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hepalien · 3 years

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Shrunkyclunks (Modern Bucky/Cap Steve) Fic Rec

Hate Sex & Hair Protocol by @maddiewritesstucky - Mature, 1.8k

SHIELD Agent Bucky, UST, Enemies to Lovers (in Steve’s head), Humor

They’re all full of shit, Steve decides.

His team don’t have a clue what they’re talking about, running their mouths about the way he and Bucky look at each other; the tension that seems to be at a constant near-snapping point between them.

'It’s called annoyance' Steve wants to yell in each of their faces, loud and one by one. It’s the pain of having to exist every day in close proximity with someone who drives you out of your fucking mind.

---

In which Steve discovers that ire and desire may just exist side by side in his brain.

Stop interrupting my grinding series by @rohkeutta - Teen, 2.5k

Nurse Bucky, Wrong Number, Fluff, Humor

“I tried to call Sam,” Captain America says, bewildered. He’s sprinting like Usain Bolt and doesn’t sound even a little out of breath. Fucker. “Who’re you?”

“Someone who’s watching you live on TV,” Bucky tells him as the tiny patriotic figure on the screen takes the turns like he instructed. Bucky should probably be a lot more freaked out about this, but honestly? After a tour in the Middle East and six years as a nurse in New York, even this isn’t enough to ruffle him. One sees a lot of shit in the ER. “Also, you better hang up now, that thing is behind the next bend.”

“Uh, okay,” Captain America says. “Thanks?”

“Whatever,” Bucky says, disconnects the call and turns the TV off to get ready for his shift.

Save a Horse, Ride a Captain by @galwednesday - Teen, 2.7k

War Vet Bucky, Meet Cute, Fluff, Humor, Modern Howlies

Bucky tapped him on the shoulder, swaying back and forth a little as he waited for the man to turn around. “Hello,” he said, and then promptly forgot what else he was going to say, because this guy was fucking beautiful. “Wow. Good face.”

Two of the guy’s friends, a man wearing a suit that fit so well it had to be bespoke and a man with a cute little gap between his front teeth, started cracking up. The petite redhead sitting next to them cocked her head to the side and pulled her phone out of her handbag. Beautiful Face just looked kind of pained, so Bucky redirected. He was a gentleman. He could take a hint. No hitting on beautiful guys who were uncomfortable with that sort of thing, no matter how lickable their jawlines were.

“Hello,” he repeated, doing his best to mind his manners. “I’m very sorry to bother you. Can I have a piggy-back ride?”

You Make My Heart Skip A Beet by @musette22 - Teen, 3.8k

Chef Bucky, POV Outsider, Fluff, Humor

“I made soda bread.”

Steve lets out the 6’2” supersoldier equivalent of a squeak. “Oh, I love soda bread,” he says eagerly, rolling forward on the balls of his feet like he does when he gets excited. “My mom used to make it all the time when I was growing up.”

The tips of Barnes’s ears turn red, and he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “I know.”

more under the cut

Cafe Au Écoute by @littlesystems - Teen, 3.8k

Coffee Shop AU

No matter where Steve goes, there's always the chance that he'll overhear a conversation about himself - or rather, Captain America. This coffee shop is no different. The fact that he keeps eavesdropping well past the point of plausible deniability is another matter entirely.

#TweetMeDaddy by StarSpangled - Teen, 4.1k

SHIELD Employee Bucky, Misunderstandings, Crack, Humor

Coulson, for his part, stares up at Bucky with such a betrayed look of frozen horror that Natasha actually goes the extra step and presses another button, capturing the moment and airdropping the photograph to her phone for posterity. When he speaks, his voice comes out as a hoarse whisper. “Why…?” He swallows and starts again, trying for some semblance of normality. “...Why would you tweet something like that?!”

“If you must know, sir,” and somehow he manages to make ‘sir’ come out with the same inflection most people reserve for ‘motherfucking son of a bitch’, “it’s because I have a difficult time doing my job when my job involves monitoring the man with the best fucking ass in the United States of America.” He slowly lowers himself back into his seat until he’s at eye level, making extreme eye contact with Coulson until Coulson turns away to make mortified eye contact in Natasha’s general direction through the one-way glass. Natasha would take another picture, if she weren’t too busy catching Steve’s red-faced sputtering. “Sometimes, I vent to my Twitter followers. Sometimes, it’s about hot men with washboard abs. Can I go now, or do you need a graphic description of how I pleasure myself at night?”

at first chance i'd take the bed warmed by the body by @spacebuck - Explicit, 8.2k

YouTuber Bucky

This close, Steve can see exactly how beautiful his hands are. He’s never really noticed before, or at least he’s never really had a reason to notice, but the man’s hands are large, tanned like he works outside all day. There’s an endearing callus on the heel of one of his palms, and Steve can’t quite work out when calluses became endearing.

Steve pauses the video. Swallows hard. Casts his eyes around for anything that’ll keep his mind off the hands on his screen, off the words inked into those hands, the delicate shape of a bird’s wing, the curling edge of a vine.

He looks down. The name of the channel is right there, blaring the man’s name right into Steve’s brain until it feels like he’s known it all along.

Bucky Barnes.

OR: the one where Bucky's a youtuber who solves puzzles on camera, and steve's smitten and horny

Came with my cool (I dropped it) by @liionne - Teen, 9.2k

Yoga Instructor Bucky

"When you said I need to loosen up, I didn't think you meant literally."

"I meant it every way. Mentally, emotionally, and physically." Natasha says, and thrusts a yoga mat at him.

there once was a diamond by bloobeary - Teen, 11.3k

Fluff, Thanksgiving

"You," Becca seethes, and hits him with a wooden spoon. "Could have told me," Hits him again. "You were dating Captain America." Final hit, Bucky laughs. He supposes he deserves it, giving her no more information than the fact he was bringing his boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner at her house and then showing up with Steve.

Salt by littleblackfox @thelittleblackfox - Mature, 12k

Bakery AU

The cinnamon roll is gone in four bites. Four indecent, jaw-unhinging bites, and Steve sucks the last traces of lemon and icing from his fingers with a low, throaty sound of satisfaction. He glances up at Bucky, who is leaning against the counter and watching him with avid fascination.

“Um…” Steve says around his index finger. There’s still a little icing on the bed of his fingernail, and he stops trying to work it off with his tongue.

“You know those movies where the girl eats an eclair or something, and it’s really, like, sexually charged?” Bucky asks.

Steve pulls his finger out of his mouth. He’s never seen that kind of movie, but the thought of Bucky eating an eclair is certainly… well, it lingers. “Uh?”

“Yeah, well that was the exact opposite.” Steve scowls, and Bucky cackles gleefully. “You are something else, Steve.”

Leg Day by Brokenpitchpipe - Explicit, 12.1k

Gym Thot Bucky

“So talk to him,” Sam says.

“I can’t,” Bucky groans. “I can’t, Sam, I. He just.” He fluffs his hair up and stares at Sam, distraught. “I want him to bench press me.”

“Okay, so it’s serious,” Sam interprets. “Got it."

(Or: The one where Sam is Bucky's long-suffering roommate, Bucky is a hot mess of a millennial, and Hot Steve spends far too much time on the Lat Pull-Down machine.)

Art Nouveau by voluptuous_panic - Explicit, 12.2k

Bartender Bucky, Tattooed & Pierced Bucky

Steve's on the worst date of his life. At least the bartender's cute.

much tattoo about nothing by @deisderium - Explicit, 14.5k

Tattoo Artist Bucky

Steve Rogers gets a lot of email requests, but never one like this: James Barnes wants to use his healing factor to practice tattoos.

Turns out tattoos give Steve boners.

No Wonder There's Panic in the Industry by sprinkle_of_cinnamon - Not Rated (I’d say Mature?), 20.5k

Stark Industries Intern Bucky, Team fic, Humor

In which Bucky Barnes and his BFF, Clint Barton, are NYU interns for Stark Media Group competing to be Pepper's favorite.

Or alternatively, the time Bucky assisted the P.A. team on the Steve Rogers piece and ended up (adopted) with a contact list full of Avengers.

Life of the Party by @aggressivewhenstartled - Explicit, 21.6k

Superhero Impersonator Bucky, Mistaken Identity

“You know, kids,” Steve heard from the backyard, “one of the most common threats a superhero has to face is inside an active volcano! We’re going to have to work on your evasion skills, so for the next five minutes, the floor is lava!” This was met by a sudden spike in both volume and pitch from the small children as they scrambled onto every raised surface they could find and immediately launched themselves right back off.

“I’ve never seen actual lava in my entire life,” Steve said, vaguely offended.

“You got a superhero impersonator for The Falcon’s niece’s birthday party,” Sam said, incredulous. “The Falcon, who is an actual superhero.”

Trust Enough by @geneticallydead - Explicit, 23.3k

Misunderstandings

“Saturday. Yeah, that’s good,” Steve says, and actually scuffs his shoe at the ground. Like a ridiculous shy superhero damsel. “Say eight? I live-“

“Yeah, big building with the A on it,” Bucky says, and can’t help a big stupid grin. Steve stares at him, looking a little dazed, and after their whole conversation it’s only now that Bucky’s brain catches up and realises Steve finds him quite attractive. So. Win for Bucky.

“Let me get your number,” Steve says finally, after they’ve stared stupidly at each other for about three hours, taking out his phone.

So they exchange numbers, and then Steve says he should go, and Bucky agrees, and they kind of stare at each other for a bit more, then Steve actually does go, but not before taking Bucky’s hand and squeezing it warmly in a way that makes Bucky want to shiver all over. Then Steve is gone, and Bucky is standing alone in the alley, grinning to himself.

Right up until the moment he remembers that Steve thinks Bucky is an escort he’s just hired.

Well fuck.

The Roommate by layersofart, Niitza - Teen, 28.6k

War Vet Bucky, Roommates AU, Humor, Fluff, Angst, Team fic

In which Steven G. Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, gets a roommate. Who rapidly turns into his "roommate"—in the euphemistic sense of the word.

It takes SHIELD and the rest of the Avengers an absurd amount of time to notice.

Brooklyn Baby by sprinkle_of_cinnamon - Mature, 33.7k

Coffee Shop AU, Modern Howlies, Mistaken Identity, Team Fic

In which Bucky is just trying to live life and enjoy his unofficial official table at the obnoxiously hipster coffee shop but some guy named Steve stole his spot.

Or, the time that Bucky unintentionally befriended the Avengers and had no idea.

Never Talk to Strangers by mambo @whtaft - Teen, 40.4k

Grad Student Bucky, Slow Burn

Never Talk to Strangers: or; How a Forgotten Childhood Lesson Led Bucky Barnes to Appreciate Charlie Chaplin, Befriend an A.I., Slip on Soap Bubbles, Be Mistaken for a Succubus, and Try to Woo a Superhero.

Sinking Our Teeth In The Heart Of The Sun by fallendarlings @pressrestartwrites - Explicit, 102.8k

Single Dad Bucky, Kid Fic, Slow Burn, Domestic, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Steve has Autism

Bucky Barnes never intended to become a single father at 25. But life has always enjoyed kicking him while he's down and it's showing no signs of stopping. A chance meeting with a brick wall of a guy named Steve in the formula aisle of the grocery store leads to a friendship it seems like both of them need. If only Bucky could remember that's all they are- friends. If only Steve didn't slot into their lives so perfectly and look so good spoiling Bucky's daughter (and Bucky, despite his protests).

Oh, if only Steve didn't turn out to be Captain America.

Steve Rogers is wandering around a world that he doesn't fit into, fighting for a government that he doesn't trust, just because he doesn't know what to do with himself if he ever relaxes long enough to actually think about anything other than the next mission.

And then came Bucky Barnes and his newborn baby.

More recs

#stucky #stevebucky #stucky fic #stucky fic rec #shrunkyclunks #stucky fanfic #stucky fanfiction #steve x bucky #my stucky recs #fic tag #mine #fic rec #mcu fic #tumblr ate this the first time [my longest sigh ever]#i read art nouveau for the first time last week and I've been thinking about it ever since

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merakilyy · 4 years

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Lan Qiren is Not a Completely Terrible Parent + Bonus Headcanon

Some disorganized thoughts on Lan Qiren!

A lot of my thoughts on Lan Qiren come from a bilibili article breaking down what it means be be righteous (雅正) in accordance to the Lan Sect’s motto. The article is in Chinese so I’ll just sum up some of the major ideas first:

***

~It fundamentally refutes the idea of Lan Wangji as the “black sheep” in the Lan Sect

~It assumes Cloud Recesses has a highly collective intrasect environment. Children are raised not just by the parents, but by the entire Sect.

~The Elders raised Wangji and saw him grew up and didn’t have the heart to hurt Wangji, even after he escaped with Wei Wuxian into the cave. Western fandom especially tends to see the elders as strict, conservative disciplinarians who are rigid in their beliefs to the point of hypocrisy. This meta refutes that. It’s unreasonable that Wangji, no matter how strong his cultivation, would be able to stand on his own against 33 seasoned cultivators. So, contrary to popular belief, the elders allowed Wangji to injure them so they would not have to harm a child of the Sect.

~Lan Sect rules are not about what is literally written, but the spirit of the rules. This also makes sense given that when you have 4000+ rules, some rules are bound to contradict one another. And, many rules are quite vague. Eg. “sneering for no reason is prohibited.” Where is the line that justifies sneering? There is none because the idea is not “don’t sneer for no reason,” the idea is “don’t be unnecessarily rude.” In many of the rules, there is room for interpretation and it is this process of interpretation that is valued over the literal inscription of the rules.

~Basically, they are not good people because of the rules. They are good people because they are good people. The rules guide them to make good judgement, but good judgement does not comes from following the rules to a T.

~So the function of 雅正 (to be righteous) is internal, not performative.

~It is this internal clarity that makes Gusu Lan “innocent” (the word used is 纯真; 纯/chun = pure, clarity, genuine, practised and 真/zhen = true, real, genuine, clear)

~There is also a long history of Lans being deviant and rebellious. In CQL, there is Lan Yi who invents guqin battle techniques. They are also the only Clan to have been led by a female cultivator. Qingheng-jun clearly went against orthodoxy by marrying a murderer, but still remained in Cloud Recesses. We’re going to set aside consent here because is a total other separate conversation, but his punishment is self-imposed, not enforced by the Sect. So there are a lot of rules, but they aren’t pedantic. There is leeway, as seen in Lan Yi, but only within reason, as demonstrated by Qingheng-jun.

~Like his ancestors, Wangji also deviated from the straightforward path but his sect accepted his unrepentant love for Wei Wuxian in the end.

~In the end, Wangji gets what he wants: to live with Wei Wuxian in Cloud Recess. But he only gets this because the elders and Lan Qiren allow him to.

~To allow Wei Wuxian to exist in Cloud Recesses, the Lan Sect has to be more inclusive than we typically see them as.

~Despite everything, Lan Wangji still wants to return to Cloud Recesses because it is home to him.

~This is also my favourite explanation of Jingyi’s Jingyi-ness. Rather than Wangji (and possibly Xichen) singlehandedly creating a space for Jingyi, that space already existed. Jingyi isn’t as much of a black sheep as people portray him as because you don’t grow into a Jingyi if everyone is constantly yelling at you to follow rules. CQL Jingyi is plenty sassy, even in front of Lan Qiren, and Jingyi isn’t stupid! He was born and raised in Cloud Recesses, he knows when he is pushing several of the rules and he knows that he has the leeway to do so, and that Lan Qiren will not stop him (within reason).

~”Be righteous” is how the Lan motto is translated in English, but it’s….not exactly what it is in Chinese.

~In modern Chinese, it’s 雅正. 雅/ya = elegance, graceful and 正/zheng = positive, correct, straight, just.

~Notice how the two parts of the motto contrast one another. Ya is outward, something that dictates how you act. Zheng is internal, determined by your actions and attitudes. Zheng is the foundation of Ya.

~As a related aside, the literary meaning of 雅正 is slightly different; it means to be correct and honest, and to welcome corrections to one’s shortcomings. The literary 雅 is to be proper。

~The meta ends with this beautiful line: 所谓的“雅正”，家族交出来，体雅是表象，心正才是更本。Now to ruin it in translation: “Each configuration of “righteousness,” as taught by the Sect, is outward physical elegance built on the foundation of a moral heart.”

~TLDR: Rebelliousness is a function of Gusu Lan, not an anomaly.

***

Onto some fun headcanons!

~Lan Qiren has personal issues with Wei Wuxian because of his mother, but he is more horrified by Wei Wuxian because Wei Wuxian has all this potential and then uses it to go down the heretial path?? Blaphemous. All that ability, all that work, only to throw it all away? Wei Wuxian is incredibly competent and Lan Qiren begrudgingly respects that competence. What he can’t stand is Wei Wuxian’s lackadaisical attitude towards his cultivation.

~In novel canon, Lan Qiren accepts Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s marriage. He definitely still has issues with Wei Wuxian for being a mass murderer, a demonic cultivator, for desecrating the dead, etc. Also for his general Wei Wuxian-ness. But Wei Wuxian is nothing is not incredibly competent and Lan Qiren eventually softens towards Wei Wuxian because of that competence. Once Wei Wuxian starts using that competence to be useful to the Sect and not just to be as annoying as possible, he gets Lan Qiren’s approval.

~Secretly, of course. Lan Qiren would qi deviate before saying nice about Wei Wuxian to his face.

~I totally wrote a fic on Lan Qiren publicly defending Wei Wuxian heheh

~Cloud Recesses is only so big and Lan Qiren can’t avoid Wei Wuxian, even if he is never trying to seek him out. Plus, Wei Wuxian has this way of being in the most inconvenient place at the most inconvenient time.

~We all agree Wei Wuxian is a terrible cook. But, is he a bad cook because he adds too much spice, or he is a bad cook because he’s a bad cook? He did manage to cook congee for the ducklings in Yi Cheng without any fatalities. so I’m inclined to believe the former.

~Lan Qiren definitely thinks Wei Wuxian is a terrible cook, especially after hearing about how Wei Wuxian burned a hole in a pot.

~But Wei Wuxian is Wei Wuxian and even if he can’t be trusted with spices (or anything remotely resembling seasoning), he can make plain congee just fine....after some practice

~Lan Qiren eats this congee and it’s a perfectly good congee. Ideal thickness, light taste, no spices, slides down the throat smoothly and pairs perfectly with his dried zhacai (pickled mustard; a super common Chinese side dish). He asks who made the congee, expecting it to be Sizhui. He chokes when he is told Wei Wuxian is the cook.

~Lan Qiren knows how to be a good parent in theory. He’s just terrible at putting it to practice.

~Jingyi’s parents, when he was still a terrible toddler wreaking havoc everywhere, went to Lan Qiren for desperate advice like “why is our child such a terrible Lan???”

~But Jingyi isn’t actually Lan Qiren’s kid so he actually gives good advice. “Give him a toy, he’ll tire himself out for his nap,” “Let him crawl around, just cover sharp objects and table corners,” and “give him a crushed peach as a reward for walking across the room”

~But he doesn’t know how to talk to Xichen or Wangji as family. He loves them both dearly – obviously he raised them, but they’re also good nephews!! Questionable taste in men aside, they are excellent nephews! He just doesn’t know how to talk to them outside of official sect business.

~Especially with Wangji, He kind of did declare Wangji’s husband a heretic, a traitor, was extra hard on Wei Wuxian as a student, Wangji for visiting Wei Wuxian. And there’s that whole discipline whip thing.

~Which, to be fair, did end up saving Wangji’s life. Raising his sword against Sect Elders and one’s own family is an act of treason punishable by execution. But Lan Qiren can’t just execute his own nephew….he has a heart, even if no one believes it

~33 discipline lashes from the discipline whip is very harsh and Lan Qiren won’t pretend otherwise. But he could gamble that Wangji’s core is strong enough to pull him through. Because the odds of a living, resentful Wangji is better than a dead Wangji.

~They never talk about this. There are a lot of things they don’t talk about.

~Even before, Lan Qiren isn��t a bad parent. He just has no idea how to put his ideas of parenting into practice. He knows what a good parent looks like, he just doesn’t know how to be one.

~So he hides behind the rules because the rules can’t go that wrong, right? Right???

~Lan Qiren is lowkey jealous of Wei Wuxian for knowing how to be affectionate. He definitely thinks Wei Wuxian is too open with his emotions, but he is envious that Wei Wuxian and Wangji are open to each other in a way that Lan Qiren never established with either nephew. They are loyal in the filial manner of juniors to their elders, but Lan Qiren isn’t exactly close to his nephews.

~In his ongoing attempt to be a better uncle, he ends up getting advice from Wei Wuxian about emotions.

~It’s not like he can go to anyone else. And, well. That congee was really good.

~Turns out Wei Wuxian can brew the perfect pot of tea, too.

~Offensive. That Wei Wuxian is so competent and the least emotionally repressed person in all of Cloud Recesses.

~Eventually, Lan Qiren begins to understand why Wangji is so attached to Wei Wuxian, even if he still can’t stand to be in the same room as Wei Wuxian for longer than 15 minutes.

~No matter how much he might no longer hate Wei Wuxian, he prefers their interactions in small doses and spaced out.

~But he does learn to bond with Wei Wuxian over cultivation theory. Annoyingly, Wei Wuxian is just too useful to continue to despise.

#mdzs #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #cql #lan qiren #meta meta meta

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liyawritesss · 4 years

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Hello, I'm a new follower and I love your blogs aesthetic it's very calming, something that more needed in these weird times. Anyways, I hope you're doing well and are taking care of yourself. Can I humbly request (feel free to ignore this if you want) relationship headcanons with Zuko? Hope you're taking care of yourself and are drinking water.

A Relationship w/ Fire Lord Zuko Would Include...

Thank you so much lovelie! You're so sweet. You actually just reminded me to drink some water 😅😅

I see you've got an eye for the Fire Lord, aye? I don't blame you- who doesn't love emotionally scarred, touch-starved men? I'll be doing Fire Lord Zuko for this one since it wasn't specified for pre or post coronation, so I hope that's okay!

Warnings: fem! black/poc! reader, vague mention of past abuse

Zuko may have been in a relation ship once with Mai, but to be quite honest the reason that relationship didn't work out was because both were takers. Both wanted something the other couldn't give, which resulted in fighting, doubts, distrust, and eventually separation.

Therefore, it would, be best for Zuko to have someone that understands he can't just give himself competely to someone, regardless of how much he wants to, because he wasn't build like that (Wow look at that the demiromantic hc came out).

Zuko would have had to known you for some time before feelings started to blossom. And even then he'd deny them, constantly trying to convince himself that you were just a friend to him and nothing more.

However, its those moments when you show him how understanding and accepting you are that he can't kid himself anymore about what he feels in his heart.

Once he's ready to let himself be loved, oh boy, you're in for a ride.

He's super attentive of you, remembers what you like and dislike, remembers topics of conversations to bring back up later on, and always considers your opinion on situations.

At the beginning he's a bit awkward, especially with physical touch. He's almost always blushing because it's a new experience for him, and he's not sure what to do that won't make you upset or embarrass him.

He's not the best with physical affection, and we all know why.

You'll have to take the lead for a bit in this aspect, but once he's out of that nervous shell, he'll be the one to initiate it. Always in private though, he doesn't think he can handle being so close to you around people. He might just burst.

In this sense, if it's not simple hand holding than PDA is off the table.

Won't admit he's a cuddlebug, but he definitely is. Sleeping with you brings him so much comfort, and he feels safe and secure in your arms. Will definitely be the kind of person to pull you closer to him if he feels you moving away, or while when it's time to get up for the day.

Depending on his love language, Zuko would either give you small trinkets, take you on walks in the garden, or just pull you into an enveloping hug when you're alone. He might even try to write you something, and although he's embarrassed, he wants you to understand the raw emotions he has for you even if they're a jumbled mess on paper. They'd be even worse coming out of his mouth, so writing them down was his only option.

If you bed him enough, he might let you take a ride on his dragon. And if he sees how much you enjoy it, he'll make it little once a month date kind of thing

Zuko's self conscious of his scar, but will allow you to see it, touch it, kiss it, because it's the most vulnerable part of himself that he wants to share with you.

People pity him for it, even now, and so to know that you see it as a part of himself that's made him a better person, it makes him extremely happy.

If you run your hands though his hair, he'll definitely fall asleep on you. And he won't be sorry about it. He fucking loves it and has no shame in asking for you to do it for him after a stressful day.

As much of a reputation Zuko has to hold up as Fire Lord, he'll turn into the softest puppy for you. And he won't let anyone talk down on your name. Let someone challenge your honor, and he's gonna turn super scary super quick.

He won't abuse his power as Fire Lord, but one look i to those eyes and whoever spoke bad about you will scatter like roaches he also has other personal to take care of the situation oop-

The Gaang all love you, and often make jokes about how you agreed to date him. Sokka teases Zuko about how much he loves you, but at some point Zuko just ignores the watertribe boy. Partially because it's annoying having to say the same thing over and over again, partially because Sokka's not entirely wrong when he says Zuko's head over heels for you.

The one thing Zuko asks of you is to be honest with him. Call him out on his bullshit, hold him accountable, treat him like the adult he wants to be. You're his backbone, someone who he can rely on, who he comes to when he needs support. And as much as you and support him and love him, Zuko wants you to be real with him to. He can't be a proper ruler with people sugarcoating things for him.

He may be scarred, but he's still a person who deserves love and he's glad to have you be his lover.

I feel like I didn't do justice for Zuko. Honestly he's such a complex character that it's hard for me to articulate for him. Then again, it's his complexity that makes me love him as well. I hope this fits what you wanted, lovely!

If you enjoyed this, leave a like, a comment, and reblog for others to see! And don't be shy to request something!

#black reader #black tumblr #poc reader #poc tumblr #avatar the last airbender #atla #atla zuko #fire lord zuko #zuko x reader

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mwolf0epsilon · 3 years

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“Eps’s Notes on The Illusion of Living”

It's taken me nearly three months to get this done due to writer’s block kicking my sorry butt. But, as promised, here are my notes on the "Illusion of Living". Good god has this been painful… But I did have a lot of stuff I initially thought of Joey somewhat confirmed for me, and got a few extra interesting tidbits of info that I feel are very curious...

--{Key}--

Italics are my opinion

--{Key}--

--{Quick retelling of the book’s contents}--

The Drews were among the more impoverished families in New Jersey, and Joey's father briefly worked in the silk industry to make end's meet before opening his own shoe store (that his mother oversaw profits for as the accountant). As such there were obvious limitations to a lot of Joey’s upbringing (like a lack of toys to entertain him with, and very few family vacations/trips that were memorable).

According to Joey, the shoes sold at his family’s store were primarily designed for people in the working class (clunky shoes and boots that would endure wear and tear rather than be flashy or comfortable to wear, which Joey complained never really fit him right), and had one singular design that was simply improved upon rather than any variety (I suppose the saying here would be “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” but Joey really seemed to have some sort of issue with this, as he disliked his father’s works).

Joey's mother was a hardworking housewife and the primary parent when it came to rearing her child. She educated and played with him more than his father, so Joey was much fonder and emotionally close to her than to him and, while Joey’s father wasn’t an absent parent by any means, he was definitely more engrossed in working to sustain the family.

This family dynamic definitely had some impact on Joey, especially since his mother got him interested in the art of storytelling in general, and he seemed to have a lot more respect for her than for his father. In fact he even had a few reservations regarding his father’s mental integrity when he discovered his talent for making voices in a rather odd manner.

It should be noted here that, while Joey's father was strong, he looked deceptively frail and wasn't considered a particularly brave man by any means. He was however regarded as a bit of an entrepreneur, and Joey was very concerned that he may not be sane (which was a bit of taboo at the time, considering treatment for mental health issues hadn’t advanced past lobotomies and other disturbing medical malpractices) because he talked and sang to himself in curious little voices while he worked. Curiously enough, while a patient and loving man, Joey's father wasn't aversed to cursing around his young son (although Joey himself doesn't seem to use crass language, even if it was normalized in the household). Another curious thing to note is that Joey greatly dislikes mud, and especially hated it as a child (alluding to his later obsessive cleanliness as an adult).

Because of the financial issues his family suffered through, Joey didn't have a radio or many books growing up, and was thus more fond of Vaudevilles (specifically theatrical comedy, tragedy, and bizarre/surreal acts) which were pretty common in his city of birth. This interest for theatrics and third person story perspectives mixed terribly with later events in his life, like how at age 10 he witnessed a potential murder/suicide (Jesus christ...). Through this event he realized that there were different kinds of people in specific situations, especially when faced with the finality of death. Joey goes so far as to describe how theatrical the death was (Almost sounding disconnected from the reality of the situation as he noted that the crowd and even his own father seemed more like characters to him than real people). However, since Joey's neighborhood was ripe with strange people, he wasn't unfamiliar with bizarre events happening around him. Seeing a motorized ambulance was more amazing to a 10 year old him than actually caring for the death of a stranger at the front of his father's store.

At age 12, Joey went to Coney Island for the first time, and the journey excited him greatly since he didn't get to leave home very often. The trip to Coney Island was magical in a sense, and later in life he hoped to replicate it in Bendyland to a more permanent degree (the trip back home ruptured the magical effect, which he didn't want to happen with Bendyland).

Joey has his own set of rules he plays by which he considers his life’s philosophy that he calls "The Illusion of Living". This was inspired by several events in his life, including his father passing the time by playing make believe (the Shoemaker and the Elves). This unique perception of what illusion and reality are (“the same thing”), seems to point to Joey having developed a dissociative personality disorder from a young age, which got progressively worse as he grew older. This in addition with the ADHD patterns he displays in his confusing rambling writing (and Joey rambles a LOT), and the almost OCD behaviour in regards to cleaning up after himself, indicates Joey lacked impulse control and was more prone to listening to intrusive thoughts.

Joey's view of reality was often confusing to others and he greatly enjoyed poking fun out of slowly getting them to his point of view. Conversations with Joey were thus quite frustrating to some, but no less curious to others that actually tried to understand what the “Illusion of Living” was about (Like Nathan). According to Joey, only a few people ever got close to understanding it.

Joey enlisted to fight in the first war after he lied about his age (He was 15 years old, a year younger than the required age to enlist at the time). Out of all the positions in the army, he seemed most interested in comms, and considered himself more decent in communicating than actually fighting in the front lines.

It seems like Joey greatly enjoyed how he looked in uniform, and was also particularly finicky about his looks in general despite being in boot camp.

He made friends in the army, Private Donaldson and Private Eckhart, which Nathan (who worked at the tech lab that Joey later worked for) attests to being accurately described in the book. They were slightly older than Joey and were also interested in communication tech and shared his sense of humor. They also influenced Joey's social life, and tried to get him to date some gals that he wasn’t remotely interested in (the first indication that he may not be straight).

Another close friend Joey had in the army was Lottie (a communications officer) and he used to "chaperone" her whenever the four went out to party. He seemed to have a considerable amount of respect for her (which is likely a result of growing up observing his mother, thus understanding that women were competent in positions where other men would scoff at the idea of them working at all). As such he was quite supportive of the War's “Hello Girls” (comms female officers). Interestingly enough this contradicts Joey's sexist persona that he seems to take on in Dream Come to Life (a mask that seems to be among many others he employs to fit in with the rest of society).

Lottie was his special gal pal in the platonic sense and, while he often ate alone to be left with his thoughts, she usually sought him out to talk to.

Joey only ever empathized with people he was close to, often reserving telling stories to comfort his friends specifically. It was the only way he could brighten their day (which later supposedly helped a disillusioned Lottie when she was sent to serve in London). What one could take away from Joey’s days as a soldier was that he was incredibly perceptive in terms of studying people. He easily recognized people’s handwriting, and was greatly fascinated by others’s personalities.

He could also easily charm people just from reading into what they might be interested in, and liked the thought of subliminally impressing others (which he later incorporated into his cartoons). It’s never mentioned, but Joey was likely honorably discharged since the war ended in 1918 and didn’t need to return to the service of the military when the second world war hit (keeping in mind Joey appears to have mobility issues later in life, he might have not been fit for field duty).

At age 19 Joey ended up involved in investigating the murder case of Walter Richmond, a signal corps soldier Joey met briefly in his service days. The victim in question was responsible for documenting the war efforts, not being necessarily that great of a photographer, but taking a certain amount of pleasure in capturing the most viscerally gruesome pictures possible for shock value. How Joey got involved was a curious thing in of itself, since he didn’t know the victim all that well, nor cared to get to know him. Detective Adam Sinclair (a tall hulking man wearing the typical trenchcoat and fedora combo, who’s most noticeable features were his aged face and unshaven 5’o’clock shadow) tracked him down to his little minimalistic (and obsessively clean and tidy) apartment to question him. Joey was initially unsurprised that an ex-soldier ended up dead (not from the war, but likely ptsd), and was instead surprised that it was a murder case. He ended up inserting himself into the case as Sinclair’s shadow to help solve it. The reason was mostly out of self-interest, but his perspective did seem useful to the detective in the end. Throughout the investigation Joey displayed a few particular traits that indicate his attentive and peculiar nature, such as the way he reads others (their way of dressing and upkeep of posture), the manner of which he judges a good handshake, his distaste for smoking (which was taught to him via the idea that if something smells bad it’s usually bad for you) and drinking (he tries to be careful with alcohol intake in general, as he’s more accustomed to beer than drinks like champagne which one could over-indulge recklessly without noticing). Joey’s fascination for taboo subjects (war, violence, and death specifically) is also noted when he observes the victim’s photographic works.

This is a prevalent theme in an art gallery event where these particular subjects seemed to linger strongly in his mind, to the point where he noticed when one of the photos he recalls having seen before during his brief meeting with Richmond, appeared to be missing from the display. A detail that appeared to be dismissed by others, but of great interest to Sinclair.

During this same gallery event, there was an incident set up by the murderer that involved a firecracker and a crowbar that set off a lot of panic. Joey’s work at the signal corps labs saved him from the brutality of the trenches, but he's apparently familiar with the effects of severe PTSD (And ironically notes that reliving the same painful event over and over again is his definition of true horror/personal hell).

It became very apparent to both Joey and Sinclair that the murderer was amongst them, and that this onslaught of panic was a message: That the murder of the frontline photographer was personal.

They did in fact come into contact with the perpetrator and, after a while of radio silence between Joey and Sinclair, the case was solved with...Minimal success. While Sinclair knew who killed Walter Richmond, he unfortunatelly did not have enough proof to convict her (the sister of a casualty of war that could have easily been saved, had Richmond not left him for dead because it fit his narrative of the war just fine), thus allowing her to get away with literal murder. Worse yet, the resolution of the case seemed to further disconnect Joey from reality and consequence. He gained a disdain for Adam Sinclair where once he’d respected him as an authority figure of sorts, finding that he’d accomplished his role and still failed miserably. In the end, the only thing to come out of teaming up with Sinclair was learning a social skill that Joey employed later on, by mirroring back certain aspects of a person so they’d be more comfortable around him. Otherwise the detective became nothing more than a distant memory. Unimportant in Joey’s later narrative.

Two years later, Joey started working for a bookstore where he began satiating his vast hunger for knowledge, now that he had access to all sorts of books he could never afford as a child. Joey is fairly well read with an interest in various genres, although it was previously noted that during his army service people made fun of him for especially liking fictional novels. Joey being Joey however, wasn’t overly fussed about others’s opinions on what he sought enjoyment from, especially when it came to storytelling. Aside from getting his reading quota filled out, his bookstore job also helped him develop his salesperson skills through reading his customers. Through his experiences with his father’s shop and shadowing Sinclair, he had by now understood that people were highly superficial, and that he could apply whatever knowledge he gathered from them into how he sold his pitch to them. His charisma seemed to lure in customers.

While working at the store he met Abby Lambert who he immediately noticed had an eye for art. Joey quickly became friends with her and seemed to greatly appreciate her no-nonsense attitude towards life in general, going so far as to respect her capabilities as a working lady where other men would be disdained with her difficult attitude. In fact, he wondered why anyone wouldn’t hire her to do a job she could clearly handle, just because she was a woman (again contradicting his sexist persona). As a connoisseur of the arts, Abby was the one to fully introduce Joey to her favourite craft. He especially took an interest in Impressionism and its influences.

Abby also supposedly introduced Henry to Joey, which the latter insists wasn’t really that remarkable of an event since Henry was “unimaginative” and “lacking in talent” due to his specialty in cartoon caricatures, and not the richer awe inspiring paintings Joey seemed to prefer (basically Joey spends any given time in the book trying to make Henry seem as insignificant as possible out of pure unadulterated pettiness, which physically pains me).

Ironically, in terms of entertainment, Joey later favoured cartoons as the more appealing form of films since most other mediums didn’t really spark his interest, even if the genres were ones he found fascinating (I suppose that despite films being works of fiction most times, Joey likely thought real life actors were far too limited in their acts due to the natural limitations of the human body).

Returning to Abby, her friendship seemed to be more impactful to Joey than most others. Like with how he preferred his mother’s company to his father’s, Abby seemed to be one of few people he actually felt comfortable around, to the point where her criticism didn’t bother him. She was also mindful of him, where she could recognize Joey’s “preferences” and made it a point to clarify to him that their outings were purely platonic so he wouldn’t get uncomfortable in those situations.

Three years after meeting Abby and Henry, Joey became a manager at the bookstore and Henry began working there as well (by Joey’s suggestion it seems), and only then did they sort of start developing a meek little friendship of sorts (although Joey seems very dismissive about it and focuses primarily on Abby).

During that time, the idea to start his own business came about from two different events that happened that year. The first being his first ever theatrical script that he wrote and performed with Abby at a gallery event. During the performance of this little play (the theme of which was an angel and a demon discussing their role in influencing a mortal’s life), Joey discovered that he greatly enjoyed controlling situations and got way too into it (even considers what he could get away with in the name of entertainment, such as if he could act out actual violent or scandalous behaviours if he proclaimed it a part of the show).

The second event was his father sending him shoes once a year (which, because Joey disliked the make of his father’s shoes, he tried to get him to stop by pretending they weren’t arriving at his address or that they were getting stolen). As a means to ensure he got them, Joey's father started sending the packages to the bookstore. A doodle and writing on the package ended up inspiring Joey to create his own studio as he wanted to take flight in the entertainment industry.

Having thus decided that he wanted to open up a film studio of some kind, Joey immediately set off to get himself a memorable mascot. He had a vague idea of what he needed and what might be appealing to an audience, but he wasn’t particularly skilled in character design and openly admitted to this. Abby, who was also not particularly good at drawing cartoons, understood that her more realistic style wouldn’t really help (or appeal to) Joey, so she enlisted Henry’s help. Knowing that Joey was a bit picky in regards to how he evaluated art, she thought perhaps she could persuade him to take a liking to Henry’s works (which he wasn’t particularly fond of, due to Henry mostly working with pen-drawings of cartoon characters and caricatures that looked very unremarkable to him) if he could only see him actually work his “magic”. Joey was reluctant to bring Henry into his business plan, but upon actually reaching a design within a few minutes (that took a few tries experimenting with animal and human features in more detailed and then simplified ways) of Joey giving some directions, he seemed to be sold on bringing Henry on board.

Henry designing the company mascot was thus the final push to open up Joey Drew Studios.

The two began their partnership not too long after, and from then on out things got interesting very quickly.

The history behind the studio is...Not an easy one to validate in terms of whether or not Joey is sincere or even really knows certain dates (the more I look into the beginning of the book and the later exposition of information, the more I realized either Joey was starting to trip himself up on dates or his memory was visibly failing him). There are a lot of discrepancies in the dates provided, with some going back on how long Henry remained in the studio (even claiming to have at some point surrounded him with other animators and even a lead artist a year prior to his departure), when Sammy and Jack were hired (He says he hired Sammy in 1929 during the Wallstreet Crash, but later says he hired both him and Jack after the Wallstreet Crash), among other things... Joey Drew Studios was primarily funded by Mrs. Richmond (the mother of Walter Richmond), as Joey had forged friendships with the people involved in the case he’d helped Sinclair investigate (including the murderer whom he had grown to respect).

While other investors aren’t really brought up, it’s implied Nathan also had a hand in helping the studio taking off, as Joey often met up with him at the Russian Tearoom whenever he could. During these private meetings, Nathan would impart advice on Joey. Advice which he seemed to not care for, as he already had his own concerns at the time.

It seemed that his main plan was to acquire a talented and capable team to achieve his dream. A team Joey thought he wouldn’t need to "baby-sit", as he specifically wanted to hire individuals that were as studious and capable as he saw himself (curiously Joey mentions that Henry’s work ethic was exactly what he wanted, as Henry had never held work back or needed to be checked up on, which to Joey was an invaluable attribute).

For at least two years, the Bendy Cartoons were nothing but silence and sound effects (something we actually see in-game in BatIM Chapter One when the projector suddenly turns on and we hear nothing but the clicking of the projector and Joey’s whistling), which put them at a bit of a disadvantage when it came to competing with other animation studios.

This soon changed when Joey came across Sammy Lawrence and Jack Fain at a party he was attending on his 30th birthday (which he wasn’t celebrating, the party was a completely different event so supposedly Joey doesn’t care much for his own birthday).

He was already familiar with Sammy’s musical skills (mostly playing the piano quite masterfully), as he’d seen him perform at the theater when Sammy was still a teenager. Noticing him and Jack at the party was entirely accidental and was mostly due to the fact that, while Sammy was trying to keep out of the spotlight as he played, Jack’s showmanship shone through and caught Joey’s eye with how boisterous he was in their musical performance.

Joey approached them once their act was done and managed to convince them to work for him. Jack seemed to be immediately on board, while Sammy was a little more guarded in his agreement and immediately set up his stipulations for the job. This seemed to lean Joey’s interest towards Sammy (who Joey was unhealthily fascinated with because he was clearly not an easy man to control) more than Jack (who he likely considered too easy a read in terms of character, thus not much of a challenge to sway or condition).

By 1933 Joey officially bought the entire building the studio was set up in (which up until then was occupied by other people seeking their own ventures). Expansion and new hires likely started a year or so later and continued on despite financial instability, and between 1941 and 1942 Joey was already starting to work out how he’d get Bendyland to be just as perfect and spectacular as he had always envisioned (which was difficult because he never really got it to feel just right in his eyes, and something felt off to him).

In between listing several different projects, vaguely describing an innovative techniques (Sillyvision which seems to be linked with the Golden Ink?), and even setting up his own 7 rules on how to animate to help set up a guide for aspiring animators, Joey slowly drifts away from the studio topic and finalizes his book rather abruptly.

He insinuates there’s a lot more for him to tell but little to no connection with the “Illusion of Living” philosophy and he’d rather focus on his actual physical work with the Studio than sit down and write further, so he finishes off on a rather...Vague note.

--{On Joey Drew}--

Year of Birth - 1901 (Day and month are never mentioned, but it's possible that his favouring of the autumnal season alludes to a fall month) Year of Death - ??? (Supposedly he's died, hence why Nathan claimed the Bendy IP) Birth City: Born and raised in Paterson "Silk City", New Jersey (Joey doesn't seem to have an accent, so he likely masks it, or made an effort to lose it). Physical Characteristics: As a child he used to have curly hair (Considering the era’s general fashion and style, it’s very likely that Joey either cut his hair too short to see the curls, or simply uses too much gel to seem more presentable) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Homosexual with Demiromantic subtones (Joey seems to be closed off in general, but more appreciative of the male figure. Could be interpreted as demisexual however, since Joey himself doesn't seem to like wasting time around people he doesn't have much of a bond with) Notes: Here are several notes I’ve compiled about Joey and his opinions on certain things and people. There’s a lot to look at as this man rambles like an old lady at a friday night bingo event, and thus I had a lot to take in!

Laughter is important to him.

Seems to be a dog person.

Likes Cheerios (yes this was a super necessary detail I had to jot down).

Considers having his ideas disclosed without permission to be disloyal.

Seems to have some sort of dissociative personality disorder (likely brought on by trauma or another undiagnosed mental disorder).

People-Watcher by nature.

Was taught by his father that the shoe makes the man (aka the art of studying people through their shoes).

Joey believes in the saying "The Truth is in the Pudding", a saying his mother often employed.

Never had enough money to own a pair of nice fitting shoes until he was 26.

Is narcissistically vain. Easily takes insult if people assume he can't look presentable.

His service in the army gave him experience with "experimental tech".

Enjoys music a lot, and he was considered a great dancer.

Finds modern feminine fashion standards appealing.

Disliked the way those with money romanticized lacking material gains. Found it personally disrespectful in a way, since he himself came from a poor family.

Seems appalled by too much color on one's wear (Joey is the goddamn fashion police).

Very picky about the arts.

Apparently disliked Henry's art style(???).

Lets people believe Henry is the creator of the toons, in an act of being holier than thou. (You lying son of a gun, stop lying to everyone and yourself whaddahell).

Joey's analogy of Henry starting a journey but Joey being the one to reap the benefits, is likely the truest thing he's said in this nightmare of a novel (boastful bastard...).

Thinks of Bendy as his firstborn, muse and messenger.

Took an art class with Abby (likely not a full art course, just a simple class to get the gist of it?).

Considers art the doorway to immortality.

Doesn't like post-mortem success (it frightens him, even). He'd rather be successful in his lifetime.

Admits to making mistakes, but not many. He also thinks mistakes don't need to be permanent.

Doesn't know what true rest is like, and is unsure if he'll ever be content enough to rest. On that same note he seems to really hate sitting still and his mind tends to wander, which he notes Nathan recognized with ease, even reserving a specific look for him (It’s the ADHD baby).

His friend Kyle was a lazy person and a gossip, which were traits Joey found annoying.

On their first meeting, Joey described having a desire to shove Sammy off a roof to see a more human reaction from him.

Assumes Jack is jealous of the attention he gives Sammy, or that the duo's relationship is strained, despite him barging into their lives out of the blue and making him feel like a third wheel.

Seems to think of himself as some sort of a messenger (going so far as to akin himself to the god, Mercury). His life’s mission is to help those who don't know they need to be helped (mostly through spreading happiness and laughter in such a dark and dreary era of human history). Bendyland is essentially Joey's means to fulfil this desire, as well as to chase his own need for a properly realized mixture of immersion and illusion.

He wanted Bendyland to be perfect, even the plot of land it might be built in needed to be perfect, so he inspected it himself with Nathan once he bought the deed.

Appears to refuse to call Bertrum by his proper name once he’s corrected the first time. Referring to him instead as either Bertie or Bert (toying with him perhaps? Testing boundaries?)

Doesn't drive. He instead hired a personal driver, Simmons.

For a little while he was living the American Dream, but thought of how he lived as less of a shared goal and more of a personal one (again setting himself apart from others).

His days were quite flexible and he seemed to despise set routines. He also doesn't like sleeping in. He liked to take a walk in central park early in the morning.

Joey used to make his rounds around the studio but the installation of the Ink Machine changed that habit a bit.

Nonchalantly notes that Shawn Flynn got a little defensive if he needed to be corrected on his work (OCD much, Joey? He was painting a lot of dolls by hand, slipups happen...).

He had priority meetings with Sammy, "meetings" with Jack (Sir what are these quotation marks for, are you snogging Jack while no one’s watching???), then met with the art department preceding the writing department, and finally he met with Grant Cohen in accounting to discuss finances and budget.

He had the final say in ALL paperwork regarding studio affairs.

Upon reading about it, found the concept of bringing in real animals to produce Disney's Bambi as funny, and joked about how trying to do so with Bendy and Boris would be chaotic.

Noted that Abby and Sammy were likely the only two people who closely understand the philosophy of the illusion of living, but not quite…

Was terrified of being misunderstood. Joey didn’t want to only be able to show half-truths, like a mirror reflecting the world darkly. Rather ironic considering he was quite deceitful in his adult life.

His desire for the world to love Bendy seems to be a projection of wanting to feel loved himself (quite honestly if one were to apply the theory of the id, ego and superego, it seems to me that Bendy is essentially Joey’s id, while Joey himself could be considered the Superego. The chameleonic social mask he wears is thus the ego. At the end of the day Bendy and Joey are and aren’t the same entity...).

Originally he didn't want to make a memoir (likely because he can't be direct and needs to work around the truth to fit him). It could also be that Joey didn’t want to linger on the past nor in death. He wasn't sure where it fit with his philosophy and thus tried not to explore too deep into it (existential dread?).

He wore custom tailored suits, and as of beginning writing TioL he had recently taken to wearing cravats (ever the vain man I suppose…).

Despite considering revisiting the past unnecessary, he couldn’t deny doing so if the time called for it. In fact, the Archives are Joey's memories of the past and he's sentimental enough to collect mementos of bygone eras.

Joey has trophies at home, the deeply personal things he couldn’t bare part with. Like the first sketch of Bendy, a napkin with the design of Bendyland, a letter from Henry, a ticket from a Vaudeville show, and his set of shoes he wore when he was surveying the plot of land where he planned to build Bendyland.

--{On Bendy}--

Notes: Here are a few notes I’ve compiled about the Little Devil Darling himself, and a few curiosities about his creation and the inspiration behind his character.

Bendy was officially created in 1928. According to Joey he was born of a dream, supposedly out of necessity, and he always had this idea of a little devil character doing mischief.

Bendy started off as a realistic little boy with a tail and horns (Abby’s attempt to bring to life Joey’s vague idea). Then, when Henry got involved, he became a cartoonish goat creature. The concepts were quickly worked out from a toony clothed amalgamation of both previous concepts, to a more intermediate design more closely resembling Bendy, and then finally, after Joey requested a simpler more shapely and less detailed toon, Bendy became the iconic little imp clad in only gloves and bowtie.

Joey named him upon seeing the completed design. There are two origins for his name: That of Walter Benjamin Richmond, who’s nickname in life was “Bendy” (a rather morbid homage considering what happened to him), and the mere fact that in Joey’s eyes, his little cartoon imp “bent all the rules”. Henry seemed to appreciate the name.

Bendy is meant to be the devil on one’s shoulders, much like the devil in Joey’s first theatrical play. He is however, a lot more like a little kid playing pranks on people. He is also a sort of embodiment of both the population and human morality (society at its most flawed point, but also quite relatable).

Buster Keaton was an inspiration for Bendy’s many shenanigans and movements, which were always meant to be fluid and a bit bouncy.

--{On Henry Stein}--

Year of Birth - ??? (It’s never mentioned how old Henry is, but I assume he’s around the same age group as Abby, since they were friends and likely went to the same art course. It’s likely that he’s younger than Joey, but not likely by much.) Year of Death - 1963 (It’s not really confirmed if Henry died when he was put into the Cycle, as he doesn’t seem to notice anything odd about himself, but it’s safe to assume the process very likely involves human sacrifice). Birth City: ??? (Unknown, it could be that he was born and raised in New York but Henry lacks a noticeable accent) Physical Characteristics: Average looking? (Irrelevant, he could honestly look like anyone really...) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Presumably Heterosexual (He’s a married man in the 1930s-1960s, he’s either straight or hiding his sexuality, he seems to really like Linda however so could go either way really...) Notes: Here the few notes I could gather of the Henry info we got from TioL. It’s not much but its at least something to work with!

Henry is unremarkable appearance wise (to the point Joey forgot his face easily at first).

The way Henry dressed (mismatched and ill-fitted) indicates he likely grew up in poverty and likely only had hand-me-downs.

He mostly worked with pen-drawn cartoon character designs that were unremarkable but distinctly caricature-like (the Butcher Gang concepts were likely displayed in the gallery Joey attended, as noted by a comment he makes about them). Even if Joey apparently didn’t particularly like his style, Henry’s artwork was one of the final inspirations for the creation of Joey Drew Studios.

He is described as able to draw quite fast, great at taking directions, and as being a good animator. Overall Henry never really had any real need for someone to keep an eye on him which made him an exemplary worker.

According to Joey, Henry used to give pep-talks before he left the studio. This seemed to annoy Joey considerably for some reason (perhaps he was envious that Henry was generally a more likeable person).

Henry is remembered as forgettable, whereas Joey is flashier and more memorable.

Interestingly enough, Henry never claimed to own the design of Bendy, and was more interested in being business partners with Joey than starting a fuss about who owned the rights to Bendy’s creation (It’s very likely that he willingly gave Joey the design because Bendy was his character, and that instead the designs Joey did steal were that of Boris the Wolf, Alice Angel, and the Butcher Gang, the five other more notorious characters in the Bendy franchise).

--{On Abby Lambert}--

Year of Birth - ??? (It’s never mentioned how old Abby is, but I assume she’s around the same age group as Henry, since they were friends and likely went to the same art course. It’s likely that she’s younger than Joey, but not likely by much.) Year of Death - Possibly 1946 (Upon finally losing himself to the ink, Sammy seemed to have been actively hunting the Art Department and any stragglers that he encountered in the studio, so it can be assumed she died in the chaos) Birth City: ??? (Unknown but more likely to be born and raised in New York than Henry) Physical Characteristics: Frizzy hair, even when bobbed. Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Potentially Bisexual (She seemed to be acutely aware of Joey’s “peculiarities” so it’s possible she’s either a member of the LGBTQ community or perhaps an ally. Whatever the case it’s up for debate and interpretation.) Notes: Here are several notes I’ve compiled about Abby and some of her traits and mannerisms. There was surprisingly a lot more to work with than I expected.

She wasn’t really into the typical female fashion of the time. In fact, Abby wasn’t exactly fond of the typical mannerisms associated with women and was both notoriously rude and dressed herself in a “scandalously” modern manner (which is basically code for more practical less femenine clothing).

According to Joey, Abby is a very focused and determined person, which is why he admired her greatly. She didn’t know when to quit, however, and sometimes took things too far or involved others in situations or projects they didn’t want to be involved in.

She wasn’t very good at drawing original cartoon characters, and Joey was apparently not overly fond of her attempts at putting his ideas to paper due to her more realistic art style.

Abby was very insistent on Joey looking at Henry's works, even if he wasn't particularly interested in them (While it’s never said if she enjoys his art herself, it can be assumed she appreciates it enough that she’d want their mutual friend to see the potential Henry had).

She didn’t join the studio as the replacement Director of the Art Department until 1931, as during its founding she was still finishing art school. She and Henry never worked together. Despite this, she and Henry remained in touch even after he left for Pasadena.

--{On Sammy Lawrence}--

Year of Birth - ??? (From how Joey describes him, it can be assume Sammy was a teenager around either Joey’s early or late 20s before they officially met on Joey’s 30th birthday) Year of Death - 1946? (Sammy is one of few people who was turned without being killed first so it’s hard to tell if he’s really dead even within the Cycle since it’s a time loop...) Birth City: ??? (Sammy lacks a noticeable accent so it’s hard to tell where he’s from). Physical Characteristics: Has been described as bird-like and insect-like, with either brown or blond hair that’s kept longer than the typical fashion of the time (Not much more is known about his actual appearance but it can be assumed he’s either average sized or on the tall side considering his in-game height and build) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Potentially Biromantic with a lot of Demiromantic subtones. Possibly Asexual? (Again this is pure speculation on my part because he did seem interested in Susie but isn’t really a people person in general. Does seem to know how to reign in people tho, so ???) Notes: Here are a few curious notes I’ve compiled about Sammy, the circumstances behind his hiring, and how much control he actually had as the music director.

He has an unusual appearance that, while not necessarily described as ugly, was clearly outstanding enough that some people were put off (Buddy) and others thought him handsome (Susie). His hair is also described as messy.

Sammy is an avid smoker.

He was among a few other musicians employed by the theater to drown out projector sounds and match the mood in silent films. Because he was good at improvising music on the spot, Sammy was excellent at carrying the story presented on screen through his melodies, which was what caught Joey’s eye when he first saw Sammy perform.

Sammy also recognized Joey and didn’t believe his dismissal that he was a “town person”. In fact, Sammy pinpointed the recognition to the fact Joey was that one loner that sat in the front row of the theater he played at.

It becomes very apparent that Sammy is suspicious of people in general. The way he observes others indicates he’s had some sort of struggle growing up. As such, he’s not big on sustaining conversations and he managed to aggravate Joey slightly by the way he addressed him on their first proper meeting.

Sammy had a songbook he shared with Jack, meaning they had a strong trust bond, which is why he only agrees to work for Joey based on Jack’s willingness to also be hired. Even so, he immediately set up professional boundaries for his position. He hired his own people without Joey’s interference, and he only ever indulged him if Joey was being particularly exasperating.

It’s very likely that since Sammy was the one hiring who worked for the music department, that he was the one who hired Norman Polk. This theory is made stronger by the fact he immediately demanded a projector and projectionist booth so he could better do his job.

Despite his surly disposition, Sammy is a no nonsense sort who wants things done and over with, rather than sit around and stall. As such Joey considered him one of the best decisions he made in terms of career.

Funnily enough, because the band seemed to be skittish around Joey, Sammy specifically prohibited his presence in the music department unless they had a scheduled meeting. This likely meant Joey was scarcely ever seen in the music department so as to not aggravate Sammy in person.

Alice Angel’s bigger (and failed) presence in the franchise is likely a consequence of another one of Sammy’s stipulations upon being hired. He had immediately noted that if the studio wanted to go anywhere, they’d need a female character (Perhaps Sammy really believed what he told Susie due to despising Bendy and actually favouring Alice as a character).

--{On Jack Fain}--

Year of Birth - ??? (Possibly around the same age as Sammy or a little older?) Year of Death - ??? (He was gone long before a few other people in the studio, likely in the first few experiments Joey performed) Birth City: ??? (Hard to tell, he doesn’t have an easily identifiable accent). Physical Characteristics: Has been described as an atrocious dresser (This man likes wearing bright colors!) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Potentially Homosexual subtones (Not enough information provided to tell) Notes: Sadly lacking in the information department for Jack.

Jack is incredibly sociable and trusts easily. He's described as making bad jokes but laughing genuinely at them. His smiles are contagious.

Jack is an optimist sort who sees the good in any situation (even when being led around in a dark creepy room by a peculiar stranger).

--{On Bertrum Piedmont}--

Year of Birth - ??? (He was retired, so it’s likely he was around his 60s or early 70s when Joey first met him) Year of Death - ??? (It’s unknown when exactly he ended up in the Ink Machine but it’s very possible he was killed when all hell broke loose in the studio) Birth City: ??? (No clue). Physical Characteristics: Joey describes him (rather rudely) as a very portly man. Sexual/Romantic Preferences: ??? (No idea, chief...) Notes: Lacking in the information department like Jack, but what we get is a lot more substantial.

Bertrum was actually retired when Joey managed to get a hold of him. It took a bit of detective work on Mrs. Rodriguez's (Joey's secretary) part to actually find him as well, so he was not an easy man to get an appointment with.

His creative vision impressed Joey enough that the latter he ignored his apparent dislike for reminiscing so as to get him on board of the Bendyland project.

While discussing the Bendyland Project, Bertrum confidently jokes about it being quite the catch. He agrees to joining forces with Joey as long as he gets full creative control of the entire project. Although Joey agreed to this, he still managed to fight Bertrum on a few ideas, which annoyed him greatly.

It’s very likely that it didn’t take long for their initially friendly relationship to sour into open hostility on Bertrum’s part.

--{On Wally Franks}--

Year of Birth - ??? (No clue, but he was very likely in his late teens or early adult years when he was first hired as the studio Janitor) Year of Death - Supposedly still alive (I really do hope he got outta there like the letter insinuates...) Birth City: Brooklyn, New York. Physical Characteristics: ??? (All we know is he likely wears overalls and a sport’s cap) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Possibly Heterosexual (Unless the letter is a forgery, he apparently has a wife, kids and grandkids) Notes: I’ll admit I didn’t expect to get Wally lore, but here we are!

Wally's actually quite skilled with maintenance. He can tinker with the projectors, other machinery and even plumbing. His schedule is a little off however, but Joey turns a blind eye to it because he gets the job done without question.

--{On Allison Pendle}--

Year of Birth - ??? (No idea! But she was relatively well known when she was hired!) Year of Death - ??? (She was likely lured back to the studio after everything went down but before Henry) Birth City: ??? Physical Characteristics: She’s a beautiful tall blonde according to DCTL Sexual/Romantic Preferences: ??? (She and Thomas are married but I honestly have no clue how to feel about her, she’s a mystery to me.) Notes: Extra minimal Allison lore for your Allison Pendle lore needs.

She was a famous Broadway actress before joining the studio. Interestingly enough, Joey was the one to hire her to replace Susie, not only breaking Sammy’s stipulation on the matter but also stirring Susie into becoming resentful towards Sammy and actually trying to recover her former role at all costs (even her own life).

--{On Nathan Arch}--

Year of Birth - ??? (He was likely a little older than Joey since they were in the army at the same time but Joey lied about his age to enlist earlier) Year of Death - N/A (Still alive and kicking) Birth City: ??? Physical Characteristics: ??? (I guess Boswell Lotsabucks is sorta modeled after him so go off on that???) Sexual/Romantic Preferences: Heterosexual (He has a wife and son and doesn’t give me any other vibes besides and overall instinctual distrust) Notes: Oh boy...I do NOT trust this man...

Immediately upon beginning reading TioL you get the impression that Nathan is not only trying to appear friendly and trustworthy by referring to himself as Nate A, but also that he’s trying to cover for Joey and make him appear more personable to the reader. But to what gain exactly?

Nathan is, like Joey, very narcissistically vain, and is also writing a book of his own (an autobiography maybe?)

He’s a smoker and prefers cigars.

When Joey discusses his childhood, Nathan is unable to contradict or confirm anything as he noted that Joey was always very private about his origins.

Nathan seemed truly surprised and impressed with Joey’s ability to make up uncannily believable stories, even suspecting that his accounts of “Lottie” might have been false as he couldn’t find any of the supposed letters Joey sent her when he started working on republishing TioL (it’s likely he could see that Joey often lied to himself just as much as he lied to others).

It seemed to Nathan that Joey was rather oblivious of subtle compliments.

By the manner of which Nathan phrases it, he seems to think of Joey as a professional and kind man, capable of seeing the good in others. That said, Nathan remarks that Henry's departure was a great betrayal for his friend, and that the latter shouldn't have been so "gracious" and "forgiving" towards him…

When the studio began to struggle financially, Nathan worried that Joey might not be aware of the issue at all, or that perhaps he was lying to himself to cope. He also later notes that Joey’s memories seemed to have deteriorated in his old age. He was often mixing up information and seemed rather guilty, which Nathan considering to be very unbecoming of the man he knew Joey to be.

A lot of the deeply philosophical Joey and Nathan interactions seen in the book might actually have occured between Joey and Henry (the "I think therefore I am" conversation is an especially telling one for me), hence why Nathan doesn't recall them. It also seems more likely because they contradict the way Joey portrays Nathan, but seem to fit his portrayal of Henry better.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #BATIM #The Illusion of Living #TIoL #Notes #Reference

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border-spam · 4 years

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do you have any hc's abt leda? like personality wise or maybe things the twins remember the most about her? i wish we knew more about her 😔🤘 gearbox stop killing mothers of sirens

I have so, so many HCs about Leda. Goddamn. Goddamn.

Amazing art courtesy of @lazulizard, saint.

Per Leech Lord AU:

Theme - Spotify link

Physical:

Tall, 6ft, and slender build.

Dark skin, pale blue eyes, deep brown hair with touches of ochre.

Feline features, slight upwards sloping eyes and full lips.

Wavy, voluminous choppy layered hair down to her midback, short layered bangs. Holds it back with a headband and low tie when busy.

Geek/Punky aesthetic. Few lil’ chains and piercings, few small tattoos of Eridian sigils and geometrics, things the twins subconsciously carried into their own aesthetics.

Traits:

Leda was a generally positive person, who had an infectious energy.

Comfortable in herself emotionally and physically, she was the caring, stable adult that offset Typhon’s easily distracted and excitable personality.

Eccentric in her studies, and willing to talk anyone’s ear off about Eridian and Siren lore if they showed a hint of interest when conversing with her.

Very slight lisp, and otherwise flawless pronunciation. Came from a highly learned family.

She was the black sheep of the Calypsos due to her academic interests, and decided to really just solidify that by eloping with some kind of... gremlin man.

Snorted when she laughed.

Leda was an extremely empathic mother, and the parent that showed the most care and affection.

While Typhon worked great as the fun, entertaining, storyteller of the pair, he relied on Leda to do the brunt of the actual parenting.

Small gap between her front teeth.

Excelled in linguistics and spoke multiple languages fluently. Taught the twins the basics of many language cores as they grew, though a lot more of that time was spent with Troy due to his illness and need to stay in bed.

Could not cook anything. Nothing. Would set fire to water. Could follow a recipe like a rulebook and still end up with raw, burnt food. Typhon could not understand how she had lived as long as she had when they met.

Leda was exceptionally slow to anger and was the kind of person to stay worryingly calm in a heated situation. Once she eventually reached her limit, could deliver viciously cutting retorts that would disarm the other party immediately.

Musically inclined and had a strong singing voice.

Extremely argumentative and tended to talk over Typhon a lot. He was quite submissive to her personality in general, and at times defaulted to being meek around her to a concerning level if he thought her mood was dangerous and it could avoid a disagreement.

While very caring to both twins, she ended up giving Troy far more of her time than Tyreen. Not due to preference in any way, simply because Troy was bedridden for so much of his life and needed so much round the clock care that without meaning to, she sometimes left Tyreen starved of attention compared to her brother.

She did pick up on this, and did her best to have days where Typhon would care for Troy and she could spend full time with her understandably attention hungry daughter.

Sadly, more often than not, these days would leave her so concerned over if Typhon was actually meeting their sons needs, that she’d be not as present with Tyreen as she really should have been, which only escalated Tyreen’s deepset feeling of her mother preferring Troy to her.

This was not remotely true, but in reality, Leda didn’t do enough to make that clear, and it was Tyreen who suffered for it.

Leda was a very tactile person, and showed a lot of physical affection to her family. She would absentmindedly run fingers through the twins hair as she sat in bed with them at night and told them stories of her and Typhon’s adventures, massage sore little limbs, stroke narrow shoulders.

Surprisingly competent at sewing, she crafted most of the children’s clothing from her and Typhon’s old clothes as they grew, including being the person to provide Troy with his first simple leather bracer, to “Keep his soft side nice and safe” on the rare days he had the energy to venture outside and play with his sister.

She died when the twins were 8, and their memories of her are simplified. While they each have different feelings towards her, they never really picked up on some of her negatives as they were too young to fully understand them.

Tyreen has a mix of guilt, loss, and confused resentment towards a woman she remembers as craving love from, Troy visualises her as the the kindness, reassurance, and loving care he still chases.

They both hold her on a kind of emotional pedestal that they subconsciously compare both other people they are interested in, and themselves to. Leda was not the immaculate saint they remember her as, but a flawed, wonderful, human woman.

Horrific taste in men. Girrrrlll what you doinnnnn???

Asks are open! Any regarding AU will prob get priority for now as I work to flesh it as we go.

#Anonymous #borderlands 3 #borderlands #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #typhon deleon #leda calypso #leech lord #my hcs #my writing

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selfhelpskillss · 3 years

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How To Make Him Chase You? 20 Useful Tips For A Romantic Relationship

Ladies, make a pause and prompt them to chase you. We know that you get what we mean. It’s time to learn how to make him chase you.

The fun fact is that men often believe that we are chasing them. We pursue them on social media. We are also present at their favorite places.

We even encounter his close friends. Then, here is the way of changing it and understand how to make men chase you instead.

The article by Self Help Skills will help you find the best solution for you!

Some Tips On How To Get A Man To Chase You

Making a chase has been a missing art. Many girls have been forgetting how effective this action is in causing a man to follow you and fall in love with you.

Although it is difficult to succeed, you can get him to crave you even more.

If you are considering another kind of method to achieve the best and fastest result, keep reading https://selfhelpskills.net/his-secret-obsession-review/ to have the shortest way to your crush’s heart.

Here is the list of 20 profound methods that you will need:

1. Take a busy schedule

It means that you need to show him that you are busy. In other words, when not being with him, you can enjoy your spare time and do what you want.

When being with him in some places, it is better to show that you have so many things to do.

How to get him to chase you? You cannot continuously answer the message at once. You also cannot go around with him day after day.

If he wants a 24/7 partner, it is better to get a pet. He has to find that you also have personal things to do.

Yet, you should keep it at a moderate level. Otherwise, he can find that you are ignoring him. The worst result may be that he is not interested in you anymore.

Take a busy schedule

2. Make him think he has responsibilities

These men have to feel like they are taking responsibility. Men regularly want to make the decision. They want to be on the active side.

It does not mean that you are not making the decision. You simply need to do it secretly. Make him think that he is the controller.

As a result, he tends to take charge of everything about you and chase you. If you may want to make him obsess you, an OFFICIAL WEBSITE will be a great help.

Remember you also need to have your opinions. If not, he will think being with you is so time-consuming.

How to get a guy to chase you

3. Become a confident girl

If you crave to learn how to make a man chase you, it is essential to comprehend that gentlemen love ladies who show confidence.

Regardless of gender or status, a positive individual obtains an extreme attraction to most people.

The reason is that everyone has a tendency to connect to confident girls. Men find that self-reliant ladies are much sexier and more elegant.

Furthermore, men like hunting, and love is a game of hunting. They want to chase courageous prey.

It not only increases the excitement but also creates a feeling of satisfaction. These reasons will prompt them to pursue you and want you more.

Become a confident girl

4. Don’t allow him to perceive he is the only one

Of course, he is not the only person. Remember that there are some guys out there who try to grasp the chance to date you.

To tackle the problem: how to make him chase you again, your task is to show this man that he is not the only person who chases you.

It will remind him that it is a competition. He must compete with other guys to have you. Sound tragedy? It is not. This move just boosts his spirit and makes him pursue you.

You can do it by uploading photos on Instagram with friends and tagging them in the status. The key point is that he wants to see you. The higher the desire is, the stronger the feeling becomes to make a man chase you.

Chasing you cannot satisfy your requirements. You even want more and go further with him. How to make a guy want you(https://selfhelpskills.net/how-to-make-a-guy-want-you/) will help you have the most romantic relationship.

Do not allow him to think he is the only one.

5. Don’t give a man all of the things you have

There is no need for you to sleep with him or give him everything straight away. He is not your boyfriend but your crush. Therefore, you do not need to have a preference that you owe him something.

If you have ever done something wrong, how to make him chase you after you slept with him?

The thing that we cannot have is the most desirable matter. It is similar to this situation. When he cannot have you, hold you in his hand, he will think that you are so precious.

Then, you should keep your time, love, and happiness for yourself, but do not give him all of this.

You don’t need to give him all of the things.

6. Show that you have a life

A dependent woman will make a man feel irritated because men see that you are not unique and not attractive enough to make them chase you.

So you should have your life, consisting of your close friends, your study, and your work. You must demonstrate that you achieve a happy and balanced life without a man. You must prove that you are satisfied with yourself only.

It will make him see you more. He gradually becomes curious about you and pursues you as a consequence.

You need to have an independent life

7. Be a little mystery

This method is very efficient when you crave him to chase you. For the first time, you have a meeting with him, you think that you desire to be with him more. In this situation, you will befriend him and make him take an interest in you.

Still, keep in mind that you need to introduce enough information about yourself. Just saying a little at one time is better for both of you. It will put him in curiosity about you, and he likes chatting with you more.

8. Flirt him

When you want him to pursue you, it does not mean that you need to become the ice queen. It just causes a cold personality that most people do not like.

In the worst situation, he may think that you are underestimating and ignoring him. We think that you do not like this consequence, right? So how to make him chase you in a relationship?

Remember that you need to be passionate about love. Put much effort into your relationship. Then, you should have jokes and flirt with him.

If you aim to make him chase you, indicate that you are keen on him. You must provide him with some reasons to chase you.

This tip will work well if you want to know how to tell if a shy guy likes you.

9. Fewer is better

Suppose you are talking and texting too much for him. Stop these actions because less is more. It will help you make him chase you again psychology. Hold yourself back to have more intelligent ideas that make him go after you.

When having many calls, do not say a lot. Similar to messages, it is more effective to keep them shortened and romantic.

These short sentences instead of long essays are likely to prompt him to read more carefully and appreciate them more.

This trick will work in how to make him chase you long distance. Of course, you do not need to always talk and text just a little. There are some cases where you can show your thoughts in direct conversations.

10. Don’t become swooned over him

Of course, you want to understand how to make him chase you and to do it properly. Still, the ugliest thing is sitting and wrapping his arms as you give him an affectionate look.

He is not the lord. If you want to have a romantic relationship with him, you cannot allow him to think that way. The certain thing is to give him compliments but not to stare at him. It leaves you deprived and clingy.

As a consequence, it seems that you are petitioning for love and care. You show your passiveness in relationships. In that case, you but not he is a follower.

Therefore, you should not become swooned over him. This man should be the person who has strong feelings about you. How to make a guy think about you constantly(https://selfhelpskills.net/how-to-make-him-think-about-you-all-the-time/) will always content you.

11. Become a sexy girl

Become a sexy girl.

How to get a man to chase you? Personality is crucial, but appearance is also essential to find a partner.

Before he understands your good characteristics, he will get trapped in your elegance. It is the reason why you should improve your beauty to make him chase you.

It is not necessary to dress like some beautiful girls. Instead, you can promote your appearance by applying make-up or a new hairstyle.

It is worth investing in something like lipsticks and dresses. You become not only much sexier but also more confident.

Every man is visual, so your sexiness and elegance will drive them crazy. If you don’t know how to improve your appearance, you should look at what makes a girl attractive to a man.(https://selfhelpskills.net/what-makes-a-woman-attractive/)

12. Be tolerant about the drama

Do you know what makes a man chase a woman? Each man does not take an interest in drama. You cannot imagine how hateful a man feels about drama.

The reason is that drama could stress them drastically. As a consequence, almost all men would theoretically run away if they see any sign of drama on you.

There are various types of drama that men hate from women, such as Facebook drama, money stories, and jealous words. Men pay more attention to rational women who get much less involved in drama.

If a man hears you telling a drama, he can become bothered with it because he can’t emotionally deal with it. Thus, put the drama into your diary or in the chatting group with your friends.

13. Don’t look at just him

Don’t look at just him.

It is a strange law of nature. When you do not give attention to the man you love, he will come to you despite many difficulties. When you take notice of him, he is nowhere for you to meet.

After all, what you have to do is to overlook your crush a bit. It is quite sophisticated to explain why but believe us; this tip is very effective.

14. Keep patient to begin a relationship

A popular flaw that every woman makes is to rush to get rid of singleness. What they do not recognize is that singleness is wonderful progress in each girl’s life.

When you are alone, you take the chance to enhance yourself without anyone forcing you to do anything. You would have enough time to realize your dreams.

You would have many opportunities to find the right partner. It is one of the most wonderful decisions that you have ever needed to make.

When you cannot keep patient to throw singleness away, you will begin to push for a commitment right away, possibly with the first good guy that you encounter.

You will sacrifice the advantages of singleness and begin to do the chasing. Most men know that the precious things in life demand working.

The man you are pursuing will comprehend that you are certainly valuable to chase if you can keep patient to escape from singleness.

15. Don’t spend all the time with him

Don’t spend all the time with him.

When you give him all of the time, he will find that you are available for him 24/7. Any time he wants you, you can appear right away to stand next to him. For that reason, he will not chase you.

Instead, you can use your spare time with your friends and family. You can also be alone to do what you like. This tip can make both you and him feel more valuable about yourself.

If you crave to make a man pursue you, he has to find that you are not always accessible for him.

16. Don’t always send him messages

Don’t send him messages all the time.

How to make him chase you through text? Indeed, he regularly sends you a lot of messages. But it does not mean you also need to do the same thing. Keep in mind that you want him to pursue you.

Naturally, when you win over him, it is good for you to text him many sentences to share your emotions and love. However, until that time, maintain your messages to a minimum.

Maybe some of you are considering the right way of sending messages; we then recommend what men want to hear in a text (https://selfhelpskills.net/what-a-guys-wants-in-a-girl/) to help you solve the issue.

You will find this tip is very useful in how to make him chase you over text. You can allow him to know you like messaging him by sending suitable stickers and flirty words, but do not answer the messages right away.

17. Don’t be so easy to be happy

Did he give you a rose? It is so romantic, isn’t it? It is simply a flower. We claim that you can buy it for yourself.

Never honor the small things he could buy to inspire you. Do not give your feelings to material goods he could buy for you, but give your emotions to the behaviors and the commitment he gives you.

Men understand what they have to “buy” to prevail on a girl, so never become that girl who can get “bought over”.

Make him know that the best way he can prevail upon you is by his gestures, not the presents he could buy for you.

18. Be proactive on Facebook

Be proactive on social media.

Update personal information, share fun experiences, post recent images of you in the best version. Let your social media like Facebook, Instagram be updated every day to show your high energy in real life.

It is a helpful tip for how to get a guy to chase you.

If you want to get him to chase you, you should always be in his thoughts. You also have to deepen his jealousy when you are not with him.

You can cause him to hope that he would be the only person spending all the time with you, rather than those friends you are going out with!

19. Let him see that he is doing properly

If a man is pursuing you and trying to swoon over you, you have to value his efforts. Do not be the ice queen who only requires a man to do all things for her. Be grateful, be heartfelt, and let him see that you are interested in him too.

However, just never be subject to all things he tries to do for offending you.

If you know how to cause a man to chase you in your mind, you can keep patient until you make sure that he actually loves you. He is also ready to spend time and attempt into a romantic relationship he is trying to build up with you.

If you want to know how to make him chase you after a break-up, you should try this tip immediately.

20. Be yourself to make him chase you

Be yourself to make him chase you.

In the first stage of a romantic relationship, we often try to create the best version of ourselves. Although it is not wrong to leave a positive impression, you should not miss being yourself.

Initially, when you try to pretend to be an impressive person, he might find you interesting. The downside of this action is that you will have to keep wearing this mask. Otherwise, when you reveal the actual you out, he could lose passion.

In some situations, when the man does not love the way of who you are, it purely means that the man might be the wrong partner for you.

In this case, you should attempt to reform yourself to be a perfect person. The reason is that it is impractical for you to change yourself forever just for a romantic relationship.

Initially, you can adjust a few habits, but you will eventually go back to them. If he is not pleased with the actual you, it will get him to leave.

Therefore, it is not necessary to rush into a relationship with a man who does not like you the way you are. In return, if he loves who you are, he will keep his mind and chase you.

If you want to know how to make him chase you like crazy, the best tip is to be true to yourself.

Final Words

In a modern society with advanced technology, many of us seem to forget that men are people who chase women in the first place. Until now, how to get a man to chase you still shows efficiency in building up a romantic relationship.

You have a crush in your life. You want to go further with him. These above-mentioned methods will help you to make him pursue you. He can even want you more and become pine for you.

You can try each method to see which one is more suitable for your requirements and situations. Remember, keep calm, and you will see good results.

You want to make him chase you, but you also do not know what signs he wants you more than a friend; you can read our article to get more information.

Thank you for reading!

Credit: https://selfhelpskills.net/how-to-make-him-chase-you/

#selfhelpskills selfhelpmarriage selfhelpbook selfhelpbooks selfhelpdating

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aboutcaseyaffleck · 4 years

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Actor Casey Affleck Reflects On The Past And 'The World To Come'

The last time I saw Casey Affleck was after an 8:30 a.m. Sundance Film Festival screening of “Manchester by the Sea,” which left my colleagues and I so emotionally drained we were pretty much useless for the rest of the day. Affleck finds this very funny. “Oh man, that’s awesome,” he laughs. “That was a tough screening. At Sundance I’m usually just going to sleep at 8 a.m.” We’re talking on the phone a few days after the festival’s virtual premiere of his latest movie, “The World to Come,” which made its Sundance debut last month under very different circumstances. “It’s so strange doing these things sitting in front of your computer,” he sighs.

Directed by Mona Fastvold, “The World to Come” is a powerful period piece about a forbidden love affair between pioneer women played by Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, set in upstate New York during the early months of 1856. Affleck produced the picture, in which he plays a supporting role as Waterston’s uncomprehending husband, and he did his best to soldier through a crowded Zoom Q&A after the Sundance screening, with results pleasant enough, but nonetheless missing that in-person festival magic. “I used to love going to film festivals and talking to journalists and seeing all the movies and talking to other filmmakers,” he laments. “Sitting here alone in a little office in my house is such a drag. But it was nice to know that the movie was getting seen, at least.”

While big brother Ben plays Batman in studio pictures, Casey has exhibited a restless independent streak ever since he was a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. (Our ninth-grade classes competed against each other in the Mass. High School Drama Guild Competition. His won, perhaps unsurprisingly.) A longtime friend of the Brattle Theatre and former creative advisor for the Independent Film Festival Boston, the younger Affleck has always seemed more at home in indies. Not a lot of actors would follow an Oscar-winning role in “Manchester by the Sea” with a microbudget art film like “A Ghost Story.” But then his internalized, minimalist acting style is often at odds with the concerns of contemporary blockbusters. There’s a weird dissonance watching something like Disney’s hokey Chatham sea adventure “The Finest Hours,” with Affleck going full Montgomery Clift while surrounded by CGI silliness.

“The World to Come” is the most ambitious project yet from Affleck’s Sea Change Media, which partnered with Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon’s legendary NYC indie institution Killer Films for the arduous production that began with a conversation between Affleck and novelist Ron Hansen nearly a decade ago. “When I did ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ I got to know Ron Hansen, just because I loved the book so much. Ron has a very unique talent for writing 19th century language. He’s just from another era. I asked him if he had something he wanted to work on together, and I thought he would send me one of his things. Instead, he sent me this story by Jim Shepard. It was beautiful. I said, why don’t you and Jim write the script? And they took about six years, but it came together beautifully. Good things come to those who wait, I guess.”

The film eventually shot in Romania with a break built into the schedule to accommodate the changing seasons that are so crucial to the movie’s rugged, outdoor textures. “We were way out in Transylvania, out in the mountains,” Affleck explains. “We were just in some valley and they built a couple of farmhouses. I like being far away in a new place. It makes you feel outside of your life. And I love working in weather. There are so many aspects of moviemaking that are artificial, but when there’s extreme weather, it’s real. I did this Disney movie about a boat rescue, and it was, like, December in friggin’ Quincy and they were just soaking us with water every single take. There’s not a lot that you have to quote-unquote act. You’re just standing there, teeth-chattering, shivering, just being.” This reminds me of the scene in “Manchester” when he and Lucas Hedges have an argument walking in the blistering cold and can’t remember where they parked. “I forgot about that one,” he laughs.

I’d never say so on the phone, but I consider Affleck’s performance as Lee Chandler in “Manchester by the Sea” among the finest I’ve seen in my 22 years of reviewing films, worthy of discussion alongside Brando’s Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront” in its aching, inchoate longing. Lee holds his grief somewhere very private and dear, as if to begin to forgive himself would be an act of betrayal. The movie nails a gruff, emotional constipation popular among men of a certain stripe, especially in New England. (My mother offered my favorite review of the film: “Why don’t they just talk to each other? Jesus, this is like watching you and your father.”) Words don’t come easily to most of Affleck’s movie characters, but he chafes at the description of them as inarticulate. “It’s funny, I find the characters in ‘Manchester’ to be sometimes very articulate,” he argues. “There’s misunderstandings, but they end up communicating what’s inside.”

“The World to Come” is rife with such mixed signals and miscommunications, about which co-star Katherine Waterston raved during the Zoom Q&A after the Sundance screening. “It was so much fun to play the scenes with Casey,” she said. “A lot of these scenes are written as dances, where somebody tries to reach out and engage and they’re misunderstood. Inarticulacy is a very interesting thing to see in film. The failed attempts. Failed communications. It’s actually fun to play those things. You don’t know what the other person’s going to throw at you. It keeps it really alive on set. Mona and I felt if we had the money we could have kept shooting this thing for months, because the scenes were so much fun to explore.”

Affleck agrees. “When Katherine’s character writes in her journal or she starts talking to Vanessa, they have this beautiful, expressive way of speaking to each other,” he enthuses, whereas his character “says what he’s gotta say in as few words as possible. He’s very brusque and curt, which I enjoyed. The way that he talks is the communication equivalent when he gives her a birthday gift of sardines and a tin of raisins.”

Indeed, her increasingly florid diary entries — originally intended as a ledger to keep track of the farm’s monthly expenses — become the heartbeat of the film, providing an emotional release otherwise suppressed by the rigid formality of the era and the ugly drudgery of day-to-day farm life. “The World to Come” is ultimately a movie about the need to share our stories, and how through telling them we make sense of ourselves. As producer Koffler explains in the press notes, “Part of the film’s vision is to dramatize a very basic human impulse: to create, to connect, to say ‘I was here, and I mattered.’”

This has become a recurring theme in Affleck’s recent work. In 2019, he wrote, directed and starred in “Light of My Life,” a little-seen but strikingly tense post-apocalyptic road movie about a father and daughter hiding out in the wilderness after a pandemic has wiped out most of the women in the world. The film begins with Affleck telling the little girl a bedtime story that runs almost 13 minutes and sneakily sets up the movie’s major themes. Then in last month’s well-acted but regrettably soggy “Our Friend,” he starred as real-life journalist Matthew Teague, whose soul-baring Esquire story about his wife’s struggle with cancer became a national phenomenon.

“Matt Teague wrote that article and then wanted it made into a movie as his way of processing everything that had happened,” the actor elaborates. “You transform pain into other things as you go through life. That was all him working through it. I like stories about storytellers and I like stories within stories. Obviously, I wrote and directed a movie that starts with a 12-minute bedtime story. I love that. I know that other people don’t love it as much as I do, so I have to be careful about it.”

That kind of love led to last summer’s “Stories From Tomorrow,” a project initiated during lockdown by Affleck and his schoolteacher mom Christine, encouraging children to send in poems and short stories to be read on social media by celebrities like Matt Damon and Jon Hamm, as well as his “The World to Come” co-stars Waterston and Kirby. “That was something I started out at the very beginning of the quarantine as a small project to encourage kids to write creatively, because I know it can be a great way of processing anxiety and working through feelings that you aren’t really talking about or aren’t aware that you’re having. It wasn’t something I thought would go on forever; once the kids are back in school that ought to be where they should be doing all that kind of work. But while they were sitting at home, I thought it would be a good way to get their attention off the awful news and into something more imaginative. And I also got a chance to read all these super-cool stories! Really creative stuff that kids sent from all around the world.”

Finally, as a Boston publication it would be dereliction of duty not to mention the hysterical Dunkin Donuts commercial parody from when Affleck hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, so dead-on in its depiction of a local 'regulah customah' that on one of my critics’ poll ballots that year I tried to nominate the sketch for Best Documentary. Alas, the performer shoots down a pet theory I’ve been hanging onto ever since, that the dirtbag Boston guy in the Bruins hat is secretly a grown-up version of Affleck’s scene stealing, bug-swallowing Morgan from “Good Will Hunting.”

“I hadn’t thought about that, dude. That’s really funny. It never crossed my mind." He pauses before confiding, "I wasn’t that great on SNL… I just wasn’t all that funny on the skits, because it’s live and you’re reading the cue cards and it was my first time. But when we went to make that little pre-recorded short film of the Dunkin’ Donuts ad, I really felt like that was my wheelhouse there. I could’ve played that character in a movie. I could have gone to work and played him every single day, and I would have had a blast. That was really fun to do. I would love to do another one of those. That would be funny to see that character again.”

I bet that guy’s got some stories.

“The World To Come” is now in theaters and will be available via video on demand Tuesday, March 2.

[source]

#casey affleck #the world to come #quote #photo #movies

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years

Text

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Kingdom

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus I therefore have below the male Lions, Kingdom knight and Azure Moon-exclusive Gilbert, and Faerghus-based underworld kingpin Yuri. As with all things concerning M/M outside of Byleth and his awkward S rank monologues, the Lions have it the most clear-cut.

The Empire

The Alliance

Dimitri

It’s rare that you can get a feeling for someone’s whole life story entirely from watching their presence in hookup spaces over time, but he’s an exception. Once a sweet, wide-eyed collegiate who looked eager to get dicked down by any reasonably polite and attractive top/vers, hard years have turned him grim and sad and just barely put together enough to be presentable for a clothed face pic, much less anything more revealing...and still eager to get dicked down. He’s been dealing with a lot lately, and even though he’s still game for a quickie from time to time (especially with muscle guys, a shallow weakness of his he’d blush to admit to out loud) a single roll in the sheets isn’t going to make him emotionally available. Apparently he’s already well-covered on that front as it is; with his charisma and open-minded way of looking at the world he’s made many friends and fuck buddies and companions who seem half like boyfriends and half like something indescribably beyond that, and a new trick would be hard-pressed to compete with that and likely wouldn’t want to if it means engaging with his demons. Still an enviable hookup partner though, with a full pert ass and a whole assortment of friends who love to play with him and anyone else who lands an invitation to his bed. His cock has left many a bottom drooling, but unfortunately he’s haunted by the memory of the time when he went too hard and nearly caused a medical emergency. Now he just takes it and doesn’t even let anyone ride him, but there are just as many men who aren’t complaining about that in the slightest. Has a very high chance of winding up in a tender and fulfilling poly marriage that’s still open on all sides - he’s got a lot of hot, sweaty love to give.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: body worship, muscle bears, group sex

Favored gift: a body pillow, on the infrequent occasions where he has to sleep alone with no one to cuddle

Dedue

One of those shy larger men who will never initiate conversation, because he’s been blown off one too many times for shallow reasons and isn’t expecting that to ever change. It doesn’t bother him greatly though, because as his profile states he’s in a relationship and he and his partner only play together so unless you’re only looking for friends - not impossible, as he’s got quite the array of engaging hobbies on display in his pics - you’ll have to accept that this bear has a cub...or something like that anyway. Bad at small talk and even a little embarrassed to talk about his expertise in the kitchen or the garden, it’s a completely different story when the lights are off where he’ll give cocky power bottoms and scoffing total tops exactly what they deserve. Sub bottoms on the other hand bring out his softer, cuddly side, and he’s more likely to be using his considerable weight to lovingly press them into the mattress as he opens them up with his tongue and eventually his dick. Is utterly devoted to his partner but enjoys watching him playing around with third parties, even if he’s almost never allowed to sit on the sidelines for the entire night. To the shock of everyone he’s actually a total vers, even if he leaves most tops stammering excuses and bending over for him anyway. He’s usually polite enough to stick to oral in those cases. He’ll never be the most sociable man, but he’s a real catch regardless in every other aspect and is no doubt looking forward to his inevitable wedding and only sometimes X-rated married life. Still fondly recalls the first time someone introduced him to the idea of sex while cooking, and now he takes it as a challenge (only when he’s cooking just for himself and his sexual partners, of course; he doesn’t want to be unsanitary).

Favored erotic tea time subjects: twunks, voyeurism, cum swapping

Favored gift: a chef’s apron short enough to let his junk hang free

Felix

Has a biting retort for every unsolicited nude and “looking?” ever sent to him, and he gets a lot of both when his pic is just enticing enough and his profile is full of enough acerbic wit to provoke the kinds of guys who actually read those things. Claims he’s vers, gets pissed whenever anyone tells him that’s just code for bottom, gets even more pissed after hookups when his partner points out that that’s totally true in his case. Prefers oral to conversation, both giving and getting, and he’s got a remarkable talent for handjobs that surprisingly doesn’t seem to be born from excessive masturbation. Not so great with fetishes - he punched the first guy to pull his hair while he was giving head, and passes made at him during his workouts leave him more annoyed at the interruption than aroused. Disarmed by anything too soft and cutesy so he’s not great with fems, but it’s unclear if this has anything to do with his lingering daddy issues that he’s not working out in the bedroom because they’re (probably) not like that. Not sentimental at all, but he’s probably got that one longtime slow burn affair he doesn’t bring up with his tricks. If anything ever comes of that he’ll vanish immediately from the app space, but until then he’s up for a 69 followed by a good long pounding - much longer than you’d expect from someone of his frame. Good thing too, because he loves making his partners cut loose and give it to him raw and hard.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: “straight” guys, dildos, pig sluts

Favored gift: high-quality lube. and lots of it

Ashe

Everyone’s BFF, sweet and affable and able to bounce from friend group to friend group even without always having to take his clothes off. Usually finds himself as the token twink surrounded by men who are very much not that, because they value his friendship and reliability (and also his ass, as expected). Did not have the best home life and has probably had to do a few shady things to get by, but with all that mostly behind him anyone would be happy to date him or even just to take a walk with him, as he’s quite outdoorsy when he’s not taking care of relatives or less responsible friends. A bottom by expectation because there’s not much else one can infer when he shows up to bars and house parties alike in the company of guys twice his size who aren’t shy about being casually handsy with him. Still, has learned to be quite deft when the need arises and knows how to stimulate on multiple fronts, whether for one partner or several. His weakness for muscles is genuine too, and he loves a firm chest as much as taking some guy’s thick meat. Paradoxically doesn’t have a lot of patience for dumb jocks, but since he knows just about everyone worth knowing (and sleeping with) in his area and works the freckled fresh-faced young cutie angle with an artlessness that surprises some of his less gifted peers he’s bound to wind up in a comfortable relationship of some kind or another. Prefers to have sex with the lights on, and if given the option will cuddle for a long time afterward to avoid turning them off. His ass has freckles too, but he rolls his eyes when he gets asked that.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: gym sex, spit roasting, breaking in new bottoms

Favored gift: a sensible jockstrap, for workouts and for dates

Sylvain

Everyone you know has slept with him, but almost never more than once. You might have even met him in person long before you encounter his minimalist profile with its headless abs pic hitting you up with a shot of his erection measured against a beer can followed by an address. Gets a lot of action on that pic alone, but repeats are few and far between when he pulls out his phone right after pulling out of his guy of the hour and starts browsing through what’s on offer again and slow jerking. Not a big fan of FWBs met through hookups since he always feels like they’re being too clingy even if they just happened to get horny for him again a few weeks later. Does not like to talk, especially about his family, and he almost never extends an invitation to spend the night. Still, as callous as he is that cock is impressive and he knows how to put it to work. Good with his mouth too, and true to his cultivated total top persona he’d sooner rim than blow. He’s also successful and likeable enough in his personal life to have buddies who’ll play around with him, and he might even have some kind of nebulous long term thing going with one or two of them that they strictly don’t discuss. Bottoms only as a challenge, but he’s not great at it and doesn’t have the stamina to last very long while riding. Is on PreP and uses condoms religiously so he’s got that going for him, but testing after sex with him is still recommended because there’s really no telling how many other holes he’s filled that week. Likes twinks and twunks, but loudly refuses to ever be a sugar daddy no matter how desperate he might get in his later years assuming he doesn’t die of untreated syphilis or something equally appropriate and ridiculous.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: marathon fucking, double penetration, open relationships

Favored gift: a fleshlight molded into the shape of his favorite fuck buddy’s hole, for sentimentality

Gilbert

His pics are neither very current nor very flattering, and he doesn’t excel at small talk although he’s evidently been around long enough to know how to get an open-minded hookup over to his place from time to time. Encounters are fast and fumbling and drawn out more by his waning libido than anything else, and half the time he’ll settle for watching a guy play with himself in front of him while he makes an effort to get into it. It would be inaccurate to say that he’s not a romantic man; rather, it’s as though all his passion has been left behind in a difficult former life that he only reveals some of in long wistful moments over multiple encounters. Doesn’t get many repeats however on account of the lackluster performances, and also because his stubbornness bordering on self-righteousness about certain topics becomes very grating very quickly. Based on the stories he tells and the few pictures he has to show he was quite a catch in his earlier days, but circumstances and being closeted until much later in life kept him from exploring as much as he wanted. Has the potential to end up in a loving if not particularly sexual relationship with someone provided they’re extremely patient as he works through and/or learns to set aside his numerous hangups. There are worse fates...but never, ever call him daddy. It brings up a lot of bad memories, plus he just thinks it’s weird. Kink is something he left behind decades ago when he resigned himself to the knowledge that he wasn’t going to be getting much vanilla action, much less anything more exotic.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: mutual masturbation, actual straight guys, spooning

Favored gift: the balls to get some closure

Yuri

A consummate professional, albeit one whose marketing strategy carefully conceals that fact and also leaves no room for the kind of casual bigotry that flourishes on hookup apps - having a problem with “no fems” is expected from the build and the guyliner, but he’s all for equal opportunity sex even on top of that. Accustomed to the usual array of lonely and horny men who hit him up for pics and dirty chat and the occasional good time, and skilled enough in a variety of roles to perform whatever’s being asked of him. It’s not entirely clear where his own tastes lie; even the muscled closet cases who show up in his messages on the DL don’t seem to do all that much for him if they’re not paying. A former career in the arts has left him with an entertainer’s flair for pleasuring his clients both in and out of the bedroom along with an eclectic skill set that always finds a way to get put to work during sex. He can grind his hips, swirl his tongue, arch his back, and moan in the just the right ways to drive his partners wild, and all that experience also lends itself to his ability to patiently tutor even the clumsiest of lovers into something resembling competence, enough for them to get off if not himself. Bottoms more often than he tops, but he’s vers enough in skill and in preference to pivot when necessary and will probably have little trouble keeping this gig of his going later in life as well. He may not ever end in a proper relationship, but he’ll still do well for himself in an unorthodox way in keeping with the curiously world-weary optimism he sometimes espouses during pillow talk with guys who actually interest him enough for conversation.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: flip fucking, big top/small bottom, religious kink

Favored gift: creative restraints, for when he’s feeling acrobatic

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses

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xsekhah-balmung · 5 years

Text

X’sekhah Tia - LFC

The Basics ––– –

NAME: X'sekhah Tia. AGE: Twenty-seven. BIRTHDAY: Twenty-fifth son of the first Astral Moon. RACE: Seeker of the Sun. GENDER: Male. SEXUALITY: Heterosexual, polyamorous. MARITAL STATUS: Single.

Physical Appearance ––– –

HAIR:

Unkempt and as turbulent as Sekhah's temperament. It's a wildly uneven array of onyx strands that look as if he trims it without a mirror, and with a blade that lost its bite long ago. Some few patches of burgundy exist amidst the waves of pitch frayed ends of the mane, and decorating the head of hair is several shards of bone braided into the mess. He keeps it relatively "clean" otherwise, and washed to be free and clear of any dirt or grime.

EYE:

They stand out most assuredly, and are likely the first thing that one might notice upon meeting Sekhah. There's a ghoulish and eerily pale yellow shine to the pair of them, and they flit around erratically. It's not so much borne from anxiousness or a lack of focus, but instead a desire to keep the goings-on of his environment tracked and well in the forefront of his mind—even during moments of casual conversation in relaxed situations. In short, Sekh is always on.

HEIGHT:

His people grow them tall, stout, and sturdy. Sekhah reaches somewhere in the neighborhood of five fulms, and ten or eleven ilms.

BUILD:

Having been born into the caste of warriors and hunters that scour the many grains of sand that make up the Sagolii in search of the horrors that dwell there, exceptional physical prowess is a source of pride, not to mention a necessity for survival. Sekhah is no different than his peers in this regard and his physique is a testament to this dedication. Countless bells spent training and embroiled in conflict spread across endless suns result in a frame trim and toned, with an abundance of musculature housed tightly packed beneath the swarthy hue of his flesh. Broad of shoulders and thick of limbs, Sekhah's build satisfies the conditions for the ideal warrior's frame—for his size—and is replete with scars that he's earned along the way.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS:

A mask of stygian paint smeared across his eyes, and he's not often—if ever—seen without it. This is one of the few things that he's meticulous about insofar as his appearance goes.

As mentioned previously, scars. Sekhah’s people tell their personal stories with them. Wounds are left to heal on their own without the use of magic, and the scars that they leave behind are a sense of pride, not dissimilar to many other warrior cultures. They serve as a roadmap detailing every last bit of conflict that they’ve been engaged in, and the gnarled, and jagged evidence of past encounters with both man and beast stretch over his arms, belly, and back. Claw, tooth and blade make up the bulk of the unsightly marks that bite into his flesh.

Tattoos are present as well and compete for territory with the above mentioned scar tissue, though these are far less prominent insofar as quantity. A great black serpent that stretched over his ribs and ends upon his back, with a depiction of Azeyma swallowing the beast’s head up whole. Outside of that, there’s a plethora of fanciful stygian linework emblazoned over his wrists and his below his collarbone—seven in total upon the former area, and four upon his chest.

Missing teeth are replaced by some creature’s fang—after it’s been hunted down and slain by whomever’s mouth it’s going to sit in, obviously. Sekhah has one, a canine on the left side. There’s a drake’s tooth that completes his smile, gilded and gleaming when it catches the sun.

COMMON ACCESSORIES:

Though not as fervent—or overzealous—of a worshiper as he might've been in days past, Sekhah still pays enough reverence and respect to Azeyma to never be without some kind of charm or trinket embossed with her symbol. He usually keeps it out of sight these days, either looped 'round wrist underneath a glove or buried deep below the neck of his armor.

A wealth of pouches festoon his belt and only Azeyma knows what he keeps inside of them. Amidst the many present satchels are two innocuous blades. They don't bear much in the way of exquisite detail or markings. They're simple and efficient. A quiver of arrows rests tidily at the small of his back and a bow—equally unremarkable in its design—is usually slung over his back with its string digging into his chest.

Personal ––– –

PROFESSION: Hunter, warrior. That's about it. HOBBIES: Gambling (this might be an addiction over a hobby), cartography, scavenging, making terrible decisions based on his temper, drinking, feasting, occasional theft, smithing. LANGUAGES: Eorzean common, tuftspeak (don’t even ask). RESIDENCE: Ul'dah presently. BIRTHPLACE: Sagolii Desert. RELIGION: Azeyma the Warden. FEARS: Becoming complacent, falling into a mundane routine, too much quiet in his life, carbuncles (this is more of a hatred really, but close enough)

Relationships ––– –

SPOUSE: None. CHILDREN: None. PARENTS: He certainly has some, though isn't very eager to speak of them. SIBLINGS: He certainly has some, though isn't very eager to speak of them. OTHER RELATIVES: None still living. ACQUAINTANCES: Having severed ties with much of those in his past, Sekhah—again—isn't overly chatty on this subject. He's starting fresh now, so to speak. That being said, there is one thing that followed him out of the dunes.

An aged, and ornery beast, Sekhah's sundrake is his sole companion. The creature has seen many, many better days, with missing toes and bereft of an eye, and scales that look as though they've been forcibly torn and rent from its hide. It's loyal however despite the many grievances that it's clearly been made to endure in the Miqo'te's company—the many attempts it makes to gnaw at his flesh when he slips atop the thing to ride is clearly signs of affection, and play. Clearly.

Traits ––– –

extroverted / introverted / in between disorganized / organized / in between close minded / open-minded / in between calm / anxious / in between disagreeable / agreeable / in between cautious / reckless / in between patient / impatient / in between outspoken / reserved / in between leader / follower / in between empathic / unempathic / in between optimistic / pessimistic / in between traditional / modern / in between hard-working / lazy / in between cultured / uncultured / in between loyal / disloyal / unknown / in between faithful / unfaithful / unknown / in between

Additional Information ––– –

SMOKING HABIT: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

Flaws

Strengths

RP Hooks ––– –

Freelance Adventurer/Hunter:

Just looking the part since he departed his tribe doesn't fill his belly, and so thusly Sekhah has had to resort to what means he can to provide for himself. Hunting beasts and men, providing security for travel shipments or chasing down misbegotten treasure at the behest of employers, he does (almost) everything. I'm open to having him work with other adventurer types in this type of RP or seeking out employees that want him to go and retrieve something for them.

Voidsent/Ashkin hunting:

This is something that he does less of now these days, but is the caste that he was born into and dedicated much of his life to. His people have a history of entanglements battling against the aforementioned horrors, defending tombs out in the dunes and so forth. Again as before, I'm interested in pursuing this type of RP with folks, if there's an interest!

OOC Section ––– –

Hi, hello. Thank you for getting this far if you have. This is as with almost all of the things I write up of this nature, a heavy work in progress. I'll be updating it and adding to it over time so, check back occasionally!

I'm looking to branch out and make some contacts out in ye' olde world of Final Fantasy XIV RP. If people are interested, great, I'm always happy to interact with folks and make new friends. I prefer to RP with 18 + folks though, given the nature of some of the themes that can get involved in my RP.

Feel free to add me on discord if you'd like to plot something or to just say hello. Mediocrity In Motion#0862

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thatlittlebravegirl · 5 years

Text

on loving men

It isn't the easiest thing (except it is, but bear with me for a second here). When you're a woman who loves men, who are attracted to their masculinity, their strength, their kindness, and their drive to help and protect, you are also forced to face the masculine nature as a function of socialization and upbringing.

That is, you have to navigate the very real fact that you have been training all your life to love and to care, while they -- well, they haven't. I don't mean that you, as a socialized female, are capable of loving more than the other gender (except, sometimes, it really seems that way). It's that since you were old enough to breathe, you have been taught way after way after way of actively loving other human beings as well as other living and non-living things. You have been prompted to smile, to hug, to verbalize, to be sweet, and to serve in order to show affection. In contrast, boys of the same age are being taught contact sports, the concept of cooties, gun safety (always point at the animal you want to kill, never at someone in your team), suppression of emotions other than anger, and maybe the word 'sorry'.

Whether both genders have formal or direct training in this binary construct is irrelevant; we are all indoctrinated in it one way or another. The best we can do in the course of our lives is to notice the imbalance and do our utmost to mitigate it in the circles in which we choose to function.

So back to love. In loving men, I have to accept that while they can love me in the best way they know how, their expression of it will likely never rival my ability to express mine. Loving my sisters mean I never have to worry about asking them for help because they'll see my need from a mile away and be here long before I ask. Loving my father means carefully navigating his ego even when he's asking me for help so he doesn't shut down mid-conversation and feel like a failure.

This is readily apparent in my non-familial relationships as well. Those interactions are a lot trickier. My father has to love me because of our biological connection reinforced by decades of oxytocin bonding from his rearing of me from infancy. Male friends and lovers - potential or long-term - don't have that chemically driven biological wiring to motivate their instincts. Instead, I have to accept that they may or may not love - and show it - at any given interaction. Their biological imperatives serve themselves and their earlier/stronger hormonal bonds before ours. It's the nature of the beast.

On the other hand, our female-ness allows us far less limitations in bandwidth thanks to all our formal and informal training on how to give and show love. We can fatigue, sure, but you better believe we can ensure that our husbands, wives, children, parents, friends, pets, neighbors, and whoever else we choose to love will almost always feel secure in the fact that we love them and will be there for them if we felt they actually needed us (they may never, but don't underestimate the value of the security blanket we provide our loved ones - it's a gift we readily give and barely acknowledge).

So where does that leave us as women who like men?

Well, we are presented with two choices if we want to consciously make peace with this inequality (I say consciously, because most of us navigate this without second thought, again thanks to our socialization). The choices are: give what love we can while accepting that we will receive less than what we are able to give; or give only as much as we receive so as not to perpetuate the inequality and hope that the unfilled space will not be so vast that time and further hormonal bonding will inevitably fail at bridging it.

It's a choice made more painful by the nagging superfluous messages bombarding us regarding how one is supposed be loved. 'Don't accept more than you deserve's and 'you teach others how you want to be treated's do nothing to the guilt of knowing we have the ability to give our partners so much more love if only it didn't make us feel angry, resentful, or just plain exhausted from being so damn under-loved.

And the former choice is hardly a choice! All known stories where the female actively loved with all her heart - even the really, really good ones with happy endings - show males in her life falling short of fully reciprocating (deserving?) her efforts.

So is there really a choice? Is there hope that we can receive as much as we are able to give in this lifetime? If not, can we even promise that to our daughters or our granddaughters? Or is this inequality just nature of the human animal? If so, what is the advantage I'm missing that females gain in loving our male friends and partners, short of propagating the species (which in this case is an advantage to the species, not to the woman)?There are no more predators to fend off beyond other humans - and we have a growing population of women who can fend off predators better than many men, anyway. We can hunt and gather our own food as well. Beyond the biological drive to mate, what should compel us to continue to foster relationships with the males of our species?

I have no answer.

For the first time in modern history, women are being allowed to come to the bargaining table on the same footing as men. And yes, many of us are coming away with amazing, beautiful, wonderful male partners we wouldn't trade for the world (shout out to mine!). But we are not doing so by giving our all in the way our upbringings and our hearts (my heart, anyway) propel us to. Instead, we curb this enthusiasm. We take a page out of men's books and force our hearts to stay still against the pressure of the empty space. We invite our male counterparts to grow beyond the limits of their nature as we curtail ours. Let me rephrase; curtailing is how it feels to me at times, like I'm restricting my natural instincts, but it's really more about teaching myself traditionally masculine traits because they have their own merits in the female toolbox.

For me, it can be as simple as sitting down when my husband does the laundry and allowing that guilt to slide right through me. It's reminding myself that there will be days when he will also relax on the couch while I do housework. It's really fostering the fair give-and-take instead of the lip service I have thrown at that tired concept in previous relationships where I did more of the giving while my former partners took all that they felt they deserved.

And in long-term relationships, this manifests in even more cementing ways. Years that are mine and years that are his, where we're takers and givers always remembering that our partners were in and will again be in our shoes.

Maybe it's not quite an advantage for women that we're getting here. Not yet, anyway. We are simply taking a step at leveling the field. Do I want men to be as emotionally competent as women? Fuck yes! But that's a lucrative ask at this point in human history. For now, if we can give our daughters a future where they can sit through a chore as much as their male room mates, family members, partners, or friends, then hell, let's start there.

#essays on unassigned topics #procrastination at its finest #nature vs nurture #masculinity #femininity #partnership #equality #balance #emotional intelligence

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ganymedesclock · 6 years

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I don't understand the permanent lion switch theory. Why do the characters need to grow into roles other teammates can already fullfill perfectly? and why are Pidge and Hunk excluded from such "important development"?

Honestly I’m not surprised Pidge and Hunk are left out?

Again, I feel like it’s less a support of the first switch formation and more this sort of… elevating Shiro’s importance to the team, but also not accepting that Shiro is also if anything ludicrously overqualified to be Black Paladin.

With regards to Keith: people want him to be black paladin because they want to view him as “the main hero”, and the idea is that Black is the “most special”

I feel like there’s some irony to the mentality because it basically frames Shiro and Black the same way- their actual qualities don’t matter. What matters is that Keith (or Lance) are good, have good qualities, and deserve recognition, and that recognition should be given to them no matter how Black or Shiro would feel about it, or even what Keith / Lance are shown in-universe to want.

With Lance, and Blue, there’s a particular angle to it that tangles in with Blue’s role as the Heart. Even within Voltron itself as a franchise, most continuities put Allura in the Blue Lion. And as much as I’ve heard many people complain that Lance “deserves better” than the Blue Lion, it’s comparatively almost unheard of for people to gripe about Allura being “shackled” to the Blue Lion even though they frame Lance deserving better as Blue being dead-end worthless drudgery.

Because the Heart- characters similar to VLD Lance- are often sorted into two categories. Both are looked down upon- emotional labor, empathy, and supporting the team are not seen as valuable heroic exertions, and they’re virtually always framed as coming at the cost of the person themselves- because obviously you’d never want to support other people if you could put your all-important self first, even when that self is being adequately tended to.

A female character in the role of the Heart is just seen as this is where she ought to be. It’s effectively considered a pink-collar job, and you can look at in the real world what’s considered “women’s work”. Of course she’s tirelessly going to tend to her team, of course she’s never going to pursue anything important for herself (when that sacrifice of self is not actually remotely necessary) of course she’s going to be the doe-eyed loving supportive figure, she’s a girl, that’s what girls do, live for all of the men around them, right?

Conversely a male character in the role of the Heart? Is seen as an absolute joke for the most part. Isn’t it funny he’s so weak-willed and sympathetic, isn’t it funny he’s not aggressive and macho, god he’s so pathetic. But don’t worry, though, since he’s supposed to want better than this lame old Heart job, he’ll inevitably “grow up” to be tough in a stereotypically macho way, even if this character development is completely at odds with everything else about who he is as a person.

At best, getting the character development that actually befits him as the Heart, you can count on him to be unaccepted until he proves he gained something from it in a sufficiently “manly” proactive manner.

The thing is, a lot of the tropes around the Heart aren’t remotely actually necessary to the role, and a well-written Heart character either deconstructs them or simply does entirely without them. There is no rule that emotional labor is the level that people stoop to when they aren’t man enough to chase their personal objectives. The role of the Heart is where we, as a society, dump our garbage- all of the hangups about this womanish kind of heroism- and the misogyny that says “well if WOMEN do it, it can’t be valuable!” and “real men don’t cry, what are you, a GIRL?”

It’s worth noting that the cry to take Lance away from the Blue Lion is probably the loudest and most passionate- Shiro, Pidge and Hunk are completely ignored for this (there’s basically no discussion where Shiro should go except “not in the Black Lion, because we need that for Lance!”) because their roles are very standard.

Here’s the brainy one, here’s the brawny one, here’s the Leader, and there’s his Right Hand, we don’t complain about these things. Because we’ve already been conditioned through just about any five-man team show to consider those four the important ones, and Shiro the most important of all. When canon already can be viewed as “tempting” us with the possibility of Keith “surpassing” Shiro and stealing his important leader spotlight, it’s just understandable people salivate over that possibility- because we all know only the Leader will actually get the biggest slice of heroism at the end.

But the heart? There’s a reason TVTropes dismissively calls that role “The Chick”. Just look at that name for it- “oh, the designated girl, they threw her in there just because they had to have a girl so people wouldn’t complain about their sexism, so she can, y’know, stand out of the way and look pretty. Maybe we can give her a dainty little weapon and let her do some fighting but not that much. When the Leader is having his real, manly problems she’ll drop all of her petty girl issues to run over and support him.”

This is not what’s in VLD. But it’s in the cultural lens that we’ve been led to look to these kind of shows. It’s why, even in absence of canon support, people assume Shiro asserts so much more control and influence over the team- to the point of how many fanfics assume if Shiro disliked Lance, that Shiro could turn the whole team against Lance rather than the team would kick him to the curb, as we literally saw happen in motion with our secondary Voltron team, Sincline, and how Lotor vs. Narti ultimately ended. The generals gathered around the fallen Narti, and Lotor was simply cut from the team, without particular effort or fanfare. The hardest thing for the generals was feeling bad about it.

But Shiro and Lotor, they’re Leaders, so they have to be inherently stronger than their whole team, inherently in charge- except they aren’t.

People likewise assume that just pointing out Keith’s strength and intelligence mean that he should be the Leader- the idea is that he’s too competent to be a Right Hand, because every position besides the head is perceived as settling for less. (And Hunk- a fat black man, and Pidge- a young quite-possibly-written-as-trans girl with choppy hair, outside of occasional token “no, THEY should be the special one! I’m so revolutionary in praising them without thinking about them instead of insulting them without thinking about them!” largely are simply accepted that of course they’re settling, they’re lesser people)

Here’s the thing about Lance in VLD. None of that applies to him.

Lance has never been characterized as a weak-willed doormat. Nor has he been characterized as settling for less, or less thought of than his peers.

In fact, the roles that are shown to diminish Lance and leave him unhappy… are the stereotypically “manly” roles people would logically propose as a “fix” for Lance being “stuck” as the Heart.

Lance’s attempted James Bond impression is what makes Allura frustrated at him- while in s3, when, with growing confidence, Lance is his sincere, sweet self- that’s when Allura starts responding positively, starts telling him that he has “greatness” within him. That’s when he unlocks the Altean sword (sword from a planet of diplomats, awakened in a flare of blue light)

Lance taking Keith’s position at the Garrison features him being reminded he’s only here because Keith couldn’t be, and him blowing off the importance of the job, him acting at his pettiest. In contrast, in the same episode with no time for character development, Blue is framed as, from the start, choosing him first, ignoring everyone else there to stare only at Lance when nobody else is “taken” much less knowing there’s a Lion fitting for them… and Lance immediately settles comfortably into place.

Lance’s response to being chosen for Red is to first refuse it, try to pass it off to someone else, and then, when he does go for it, he comes back to grieve his connection with Blue. And Black? We see Lance uncomfortable and stiff in Black’s cockpit, trying to tell himself to feel good, because isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t it?

People who are fitting where they were always meant to be don’t respond to it by grieving their previous niche, usually. Especially not there’s no particular ‘sweetness’ of “but I have Red now” or “but I wanted Red.” Lance wanted to give up the Red Lion back to Keith with no guarantee Blue would even be waiting for him. That’s a hell of a contrast to Lance yelling at Keith in s2e4 because Keith even said something about the Blue Lion.

Yeah, the wrong-colored armors is a continuity joke, but I can’t believe it’s just a mythology joke. VLD made a genuine commitment to base the characters off of specific colors, meaning that Lance in Red looks awkward. Our inner kindergartener goes “ha ha, no VLD, blue guy doesn’t go in red cat! Blue guy goes in BLUE cat!”

And proponents of Lance in somewhere else are aware of this- they’re very quick to change that armor color. Except canon has in every conceivable way tried to show us that’s not the case. They keep setting up material to frame it, more and more and more, as Lance belongs to Blue. Allura doesn’t have much in common with Blaytz or Ezor… but both of them have an awful lot in common with Lance.

And what are Lance’s good qualities, the things he really excels in?

Lance understands the team, and several times he’s singlehandedly pulled them back from disaster by his ability to read people’s emotions. Kuron? Going to be solved by Lance, is the framing we’ve gotten here. Team needs to connect emotionally? Everybody follow Lance’s lead. Shiro as Black Paladin? Acknowledged first by Lance before they even knew Black existed. Team needs to act out roles that aren’t theirs? Gape in awe of Lance’s absolute mastery of emotions. His nature is putty in his hands.

Compared to other incarnations of Lance that genuinely did write this character as Red Paladin, VLD Lance is noticeably more sober-minded, clearheaded and perceptive. He’ll never actually sacrifice something important for the benefit of a petty grudge. If anything, this is what we see framed as an absolutely jawdropping tactical asset for Lance- VLD is the first one to actually make Lance a sniper, with the clarity and precision of intent that make that useful. He can sweep an entire battlefield, check on all his friends, pick off targets and bottleneck enemies as needed.

Even his success with the Red Lion frames his Blue Paladin cooperation and malleability. Because Lance in Red isn’t driven really by ironclad loyalty the way Keith, Acxa, and Sendak are- Lance hooks onto Keith with “Right now, I’m in your corner, and that means I’m gonna be what you need me. If you need loyal support, I’m there, but if what you actually need is someone loudly reminding you that you left Allura behind, I’m doing that too.”

On the one hand, I’m touched by how much VLD really adores Lance, and loves depicting him as the Heart, and loves emphasizing the Heart’s importance to the team. On the other? I am frankly beyond pissed that I have to aggressively defend Lance in the Blue Lion by emphasizing that he can still do violence onto things in a fight. Yeah, it’s important to let all your characters have a piece of the pie and if your series is an action series that’s gonna mean action scenes, but rather than examine some of our deeply flawed relationship with gender and how much that serves as background radiation to anything we see as “womanish” and why, exactly, do we see Lance’s job as less valuable if it “seems feminine”, it feels too much like we’re wasting time trying to prove Lance is enough of a real man he can rock this “girly” job.

I think the whole “Lion swap should stick / they should push it further and never go back to original formation” if anything sets itself up to be breathtakingly meta because I feel like it’s ultimately rooted in not thinking through any of the roles very much. Because if you just look at them shallowly, Blue and Yellow sound the least “Cool” the way our culture frames things (again, the whole devaluing of support / prioritizing individual victory- if you’re not actively selfishly taking for yourself, you must not be doing anything for yourself).

Green sounds a little better, and Red sounds cooler (“Right Hand!” plus the self-satisfying narrative of “well, when Zarkon went bad, Alfor was the one who Defied Him” ignoring that all four paladins did, and Alfor was merely the more visible thanks to his connection with Allura and with Voltron- ignoring that it was almost definitely one of the other three, and likely Blaytz, that gave Zarkon that scar), but Black Lion, oh, that’s the best one, right?

So just grab whatever character you like best and stuff them into the Black Lion. This is how you appreciate a character! You want best character to get best lion. Now nobody can question how much you love them, even if you would be hard-pressed to actively identify what are their good qualities and how they align with Black’s explicitly stated qualities.

I’m not saying nobody who supports Black Paladin Lance thinks about it that much, but that the premise feels so congratulatory when it’s actually quite patronizing (it basically hinges on the idea that the Blue Lion can’t have recognized and mirrored any of Lance’s good qualities and the Lion that chose him first was basically putting up with him because he wasn’t her best fit and if Lance really belonged to Blue that’d make him a total loser) can help explain why its appeal is so widespread.

Especially when it feels like every time Lance says something in an authoritative tone people go “oh my gosh, Black Paladin Lance!” like… I was not aware that being Black Paladin hinged on only one virtue and that was your ability to angrily yell things. Last time I checked fandom was quite cross with Shiro’s authoritative yelling.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Lance #Keith #Shiro #readmore #Anonymous

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