't happen due to harsh criticism; costume design and makeup department deserved praise, as well as Pam's dedication to the premiere [and job overall], but alas.

ཐིཋྀ It's kinda difficult to get an actual grasp on this card and Pamela's influence in a positive sense, but I feel as if that's the reality of her situation—public attention wasn't a friend, so for the longest she had the short end of the stick, even apart from how she shifted her chosen industry/career projects. Ultimately time was a reward (fast forward to the way she's currently flourishing), but much of her time as a celebrity was shroud in disdain. To be honest I'm even channeling that she's behind a few trends [from today or back then] and we just don't know anything about it; not that she's erased, but Pam's significance is a lot more profound than we've been told.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Not going into great detail, but 6oP in ↺ is definitely connected to the loss of millions from Pam and Tommy's privacy; a lot of struggle and hardship went into lawsuits at their expense, they practically went to war for their personal life (which was bullshit). Pamela doesn't revisit that point in time rarely at all, but whenever the topic arises, her first response is that she didn't receive/earn "a single red cent" from the invasion. I tried to dodge discussing that considering it's trauma and old wounds (news), but this card drives home the fact that she was barely considered and acknowledged with respect, nonhuman and only an object of desire at the worst times.

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐄𝐑𝐀 ⟶ KNIGHT OF CUPS

Definition: Offering of peace, restoring faith and happiness, taking action (following your heart), vulnerability (empathy). Pamela's "comeback" has been one that is apparently made with love and appreciation for self, for her fulfillment with life as her own person [and not who she was painted out to be]. Knight of Cups is the beauty behind each step and thought she makes; we're witnessing a rebirth and its testimony.

Interpretations

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Knight of Cups coming out for this era of her life honestly made me smile, it's because this confirms her contentment with all opportunities that present themselves. Her mindset [and perspective] on the world around her is renewed; her outlook, perspective, and ideal view have been aligned to match her beliefs (i.e. happiness is key). I also feel like this is being presented as her wardrobe or color palette—creams, light pinks, baby blues, florals, etc. Cups are emotional, lightweight (with context), and essentially carefree, this card is Pamela's outer expression in a brighter light and on a higher frequency.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 I keep being brought to the fact that her new movie is out and in theatres ("The Last Showgirl"), so I can only assume that this project is monumental, or really profound, to Pamela's growth in all things she invests in emotionally. Work, relationships, interests and hobbies, etc. Focus may be locked into those areas for quite some time and it's simply because she's appreciative of the bond she's made with them—connections are of the utmost importance, hence the movie earning a spot in her heart. She's going to be singing praises about the things she's learned onset, how they've helped her understand womanhood ("femininity"), and what it means for her future as an actress, mother, or individual. This energy is really promising and sweet, she's meant to find herself in new experiences and people.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Could indicate a new partner? Or someone from the past that she'll let back into her life, might be open to giving out second chances (feeling old co-worker director vibes, work is related). She's definitely in an era where forgiveness is allowed, I'm honestly picking up on an old connection being resuscitated and for the better; it doesn't have to be romantic, but more so a close friend (before or after reconciliation). This can also be consideration for herself hence the bullet points before; incorporating more affirmations or enlightening ways of thinking to further propel the spiritual journey she's embarked on [or "will embark on"].

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮 Not channeling much as far as her current era goes and part of it is making me think it's because she's still exploring. Knights in tarot represent an individual [typically between 20s - 30s] that're using resources and their own knowledge to elevate into a King/Queen. Essentially, the energy these cards bring are understudy willing to take more classes or learn under a mentor (depending on the suit ofc); in this case, Pamela is extending herself into an area of career that makes her feel worthy of accepting love as herself. As I said, she's doing so much on her own and for her own happiness, she's proving to herself [and herself only] that she doesn't need to rely on anyone that doesn't understand her most intimate parts (self). Spiritually and emotionally inclined time that we're seeing, it'll propel her into another side of life that she had to discover through healing. Love that so much for her lol.

#bitdemonic masterlist #pamela anderson #tarot cards #tarotblr #interpretation #tarot #intuitive readings #tarot reading #𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗨𝗧𝗬 𝗙𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗦 𖤍 #𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗘𝗗ྀི #𝗕𝗜𝗧𝗗𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗖.

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sabianandocs · 3 months ago

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I’m very interested to hear your Gaster interpretation as someone who likes to make my own!

Okayokay long ramble incoming- Kind of a mix of my Gaster lore and the Skelebros since they're kind of intertwined for my stuff --- I'll try to break up the paragraphs with doodles so it's not just a block of text

My version of Gaster is a mix between the usual crazy scientist interpretation and also someone who just really really wants to be a parent. (there is an appeal to the version of Gaster that's just.. Awful and creates the skelebros as experiments, but I wanted to go for a little of a more wholesome approach for my lore cuz I feel like they've been traumatized enough lol)

There aren't any other skeletons in the underground except for Gaster, though, and also I headcanon him as aro/ace so he was like. Yeah I'll figure something out on my own. SO! Inbetween working on the Core and trying to find ways to break the barrier, he did studies in his own time on SOUL magic to find out if it was possible to create life only using the SOUL magic of a single monster (rather than the usual two). His research on how to break the barrier overlapped some with this research so he get away with using the royal science lab/materials/etc for it.

Some science junk, blah blah, he found that it could be possible- if he took a chunk out of his own SOUL. And I suppose probably also the chunks out of his hands to provide the physical material necessary (Can thank Handplates for that idea). And that was a sacrifice he was willing to make for Science and also Child.

(The next section is copy-pasted directly from my lore google doc)

Gaster was cautious with his experiments for his first attempt. He didn’t want to risk a huge chunk of his soul on a first try that he thought would surely abort itself, so he only used a little bit, plus the extra soul power he was able to create through his own desire to have kids and probably some sketchy magic injection type stuff.

However, the first attempt didn’t abort. Despite his hesitancy and being sure that this first run would just be a proof of concept, or to just to figure out where things could possibly go wrong and how to fix them (he did all the calculations beforehand and everything, of course, but real life never plays out like the simulations), the soul actually took and began to create itself. He grew it and took care of it in an incubator in the lab, and during this time he slept at the lab a LOT, terrified that something would go wrong if/when he wasn’t there. As time went on and the soul & vessel it created became more stable, he got a little less freaky weird about being away from it for short periods of time.

I guess probably this process takes about 9 months because?? That’s how long it takes to build a whole skeleton with magic soul power probably? Idk man. Anyway because they’re magic skeletons and there’s no reason to ‘birth’ (read: remove from the incubator) the soul & vessel before its able to support itself (unlike humans, who are all born premature because our heads would be too big otherwise) the new skeleton usually starts trying to become independent (get born) around the developmental size that humans would associate with a 1 or 2 year old.

And thus Sans was created! Gaster feels extremely guilty that Sans is so weak because technically it’s his fault for not committing more of his soul to him but he’s so so happy to finally have a kid and does everything in his power to keep Sans safe despite his weaknesses and help him learn how to navigate around them (Including sleeping to regain above max HP!)

When Sans got old enough to kinda do his own thing around Gaster (like 5 or 6?) Gaster decided it was time to make another kid for a number of reasons:

To redeem himself scientifically: He had proof he could make a living being, but with Sans he’d hesitated and Sans suffered because of it. He wanted to make another who was more healthy

To give Sans a sibling: Both because Sans seemed kind of lonely and because he figured they would be able to keep each other safe that way- when they got older the sibling could help protect Sans and ‘make up’ for his disabilities by being able to help him out (Gasters view on it- I used airquotes deliberately. People with disabilities can function just fine on their own. Gaster sees Sans' disabilities of a failing of his (Gaster) own so he views it more negatively because he feels guilty about it.)

Because he wanted to: Gaster always wanted at least two kids and now that Sans was a little more stable and independent Gaster could handle the responsibilities & time dedication of having another little one around

And so Gaster did the whole thing again, but took a bigger chunk of his soul this time and probably more sketchy soul injection things to create more soul power.

And blah blah 9 months of waiting and sitting around in the lab being anxious and BAM! Papyrus is born!

The boys grew up mostly in the lab and around it since Gaster was so involved in his work, but Toriel and Asgore babysat sometimes too (Papyrus’ memories of the ‘green’ but not remembering Toriel because he was too little). Gaster was a super involved parent as well, and even hired Alphys as an assist in the lab so he didn’t have to spread himself so thin with work and his kids. (Alphys only worked on vague assistance type stuff, which is why after Gaster got shattered across time she had no recollection of the deeper workings of the Core or of Gaster’s studies- anything that wasn’t erased with Gaster was really vague surface-level stuff)

As time went on, Sans got interested in the science that Gaster was doing. Sans and Papyrus hung out at the lab a ton, especially as they got a little older and didn’t need quite as much direct adult supervision. Mostly Sans just watched after Papyrus, but occasionally he’d watch Gaster work instead or in addition. Gaster taught him as best he could at an age appropriate level, and so Sans ended up something of a scientific prodigy. Papyrus didn’t take the same interest & spent most of his time pretending to be a knight and/or learning magic instead. Gaster taught both of them how to fight & how to use magic in his own homeschooling sort of curriculum (Reason why no one knew them before they showed up in Snowdin- they stayed pretty much just around the lab & the castle)

Oh, also, the cracks in Gaster’s skull appeared after each kid! Because splitting his soul weakened his magical ability it also weakened his physical form somewhat so he got more brittle. Sans’ soul piece caused the split down his eye to his mouth, and Papyrus’ caused the one from his eye up his skull- bigger & worse because 1. He was already more fragile after having Sans and 2. Papyrus was a bigger piece of his soul

When Sans was 17 and Papyrus was 11, Sans had been actively helping around the lab and the Core for a few years.

Gaster and Sans were running around the core performing some routine maintenance or something but someone didn’t get the memo that they were in the sector that they were in and started rearranging the Core (as you do. Literally it’s part of how the place works the hallways get rearranged) Sans was a little behind Gaster because he’d been fixing up some wires or something and so when he went to catch up he saw what happened next but couldn’t do anything about it.

Gaster was stepping between sectors when the rooms shifted. He had one foot on the next sector and one on the previous, so when they detached and swung out he got flung. Directly into the Core. And was shattered across time and space.

When Gaster got disintegrated across time he took people’s memories of Sans and Papyrus too- Because they shared parts of his soul, they occupied the same parts of people’s memory as Gaster did, which was all overwritten after the Accident.

Sans and Papyrus also forgot most of their direct ties to Gaster- they remembered having a dad, being raised, the things they learned (magic, schooling, etc) but not anything about their dad, or what he did, or who he was. Directly after the Core Accident, Sans woke up at their house in the Capital (where Gaster and the boys technically lived when they weren’t all at the lab), only remembering that his dad was gone- but not how, or why- and when he dug in his mind for what his dad looked like or who he was, he got a headache and gave up. Papyrus was also home. To the best of their collective recollection and filling in gaps with assumptions, their dad had died, maybe recently? And now they were on their own. They had no income anymore, or maybe at all ever? And they couldn’t afford to stay where they were. The capital is expensive, after all. And… And this house was for royal officials and their families anyway, they weren’t supposed to be there. They made up the idea that they’d been allowed to live there to get back on their feet after their dad’s death (the king is generous, after all) since the place had been vacant anyway and the king/queen/someone official had felt bad for them.

So they moved to Snowdin!

Aaaand the next chunk of the doc is on the Skelebros so I'll spare you of it since that's not what you asked. Tbh most of this is probably more than you asked but thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble!!

#answering asks #answered ask #big ol ramble #lore #undertale lore #Sabian specific UT lore #AKA I made a bunch of shit up

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rei-ismyname · 1 month ago

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Chuck. Dude.

Xavier has a habit of freaking TF out and doubling down whenever he feels really guilty/worried, usually the former and usually his fault. This blow up is weird because of how irrational it is. The Juggernaut is really not that big a deal. Like he's 'unstoppable' except for every single time they've fought him, he's up against the whole ANAD squad, and they're across the Atlantic ocean.

MF doesn't even ask - he just orders Scott to go and expects he'll hop to it. Scott's 'not this time' reads like he's wanted to say no before but hasn't. Scott has given a lot to the X-Men since he was 15. Chuck has already flipped when he tries to browbeat him with utilitarian calculus but he doesn't explode until the third denial. It's pretty uncomfortable how Scott flinches at his raised backhand, but using 'all he's done for him' as ammo might be worse. Sure, he took Scott in... with strings attached.

'Lucky... Before...Gained too much of a hold on young Scott.'

It's been portrayed several times but the broad strokes are the same - Chuck 'found' Scott in the abusive care of Jack Winter, who was traumatizing the fuck out of him by using as a living weapon. Surely only an evil mutant would do such a thing.

Once Jack is dealt with Scott despairs his situation, as he's been homeless and on the run after getting out of the worst orphanage in existence. He's 15 and has literally nowhere to go. He gives enthusiastic consent here but Chuck headhunted him for his own reasons and what was the alternative? There's no period of recuperation or anything - the pitch comes a few moments after being freed from a life or death situation as a traumatized kid.

What would happen if he said no, or needed time to think about it? 'No one but you' and 'whatever you say, sir' are open to interpretation but I think the most generous reading is that they helped each other. Really generous. Either way, Chuck throwing it in his face the first time he says no/asserts independence is pretty fucked up and revealing.

Chuck's methods of getting Scott to do what he wants here are first ordering, then cajoling, then leaning on past 'debt' as emotional blackmail. For comparison,that's how Silver Age Magneto kept the Maximoffs in line. Scott has been fighting his war for years at this point - since he was 15 - and it's bought him very little happiness. Even the most charitable interpretation of the relationship has me wishing they'd talk about this stuff openly. I really want to know how each man views the arrangement.

It wouldn't surprise me if Chuck viewed himself as entirely benevolent, in line with his self image as the kindly professor who was an uncomplicated positive force in the X-Men's lives. We know he views Scott like a son and what else can you call offering permanent residence and mentorship but adoption? Scott himself has a more complicated view, depending on when you ask him. It's certainly his dream, his X-Men, etc though. The 'ungrateful...' and bringing up 'I took you in' makes it look emotionally abusive no matter what their relationship is. Whether that's intentional or we're seeing Chuck at his worst as I alluded in the introduction (or both,) it's complicated yet no less hurtful for all that. I'm probably biased there though, what do you think?

#x men #x comics #cyclops #charles xavier #professor x #marvel #comics #magneto #tw abuse

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uniquezx · 2 months ago

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Thunderbolts* spoilers under the cut!!

Be warned!!

So, I watched Thunderbolts* yesterday and I loved it so so much. I have since seen approximately 1702 people talking about what Bucky would've seen in the Void. Very interesting question of course, I was absolutely devastated when I realised we wouldn't be getting those scenes, but I'm more curious about the other characters in the Void so here are my theories,

Ava:

the moment her parents died and her cells went unstable, which was traumatic as fuck (I also understand why we logically wouldn't have gotten a scene we've kind of already seen in a previous movie but shhh).

We know that, like pretty much the entire team, Ava was an assassin for a really long time and probably had to do a lot of things she did not want to do. She probably would've gotten a similar scene to Yelena's of her killing someone she did not want to hurt. Can't really say who because we don't know enough about her character so I'm going off crumbs.

Here is where I get even more vague, because we know essentially nothing about Ava's life after Antman beyond that she worked for Valentina. I think we would've seen some kind of more recent scene (like Yelena's bathroom scene with the alcohol) but I have no idea what because all that's stated about her life before the movie was that she was on clean up duty for a bit.

Alexei:

I know Alexei is mostly a comic relief character, but he has still had a very intriguing story. For the first room he probably would've seen something from his time as the Red Guardian, possibly the moment people started to revere him less and less.

The scene where he puts Natasha and Yelena in the Red Room from Alexei's POV or perhaps a moment of reflection after. He's a very flawed character but I highly doubt he enjoyed putting his daughter in there, and considering the focus on shameful memories I think this one definitely would've made the cut.

As I want to keep a similar format to Yelena's rooms (ending on a more recent scene) Alexei's last room would probably further focus on his 'fall from grace'. He straight up says he's miserable in his new life and that the only thing that made him happy was serving his country, so this would've elaborated on that. Maybe a similar scene to the one we got when Alexei first appeared in Thunderbolts*, watching his glory days as a pathetic washed up old man (sorry, Alexei)

Walker:

Walker clearly puts a lot of value on his supposed moral superiority to the assassins on the team. It also really stuck out to me that he told Yelena that she was lucky she was a kid when she went through her whole assassin thing, because she could claim she didn't know any better. This could've just reffered to, you know, Walker murdering a civilian in broad daylight, but I think it could've also been about his time in the army (because war is traumatic, shocker I know).

I was tempted to say this room would be the moment he murdered that civilian in broad daylight, but I think it actually would've been the moment after. In the moment, Walker didn't feel shame. Afterwards, when he was stripped of his title and had to face the consequences of his actions and process his friends death, would probably have been much worse.

The moment Olivia divorced him or something of a similar nature. Bit lazy considering the scene we already saw in the movie, I know, but still worth putting here because that absolutely devastated me, I loved them together in FATWS. Also Walker's obsession with his reputation as Captain America creates a very interesting parallel to Alexei's obsession with his reputation as the Red Guardian, but that's a post for another day.

I know I started this by saying that I was more interested in the other characters, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see Bucky's scenes!! It just means that we know a lot more about Bucky's story than we do about the others, so if I had to choose I would've rather seen Ava or Walker's scenes than Bucky's. That being said,

Bucky:

Probably the moment he became the Winter Soldier or the moment HYDRA came to collect him from the ravine he'd fallen in. This has the same issue that Ava's first room does (that we've already seen that scene), but it would be pretty devastating to see Bucky trying to fight the HYDRA agents before they can drag him off as if that could change what happened (the same way Yelena tried to step between the gun and her friend in her first room).

I can't decide between having a room about a murder he particularly regrets (possible the murder of Tony's parents?? Idk) or a moment where Bucky (as the Winter Soldier) was more lucid than he normally was as his handlers erase his memories again (something like the moment he remembered Steve, though it wouldn't be that exact moment because it wasn't exactly shameful to remember Steve).

This man has so much trauma I genuinely struggled to narrow it down, but I think the moment at the start of Civil War with Zemo. How he, despite finally being free, still responded to those trigger words. How it really didn't take much for him to fall back into form. I would've used a more recent trauma like with the others but, once again, Bucky has so much trauma and it was already hard enough to decide on this so I'm sticking with it.

You're more than welcome to share your theories in the tags, I need to see more versions of their Void like it is the air that I breathe

#thunderbolts #thunderbolts spoilers #marvel mcu #mcu fandom #yelena belova #bucky barnes #alexei shostakov #ava starr #ghost mcu #thunderbolts*#john walker #I would've actually murdered a man for Ava's Void scenes

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frvnkcastles · 1 year ago

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Hello love! I know you’re probably still in recovery, so feel free to table this request as long as you like (or permanently if it doesn’t vibe with you!) but it came to mind and I immediately thought of you.

I thought, maybe something happens to the reader as a consequence of Frank’s life. Maybe they’re kidnapped or tortured or otherwise hurt, and it’s really not that bad - Frank gets to you in time, and you’re not too terribly hurt. But it sets off the readers cPTSD, which they weren’t ready to share with Frank yet. And he thinks they’re haunted and traumatized by the event, and you don’t know how to tell him it’s not what he thinks. And Franks doing his whole guilt spiral but you can’t explain that it’s not his fault, that these cuts and bruises are nothing. That you’re not scared of those men. That it’s something else you’re scared of

WILL YOU STILL LOVE WHO I AM ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: You’re kidnapped and Frank comes to your rescue, but the ordeal triggers your CPTSD and you just want to make Frank feel less guilty.

Warnings: Knives, guns, mild torture, childhood abuse, hurt/comfort

Word count: 1.8k

Author’s note: I hope I did your idea justice!! I don’t feel like this is my best work but it’s a very heavy topic to write about and I really wanted to be respectful and careful with it. Sending you lots of love <33 (Also, I’m realizing I am NOT good at ending fics lmaooo.)

It was supposed to be a fun night out with your girlfriends. And you could have sworn you hadn’t taken your eyes off of your glass, but somewhere between laughing at your friend and reapplying your lipgloss you must have lost focus and that was when they had struck. The dancefloor was full, anyway, so you shouldn’t have been surprised that no one paid attention to a stranger dragging you away, and yet, you wished so dearly that someone would have.

That, you figured, was how you ended up in that warehouse, tied to a chair with your head heavy and groggy, just like your eyelids. You couldn’t tell how long it had been, but you were tired and scared and all you wanted was to go home.

You came to when one of your captors roughly grabbed your chin and tilted your head up. ”Smile. It’s for your boyfriend”, the man grinned in satisfaction, and as he squished your face and snapped a photo of you, you squinted at the flash. It was over quickly but the burn on your jaw remained, and it made you groan as you tried to look around you and process your surroundings.

”What do you say we make you all pretty for when he arrives?” the man spoke up in front of you, and when you turned to look at him, you saw the gleaming knife in his hands. You inhaled sharply and your whole body tensed at the implications, but with your wrists and ankles tied, there was nowhere for you to go.

He traced the knife across your stomach, not enough to draw blood but enough to remind you he could. He then fisted the material of your dress in one hand and, with his other one, drove the blade through the fabric, creating wide tears over your chest and thighs. He laughed mockingly, and as he trailed the knife past your revealed chest, tears welled up in your eyes.

”You’re going to regret this”, you mustered, but the shakiness in your voice didn’t make a very convincing case. Still, the attempt was enough to piss him off, and before you could do or say anything else, he had cut you right across your collarbone.

”Don’t talk back to me”, he warned you, and despite the tears running down your face, you stared back at him defiantly.

”You’re pathetic”, you spat at him, and within seconds, he had swung his hand across your face, making the warehouse echo with the smack. You cried out, and in an instant, you were back in your childhood home — at the hands of your parents, slapped around like you weren’t worth anything else.

You supposed that dissociating from the situation was how you got through the next hour. You were far too busy stuck in a flashback to fully process the cuts you received at the hands of your captor, but you heard every word he whispered in your ear.

You’re worthless. You deserve this. No one’s coming to save you.

It was all too familiar to you. But you had survived then, and you were determined to survive now — you knew Frank was coming to your rescue. Even if you had barely started dating, he wouldn’t let an innocent person get killed by his enemies, and that was exactly why you had faith that it was only a matter of time.

And, indeed, eventually you heard gunshots from behind the heavy door closing you alone with the man. He flinched, and when you both heard Frank roar out his name, you knew it was time. He reacted by circling behind you and holding the knife to your throat, so tight you barely dared to breathe.

Then the door opened, and Frank looked absolutely feral as he pointed the gun at the man behind you. ”Let her go”, he demanded with his gravelly voice, and the man only laughed.

”You stupid—”, he began, but Frank didn’t waste more time — he pulled the trigger, and your captor dropped dead, the knife clattering against the floor as he did.

You exhaled heavily, and immediately, Frank was rushing to your side. ”I gotchu, sweetheart. ’M here now. I’mma take you home, okay?” he rasped, using his own knife to free you from your binds. Your body slumped forward and he caught you with ease, supporting you against his chest as he gathered your limbs and heaved you up into his arms.

”I got you”, he repeated in a quiet whisper, before carrying you out to his truck and taking you home.

Soon enough, you were seated on the edge of your bathtub with an ice pack against your bruising eye and Frank’s hand ghosting over your body to assess all the damage. In hindsight, it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been — minor, shallow cuts littered your skin but they didn’t even need stitches, and the drugs were wearing off. Frank still made sure to disinfect the cuts and apply band-aids where it was necessary, but for the most part, there was nothing to do about the physical aspect.

He helped you out of your torn dress and into one of his sweaters, and the whole time, you could tell how tense he was, like he was a ticking timebomb about to go off.

”You saved me”, you voiced your thoughts out loud, after not having said a word since he had found you. Your words got his eyes to meet yours, and you gave him a weak smile. ”You found me and I’m okay”, you added, and with a wry scoff, Frank looked down at your conjoined hands as you stood in the middle of your bedroom.

”You’re not okay”, he grunted, his voice dripping with guilt and blame, all of it directed at himself. ”I never shoulda let this happen”, he continued as he let go of your hands and started pulling off his skull-adorned vest, only now finding the time to take care of himself.

”It wasn’t your fault”, you argued with a frown, and with his back turned to you, Frank shrugged.

”Wouldn’t have happened to you if you weren’t involved with me”, he pointed out, and from the fragile tone, you felt like he was on the verge of tears. It made you sick to your stomach, and in a sick twist, you started to feel guilty, for causing him distress.

You weren’t used to someone looking after you, either. And his care-taking seemed to only emphasize the voice in your head that your parents had instilled in. You didn’t deserve it. You would have been better off dead.

Swallowing, you gave Frank’s back a caress before dropping your hand. ”Let’s just get some sleep, okay?” you proposed, ready to put this night behind you, and with a small nod, Frank agreed.

It was 4 AM when you jolted awake from a nightmare. You cried out as you flinched up, and reacting to the potential danger, Frank snapped out of his slumber, ready to attack. When he saw you sitting next to him, on the edge of hyperventilating, he ran a hand across his face and reached for your arm.

”Sweetheart”, he called for you, and startled out of your haze, you turned to look at him. You let your shoulders drop and with a sigh, you buried your face in your hands, all the while Frank climbed out of bed and began pacing back and forth in the room.

”This is my fault, shit, I never should have let you go. I never should have gotten you involved in the first place”, he rambled away, ”I fucked up, I did, and now you’re sufferin’ ’cause of me.”

Shaking your head, you tried to open your mouth and tell him. You wanted to. But a part of you was nervous. You hadn’t told him about all your trauma yet, hadn’t disclosed the effects your childhood still had on you, and you didn’t know how to get the ball rolling.

”Frank”, you croaked out, but he didn’t stop pacing. ”Frank, listen to me. It’s not your fault”, you insisted, and finally, he gave you a weary look, like he was catching you in a lie. But it wasn’t a lie — your nightmare hadn’t been about the man with the knife, it hadn’t been about the cuts or the bruises, it hadn’t been about any of it. It was like any other nightmare you had on a regular basis, and if anyone was to be blamed, it was your parents.

”Look… I didn’t want to tell you like this, but it’s not the first or the worst time I’ve been hurt”, you started, and finally, Frank paused and sat on the edge of the bed to be closer to you.

”Whaddya mean?” he wondered, curiosity and concern in his voice as he looked at you intently.

”My parents”, you shrugged with an unamused chuckle. ”I guess all of this is reminding me of the way they treated me. They put me down, physically and verbally, and no one’s ever looked after me the way you do”, you explained, and instantly, something shifted in Frank’s eyes.

”Shit”, he breathed out, ”baby, I’m sorry. You realize you deserve to be looked after, right?”

You licked your lips in thought. ”I don’t know”, you answered truthfully, and that was what got Frank to snap out of his guilt. He sat closer to you and took your hands in his, peppering your knuckles with kisses.

”I mean it. I’m real sorry no one’s shown you that before. But lemme tell you, I was going outta my mind tonight. I was wonderin’ if I’d ever see ya again. And that’s a feeling I never wanna deal with again. I want you in my life, and I fuckin’ wish it wasn’t so dangerous”, he ranted, and pursing your lips together in a faint smile, you nodded.

”It really wasn’t that bad. I’m okay. You came to get me”, you assured, before adding, ”and you’re worth it.”

Chuckling, Frank ducked his head before leaning in to kiss your forehead. ”You’re worth everythin’. I adore you, y’know? There ain’t a thing I wouldn’t do for you”, he emphasized, holding you close to him.

”Thank you for saying that. I might need some support for the next few days. I think I can manage it for the most part but after getting triggered things suck a little extra for a while”, you spoke shyly, worried that you were putting too much pressure on him, or revealing too much of yourself. This thing with him was still so fresh, and that was why you had avoided telling him about your past before — it was too much too soon. But now, you supposed, you both had baggage and it was just a part of who you were.

”Hey, you got it. Anything else you need right now?” Frank tilted his head at you, and quickly, you nodded.

”Yes. For you to stop blaming yourself and to get in bed with me”, you decided, and with a chuckle, Frank nodded.

”Aight. I’ll try my best. C’mere, sweetheart.” And with that, he wrapped you into his embrace and helped you fall back asleep, satisfied that you were still in one piece and home with him.

#frank castle #frank castle fanfiction #frank castle x reader #the punisher #the punisher x reader

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lycandrophile · 2 years ago

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i just got back from my first ever gynecological exam and somehow, despite the doctor being really nice and way more knowledgeable about trans bodies than i was expecting, it still ended up being incredibly upsetting and honestly probably mildly traumatizing. i’m sure it’s no secret to anyone following me that going to the gynecologist is a uniquely shitty experience for a lot of trans guys and i knew that but i really was not prepared for that.

first of all, everything you read says that the pelvic exam and pap smear shouldn’t hurt even if they’re super uncomfortable, but let me tell you, that shit fucking hurt. like, i have a pretty high pain tolerance and usually even when something does hurt i don’t show it very much, but that was maybe the most painful thing i’ve ever had a doctor do to me and it showed. to be fair, i’ve never had good luck with things like that — i couldn’t even use tampons back when i had a period because the one time i did, taking it out was really painful — and i’m on t now so i’m sure that makes things even harder and i was prepared for it to hurt, but i really wasn’t ready for just bad it was. it’s been an hour since the exam finished and there’s still some pain so, yeah, so much for “it’s just uncomfortable, not painful”.

(and a side note: when it did hurt, the doctor told me to relax my muscles because the tension makes it hurt more. what they didn’t seem to realize is that if your brain and body are collectively rejecting the presence of something inside you, making those muscles relax is a fucking herculean task and i for one was not in any way capable of it so it just…kept getting more painful.)

i also was never informed ahead of time of what a pelvic exam actually entails; i had assumed it was a more general external checkup, and that the pap smear was the only really invasive part. as it turns out, i was very wrong, and “pelvic exam” actually means the doctor sticks their finger up you to feel around. she asked me if i was comfortable getting the exam because it was so obvious that the pap smear didn’t go well, but i had no clue what i was saying yes to and it was a total surprise for me when there was something inside me again. and she knew it was my first time, so she had no reason to assume i knew that the exam would be like. by the time i realized i absolutely should not have said yes to it, i was too late and it was already happening. it really feels like common sense that if you’re going to be giving someone what basically amounts to a professional fingering, you should probably make it clear that that’s what’s about to happen, but i guess that doctor would disagree.

and of course, the whole time i was also being misgendered. the doctor used the right name for me, but the other staff didn’t and everything about it was so excessively gendered (i’m pretty sure the appointment i had was literally called a “women’s wellness visit” on the same sheet that had trans man and nonbinary as gender options). not to mention, when i told them i’m getting top surgery and have the exact date set, the nurse made a comment to like“well aren’t you one of the lucky ones,” which really felt like it had “i think trans guys have a super easy time getting surgeries that cis women have to fight for” energy.

and the irony of all this definitely isn’t lost on me — i just did a project this past semester about how trans guys are fucked over by reproductive healthcare practices so a lot of us just never go, and now i got some firsthand experience in exactly why so many of us just say “no fucking way”.

i just want to put this out there for anyone who hasn’t done it before because i think this would have been a lot less awful for me if someone had just told me “yeah, it might hurt way more than you think, and also that thing they call a pelvic exam is actually an internal exam.” i thought i was prepared and i totally wasn’t, so hopefully this will reach someone else who will be better off knowing all of this.

#if there are typos in this no there arent. im so out of it rn you cant hold me responsible for that shit #filing today in the ‘pretend it didnt happen at all costs until i see my therapist’ folder bc uh. fucking hell #it feels silly to say this about a doctors appointment but that might genuinely fuck me up long term #like ik these are important visits but. i do not know if i’ll be able to make myself go again after that #transandrophobia #transandromisia #transmisandry #virilmisia #virilphobia #anti transmasculinity #transmascphobia #trans men #transmascs

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a-sad-mage · 9 months ago

Text

Been a hot minute since I rambled about MaxSteel(2013) and-

What the fuck is wrong with Forge Ferrus-

Excuse my language

But seriously, I know it's been a point of discussion before, like a lot, but why the hell is Forge so hell bent on Steel being evil for the majority of the series????

Like Steel resting wouldn't actually make him evil.

Forge, you half-wit ;

STEEL WAS A FULTY ULTRALINK

Steel, as far as I'm concerned, was an anomaly, the 1 in 1000 product that is not like the others who were all programmed to be loyal to Makano, Steel wasn't. He questioned what they were doing, even if it was Jim that prompted it. Because here's the thing if the seed of doubt wasn't already there, Steel wouldn't have done what he did.

If Steel reset, he wouldn't default to 'glory for Makano' because that isn't a part of his programming.

On top of that

WHY KEEP THE FACT MAX IS HALF ALIEN A SECRET?!

even if Forge wasn't so hostile to Steel, and told them some things, I think at some point, Max and Steel would have questioned why Max had TURBO powers.

Because you can't expect someone to believe 'oh yeah, you were exposed to highly volatile energy when you were younger and now you're body generates the stuff' explanation forever.

Like wtf how dose being exposed to energy just cause ones body to start making it? Because that would imply human experimentation at some point.

And the whole 'we made Jim a promise not to tell you...' thing is also bullshit.

Yes they were trying tk keep there world to someone who subsidy died but I'm pretty sure they would be okay with you breaking that promise if keeping it is doing more harm than good.

WHICH IT WAS

YOU DON'T KEEP A SECRET THAT WILL ACTIVELY HARM SOMEONE OR CAUSE THEM TO SEEK ANSWERS IN A WAY THAT MAY HARM THEM!

you see it 'Uncle Sam Wants You!' Max and Steel go behind Forge's, and subsequently N-Teks back and joins the military for what they think is a raid on Dredds base. Max and Steel trust Colonel because he shows them some respect, and a level of trust Forge hasn't in a while.

And I also think Max’s lack of father figure plays a part in his actions that episode.

Yes I think we all more or less agree on some level that Forge was the closest thing Max had to a dad.

But when your father figure is acting fishy, not trusting you, and seemingly disappointed, and then another older man shows up and gives you a compliment and a pat on the back. Safe to say you're going to latch on the guy being nice than the one being a bit of a diçƙ.

Had Forge been just a wee bit more honest, I don't think Steel, but more importantly, Max would have felt the need to join up with another group.

Tldr: If Forge just communicated like a proper human, then Max probably wouldn't be so traumatized and not get basically groomed that one EP['Uncle Sam Wants You!']

#maxsteel #max steel 2013 #max mcgrath #forge feruss #maxsteel rant #a rant i guess

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billyvell · 3 months ago

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I know these characters are not real, but something really hurts and feels uncomfortable when I see all these people say Lochy is deviant, or the "sus one" or the real freak, or the aggressor/manipulator, that he's taking advantage of Saxon. Especially this absurd theory I've seen 5 times now that Lochy spit out his ecstasy. I went frame by frame, he's out of focus in the background, mostly blocked by Chloe and Chelsea in the foreground, lurching forward (maybe he was gagging or just stumbling?) long after he already swallowed the pill, so this means nothing in terms of film language.

Yeah Saxon may not be as eager as Lochy is, Lochy may not be as innocent as he is assumed to be. But in no way is he victimizing Saxon. He didn't plan this, he's not an evil genius thinking of a way to get his brother in a vulnerable state to act out his "sick desires." He's obviously also high off the molly/x, even if Saxon is more visibly "out of it." And if he weren't? The boy has been binge drinking the whole night. He's not sober no matter what, so people claiming he's sober are beyond deluded. He has taken charge of zero situations so far. Saxon is twice his side and significantly older. Lochy couldn't overpower him or manipulate/pressure him even if he wanted to.

The show is not real life, but in real life, if a sibling develops feelings for especially an older sibling, it's 99.99% of the time due to past sexual abuse (not necessarily from that sibling but often yes).

If he wants Saxon, something traumatic happened in his past to make him this way. And Saxon is like, at least 25, so if he's had feelings for Lochy, we need to call Chris Hansen lol. And if he also has a past with sexual trauma, I feel less sympathy for him. He's a grown ass man now, he should be acting like it. He promised his parents to protect his brother, but he's done nothing but put him in risky situations, loudly project his grisly sexuality onto him, literally display himself and put those kinds of thoughts into Lochy's head, encourage him to be wantonly sexual, and shoved a beer in his hands against Lochy's objections. But now he objects because Lochy is more daring than he thought? He draws the line at party drugs and a kiss that didn't even involve tongue? Dude is a hypocrite. I'm not saying Lochy is necessarily a victim either at this point. But to claim Saxon is a victim is comical.

Again, it's not real life, it's a dark comedy where the rich white brothers having a weird incest arc isn't an endorsement of real life incest. I'm only pointing all this out because people bizarrely want to defend Saxon as if he's an innocent flower, and I know what they're all doing, taking the twinky gay coded character and saying he's the bad influence, the perv, the freak. Oh okay.

I'm also afraid of Saxon and Lochy having actual penetrative sex (I don't think they will tbf), especially if Lochy tops like so many people seem to want. That's another theory that pisses me off, like Saxon would not go straight to taking it up the ass, that's not how DL guys work, trust me. But if that happens, whether Lochy tops or is just the more active/encouraging partner in general, it would give these people more ammunition to frame Lochy as the "bad" one. Boo!

Yet people rightly call Chloe weird as hell for fixating on Lochy's barely legal "innocence," even though if they had sex it's pretty obvious who would be "topping" who. Interesting double standard going on there. I don't know, I'm probably taking it all a little too seriously. They can have their little incest without anyone necessarily being a victim. Saxon can look apprehensive without Lochy being a master manipulator sexual predator. People are praying on my pookie's downfall and I will complain about it!

Ooh, ok, so, there's a lot to unpack here. I agree that I don't like how some people are talking about Lochy. I think, with all the context and information we have now, he's not an aggressor, abuser, manipulator or anything. He has some feelings for his brother and the drinking and drugs are making him lose his inhibitions.

I think it's complicated because, I can kinda see the show possibly framing this as Lochy acting predatory towards Saxon, which, it's not what I want, and like I said, not what I think of it when looking at the whole situation objectively. But I kinda get why people are throwing that around. I think we'll have to wait and see how things are gonna go on the next episode, and even the ones after that, to fully grasp what's the truth of this situation.

Will Saxon realize he has feelings for Lochy? Will the narrative go with the idea that he doesn't and only did it because of the substance abuse? If they do something, is he gonna try to resist it? It can go on so many different ways and, I think right now, there are so many different interpretations of what is going on that is hard to really come to a definitive conclusion.

Personally, as someone who's genuinely shipping them, like not just for the shock value but because I actually care about their characters, I am hoping that it will not be played as one-sided, and that Saxon will realize that he has had some feelings for Lochy all along. Even if he puts a stop to it and doesn't outright say so, we might still be able to get that realization in a more subtle way. Some of the stuff said about this storyline by reviewers and Patrick implies such, but I think there's probably also stuff pointing in another direction...

If you look at all my posts, I was straight up thinking Saxon was intentionally trying to groom Lochy, but now I have changed my mind, and I think his actions are subconscious. So, you're right about the way he has been acting towards Lochy, but I think in his mind there's truly nothing wrong with it, and he doesn't let himself come to the conclusion that maybe he acts like that because he has unresolved feelings towards his brother.

I think Lochy is more aware of what he wants, ironically to their first conversation, and he feels guilty and weird about it, but Saxon's words and the way he acts and like I said all the substance abuse, not to mention Chloe encouraging it, is making him finally act out on them, but that doesn't mean that what he's doing is wrong.

I mean, I don't want to get into irl stuff because, yeah, obviously in real life this would be concerning. I don't have any incestuous feelings, I'm an only child so I can't even have brother ones, but I always have empathy for characters who have guilt and shame over their sexualities and connect with those themes a lot, and incest is a way to turn that up to eleven, and that among other things is why I write/read some fics that involves incest sometimes lol.

But a lot of people, who have more puritanical views about incest in media, are looking at this storyline as something inheretly bad and immoral, and so of course they need someone to blame it on, if not both of them.

I honestly don't care that much because, at the same time, there are soo many people excited about it and rooting for them, tweets about them are getting like 50k likes (the pics Patrick posted of them on set got 67k, though that's maybe a little less about the ship lol), and we have even become a bit of a little community here on tumblr shipping them together and speculating and making theories.

#saxloch #saxon x lochy #saxon x lochlan #lochlan ratliff #saxon ratliff #the white lotus #the white lotus season 3 #the white lotus s3 #the white lotus spoilers #twl spoilers #asks

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kalinara · 7 months ago

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Oddly, I find myself inspired to talk about Scott/Emma today.

I want to disclaim first that I actually really do enjoy the Scott/Emma ship. I think, at their best, they were amazingly good for each other. I think she was the partner he needed at a time when he needed to be harder and more ruthless, less yielding, for the sake of the survival of their people. I think he helped her remember the good person that she;s always been capable of being, despite her anger, rage and pain, and made her want to be that person again.

But I will never not be frustrated by so many aspects of how the relationship began. And I'm going to get into them below the cut.

(Content warning: I'm going to discuss violation, victim-blaming, and sexual assault/rape.)

So, let me talk about my first frustration:

I will never be able to stop my knee jerk reaction whenever I see someone, in character or out, call it a "psychic affair", when it goddamn well wasn't.

(New X-Men #131)

What it was, was a case of therapeutic abuse. He went to her FOR THERAPY. The "affair" was conducted in the course of therapeutic sessions. This isn't just malpractice, something that, were Emma a real person in the real world, would cost her her license.

In the State of New York, real world, what Emma's doing is a prosecutable crime. Because a patient, in the course of therapy, has diminished capacity to consent.

And look, it's not that I think this is a deal-breaker to their future relationship. The X-Men are fucked up. We all know that. But it is irksome to me that, to this day, this is referred to as an "affair", and not a single character has ever pointed out that Scott was not actually a consenting equal partner here, but a victim.

(In retrospect, maybe THIS is the first initial sign that Hank McCoy was slowly drifting to the dark side, because I cannot imagine a man like DOCTOR Henry McCoy, of this era and before, not being seriously aware of and passionate about the ethical responsibilities that a doctor has to his patients.)

It's probably fair to note the Doyleist elements. It is possible that the writer/artist team never intended this to be as violating and victimizing as it is. But I am skeptical of this. You can't tell me that the people who wrote and drew THIS SEQUENCE:

(New X-Men #128)

did not know they were writing Emma as a sexual predator here.

(I have seen folks bring up the "defense" that Scott was a fucking idiot to go to her for help, as though that in any way excuses her actions. Surprise! Someone who has been recently traumatized does not make wise decisions! That is entirely shocking! It's almost like he might not be in a position to consent to a sexual relationship with someone claiming to act as a therapist!)

You know what's even more frustrating though? The shit Scott gets for the actual START of their relationship.

You remember how it goes? Jean's dead. Scott is at her grave, mourning. Emma goes to him with an offer - a relationship and a co-leader position at the school. He accepts and there's that infamous making out at the grave scene.

It's awful! It's completely understandable that this turns off a lot of folk both readers and in character.

Except that's NOT what initially happened.

THIS is the scene as it initially, actually happened:

(New X-Men #151)

So yeah, THIS is what actually happens. Emma makes her offer. Scott says no. He leaves.

But THEN we get a whole storyline with future bad things happening, and well, apparently someone gets the idea that there's one really good way to avoid all of that mess happening.

So in New X-Men #154, we get this:

And the same scene again:

The exact same scene. Same place, same dialogue, same time.

But what's Scott's response:

It's really hard not to read this as anything but Scott having his "No" literally rewritten to a "Yes" by a future version of his own wife.

And here's the thing, this isn't a meaningless action. Scott takes a LOT of shit from a LOT of his friends and family for this decision. Not just taking up with Emma so early after Jean's death, but also where it happens. THIS IS JEAN'S GRAVE after all.

Rachel, his DAUGHTER, is furious. She basically disowns him outright, switching to her mother's surname and costume. It isn't until the End of Greys (meanspirited bullshit of a story worthy of another rant someday), and their shared grief, that they're able to reconcile.

Hank, probably the closest friend he has at this time, is utterly disgusted. And so many others have similar reactions.

Look, it can be frustrating to read and talk about X-Factor because, in my opinion, so much of Scott's choices are mischaracterized and taken out of context. But at least those are CHOICES that he actually made.

This wasn't a choice! This was an incredibly fucked up act of spousal rape by proxy committed by a hypothetical future version of Jean, where all of the negative consequences fell on the victim's head. Both victims, really, because Emma was not a willing participant in the violation of her new partner.

And what makes it so much more frustrating is that this will never be addressed. There is, I think, a very slight chance that one day an actual, ethical therapist or Doctor might hear the story of the affair and point out "actually, no, that was actually something terrible that happened to you."

But no one is ever going to learn the truth here. Why would it even come up? Scott and Emma have been longer as exes (Krakoa polyamory possibilities aside) than they've been together. Jean isn't the same Jean, she's as innocent of this as young Hank is of any of Hank Prime's crimes.

So this will never get addressed, ever, and I will seethe eternally at yet another example of unjust treatment toward my favorite character. And I can't even be mad at the people involved this time (unlike AvX!) because he DID what they're mad at him about.

It's just he DIDN'T initially, and it's so frustrating.

Again, i don't intend this rant to reflect on Scott and Emma as a pairing on the whole. As I said above, I think, on the whole, the two have been very good for each other. I like the weird whatever-it-is they had going on in Krakoa.

(I could have done without that X-Men Blue storyline where she tries to psychically force baby Cyclops INTO adult Cyclops, but that's a rant for another day. I was really glad to see her back as a proper anti-heroine in Rosenberg's run later.)

I just hate that these darker parts of their origin have never been satisfactorily addressed and it will always bother me.

#scott summers #cyclops #emma frost #this is probably not a post for shippers though I do not mean it as an attack on the ship

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a-couple-of-notes · 8 months ago

Text

OKAY what a finale, folks! Deliberately not reading everyone else's thoughts until later (although I did chat briefly with @kshaar -- thank you for enduring my walls of Discord text), but I'm beginning my processing by writing this out.

I have a few issues with how all of this played out, as I'm sure many of you do, but I mostly really liked this finale. I'm so, so aware that it's hard to stick a landing--especially in a fandom as theory-heavy as Marvel, with the dedication of the queer fanbase on top of it. I think it's commendable how much they executed well, and how deliberately they aligned it with their vision of the show, not the one that would make everyone happy (if there is such a thing).

To the stuff I liked: unpopular opinion, but I like the order of the episodes as it is--final big boss fight first, quiet intimate flashback as the finale. Or, at least, I see the vision--I'm still iffy on whether the pacing actually feels good, but that probably needs another rewatch. This show has always been about unpacking Agatha, peeling off her masks until we get to some kind of truth, ugly or beautiful or both. Of course the ending is the truest thing we've ever gotten out of Agatha--the real story of her son and his death.

I loved everything about Nicky, Rio, and Agatha in the flashback. It is so beautifully mundane. A mother's love. A natural death. Selfishness. Grief. Anger. It's gorgeous, and the version of the ballad we got felt so, so fitting.

Everything about Jen! That unbinding spell...whoo. Sasheer Zamata knocked it out of the goddamn park with her performance--the joy, the sorrow, the agony of relief. Man. Even if the rest of the finale flopped on its belly (which it didn't), that alone would have been worth the price of admission. (Also ALSO: Agatha hate-flirting with Jen over confession of horrible traumatic action that fucked up Jen's whole shit! The Jen/Agatha truthers win!)

Alice. Alice my beloved. Ali Ahn, you do so much with the little screen time you have and I applaud you for it. I'm very grateful their cap on her arc was "I could make my life mean something/you're a protection witch. You died protecting someone" and not "you get to see your mother again" because, as I pointed out in the tags of one of my previous posts, that's the real tragedy of Alice. Her life, her freedom, her potential.

To the things I'm mixed on: that final battle, man. I think they did an admirable job of focusing what could have been a generic Marvel magic-blast-y slugfest into distinct character beats, but there was a lot going on in that fight. And compared to previous Rio and Agatha interactions, their big climactic one felt a little...weightless. Those factors make it much less clear why Agatha and Rio are fighting--like, on an emotional level; I understand intellectually why--which means that what also feels unclear is...

...The not-a-sacrifice. I like 90% of this. I like that Billy is finally able to communicate with Agatha via mind powers, because he's started to accept how alike they are. I like that Nicky is once again Agatha's turning point. I even can get behind the sacrifice as the creators' intention--not what I would have preferred, but a solid narrative choice nonetheless. Still, I am super unclear what, exactly, Agatha is thinking when she turns around. Is she just remembering Nicky himself--how much Billy is like him and how ashamed she would be if she left? If so, it feels odd that Agatha's version of sacrifice is kissing Rio so honestly. Later, we learn that Agatha was taking a risk to become a ghost. So when Billy asks how Nicky died, is Agatha remembering how Rio gave him time--the kiss as a fucked-up version of recognition, the risk being Agatha relying on Death's special treatment once again? That would be a better end to Agatha and Rio's arc, but there's no expository line, no echoing "I can only offer time." And Agatha and Rio. DON'T. TALK. IN PRESENT-DAY EPISODE 9.

This is my main gripe. I am aware I am griping with Megalopolis and FFC, not the show or its creators. But goddamn if more Aubrey Plaza would have fixed almost everything in that finale--and I mean this in a narrative sense, not just because I love Aubrey Plaza. It would have clarified where Agatha is ending re: her relationship with Rio (and Nicky), and it would have bookended the first episode so well (the three-player drama returns!) I am actually irritated about this.

Ghost Agatha looks so goofy. Like, I understand the vision here--the parallels to her mother, and of course Agatha would find a way to piss off Rio in her own domain. It's iconic. Still. There's something about Ghost!Agatha that's so much harder to buy into on a gut level, a kind of emotional distance created in such an emotional, tactile show.

Billy. Oh, Billy. I like your arc. I like its execution, while heaving a grudging sigh of "yeah, that makes sense for this story but I'm still kind of disappointed" re: the creation of the Witches' Road. I love the idea that Billy's ultimate arc was to accept the darkness in himself, and all the things he's capable of. But I really, really wish Agatha had had one more conversation with...not you. (Agatha naturally falls into a mentor-type role for Billy, which isn't necessarily bad or not part of her arc, but does at least lead to me feeling like we don't get an endpoint for Agatha in present day that's entirely her own.)

And I suppose that's the crux of my mixed feelings: the show began with Agatha asking who she was, before Billy even came into the picture. The viewers get to see a glimpse into Agatha's real self in the Ep. 9 flashback. But at the end of episode 9, Agatha is still running from it. She's barely touched her own grief (yes, yes, insert joke about Rio here), and we don't see her making that choice. I emphasize that because I am not categorically opposed to Agatha not completing her grief arc; god knows 9 episodes would have struggled to do that. I'm fine that they left some threads hanging. It's just that something in between Agatha (not-)sacrificing and Agatha coming back as affably-evil Casper is missing, and it feels like a gaping omission.

Other notes: Billy dramatically charging up the hex to create a memorial was great--another way the finale lets us into the beauty of the mundane. It's not to bring everyone back, or go down the Road again. But it's important, this act of remembering.

Though I'm disappointed we didn't get found family coven true, I'm at peace with how that thread wound up. This was a show about Agatha; the coven as individuals act as foils and reflections of her. They break and succeed in similar ways as Agatha. And they were a coven--a messed-up, broken coven who tried their best. It wasn't enough to save them, but it was enough for them to grow closer to the people they wanted to be. Agatha using something from every witch in her coven--Alice's protection spell, Lilia's divination, Jen's healing--in the fight was truly poignant, and tells me she'll remember them and carry them forward. (Also, the contrast against the flashback! "I cannot heal, I cannot protect you from what's coming, and I cannot divine when she'll come for you." Agatha needed them to be her coven! And they were. And they were.)

Final thoughts: (This is a misnomer; I'm still digesting.) Agatha All Along became a more complex, difficult show than I thought it would be pre-Episode 5. Occasionally this meant it disappointed me, had places where its budget, scheduling, Marvel-ness, and decisions regarding exposition struggled to connect things, but overall, it's a damn good show. And I would rather see a funny, challenging, ambitious show made with love for the craft than a safe, big-budget, chopped-up Marvel movie in a blender. And hey, it was super gay! (Please don't come near me with the "Bury Your Gays" stuff. Please. It's not that, I promise you.)

#agatha all along #agatha all along spoilers #agatha harkness #rio vidal #teen agatha all along #agatha x rio #agatha meta

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razielim · 6 days ago

Note

for the character ask game... kaladin, adolin and elhokar?

wheeeeeee!

How I feel about this character

kaladin is just everything. he makes the brain go brrrrr. he's like being wrapped in my favorite fluffy blanket and patted on the head. he's so strong. ;_;

adolin is also everything but unlike kaladin, who's got a realness that's very reflective and somber, adolin is just purely wheeeeee! he opens his mouth or does anything, and i'm immediately Sufficiently Stimulated. i'm Regulated. he's perfect.

elhokar SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMMM. *explosions, helicopters, more screaming, distant but approaching gunfire, sirens* i get him. i love him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

kaladin: probably mostly nale at this point. but also dalinar and elhokar. at any given moment i've got at least five "here's how elhokar-lives!divergence would work and kaladin/elhokar could still happen" rants in my head. also adolin when i want to keep it simple. the only m/f ship i would really enjoy to see in canon is kaleshwi, my beloved.

adolin: mostly yanagawn at this point. they are..... perfect. i love them. but also sometimes kushkam... and kushkam's son. (sorry, this is all W&T dynamics). but also kal, yeah.

elhokar: i was gonna say "just kaladin" but yeah, i get emotional about him with wit too. ;_;

My non-romantic OTP for this character

kaladin and rock and teft is something that can be so personal...

ADOLIN AND MAYA. THE WAY IT JUST KEEPS GROWING TO BE THE BIGGEST MOST BEAUTIFUL SOLDIERS' BOND AHHHHH

ugh elhokar and his son. let little gavinor spend more time with his daddy ugh ugh ugh

My unpopular opinion about this character

kaladin wants to fuck. he needs to fuck. he just can't. the stress won't let him.

adolin should have gotten the chance to figure out that he could try courting men before shallan showed up. the man def had an awakening in the chamber, perhaps we can still fire it off someday

elhokar was one of the most interesting characters in WoK, giving insight into what Jasnah must have gone through at a younger age. he was not only interesting but clearly going through something private and awful, something you absolutely wouldn't want to also be king and be expected to fire on all cylinders while going through, and many readers ignored that. we SEE shallan going through the same thing when she's got a lot less going on in her life than the responsibilities and pressures of a monarch, and look at how stressful and traumatizing that is for her. that's the whole thing in this series, you DON'T know what someone is going through. future-therapist kaladin CAN'T recognize shallan's pain until she lays it out explicitly. especially when we later learn just how uniquely unprepared elhokar was for the throne, his father having neglected grooming him for the post, intending the throne for jasnah. it's insane remembering how much navani had already given up on him when he had never been lifted up in the first place. and it's even crazier to reread WoK, see his behavior, and know WHY he's spent the last five years failing, WHY he's trying desperately to catch up, to learn and absorb, and WHY he's so vulnerable to being led around like a puppy by people who should have been guiding, building up, and protecting him, and now THIS starts to happen and he knows there's no one he can really turn to. (until kal in WoR; he turns to kal. and kal hates it but he [unwillingly and unwittingly] does what no one else did for elhokar and makes him feel safe enough and guided enough that he can finally start to grow in adversity rather than continue to wither under the pressure)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I'm a simple man: gay, bi, alive+gay.

(i also am a man that needs to run and get stuff done and has run out of brain for this last question after the elhokar rant drained me of all i had oops)

thank you for the ask! send chars :)c

#stormlight archive #elhokar kholin #adolin kholin #kaladin stormblessed #cosmere #nate #asks #social

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vip-komilk · 6 months ago

Text

⚠ TW: Sibling incest ⚠ Huge-ass leonfrancis headcanons post, including NSFW. If you read my fics, or just follow my nonsense on twitter/bluesky, these are the headcanons I'm leaning on most of the time. Take a look inside my twisted mind. This is more insane than the Vittorino one.

I'm putting it under a readmore for a reason, this is my disclaimer. Thanks.

Conceptual headcanons

This is the pretentious shit. Idk how else to say it. It's all the symbolism and references to folklore and stuff like that LOL.

THE GENERATIONAL CYCLES. This one is first because it is at the core of all the bullshit that will come after, so I need to hit you over the head with this one. 8:11 has a theme around cycles and I theorize that Leon and Francis are cycles of their parents. That's it basically. Leon picked up the hunting and surgery skills from his father. Leon kills his father in very much the same way Dante (who it's implied was something like a protégé or even a son) kills him. Their mother had a chronic illness and was intent on one of them (presumably Francis) becoming a priest, Francis then becomes traumatized and bedridden after her death. Leon falls into the role of his father, Francis into the role of his mother. Do you see the vision? This one is important.

Merge theory. If you've been in 8:11 fandom for a bit you'll have heard of this one, the idea that Leon and Francis merged at some point; presumably it was something Leon did in an attempt to "cure" his brother. You'll see me allude to this with ideas of them "becoming one" (yes, including sex).

I've played on the literary/spiritual concept of twins being split from a single "soul", they they are two halves of a whole, that they are incomplete without each other. Hence the aforementioned merge theory is more a rejoining of these split souls.

Cain and Abel. Why the hell not. I'll get into a bit more later but I do sometimes like to play with the idea that Leon really resented having to look after Francis, really resented his "ailments" when there appeared to be nothing physically wrong with him. The idea that Leon might have wanted to kill him at times, just to free them both; the idea that perhaps his father had felt the same towards their mother, even if he never expressed it.

---

General headcanons

I don't feel strongly one way or the other as to whether they're identical or fraternal twins, but them having different hair textures makes me lean towards the latter (ignore the split soul theory being for identical twins, its my beautiful dreamscape and I can do what I want). I think their features are similar enough that people think they're identical at first glance though.

I tend to characterize Francis as a grumpy cat LOL. He's kind of antisocial and withdrawn, when he's mad he tends to give the cold shoulder. He has a kind of stern, quiet compassion, and when he can tell Leon is stressed out, he'll just silently start cleaning up Leon's stuff and bringing him food and things like that. Real acts of service love language going on.

From the game it appears to me like they lived in a secluded, rural area. The Tremblays maybe had limited interactions with people outside the family, the boys would maybe take a bus to school, and they would go into town on the weekends and for church but it's not as if they spent a lot of time surrounded by people. This is kind of important in setting up the context for Leon and Francis becoming isolated after their parents die.

They were probably the kind of kids that made up their own language to communicate with each other. I think it would be cute if Francis kind of clung to Leon when they went to school (until they get to the age when being close to your sibling isn't Cool and 'I'm more than just my brother's twin actually').

Re: the whole 'children are more or less incarnations of their parents' thing above, Leon is favoured by their father as the eldest to more or less take up the role of the Man Of The House. Their dad was probably a serious guy, considering he was both a war veteran and a surgeon, so those are big shoes to fill. On the other hand, Francis is more of a momma's boy, spends a lot of time with their mother at her bedside, makes sure he tells her everything he and Leon are up to.

Based on VHS #2, the hunting motifs and the forest imagery towards the end of the game, I think it's fair to assume their house sat at the edge of a forest. Leon and Francis probably spent a lot of time out there as kids and teens, exploring and finding animal bones and setting up forts of branches and foliage. They probably got lost out there once or twice. Maybe they trespassed on their neighbour's land and got shot at. I like to think of Leon with a big VHS camcorder making "documentaries" of the stuff they make out there.

Francis starts smoking (weed). The first time he convinces Leon to try it, Leon gets really paranoid and doesn't leave the couch for hours. Needless to say he's not eager to do it again.

---

After their parent's death

Includes NSFW towards the end.

Uhhh I headcanon that Leon's drinking habit starts after he kills his father. I do think it's just as likely it could've started after the fall of the Basilica, but I really like the idea of Leon struggling with it in secret while at the Basilica lol.

They both have a lot of trauma, and struggle to process it and confront it. Francis starts talking about ghosts and Angels, loses his eyesight, becomes bedridden. Leon is likely forced to look after him in the aftermath, while I'm sure he's also haunted by the fact he killed his own father. And yet, however much Leon might resent Francis for his condition, how can he possibly abandon the only remaining family he had left? Especially when it was his mistake that drove Francis to be like this in the first place. And Francis is helpless; he's blind and ill and he relies on Leon completely. Leon fears Francis for the crazy things he's saying, and Francis fears Leon who returned home soaked in their father's blood. They have both become unrecognizable to each other, they both have reason to be wary and suspicious and yet horribly codepedent on each other.

Even something as simple as Leon leading Francis around the house, or bathing him, or shaving him. How easy it would be for him to push him down the stairs or slit his throat as he holds a razor to his neck. I like to thing the tension and the dread in that house is a constant weight on them both.

Leon avoiding mirrors is obviously him avoiding Dante in the game, but I think perhaps we should consider it could also be tied to guilt at seeing his brother's face in his reflection.

(NSFW - dub/non-con) If you've read my fic "If we fall," I emphasize the guilt I think Leon would probably feel for this whole situation and wouldn't really be able to bring himself to stop Francis from acting out against him, and just lies back and takes it.

(NSFW - dubcon) Leon drinks every night so that if anything happens (coughs having sex with his bedridden brother), he can deny to himself that he was in his right mind.

This is where the Cain and Abel thing comes back into play. Sometimes Leon resents Francis. It’s a burden to have to look after him. He's an unsettling, haunted husk of a human being, and he wonders if their father ever felt this way about their mother. If he secretly yearned to snap her neck, to free himself from the chains binding him to her. Some nights when Leon drinks and Francis sleeps he stands at the doorway glaring at him, caught in uncertainty, unsure if he loves him or hates him.

This one's a bit delusional but a few friends and I were throwing around the idea of Francis getting paranoid and trying to escape the house, but of course he's blind so he doesn't get far. Gets his leg caught in an animal trap set up in the woods and has to lie there as the sun sets, shivering and bleeding and unable to free himself until Leon comes to find him and brings him back home, now with an injured leg and even more reliant on Leon to help him.

---

Transfem Francis

Yes this needs its own section.

It started because a friend put me on to it but again, the parallels to the parents kind of just strengthened it for me. If Francis is meant to take on the role of his mother then why can't that include his gender? //taps temple//

I think she starts transitioning before their parents die, but she starts to present more outwardly feminine only after. She starts rifling through her mother's clothes and wearing them, and again Leon is kind of just too shaken and guilty to stop her. (I feel the need to clarify that Leon's shock would not be Francis wearing feminine clothes but more that she's wearing their dead mother's belongings).

Leon starts to treat her a lot more carefully (you can't just roughhouse with a sister like you can with a brother, in his mind). He fixes her shirts if they start slipping down too far and showing too much chest. Francis thinks it's annoying as hell.

---

The real delusion

This is the insane stuff I'm sorry in advance. Includes NSFW.

If you want the real delirium, there's a whole alternate au in my head where Leon never performs the merging surgery and never goes to the basilica and instead he and Francis kind of just get mind-broken by their circumstances and lean into the cycled roles of their parents as a means of survival and become horribly codependent on each other and convince themselves they love each other the way their parents did. If you ever see me talk about them being married or acting like a couple I'm probably referring to this "parent roleplay" au lol.

They should get married in the garden and Francis should wear her mother's wedding dress, beautiful wonderful world.

me and a friend went crazy talking abt them going to a local farmer's market together as a couple and some of the older vendors mistake them for their parents. She hangs onto his arm and asks him to describe things for her. They go to a barn dance and dance together. Agh. Sobs.

Incestuous codependent delusion aside, they can be the cutest couple ever i think.

Thanks for making it this far //blows kisses//

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atopvisenyashill · 9 months ago

Note

I don't know if you can talk about Aerea and Rhaena, their whole relationship is horrible, but a lot of the fandom tends to label her as a simple bad mother and not see beyond that.

I find their relationship very tragic largely because I think under normal circumstances, Rhaena would have been a very loving and present mother. I also think "well she's a bad mother" is very disingenous framing. For the first several years of her life As A Mom, she and her daughter are being held hostage by her insane uncle. Then, she spends the next several years trying to cope with the fact that she was maritally raped, her brother-husband was murdered, any and all power she has is derived completely from how her younger brother is feeling on that day, oh and, ya know, being a LESBIAN IN A MEDIEVAL ESQUE PERIOD. cannot stress enough that Rhaena has a lot of shit going on that impacts her ability to take care of herself let alone take care of a child. And none of that is Aerea's fault - again, Aerea's childhood is spent in an unstable, sexually abusive home where her mother is being maritally raped by the man who murdered her father, she has no freedom to decide where she wants to go because she's a hostage while simultaneously being heir to the throne, and then she's just unceremoniously sent to Dragonstone because her mother decides it must be so.

And I think Rhaena really tries to make things better for Aerea! She encourages Aerea to claim a dragon, she clearly tries to set up a sort of court on Dragonstone, but she doesn't even know her daughter much less understand what would make her happy. They've been separated for years! Rhaena herself clearly wants a break from court to just be left alone to live her life, but Aerea has spent so long being shuffled around, being a hostage, (perhaps even training as a Septa...), that of course she doesn't want to sit still. Then Rhaena gets divorced and Aerea's stepmom leaves, and there's no other children to play with, and the ladies Rhaena keeps don't know how to care for a child nor are they interested in learning.

This is an unbelievably tense and unstable first decade or so of her life! There's just very few scenarios where these two have a healthy, stable relationship due to the incredibly instability they're in the middle of. I always go back to Rhaenys at points like this - Rhaenys who claimed a grown dragon at 16, Rhaenys who taunted her husband that she'd get to the end of the world first because she'd be flying, Rhaenys who is probably the most well adjusted Targaryen we have information on. Rhaenys has a father who likely encouraged her ~headstrong ways~ and a mother who supported and loved her. Rhaenys who had cousins to play with as she learned how to socialize with others, Rhaenys who had a grandmother to teach her. Rhaenys had a stable environment to grow up in. Rhaenys had an education befitting an heiress. If Aerea had lived in a normal (ish) environment where she has two parents, aunts and uncles, cousins all around, a dragon she's allowed to claim, status that is protected by her mother and father's own status...it would be night and day! And if Rhaena had a spouse she trusted, mentors and advisors who had even a lick of sense, a brother more interested in her happiness and less interested in completely upending her claim to protect his own...again, think of Rhaenys has a mother! Think of Laena claiming a dragon before she's 12!

Rhaena isn't ~a bad mother~ anymore than Aerea is ~a bad child~ they are simply two people who lived through stressful, traumatic situations and reacted imperfectly to those situations. They had no real support system. They moved around constantly. This was never going to end well for either of them and it's not really either of their faults.

#asks #anons

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deathnguts · 11 months ago

Text

I know the hunger games AU is owned by Jegulus or whatever because of crimson rivers but I’m gonna different and make it about Bartylus because no one can stop me so here’s a detailed summary/play by play of major events of the AU please give it a chance it’s eaten my brain

No trigger warnings under the cut besides yknow mentions of murder but it’s not graphic, there’s only a cut because it’s long as shit

(not inspired by crimson rivers really at all because I never read it) ((also implied trans regulus at the end because eveyrone that isn’t Sirius or Barty doesn’t know regulus is a man because transphobia and closets and stuff and you can pry trans regulus out of my cold dead hands))

Ok so I imagine that the pure blooded families would be from career districts, like district one (luxury goods) I imagine. And Regulus, per the rules of the game, has never been allowed to participate because Sirius already competed and won when he was sixteen and regulus was eleven. This leads to regulus becoming disillusioned to the glory of the games early on since his beloved brother did come home with the honor but he was completely changed and traumatized and claimed he only came home with his life. Regulus sees the games for the horrific blood bath they are as he grows older due to taking on being his brother’s caretaker since no one else would and Sirius completely let himself go in the throes of depression, making regulus see what the games do to even their winners first hand.

Barty, on the other hand, does not see the games for what they are and he wants nothing more than to go and to win. He’s always believed in the ideology that winning the hunger games is the ultimate honor and playing them is the ultimate rush. I imagine, in the context of this universe, his father would probably be influential enough to be involved in the inner workings of the games. And unlike any other parent involved in the planning of the games, he doesn’t rig it so his son won’t be a participant, he rigs it so he will. Knowing this, every moment that isn’t spent with regulus at Sirius’ winners home or somewhere more comfortable like in town or something, Barty is training for when he’s selected for the games (since the careers have it rigged and all.)

Regulus tries to live in denial about the fact Barty will certainly go and may not come back or maybe come back like Sirius did up until the reaping day that changes everything. Him and Barty are sixteen, just like Sirius was, when they both hear his full name get called. Barty is beaming with pride as he’s pushed up the steps and regulus can barely contain a sob. (He only does because he knows it would be out of place for a career district civilian like himself to mourn such a thing, and he doesn’t want his family thinking he’s a rebel or something.)

Regulus rushes to see Barty before he’s taken away immediately. He’s crying in Barty’s arms and holding him like there’s no tomorrow because there truly might not be. Barty is less brash and loud with his pride obviously, the love of his life is crying in his arms, but he’s not swayed enough to truly be nervous. He simply holds regulus tight and tips his chin up, smiles and tells him he shouldn’t worry because if he’s not just coming home for honor, he’s coming home to marry regulus. They’ll be together forever when Barty gets back, it’ll all be ok. Regulus tries to believe that and gives Barty his favorite of his rings off his finger as Barty’s token from home. Barty puts it on the chain he always wears as a necklace since he knows he’ll be using his hands a lot in the arena.

Once Barty’s on the quick train ride to the capitol (since district one is so close) his smile fades to an even determination and he holds the ring in his clenched fist to his lips the whole way. The other careers will poke fun at it later, seeing as how there’s no way a simple silver ring on an even simpler chain can be weaponized, but what they think doesn’t matter because Barty’s going to kill them.

Barty optimizes on his wild card persona for his training, fashion statements, and marketing himself since he knows the crowd loves a winner who gets their hands dirty. And during his interview, he speaks of how he’s going home to the love of his life and shows off his ring to get real about his near proposal to get the crowd to love him even more. Everyone loves a romance. Regulus watches from home, alone since Sirius would rather die than watch anything to do with the games. He’s shaking from his fetal position on the ground and he can only pray Barty will be right in the end.

Before anyone really knows it, the games begin. Barty gets exactly what he wanted from the blood bath (sadistic violence and securing of the cornucopia. He even takes out his ‘partner’ from district one while the other careers are busy. Because he only has one partner from district one, and he’s not in the arena.) and regulus watches with his heart beating out of his chest.

The games go on swimmingly at first. Regulus is itching to help, to send any gift Barty may need at a moments notice, but Barty truly doesn’t need anything from him since he’s monopolized all the materials. He feel useless and he’s so terrified every second of the day he curses the editors of the broadcast every time his love isn’t on the screen because what’s happening when they pan to anyone else?! Barty’s doing mostly fine for himself since the lower districts are keeping to themselves and the other careers aren’t down to the wire enough to start back stabbing yet. Until they are.

Barty sees it as luck that he’s the youngest career here, halfway naive to the extent of the rigging the games have in favor of his idealization of them. The others single him out in their heads immediately due to his age and his whole ‘lover boy’ show at the interviews. They all agreed without having to discuss that he’s the first to go the second it’s convenient.

The next week or so is spent with the careers staking out the arena and then doing organized hunts for other tributes. They all go off well, the careers always win though not without any fighting back obviously. They lose the girl from four and the guy from three, girl from three gets injured but not enough to sit out and ugh Barty’s annoyed that he has to care about any of them. The guy from two is always sending him off on his own, claiming it’s because Barty’s a ‘crazy fucker’ and it’s like sending a rabid dog to some sheep and he’s certain Barty will come back panting like one with the blood of his win on him (secretly hoping he fails and doesn’t come back at all soon.) But he does, every single time. Barty thinks it’s because he was judged right, everyone else slowly gets more wary of him when they realize he’s not the easy pickings they imagined and he may actually be a problem down the road.

With only a few stragglers from lower districts left, the other careers decide to put him down before they run out of numbers. They go for him when they think he’s asleep, but he’s not an idiot and he knows they have it out for him and he wouldn’t dare to trust them enough to sleep around them. He actually hasn’t slept in days because of it. (Regulus hasn’t either, desperately afraid that he’ll miss even a single second of what’s happening to Barty.) He’s loopy, deranged from all the sadistic heavy lifting he’s been doing. He feels like a rabid dog now more than ever as he’s literally clawing and biting his former teammates when they manage to disarm him after he fatally wounds the girl from two and she fades away without him even looking twice. He takes out the injured girl from four, no was it two? No he just killed girl from two, it had to be… one? Yeah, one. She’s easy pickings and guy from… four, seems mad about it. It’s him and two guys, four and two, and they seem pissed. It’s funny, Barty can’t stop laughing. They really think they can beat him. Hilarious.

Regulus watches in horror and Sirius jolts from his sleep four rooms down when he hears his brother scream because in Barty’s insomnia and shock induced delusions, he gets snuck up on from a boy from five that’d been with them, one Barty hadn’t even noticed. He’s stabbed literally in the back, low and a few inches from his spine with the knife they’d taken away from him earlier.

Barty freezes, but not for long before he feels the knife twist and get pulled out. He practically howls at the pain when he whips around and kicks the guy down. God damn ghost, didn’t he kill him already? He takes his knife back and some other guys come in for the kill but they’re stupid because they’re getting close to Barty and he has his knife back. Barty doesn’t clearly remember what happened next, just that three bodies fell, he got cut again in his thigh and in both his arms, and then he passed out in the pool of blood he’d created.

Drones come ti pick up three bodies, Barty isn’t one of them. He wakes up to the movement around him and he feels like hell. He’s bleeding out, fuck why hadn’t he wrapped himself up before laying down? He did lay down, right? There’s an another drone that comes in and it’s medical supplies. A lot of them. Surely from a very concerned and very wealthy donor. He uses them graciously and waits out a day, maybe two, or was it three actually? for the hurt to subside enough to hunt again. It doesn’t.

He’s drifting in and out of consciousness and he’s not even fully functioning when he’s awake. He keeps getting drones with more medical supplies and he realizes with barely half a mind they’re coming from regulus. He can barely stay awake long enough to use them and keep himself alive with the little control he has and he realizes in this lethargic time that regulus was right. He feels awful, on so many levels. What he had to do, what he did for fun, what got him here, wasn’t worth it. He wants to go home. He hopes his mind will stop being foggy and loud when he gets home.

There someone standing by him, they don’t even have a weapon. They’re looking at him with fear in their eyes, but they’re stepping closer. They’re going to kill him. Barty spits, they’re going to try. His mind is loud and his blood is louder when he’s in another scuffle with whatever stupid fucking lower district tribute the old group missed while policing the arena. Theyre rolling on the ground for any hint of an upper hand. But the tribute’s weak, clearly malnourished and too scared to be calculated because Barty gets on top easy. He has his hands around their neck for just a moment before their long ass nails are digging into his fingers- no, they’re gloves, with razors at the tips. Fuck. He involuntarily pulls back with a hiss and they’re on top of him again. He’s not going out like this.

He kicks them on their back with his good leg and they gasp from the air knocking out of them on impact. He doesn’t have time to get their gloves off before they get their breath back, but he does have time to yank his necklace over his head and over theirs. They struggle and he flips them over to get his thighs on their upper arms to stop their death hands. Their razor fingers are digging into every inch of him they can and he barely feels the pain. Their movements slow and their eyes tear up as silver wrings out their last breath. Barty’s declared the winner. Was that really the last tribute?

It must have been, because he’s hauled out of the arena and into the capitol. Or at least, tried to, because he distantly remembers the terror and adrenaline in him not subsiding soon enough for him to trust the capital people come to retrieve him and he has to be put to sleep because he lunges at one of them. He wakes up and they’ve healed him completely with their capital tech and he wants to go home. There’s the after game interview he can’t hear over the buzzing in his ears and he tells them he wants to go home. He sees his father shortly after since he oversees things like the interviews and Barty tells him he wants to go home.

When he finally does, he could cry from just the sight of his regulus waiting for him right when the train doors open. And he does when he finally has him in his arms again. The two sob together on the ground and they hold each other like lifelines. It takes hours for them to calm down enough to even walk to the car to go home, and they do so pressed close with their hands intertwined. They huddle together in the car, and then they huddle together in bed the second their home. Regulus tells Barty he was right, Barty tells regulus he was right.

They’re both beyond shaken and traumatized from the games, Barty on behalf of eveyrthing he did and what was done to him and regulus because he had to watch. But they’re together now, and there’s never a moment in the future the public will ever them not. They’re shaken and attached at the hip at all times, agoraphobic and terrified of other people in case theyre a threat.

But the capital waits for none and they want a wedding. There was a buzz about it ever since Barty was in the top two for four days. And then when the crowd saw the psycho lover boy choking the last tribute in his way with his ‘wedding’ ring? Oh, now they can’t be stopped. The pair are rushed to the capital again and they cling to each other for dear life. Their wedding is completely planned already when they arrive, surely by game orchestrators and excited producers like their marriage is just an after party for the games. The overly eager crowd of make up artists and designers try to rush them apart for dressing and Barty nearly bites them, so they forgo the tradition of making the groom wait to see the bride in ‘her’ gown.

The crowd isn’t too upset because the display is a testaments to the capital’s newest favorite couples’ unconditional, inseparable love that defied every odd. And that’s the theme of the night. Hundreds of guests neither of the lovers know swarming them with praises and questions about how sad it was to watch their lover almost die and how sweet it was he didn’t and are they going to have children soon and wow double immunity for the baby when it does come with the Black and Crouch winners as uncle and father and-

It takes a near breaking point, luck, and a distraction from Sirius (who’s been itching to fuck with the crowd all night after being forced to be here) for the couple to get away for just a moment to breathe. It’s all so jarring, Barty was dying just two days ago and he got regulus back only a little after that and it’s all so much, too much and it’s so loud. But they’re married now, which he wanted; he’s alive, which he wanted; he’s home in regulus’ presence, which he desperately wanted.

Regulus looks beautiful in the sparkling white dress Barty’s games designer made for him, Barty apologizes that he has to be seen by so many people in it. Regulus says it was inevitable, Barty says it’s still not right. Regulus asks what is. Barty doesn’t answer for a moment. They sigh and hug each other close like they’d been doing non stop every chance they could for the past twenty eight hours. Barty murmurs that in everything that’s happened, in everything he’s done, the only thing that’s remained right since the start is regulus, his love for him more specifically. Regulus snorts a little and teases that he sounds like he’s going to propose. Barty doesnt respond for a moment. Then he’s pulling away from the embrace and regulus almost jumps but Barty doesn’t go far when he gets on one knee and pulls his token necklace from under his suit and over his head and smiles up at Regulus’s dumbfounded face.

Regulus Black, love of my life, my only light in the dark, would you do me the honor-

Yes.

He’s crying, they’re both crying. But it’s better. Everything’s better. Barty’s home, he made it home. They’ll be safe and sound at home.

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