#maybe i picked up on it before the story was developed enough to be obvious but it keeps going down the path i said it would

[twig-tea]

Hi!

So Cherry Magic Thailand was amazing. Which really surprised me. I still have reservations about the next jbl adaptations by Thailand, but I guess we'll see. Anyway, because of that I have been thinking about this.

Which existing series do you think could benefit from an adaptation by a different country? That could maybe give the story a different perspective or simply because they would have different resources? Thanks

Rose💜

Thank you so much for this ask, Rose, and apologies for being so slow to answer!

The first obvious answer to this is anything from the censored era of Chinese BL being picked up by a different country. We're already seeing the benefits of that in Taiwan's adaptation of DaGe in Unknown the series, which from what I've been told is not only going to allow some intense kisses (possibly, if the actors aren't trolling us, more explicit sex scenes than are actually in the original Priest novel, though I'm not going to assume we're getting anything until I see it), but also with changes like a reduction in the homophobia of characters. Recently they announced SaYe/Chasing the Light was optioned for a film version outside of mainland China, so I'm now hopeful some of the stuff that was shelved is going to get made after all, and maybe with less censorship. That being said, a whole list of just censored dramas that were based on BL novels would be boring. So instead I'm considering what shows did I like but wanted to see done again in a different way, and which country would handle the themes and style of the original in a way that would be fun to watch?

I'm thinking about Love Stage!!! Which was a Japanese manga adaptation with a version from both Japan and Thailand, and My Dead Gangster Oppa which was adapted from a Korean webtoon, and Why R U Korea adapted from the Thai show, and how the productions in the different countries would change what we get. So, I'll be basing my answer on those as well as CMT you referenced.

[Sidenote: originally I was going to say Thailand should adapt Man Who Defies the World of BL except with Series-Y tropes and then realized that's exactly what Why R U was supposed to be in the first place--it would be neat to see a Korean version of this storyline with webtoon tropes (we kind of got that with Our Dating Sim but they went with dating game tropes instead). ANYWAY that's not really an adaptation so I'm not including it below, but putting it into the universe.]

Enough waffling, let's go!

Twig's Foreign Adaptation Wish List

Taiwanese adaptation of 2gether

Hear me out. If we're going to see this story again, I want better reasons for needing to fake date and better chemistry once they're actually dating, and I can imagine Taiwan adding in the angst and chemistry to make this show work through to the end. Taiwan would also have no problem keeping Sarawat's obsession with Tine's pecs in the storyline (critical inclusion, imho), and we know Taiwan loves a "they met before and this is fate" plot so I think this would work well. Switching Sarawat's obsession with Scrubb to something else would be a really interesting cultural shift and would help ground the series in the adaptation country.

Korean adaptation of I Can Hear the Sunspot / Silhouette of Your Voice

@absolutebl has said this before and they're right, this is the one JBL manga adaptation that I'd love to see it done again as a series with enough time to fully handle the character development that happens in the manga. NGL in my heart of hearts I'd want Japan to take another crack at it, but for this game I'll say Korea. I know Korea has a few good disability narratives (thinking of the love for Twinkling Watermelon I've heard about recently) so I think they could do a good job. Korean media also handles silence well and that's pretty critical for this one; they could also do some interesting things to illustrate the changes in the main character's hearing.

Japanese adaptation of Love Sick

I am envisioning a reverse Cherry Magic scenario, in which the foreign adaptation follows the written source material better than the domestic adaptation did, and then adds their own flair. Now take this with a grain of salt because I haven't read the novel, but my understanding is that the original Thai novel is about Pun and Noh as the main characters with the music club all there but the dramatic side heterosexual storylines are not nearly as front and center, and they were added to pad out the show because folks weren't sure how a BL series would land. I know there is already a Thai remake but let's pretend that's not happening. Japan handles earnest and sweet school-aged first loves well, and can handle the goofiness required of the Noh character, and deeply understands and portrays found family core friendships well, and I bet a Japanese production would do a great job with that core storyline. We don't get a lot of larger friend groups in Japanese BL and I want to see a Japanese production handle that. The one thing that gave me hesitation about this was the importance of the busking subplot and I don't think busking is a big thing in Japan the way it is in Thailand and Korea but that could be another opportunity for making it feel more grounded in the adapting country so I'm keeping it as-is.

Thai adaptation of Boyband Love

I'm going to steal the idea that I've seen @lurkingshan @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup mention before and riff of it to say that Daou and Offroad should be in a boyband BL; this is a main reason why I want a Thai remake of the Filipino series Boyband Love [which I don't actually recommend but, fun fact, had an out gay couple starring in it but they were not paired together in the show--Gus, who plays the lead Danny, has 2 kids with Louie who plays the side character Rico]. Thailand is clearly desperate to do a boyband BL so that they can make money off the concerts; Boyband Love as a story is already calibrated to be cheap to make because it's about a band getting ready to debut, and Thailand can scale it up from the original show. It's also no longer a period of COVID restrictions so crowds can be brought in. The storyline is pretty much what I would want of a Boyband BL: rivals within a band to lovers, pining amongst band members, underwater kiss, industry drama, and (spoilers for a 2020 series) the decision to essentially do BGP but keep their relationship secret. Thailand would have fun with that, I think. And they can add a little more heat, it's very important to me that something happens in the practice room pls and thank you.

Japanese adaptation of Middleman's Love

Japan gets two because they can do this type of comedy so well, and I really liked the bones of the Thai version so I'd love to see it done again. Japan can also handle trauma narratives so if they wanted to do both Bed Friend and Middleman Love they would be able to handle it. Korea is really good at balancing humour and trauma, but Japan is so good at losers who don't think they deserve love, and also excellent at pining, so I'm giving this one to Japan.

Korean adaptation of Triage

We're getting Korea twice because I haven't seen Korea do much in the way of genre BL yet, and while I admit this may be slightly influenced by me watching Hospital Playlist right now, Korea can handle the fast-paced ER scenes that are throughout this show, as well as the mix of drama and comedy. I'd love to see a more highly produced version of this show, and I know Korea can handle this kind of time loop shenanigans and heavenly spirits helping the protagonist along from kdramas. I liked the original a lot but I'd love to see it done again a little more tightly!

Bonus nonsense one: Taiwanese version of Calculating Love

This one is literally just for me. Ok listen I know I'm the only one who likes this show, and that's fine, it doesn't actually deserve attention. And it's so small that it would never be adapted. But I loved this dorky little short about nerds flirting with calculus and I want more. Taiwan is fantastic at dorks falling in love narratives, and so many of the HIStory series were short school BL, so I think they'd do an excellent job tightening up the story in the back half which got a bit meander-y and keeping the heat that's already there.

Thank you again for the really fun ask, Rose! 💕

[nevermindirah]

Booker vibes hard with scifi. he has so many visceral sense-memories of reading early scifi novels as the genre developed in his first decades of immortality. all the dystopia speaks to him for obvious being God's chew toy reasons, but there are times over the years when hopeful scifi stories boost him emotionally in a way no amount of good deeds or warm hugs seem to manage.

so by the time he gets stoned and goes to the movies in 1977, he's ready.

he falls hard for Han/Leia. he too was a scoundrel who fell in love with the coolest and smartest girl around who somehow found his scruffiness charming. he too came of age and put down roots amid galaxy-shaking political and social upheaval. but Star Wars was so safely cartoony in its far-away galaxy that he found he could earnestly enjoy how hopeful it was.

over the years he tore through the novels, he picked up fan magazines here and there, stopped by the occasional con. when he discovered fanfiction, hoo boy. he wrote over 100k of Han and Leia's snarky, sappy, smutty, blaster-heavy post-RotJ adventures in like the first month alone.

decades later, he very nearly had to leave the theater when Kylo Ren killed his father.

some of those same decades later, Nile. she's only 5 years old when Episode I comes out and by the time she's old enough to sit through all-ages blockbusters the prequels have been so ragged on that she doesn't bother. maybe she catches some of the original trilogy on cable at some point but she doesn't particularly connect to it.

Star Wars becomes relevant to Nile when she's in her figuring things out after high school era and she hears the guy from Attack the Block is gonna be in the new trilogy.

rip Finn's character arc and everything else that could've been so good about the sequel trilogy, but there's still some stuff to treasure there, and Nile — well.

a few months into immortality she does a marathon of the whole Skywalker saga. it's fun and silly and a way to spend a few days. the others pop in sometimes to watch with her but for the most part she's enjoying her own private screening. then she sees Rey all alone in that AT-AT carcass and suddenly she can't stop crying. Finn's storyline is just as wonderful and frustrating as she remembered, but the way he and Rey keep finding each other, keep fighting for each other — yeah.

suddenly she's WRITING. she's usually been drawn to visual arts when she has the time and interest to create, but here she is now, writing tens of thousands of words at a time, pouring her heart out through these two space orphans who have living family they just can't get back to and through a lot of galactic bullshit manage to build a new home in each other.

she starts getting regular comments from an ao3 account with a hilarious mishmash of works in a bunch of different fandoms going back years. there's some original trilogy fic on this person's account all dated the same day in 2009, and when she reads one, an intricately plotted and super romantic Han/Leia mission fic, she notices details that make it seem like it was written before the prequels came out.

the comments get longer. she and her commenter start chatting on discord, about their blorbos and fandom drama and increasingly just life. to the extent that Nile can tell anyone about her life, that is. it's nice, having an online friend.

then one day Booker fucks up. he lets a too-specific detail slip. Nile laughs in disbelief, types into discord "hey uh if I'm right about something, pick up your phone," and then she calls him.

years later, Booker will finally admit he did a little hacking to double-check it was her before dropping that purposeful slip. then he'll write Nile a lightning-hot fic where Finn introduces Rey to holonet cybersex.

[sepyana]

Noir 2001 Ep. 1-10 Thoughts

I really love her France Shirt dhshbd

I figured stopping at Chloe's introduction would be the best idea. From what I know this should be when the main plot picks up.

First, the bad:

The first episode was really jarring to watch. The cuts were awkward, the music was too loud at parts and certain scenes dragged out for too long. Maybe this is just me, but I didn't realize the music was coming from the watch until the end of the episode, which made things really confusing.

From then onwards isn't like this. Maybe I just got used to it, but the cuts didn't feel jarring and the flow between scenes was smooth enough.

There is a lot of reused animation, which is fine for the most part. It's not as elegant about it as shows like Utena but it's not a big deal.

What annoys me is sometimes the plot will screech to a halt to show you a falshback you have already seen before. Personally, I'm fine if a conversation is just one still frame or made of reused animation. The flashbacks and the occasional training is clearly there for budget reasons and nothing else. That's why it takes me out of the story sometimes.

Kirika and Mireille don't have much going on. They are pretty bland which makes it hard to care for them. The "I will kill you when this is over." thing is the most interesting bit. There is still plenty of time to develop them so I'm not that bothered about it.

The show feels rather empty at times, if that's the word. It feels like onthing is happening. For example: the information we get about the main mystery is not enough to make any conclusions or draw connections, so whenever a new development happens I can only think "Oh, we learned this now". We don't learn anything about what our protagonists are like either. The quiet moments are great for that, but I still feel like I know nothing about them.

I don't mind the censorship but it can be really funny sometimes. Kirika will get hit but her arm will look completely fine, making it impossible to tell how bad she was hurt until she reacts.

When I started episode 7 I genuinely though I skipped an episode. They don't make it even slightly obvious that a time skip happened.

This one is really stupid: I can't seperate Mireille from Misato in my mind. I'm sure Noir fans are annoyed by the comparison by this point but I'm really trying guys (ﾉД`)

Okay,, we can get to the good stuff now:

The atmosphere is great. The backgeound art is lovely and complements the animation well. They definitely achieved the aesthetic they were going for.

The soundtrack is pretty nice. Again, adds to the atmosphere.

Kirika especially can be super clever, making the fights fun to watch (only about 50% of the time though)

The composition of the shots draw your eye to the focus well. It's a good way to make shots interesting with a small budget.

It's fantastically homosexual, while also not being about romance at all. All the notable characters are women. That might add to the yuri vibes I guess.

I liked Silvana. She is one of the few side characters that have anything going on. Her relationship to Mireille is intriguing to me, they have met only once. But it's clear their one interaction has left a big inpression on not only Mireille but also her, especially since they were kids at the time. Her pulling out a knife and cutting the crown off of Mireille when she says she is scared tells us everything we need to know about her.

There is also something to be said about the crowns. Mireille's innocence being destroyed by Silvana. It's important to Silvana that she has control, removing the crown she gave to Mireille is a way fot her to feel superior, I guess. Even at a small age.

Mireille is still scared in their final confrontation, but she fights anyway.

I am very interested in Chloe because clearly, the two maidens who gover death are suppose to be Kirika and Mireille. However, she is insist she is Noir. I imagine things will go south when she realises that's not the case. (I doubt it's the case). The woman we see is most likely using her and Chloe is dependent on her validation. That's what I am guessing.

[mr-deblob]

Hear me out on this: I honestly think Kairi could be the main playable character in Kingdom Hearts 4

Or at least a significant playable one.

I know that it sounds ridiculous to entertain the idea, especially with how badly she's been sidelined for the past 20 years. But taking into account the structure of mainline games and the current locations of our characters, it starts to look likely for both narrative and game design purposes.

Sora and Riku are stuck in Quadratum

First things first- there's no way in hell Nomura's letting Riku rescue Sora in the beginning hours of KH4. They definitely won't just hop back to the Realm of Light when they find each other. He might make questionable plot decisions, but he's not gonna pass up a chance to torture the two of them even more, especially since *something's* going on with Yozora and the Master of Masters.

In a GameInformer interview he gave, he was asked about how much time we'd spend in Quadratum.

I think it will be a pretty good amount of time since it is set as the initial base within the game. You spend time there and then go to different worlds and then go back there. Because the graphics are more realistic this time around, I feel like there’s more of a realistic daily life aspect to Sora’s life. You can see him go in and out of his room and spend time there. I feel like players will get to see more of the day-to-day routines he goes through.

It sounds like Quadratum will act more like an interlude between worlds, where the developments that happen in the Realm of Light (or wherever else) will cause more troubles to pop in the city. We've already seen Sora fighting a giant Heartless(?) that just showed up out of nowhere. There might be more events like that, or even encounters with the mysterious figures staring down from the rooftops. And when nothing's threatening the world, Sora might simply be living daily life with Strelitzia.

I'm uncertain on how much we'll actually get on the nature of Quadratum since it is just Tokyo, but part of me is feeling like the story beats will be more important than the setting on this side.

Kairi can have a blank-slate start

I'm sure everyone who picked Kairi in that final fight was a bit surprised by how aggressive it was. A strike raid teleport and a barrage of light flooding the battlefield were amazing to see in her first time in the spotlight. We know she can fight, so wouldn't those skills carry over to her next game?

But she's been asleep for a whole year to have her memories explored. They could easily explain the loss of former skills. Besides, the reasons for Sora always resetting to Level 1 are basically on the same scale. If you wanted more reasoning, then maybe Aqua's training is having her develop her own fighting style from scratch. It's very obvious she's trying to emulate Sora in her stance.

We also know that Kairi has her own unique combat pose. They've shown it to us at least twice in DDD and the KH3 opening, but we've never seen her actively using it in-game AFAIK. It sure would be an opportune moment to have her adopt it to signify her becoming her own person independent of Sora and Riku.

If the training time with Aqua seems like it would be too short to warrant Kairi going off on her own, keep in mind that we don't know how much time disparity there is between Quadratum and the RoL It could be synched up or be off by weeks, even months, more than enough to get her through the fundamentals.

Also, a mini-timeskip would give Nomura the chance to give the Destiny Trio new designs again. How Riku gets a new outfit and hairstyle while looking for Sora, I don't know, but he already pushed him through the Shadow Barber Shop. He can probably come up with something.

We still gotta have different Keyblades

Straight-up the title of this section. It's incredibly unlikely that Nomura would cut these, but as before, it's equally unlikely that Sora will get out of Quadratum into the RoL. Disney worlds are confirmed, and unless all of them are entirely new, I don't think there's a satisfying way to justify why he couldn't get help from the inhabitants, try to get off-world, or at least get in touch with someone if he still has his Gummiphone.

So if anyone else could go around to these worlds and collect these keychains, Kairi seems like a good candidate for that.

"But what about Destiny's Embrace?" Fair point. It's still got sentimental value to her and has familiarity. They wouldn't just dump it entirely.

However, I believe (and earnestly hope) that Kairi finally gets meaningful character development now. There's so much we could delve into (and we will later), but her current goal of growing stronger seemingly stems from a desire to determine her fate. For so long she's been carried by the tides of chance, waiting for what will happen rather than actively reaching towards her goals. In the end, it brought her down the path that led to Sora's disappearance, so she can't keep placing her faith in destiny.

Kairi might temporarily retire Destiny's Embrace, or perhaps her new mindset will trigger something in her Keyblade. We've seen that with Riku and the Way to the Dawn. It might be a more basic Keyblade like Braveheart, or she could end up wielding an iteration of the Kingdom Key to represent herself starting anew. Hell, maybe Sora fighting in her place in MoM passed it on to her, or she manifests it from her memories.

It'd be a convenient way to keep giving out new keychains while still making it feel like Sora experienced actual consequences for his misuse of the Power of Waking. They could even have Sora gain access to them through Kairi. His temporary possession of her at the end of MoM could be used as an in-universe way to hand-off the main PoV in a natural-feeling way, and she might be able to send him manifestations of the keychains as memories or something else that could cross over to Quadratum.

Masters and Maleficent will go wild

The KH3 ending brought back the Lost Masters through some unexplained mechanic. It also implies that they'll be the main antagonists of the new arc, but they're currently in the Realm of Light. I don't know how much Sora could do from the other side of reality. Not to mention Maleficent making even more schemes.

So the Keyblade wielders and their allies will have to defend against them and whatever other enemies crop up in their wake. But why would Kairi be the one pursuing their main goal? Why not Master Aqua, or at least one of the battle-hardened wielders?

Depending on the numbers, it'd be easy to say the other wielders are busy defending the worlds from the new threats, that they're spread too thin to take up whatever role Kairi would theoretically take. Maybe her status as a Princess of Heart could come up as another reason why it'd have to be her.

In any case, whatever Luxu has in that mysterious box spells bad news. The fact that there are going to be five ancient Keyblade Masters carrying out the Master of Masters' plan spells catastrophic news. Perhaps the missing Master Ava could work from the shadows to stymie them or to help Kairi on her quest.

Also, the Heartless are still gonna be wreaking havoc even if the Masters aren't. That will practically always be true, especially now that Xehanort's not controlling them all. Maleficent is going to do what Maleficent does best and use this to her advantage. With all these potential villains in the RoL, someone's gotta take care of them.

New worlds can develop Kairi further

Now that KH3 is finished and out of development hell, they're now free to consider new Disney properties, even those beyond 2014. And there's quite a few that could easily be connected to Kairi's desire to grow beyond her past and choose her own path:

Moana - Island girls who want to seize their destinies to see what lies beyond everyday life, both struggling with self-doubt. Also have grandmas who know more than they let on.

Coco - How memories connect us, that we can be together in heart when apart, the pains of love and separation. Fighting for your dream even when you're alone.

Encanto - Especially heavy exploration of breaking from the roles others place on us and that we take on, acknowledging and expressing emotions we hide from others.

Brave - "If you had the chance to change your fate, would ya?" Besides that, accepting that people can grow apart, that we each take our own paths, that it doesn't need to break our bonds.

WALL-E - Be open to change, don't let familiarity keep you stuck. Trust in the future, trust in yourself, break through the limits of your past. Go on even when all seems lost.

Frozen 2 - Self-determination and independence, grieving what has been lost, righting the wrongs of the past. Pain is a fact of life, do not let your fear of it keep you from doing what is necessary.

There's likely other films that could fit or other themes of these movies that parallel with Kairi, but these are rife with potential. Plus, the trend of female protagonists with little to no romantic storylines could let Kairi be perceived as more than Sora's love interest or someone to be saved.

Kairi is finally free to change

I don't think it's controversial to say that Nomura really mishandled Kairi's role in the series up til now. She's been stuck in character limbo, and even if we know more stuff *about* her since KH1, we haven't really gotten much *from* her. She's never had enough focus to really showcase her inner world, but I don't think it's due to disinterest on Nomura's part. Instead, I think that it was a result of very poor planning of her arc and his weakness at indirect characterization.

From the start, he probably had an idea of where he wanted to take Kairi's character. He must've, at minimum, pinned down the major strokes of her backstory involving Radiant Garden given the brief mention of her not remembering her home and the flashback with her grandma in KH1. KH2 and BBS both manage to flesh her out a bit more, and even her portrayal in the first game seemed to hint at something going on beneath her surface. Even so, she still outwardly appears as the same cheerful, kind, caring girl from the beginning of the series. I don't think Nomura decided to completely rip those seeds of growth from her character, but he has at least stifled them up til now.

In comparison to all the other main and supporting characters in KH, Kairi is noticeably lacking in any major character insights. From what I've seen, even people who dislike how the female cast is written can tell that the story is practically avoiding any chances for Kairi to verbalize her emotions. The conversations we do get with her almost always shift focus to the other person's feelings. If it does focus on her, the thoughts she does express tend to explore her relationships with other people instead of letting us know more about Kairi herself. As to why he'd make this writing choice with her, there's two possible answers beyond him just not wanting to deal with her.

The first is that he's trying to characterize her through her lack of characterization, that she's a people-pleaser who tends to put others' needs and wants before her own. We've already seen shades of this in KH1 on the dock and when Sora tells her to stay behind in Traverse Town.

In the former, it comes across as her trying to convince herself to go along with the plan about the raft, telling herself that she's ready to go wherever and holding onto the idea that she can always come back to Destiny Islands. Even so, you can hear a hesitation and uncertainty in those words. The only parts where she lets her fears bleed through are when she tells Sora not to change and arguably when she jokes about just the two of them taking the raft. Kairi tests the waters to see if Sora would be willing to go along with her alone before backing down. I don't think she'd actually go through with it, she's not that type of person. I can't say for certain that she hasn't entertained the thought, even if only half-seriously, but it's clear that she said it to avoid her thoughts on how Riku's changed. Kairi doesn't want to show Sora her doubts, especially when they're so close to setting sail. The only assurance she allows herself is asking Sora not to change, to stay her familiar friend, before shifting to expressing apparent excitement at setting sail.

When Sora and Kairi make their promise with the Wayfinder, she's afraid of how their friendship with Riku will have changed if he comes back. Still, she's willing to go help save Riku after seeing Sora's resolve to do so. When he tells her no, she pushes back, telling him that they have to stick together. She only starts to relent when Sora tells her that they won't be alone even if they're apart, then gives up entirely when he says she'd be in his way. Her laugh almost seems like an automatic response to cope with the hurt that statement would naturally provoke. Before he goes, she makes a compromise between their wants, getting Sora to promise that he'll return her Wayfinder to her- that he'll come back after everything's done. Then she tells him that she's always with him wherever he goes, taking Sora's statement and using it to reassure herself more than him. She doesn't want to inconvenience the ones she cares for, so she changes herself, adapting to their desires and opinions to ease any friction between them.

The other answer would be that Nomura's plan for her required her to retain her starting character traits until certain conditions were fulfilled. From where we are in the story, I'd wager that he she needed to be separated from Sora and Riku and for her to gain a meaningful motivation get stronger, at least according to Nomura's standards. The first half of that has been true for almost the entire series, as sad as it is, but we've only just now fulfilled the second. It's possible that he underestimated how long he would need to keep Kairi relatively unchanged for whatever he had planned in the future, causing her to be a static character for all this time.

Now, she's had to confront her fears head-on, needed to acknowledge the feelings of weakness and inferiority getting shattered by Xehanort gave her. It's Xehanort's fault that Sora disappeared, but she might partly blame herself for needing to be rescued rather than saving herself. Her tendencies of staying out of everyone's way and going along with their plans wasn't enough to keep Sora out of harm's way, to protect him. That failure can drive her to grow strong, to realize that valuing herself doesn't mean having to devalue others, that caring for yourself is an act of kindness for those who care about you.

I will acknowledge that even if these answers are accurate, reasonable intentions still don't excuse a sloppy execution. Nomura has skill in weaving a character's motivation into their actions and personality to add depth. However, he often relies on the characters voicing these out loud instead of letting the audience draw their own conclusions from what's presented. While this works well-enough for the series, it means that any indirect characterization he tries to do often ends up falling flat. Aqua at the Keyblade Graveyard is the biggest example of this. It's clear now that her time in the Realm of Darkness left her with some serious PTSD and that the massive storm of Heartless caused her to freeze up at the sight, but the way it was shown pre-Re:Mind ended up frustrating more people with her inaction instead of having them understand why she didn't act.

I'd argue the same thing's been happening with Kairi throughout the series up until now. A character like Kairi isn't inclined to express their unfiltered thoughts, leaving her to rely on indirect characterization to be fleshed out. Combine that with a weakness at subtle storytelling and a severe lack of focus and screentime, and you'll leave your audience almost nothing to discern about her character without close examination. Not to mention, any frustrations or disappointments or boredom regarding her character would only serve to make people even less willing to engage with her, especially stretched out over two decades.

Hopefully, Nomura feels free to put his plans regarding Kairi into motion now that she's gained the space for agency beyond Sora and Riku. I even think Nomura himself is aware of his struggles with nuanced character writing, something he hopes to fix. If you haven't heard, he brought on Akiko Ishibashi, the writer for Neo: The World Ends with You, to help write KH4. Anyone whose played that game can tell you about the amount of depth and complexity the cast of that game had, and her ability to transform one-dimensional archetypes into fully-realized people. I have little doubt that she'll breathe new life into the world of Kingdom Hearts, and I think that we'll see the start of this change through Kairi first and foremost.

In the future

This all sounds like wishful thinking, and it is, but I hope that it's not entirely unfounded. I'm mainly making this before any major trailers drop because, if this does happen, I can't imagine them hiding it for too long.

Maybe Nomura will finally give Kairi the screentime she deserves, and if he doesn't... well, guess we'll go through even more years of rightful disappointment in Nomura's handling of her.

[cat-in-the-desert]

Okay @imaginethat0327 you asked about my summons au- gonna talk about it a bit in a separate post here

So I actually got the idea sort of from this post about an alien abducting someone for help with a paper for school about humans, I went, yk, I can edit that a bit and do something probably! Also mildly inspired by the other concept/idea/(was it a post?) about a human getting summoned by… *something* that sees humans the same way humans see demons. Anyway, those are the vague concepts that inspired the story! Edited them, ofc, and developed my very own au concept— which, uh, accidentally *also* ended up taking inspiration from The Owl House— but the vague premise should be obvious from all that

(Sorry, uh, as could probably be told by the amount of notes- this is my au that I’m most passionate about that I’m not actively posting. I actually came up with it before VMGGNS AU- and I started posting that one as a lighter, less-stressed-about au that I could get out there while developing this one— but then I developed that au a lot more that I expected XD. Anyway, point is, I’m really passionate about my Summons AU, just waiting to post anything until I’ve got it all ironed out)

(This also is a Scarian au, full disclosure)

So to set the stage: Grian lives in a world where magic and hybrids and such are more than commonplace. There aren’t really “normal humans”- everyone’s got some sort of hybrid ancestry; everyone can do some level of magic. Grian’s got a good amount of magic himself (enough that a cult took interest in him at one point— but that’s in that past….right? He’s no longer associated with them).

He’s actually in, basically magic graduate school; his skills were enough to get him a scholarship, so he decided to give it a shot. It’s not like he has anything to lose; he may be a few years late, but having a master’s degree in general magic (there's multiple fields; he opted for a moderate skillset in each rather than a high skillset in one or two) opens up pretty any job opportunity he could want. The year this fic takes place, he's rooming with Cub (vex hybrid, shooting for a masters in mental and modal magic, which includes things like illusion and levitation).

Scar, meanwhile, is a normal human. Went to college, got his degree in Business, runs his own shop, lives in the same apartment building as his former college roommate Mumbo; overall, not really the life he was hoping for, but it's a life. Could be worse; could be much worse!

But then one day, while tidying his shop after close, he finds himself… not there, anymore. Really, he doesn’t know where he is; there’s a guy he doesn’t know standing in front of him, and he seems to be in… some sort of bedroom, and there’s what looks to be a mess of chalk-drawn symbols on the floor—

See, Grian was getting a bit desperate; he procrastinated too much on his paper about how worlds would function without magic, and he may have picked up some, ah, sketchier spells in his time…. away… not that he’d ever use them for what they used them for….

But, well, he hadn’t accounted for just how much magic this would take out of him, and now it’ll be a bit until he can send Scar home. Cub, thankfully, is willing to help “hide” him in plain sight; it’ll only take a bit of illusion magic to make him look like a hybrid, and Cub is always up for a bit of rule bending and mischief.

Scar himself is A-OK with this, as long as G can send Mumbo a message asking him to feed Jellie— and maybe that pushes G’s magic a bit more, maybe that results in him having to stay a bit longer— but getting to stay longer in a world that has magic in exchange for his cat being fed isn’t much of a hard decision, is it?

I’ve planned out roles and home worlds and abilities etc for every single Hermit and Lifer in this AU. They’ll all make an appearance. There will be a considerable amount of time spent in both worlds; there’s plot lines happening in the background and before the story that affect everything in subtle ways— I have put so much thought into this AU, and I want it to be perfect before I post it!

It’s also all Scar POV.

Summary I gave basically just sums up some basic worldbuilding, and the catalyst of it all in Chapter 1. There’s so much more at play than just that, but I hope it’s a good enough summary both to explain the idea and.. maybe? interest a few people to want to read it when I do post it?

Genuinely didn’t mean for it to get this long. Whoops!

[kordeliiius]

I had an epiphany last week (long HC rambles under the cut)

(unedited artwork)

I’m starting to think that making them both aroace would further solidify the sort of relationship I have formulated in my head, as well as granting them another opportunity to learn something from one another. There’s other some basic examples of that here but somehow I don’t think they’re quite enough?? If I were gonna write this who story from the ground up with the intent of showing it to an audience, probably the two biggest things I wanna make clear are 1. they’re equals at their core who are crucial to each other’s development, and 2. the place they end up when the story ends is definitely not a romantic one yet they’ve rapidly formed a unique connection

This is the "my city now" brain talking but there’s been an idea lingering in the back of my mind that I’ve been hesitant to share; that Levity eventually started crushing on her best friends and clung to New more eventually. However New tends to interpret every advance as a friendly gesture and sometimes returns them with that intent. It's just how she naturally behaves and shows closeness with people, but they tend to take it the wrong way. Unfortunately, no one fully picks up on Levity’s intentions before she passes on, and when the realization sets in towards the end it's just *pain*.

On the flipside, Ten is hyperaware of his surroundings (more on that), so if someone were to start acting too friendly towards him it’s just anxiety anxiety anxiety especially if it's a stranger. He really shouldn’t like New at all considering how different they are, but unprecedented events™ forced them to work together, and by the end he genuinely likes her and is willing to meet her halfway.

It's possible for me to envision each of them being confronted with some kind of advance at different points in the story, or maybe being asked about their preferences, only to express "not that interested" in one way or another. Depending on the viewer, Ten upping his guard might be the more obvious response than New misinterpreting people’s behavior, considering the oblivious sapphic is a trope known far and wide (do you see why I was hesitant to talk abt Levity’s feelings being interrupted by her own death now). But what if she wasn't the oblivious sapphic after all, and was simply incapable of returning people’s feelings?

IDK you could probably make them both raging homosexuals and I probably wouldn't care, I don’t own these characters after all. They're still gay when I think it’s funny. But this recent interpretation is surely a priority one to me now.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 34 – Defekt by Nino Cipri

This is the second book of Cipri’s I’ve read, and I enjoyed it significantly more than Finna. Which still isn’t falling in love with it, if I’m being honest, but I’m not at all annoyed I read this one. The overall impression is kind of like watching the kind of rough pilot to an indescribably cheesy by fun adventure serial? Up to you how harsh a discretion that seems.

The story shares a setting with Finna – as in, it’s set literally in the same story, less than a week after. It follows Derek, a special exempt employee of the suspiciously Ikea-like retail megacorp who started a few weeks before, lives in a shipping crate behind the store’s loading dock, and has no memory of ever leaving store property. After he calls in and takes his very first sick day (a coworker saw him basically collapse while assembling furniture and browbeat him into it), his extremely disappointed manager has him come in late to help the outside team with a ‘special inventory’. The outside turns out to be, well, alternate universe versions of him – variations on the same mould, all mass produced in some of the controlled alternate realities the company’s insourced its production and logistics hubs too. The ‘special inventory’ likewise turns out to be a bug hunt, hunting down and killing all the products that have mutated or come alive due to glitches in their production before they have a chance to escape or damage company property.

The plot goes more or less how you’d expect – the alternate Derek’s are a queer and quirky band of likeable misfits (one might even say a found family!), except for their leader who is a monster convinced that if he’s enough of an abusive hardass to the others corporate will see ow valuable he is. The Defekta turn out to be basically benevolent, and Derek turns out to be defective himself, with literal magic empathy and enhanced senses and an involuntary sort of broadcast telekinesis when he’s dealing with strong emotions (which sounds like literal actual hell to me, for the record).In the end the shitty direct supervisor is trapped in an alternate reality, and everyone else unionizes and holds the store hostage until the company caves to their desired reforms Happy ending for everyone!

I’m not sure if it’s intentional or just an artifact of how Cirpri came up with the idea, but the whole ‘taking place literal days after the last book’ thing very much does make it seem like either this one Midwestern store in particular or possibly the company as a whole is like 90% of the way there to spiralling into a complete metaphysical collapse and possible destroying the world. The one scene with Jules at the start of the book also honestly made me like her more than the entire previous book where she was literally the second most important character and on like every other page.

I do think the kind of absurdist corporate horror setting worked better in this book than the prequel, if only because it was a bit more restrained and picked the one aesthetic/setting to actually develop a bit. Having a little bit more edge helped too. Reagan as the polished-until-she’s-glass always upbeat and friendly corporate upper management definitely worked as a more sinister and threatening figure than absolutely anyone in Finna, at least. I do still think the corporate jargon was like 20% too over the top and obvious to really work as satire or horror and just, well, not really funny enough to work as comedy. But that’s probably just a matter of taste

Speaking of funny – I’m not sure whether the megacorp in this is transparently specifically Ikea instead of something more generic (or, like, Wallmart) – Cipri spent some shitty years working at one, maybe. But given literally everything else about the book’s politics, it is kind of surprising how many times the books go back to the ‘look, this thing’s name is a funny-looking foreign word!’ well for humour. Or, well, ‘humour’.

Derek’s whole character arc from enthusiastically brainwashed retail drone to radicalized monster-whisperer was perhaps a bit abrupt, but it worked for me overall. The rest of the inventory team were all pretty much just archtypes with character designs attached, all basically being exactly what you would expect – the only real ‘reveal’ is that Dirk the supervisor isn’t the longsuffering professional leader trying to wrangle the rest of them and get the job done, he’s just an abusive piece of shit the rest of them actively fantasize about murdering – but none of them are, like, offensive.

The themes are, look, they’re really on the nose. There’s no way around it. Derek is so repressed and out of touch with/incapable of expressing his real emotions that his throat splits open and grows a second mouth that starts psychically broadcasting them. There are multiple conversations where people just explain their characters. There’s an interstitial bit of corporate propaganda between chapters about the risks of employees being radicalized by alternate universes into union organizers shortly before the main characters force the company to give them better treatment by sitting down and threatening to hold the store hostage the night before a big product release. And so on.

Still, I honestly enjoyed the read? Very possible my expectations were just lowered enough enough by the first one that I could just take this as it was, honestly, but still. Largely insubstantial popcorn, but not popcorn I regretted spending a few hours on.

[foxymoxynoona]

Hey Foxy

As a writer, do you tend to stick with what you’ve planned and mapped out and written / or does your editing process usually come with big changes or revisions? Like, do you ever think, “what would make this story better?” once you see it written, and make changes? I was checking out your Trello categories and thinking hmmm I wonder if everything is pretty much set at the Planning phase, or if it’s a general outline and get fleshed (flushed? Lol) out during the writing and/or editing? I can’t imagine how your mind works but it’s fascinating to me. Cheers for all you do

There are layers to this!

When it comes to plotter vs. panster (do you plot or do you just write by the seat of your pants) I am pretty much in the middle, maybe nudging more one direction or the other on any given story.

I do have an overarching plan for my stories when we begin, though I always leave space for changes along the way. I generally know where we're going but then I feel my way along, pulling in this or that as it shows up chapter-by-chapter.

For a few of them I actually have several potential endings and then as we get further along I prune off the endings that don't work anymore until I can see the one that does --Lowlander and To Kill A King are examples. Meadow is a funny example because I wanted very badly for the story to not go the way it did and yet at every turn it felt so obvious to me what had to happen, I had to accept it along the characters and just do my best to pull it off. So in a way I knew how it was going to end from the beginning, but I really did try to solve it other ways.

For the stories that I've already written a ton of (like Secret Song Series), things don't really change at the macro level. Some chapters I can edit quickly because it's really just tweaks. Other arcs have needed a heavier editing (re-writing, really) because things have changed enough on our journey to that point or because things happened along the way organically that I want to follow. Anytime I've planned or written something in the future, I go into it knowing that if it doesn't feel right when we get there in the story, it has to be scrapped. If it comes down to what i planned or what actually feels right for the characters and plot when we get there, the live story will always win.

When a chapter is in planning stage, I may be starrting with anything from a blurb ("characters need to develop this relationship and X needs to get revealed") to a thorough sketch that just needs a little more filling in before I can really get to writing. I try to write an outline of the next chapter as soon as I finish writing the previous chapter so it's waiting for me next time. This actually comes from some Ernest Hemengway advice: "The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck." I think there's another similar quote once that I keep wanting to attribute to Mark Twain about leaving your last sentence of the day unfinished so you can pick it up tomorrow.

So whether much changes during the actual writing really varies by stories. Some of them I have a clearer plan for, others I feel like I'm riding shotgun with the rest of you on how exactly we're getting to our destination 😂 Usually every few chapters I reflect on the last few and assess whether I need to undo and rebraid the remainder of the story or if we're still on my original track.

Hope this long meandering answer answers your question! I clearly had no outline for this when I started 😂😂

[tonyspank]

Good evening, I’m here as a representative of the “threesome” side….

A. I didn’t read every response you got cause it felt like I was reading a conversation between pornhub penpals😂… but I did see somebody bring up Olivia and Eli as a possible pairing. I think that’d be so cute, could be why Eli wants reader to set boundaries with Olivia, at the beginning it could be he doesn’t necessarily have feelings for her but thinks she’s interesting. It’d be an opportunity for short conflict too, once they’ve both developed feelings maybe Eli catches the end of a conversation between reader and Olivia, his feelings for her are enough to have him unknowingly irrational towards reader.

Eli: “Either pick Olivia or leave her out of this, she really likes you and I don’t think it’s fair that you‘re stringing her along with you just because Jenna won’t leave her prick of a fiancé.”

R: “Do you really think I’m like that? Eli we both know I’m not gonna pick Olivia after everything that’s happened with Jenna, where the fuck is all of this coming from? Why the hell are you blowing up at me right now?” (Eli snaps out of it after seeing how genuinely hurt his best friend is about him assuming she wants to intentionally hurt someone else in that way)

maybe as it turns out the conversation he caught was Olivia confessing she liked Eli and Olivia was asking the reader if she still had a chance with Eli despite having previously liked his best friend, reader says yes because she’s had a hunch about them for awhile now but never brought it up.

B. I could definitely sympathize with the jealous anons, and I mean this in the nicest way possible but I think I’m my personal opinion opposing the threesome either comes from them genuinely preferring they stay monogamous which I definitely respect or it comes from insecurity. HEAR ME OUT! I only say that because some of them are implying Jenna would focus on Emma more or leave reader for Emma, but Jenna in this case as you’ve mentioned is all for reader, this is something that’s been established many times. I know she’s still with Jacob but right now but she’s doing that thing that I’ve been a party to, and that’s sticking around until you’ve completely and entirely exhausted the idea of it ever working out (even if it’s obvious it’s not gonna work out, the fact that there’s history blinds you). Which brings me to my next point!

C. I think this would fit in perfectly as a one time thing that happens while they’re all a little drunk, maybe at the end of it all they all fall asleep in the same bed but sometime early in the morning Jenna has to go back into the guest room because Jacob is supposed to come back. Right before Jenna leaves the room she hears reader and Emma start to stir, they don’t wake up but she sees Emma unconsciously cuddle the reader in her sleep and reader doing the same.

SCENE; -the sound of her opening your door on her way out being rather loud, Jenna worriedly keeps her eyes trained on the two for any hints that she’d accidentally woken either of them up. The worry is quickly replaced with an indescribable feeling after noticing Emma unconsciously cuddle you in her sleep, she knew it was all accidental but the idea of another person having you this way, having you at all really made her feel sick. Jenna’s been dancing around the decision to leave Jacob for so long she forgot about what would happen if she didn’t, you’d be with someone else. Jenna suddenly can’t fathom how you’ve been able to handle Jacob being around at all, maybe it’s because you know she belongs to you but even that does nothing to quell the countless scenarios in which you no longer belong to her the longer she stares at how peaceful you look with Emma in your arms.

D. I’m pretty sure you as an author wouldn’t derail the story with something as trivial as Jenna liking Emma or vise versa because there’s been absolutely no evidence of a such a thing and it would be a random possibly conclusion to take this plot towards. This isn’t one of those situations where you have to imagine that as a what if because you’re writing a “Jenna x reader” not a “Jenna x reader, Emma x Jenna”

E.ALRIGHT NOW THIS REASON IS JUST SLUTTY. I imagined how the threesome would start and I do think it’d be a unanimous decision but I think it’d be an unspoken agreement that Jenna initiates! (I can’t write smut for the life of me but you’ll have a rough idea of what I mean)

SCENE; -Jenna couldn’t place what exactly brought the thought on. Maybe it was because of all the wine she’d been having or maybe it was the way you glanced at Emma’s ass in that skirt when she’d gone on her hands and knees to pick up the fallen wine glass hidden underneath the living room table…. perhaps it reminded Jenna of an ‘accidental’ steamy make out with Emma they had way back then.

“Anybody want more wine?” Emma asked the both of you, Jenna decides what she wants more than wine in a split second. Emma and you are more than surprised when you’ve realized Jenna’s pushed Emma onto your lap, she’s quick to join her. Neither of you put a fight, both of you feeling as needy as Jenna at this very moment. Jenna pulls you by the collar of your shirt until you’re close enough to kiss, with Emma in between you obediently follow Jenna’s guidance letting her grab both your hands and place them on Emma’s hips, wordlessly instructing you grind against her while Jenna reaches to touch Emma underneath her skirt. Emma starts to rut against your hardening cock and Jenna’s hand for more friction-

WELL YEAH IDK WHAT ELSE TO WRITE THERE. I’m not sure if this is considered a kink but I love love love fucking a girl in a skirt, the easy access is just ✨. WITH THAT SAID the reader fucking Emma in a skirt after maybe only being able to take off her shirt and pull out her cock because of how horny everybody is in the beginning is 😮‍💨 and the idea of Jenna being the power bottom, Emma being a bottom and reader being a service top 👌🏼 (all of them having a praise kink would be a DREAM COME TRUE)

PORNHUB PENPALS 🤣🤣 Yooo I cannot that is the funniest thing I’ve heard today.

But to shorten up what I have to say, so this doesn’t turn into a even longer post… 🤣

I like the way you think. I understand the Eli and Olivia thing completely. And you’re right, everyone is freaking out about Jenna leaving reader but our girl is obsessed with her.

I never really thought a slight idea would cause such a big discussion in this book. 😭😭

[marypsue]

I am back on my bullshit (thinking about your stranger thing fics 24/7 and getting confused that your canon is not universal) but i was wondering if you had any extra body swap AU tidbits to share!! Or some Robin and Jonathan interactions in any verse!!

Lastly, I would love to hear your thoughts about how the Duffers pick their outcasts!! Also one thing that’s always struck me about stranger things (especially s1) is how much the narrative beats strike along those of ecological disasters(a la Erin brokovitch) and how in some ways ST seemed to understand that tragedy is random but some people are less protected from tragedy/authority fails them/the knowledge something is wrong but having no recourse yet lost all sense of finesse in later seasons. Idk if others have had those thoughts especially bc in some way it’s been lampshaded with the Barb cover story.

Anon I'm chewing gravel, you articulated it so well and so precisely. the narrative beats strike along those of ecological disasters!!!! I never thought about it that way but you're absolutely right!! Now I want somebody who has more knowledge than me to do a blow-by-blow comparing season 1 against Chernobyl or some equally prestigious piece of nuclear-disaster literature, because I'm really curious about whether that tracks, too. Just given the era and the anxieties of the era.

(Cut because here be salt.)

The ways in which it's lost all finesse, I think, are part sophomore slump (the show was a pet project in development for something like ten years before Netflix picked up season one, and then they wanted like a season a year after that? Or something along those lines?), part Franchising Is The Death Of Art, and part the Duffers just letting success go to their heads. The more I hear about the behind-the-scenes, the more sense I get that the showrunners just...don't put a lot of thought into what they make. Part of it is almost certainly time crunch, and part of it is absolutely economic pressure (the fabled Studio Meddling, and the studio is, instead of beholden to the companies who'd run ads during the show's runtime, beholden to the companies who'd buy product placement), and then there's the whole 'the US military won't let you use their infrastructure as props/sets if your film or TV show is too openly critical of the US military' thing.

But enough other showrunners work around these forces in interesting ways that it becomes really obvious how simply lazy a lot of the Duffers' choices are. They just pick something they think sounds cool and run with it. And that's a great way for every bias or anxiety or grudge they've ever had and not examined to float up to the surface to get skimmed off and shoved into their show.

I really do think that they set out with good intentions, in terms of 'outcasts' and challenging social norms. I just think that they've got a bunch of big ol' blind spots that they maybe don't even realise they have, have never examined, and now have an army of fans telling them aren't actually problems and they don't need to change anything. Honestly, it's the same problem a lot of actual 80s media has - John Hughes' whole canon is based off of this kind of 'identification with the outsider' thing, but. Well, Long Duck Dong exists.

It's the assumption that the white straight dude is the default, and everybody can relate to him, and should relate to him, and that if He is ever outcast then something is Wrong in Society - but hey, if people oppress women or gays or minorities, that's just how things work. And it's frustrating to see unironically and uncritically repeated in something that's patting itself so loudly and enthusiastically on the back about how it's All For The Freaks! (So Long As They're, You Know, Our Kind Of Freaks.)

Also it sounds like these motherfuckers keep ignoring the characterisation notes Winona Ryder is giving them and they Will one day die by my blade for disrespecting her. She's got more creative integrity, talent, and hard-earned skill in her little finger than the both of them have in their entire bodies. Put together. She made your careers you dumb fucking walnuts, do you think anybody would have cared that much about season one if it hadn't had Winona fucking Ryder in it????????

Anyway. On a less depressing note. I absolutely do have some Jonathan and Robin interactions I can share, and I'm going to pop them in a separate post because this one turned into a bummer, because I am a bummer. Expect that in a minute or two!

[beezleberry-breakie]

Disclaimer: I do not own Frederick the great, Jacki, or the VN: Heart Hunted. Theeeey belong to @heart-hunted-vn ; who has been unfortunately cursed to see my 1 am unproof read cringe story and 8th grade fan art.

They’ve been at the amusement park for ten fucking hours. Fred’s battery had wobbled down to absolute zero and he was THIS close in carrying his companion like a potato sack towards the exit. Yet the last time he off handley mentioned this desired act, Daisy threatened with calling Jacki to join in their day out. The two together were an endless source of energy, seemingly recharging the other up. He swore you had to be twins separated at birth with some of the bullshit he had to put up with during communications on missions. You both always seemed to find how if one had an awful awful awful idea the other picked up on it without even speaking. Was down right freaky. Yet he had to assume this was something of the norm working in the field.

“Hey! Hey Freddy!”. Oh shit. He drifted off, disassociated himself. Daisy on the other hand, dragged them both to stand under a small food cart’s umbrella. Her face literally an inch from his, breasts pushed up against his sternum as her dark forest eyes gleamed with concern, her hands had fortunately wandered a way to his jean’s back pockets. Was it to keep them warm, he didn’t know, his brain was just fried right now.

Frederick, you ok?”, she tilted her head, a pout resting on her lips. This was a date, or she thought it was a date, better have been a date. Couldn’t be too sure as Fred always seemed to have some sort of work related excuse when she would ask, or his sarcasm reached such depths that she had to quickly text Jacki to ask about Freddy lingo and if she royally screwed up somehow.

Fred gave a sigh before slowly rolling his neck, one hand placed at the base. His body was rigidly relaxed (was that even possible?) as he felt the push of Daisy’s chest with each breath she took. He cleared his throat, refusing to make eye contact with her. Daisy gave a defeated huff. Hands extracting themselves from his back pockets as she stepped back. Ok. So. She misinterpreted.

Fuck.

She thought they were having fun. They drove together early in the morning to the park, Fred being nice enough to take her to breakfast at a small mom and pop shop on the way to their destination. Daisy spoke to Fred excitingly over bacon and eggs, asking him questions about his life, hometown, and family, while she would interject her own experiences of growing up. He seemed well interested about her, their chatter not once lingering in an awkward moment. When they arrived at the theme park, they rode every roller coaster, he had even won her a polished snake, Fred even cracked a joke that made her snort with laughter. She died a little on the inside when that happened. Hell! He ate some fries off her plate when they decided lunch at the parks burger spot, though she almost tackled him when he held her wrist to try some of her ice cream. Thought she would have to call 911 with how red her face burned. Maybe. He was just being friendly? I mean overtly friendly at best. Was he playing her? No, Fred was always a brutally straight forward guy, this was very unlikely.

Daisy shook her head another huff of air leaving her lips. There was no point in wondering, even if she prayed for best case scenario. This was teaming up to be another incident of pushing into romance too quickly. Something that her mentor, Jacki, warned her about. Repeatedly teaching her that something like that could end up being dangerous for everybody. He’d be very disappointed in her right now. Closing her eyes, Daisy had decided to bite the bullet and end this obvious awkwardness that developed between them.

“Look Fred, I’m sorry if I came on too stro-“.

“Daisy. Stop. I really like you”.

Well. Brain fart. Any words she conjugated together for embracing a bitter end to the day just died in her throat. He liked her?

“Daisy I really want to lie down”, Fred ran his fingers through his hair, energy now completely zapped, “Go to a hotel at least. We’ve been here since 10 this morning. For Gods sake woman it’s 2 am and we’re going on ‘Shiekra’ for a fifth time!”

Daisy puffed her cheeks in embarrassment, “I really like this ride though”. Fred groaned, one of his hands reaching out to grasp hers. “It’ll be here next time we come back”, freakin boundless energy this one.

“Next time?”, she asked softly, questioningly while she intertwined their fingers together as they began their trek back to the car. She wasn’t sure if she should get her hopes up at the thought, but she crossed her fingers none the less. Fred tugged her closer to his side, eyebrows furrowed in concentration so to not end up on the other side of the park again. Of course he was going to bring her back. At some point he thought this work crush was only one sided, nice to know it wasn’t.

“Yea next time”, a yawn escaped, the cheerful screams and talks of the people around him fading out slowly. “I took a couple of days off, so either here or anywhere really”. Daisy smiled, her eyes catching Fred’s in a brief moment before she walked in front, tugging his frame towards the park exit.

“Well lucky for you. I know this great pizza place in town”

“Not this again woman. You’re not converting me to pizza”

“Well burgers ain’t everything Frederick and you have yet to prove me otherwise”, she stuck her tongue out in defiance, Fred rolled his eyes in response.

“Your tastebuds are just shit”

“Well I like you. Does that mean you’re shit?”

“Daisy. No”.

My medication is making me woozy ( ꒪Д꒪)ノ. Truly hoping I didn’t bug her anything/anyone >.>

[gillianthecat]

War of Y - episode 9

This took forever to watch since I kept pausing to take notes and getting distracted. But for some reason I feel determined to push through and finish the GusBew arc.

~ Ah, it was all a fake out. It wasn't Yo behind the leaks, it was Kitty! 😱Which I think we all knew - they're not going to feature her so prominently and hire a bigger name actor just to have her be an extra. But they did have me fooled - I assumed she and Yo were working together. Oh, and Yo is working with our boys.

~ Why are their press conferences always in such dark rooms?

~ I'm still confused half the time, but I've decided to watch this like some weird 1970's experimental European art house film. And I think it's making it all a lot better. Why are they here? Why are they there? What is the order of events? Who knows, it's all about the symbolism, man (stoner voice).

~ Oooh, someone paid her? That makes more sense then her little heartbroken fan story. And Toon looks suspiciously uncomfortable. Looney1988? Could you pick a more obvious fake name, Miss Approximately-34-year-old -Cartoon?

~ But was Yo involved or not? Inquiring minds want to know.

~ Also I'm confused about who actually filmed the sex tape, and how it got into Toon's hands in the first place. Was it Gus? Did he give it to her, or was he hacked? Is this going to be another twist, or another glossed over plot hole?

~ Bew with the receipts!

~ Hmm. Do I believe her or not? On the one hand, using that account was pretty dumb. On the other hand, this show is pretty dumb.

~ Bridal carry, baby!

~ Lol, gaga actually translated "assistants" or whatever it was supposed to be as "extras."

~ Still very confused about Yo's role.

~ This is a show where having high quality translations would really help, since there are so many plot twists in the details of conversations. Or maybe not, maybe it makes just as little sense in Thai.

~ Aww, sweetness. I wish I cared more about their relationship, but they haven't really showed me enough of it to get invested.

~ Similarly I wish I cared more about Toon. She could be a really interesting character, even with the ambiguity of not knowing how much evil shit she's done. But as written she just feels flat. Same with Pla.

~ I'm pretty sure this top spender shit is a real thing, and it's disgusting.

~ I don't understand why Gus and Bew don't just lawyer up and stop getting involved with Pla and Toon entirely. I mean, I know, it's for the Drama, but why are they handing over evidence to Toon? They don't trust her at this point.

~ Ooh a reference point to sort of anchor us in time! Bew graduated a few months ago. Not that it really helps since I don't know how far along in school he was when the show started.

~ Is this conversation in the car a flashback? Who knows? Gus is wearing the same outfit as the previous scene, but i thought he already had the evidence?

~ I think they're intending to critique anti-fatness with this, but again it's all so muddled that whatever Cheewin's message is gets lost.

~ I knew he had a second recording device stashed somewhere. Ha! Clever Gus.

~ Gus is our second plant dad this week. 🪴And this house looks so pretty. Although yet again I don't know where we're supposed to be. Gus's house? A space is in Bew's house we haven't seen before?

~ Ohh. Clever Bew. Of course. I feel like there actually is a lot of character development here, we're just not getting to see it as it happens. Which is frustrating because seeing Bew grow from timid ingenue to confident schemer would have been really interesting. And now he's the one reassuring Gus!

~ Intellectually I get that breaking with their long term managers would hurt. But we the audience never got to see the good parts of those relationships, so it's hard to empathize with Gus and Bew over this when I'm just thinking thank god they're finally freeing themselves.

~ Hinting that they're together? I can't tell how much was shown.

~ Toon's house!

~ Ok what?

~ I'm not any more enlightened by this conversation. Were they only pretending to fight all along? Did they just decide to make up now that they've lost their clients?

~ I saw mention of a huge plot twist. Is it that Bew was in fact the one behind the sex tape leak all along? This phone call is very suspicious and they made a point of mentioning that he was the only other person who knew about the looney88 account. Gus maybe is looking suspicious if Bew too.

~ That would certainly be dramatic, but I can't figure out how it would make any sense for him to be the one to leak. It did work for Kim Kardaashion, but I feel like criticism for a sex tape of a serous actor would far outweigh any sympathy he'd garner. And if he leaked it in a confulated plan to free himself from Toon, it just seems like their had to have been easier and less risky ways of accomplishing that.

~ Maybe this conversation about potential new clients is supposed to show the way managers treat actors as disposable products? But it's done in such a comic style. I can't figure out what this scene is intended for.

~ I like this kitchen scene, it's very cute. And a conversation about being the first "y couple" to come out as a real couple. Which is in a way one of the basic questions of this series. But it also feels like they don't actually ever grapple with it? Arghh. This show is confusing on multiple levels.

~ Really showing the exploitive side of mangers preying on young broke college students to get them to do things they're uncomfortable with.

~ It makes sense thematically to introduce a new actor pair. But I feel like we don't even know the existing characters very well so thinking about adding new people in feels exhausting.

~ It is kind of interesting seeing Pla and Toon whispering together and strategizing how to turn raw material into sellable products.

~ And a hint of the Y-Idol section starting in two weeks.

~ Ohhhhh. I take it Peak and Kla are the leads of that story. This all makes more sense now. They're not random, just early.

~ So it seems like Toon and Pla will be the most consistent characters through the 20 episodes. I'm assuming they'll show up in y-idol if they're the leads' managers?

~ Bew, you're an ambitious little schemer, aren't you.

~ PeakKla's story could be cute. This is getting me at least interested enough to check out their first episode.

~ Toon and Pla are just so unprofessional. I know that's maybe the point? (Are they supposed to be the exception or the rule?) But it still annoys me.

~ And now she's crying over losing her "child." Are we supposed to empathize with her here? I cannot figure out what Cheewin wants me to think about her.

~ This new manager at least seems calmer and more rational. But I'm withholding judgment for now.

~ Probably if I followed the Thai industry's behind the scenes and fanservice stuff this would all make more sense. I would at least have some context of what's normal and what's exaggeration

~ More gorgeous houses. Well done, location manager!

~ I think I like P'Kong. Not sure if he's good or evil yet, but I like him

~ Weaponized tears? That's my vote.

~ They did it! They came out!

~ Yep. The hints properly hinted. Good job Cheewin. This would be interesting if I still cared about any of the characters.

~ It's a fascinating concept. The seemingly timid character was orchestrating everything all along. But it falls so disappointingly flat.

[eoangstlover56]

After sleeping on it, I didn’t hate last night’s SVU but I think the main issue I did have with it and that I’ve had with some others in the past is that they sometimes spoonfeed their audience as if we aren’t capable of thinking for ourselves. When they do parallels to things like Lewis they go too hard at it. They make it too obvious and give us so many parallels to the point where it’s like they’re just copying almost like they are more focused on sparking outrage rather than getting a point across that adds to character development. because i think they were attempting to correct past wrongs in a way? and show healing but that point was missed because they picked such outrageous parallels that people couldnt overlook those things to see the rest. I don’t think they should never do a Lewis parallel…unfortunately as awful as it was it was something that happened to Olivia and healing isn’t linear so it’s gonna come up from time to time. I just think they should be more SUBTLE about it rather than making it so obvious that it’s a parallel to the point that it’s triggering for people because it feels like it’s just shock value(they’re picking the most obvious parallels they can find). They could’ve accomplished what I think they might’ve been trying to without doing that.

Like…don’t pick the crazy juror. Everyone remembers that. Don’t pick him representing himself. Everyone remembers that. Pick some random small detail that no one is gonna remember unless they rewatched that arc within the last week and a half. Something none of us really pick up on until the end when there’s a resolution and then we’re like “oh wait! That’s what they were doing. I didn’t realize but I see now. I’m glad they fixed that. I’m glad Olivia got to have that moment of closure.” Make me THINK in other words. Make me have to be a bit confused at first and critically analyze what’s in front of me. +and make predictions. Not be exactly sure that’s where you’re going with it. OC doesn’t spoonfeed us which is why sometimes their plots are confusing. You don’t have to go so hard with the parallels. Pick some random thing and then at the very end Olivia mentions it in therapy or to Fin and we’re all like “oh wait I didn’t even think about that and now all this stuff that happened makes sense that was good writing”. And don’t make it have no point. I did really like the ending though I just wish the ending wasn’t overshadowed by such blatant parallels. Even if we didn’t get a Lewis convo with Elliot I would’ve either liked to think we were leading up to one or see Olivia working through something/talking through something to encourage Maddie that she’d get through this because she dealt with those feelings (because maybe Maddie says something to her and it’s small enough that we didn’t even remember Olivia having those same thoughts until the end etc). She recognized as something as part of her own journey and she’s finally addressing it at the end because of that random thing that happened in the episode and then it wouldn’t be so blatant and shocking and obvious and we’d be like finally we are getting some healing and something is being addressed that hasn’t been before yay continuity! Rather than just blatantly tell me this is a parallel. Make me guess. You don’t have to spoonfeed me I’m an adult I can think for myself. Make me go ohhhh I see what you did there I wasn’t expecting it and it took me a minute to get it but now I do and it’s not one of the most obvious offensive ones like making a female juror a nutjob who wants to sleep with the suspect. We all remember bronwyn freed. It makes it more compelling when we have to think. When we go I didn’t remember that shit at all until your context clues led me to realize it and then it made it a more compelling story than if you’re just picking an obvious one. Be more subtle so I could pick up on the good parts.

[findjackwalten]

what do you think of the white guy from the new update?

for context, this is what we're talking about

I have a lot of thoughts on this development and especially on the implications of the previously untouched idea of "bon". Almost literally all of this is speculation because right now this guy is a picture and a sentance.

I think that the 'white guy' is. "bon". The "bon" we've been hearing about in bits and pieces, another side to Bon, the animatronic. It's pretty obvious Bon always had an internal AI, being a preforming robot with scripted movements and greetings and jokes or whatever else he was doing on the stage. "bon", to me, is that AI. The original script, given form.

As for why he's shown as some random humanoid, I have no clue. I would've preffered it to be a rabbit to closer connect it to the Bon we know, but I'm not mad at it. The featureless look definately is uncanny, if that's what Martin was going for.

I've been rotating it in my head and wondering what the AI's role actually is in the story. I'm jumping to conclusions on this but I'm enjoying the idea of a positive-negative push and pull between the AI and Jack; Not that either really takes on positive or negative- they're concepts past good and bad, emotion and robot. Each serves their purpose, parrallel or paired for a purpose.

I don't think at all that the AI is influenced only by Jack. I've always believed that Bon's AI has a learning algorithm front-and-center. Originally innocent, learning which scripted greetings work better on what groups, what movements are the most pleasing for an audience, what makes people happy or what makes them sad. This algorithm was the original flaw, even unknowingly.

as for the other robots, i'm not sure if each bot has their own AI or if it's essentially the same with embellishments. I think it would be interesting if the natural AI of all the robots were a learning algorithm AIs but Bon's was the only one exposed to violence. Like an animal or a young child, the AI learns how to play and act from its enviornment and what it's exposed to. And it does what it learns.

Jack, Bon and "bon"-s relationship is infinately complex in my mind. I dont think Jack's spirit is nearly concious or coherent enough to understand and be able to 'take advantage' of the hulking robot form it resides in. Possession, sure but by no means a poltergeist. To me, Jack is a bleeding aura of human pain and grief and anger garbled by death and confusion. He effects objects passively, but the object at his disposal happens to be a killing machine with a pre-programmed AI keenly interested in stimuli- absorbing those emotions and trying to learn how to feel them, with unknown success

I think the AI paired with Jack is what makes the particularly volatile creature we see now- something ghostly, angry and wanting and expressing it in every breath paired with a well seasoned murder-suggestible AI.

I think without Jack- bon's killings would be much. Less. I think "bon" is very interested in learning and especially in new stimuli and responses (like. seing someone be afraid and then being killed) but in the end its a robot preforming. A little stiff, a little boring, but doing its job. I think Jacks addition is that chasing, desperate thing that wasn't there before. The robot never knew about fear or rage or sorrow and it now understands what happens if it fails. The abstract idea of Jack bleeding these garbled emotions and the AI picking it up in some strange symbiosis. All in all, AI doing what it learned to do with the infinate advantage of something previously human behind it.

my feelings on Jack-bon situation are really complex so this is them fairly simplified. its infinately complex to me and by no means do they have any solid acknowlegement of eachother. maybe one day ill get it perfectly on paper but for noww this will do

[sometimesrosy]

Do you think Clarke’s suicidal tendencies will ever be addressed more, or do you think they suitably were and resolved in s6?

I don’t know.

I think they spent quite a bit of time on them, going into her mindspace and having her give up and then having the Monty-in-her-mind argue out of them. I’m not sure her suicidal tendencies aren’t situation specific. After Praimfaya, with the eclipse psychosis, and in her mindspace when she had lost her body. Praimfaya and mindspace happened after she’d “lost.” When she thought there was nothing left. The psychosis was eclipse induced but I think it came from her self-hate and tendency to “bear it so they don’t have to.” She doesn’t just bear it, she takes on the blame. THAT I think has not been resolved.

I don’t think that, ultimately, Clarke IS actually suicidal. Her will to survive is too strong. She can’t give up, even when the world is dead or she is dead. She keeps fighting. Granted I am not an expert on the issues surrounding suicidal tendencies, but then, i’m not sure the writers are either, so I’m going to continue to assess it as a literary obstacle. 

I think it’s part of her personality taken to extremes. The part that Abby warned her about in the pilot, where she warned her about wanting to take care of everyone else. She kind of erases herself and her own needs. She bears it so they don’t have to and then she breaks... or almost breaks.

She keeps coming back though. That’s part of why she’s Wanheda. Death has been after her since the pilot, when she was sent to earth days before her birthday/execution. 

I feel like part of her story is death can’t take her without her permission. So the times when we are most worried about her survival are when she has lost her own will to survive. The psychosis was outside of that, but even that, she forced to quiet down. Murphy made her put her suicidal tendencies aside... why? To save Bellamy. Double whammy of taking care of her people and protecting Bellamy. She almost killed herself after praimfaya because she lost everything, right before she found a way out, the valley. She almost gave up in the mindspace, until Monty, the moral center of the story, appeared and told her no that was not doing the right thing. Even the finale of season 6, when she put a gun to her own head, that was not actually suicidal tendencies, but the last weapon she had in her arsenal, something she knew would make Madi fight, like she fought in the mindspace-- her love. 

Hmm. Death transformed by love. Death transformed by love? 

That...that fits the genre. Post apocalyptic science fiction survival show, right? Everything has died. This is about coming back from death. This is about rebirth. This is about transformation. This is about the redemption of humanity and of the various characters. This...fits Bellarke. 

In Day Trip, Bellamy was the one with suicidal tendencies, the one who thought he was the monster, and Clarke brought him back, told him he had worth and value, forgave him, fought for him, gave him dignity and even power. Ever since then, Bellamy has been trying to do the same for her. As she takes on more and more of the burden of the horrible things they have to, he has been supporting her and giving her absolution and bearing it with her and centering her and giving her something to believe in. Comparing the end of season 2 to the end of season 6, it’s finally working. She can’t bear it, in s2 she leaves. She can’t bear it, and in s6 he tells her they did do better and it was worth it and she comes back to him and they end the season in an embrace.

He’s done it. He’s transformed her pain through love, he’s brought her back from death, and given her the key to save everyone and stop the evil of the primes from spreading.

I don’t think Clarke’s suicidal tendencies will be resolved the way they might in therapy. None of these people get therapy. I think it might be resolved by her making the choice to choose life and pain and love and recognize it is not a weakness and is, instead a strength.

And... that has already happened in the s6 finale. 

I think s7 might be moving on. What happens AFTER death. After you survive death coming for you and you turn out to be stronger than the pain and loss and desire to give up??? Again. That fits the post apocalyptic genre. Get smacked down, get up again. Right? THAT’S survival. But we’re looking to do more than just survive, so what? 

So.

What?

So love. 

Love keeps you getting up again. Love keeps you fighting. Love gives you strength. Love gives you a reason to keep going. Love gives you a future... Clarke and Bellamy never think about the future. When people do think about the future, like Bryan or Kane or Monty, it’s a domestic future, a safe home, chickens, trade, children. Love.

I think.

This show.

Is about.

Love.

Love is how you survive.

Love is WHY you survive.

Clarke is Survival. Bellamy is Love. Bellamy is the key. Clarke is Commander of Death. Bellamy is Love. The head and the heart. Yin Yang, death and life. 

Hmm. Love alone doesn’t do it though, it can go off target and become cruel, off balance, like with Pike. It can also break, like with Octavia, who lost her love and then lost her brother in praimfaya. Survival alone can be too much to bear, which is why Clarke could go on when she found hope in the valley, and love for Madi, and why she kept the fantasy of Bellamy alive all that time. LOVE made it worthwhile. 

I went off track, didn’t I?

I think Clarke’s suicidal tendencies were addressed and I think they have been transformed through love, and Clarke has come back from the darkness with her superpower. Through love, humanity can be REBORN. That’s the trick about death, you see, it is the key to the life cycle. We die. We feed the earth. New life is born from our ashes. From the ashes we will rise. Love is the energy that keeps us moving.

If this is so, then I’m going back to my initial theory that I cam up with after Hakeldama in season 3, but taking it farther. So. Bellarke is endgame, because UNITY is one of the essential themes, and being the head and the heart, they need to be together to function. But to take it farther, this is not just about survival, this about love. Bellamy is the heart to Clarke’s survival head. Therefore the key to humanity’s redemption is the unification of survival with LOVE. Bellarke is the symbolic representation of the main goal, which is the REBIRTH of humanity. Humanity needs to find LOVE again. 

I suspect that within the survival and death of season 7, we’ll see love in all its forms, from the first flush of romance to long established couples to sibling love to platonic love to parental love. Because LOVE is how you redeem everyone. And yes Bellarke. 

I might also speculate, as I did before praimfaya, that Clarke will become pregnant. Because rebirth/fertility/pregnancy are symbolically linked and if Bellarke represents the redemption and salvation of humanity, (C=salvation and B=redemption,) then a pregnancy would represent the rebirth of humanity. In s5 we got the symbolism of Clarke being a mother with Madi, which means I was right about the symbols, but they had not achieved their redemption yet and so no true pregnancy/rebirth. This damn story is so slow burn. But if I’m correct, as I seem to be, then it is a distinct possibility that by the end of the series we’ll find out Clarke is pregnant with Bellamy’s child. It might be at the end of the season as part of the action (depending upon how time flows within the season actually and how soon they get together,) or it might be in a post script as a kind of flashforward like they did with s4, to have Clarke and Bellamy surviving in the after, with a family and a peaceful home, much like Harper and Monty got on the Eligius ship. Hard to know how it might go down, but the symbolism is stronger than it was in s4, and there is now a path to have it happen in the narrative. Plus they teased it with s4/s5 and Madi, especially with her looking like a child that could be theirs and Abby first seeing a picture of a five year old Madi who would be the age of a Bellarke child if there were one. 

this... this did not go where i expected it to go.

[snippychicke]

Moonstone--Jealousy

So, a long, long, long time ago, @rmoonstoner (and maybe someone else) admitted that possession sex would be amazing. And I fully, 100% agreed. Except I couldn't find a way that satisfied my need to have everything (vaguely) in character and fit into plot.

And then we finally got a hint of Jake in the season finale. And I have been working on this since, here and there. I'm not the best at smut, and I needed to develop Jake's character before I threw him into the fray like this. Because yes, this fits into the Moonstone timeline, just a bit past our current point.

So, if you haven't guessed already.*** THIS IS EXPLICIT CONTENT.*** Minors shouldn't be reading this series anyways, but definitely not this piece. Warnings include: Some manipulation (but not in the way you think) Plenty of oral, followed by unprotected piv. I'm putting questionable consent because of the mess of Marc/Steven/Jake's body, some implied voyeurism? and definitely some rough sex, overstim. I'm probably missing some, so let me know.

Anyways, here you go, my fellow Khonshu lovers. Enjoy.

Jake had to admit, you were one hell of a woman. Sure, he was fond of Layla. She was a beautiful woman, he maybe even loved her in a way.

But he never talked, never interacted with her. But you? Hell, just fighting side-by side against Harrow and his goons had been enough for him to fall in love. You got it. That drive to do whatever was necessary. You didn’t hold back in a true fight. You had a ruthless streak in you as bright as the full moon. No wonder Khonshu loved you.

Except, that was a problem too. Khonshu loved you, and was fiercely protective of you. There was no way he’d let Jake do anymore than the occasional leer or brush that could be excused as something else. 

But the bird was also secretly worried you still would leave him. And that gave him an edge.

“Ya know, she laughed the other day,” Jake reported to Khonshu from the safety of Marc’s fractured mindscape, recalling fondly of dinner the other night, watching silently as you, Layla, Steven and Marc ate and drank. He was never really ‘present’ during those times, but always just a whisper away. Sneaking glances in the many mirrors that now lined the home, listening to the domestics he’d never be a part of. Never admit that he wanted.

You knew he was there, though. He caught brief expressions he was sure were for him. A bitten back smile when his alters complained of missing time despite their teamwork. Or when you were just a little extra when you tried to reassure them, your acting was not nearly as good as his. Marc and Steven fell for it, but he knew that brief smile you hid was for him. Likely recalling how he often came to pick you up and cart you off to whatever work Khonshu had. You would try and reassure them it was nothing, when it in reality it was the moments you and him worked in tandem, Khonshu watching and guiding you both.

At first Khonshu seemed pleased at Jake’s information, a feeling of contentment in knowing something had delighted you. Oh, Jake was going to enjoy turning that on its head. “Said you wouldn’t know what to do with a mouth if you had one.”

The god looked down at him, bafflement obvious despite the lack of expression. Then annoyance, quickly burning into indignation. “What?”

Jake only shrugged, playing with the toothpick in his mouth. “I don’t know either. Layla was reminiscing about her first kiss with those other two. I mean, I never thought your lady friend would say something like that to them.” 

“I would think she would know by now not to doubt me.”

“Eh, you know them girls. Gossiping about kissing, swapping stories about lovers. She’s probably just a bit bitter that she’s never been ate out before.” 

----

Jake was at your door. Except it wasn’t his intentionally relaxed posture with a slight smirk when you opened the door. Instead, he stood tall, jaw set, and his eyes hard; though that was nothing new, his dark eyes always simmered with rage just beyond the peripheral. Even when he was happy, there was anger. IT was how you could tell him apart from the others.

“Hello, dearest moonstone,” he crooned, voice deeper and missing its usual accent, replaced but a familiar and utterly unique one.

Ah. 

Khonshu. 

Now you could see the faint flicker of light in his dark eyes. “Well hello,” you greeted after the surprise passed, a smile stretching across your face. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you darkening my doorstep like this.”

His eyes narrowed, and you weren’t sure if Khonshu was angry, or Jake. “You doubt my ability to please you despite everything?” He snarled, stalking closer. You allowed him to back you inside your apartment, the door rattling as he slammed it shut. Your mind was whirring, trying to figure out what you said or done to upset his mood this time. He did not truly scare you, you knew he wouldn’t hurt you, but there was still that subconscious flicker of fear at his imposing anger. “That I wouldn’t know how to use a mouth if I had one?”

Ah. You had forgotten about that little joke. And of course Jake had to listen in on that particular drunk conversation and report it to Khonshu. 

But hey, if the god wanted to give it a shot…"I know you love proving me wrong."

Jake’s lips were on you in a second, rough and firm. You hissed in pleasure as Khonshu pinned you to the wall, your hands quickly restrained by his. There was no hesitancy, no unsureness. The old bird knew exactly what he was doing as he bit and sucked your lips between dominating kisses, making your lips even more sensitive. 

And then he moved to your neck, continuing to suck and bite, and you knew you were going to be bruised and well marked by morning. Yet, that only made you groan more, shifting your hips in anticipation. 

His tongue played with the shell of your ear, Jake’s hot breath sending goosebumps down your spine. “I hope you have nothing planned, because I’m not letting you leave your bed until tomorrow morning.” 

Khonshu suddenly picked you up, your legs wrapping around Jake’s hips as he carried you to your bedroom. You took the time to pepper his neck with kisses, careful not to leave a mark, unlike him. You didn’t want to imagine the fallout of Layla finding hickeys on Marc/Steven that didn’t come from her.

He tossed you onto your bed, barely giving you time to adjust before he was on you once more. His tongue invaded your mouth, fighting yours for dominance as he quickly pulled at your clothes, uncaring of the fabric tearing in his rush.

You pushed off Jake’s cap, shoving his leather jacket from his shoulders and then finally helping Khonshu rid the white shirt beneath. It wasn’t his body, but there was no denying you didn’t feel a rush of arousal from feeling hardened muscle beneath your hands, or the soft, sparse hair along his chest, growing thicker close to where his pants sat low on his hips.

“Not now, my little moonstone,” he purred as he pulled your hands away from Jake’s belt (and you were completely unaware of the curses Jake was spitting in their mind.) “I have to teach you a lesson first.” 

For being a god that didn’t have lips or a tongue (that you knew about) Khonshu was surprisingly talented. While he was rough against your neck, biting you hard enough you were sure he was about to draw blood; his touch became gentle as he reached your breasts. You gasped as he took your nipple in his borrowed mouth, sucking gently as his tongue swirled over the stiffening peak. You tangled your fingers in their hair, your breath coming in small gasps as his hand cupped your other breast, giving it attention as well, though rougher as he pinched and rolled your nipple between well-calloused fingers. 

“God, fuck, Khonshu,” you moaned, hips rolling in an attempt to find some kind of friction to the growing need between your legs. But his own were too far for you to rut against, and his other hand was pressed against your hip, keeping you pinned down into the mattress. “Please.”

He gave one last hard suck to your nipple before letting go, Jake’s dark eyes glancing up at you, but you swore the moon was somehow reflected in them. “So needy already? I’ve barely done anything.” 

“Quit being so smug,” you whined. “I need you.” 

He chuckled, the hand holding you down moving to slip beneath your underwear, fingers rubbing against your moistened core. You cried as you arched against him, fingers raking over his muscled shoulders. “Once I’m done with you, you’ll realize I have every right to be smug.”

He pulled your underwear down as he sat back on his heels, adjusting himself between your legs. You felt yourself grow warm seeing him like that. It may have been Jake’s face, but something in you recognized that heady expression as Khonshu. Maybe it was the moonlight reflected in his eyes, the almost-arrogant, righteous expression on his face. 

Or maybe your soul just recognized him by now, even if he was possessing another’s body. 

He gripped your thighs, pulling them over his shoulders and making you squeak out of surprise, which only made his smirk widen. His gaze shifted to your groin, and a shiver ran through you as he licked his lips. 

Heavens, if you weren’t already ruined before, that expression would have been warning enough. You instinctively gripped the pillow beneath your head moments before his mouth met your flesh. 

Jake’s tongue was hot and firm as he used it to split your lower lips, brushing against the tender tissue they hid. You managed to take a deep breath to hold back a cry, but that was all the restraint you could manage before his tongue plunged into you, curling and stroking between harsh sucks with far too much experience for this to be his first time. 

Obscene sounds filled the room as he continued his attack, both the sloppy noise as he ate you out as well as your own begs and whines. It was only a short matter of minutes before you felt your first orgasm approaching; your muscles tightening in your abdomen almost painfully before ecstasy snapped through your body, your scream echoing into the room.

But Khonshu didn’t stop. He merely adjusted his position, his fingers replacing his tongue inside you while he teased your clit with his tongue. Your legs spasmed as you cried out again, bucking against his face until his grip became too strong for you to barely wiggle against him. 

A second, and then third orgasm washed over you. Tears pricked your eyes from the over-stimulation and you were nearly ready to beg him to stop when he allowed your hips to fall back to the mattress as he sat up, wiping his face and then sucking his fingers clean. 

“I don’t want to hear another word about my lack of skill again,” he warned as he pulled himself up from your legs, the street light bathing Jake’s muscular form in golden light as he towered over you. “Or I’ll be forced to deal more harshly with your impudence.”

Your body was limp, worn out from the multiple orgasms he wrung from you. Unfortunately, with your mind barely more the mush, you had no sense of self preservation as you shot out: “Going to have to run that… by Layla,” you panted, your eyes closed as you struggled with the overwhelming sensations. “Make sure the boys… aren’t sharing their abilities with you.“ 

Khonshu gripped your face, guiding you to look up at him; pitch black eyes with the small speck of silver moonlight. You couldn’t tell if he was aroused, angry, or both as he glared down at you. “Give up, my little moonstone. I doubt your body can handle much more.” 

Despite everything, you grinned back at him, looking as impish as ever. “Now, have you ever known me to give up so easily?” you let go of the headboard and gripped Jake’s black, curly locks and pulled him into a rough kiss.

He matched the passion as he cradled your head tenderly despite the small bites and growls. The kisses he left along your neck and cheek were reverent, the roll of his hips against yours needy, begging for your acceptance. “You think handle one more, dearest?” 

Your answer was just your hands finding the buckle of Jake’s belt once more, fumbling with it in desperation. He broke away from you, making quick work of both belt and pants, letting Jake’s cock free. It was hard and engorged already, yet Khonshu seemed to enjoy the expression on your face as he took it in hand, stroking it slowly. 

“Khonshu," you whined, parting your legs, opening yourself to him in a silent beg. You wanted him inside you, now. Former orgasms be damned. 

And heavens, seeing you so wet and wanting was about to drive the god insane. He quickly settled his avatar’s body between your parted thighs, groaning as your thick thighs quickly wrapped around Jake’s narrow hips. You were so wet and wanting that he slipped inside you with the slightest thrust. Khonshu groaned against your neck as he hilted completely inside you, delighting and indulging in the sensations as your cunt quivered around him. Soft and tight and deliciously wet against Jake’s hard, throbbing member.

Khonshu delighted even more in the noises that escaped your lips when he started to move. He took his time thrusting into your core, trying to memorize the feel of you before he lost himself to pleasure as well. He praised you as his lips moved against your neck, and then swallowed your pleas as Jake’s lips met yours.

When he could feel his own orgasm approaching, he shifted and gripped your thighs once more, the shift in position making you cry out. Your eyes met his, blown wide with pleasure before he changed his pace; his thrusts becoming sharp, quick, and verging on vicious as his hips slammed against yours again and again. All to hear your quiet sounds become screams of pleasure. Your nails dug and scratched down whatever grip you could find, and he delighted in the points of pain as he came, filling you full.

He was gasping for breath as he fell against you, shifting so he laid beside you. The feeling of exhaustion next to bliss was an odd, new, yet rather pleasant experience for the god. 

You groaned as you shifted to curl next to him, bumping the top of your head against his chin. “Marc and Steven are going to be pissed about those scratches.”

“I can heal them.” But not right now. He liked the idea of his beloved marking his body, even if it wasn’t technically his. Just as he enjoyed the image of his work scattered across your own, proof about how wrong your little quip was. 

He looked down, barely able to see you as you rest against him. His avatar’s body was smaller than his own, and it didn’t quite feel right as he tried to wrap his arm around your shoulders but not reaching quite as far as normal. You didn’t fit quite right against him, leaving him feel slightly disgruntled. 

“No offense to Marc, Steven, or Jake,” you muttered, either thinking the same thing or feeling him through the bond. “They are definitely a very handsome man. But I like your body better, though I’m not even sure why.” 

“Because I am a god and they’re merely a mortal?” He offered, a hint of jesting in his tone that makes you snort and slap him slightly on the chest. 

“Sure, whatever you say. Or maybe it’s just because I have a monster fetish” 

“I am a god, not a monster.” 

“Depends really on who you ask,” you quipped, before silencing his argument with a kiss. He grumbled against your lips, but cupped your cheek to prevent your from pulling too far away.

Pleasantly exhausted himself, Jake made a mental note to find more excuses in the future that would stir Khonshu’s jealousy.