#of something the series has handled with much more nuance

[dunglizard]

well folks I finished watching a full playthrough of Silent Hill: The Short Message and I'm disappointed but unsurprised to report that it's bad

it definitely suffered from the Silent Hill connection and could have been better as a standalone title

the graphics were fine and the environments were actually pretty good, but the writing was so atrocious it brought everything down: shallow, insensitive depictions of abuse and depression written by old men who think phones are the root of all evil

here, for your reading displeasure, is a real excerpt from the game:

[the-bloody-sadist]

in case no one else has asked, please list your top 10 BL manga/manwha? 👀

i am. very interested in what other media you enjoy, especially BL

Combining these two bc I didn't wanna leave the second out!

(I wasn't a big fan of Blood Bank personally but I'm so glad it helped you with your world building Lil Whale!!)

I'm hoping some of these are unheard of for you guys because THERE ARE SO MANY BL/YAOI AND I READ THEM CONSTANTLY BUT NOT SO MANY ARE FANTASTIC AND MIND-BLOWING AND SPECTACULAR AND DEEPLY PSYCHOLOGICAL! I'm pretty sure I'll end up listing WAY more than 10, mainly because I want to highlight ones I feel like a lot of people haven't read. ALSO because I read so fucking many of them that I've collected a stash and NOW IS MY CHANCE TO YELL ABOUT THEM.

Just a disclaimer, these are not in any sort of order, as they're all about the same level in my head, just grouped. I'll list the "big name" BLs that I adore after these! First up are the ones that either have a quiet fandom or aren't well known! Since there'll be so many, I'm not going to say much about them, just know that usually no BL/Yaoi is perfect to me, since there are many bad psychology tropes here and there or unnecessary cruelties that aren't exactly realistic etc., but overall, I like the way that the story and characters are handled and/or love the art.

Here's the top five of my top ten that's not a top ten bc there are so many (I just said I wouldn't group them but I lied my ass off apparently):

Jealousy [Scarlet Beriko]: This is one of those that emotionally hits so hard that it will stick with me forever and I will usually tear up just a tiny bit when I think back to the moments that made this one so beautiful. A lot of times a story with major hurt, angst, and tragedy won't wrap up with enough to make me scream and cheer at the end. But THIS ONE DID. And I stopped reading for a while when a big event happened because I thought it would end horribly and I'd have to suffer three weeks of fiction-induced depression for a man who wasn't even real. BUT NAY. The themes you get in this one revolve around loneliness (huge draw for me, it always hits), mafia-connected characters and the rivalries from that, self-destructive prostitution, and characters who have difficulty receiving love without freaking out. Are those even themes idk. OH WELL. YOU GET THE POINT. I want this one on my shelf. You might've heard of it, but the fandom is silent so I never did. T_T OH ALSO THE ART ON THIS ONE IS GORGEOUS I FUCKING LOVE IT.

Hitori to Hitori no 3650nichi [Hitomi]: First of all, favorite manga artist. FAVORITE MANGA ARTIST. I'm never exactly sure if the artist is also the writer or if the writer is never the artist or...BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. Anyway! I listed this particular title because it was the first that I found by this person - but then I discovered it was a part of a bigger series, and there are like I DON'T KNOW FIVE DIFFERENT MANGA?? OR SOMETHING??? Related to this one. I don't know which order, I just know that I read them all in a frenzy. THE CHARACTERS. OH! OH THE CHARACTERS! Oh my gods, it's so good. LMFAO. The arcs these characters have are fantastic, and I loved the fact that the abuser in one is shown to be the victim of abuse in a prequel story, and that his anger issues and other elements of his personality came about to affect him and destroy him. Just...I don't recall the details, READ IT. That's all. Spectacular depictions of nuanced trauma within abusive relationships.

The Beast Must Die [Lee Hyeon Sook]: This remains one of my favorite depictions IN ANY MEDIA of a psychopath, because it's SO accurate and I'm SO fucking proud of the author for doing their research and OH MY GODS YOU GUYS IT'S ABOUT TO GET A DRAMA CD LET'S FUCKING GO! This story is so good. It's so evil. It's so psycho-thriller. It's so WELL DONE. It features a dark academia-ish secret society within a college setting who hunt people for sport, sometimes. LIKE. Come on. And the psychopath (dark hair) IS THE MAIN LOVE INTEREST! You could literally hear the summary and go "oh this is for Sadist". And I don't get a lot of those that deliver this well. SOMETIMES the art makes me twist my head a little but YOU KNOW WHAT I DO NOT CARE OKAY? It's just SO good. There's murder, there's kidnapping, and - most importantly - a main character who doesn't just DEAL with whatever the psychopath does. He's smart, he fights back, he learns to understand psychopathy to determine if he should remain with the love interest...it's fantastic. That's all. I will stop. *BANGS THE WALL*

Aporia [Seontae]: ALL HAIL THE HEALTHY BDSM RELATIONSHIPS THAT STILL HOLD TENSION AND EMOTIONAL WEIGHT AND SPEAK TO ME!!!!!!! HELLO!!!!! This is my favorite BDSM-themed story. Everything is consensual, but is everything safe??? Not when it comes to the main character's emotions and tendency to sacrifice his wellbeing for a partner. BUT NOT TO WORRY, HIS SADISTIC LOVE INTEREST IS CONSIDERATE AND ATTENTIVE AND CARES ABOUT HIS FEELINGS!! This is, perhaps, one of my favorite depictions of a REAL sadist. A real one as in a realistic, irl BDSM-relationship sadist. Someone who is just as worried about taking care of his partner as he is about hurting him JUUUUST right. ANYWAY! THAT'S ALL! READ IT! HE'S LITERALLY ME!

Royal Servant [MasterGin, Chungnyun]: Okay, we were talking about healthy BDSM in the previous one, now let's talk about TOXIC BDSM-THEMES THAT I LOVE. Lmao. DO YOU LIKE MASTER/SLAVE DYNAMICS? DO YOU LIKE STORIES WHERE THE ARC LEADS TO THE ABUSIVE MASTER EVENTUALLY LEARNING TO NOT BE ABUSIVE AND LOVE THE SLAVE? YEAH ME TOO. I DON'T NEED TO DESCRIBE THIS ANY FURTHER. AUTHOR OF ANGEL BUDDY, THIS IS THE ONE THAT I KNEW HER FOR FIRST.

A bunch of other good ones you may or may not have heard of (I won't describe every one of these unless I have something particular to say, so enjoy the pictures from them that I snatched):

Love me in the Wilderness [Wang Tao]

Neon Sign Amber [Ogeretsu Tanaka]

Zetsubou ni Nake [Shinou Ryo]: Guys. This story is UNIQUE AS HELL. I had to say something about it. The premise is that a man who was raped turns around and goes back after his rapist and rapes him back, and then they fall in love. IT'S....the amount of times my jaw dropped was insane on this one. SOMEHOW IT'S WRITTEN SO WELL. SOMEHOW THEY NAILED THE STRANGE REALISM OF IT AND HAD ME TEARING UP OVER THE INTENSITY OF THE RAPE SCENES. VERY WELL-PACED, VERY TRAUMATIC IN A GOOD WAY. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. The way they come to love each other after this crazy foundation of mutual rape is IMPRESSIVE. Kudos to the writer.

Love or Hate [Yeongha]: This is a very well-known one but there's like zero fandom so I think it fits here. Also a lot of hate going around for it? Which I never understood, fuck those guys. This remains one of the most beautifully-written that I've ever read, and I mean that purely in like...the ACTUAL writing on the page. I'm talking poetry, purple prose. I just recall being blown away by that, and no manga before or since has ever reached its level. For once I felt like the writer was also a novelist because of the way that they put things, and had a clear voice in the style. Did the main boy end up with someone I didn't want him to end up with at the end? Yes. But I felt like it fit pretty well, and it was sort of a tragedy, and it was supposed to hit you painfully in the gut. A lot of people were mad at the main character for that and I don't really think it's fair. In any case! A beautiful story with complex characters and intriguing dilemmas. Highly recommend it.

Shangri La no Tori (Birds of Shangri La) [Ranmaru Zariya]

Two in Six Billion [Denzou]

The Pizza Delivery Man and The Gold Palace [Upi]: Great story and character-building so far! I will say that once it became porn, it dove a little too heavily into it for me. Like I only needed one scene of the porn, I was enjoying the panic attack scenes much more. BUT YEAH, IT'S ONGOING, SO WE'LL SEE WHERE IT GOES! But the panic attack scenes were the reason I read it and yes, I did tear up.

Sleeping Dead and Living Dead [Asada Nemui]: I RECENTLY FOUND THIS ONE AND ADOOOOOOREEE IT SO MUCH. I DO NOT CARE THAT IT'S AN OLD SCIENTIST AND HIS ZOMBIE PATIENT. NORMALLY THAT WOULD HOLD NO SWAY OVER ME, BUT OH GODS, THE ART IS SO PRETTY AND THE STORY IS SO GOOD. I LOVE THE LITTLE ZOMBIE MAN! I LOVE THE LITTLE ROMANCE THEY'VE GOT!

Private Lessons [ANCO, Mongya]: It's cuuuuute what can I saayyyyy it has BDSM and threesomes and I liked it. Very entertaining. Scratches the BDSM itch and the little SUB WAS SO CUTE. Anyway.

Kingyo no Ubugoe [Gontaku Nido]

From Points of Three [White Eared]: Threesome dynamics!!

Silent Lover [Qiang Tang, Bai Li Jun Xi]: I STOPPED THIS ONE AT A CERTAIN POINT BECAUSE IT DIPPED INTO WEIRD M-PREG AND STUFF I CANNOT READ. But BEFORE all that, I was deeply ingrained in this one. It has a main character who can't speak (a particular weakness of mine) and he's OH SO CUTE and he's given as a sex slave basically to the emperor (emperor? idk he's a kingly man, something like that), and the emperor is evil but learns to be soft and yet it takes a LONG TIME SO I WAS BAWLING HYSTERICALLY OVER SOME OF THE HEARTWRENCHINGLY PAINFUL SCENES IN THIS FOR THE POOR YUU-ER. A good read until it decided to go the omegaverse-by-magic-potions route. I didn't stay to figure out where it actually ended up.

Yoru wa Tomodachi [Ido Gihou]

Toumei na Ai no Utsuwa [Hitomi]

Re:Birth [Misuaki Asou]: The singular omegaverse story in existence that I actually liked. Hopefully that says a lot. Mostly because it's about the omegaverse elements NOT being present for the main character and him trying to fake it because he's lonely and afraid that his partner (an alpha *shakes off the disgusting label because who the fuck thought alpha was a cool word*) will leave him if he finds out he's just a regular guy (aka beta I guess? ABO is weird idc).

Sahara no Kuro Washi [Soutome Emu]: MASTER SLAVE MASTER SLAVE---

Haru ni Kaeru [Kunieda Saika]

Incorrigible [Bbong]

Well Done! [ANCO, Mongya]

Nemuri Otoko to Koi Otoko [Zariya Ranmaru]

Even If You Don't Love Me [Pando]: It dropped off SUPER hard (it's ongoing still) but damn was it good in the beginning. I am sick and tired of where it's at currently but the psychological manipulation and the horror of a certain twist in the storyline was CRUSHING to me. I only wish that it would have gone a better way after it happened, because it slowly destroyed itself and became like a lot of tropey rape stories. The asshole just keeps being an asshole and it's not really where the story seemed to want to go with that. But otherwise, it started off strong and I'll give it kudos for that.

Bigger titles I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of that I enjoy:

Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai [Yoneda Kou]: Is it a little unrealistic that literally everyone in this story is gay apparently and wants to fuck one man apparently and/or rape him? Yes, absolutely. Does that matter once you're in the story and it's so good and all these unrealistic cruelties make a really strong bond between the main love interest and this self-destructive masochist who's probably not really a masochist but only interested in hurting himself because he doesn't know how else to handle his trauma from childhood? Ummmm yeah. Anyway! This one had a lot of inspiration and a lot of tears and a lot of obsession from me. I re-read it all the time, I watch the movie over and over, I listen to the audio drama and cry at my favorite scenes. Do I care in the end that it's a little unrealistic at times? No but I do laugh sometimes when I'm about to share it with a new person. Because BL is just like that generally and you've got to put up with a little of those tropes to find your favorite stories. THIS IS ONE OF THE TOP FAVORITES OF ALL TIME FOR ME BTW, IT'S ONLY SO LOW DOWN HERE BECAUSE PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE IN YAOI KNOWS ABOUT THIS ONE ALREADY, AND WE'RE ALL AWARE OF HOW GOOD IT IS.

ENNEAD [Mojito]: I will say that this is basically the best manga/comic/manhua...what's the Chinese word idk ANYTHING OF THIS MEDIA TYPE that I have ever read. It's not done, and people have been complaining that it's starting to fall into the common BL tropes but you know what I do NOT care. Mojito is a genius, Mojito is a master storyteller, Mojito is beautiful, Mojito is strong - I just love Mojito and this work. So much. The action, the horror of rape, the deep-set character conflicts and dilemmas and internal turmoils. Everything, nailed it. Nailed it. And not to mention it's set in FUCKING EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY AND THEY'RE ALL GODS AND THEY HAVE SUCH COOL BATTLES AND COSTUMES AND DUDE???? I'm so hooked. That's all.

Killing Stalking [Koogi]: OBVIOUSLY. I don't really need to say anything about this one except that yeah, some of the psychology is a little off and some of it is just super shallow. But I loved the characters and that's what mattered in the end. I fell in love with Sangwoo too and it ripped my heart out when I read the ending. I was depressed for like two weeks and it was the first story that had ever affected me that way, but I was also younger and this was one of my first yaoi/BLs and yeah. GREAT story though, fantastic storytelling, very lovable characters. Sangwoo was handled so much better than most "asshole/kidnapper/rapist" characters and I will never stop appreciating that, because a lot of writers tend to forget that your villains have to have redeeming qualities if you want us to like them (????). Jinx, I'm fucking coming for you. Suck my dick. KOOGI FTW.

Missing Love/A Married Man [In Hyerin]: Some of the DESCRIPTIONS of how trauma works especially of the sexual nature in this story are SO. SO. GOOD. However, I am beginning to grow VERY ANNOYED at where it decided to go with the most current updates of the story. The author did enough trauma to the main boy, now it's getting so incredibly excessive that it's overdoing it and the author's kinks are showing through. LIKE I GET IT. Okay? I do. But this one became too much and I need him to return to the actual story arc of going through that trauma so he can HEAL with the right person taking care of him.

MadK [Ryo Sumiyoshi]: I am into NONE of the kinks that would lead to me picking up this manga. I hate demons, I'm not a monsterfucker, I can't do extreme guro, and yet I SAW CANNIBALISM. THAT WAS THE ONE THING THAT I THOUGHT I'D GIVE IT A TRY FOR. And then accidentally I got obsessed because the plot is AMAZING and the writing is SO GOOD and who cares if I hate demons and monsters ALL OF THEM ARE BADASS AND HOT (??) AND IT CEASES TO MATTER. Good on the writer for making them appeal by personality alone and expressions and whatever else you signed a deal with the devil to make me like because it worked. Also the guro is beautiful, so it doesn't even matter. Hannibal levels.

Warehouse [Killerwhale]

Painter of the Night [Byeonduck]

Viewfinder/Finder [Yamane Ayano]

Given [Kizu Natsuki, Gusari]

Nii-Chan [Harada] (and basically every other work by Harada)

Sadistic Beauty Side Story [Geumsan Lee, Woo Yeonhui]

Dine With a Vampire [Pangin, Pinko]

Angel Buddy [Mastergin, Chungnyun]

My Partner's Tastes and Fetishes [Deok Hwa]

Interview with a Murderer [KJK]

On or Off [A1]

Steel Under Silk [Snob]

The Pawn's Revenge [Evy]: It was going to be SO GOOD! And then it dropped off harder than a boulder from a balcony and I have absolutely no idea why the author took it the way that they took it, but go off I guess. It's boring as hell now but it started off with promise and I enjoyed the art and character designs. Too bad, I suppose.

Caste Heaven [Ogawa Chise]: An old classic with all the sticky sometimes icky mostly ridiculous BL tropes but hey, it's cute. It's sexy. It's fun. I don't care.

Wet Sand [Doyak]: We're still in the beginning stage of this one but I'm excited to see where it goes! Plus the art SLAPS ASS like nobody's business.

19 Days [Old Xian]: I hate comedy, I hate fluff, I hate buddies that never become lovers, but none of that mattered when I picked this one up. The duality of man. Bite-sized chapters and ACTUALLY AN EVENTUAL ROMANCE that none of us thought we'd ever get.

Legs That Won't Walk [Black Apricot]: Although this one dropped off hard for me and I'm really just following it to see if it picks up again and does something interesting (it probably won't) I did enjoy it in the beginning. I just get tired of the "asshole just keeps being an asshole and nothing else but woobified slut keeps coming back to him??" without the strong and realistic undercurrent of Reasons Why Someone Would Come Back such as manipulation or threats or unhealthy attachment. Perhaps it was sorta there in the beginning with them but now I'm just like why are we still continuing this story.

Pearl Boy [Inking, Zoy]: *Awkwardly scratches neck* It's not the best okay? It's not. It's really not. I don't like half of the things that occur in this one, but the ART, bro. THE ART, BRO? That's what got me into it and what kept me into it, PLUS I do like little Jooha. I stayed for Jooha, too. Dooshik drives me a little batty most of the time and looks ugly for half the story to me, but when he's badass, he's pretty badass, so I can forgive him. I really don't know why he has such drastically changing appearances because I thought he was someone completely different for a bit LMAO. In any case, I have to admit I like the uhhhhh danger that Jooha gets himself into and the crazy things that make no sense but you know what he gets hurt and then there's comfort and rescue and they cry and I cease to care that it makes no sense. (Sorta, I don't actually cease to care I just laugh awkwardly and go okay sure that's how it works because it's so hard to find stories that don't do this LOL I'm beating a dead horse) BUT WHY DOES HE CUM PEARLS? WILL WE EVER KNOW? WHO THE HELL THOUGHT OF THAT AND WITHOUT A SUPPORTING MAGIC SYSTEM IN THE WORLD TO MAKE THAT MAKE SENSE? IT WENT DOWNHILL SO FAST AND THE ENDING IS TERRIBLE BTW. THE VILLAIN SUCKS.

That's it. I can't talk to much or I'll run out of words but HOPE YOU GUYS FIND SOME NEW READS!!

[athina-blaine]

I think Laios post-canon is so happy and in love whenever Kabru infodumps to him, because Laios loves telling people about monsters, so for someone as cool as Kabru to share what makes him passionate and happy just makes Laios feel honored. Like he doesn't understand a lot of it but he's taking notes, he's asking questions, he's engaging Kabru in what he loves because he knows how good it feels when people take an interest in his field and he wants to know what makes Kabru so focused

Yes yes yes!! Where they end the series in their respective character arcs is just gorgeous; Kabru letting himself drop the mask and be vulnerable and wanting to better understand monsters to better understand himself, Laios finally feeling like he has a connection with humanity after they banded together to save his sister, and wanting to show his gratitude by being the best king he could be. Once they're finally comfortable enough around each other to start yapping, I doubt the yapping would ever truly cease.

And like, it would still require effort from both of them. Subtle nuances in human interactions would still be difficult for Laios to get a handle on and Kabru would still be repelled and disgusted by monsters. But they're both in a place now that they want to make the effort to care, and I think that's so much more meaningful than if they were already the sort of people to have already been interested in that in first place. They're just both at the perfect point to truly start relying on each other and continue growing as people and it's just ooooouaagghh

And isn't that just the autism 4 autism dream? Having someone who, even if they don't quite get it, still genuinely wants to learn more about your passion? Being able to make that someone happy by listening them talk about something they're passionate about and learning something new? I think not.

[idolomantises]

talking abt that one thing in velma thats on my mind a lot for the past few days (that turned into a big incoherent rambling about gay rep in media)

i'm seeing jokes about how the queer representation in mystery inc being so much better than the queer representation in velma and honestly it makes me want to go on a whole tangent about my thoughts on queer representation nowadays vs the more subtle examples decades prior.

There's this weird debate that goes on online about what is "good" queer representation, and one of the most notable and honestly annoying examples is that queer representation has to be so subtle that you could easily miss it/ignore it. i've always hated that take because its a claim mostly said by straight people who are uncomfortable with seeing characters who are openly queer and/or state their identity, but they present it as some sort of push for subtle and nuanced writing. personally i do prefer it when a character just, identifies as how they are without explaining their identity, but that doesn't mean flat out explaining your orientation is inherently bad representation. its why i will always defend the very clunky and awkward high guardian spice scene. it is absolutely poorly directed and written, but that doesn't make it "bad representation". however, I do consider the character who explains that he's trans bad representation because he is flat, uninteresting and very clearly a creator self insert. he doesn't feel like a well rounded character who's also a trans man, but just an incredibly sanitized example of trans representation.

i have many, many issues with helluva boss/hazbin hotel and i do genuinely find some depictions of queer characters just flat out offensive (you can argue with me about how angel dust being written like your average 90s gay stereotype is woke actually because he has trauma, i dont care), but i do admire and appreciate that the series doesn't want to sanitize its queer characters, even if its done poorly. though i could go into a whole rant about how i find it very telling that female characters that are queer are far less sexualized or allowed to be problematic compared to their queer male counterparts.

anyways back to velma. that show does something that i've always found pretty irritating in queer representation which is just this weird lack of faith in its audience. characters can't have a slow burn anymore. internalized thoughts, anger, frustration, longing. you have to immediately know that two characters are gay for each other, even if they're lifelong enemies. its like when modern horror movies open with the gore because they're scared people are going to be bored or leave early. there's no subtlety or chemistry between daphne and velma, they're just lovers because idk, its two girls who hate each other and who doesn't love that.

then i think about how mystery inc handled velma and her sexuality, how she was allowed to be well rounded and nuanced before you slowly realize that "oh, she doesn't like boys". i know her whole thing with shaggy is controversial among fans but i always loved how she does do something pretty unlikable but not immoral. yeah, it is shitty to force shaggy to choose between her and his dog, but i can understand her line of thinking and empathize with her. and i do like how they become friends in the end despite their awkward break up. It's always fun rewatching it and realizing that their incredibly awkward and cringe relationship was meant to be awkward and cringe. it was supposed to be weird and difficult to watch, because those two weren't meant to date each other. you could see how hard velma was trying to make the relationship work despite the fact that you never get the vibe that either character was full invested in it, unlike daphne and fred's relationship.

then you had velma and her relationship with marcie, which started off as sort of a catty rivalry (not full on attempted murder, i mean holy shit hbo velma) that slowly grows to where you're completely convinced that these two did gradually like each other. and i do really enjoy stuff like that, more subtle writing like that. which doesn't just apply to queer rep btw, my favorite ships are relationships that feel understated, something you have to really dig for and pay attention to. its why i consider bubbline the best f/f representation in cartoon. because its subtle, but not too subtle where it feels out of no where when they kiss, and nuanced in ways that enhances the relationship AND characters.

there's a good amount of relationships i see in cartoons where the creator, who is usually queer themselves, often wants to depict queer relationships, but is weirdly adverse to depicting the uglier aspects of that character, and refuses to add subtlety to it. steven universe is a show i've always felt conflicted on its handling of queer representation because on the one hand i appreciate writing lesbians that are messy, traumatized and make constant mistakes. but on the other hand, the show goes out of its way to ignore these issues and/or make excuses for it, making the decision to make these characters messy and complicated genuinely baffling (this is also one of the big issues i have with catradora and stolitz).

it makes me think back to my own work too. i really enjoy making fluffy, easily digestible gay content for my followers and myself because it puts me in a good headspace. But even now and then i like exploring those little nuances too, because i don't really enjoy stories with little conflict. Because of that acknowledgement of how satisfying it is to write fluffy, queer rep, you end up putting yourself in other creator's shoes. you're so used to media that either dehumanizes gay people or tells people that they don't exist that you push yourself to make the most in your face queer rep you can but its at the cost of an interesting and subtle characters. characters that don't really have arcs or places to learn and grow.

With bugtopia i made a joke about how i want some of my queer rep to feel like you're being queerbaited. It's not literal, obviously, but mixed in with characters who are already married and in same gender relationships, i really want to write dynamics that feel subtle enough for a bit of a slow burn. even if you know they're going to end up together, to at least value the characters on their own before centering them on their relationships. queerbaiting is something that deserves all the criticism it can get, but it is embarrassing when queerbaiting feels genuinely more interesting than actual queer rep because queerbaiting has that factor of "maybe they won't get together" that adds that bit of intrigue, vs so many shows that repeatedly hammer in your head "don't worry guys, they're gonna be lesbian lovers".

mystery inc (and many other shows) being forced to keep a relationship obvious while subtle to get through censorship really forced creators to be creative with their storytelling and not center characters around their relationship and identity. but nowadays i think shows like to take the easy way out. for me, i always thought the most impactful example of queer representation in steven universe is "Rose's Scabbard". I genuinely don't enjoy that episode because it's a good example of the show thinking that trauma is an excuse for shitty behavior, but i cant deny that an entire episode of pearl breaking down and finally accepting that she wasn't the center of rose's world. it's the crew being forced to be creative and push through censors to telling a compelling story about a traumatized lesbian slowly realizing that she basically deluded herself into thinking she was someone's savior.

I think it's silly to try to place good queer representation in one box. like subtle queer rep is good, but also queer rep where a character flat out states that their gay. where I think it falls apart is when it either reinforces stereotypes without properly deconstructing or expanding on them, makes the characters so overly kind and non-controversial that the relationship is just boring, or try to make your messy and complicated characters but the narrative refuses to hold them accountable or at least acknowledge that they're doing something wrong. and to clarify on that last part, i'm not asking for some hays code nonsense where every bad person goes to prison and/or promises to stop being a bad person again. i mean the narrative doesnt just fucking sugarcoat their behavior. i don't want to see helluva boss ignore the fact that stolas made blitzo call him out for only using him for sex and then pathetically rush to justify their relationship by giving them a bizarrely sanitized and sweet backstory. and i don't want to see catra literally end the fucking universe and only do something good because she's straight up out of options and the show just decides that that was her redemption and she doesn't need to do anything to atone for what she did (including repeatedly abusing and verbally berating adora).

anyways velma has none of those interesting qualities and i'm pretty sure daphne and velma kissed because the creator is a weird pervert who thinks two girls kissing is hot.

[aprilohneil]

Soft Shells and Donnie

⚠️WARNING: rottmnt movie spoilers ahead!!

I have many thoughts! So many thoughts! Before I get into them just a quick couple of things:

All image IDs are in alt text

I'm able-bodied, and I've been concious of that and done my best to stay in my lane, but please let me know if I've overstepped! Edit: I'm no longer able-bodied lol, but this is still something I feel I dont have much authority on

I'm just some guy, this is my personal interpretation of this, I'm not trying to say anyone else's opinion is wrong!! I just wanna share my thoughts

Okay alright let's get into it!

A lot of people interpret Donnie's soft shell to be a fatal weakness or an analogy for a disability, and I disagree! At least, in canon. I've seen a lot of content exploring his shell as a disability that I've absolutely loved!! I'm not talking about fanon or headcanons or AUs or whatever - this entire post is in the context of canon. I love it when people explore things that aren't touched on in canon (and I wish it WAS touched on more in the show) I just wish the series handled it better than what they did.

I'm also not saying that having a soft shell would not be a weakness or not make him vulnerable in certain situations! It's just I've seen people talking about it in a really black-and-white way; Donnie has a soft shell, therefore he's a lot more fragile and weaker than his brothers. I think it's a lot more nuanced than that.

For a start, Donnie's shell is MEANT to be soft- he's a spiny softshell turtle. This isn't a case of an injury or something else that's made his shell like that, it's just how it is. I don't think it's fair to say that his shell is inherently a weakness, in the same way that April, a human, isn't inherently weak because she doesn't have a shell. There are both pros and cons!! In the same way that there are both pros and cons to having a hard shell!

I've seen some posts that really rubbed me the wrong way, saying things like "Donnie's probably scared of beach balls because one hit his shell when he was younger and it bruised him" and similar, I can't recall anything more specific and I'm not going to go looking for them. It just. Really annoys me?? It's borderline infantilizing.

In the movie, Donnie's soft shell and how it could affect him in battle is addressed for the first time in the entire series - if I recall correctly, that is. Its been a while since I've done a full watch through, but I'm pretty certain.

I'm not a fan of how they handled it in the movie because of that. It seemed really out of the blue, and out of character, especially for Mikey and Donnie. All throughout the show, it's never been an issue or cause of concern, and now suddenly it IS. It's suddenly a HUGE problem for Donnie. If you're going to have a disabled-coded character, then COMMIT. Include it during the entire series, not just for shock value and to create tension.

In the first scene, Donnie saves Mikey from being crushed by crouching over him. His battle shell is crushed, he's left without protection, and him and Mikey panic about it.

THIS scene makes sense to me, this scene I really liked! Their reaction makes sense, because in this situation, Donnie IS vulnerable. The ceilings caving in, the Krang are absolutely viscous, and they're losing the fight with no way out. At all. Not a great time to have ANY fleshy parts unprotected.

Once again it was a little jarring, just because it was literally the first time it's been addressed on screen. But that's whatever, nothing's perfect etc etc. I'd prefer it to be included late than not at all.

It was THIS scene that really irked me. Donnie's asked Mikey to take off his battle shell for him, so that he can fully be submerged into the Technodrome.

Yes, taking off his battle shell in enemy territory is a cause of concern, but no where near to this extent. Donnie has fought many times without it with no issues. They're not even actively fighting here - Donnie's about to be absorbed into a cocoon of tentacles (which was so so gross shdjdm). Mikey being this worried makes no sense to me, and it's kinda insulting to Donnie to be honest! It's ignoring his past experiences, ignoring the strength and skill he has been shown to have.

I've gone through and watched all the scenes in the show where Donnie doesn't have his battle shell on (once again I might have missed some, but I'm pretty sure I got them all).

Mascot Melee

This was a pre-planned move! Donnie wasn't forced into a defensive position, he put himself there in order to use his battle shell to blast the enemy back, and exposing his shell. He's already got another battle shell on standby waiting for him, so while it was a risk, it was a calculated one, and a very small one at that. His soft shell taking a hit would hurt, yes, but not seriously injure him.

The Purple Jacket

His battle shells have all been stolen and he's PISSED, but he's not worried at all about having to go out and fight the Purple Dragons without the protection they provide.

Insane on the Mama Train

This is the big one!!!

Donnie purposefully destroys his battle shells and walks into a fight he KNOWS will be dangerous, against enemies he knows are strong. Not only does he hold his own against them, but he kicks absolute ass!!! He knows his limits, his strengths and weaknesses, and he knows how to fight in the way that's best for him, specifically. His soft shell is not holding him back, he's adapted, he just has to fight in a way that's a bit different than his brothers!!

Also his brothers and Splinter are not shown to be worried or concerned for him at all during this episode. They know he can handle himself.

End Game

This would've been a great opportunity to explore how having a soft shell would affect him in certain situations, but it's not addressed at all. They all get buried under rubble, Raph asks if everyone's okay, and they all get up and walk it off.

Many Unhappy Returns

Once again this would've been PERFECT to explore how having a soft shell would effect him!! You can SEE the damage Shredder did to his battle shell - and his battle shell is not weak!! It's made of some pretty strong stuff!!

That SHOULD'VE hurt him, in a way that it wouldn't have hurt his brothers, and they could've done so much with this and they didn't and I'm MAD.

Todd Scouts

There's not a lot to add here, the only thing to point out is that, again, Donnie isn't worried about his shell being unprotected, and neither are his brothers. I do find it funny how the second he's separated from his tech he goes completely feral I love him so much <3

the ONLY time his soft shell was EVER actually addressed was in Donnie's Gifts.

And it wasn't about his shell, not really. It was about him being sensitive emotionally, not physically, and it was just a play on words.

They could've handled it a lot better in the movie. Yeah, it's tough to do when you're trying to add something that didn't exist in the series before hand, but there were so many ways they could've done it.

This is a bit of a sidebar but I never see anyone talk about this and I think about it literally all the time SO:

Donnie having a soft shell can also give him some advantages that his brothers don't have!!

From Todd Scouts and The Purple Jacket. He's very flexible!! A great skill for a ninja!! He can sneak through smaller spaces, find more places to hide, and would be great in stealth missions!!

Because of his smaller, flatter shell, he can pass as human more easily! He was the first of his brothers to go in public alone, and without a full-body disguise. To a HIGHSCHOOL no less he is braver than me.

I also want to point out that having hard shells doesn't automatically make his brothers infallible. Yes, Donnie's shell can be hurt more easily, but he would be able to take a lot of damage before it's fatal. For his brothers, with their hard shells, if anything managed to hurt them, it would be very, very serious. A cracked or broken shell could very easily kill them.

There's a reason why, in the movie, Donnie protected Mikey from the falling rubble. That very likely would've crushed Mikey's shell, and that would've killed him. Donnie's battle shell and normal shell have some give to them, they allowed him to take the hit while getting away without being horrifically injured.

It's also very lucky Raph's shell got punctured through the lip, and not closer to the centre. That would've been very bad!!!

(If anyone wants to read about shell trauma, then the IDW comics are right there - Donnie's shell gets smashed, he almost dies, and has to wear a prosthetic, it's so fucked up omg)

But yes that concludes my essay on why I didn't like how the movie handled Donnie having a soft shell, and why I don't like how a lot of the fandom treats him. Thank you and goodnight it is 2am

[604to647]

Safest with You - Ch. 17 (The Preparations)

4.7K / Modern AU Retired Mob Enforcer!Din Djarin x fem!reader

Summary: Wedding planning for the upcoming Fett-Pyke nuptials ramps up and you lend a helping hand.

Warnings: 18+ Content (MDNI please). Established relationship, fingering, unprotected PiV, roughish sex, semi public sex, mirror sex (again!), light roleplay, nicknames per usual (pretty bird, baby, sweetheart, etc.), reader has to try a bunch of dresses on but there is no implied body shape or size.

A/N: This chapter precedes The Wedding, a drabble I wrote all the way back in October. You don't have to read it (there is no real plot progression), but Ch. 18 will pick up when the wedding has already taken place 😊 Thank you so much to everyone who reads this series - ilysm! 🥹 Series Masterlist

You would think that with the amount of stress and anxiety you’ve been feeling lately, you were the one getting married.

Din has been out late on security detail every night since the fight with Rotta.  That creeping feeling you had at the BBQ, that something like escalation was just around the corner seems to have materialized as if you manifested it, crashing into your lives without nuance after fight night.  Whatever or whomever is responsible for the incendiary string of misdemeanors seems to have been emboldened by the Hutts’ recent defeat, their humiliation lighting the fuse to a powder keg that you’re sure is just waiting to explode.

You worry for Din - not because you don’t think he can handle himself, but truthfully, you don’t even know what’s out there to worry over.  Din insists on keeping the darker sides of the Family’s business and what he does away from you – which you understood and agreed to, but your imagination can’t help but run wild.  You spend too much of your time away from him worried for his well being and trying to quiet that overthinking part of your brain that loves to indulge in paranoid, imagined scenarios.

In truth, most nights Din comes home perfectly fine – a little stressed maybe, but fine; he’ll unwind a little as you walk Al together, sometimes venting to you about what’s been going on, but other times just reveling in your soft touch and gentle calm.

You don’t tell Din that the calmness you exude for him only surfaces when you’ve laid eyes on him again; that otherwise, you’re a bundle of tightly wound nerves while the two of you are apart.

One day, you don’t know why, but a looming sense of dread hangs over you all day – there wasn’t any particular reason other than possibly your worry and anxiety having been building up for weeks and you had subconsciously reached a breaking point.  Certainly, Din hadn’t said anything or indicated that today was different than any other.  But still, you feel your skin prickling all day and you check your phone more than usual – for what?  You don’t even know.

For the first time that night, you add pacing to your efforts to work out your nervous energy; Al watching, confused, as you do laps of Din’s apartment while waiting for him to come home.

Your head snaps up when you hear uneven footsteps on the stairs and watch as Din stumbles in through the door, holding his hand to his face, blood dripping down to his wrist.  Blinking back tears, you lead Din to the couch and wordlessly climb into his lap with the first aid kit to start cleaning the blood and inspecting his wound.

Din is pissed at himself.  He was careless. 

Tired from the endless nights of patrol and seemingly never-ending malfeasance that requires the Mandos’ constant intervention, he had let his guard down for a minute while Jimmy had gone ahead to check on some Fett Family protected businesses.  It had been long enough for some young punk who must have been hiding in the shadows to get the jump on him.  Ultimately, it didn’t take more then a few minutes for Din to subdue the wannabe thug, pinning him to the ground with his arm across the back of his neck to choke out that this kid worked for the Crymorah Syndicate, but not before Din only half ducked the swing of the baseball bat - hence the blood now pouring out of his head.

The scared and pained expression on your face as you focus on disinfecting and bandaging his bloody cut is making Din feel even worse than the massive headache that continues to pound between his temples.

It’s the first night he takes you up on the offer you brought up at the BBQ: to use you to fuck out his frustrations. 

He takes you right there on the couch.  Facing you away from him, Din holds you wide over his lap, fingering you roughly and playing with your clit until you come.  Once he has you lolling your head back onto his shoulder, he slams you down on his cock and fucks up into you at a demanding pace, taking out his grievances on your lithe, supple body, chasing only his own high.  You’re completely fucked out of your mind, all thoughts leaving your brain except for how good it feels to give yourself over to Din entirely, letting him handle your body and use it for his selfish needs.  Pliant and limp like his own personal fuck doll, Din thrusts into you with a force that causes your breasts to bounce so violently you start to sweat, moaning and whimpering into Din’s neck as you’re jostled without reprieve over his lap; Din grunts low and dangerous in your ear, “So good at taking my cock, baby.  Take it, take it.  Take what daddy gives you.”

He uses you until you’ve come shaking on his length twice more, legs spread so wide they’ve started to ache, body shiny with sweat and voice hoarse from screaming so much.  Only then does Din finish, spilling rope after rope of cum into you, stretching your legs taut with his paw like hands so he can shoot his spend into you as deep as possible and all you can do is let him and take, take, take.

After, he gently closes your legs and pulls out, laying you down tenderly on the couch before fetching a warm cloth to clean you up.  You remain in a completely brain numbed, cock drunk state – every anxious thought and worry having been fucked out of your head.  Your overthinking brain shut off the minute Din entered you and the noise of your stressful thoughts dominated into submission by his punishing cock; you feel nothing but pleasure, relief, peace.  Later while cuddling in bed, Din checks in with you that he hadn’t taken things too far with your offer to let him use you.

Sleepily, you nod and let him know that you’re more than okay.  And it’s true.  The original intent was to give Din an outlet for his frustrations, but now you think that him using you could be just as much for you as it is for him. 

In comparison to the burden of your mental load, the actual wedding planning for Cass’s wedding has been a breeze.

Admittedly, you don’t have to do very much.  Periodically, Lisa will invite you to come taste something or ask you to pick up some samples for her.  Mainly you do research into different vendors that still need to be secured and ask Rory if there’s anyone on the blacklist before sharing your suggestions with Lisa.  If a Rory approved vendor from your list is selected, you usually attend those meetings, feeling somewhat responsible for their performance – what Lisa and Cass don’t know is that the vendors approved for your lists are usually ones that having working relationships with Rory’s boutique – you being to suspect that their relationship with Rory is enough to secure lower than standard prices and higher than usual levels of service.  You buy Rory brunch for three weeks in a row to thank her.

The biggest request to date from Cass is that you attend the bridal dress consultation and bridesmaid dress shopping with them at Rory’s boutique. 

The appointment itself had been a favour you weren’t willing to ask of your friend; knowing the calibre of Rory’s work and the level to which her services were in demand, you didn’t think it right for you to ask her to make any exceptions for you.  But being the elite friend that Rory is, she cleared it with her boss to open up the boutique privately after hours on an upcoming Saturday and extended the invitation after she had already made all the arrangements.

You couldn’t believe it.  It was so incredibly kind.  You cry a little.  Afterall, Rory doesn’t even know Lisa or Cass - she did all this on the strength of her love for you alone.  Rory awkwardly pats your head and just says she can tell that you’ve been under a lot of stress lately and this is such a small thing she could do to help you out.  You cry more.  You hadn’t realized that you had let your anxiety and concern for Din and whatever was happening with the Mandos affect your mood that much; you obviously don’t share with your friends Fett Family business, but that they knew something was up but never pushed you to tell them makes you love them all the more.  Sometimes you’re not sure you deserve your friends.

Today, you decide you definitely don’t deserve Rory.  Helping Cass find her dream dress has been relatively easy - Cass looks gorgeous in everything she tries on, and with Rory’s expertise, she easily pulls five perfect options and gives the proper advice and compliments to help the bride narrow it down to the one.  One of Cass’s aunties proclaims that she’s never been to such an efficient and smooth wedding dress consultation and she has five married daughters – you smile proud: that’s the power of Rory.

But the selection of the bridesmaid dresses is an entirely different matter.  For one thing, only two of the bridesmaids are actually in attendance (one of them is Lisa).  For another, there are seven bridesmaids in total, some of whom even Cass doesn’t know very well and half of them from the Pyke’s side.  Everyone has an opinion, several have sent notes, and no one is available to FaceTime.

You think Rory must pull over fifty dresses.  You stop counting after twenty-five – somehow becoming the doll that all the dresses are modelled on, standing up on the pedestal in front a couch full of women so they can judge the chiffon trimmed monstrosity you have on.  It’s not as easy as just throwing your hands up and letting dress after dress fall over your shoulders and hang smoothly off your body while you sway the fabric prettily.  Some of the sample dresses are too big and requiring copious pinning.  Others, too small, pinch your skin and your sides where the zipper bites into your squishy bits.  Others are too long, causing you to almost fall trying to step up onto the pedestal, and some have so many buttons that your limbs go numb while waiting to be buttoned in or out.  Many of them are very, very ugly.  It’s seemingly impossible to please seven bridesmaid and one bride who all have very different tastes and very different bodies, especially if offending any one of them might incite a gang war.

The women are getting increasingly frustrated and snippy with each other, all while you stand in front of them in a little satin strapless number that is definitely too short (for a wedding) and too small (for you, the back barely zipped and your boobs pushed together comically, close to scandalously spilling out the top).  You’re hot and tired, and the arguing that is only getting louder is starting to creep its way into your shoulders where you’ve been holding all your stress lately.  You’re about to ask for a break and voluntell Lisa to be the next dress model when Rory comes striding back into the room and does it for you.  She’s grinning triumphantly and behind her walks your knight in shining armour: Din carrying a box of baked goods intended to help refuel the women and invigorate the appointment that’s slowly going off the rails.

You don’t wait around to find out if it works.  Ramming yourself into Din’s chest, you let him wrap his arms around you and melt into the comforting warmth of his presence while you breath a sigh of relief - as big of a breath as your too tight dress will allow, anyways.  Unbeknownst to you, Rory makes eye contact with Din over your head and tilts hers discreetly towards a door in the hallway that has a little velvet rope drawn across.  Looking down at your tired face, Din understands her meaning immediately and mouths ‘thank you’ before he starts to walk you in the direction indicated.

“Din?” you look up at him sleepily as you come a stop outside the door which he’s opening gingerly. 

“Don’t worry, pretty bird, no one will bother us here,” he smiles indulgently and directs you up the staircase hidden behind the door, keeping his big firm hand splayed on your back to hold you steady as you ascend.

The stairs lead to the third floor of the boutique which is home to a private consultation room.  It’s similar to the set-up of the room you were in downstairs, but a bit smaller, a little more intimate.  The racks of dresses lining the walls are fewer and the furniture up here is luxurious and fine. 

You heave a sigh of exhaustion and start to move towards the chaise lounge near the window when you hear Din chuckle behind you, “Baby.  What are you wearing?”

“Hey!” you spin around, stress and exhaustion catching up with you, annoyed, “You try on a million dresses and none of them fit, and Elena wants strapless, but Lisa doesn’t want to have to buy a new bra.  Xi’an hates all fabrics but silk and Cass wants it to match the wedding colours, but Morgan’s grandma says green is bad luck.  Sasha thinks that it’s not fashionable to match and that everyone should wear a different style, and Elsbeth wants everyone in a mermaid style but Winnie thinks a train will upstage the bride!!  And I’m not even in the wedding - I’m just trying to help!! It’s so much to take in, it’s not possible to look good too!!”

Din chuckles again - you look so feisty and irritated, breathing heavily in your too short, too tight dress, but he’s finding it terribly endearing.  He doesn’t tell you this because he thinks he might find himself with a shoe thrown at his head, so instead he silently steers you over to the mirror; wrapping one arm around your waist, he hooks his chin over your shoulder and walks two fingers across the tops of your overspilling cleavage, “I didn’t say it didn’t look good, sweetheart,” and starts kissing your neck.

Sighing now from the tingle of Din’s lips on your hot skin, you whisper, resigned, “This thing is like, a bajillion sizes too small.  I can’t believe I even had to try it on.  It’s too short.  Too tight.  Too low cut.”

“Too slutty,” Din murmurs behind your ear as he starts to push the hem of the dress up your thighs, the skirt so short he only raises the fabric a few inches before your white lace panties come into view in the mirror.  You moan a little when you see the hungry look in his eyes reflected back at you.

“Seems to me if it’s too tight, we should just,” Din’s starts to drag the back zipper down very slowly, “… loosen it a little.” You exhale as the fabric around your chest falls away from your body a little, giving your lungs room to expand.  As you take in a few deep breaths, your tits fall out over the top of the dress, exposing your naked curves to Din’s darkened stare, “Well, well, well… what do we have here?”  He reaches up to palm your breasts, groping them gently before rolling your nipples between his thumbs and middle fingers, toying and pinching them just the way you like.  You arch against Din and when you feel his hardening cock press against your ass, you whine, “Oh Daddy…”

“That’s right, pretty bird,” coos Din, he reaches up to wrap one hand around the base of your neck while the other drops from your tits to slip down the front of your panties and gently starts to massage your clit, “Daddy’s going to take care of you.” 

You relax into Din’s hold, letting him guide your head back to rest against his shoulder, softly moaning as he strokes through your folds, “You’re stressed baby, you take on too much.”

“No, it’s okay…” you murmur, eyes still closed.

Din drags his fingers over and around your slit, pressing gently against but never breeching the entrance, pulling a needy whine from your lips which he shushes, “Yeah, you do, pretty bird.  You’re helping so much with this wedding.  You’re stressed worrying about me all the time.  And you have your own work and Al to take care of.  You deserve to be taken care of too, baby.”

And as if he knows you’re about to protest that he does take care of you, Din chooses this exact moment to plunge two fingers into your needy cunt; you would double over from the electric shock of pleasure to your system if Din wasn’t holding you upright.  “Gonna take real good care of you, sweet girl,” he whispers as he starts driving his fingers into you, drinking in your breathy chants of daddy, daddy, daddy, perfectly timed to his thrusts.

“Open your eyes, bunny.  Look how good you look when you’re being taken care of,” commands Din, softly.  You open your eyes and take in your reflection in the mirror: you have a lazy grin spread across your face, Din’s arm crosses over your chest to hold you by the neck but you can still see your exposed breasts, your nipples perky and sensitive.  Your eyes linger over your white lace panties stuffed full with Din’s hand, and your mouth relaxes into a soft ‘O’ shape whenever the movement under the fabric results in a wet squelch from your dripping pussy.  You look depraved and serene all at once.

“Feel so good, daddy,” you purr, as your arms reach up and around the back of Din’s neck, arching your body further into his touch.  Din adds a third finger slowly, hungrily consuming your sharp intake of air and the way your legs quake at the added stretch; when he starts to write your name in cursive over your clit, your knees actually buckle.

“I got you, bun.  Don’t worry, your big bad wolf is here.  Gonna take care of everything for you, little bunny.  All you have to is come,” Din hums, shifting you in the firm embrace of his arm so you rest comfortably against his body, propped up against his thigh while he continues his efforts on your cunt.

Your eyes glassy, you smile dreamily as you continue to watch the way Din works your body over with his nimble fingers; when you start to climb towards your peak, your body instinctively tries to run but Din grips you tight, “You’re close, pretty girl.  Can feel you on my fingers.  Let go and come for me.  I got you, baby.”  His reassuring tone and confident swipes over your swollen nub push you right over the edge and you come with a melodic wail that’s more of a cry of relief than anything.

Fucking you gently through your high, Din murmurs praise in your ear as he pulls you back to Earth, “Did so good for me.  So perfect, sweetheart.  Always come so pretty for me.  Feel good, pretty bird?”

You nod lazily under Din’s jaw, arms still hanging on to his neck as if for dear life.  He chuckles, and through the fog of your post orgasm stupor, you feel Din position your body closer to the mirror, placing your hands against the glass for stability before helping you out of your shoes and underwear.  You feel his warm breath on your neck before he nips playfully at your earlobe and you smile affectionately, mainly to yourself in the glass.  But when you hear him rumble low in your ear, “Gonna fuck you now, bunny,” you brain wakes up and your eyes snap open, “Din!  We can’t!  This isn’t my dress!  And this is Rory’s place of work!”

Din places his hands over yours and gently kisses down your neck, tutting reassuringly, “Uh uh uh, you’re still worrying too much.  Didn’t I say Daddy was going to take care of everything? I’m going buy this dress, and Rory is the one who sent us up here.  You have to let go and let me take care of you, sweetheart.”

He’s right, you do worry a lot; as Din eases his cock between your snug walls you think you should let him take care of all your concerns, no matter how silly. Din sets a slow, languid pace and you grin teasingly at him, already cock drunk, “And what am I going to do with a dress that doesn’t fit, daddy?”

Din grins back at you, “We could use it for role play?”

“Like slutty bridesmaid?”

He starts to thrust a little faster, a little harder, “Or maybe you’re a slutty cocktail waitress looking for a big tip.”  He smirks at the you in the reflection, slutty little you with your tits out, bouncing hard while being railed by your big bad wolf.

“Ohhhhhh yessss, fuck that feels good.  You got a big tip for me, daddy?” you slur, eyes still twinkling despite having gone unfocused.

Din rakes his big hands up your arms and down your sides, grabbing on to your breasts and toying with your nipples before grasping you hard and slamming his cock into you without warning.

Your yelp of surprise quickly turns into bawdy moans as Din continues to rut into you with a force that shakes the glass you’re still bracing your hands on, “Fuck, Din.”

“Maybe one of the dancers didn’t come in tonight and this poor slutty cocktail waitress has to fill in and give me a lap dance,” smirks Din, he’s leveraging one of your favourite roleplay fantasies and he knows it.

You grind back into his crotch, circling your hips as he fucks into you, cooing, “I’m sorry I’m not your regular girl, daddy.  Please don’t be upset.”

Still smirking, Din lays a loud smack to your ass, “Can’t be too upset when I’ve this perfect ass bouncing on me.”  You squeal from the sting and the ease with which you and Din have slipped into this dirty dialogue.

Continuing to pound into you, Din crowds you towards the mirror, open mouth kissing at your neck and focusing on that spot behind your ear that drives you crazy, “Gonna let me take you to the VIP room, baby?  Gonna let me do VIP things to you?”

You whine, “That’s against the rules, daddy!”

Din pushes you into the mirror so your tits are pressed against the glass and growls as he continues to fuck up into your core, “What did I tell you?  No more worrying in that pretty head of yours.  You gonna let me break some rules and wreck this pussy, little slut?”

You know you’re just playing a silly fantasy game, but this is the second time Din’s told you to stop worrying and to let him take care of things – you know there’s some truth behind his words so you give in; you know he’ll take good care of you, “All yours, daddy.  Do whatever you want to me.”

“Good girl,” Din rewards you by snaking his hand down to your clit and giving your throbbing bud the attention it’s been aching for.  He bites down on your shoulder and drinks in your little cry, “Gonna fuck you until you don’t have a thought in that slutty little brain of yours, ‘kay?  I’m gonna take care of it all for you, just trust your daddy.”

He nuzzles his strong, perfect nose into your cheek to press your face against the mirror and you can see the glass start to fog up from how hard you’re panting; the cool surface doesn’t quite feel so cool anymore as you nod the best you can.

Over and over, Din punches the air out of your lungs, and you just take, the patch of condensation on the mirror growing bigger and bigger; you focus on Din’s face, the way his eyes are blown wide with lust and the curl of his lips as he snarls, “Pretty little whore, want me to take you away from this club?  Away from all your worries? Be the only one to fuck you?  Take care of you?”

“Yes!” you cry, you kiss your reflection as your lips smash against the glass with every hard thrust from Din’s cock; your pussy trapping his hand against the smooth surface of the mirror as he continues to draw perfect circles on your clit.

“Then come for me. Give it to me, baby.  Give me ever worry, every anxious thought.  Give it all to me, bunny,” Din coaxes.  Demands.  And you do, you come hard - your walls clamping down on Din’s length, fluttering with the aftershocks of your orgasm while continuing to pulse down on Din as he comes nearly right after, absorbing your fall and taking it all from you.  He shoots his spend deep and you take from him too, letting him give you everything he’s got.

After pulling you away from the mirror, you watch absent-mindedly as the Din in the mirror holds you upright against his chest until he’s sure you can stand; he helps you put on your underwear and adjusts the tiny dress to cover you up the best he can before leading you to one of the plush lounges.  Laying you down gently, Din covers you with a blanket he finds before you see him go off and disappear into an alcove in the corner of the room.  He must have found a bathroom or a changing room because he comes back with some tissues and helps you clean some of the joint spill that’s now dripping from you, before you watch with some amusement as he cleans the mirror that the two of you defiled.  Thoughtful, thoughtful man. 

When he’s finished, Din comes back to you as he always does, kneels by your head and strokes your hair, kissing you tenderly, “Pretty bird, I mean it.  You’re taking on a lot.  Too much.”

This time when he says it, you’re too placated and pliant to argue, so you just nod, sleepy.

“This dress fitting was too much to ask of you.  And even though it’s in your nature to help, I know you’re really doing this for me.  I ask too much of you sometimes – I know it hasn’t been easy with me coming home late, scaring you with what I might be facing while I’m out.  I’m sorry,” Din looks at you with such a soulful, downcast look, your heart breaks – you bring your hand to his cheek and warm when you feel him leaning into your touch.

“Don’t be sorry.  I love you, Din,” you whisper, trying to let him know with your eyes that you can handle it.  You can handle anything with him.

Din knows. “Let me take care of you too sometimes, okay, pretty bird?  You don’t have to handle it all on your own.”

“Okay,” you smile.  This one word breaks any remaining tension that Din had been holding on to and he leans in, kissing you with devotion, sealing in your promise.

“I think you’re done for the day, sweetheart.  No more of these dresses for you.  I’ll go downstairs and get your stuff from Rory.  I’ll pay for this one you’re wearing now… and then we’ll leave?”

“Sounds good, daddy,” you yawn, closing your eyes.

As Din approaches the staircase, he looks back at you and asks, curious, “Did you try on any wedding dresses today, pretty girl?”

Half asleep, you shake your head, “Nope, just a million bridesmaid dresses.”

“Hmmm,” Din muses, thoughtful, “Bet you would look really good in a wedding dress, baby.”

“Din, don’t even start…” your voice trails off as sleep carries you away, barely registering the conversation that’s taking place.

Din continues down the stairs, humming and grinning stupidly to himself.

The Wedding takes place after this chapter and before Ch. 18, but it's not necessary for the plot to read - just know that when Ch. 18 starts, Cass and Rikard are already married 🥰

[achaotichuman]

Acotar Rant

I feel like the Acotar series would be so much better if Rhys and Tam was just a little over a hundred.

Assuming the age gaps and century year old fae in SJM books are there so we can have complex characters and not just to fulfill her weird sexual fantasies I think it would be better if instead of these people being like five-six centuries old, where they should have fully developed characters and should be better equipped to handle the situations, they're in. Because trust me, none of them are.

They were like just a little over a hundred. Tamlin and Rhysand might have been twenty-thirty years old when they're families were killed, and they were put on thrones. And keeping to the fact that they are immortal, all of a sudden, to have the equivalent of baby Fae ruling Courts, the actions or lack of actions taken in their Courts makes a ton of sense.

Tamlin, who has said many, many times he would always fight for freedom and defend people who couldn't defend himself, following in his tyrant father's footsteps makes sense because he was so young and probably had no one and nothing to his name. Rhysand not doing anything for the Hewn City or Illyria also makes sense because he was just a couple of decades old and same thing as Tamlin, had nothing and no one to his name.

Then only like twenty-thirty years pass, which even for humans is not nearly enough time for massive changes like completely eliminating wing clipping, an ingrained tradition in society, to take place, Amarantha comes. Her being able to trick a literal daemati also makes sense because Rhysand wouldn't really have the experience needed to sniff out when someone is up to something fishy.

Then fifty years pass, fifty years Under the Mountain which is even longer than either Rhys or Tamlin had been ruling. Then their desperation makes more sense. Tamlin clinging onto Feyre like she's some fallen saint that he desperately needs to protect makes even more sense. At that point neither of them would really know much more than Under the Mountain or the curse.

It's still a gross age gape, but it adds more nuance to the story, it's also why I think it's stupid when Feyre says Tarquin wouldn't understand her darkness, like no sweetie, you wouldn't understand his darkness.

I just think we need younger Fae. Fae that are inexperienced and don't know better than the bad cards they've been dealt. Rhysand who is still new to this whole ruling thing and know only knows Amarantha's way of ruling. Same thing with Tamlin. Both of them still locked in the memories of the night they became High lords, unable to let go.

It's also a good way to comment on how Fae mentally age, because, immortal or not, time changes people. Fae mentally age slowly, because their bodies don't at all, so for only like seventy or eighty years to have passed since they witnessed the death of their families, for Tamlin to have been like fifty-sixty when he was forced to send his sentries, his friends, to their deaths in vain. For Rhysand to have been a child king trying to eliminate wing-clipping and darkness in the Hewn City while men centuries older than him scoffed and laughed.

It just adds a whole new level of complexity. I hate the idea that these characters need to be like 500+ to have any level of personality in these series'.

[khruschevshoe]

OFMD Critique: Bad Faith, Fandom, and Respect

All right. You know what? Screw it. I saw one post I just cannot ignore anymore that encapsulated all of my problems with the fandom right now. Personal rant incoming.

I understand that there's a nuance to the discussion of season 2 of Our Flag Means Death, and that there are people going a little too far with both their critiques and their support of the show. But oh my God, I'm tired of being straw-manned and made fun of for legitimate critiques of the show.

I just used the block button on someone in this fandom for the first time. Some of you might think I'm overreacting for this, but I saw a post that I could not on any level stand. This person, who I will not name names of, because I'd rather just block them and never deal with their level of bad faith again, took their one legitimate criticism of those of us who critique the show, the back and forth on whether or not Izzy's death was homophobic or not, and used it as the first in a literal list of straw man critiques that no one I've read in the OFMD Critical tag has made (and I check it like once a day bc I like reading meta, sorry), proceeding to absolutely make fun of the legitimate critiques that people have of the show, parodying them in the worst possible ways. They took our legitimate critiques about everything from the sexist handling Zheng Yi Sao's character, the absolute ableism of the finale, the questionable optics of the handling of trauma, etc. and stretched them into things that they very much were not (two examples were that we were crying ableism bc of something to do with seagulls and that we thought the problem in the Stede&Zheng dynamic was the "emotional labor" involved).

Now I'm pretty sure this post was a joke. I *think* it was a joke. But how in the world am I supposed to feel comfortable in the main section of a fandom like this when the comments and replies to this post were full of people agreeing sincerely that this is what the critical section of the fandom is like? How am I supposed to feel when I just see people making fun of me for my analysis of the show? I love this show. I adore season 1 and I'm clearly still making fan related content (moodboards) for season 2 along with my critiques.

Sure, I vibe way more with fanfiction than the actual canon at this point, but I still genuinely engage with the show. And to have the critiques that I made in good faith, regarding issues that I sincerely care about such as ableism, sexism, homophobia, and the handling of trauma, made fun of and taken out of context and straw-manned to their extreme, makes me feel so absolutely unwelcome in this fandom.

Other than keeping up with the couple of fan series that I'm currently still reading, I don't know if I can stay in this fandom any longer. I can't say that I'm excited for the new season if this is the kind of response that any good faith critique of the show is going to get. I can't say that I feel safe or comfortable when there are this many people ready to dog pile on me for a critique I made with ACTUAL TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to back it up.

I would like to thank all the people who have been making excellent critiques of the show. Their meta-analysis is what got me into making my own critiques, which I was nervous about making in any other fandom. I don't think I've in any way tagged them all, but just a few I can remember off the top of my head. Go read their critiques/meta- it's really good!

@sky-fire-forever @carrymelikeimcute @blue-b-bro @bougiebutchbinch @treesofgreen @sixstepsaway @alex51324

And from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has engaged with my mood boards or my critiques or anything else that I've made, as well as the amazing writers and artists in this fandom (such as @ruecrown, @aletterinthenameofsanity, @fool-for-luv, and @possumsmushroom). You guys have kept me going with my love for the show and engaging with it for a while now. Despite the stuff that is making me take a step back now, I really did love this while it lasted! I'm still planning on making a few more mood boards, but other than that, I'm going to take a step back from engaging.

Hope this post can spread enough support/joy your way to counteract the ache I'm currently feeling!

Sincerely,

Ashley (aka @khruschevshoe)

[fangxin-guoshi]

Banana fish re-review ~

I did a rewatch of banana fish and oh my God I forgot how good this series was. Considering the original manga came out in the 80's in JAPAN, it was SO ahead of its time. One of the best depictions of gay characters I've ever seen in Japanese media, even by today's standards.

Some more silly thoughts:

Like yoshida just casually dropped a manga with an insanely progressive take on the bl genre by showing a complex queer interracial relationship with incredibly well-written characters. Honestly the fact that ash and eiji's relationship wasn't explicitly defined as romantic is a plus imo. Not being able to rely on obvious romantic gestures like kissing, hand-holding, romantic confessions, etc. actually forces the writer to develop their relationship without that crutch to lean on. That's why ash and eiji's relationship is so good, because it doesn't rely on surface-level romance to get across the fact that they love each other and instead use subtlety and little nuances in their interactions. It's obvious from the subtext and how much they're shown to care for each other.

Not to mention the great depiction of black characters (I know portraying black characters non-offensively is like, the bare minimum, but may I remind you this is the EIGHTIES in JAPAN, and there are so many CURRENT animes that have an issue with it).

I mean yea does it have its flaws? Sure. Ash's admittedly very lame "lynx" title that comes with many wildcat metaphors, eiji being a bit passive in the first half, sort of cringe portrayal of America, etc. but my God the way she handles the trauma and character dynamics is incredible.

Ok so I did have a uh... Not really a criticism but something that I noticed that got me thinking. I feel like some shows use dark subject matter as a bit of an easy way to evoke an emotional reaction from the audience. Sometimes authors give characters horrible backstories as a way to make the audience THINK the character is complex and interesting but in reality it's a bit of a lazy writing tactic. Low effort high reward kind of thing. Banana fish obviously does have brutal subject matter and ash is really put through the ringer, but I love that yoshida doesn't let that become the axis of his character. He has trauma that greatly impacts him, but he's also super developed on his own apart from that. When I think about Ash's character, I don't immediately think about the traumatic backstory parts. The balance between how significantly the trauma affects him vs making sure that's not the ONLY part of his character is extremely well-executed.

Scenes that stuck out to me (not including asheiji ones bc it goes without saying theyre all amazing)

- the interrogator playing Ash's tapes after being arrested ("later, movie star" was the most brutal line ever omg)

- max burning the photos of ash (underrated moment this was SO good),

- any and all interactions between sing and blanca (they're such an unlikely duo peak comedy right there)

- the convo between sing and yut lung in the last episode

- ash stabbing the guy in the dick with a fork

- callback to ^^^, ash stabbing the banana with a fork

- Ash's breakdown in front of dino (ep 19 I believe)

- the entirety of ash escaping from the "mental hospital" and then having to go rescue ibe and max lmaooo

- ash brutally murdering Abraham(?, the redhead guy) by blowing abt a thousand holes in him w a machine gun as payback for shorter

- ash shooting shorter

- running joke of max being Ash's dad

- everyone constantly manhandling yut lung by yanking on his hair (dude get a haircut)

- ash immediately going to shoot himself no hesitation after yut lung told him he wouldn't hurt eiji if he did so (technically asheiji but I'm keeping it since this was a yut lung and ash scene)

- "what does this picture look like?" "Your wife"

- eiji's cute stupid little outfit he wore when he went to go find shorter in Chinatown

I also have a confession:

I LOVE yut lung. Him being paralleled with ash, but instead of finding love he let hate consume him because he had no one unlike ash who had eiji was just devastating but in a good way.

So yea those are my messy thoughts after finishing it. I'd argue that it was probably one of the best pieces of queer media to exist at the time. In the world. And one of my personal favorite pieces of queer media ever.

[tinyowlthoughts]

"I can divide by biographies!"

My favorite episode. Donnie is such a patron, and I empathize with the librarian so much. So, a librarians view of the library episode:

-Donnie is so fucking excited to be at the library. Mood. -Inhaling that bibliosmia, which is the proper term for 'old book smell'. -He has opinions on the nonfiction area. ("Geology stinks.") -Is absolutely IN LOVE with the idea of being IN a book. -"Holy Gutenberg." I'm stealing this to use with my coworkers. -Patron is asking for something but doesn't come right out and say it, instead rambling about personal stuff instead of making it easy for both of them. -Doesn't actually ask the librarian for guidance to the information, instead strikes out on his own to find it. (aka Ignoring a resource right at his fingertips, one of the biggest reasons large, high-traffic libraries employ professional, master's degree holding librarians) -Knows what the Dewey Decimal system is and how it works. -Intuitively figured out the mystic library cataloging system, which is hella impressive. -Doesn't write down the call number of the book, thus leaving his brothers in a lurch when he gets blasted into the baby zone.

And can I just say, the book being part of a display was my absolute favorite part. The name of the display, the beautiful display shelf - peak librarianship right there. Making displays is one of my favorite things to do.

Feel so bad for the Bat Librarian (who deserves her own name for the BS she had to put up with!). Like - the wreckage, the destruction, the falling books? Do y'all have any idea how long it would take to collect, organized, catalog, and reshelve those thousands of books?!?! And then the work that would pile up since she has to focus on that? I didn't notice any other librarians in the episode, and it is a well known fact that if you're not a librarian, page, or trained volunteer, we would prefer you put the books on a cart instead of shelving them yourself because there are many nuances to both Dewey and the alphabetical order (St v Saint, etc.). Also it's a mystic library, so maybe there's no need for other librarians because if everything is running smoothly, Ms. Bat can handle it.

I'm fairly certain that if Donnie showed up to apologize, he would be put right to work assisting her in the mundane shelving task. And let's be honest, he would adore it. Raph might be granted the chance to help, since he's such a softy and would likely be genuinely apologetic for the mess now that Mayhem is out of danger. I could see him using his powers to help hold the larger stuff in place for repairs to the shelves, walls, etc., or moving large pallets of books around for Donnie to shelve.

Leo and Mikey? Straight to the kiddie room, if not outright banned from ever entering the mystic library again. (Yes, libraries ban patrons. It happens all the time - when you enter a library, you are agreeing to follow the Code of Conduct. You break it, we ban you, from a month to life.)

Such a good episode. One of my all-time faves from the series.

Honestly, if I made an OC for this world, it would probably be a library manager for a smaller branch of the Mystic Library that is more present in NYC, likely disguised as a 'used book store' that is more public library and less academic library, and more easily accessible for the Yōkai living in the human realm. Instead of hush bats there would be a big, fluffy library cat named LoC who sits on you if you're being too loud.

[yumeka36]

After hearing all the hype, I finally decided to watch Frieren. I was 99% sure I would like it based on what people were praising about it. And now that I've watched all (currently) 28 episodes...yeah, it's really good.

I knew it was gonna be a slow-paced series that's mostly driven by the characters and world-building as opposed to an ongoing, impending plot...and I'm totally okay with that. While I do enjoy series with a lot of flashy action and emotional angst, I also like when series don't pander to this typical way of being entertaining. Cool fights and suspenseful plots will always be popular, especially for anime/manga, so I greatly respect a series that dares to be different and still delivers. While the characters in Frieren do have an ongoing goal, it's not the main focus of the series: the focus is on their interactions with the world and each other. This is especially unusual for a series that takes place in a D&D fantasy world with monsters, demons, and magic. Such a world is full of potential for fast-paced fights and angst-ridden action, but Frieren does it differently. The handful of battle scenes in the series so far are handled very "matter of fact" - they're not given any more fanfare than other things that happen. Anyone who's watched a decent amount of shonen anime is probably used to all the intense violence and raw emotions that pour out during fight scenes, so seeing how relatively calmly the characters in Frieren handle similar situations may not be for everyone. It even took me a while to get used to how the more suspenseful action scenes in Frieren are handled compared to most other anime.

One of my favorite things in anime, or any medium really, is having characters with appealing but also unique relationships - relationships that can't really be defined by "typical romance," "typical friendship," etc, but something special and unique that I want to see develop as the series goes on. This is a big reason why I like Spy x Family so much, and why I like Frieren as well. The relationship between Frieren and Fern is something like this: On the surface they have a "master/student" relationship, but there are so many more layers to it, like Fern often being exasperated by Frieren's obsession with new spells or the fact that her interpretation of time is so different from that of humans', that sometimes Fern acts like the more "mature" one of the group. But at the same time, despite her elegant air, she has a childish side to her in how she pouts and sulks whenever she's upset with Frieren and Stark, plus her no-nonsense personality that often clashes with Frieren's easy going approach to things. But despite this, we still observe the intimacy between them and how comfortable they've gotten with each other over the years. Then there's Fern's relationship with Stark, that I find incredibly adorable mostly because, again, of how nuanced it is. They're not constantly emoting or yelling at each other, yet you can tell there's something going on between them based on more subtle things, like Fern giving Stark a hard time compared to how she relates to everyone else, and Stark being sensitive to her mood changes.

Another interesting thing about the series is how long the timeline is. Over 100 years have passed for the characters, Frieren in particular of course, since episode 1 to episode 28, yet nothing seems rushed. The series focuses on the bits of their lives that matter through flashbacks here and there, and that makes the series' world more engrossing when you have an idea of all the events that transpired over such a long time. Characters who aren't even alive/present during most of the story, particularly Himmel and his group, can have so much influence in the narrative. All the scenes where Frieren is reminded of things Himmel says and does make so much sense, not just because he was such an important person to her, but because someone who's lived for as long as she has is bound to have these deja vu moments where she had experienced a similar situation before.

The latter part of the series involving the mage exam made me a bit apprehensive, since I don't like when series introduce a bunch of characters at once in a competition with the protagonists. When there's so many new characters that need to play a role in the current plot, they probably won't be well written. But honestly, by the end of the series, I thought they were all interesting characters. This is mostly due to, again, the series giving ample time showing how each of them thinks and strategizes, how they work together with others, what their motivations are, etc, rather than just showing off their powers. Even a character like Serie who's shown to be an antagonist was still interesting as I could at least understand her motives and beliefs.

There's more I can say about Frieren but I'll stop there. Overall, an excellent series and one of the best I've seen in recent years. Looking forward to more anime, and I may even check out the manga!

[suddencolds]

Who are your favorite artists/writers in the community?

THIS IS SO HARD, anon 😭 (but it's a question I'm curious about others' answers to too!) I have some time before work, so I'll attempt to answer somewhat coherently:

i've always admired @hachiibun, in particular for his ability to draw such a variety of poses and pre snz expressions (his somewhat recent post of h/sr snzcanons comes to mind)!! i'm continually amazed by the way he's able to capture nuances in characterization through the little visual details he chooses to highlight. i think he particularly excels at capturing like, the misery/harshness of a snz, and the all-consuming ticklishness of the build-up 😭

@mochindayo has super lovely ocs! i look forward to seeing their snz art and non-snz art alike. i love the way they draw hair in particular—it looks sooo soft and fluffy and i can tell there's a lot of care put into arranging the strands. the characters they draw genuinely look so pretty (even ruined with a cold or allergies, there's always something beautiful to them)??

i need to mention @6pmsoup bc their sketches literally always eat!! i feel like they always have such a tasteful way of like narrowing down which elements to give more dimension/detail/shading to. their art looks simultaneously so clean and engaging 😭 (cheating a bit here and i hope it's okay to say this, but i am also continually impressed by their musical ear and their compositional ability)

i really love @whiskey-tango-matcha's ocs so, so much! she has such an impressive handle on character voices and humor; when i read her fics, i really love how easy it is to get lost in the conversational flow. in particular, elijah and greyson have a super fun dynamic of like, simultaneous prickliness and concern?? it's not something i see a lot, but i feel like i could never get tired of the way they play off of each other 😭

one of the first snzfics i read which like blew me away was actually something @ithadtobesneezing posted to ao3 (i am embarrassed to say how long ago, haha). she has a very good handle on emotional depth 😭 like i feel like she writes with a certain clarity of character; her works carry like this sort of emotional intimacy and sensitivity to them, which always stands out

recently i have been head over heels in love w @vllergy's oc series. i honestly cannot remember the last time i fell for two characters so quickly 🥹 jin and vesen and their dynamic set me on fire; i have not enough words to describe how fun it is to read from jin's headspace. his character voice really shines through in the narration (and some of it is really funny too???); seriously check it out if you haven't already!

[punch-love]

2, 7, 10, 15, 16

greedily takes up five of the options

I'm actually going to answer these for both lokius and spideypool to be fair to what fandom you read for and also to what I'm reading for right now.

2. 🔁 A fic you’ve re-read several times

There's a clear theme in these.

i could show you by jilliancares

I think this was the first real gender-affirming trans porn I had ever read and kept on re-reading. It's so good. It's very hot and I love everything about the smut and the dynamics but it's also just - a trans guy talking about oral sex and his disappointing experiences with it and there's a lot of intimacy in the way that's handled. It's just very real so the fantasy of it is even realer. I have read this one many, many times.

Turnabout loop - Mirilya

The Mobius coochie fic. It's great. I could say that I love the idea of Loki using his magic for shapeshifting his partner in bed and the genderbending of it, which I do. It's also just hot. Objectively. I think there needs to be more fics with this exact thesis of Mobius getting eaten out. I support it.

7. 💯A fic that makes you think #writergoals

morning in the burned house by antivenom

Just a really stunning character study and piece of prose. It's such a complicated, nuanced approach to Wade Wilson as a character and his relationship with Spider-Man. It has my favorite approach to a backstory I've seen for in the fandom. This just really sits with him as a character and explores the side roads and back alleys of his brain and the reason he is who he is. It's beautiful. I think anything that sits with you afterward is something I am inspired by, and this sits with me.

The Shapeshifter's Guide to Butt Stuff by comrade_bucket

I just recommended the first part of this series (and the whole series is #writergoals) but this one is so conceptual, so out there, so fucking weird and strange and beautiful that every time I read it I'm struck at what a piece of art it is. The way this work addresses genderfludity, god-hood, the human experience, love, gender conformity, and compromise is just so wonderful. I would love to write something as strange and shocking and daring as this! Again, both installments of this series including The-Infinity-Year-Old Virgin are both something I love to re-read and also get inspired by every time. The endings on both of these are something I've taken notes on.

10. 👽 A fic that isn’t prose (poetry, text fic, etc.)

I got really into the Wickerman tag the other day and this AMV is one of my favorite things I've ever seen.

Lovely Day (Good as Hell) [Favid] periru3, Tafadhali

hare toss, check my nails, baby how you feeling? feeling good as hell!

15. 📚 A fic you wish you could display on your bookshelf

They're both by the same author, surprise. (I think it's funny that @primewritessmut wrote two masterpieces in my favorite genres.) I also have told them before that I would book bind them both, and I am extra serious about doing it for the second one.

Songs for the Zombie Apocalypse by zerospoons_onlyknives

I love zombies. They're my favorite horror genre and I have read and watched as much of it as possible but it's so rare to find the good stuff because no one goes far enough. (Prime goes farther.) It's dark, demented, violent, gloriously unwell and erotic. It's not a love story, it's something so much more interesting, and each chapter I got to read in advanced had more and more tangled in it. The ending is unbelievably glorious. It was one of those things that I was like "this feels written for me" and it wasn't (and it kind of was) but I enjoyed it so much. It deserves to be bound in a book that looks suspiciously like human skin.

Midori Sour - oprime

This is the hallmark rom-com bait and switch psychological thriller family drama slice of life romance of all time. It's so good. It really has no business being as good as it is. The idea is so fun and the dynamics are great and the setting and side-characters are so lived in but the underlayers of this. I want this book bound so I can just re-read sections and underline the lines that stick through onto the other side. I love this thing so much. It's so human and compelling and deliciously deep. The depth that Prime goes in on with this one is just unbelievable. I love it very much. I would bind it in green leather and put a little fruity drink in the middle of it and highlight the whole thing in a green neon with red on the cherries.

16. 💞 A fic that led to you making friends with the author

I think it's funny that these are both series.

Bad Things - wanderingflame

I was so, so obsessed with this when I first read it. I remember sitting in a car outside a thrift store just binging through it (and then I re-read it at least two times.) I also think @in-my-loki-feels is the first person I have ever asked to write inspired work for (and also, found out we both share the same feelings on inspired work lmao) because I was just so enchanted by this story. It's so fresh, thoughtful, compelling, and just the right hint of dark. Their passion for these characters and the nuanced groves of their natures is just - god, it's so good. We have a very "writers who like each other's work" friendship in a way I really appreciate.

gunpowder triology - periodicallypuzzled

It's rare for me to find a writer with such a personality through their work. I couldn't get enough of this series when I first read it - the humor, the personality, the characterization, the heart juxtaposition with the grit. I don't often say "I really want to know the person who wrote this" but I remember thinking that after reading that. @periodically-puzzled read something of mine and offered to exchange discord handles and after that we became friends. I should also re-read this, now that I'm thinking about it again.

[earthnashes]

Woops guess who started watching Gargoyles with the squad in my discord server :)

We only watched the episodes the show first premiered with (the “Awakening” episodes) but holy shit I forgot how much I LOVE this show.

The animation is absolutely gorgeous and so fluid, and there’s so much nuance to them! Little things, like Goliath constantly using his tail as a means of attack, or how he is animated to be so careful when handling Demona or Elisa. And how differently each character moves; I love how Lex is often on all four whereas everyone else is predominantly standing upright. And how Broadway walks with a lot more weight than the rest of the cast given him being a BICC BOI.

And don’t get me started on the animalistic traits the Gargoyles exhibit man. I’ve always loved that, when something that isn’t human shows behaviors and actions that aren’t human, like the Gargoyles running on all four or when surprised they perk up like a dog listening for threats. It’s so cool, and sells the idea that while very intelligent and sapient, the Gargoyles still operate somewhat on instinct (or at least moreso than humans do).

The way the scenes were shot were crazy too man, especially the creativity of the transitions and particularly how they handled the compositions and direction of the climbing and flight scenes. The action also is top notch man.

And the voice acting, the sound mixing. GAH DAMN. Every character has an excellent voice; I already knew that but hearing it again just really hit it home just how much the character’s voices fit them and the tasty skill behind the actors themselves man. Not to mention the personalities; I forgot how often Elisa pulls wise cracks, I love her. ;w;

As for overall sound, all of it slapped, but a thing I absolutely love that a lot of other media that feature monsters in them don’t do often is backing the vocals with more feral/animalistic/inhuman sounds to really bring the point home that these things aren’t human. Like, Goliath’s cry backed with a lion’s roar, or the cat-like snarls Demona hisses out, or the whale-ish groans and bro I’m a fucking SUCKER for that shit.

But yeah! Just wanted to gush about the show a little bit. It was so fucking good, we were eatin good when it aired back in the day cuz jees. The quality and effort is crazy. I’m excited to watch the rest of the series and uhhhh ya’ll may have to see a few doodles from me for that there AU as we go. owo

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Welcome to Emelan

My (super subjective and objectively non-empirical) experience has been that Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe is where most of her fans begin, and it seems to be her more popular universe. Heck, I started in Tortall. But as I read more, and found more of Pierce's books, I found the Circle Universe, and I gotta say, for all my love and nostalgia for the Tortall Universe, I think my heart lives in Emelan with Sandry, Briar, Daja, and Tris. I certainly tried to balance my Rosethorn half with my Lark tendencies and my extremely Niko academic oeuvre when I was teaching, and I love that the Circle Universe gets away from more traditional medieval europe settings. Let's talk The Circle of Magic Quartet.

Sandry's Book introduces the world, the magic system, and our four protagonists. Sandreline Fa Toren is almost royalty in two countries and has exactly zero compunction about hopping back and forth between "just Sandy" and "Lady Sandreline" as the occasion calls for it. We love her, and honestly she's perfect. Joining Sandry at Discipline Cottage in Winding Circle Temple are former street rat Briar Moss, neglected and rejected merchant daughter Trisana Chandler, and orphaned and exiled Trader Daja Kisubo.

This book brings the four together and they learn that they are ambient mages--mages who manipulate the power inherent in the world rather than mages who use power inherent in themselves (academic mages). The magic system in the Circle Universe is objectively my favorite, because it is so detailed and so nuanced and so tied to craftsmanship. It's something I've never seen done better than it is here. And because our four protagonists are incredible, they also manage to spin their powers together, making them exponentially stronger together than they could have imagined being individually--which is just a stunnign thematic tie-in. A+ no notes.

Tris's Book explores Tris's past, her magic, and the choices she has to make to keep her terrifyingly powerful weather magic under control despite her deep emotional wounds and temper. Tris is honestly one of my two favorite characters in this series because this girl just has SO MANY feelings and she has to literally learn to take herself in hand to not accidentally hurt or kill anyone. It also explores Tris's relationships to her blood and found families, and Pierce makes no bones about how sometimes family can be irredeemably toxic, and that it's ok to choose the found family that loves and supports you. Honestly Tris needs a hug, but good luck getting through the lightning to give it to her.

This book also really deepens the relationships between each protagonist and their teachers. I love how much time Pierce spends in all of her books focusing on student-teacher relationships, and the ones here, in a literal educational setting (non-traditional though it is), are top tier. This continues to be expanded in later books, but Niko and Tris's relationship really cements here and I love them as a student and teacher.

Also, there are pirates in this book. That's pretty cool.

Daja's Book takes reader and protagonists beyond the walls of Winding Circle and expands the world at the end of a difficult, dry summer that was poised for a firey fall and a possible starving winter. The Duke of Emelan is touring the outer estates to assess who needs what help and what he can do.

Meanwhile, the book explores Trader culture and Daja's relationship to it. This is done so spectacularly that I am loath to give any spoilers, but suffice it to say that not only does this book explore the downsides of exclusionary cultural practices, it also explores the complex emotions of being excluded and both knowing it's wrong but desperately missing being included. Disability is also handled spectacularly in this book, and I love it for that.

While Daja is exploring her own culture from the outside, Sandry, Briar, and Tris are dealing with the aftermath of spinning their powers together in Sandry's Book. This is very much a subplot, but it works beautifully to expand the worldbuilding and magic system.

Briar's Book sees everyone return to Emelan proper, and this book hits DIFFERENT after 2020. Winding Circle must deal with a mysterious plague, and honestly after Covid, I can't actually read this book without sobbing. It's damn good, and Briar and Rosethorn are just the absolute peak student-teacher relationship. This book also really highlights Briar and Tris's relationship, which will continue to grow and develop throuhgout the Circle Universe books.

I absolutely recommend these books. Tamora Pierce is technically YA, but the protagonists are between 10 and 12 in these books, so they might feel more middle-grade than YA at times, but that truly does not diminish any of the very human themes and challenges.

These books also have absolutely stunningly performed and edited full-cast audiobooks, and I cannot recommend those enough either. I now read these books in the voice actors' voices, and that just makes the whole experience more magical.

[unhappy-day-in-hell]

The Dissection of Hazbin Hotel, Episode One: part 1

Hazbin Hotel is finally coming out and I want to talk about it!

Seems unreal, doesn’t it!? After four years it’s here, and it’s one of the biggest train wrecks I've ever seen with my own two eyes!

Like many people, I used to be a fan. I got into Hazbin at the end of 2021, and stayed with it until mid-2023, when I woke up to the series’ flaws and saw how horrible Vivziepop was as a person. But for that time, Hazbin gave me something to look forward to during a dark time in my life. I was excited for it. I liked the idea it would be a complex, dark, and nuanced look into some dark topics. I was convinced Angel’s trauma would be handled with care, because Addict handled it with care. I was convinced Hazbin would be a show that said “no one is beyond becoming a better person if they just make the decision to try, no matter how much bad they’ve done.” Being set in Hell, where the UNIVERSE ITSELF has given up on the souls damned there (the furthest extreme you can possibly get to), was a good way to exaggerate this conflict.  

Spoilers: It wasn’t that! Apparently it was never meant to be that in the first place!

Vivziepop threw out the original premise that everyone loved in favor of a Heaven war! She ripped off the “Rose Quartz = Pink Diamond” reveal with Rosie-Lilith-Eve. By extension, they de-clawed Alastor by making him Rosie’s pawn. (I loved Alastor. I wanted to see more of his deranged self; I wanted to see what he would do when he was proven wrong when redemption was possible.)

When I watched Episode One, I started writing my thoughts down. Then I tripped and wrote 13,000 words.

So I’m gonna post them here as a review! It’s long, so I’m going to break it into four parts.

I can be very forgiving of flawed projects, but in regards to Hazbin, I’m petty. No nitpick is too small. I will compare it to the pilot (because it’s in that Viv-canon-limbo where you need to have seen it but she pretends it’s not canon), and I’ll have tangents and rewrite ideas.

The story-crafting for this show is one of the more important elements to me, so I give a lot of attention to that.

And there will be SPOILERS, including all leaks! So just be careful if you don’t want spoilers or leaks! 

Let’s go!

Part 1: //

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

--Hazbin Hotel opens with a huge exposition dump about the supposed creation of Hell.

And IMMEDIATELY, we’ve run into a problem.

Sometimes, stories will open with lore dumps like this. They can be useful in giving the audience important knowledge, or setting the stage for the world. However, this lore dump provides us with neither of those things.

Even for people who aren’t religious (me), the story of Eden is really well known (even just the pop culture version of it.)  That means you don’t need to tell us the creation story at this moment-- What we NEED right now is to understand what this version of Hell is like.

What info do we need in order to understand the setting of Hell that Charlie lives in?

Important stuff like this: Hell functions like a big city with laws, and isn’t like the pop-culture fire and brimstone image we might have; dead sinners manifest with new bodies and are exclusively in the Pride Ring, which makes them the property of Lucifer, and they’re immortal unless killed by angels; angels come down once a year to erase them to keep them from becoming too numerous. Emphasize that it’s like a shitty country, with shitty jobs and leaders, Lucifer at the tippy-top. Emphasize the Sinners’ fear of the annual exterminations -- emphasize that Charlie feels helpless but wants to save them.

Your job as a storyteller is to tell us what we need to know, when we need to know it.

Right now, we don’t need to know why Hell was created – we need to know how Hell WORKS in the present. That’s your goal, to bring us into the world.

The only necessary information this narration gives us is that “exterminations exist." Everything else about the deeper lore can be shown to us later, after we’ve had some time to get to know the world.

(Have this be a fairytale Charlie tells during an emotional, quiet moment; or in a flashback, Lilith tells this to a baby Charlie. Or it can be a musical number Lilith or Lucifer sings for her, trying to make themselves look better than they actually were.)

--“Angels are beings made of pure light who worshipped good and shielded all from evil.” WE’RE FIVE SECONDS INTO THIS AND ALREADY WE HAVE A HUGE THING TO UNPACK. Buckle up.

So Hazbin's lore goes like this: the Angels already exist, and they worship a vague figure of “Good” (who isn’t God), and defend people from “Evil” (who isn’t the devil, because Lucifer hasn’t rebelled yet.) Since Lucifer hasn’t rebelled yet, evil really shouldn’t exist yet. Where is this evil coming from?

(I have a bad feeling it’s Roo -- the Root of Evil, that character Viv drew years ago and said is a looming presence in the distance. Is Roo some kind of “eldritch abomination”, who existed before the angels? Sadly, I think that’s very likely, at this point.)

Either way: Good and Evil are forces that already existed at the start of creation, before Adam and Eve and everything else, and Lucifer and the Fallen Angels had nothing to do with it. Which just doesn’t mesh, if you’re going to have a Christian base for the lore.

Also: It says the angels defend people from Evil. But who are the angels defending? They explicitly show that humanity hasn’t been created at this point, because we see the birth of Adam in a few moments; so who the heck needed defending during this period of time!?

…

Alright, to get this out of the way: Hazbin Hotel won’t use God as a character, apparently because they don’t want to offend anyone, or so I heard. It’s something to debate; was this a good idea on their part, or is it cowardice? For me, I personally feel like it’s the latter. The show has already taken many other incredibly sacred figures and stories, and jumbled them up and tweaked them for the show’s awful lore -- and Viv has never cared about offending anyone before so why would she care now -- which is why it feels spineless to me, for them to NOT go all the way and just use the Capital G himself. Plenty of other stories have used the Christian God as a character just fine.

If they’re worried about doing it tactfully, the solution is to just… NOT write God as an asshole? Maybe try for some genuine sincerity in the writing for once? Make him the single character in the cast who is never played for a joke, and whose personality has no stupid quirks. Have him be very distant, maybe even locked in Heaven’s Palace, that way you don’t have to show him more than a handful of times, but the audience will know he exists; and use his limited screentime to make him display wisdom and warmth.

Maybe he acts like a distant observer of the Universe, and he clearly knows something we don’t; he tut-tuts at the bad things, but “This, You See, is how it Must Be. And by the end of the show he’s right because everything works out for the good. Or... something.

My point is, they already used all this other sacred stuff from the bible, they might as well go all the way. (Viv certainly didn’t have a problem using Lilith or vodou symbols, did she?)

--Lucifer was a dreamer who was deemed dangerous to the order of Heaven. Then he fell in love with Lilith for her fierce independence and they wanted to share free will with humanity.

This story. This rewriting of the usual biblical tale to make Lucifer sympathetic.

It just doesn’t work.

It also ties back to their refusal to use God as a character. The character of God was an INTEGRAL piece of this mythological story, and God and Lucifer were inseparably intertwined figures in it. Lucifer’s entire rebellion and “Pride” sin was against God. You could say... Lucifer has major fucking "Daddy Issues." (That's a phrase Alastor will say later!) To take away his Daddy Issues is just so lame.

Even worse, this story is trying to paint Lucifer as a misunderstood artist who cared about creation. (He's so different from the actual mythological figure, it makes you wonder what the point of even using these figures as characters is.)

…There are two possibilities.

Possibility One: I wonder if this is a “sanitized” version of the story that Lucifer tells Charlie to make himself look better. (This feels very much like one of those “history lessons” that a fantasy world will introduce to the characters early on, only for that history lesson to be shown as a lie later on.) But if that’s the case, it’s WEIRD for Hazbin Hotel to do that with the story of the Garden of Eden?? Everyone/most everyone in the audience will already know the gist of how the Eden story goes, so they'll know this retelling isn’t right -- so what, are we expected to wait for Charlie to gormlessly stumble into the truth, ~as a twist~ that GASP D:> her father INTENTIONALLY fucked humanity over!?!?!? HE DID IT ON PURPOSE AND ALL THE SUFFERING OF HELL WAS HIS GOAL!?!?!? DAD HOW COULD YOU. That’ll be a shitty twist. The audience already knows this, so it’ll just be pounding our heads into the wall waiting for Charlie to get there.

(And also, it’s very suspicious they don’t actually SAY what Lucifer’s “ideas and dreams” were for creation. So that could be a lie by omission that he uses for his fairytale. In reality, he might have had awful, shitty, malicious ideas, which Heaven stopped him from doing, and Lucifer’s been a big baby about it ever since.)

Possibility two: This is legitimately the retelling of the Eden story in the Hazbin Universe. Which just suuuuuuucks! If Lucifer was a kind, caring individual, why would he let his Hell Kingdom become a total SHITHOLE of suffering? Wouldn’t he be a kind ruler? Wouldn’t he try to run the ship better?

And it’s a horrible decision to woobify him in general. You’re seriously going to de-claw THE DEVIL? You’re gonna rip out his teeth and make him soggy!? You’re gonna make the King Of Evil, The Father of All Lies, LUCIFER, EMBODIMENT OF PRIDE, a wet meow-meow sadboy who did nothing wrong?? COME ON!! What makes Lucifer an interesting character IS THAT HE MADE THE CHOICE to fuck everything up on purpose! He’s interesting BECAUSE of how he, to this day, wants to ruin the Earth to stick it to God! You can’t just take that away from him!

It’s incredible that these two possibilities are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but both are unsalvageable. There is NO winning with this backstory. They fucked up.

--Ah wait there it is. The apple is the same color as the Vague Evil’s eye from above.

Yep….

Man, making Eve the twist villain of the story (before or after Roo shows up? Is Roo inside of Eve controlling her? It doesn’t matter). You couldn’t write a worst twist.

I ask you: Why is it Eve, and not Adam who is the secret twist villain? Or, why isn’t it Adam+Eve TOGETHER who are the twist villains?

If this were the only instance of female characters being demonized, I wouldn’t think anything of it -- but there is a clear pattern across all of Viv’s writing. Viv is a known misogynist, and this feels like an extension of her misogyny. Of course the twist villain is female. Of course Roo The Secret Eldritch Abomination is female. The male characters get sympathy, or stuff handed to them. Lucifer is a good lad who did nothing wrong! Alastor isn’t evil, he was hired to protect the Hotel and is a father figure to Charlie! ADAM got to go to Heaven and Eve didn’t!

I have absolutely no doubt that the blame will be put on Eve, and Adam will be given a pass because Eve tricked him to eat the fruit of knowledge, or something.

--Yep, this thing is animated like a Root. It’s totally Roo.

--Eyes… just like Roo’s root tongue. Yep.

--Heaven only allowed Lucifer to see the bad of humanity, never the good.

They really ARE trying to woobify him, aren’t they? At this point, the only way they could salvage any of this is by making this a sanitized bedtime story (which again wouldn’t work in itself.)

This is the fucking DEVIL we’re talking about.

He is the King of Hell, and therefore, he is the ruler of the Princes of Sin, the Ars Goetia, and the legions of Hell that are trying to corrupt the Earth! We see in Helluva Boss that demons do actually go to make Earth worse. If Lucifer is King and didn’t want this to happen, he has the power to stop at.

Plus: there are portals to go to Earth, and magic to watch the Earth as seen on Helluva Boss. So Lucifer has every means to look at the Earth any way he wants, and could see the good the Earth has to offer…… and it's because he’s the one bringing evil to the Earth in the first place in order to destroy good (technically to fight against God, but God ain't here, so "Good" it is.) That’s still Hell’s MO in this world. We’ve seen this on Helluva Boss, which is canon to this universe. And you cannot convince me that the King of Hell was “oblivious to it” or "the other royal demons have their own power and Lucy can't stop them" or some excuse like that, as if the Princes of Sin and the Ars Goetia are doing it secretly under Lucifer’s nose and Lucifer doesn’t know it’s going on. You cannot convince me of this.

Plus even then -- if Lucifer were still a sadboy who WANTS to see the good of the Earth (even if all he sees is the bad), that means… in theory, he has a “good heart”. So why isn’t he a kinder King?

Because this is either a fake fairytale or Viv is a bad writer who doesn’t think anything through. (It’s both.)

--Lucifer lost his spark, huh? What does that actually mean? Does it mean his title as King is only symbolic and he doesn’t do any ruling? (This can’t be right – we see later in the episode Lucifer still has some authority over various things, like meeting with Adam but foisting that responsibility on Charlie.) Does losing his spark just mean he gave up trying to be good, and now just revels in evil?

And, as the embodiment of Pride, shouldn’t Lucifer of all people be the most stubborn, unshakable person in existence? Instead of losing his SPARK, he should just grow jaded and bitter but still have that fire to prove he's better than everyone. He’s the King of Hell for a reason.

(And if Lilith thrives, why isn’t she the ruling Queen of Hell?)

--So Lilith uses her powers to Empower Demons…

This wording is VERY suspicious, and once again, feels like a sanitized bedtime story for Charlie.

What does empowering demons actually MEAN? Huh? It sounds very good in this fairytale, but look at the evidence presented to us. We see what Hell is like (...eventually.) It’s a shithole where everyone is suffering and constantly beating and killing each other. For all we know, her “empowering demons” actually means she encourages everyone’s worst behavior, gives sinners powers and weapons that they can use against each other, and is the reason why Hell is so awful.

…Oh god, if LILITH is the cause of Hell being bad, and Lucifer is a Good Boy who sits back and doesn’t do anything, then it’s another female character being written to fuck everything up!

(We don’t know when Eve takes Lilith’s spot, but I don’t think it’s quite at this point in history. So Eve doesn’t get the blame here just yet. Hopefully?)  

--Overpopulation was always a bad motivation for Hazbin Hotel. I thought that even when I was a fan. Because: if Hell is a finite space where you can run out of room… then so is Heaven? If you start redeeming sinners for the sake of giving Hell more room… theeeeeen eventually HEAVEN is going to get overpopulated and run out of room. What then?

Hell also has other Rings the sinners are not allowed to go to. Are we going to mention the other Rings’ existence at any point? Will the idea of opening the other Rings up to sinners even be presented as an option at any point?

How much of Hazbin’s lore is going to be locked in Helluva Boss, unable to be shown in the series proper? Will the Princes of Sins, the Hellborn demons, the Ars Goetia ever make an appearance, or are they not allowed to? Will Charlie ever have to deal with the fact there is an entire slave caste in Hell, the Hellhounds? Is she going to free the Hellhounds? Imps are also oppressed, will the show ever explicitly TALK about that? Will the worldbuilding show us how imps, hellhounds, and Sinners intermingle in Pentagram City?

CAN HELLBORN DEMONS BE REDEEMED AND GO TO HEAVEN?

So many questions. And knowing Viv’s style, I highly doubt we’ll ever get any answers.

--So Charlie inherited her mother’s dream. But they completely neglected to mention what Lilith’s dream actually was. Do they mean she wants Charlie to “empowering sinners,” in general? Or did Lilith, specifically, want the exterminations to end?

They use such vague words, when this is one moment they should just give us a clear answer. This whole backstory was a mistake and a waste of time, but if you are going to use it to set up Charlie inheriting something from Lilith, you have to make it clear what she’s inheriting.

And also, while it’s not ENTIRELY a Chosen One scenario, in the pilot we got the sense that Charlie was the one who made the choice to try and help sinners, on her own. Now though, Charlie was GIVEN this dream by someone else, because she can’t have agency. It would be one thing if Lilith just taught Charlie to feel compassion (that would be fine, parents teach their kids morals all the time), but Charlie still came to the redemption conclusion on her own – it’s another for her to be said to have “inherited this from Lilith” or is carrying on Lilith’s legacy.

.................

With the opening monologue over, the only thing we know is that the lore is very messy. It has a Christian basis, but it's been fucked up so badly that it makes you wonder what the point even is.

Good and Evil are living eldritch forces that existed before creation and have nothing to do with God, Lucifer, or anything else like that.

There is no God, (who is the ENTIRE CENTRAL POINT for the biblical-inspired stuff in Hazbin); instead a whole Council of Elder Angels rules the universe.

Roo has no basis in anything.

I think in some tellings, Lucifer was the first Angel? Even if not, he was one of the highest. So Lucifer should be one of the ruling angels. They have to severely weaken him as a figure in order to make him under the control of the other angels. (After all, in Christian mythology, it's God who made Lucifer fall. Another way his absence fucks the story.)

And my final takeaway from combing over this lore is: why didn't Viv just make her own fantasy world? Everything in this show is only passingly similar to the stuff it's based on. If you're gonna take these aspects from religions and fuck with them so much, just make your own fantasy world where you can do whatever you want.

That was only the opening monologue. This is gonna be a long ride guys!