#putting this here instead of my main because it is once again Relevant to my creative endeavors lmao

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

[the criminologist voice] i would like... if i may... to [stop being a medical anomaly]

[crow-caller]

Also terribly sorry to send a second one so quickly but I hadn't scrolled yet. I see you're an indie author, and judging by the pinned post, at least privately published. How'd you do it? I've had two hundred years worth of an alt history dieselpunk lowfantasy world's lore knocking around in my brain but cannot for the life of me seem to get it cohesive enough to put words on my annoyingly blank Google document.

I am not a wild author success story but that might make my advice more approachable.

(I did a post on types of publishing and some very basic advice as someone who's done it, self and indie, with three books. That's here (I'll honestly reblog it again too in a sec) )

I think you're asking more though just on how I write. Hm. Well.

At the moment, I don't write much- 2018 was when Bad End came out, and beyond working on 1dg manuscript, I haven't had another full book since then. If I say 'that's six years' I may want to explode my bones, but it has been. The thing with writing advice, as in how to just do it, is... it's hard and devastatingly unique for everyone. I have an overflow of ideas right now, and I've been stuck on the same issue of starting and organizing it- as well as a panic over being a good enough writer.

Personally, I tend to work on a few keystone ideas and improvise in the moment. I decide the world and the main character and a few cool notions I want to incorporate or lead to, and set out. I find it takes a few thousand words or chapters to Get The Hang Of a writing project. It's one thing to imagine a cool world, it's another to try and write a character interacting in it, and just that experience of trying often leads to me changing my mind about a bunch of stuff.

I really like beginnings and endings, so I usually have them in mind when writing. If you don't have that, you can always start clumsily and revise later. Once you have started a narrative, it's much easier to think about your ideas in terms of that project rather than the blob of potential paths.

Still, how do you FIRST start? You have a world built up, so you have a status quo. A book usually starts with that status quo being challenged. A character leads a peaceful life, but a stranger arrives. Something strange is sighted in the salt flats. Someone finally quits their job.

The people in your world are used to the grand world you've built. They won't talk about how it works to each other and infodumping is awkward. So start instead with something being different and you'll find it much easier to explain how it ought to go. Also, read books. You should read mortal engines by the way. everyone should but it sounds relevant to your interests.

This has been some advice on starting books because I could ramble a lot more (and have, and have deleted) but I should call it somewhere.

[itsdappleagain]

hell yeah baby backstory time

it is time for the boston tea party caper!!

notes under the cut assss always

this episode is a bit of a mix-up for me. i like it but not my favorite all things considered. i'm still excited though- some of the moments in this episode are GOLD

HQ!!!

JHSGHSD "hey red hows san diego" "not great" "im not talking about you girl"

"i thought he lived in the cloud"

player looks so unamused pls

PLEASE "though i am hearing voices again" HOW WAS THAT RELEVANT. WERE U HEARING VOICES BEFORE

shadowsan is the best character here he's so funny

THE "THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT"

if they vowed to use their "superpowers" for good and ivy hotwired that car later on i guess maybe they used to steal cars and then decided to go straight maybe

ivy is so cool

OH hey also by the way their younger designs. SO GOOD carmen should have gotten a dorky in between phase we were robbbbed

small

not trey and his butt chin

i like how the screen glitches when its paused on trey. new headcanon this is a powerpoint presentation they threw together right then and there

you dare knock LYDIA

"i got this" zack says with the confidence of a man who just ate taco bell learning they won't see another restroom for eight more hours on the road trip

the talking through the race kills me every time 😭you can't hear each other

man this racetrack has an overhead drone keeping exact pace with the leading car

zack had a chase devineaux phase too once

carmen sandiego: oh no no we're rated for seven year olds!! the boston tea party caper: the mafia boss who lent us money threatened to put a hit out on us if we didn't commit a robbery for him on a suspicious front for a money laundering operation for the mob

the main reason i dislike this episode and need for speed is because zack doesnt ever get to learn. he was impulsive and it was bad in duke of vermeer, he was impulsive and it was bad in boston tea (okay fine, it shows us his younger self! fine with that) BUT THEN HE IS IMPULSIVE AND ITS BAD AGAIN NEXT TIME. FOR THE SAME REASONS whyyy wouldn't they take duke of vermeer as an opportunity to show his growth instead of making him out to be some angry no control childish idiot who sacrifices untold amounts for a little payback. and drags ivy down with him EVERY TIME

there's something so cool and sinister about ivy smiling, reassuring him, and then slowly pulling down the ski mask to hide any emotion. ivy and zack seem like they could have been prime targets for VILE recruitment- they could have gone down a much darker path

shadowsan was so invested

carmen's puberty crammed in those few months between the boat and the boston holy shit

player accidently saved zack and ivy's asses by turning off those cameras jgjsgkd

the second perspective of zack crashing into the wall kills me every time pls

here goes carmen with "its for your own safety" who taught her that phrase

i love how z and i immediately think that this person couldnt possibly be...i dont know. an employee or a manager or someone who works at the donut place. she's gotta be another thief. i mean they are right but like why

the giant ass green vault behind the fridge door 😭

WE'RE FOLLOWIN THAT LADY FOLLOWIN THOSE BREADCRUMBS TO THE DOUGH

wait didn't they arrive in a truck parked on the other side of the building

carmen ALSO had a chase devineaux phase

???? isnt that truck she just stole the one they got there in???

i mean carmen. girl. you kicked them out of their own robbery and then stole their car did you expect them not to follow you

carmen's devineaux side coming out <3 also completely shameless carmen cant drive comic plug

there are so many car accidents literally everyone could have died in for these two (this and need for speed) episodes. credits roll as the paramedics show up to carmen who just CRASHED HER CAR INTO A FUCKING HOLE HEAD FIRST

they had to make sure to show us that carmen was literally the worst driver possible to justify zack being there

i love zack immediately getting super friendly with the random woman who just stole their car, crashed it, and then stole it again with them inside

carmen: haha suave quip zack and ivy, the two most neurodivergent bitches on the planet: IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

also carmen looks hilariously uncomfortable wedged behind this shipping crate. she's experiencing her first infodump

the loaning money joke is actually very funny

i kind of like how awkward carmen still is in some areas. she still talks like a VILE operative- she reports her every move to player, she simply responds with "understood." because thats the only way she knows how to relate

ANGY

ivy: oh no camera: zooms out to show the most outraged face the animators could draw

screenshots of all time

can you imagine your weirdgirl little 16 year old classmate dips and you see her a few months later and she's turned into this trenchcoat wearing 5'7" long haired adult woman whose only goal is to make your life a thousand times harder

not quite sure how this episode said "oh yeah. her classmates who knew her as a kid constantly call her by the wrong name and disrespect her despite constant corrections. and also her mother figure, seeing the new her, disowns her with the proclamation that this new person killed her child when she took this new name and betrayed her" and made it not transgender

le chevre was so cool about everything for like three minutes

HEY okay my favorite detail of the show is that when carmen runs in this episode she gets way out of breath because she isn't in shape yet i LOVE that detail

i have never heard more emotion from gina than when she went "YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME"

THROW HER OVERBOARD

el topo is also cool about things for like three minutes

zack and ivy bounce constantly between dumb orange cat energy and golden retriever who would jump into the ocean for a guy who petted them once energy

legend has it carmen still manages to throw el topo and le chevre in the water every time they are within a mile of it

i love le chevre backing up and running away from her because he's like oh shit. wasn't she like the best in our class?? is she going to kill me or something?? why did she leave VILE what the fuck im booking it nah

YEAH I NEED THE ROPE CARMEN IS SO MEAN IN THIS EPISODE ITS SO FUCKING FUNNY

IVY RESPONDING TO THE ASK FOR "MUSCLES" WAS A UNIVERSAL LESBIAN WIN FOR EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANET GOD WHAT AN ICONIC SCENE. MILADY. ALL SHE HAD TO DO WAS KISS HER HAND GOD

its never brought up ever again that ivy's "shirt" is actually a blue undershirt and a black vest and that is criminal we needed a gay vest. something

the slomo kick is so hot

LE CHEVRE STEPPING ON HER HEAD

those plates must have hurt so fucking bad

okay well. you DO commit crimes

"the police have no idea they exist" okay. TELL THEM

SEE? VEST.

"got any room for us on your next job?" "you know what? sure! come along and help me take down this global criminal organization. uhhh what are your names again btw?"

yall i dont think eddie is going to want to see you for the money

A FLYING CAR he said yeah zack that was smart

i love how offended by literally everything the bostonians do shadowsan is

THEY MADE SHADOWSAN GET IN THE BACK BEHIND THE SEAT HAHAHAHHJHD

that hq wont be so wasted when you die of hypothermia! good luck carmen

alrighty, thats the beantown caper all done! only two more to catch up on before I'm on time again for my favorite episode this saturday >:)

[linkspooky]

Your Choujin X writeups are great, it's a shame the fandom is so small that they get relatively few notes. I'm glad you appear to have a more sympathetic view of Azuma than most CX readers I've seen. I think I remember you predicting before the time skip that Azuma would be the one to leave Yamato Mori, but recent chapters look more like Tokio will diverge from them - any predictions for the how our main trio may be split up?

This is a great question anon, and my answer is... I dunno. By which I mean to me it could go either way at this point. Me and my friend have actually debated on this, which one is more likely to side Sora and which one is going to stay with Yamato Mori. I'm still leaning towards Azuma leaving Yamato Mori, but there's evidence for both sides of either Azuma or Tokio leaving. Predictions about the Azuma and Tokio breakup underneath the cut.

Evidence of Azuma Leaving

The first piece of evidence is that Azuma is pretty clearly headed for a negative character arc, to parallel with Tokio's growth. While Tokio grows more self-confident and independent, Azuma in turn starts to feel inferior and resentful. Azuma states it pretty clearly at the end of their first fight, he's no longer Tokio's hero, the relationship they had in the past where he was the one who Tokio looked up to is gone now. Azuma can't really handle the shifting power dynamic because he was as dependent on Tokio as Tokio was on him.

Instead of bridging the gap in their relationship, Tokio leaving has made Azuma even more distant from him. Azuma isn't even on speaking terms with Tokio right now. When he's introduced to Tokio, the first thing he learns is that Tokio freed an entire province from a dictator while Azuma just a few days ago failed to stop a plane crash resulting in the deaths of so many people.

It's not like Azuma wasn't training while Tokio was gone, and yet from Azuma's perspective it seems like Tokio is still leaps and bounds ahead of him. Which could push him to conclude that Yamato Mori is not enough, either out of a desire to be stronger, or personal resentment for Tokio.

Evidence number two, Tokio and Azuma are a clear parallel to Sandek and Batista. The two of them trained alongside each other to be heroes, probably all their lives, only for one of them to betray the other. Batista is the one who either left Yamori, or fled after his brother attempted to kill him. Azuma is the Batista in that parallel, he has the ability that's less powerful than Tokio's, and Batista has multiple times took a vested interest in him even asking Zora if she could hand off Azuma to him.

Azuma also made Tokio promise to kill him if he ever went rogue, which is another parallel to Sendak being commanded by their profit to kill Batista.

Why go so far to make this continued parallel throughout the story, unless Batista was planning on inviting Azuma to their side?

The third is more recent and may just be me going out on a limb here, but Azuma met this clearly supsicious girl searching for corpses on the beach, and didn't really investigate into her any further. Noh Mask met with her shortly after this scene and dragged her into a bigger conspiracy with The Tower / Zora's followers, so she's going to be plot relevant and the fact she ran into Azuma isn't a coincidence. After all, every single detail that happens in a story is purposefully put there by the author to mean something. IE, if they ran into each other once it's likely they'll run into each other again.

One more important detail is, Azuma's not dumb. He found her right next to a washed up corpse, and even the girl thought she was done before at that point. Only for Azuma to quickly change his tune and act totally oblivious. This is the face he makes, before he smiles and offers her crabs instead. It's likely he actually knew what she was doing there, but for some reason decided to let her go, maybe to investigate her further instead of blowing his cover right there.

While Tokio is the one who is more curious right now about hearing what Zora has to say, he's also steadily growing and gaining influence in Yamato Mori.

It's Tokio of all people who spoke up against the Opium mission, and Tokio who convinced the higher ups to listen to his plan instead. He's once again the one gaining more strength and confidence, while Azuma's position in Yamato is stagnating. Sato even makes a comment along the lines of Yamato's soldiers not being what they once were.

If Azuma isn't making progress with the Yamato Mori, if he's stagnating and not getting any better that's even more reason for him to want to leave.

Evidence of Tokio Leaving

The first and most obvious is that Zora is pretty desperate to choose Tokio as her successor. Tokio is also the one who seemed to have inherited the most power from Zora, as she comments that being an iron choujin makes Azuma unworthy of the mark. In the parallel between the big three Choujin X of the past, Tokio is clearly the parallel to Zora, he uses the same wings and scythe swords she did. Azuma is the parallel to Queem because they both use recurring tank and gun imagery in association with their characters, and Azuma's choujin power seems to have come about because of his obsession with war, weapons, the military, etc...

Tokio is also the only one who's spoken in favor of listening to Zora about her prophecy. Azuma's been keeping his head down the entire time just listening to orders in Yamato Mori, Ely even points out that Azuma didn't speak up when he disagreed with Tokio. It's Tokio who's questioning authority and speaking up directly in front of them.

Tokio is also the first person who sympathizes with Zora, when the whole of Yamato Mori who are the ones who cast her out seem only intent on hunting her down. He's expressed a clear interest in talking to her.

Tokio also has been diagnosed with a clear case of Kaneki Ken SyndromeTM! By which I mean Ishida Sui reuses ideas from previous works all the time, and in Tokyo Ghoul his last manga he had the hero defect from Anteiku when he became too afraid that he lacked the strength to protect his friends. Tokio seems to suffer from a similiar fear of losing people. He even resolves to strike Zora down if the danger becomes too much and just ignore her prophecy.

Tokio has also already left once, leaving both Ely and Azuma without a word because he feels he'd become too dependent on them if he stayed. His growth was also jumpstarted when after the island arc he wasn't able to contribute a single thing in the battle because he wasn't strong enough. He could leave for a similiar reason, if Yamato Mori isn't enough to protect his friends he could try to go off on his own and work from the outside instead.

The last piece of evidence is that we still have Tokio's prophetic dream to worry about. Considering Tokio shares so many of Zora's powers, he might have even inherited some of her future seeing.

Tokio hasa dream of a ruined Yamato, and an Azuma who turns around to face him and declares that the disaster is all his fault. Tokio defecting / siding with Zora could start the chain of events which leads to this. In a version where Tokio defects, we could see an arc of Tokio joining with Zora, only for Azuma to hunt him down while working with Yamato Mori.

It still fits the general pattern I outlined before of their positive and negative charater arcs, if Azuma stayed with Yamato Mori he might become more like a blind servant to justice, hunting down Tokio no matter what the cost without listening to his friend. Especially if Tokio really is the cause of a disaster.

To mention Ishida's previous work again, Tokio shares a lot of parallels to Arima Kishou, to the point of even wearing glasses like him and having worsening eyesight. The fact that Arima for most of his life was a blind follower of the CCG is not a good thing and led to his tragic ending as a character. So Azuma's character could follow the same general pattern if he chooses to stay with Yamato Mori and hunt down Tokio after he defects.

There's plenty of evidence for either side of the argument, so we may just have to wait and see how it plays out. Considering it's Ishida though, it'll probably be painful when the boys finally do break up.

[koinotame]

\o/

hi! it's me, nana / koinotame!

if you're wondering why i went inactive and then deleted, my mental health kind of (really) tanked... and i ended up deleting my blog in a fit.

it's getting better bit by bit though! and i've been wanting to get back into writing (and talking abt my unhinged/yan ideas i can't really talk to anyone else abt), so. here i am! for now, at least

as for my previously posted writing, there's some good news and some bad news: the bad news is that everything i wrote directly into tumblr (99% of snippets, a lot of ask answers, most exact content warnings, etc) is gone. the slightly less bad news is that iirc there were very very few posts of mine that weren't reblogged by anyone at all, so they're probably still out there? feel free to send them my way if you find any and i'll rb them. @/midnight-remembrance also has reblogged a couple of them! there's a couple snippets i have saved in some places, so i might repost those on my own as i find them, but there's very few of those. the good news is that anything longer (proper writing — oneshots, hcs, yan alphabet responses and so on, prompt responses, etc) is safely backed up where i originally wrote it! some of it is also on my ao3, which is the same username. feel free to send me asks about any you'd like to see again and i'll repost them! i might not post them if i feel too embarrassed about/wish i hadn't posted them, and i might rewrite/heavily edit some of them, but i think there's only a handful that fall into the former category and none of them were particularly popular. either way, no harm in asking!

as for some other updates: i'm a little divided on whether i want to keep posting explicit nsfw or not so we'll see. i might just keep it out of main tags. idk yet. regardless of what decision i make, this blog is still strictly 18+ and that will not be changing. since we can reply from sideblogs now, this is a sideblog and not my main now. why? sometimes i prefer to check up on a blog frequently instead of following them for a couple of reasons, but this felt very awkward when they were following me. so this being a sideblog relieves a bit of that stress. if this makes it sound like i have severe brain worms, it's because i do. to that effect though, if we interact every so often feel free to consider us mutuals regardless of whether or not i'm actually following you =w=b tbh i.............. am not really into genshin anymore. i might post about it here and there but i just Do Not (really) Care about it anymore. scara aside to some degree i also have no clue what's going on post inazuma lol whatever projects or commitments to writing or etc i had made beforehand. i forgot all of them so just pretend that never happened ok? ok i'll also probably be posting more sparsely, but we'll see! and (this is obviously the most important bit) i have no clue where i put the mika edit so we're back to my og classic pfp. the header scales terribly and is temporary, please ignore that too

all that aside, as a treat for anyone who sees this in time,

*roughly 6/22 done, but fairly quick to write. roughly one paragraph per character (sneak peek line: "it's not too hard to be discreet with his unique magic when someone really deserves to fall face down a flight of stairs. or three. oopsie. odd they don't remember it, huh? well, he had nothing to do with that.") **more realistic isn't quite the right word(s)... probably won't post this one to the main tags regardless. won't be doing all of the characters (only important/relevant ones) and won't be writing more about/expanding on, so this one is just like. a one off experiment sort of thing. overall less violent than most takes on the au + leans a bit (or lot, depending on how you look at it) more on the religious aspect of self aware aus. i wrote a couple paragraphs a while ago, then rewrote them, but i'll only finish/post them if there's interest for it (sneak peek line: "aether has deluded himself and cast You aside entirely on his own—and when You finally grace them with Your real presence, zhongli is certain aether will be the first to fall from Your grace.")

i have one other new thing immediately ready for posting that'll get posted in a couple of days but that one's pretty silly

[ifacotarwasgood]

why is chapter 2 of acotar bad? some short craft lessons

CH 2

click here for the full comparison between the original chapter and my revision.

DISCLAIMER: this is not an exhaustive list.

heightened prose style = distracting

we're told feyre barely has a formal education and has nearly turned feral in her struggle to keep her family alive, but we're supposed to believe her internal monologue sounds like:

My father had once convinced a passing charlatan to trade the engravings against faerie harm in exchange for for one of his wood carvings. There was so little that my father was ever able to do for us that I hadn't possessed the heart to tell him the engravings were useless...and undoubtedly fake.

using heightened diction and formal sentence structure isn't inherently problematic, but it sounds uppity and pedantic, which doesn't match feyre's characterization at all. instead, it just sounds like sjm's authorial voice.

it also makes every sentence real clunky, which is...not good.

thin characterization = the archerons are a bunch of losers

elain, nesta, and papa archeron are barely described beyond how useless and helpless they are. while this puts feyre's competence into greater relief, it also makes it hard for the reader to care about her main motivation, which is to keep them alive.

why should we care about their survival when feyre describes her family like:

The undercurrent of hunger honed [Elain's] words into a sharpness that had become too common in recent weeks. No mention of the blood on me. I'd long since given up hope of them actually noticing whether I came back from the woods every evening. At least until they got hungry again.

???

sections like this remind us again and again of feyre's resentment toward her family, but we're also told that her only motivation is to keep them safe. it's a very tricky needle to thread, and I don't think sjm does it successfully. I end up being annoyed by them all equally.

this isn't how people talk, sarah

sjm's dialogue is real bad.

on one hand, it's bad because of the word choice. again, the diction is so heightened it just doesn't feel believable, especially since this chapter focuses on family members bickering.

an example. nesta says:

"I thought all you wanted was for us to get out of the house—to marry off me and Elain so you can have enough time to paint your glorious masterpieces."

but a) real people don't talk in complex sentence constructions, especially when they're agitated. and b) "glorious masterpieces" is so distracting I genuinely rolled my eyes when I first read it.

dialogue isn't accurate to real life speech—the same way fiction in general doesn't match real life exactly. real people talk about nothing most of the time when we want characters to talk about something relevant.

but dialogue has to balance mimicking real life speech while not cleaving to how any of us really speak. it has to reflect speech's cadence without its disorganization (which is why we don't clutter our written dialogue with "um"s and "uh"s; readers will skip over that shit anyway).

sharper (i.e., more efficient), simpler dialogue will almost always sound the most natural on the page.

on the other hand, sjm's dialogue is bad because it doesn't seem to be guided toward any particular emotional or logical revelation. (this is a symptom caused by sjm's larger problem with writing scene arcs.)

the argument at the end of this chapter jumps around until apparently sjm felt like it went on long enough, and then nesta flounces away, delivering this killing blow:

"You're just a half-wild beast with the nerve to bark orders at all hours of the day and night. Keep it up, and someday—someday, Feyre, you'll have no one left to remember you, or to care that you ever existed."

except it's not a killing blow.

partly because it's in response to...well, nothing. before this, feyre says nesta would be a burden to the mandrays (which is repeated, in slightly different language, earlier in the conversation), but that's not really what their argument is about.

what's happening beneath the dialogue is a power struggle between nesta, who believes she can marry tomas mandray on her own authority, and feyre, who's decided she's the head of the family and vetoes that decision. nesta delivering a killing blow should be in response to feyre putting her foot down for good. and what she says should be more specific to their specific power dynamic.

so that's what I did in my revision. here's the link again if you want to read it in its entirety!

[lemonadesoda]

It's been a while since I've aimlessly rambled about my ocs because it's been a rather difficult season and I had been struggling with creative block for most of it which has only recently broken for me (only to be interrupted by a great deal of real life things).

Tbh it's also been an internal fight of me wanting to make more regular creative posts bc it just is fun to share that stuff instead of keeping it private or to a single discord chat vs the feeling that it doesn't really make a difference if i post it or not so why bother. Now that life has eased up a little again, I will once again try to actually blog on my blog.

Things I've been dabbling in lately:

I made a dreamwidth a while back but never advertised it. Haven't updated it in a while either, but I hope to put more things on it, hopefully more original concepts and such, but links to my fanfics are the main thing there for now. Find it [here]

Currently working on: a somewhat long short story reflecting on Lemel's aroace identity and the relationships that illustrated their journey with that. (Icarusverse canon)

Random AUs as usual. Predominant ones lately have been the Fae AU where Tevane is a fae prince who Lemel, a botanist, and their young apprentice Jose (@doodleimprovement) meet and befriend in the nearby forest. DnDads AU, haven't written anything for that because I have been paywalled spoilerwalled from much of the content on account of not being caught up yet. Tevane joins with Jammy (@jam-blue), Cassius (@banyanas) and Azar (@rindomness) on a journey in the Forgotten Realms to seek the people they lost there.

Lots of thinky thoughts on character interactions because that is my one true obsession. There's a lot of text in a google doc that's literally just the play by play of various conversations between my guys that's very indulgent but not really the meat of any particular narrative so. Lol idk if anyone wants to see any of that. I can basically infinitely write character interactions as a hobby. Like, stories have to pull the plot and narrative relevant stuff only, but I'm always fixated on the little conversations that happen behind the scenes, the small talk off camera where you know a lot of relationship building is actually happening. What do they talk about when they're walking to the next plot point? When they're eating dinner together, or getting ready for bed, or waiting for the train? Fascinating stuff to me. Boring for a story tho. What can ya do

[sol-consort]

Man FUCK that bitch ass fucking assassin motherfucker I hope he rots. Sorry he pissed me off to no end.

Also yeah FemShep’s VA is considered the better VA of the Shepards which makes sense MaleShep is voiced by Mark Meer who hadn’t done much voice work before, his biggest role being Cyric in Baldur’s Gate II, and FemShep was voiced by Jennifer Hale who had been at it for almost 20 years at the time. It wasn’t just Jennifer Hale either, Anderson being Keith David and Joker being Seth Green who had both been doing it over 20 years. I liked MaleShep’s voice though and never had a problem with it because it’s very main heroy and recognizable like I’d instantly know that it was Shepard if I heard it.

I knew that the series wouldn’t be exactly up with the times because it was 2007-2012 but Jesus I had no idea that FemShep gets harassed so much.

I didn’t get a reconcile scene on the Citadel since I didn’t romance anyone in ME1 I went into the series with Tali on my mind as my definitive romance.

I don’t think Thane praying for you instead himself is unique to his romance? Or at least I remember something similar happening maybe it was his son.

You can’t hit on EDI as MaleShep I’m pretty sure don’t remember that being an option however you can still hit on Joker as MaleShep I remember seeing that option and going “why would I say that?” Also I’m surprised you never mentioned the Joker segment of Mass Effect 2 where you sneak around the ship as Joker that section surprised the shit out of me.

Oh yeah a fun little fact, remember the show Once Upon a Time I’ve mentioned a couple times when talking about fairy tales? The actor who plays Kaiden was in that show and played the show’s version of Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio. I don’t remember what happened to Cricket in the show though. He may have just stopped being relevant so they never brought him up again since the show just fucking loved doing that.

Is the hot assassin guy supposed to be unlikeable? I liked him so far, like ngl, plus he's pretty cool. Evil living weapons of destructions, my beloveds.

And yeah, i really like femshep, but it is pretty cool of them to give maleshep VA a chance for such a big character. Sure, it could've been better, but he probably did the best he could with the skills he had at the time, and it did appeal to some people!

And man I'm just lucky I actually enjoy these things ingames, like I am down to being a whore and flirting with everyone so it doesn't bother me when the npcs forcefully flirt with you bc you picked a woman. What bothers me is that the fact it's only bc you picked a woman, and just because I wanted it doesn't mean other people do and it might make them very uncomfortable. There are several mods to remove the sexual harassments femshep gets, I wish there was one to remove it for EDI tho.

We should all have a choice, is what I'm saying. It feels like femshep was made to appeal to straight guys who might play her as an outsider observer. Same with some lesbian characters, too, ngl- not all of them, but the game has its moments where it makes me realise oh this was put here for a straight dude to gawk at. Meanwhile, maleshep feels the proper self insert badass at times. Really hate that.

That's why I like picking NB options whenever they're present, you're free from expectations and the devs aren't sure what to make of you so they don't try to appeal to a certian demographic and just write your character as a character.

You did Tali romance? Hell yeah she is an amazing character and her relationship with Shepard feels phenomenal. Like a scientist princess and her knight in shining armour, amazing. Plus she is all adorable when she talks about engines and how we get to help her so many times.

Apparently her and Garrus end up together if you don't romance her, but I haven't seen it yet. She always felt close to Shepard, especially in the second game where she is the first friendly face you see.

I haven't met her yet in ME3, still doing side errands. I am very very broke and everything is very very expensive and I miss sugar daddy illusive man pls take me back, the alliance became more stingy than I remember or inflation is hitting hard.

Fuck I hat like 999999 something credits in the first game, why couldn't it tranfer over??

And Thane!! My heart! He even prays for you when he's not romanced??? That's it, he is legit the most precious character and no one else comapres. I would die for Thane, I would kill everyone on the Normady for Thane.

But I know Thane would forgive me If I picked Grunt over him bc my son which just makes Thane the most amazing man ever, DRELL ARE SUPERIOR I TELL YOU.

Also so far Drell worship Hanar (kinda) and Hanar worship protheons (kinda) and Javik likes humans(he is all current protheon population)

So by association! Drell and Humans are conncted, and no, I will not give up my tank of copium. Go buy your own. Idk what overdosing is, I have insomnia I forgot.

And aww we can't hit on EDI :( i would've treated her better than Joker.

Yeah I had the same reaction to the flirting with Joker line but just went for it because what's the worst that can happen? He says no and we laught it off.

Imagine if the worst was him retiring from being your pilot and you get soma rando driving the Normady around who now runs at half the speed and takes twice as much gas plus occasionally breaks down and you have to pay 100k credits for repairs.

Oh also then there is this one thing I am sure is exclusive to femshep.

You can sleep with Javik. The protheon. Yes.

But it's not a full romance :"(

He has four eyes I wonder if he has four-

I heard about once upon a time, the show. But never watched it.

I did however watch a random person talk about it in a video essay because I prefer that over watching shows.

This one.

It was fun, I'm not big on fairytales but I enjoyed hearing about it.

The Joker sneak section in ME2 didn't resonate with me much for some reason. It was nice but I didn't feel the pressure at all and with EDI constantly talking it got annoying and I just wanted it to be over.

His jokes were nice but the moment of trusting EDI didn't hit the same way it should've. It didn't feel endearing or earnest.

The sudden flip in their relationship afterwards was too jarring.

I prefer ME3 EDI and Joker dynamic over ME2. However I hate how EDI is becoming a "born sexy yesterday" character by the game when her core as a character is so profound and genuine. She wants to know her purpose, what it means to be alive and all the other characters mention about her is her body which is bleh.

Even some of her dialogues with Joker is just overplayed sex jokes. It's all of her amazing writing vanishes the moment it's not just her and Shepard in a conversation.

Kaidan's voice actor is great! He even stood out to me in the first game. You notice how much more convicnising and immersive his delivery was over the other characters, almost outshined ME1 femshep even.

It's like the dialogue and the way he delievers it fit perfectly. If I just read it, then I get a completely different impression.

The game doesn't have bad voice actors it just has very bad delivery from some characters. It's when someone keeps a constant tone and doesn't portray any emotions or adds any personalisation into the dialogue. It feels tone deaf a lot when what the character is speaking about is something intimiate, yet it sounds the same as asking about the weather.

Still, it is nostalgic in a way, this was extremely common in older games.

[zaharya]

Scrivener 3 to AO3 – updated export format (with download link) P1

EDIT 17.01.2023 There is now a second part to this post for more complex formatting such as centered text, bold text, strike-through, block quotes etc.

You can find Part 2 here. Note that you still need to either import my format or follow the steps in this post.

---

I hope you find this guide and the provided export format to download useful! To enable me to make more such resources, and make them available for everyone, please consider supporting me via KoFi! I love sharing my stuff freely and don't want to paywall anything, but I also have to eat – every contribution helps and is greatly appreciated!

Hello, as probably everyone knows I adore Scrivener (my beloved) and use it for everything, including writing fanfiction. It has recently come to my attention that the approach I normally use to copy my text to AO3 (i.e. Copy as HTML and paste directly) does not work for Windows users (how rude), so here's an alternative.

The format presented here is based on this post – I just made some tweaks! So if you want to set up your own from scratch, follow those instructions there and then come back for the additional part. (Yes, I know, annoying, sorry – but why reinvent the wheel?) NOTE: The instructions in that post will cause any em-dashes to be transformed into -- instead. If you want them to stay as they are in your Scrivener editor, do not check the option Convert "smart" punctuation to "dumb" punctuation.

ANYWAY – Why do we need another format if there is one? Well, while the described export format there is great, it doesn't take line-spacing into account. Which is what this here is for.

There are several parts to this post:

Tutorial / instructions on how to create the format from scratch (starting where the other post left off – do those steps first)

Tutorial / instructions on how to set up the section layouts so that it actually does The Thing™

A google drive link where you can download the format I made, because who has time to set up from scratch

Shall we? Let's go.

Setup from scratch, continuation

Okay so once you've done all the steps in this post, don't close the Format Settings (or save it and then right-click -> Edit Format it to reopen the settings). Instead, go to Styles. This is probably empty at this point. Click the + in the top right corner to create a new paragraph style.

I called mine "Regular Text" – it really doesn't matter, you can call it Frank if you feel like it. What does matter is the Paragraph prefix/suffix, because that's where we'll put the HTML code that handles line-spacing. Specifically, you'll want to put for the prefix and for the suffix. (I'd also unselect the two check-boxes at the bottom, you don't need a specific font or fontsize.) It should look something like this:

Now go back to Section Layouts and select Text Section. Click into the text box at the bottom; on the left in the Format bar you see the current style (probably No Style, as that is the default). Select the Style we just created (in my case "Regular Text") instead.

You can now save the format (again). We're not done though!

Assign Section Layouts

When you select your format, there's a good chance it'll have a yellow warning that you should assign section layouts – and even if it doesn't, better to double check.

Click Assign Section Layouts at the bottom. If there was a yellow warning, all section types are currently assigned to As-is, which means no Styles will be applied when you export – we don't want that. Find the section type that your text is in and select Text Section as the layout (probably Scene or Section – do both to be safe). If you want and have the patience you can do it for all section types, but for most of them (like Chapter Headings etc.) it doesn't really matter as long as the section types that your actual fic sits in are properly assigned. (If you're unsure, check the section types in the main compile menu.)

Once all the relevant section types are assigned to the Text Section layout, you can click OK and you're good to go. This should export your fic with basic HTML code including and around each paragraph for line-spacing and italics.

Now, while it isn't difficult, setting up a format from scratch does take a minute.

Import an existing format

Go open your compile menu. At the bottom left there should be three little dots; click there and select Import Formats.

Select your file and import it. When you do that, you'll get a pop-up message asking you whether you want it to be a Project Format or import it to "My Formats" – choose My Formats. That way it will be available in all your Scrivener files on that device, not just this specific project.

"But V, where is the bloody format now?"

Right, yes. Here's a link to download my finished format that you can then import as just explained.

❗️IMPORTANT: After importing the format, you still have to assign the section layouts!!!

If you don't, it will not apply the Style that generates the and around each paragraph. If you skipped everything above (very relatable), please scroll back up to the part titled Assign Section Layouts and follow these steps after you've imported the thing.

If you have questions (about this, or just Scrivener in general), feel free to ask! (Also if you're on any of my Discords, there's a full-fledged ADHD friendly tutorial in most of them – poke me there and I'll link it for you. Have fun.)

And that's it! I hope this helps someone save a bit of effort.

–––

Edit (2022/07/20): I've made more Scrivener tutorials!

A continuously updated Masterlist with all my Scrivener 3 tutorials can be found here.

Part 2 | Tutorial Masterlist | KoFi

[hoghtastic]

So do you want her to post about Alex or do you not? When she posts him you get angry and say she’s using him for fame, attention etc. then when she doesn’t post him you guys get, again, upset and say he’s the only reason she even gets the things she has recently and that he’s the only interesting part about her. Which even though she didn’t make a whole post dedicated to him (because it was a Paris fashion show celebrating the clothing brand, not some big event celebrating Alex and Luca) she posted him on her story and hyped him up a bit and that was it. Why is anything else needed? She gave you Alex content on a 24hr limited story (that you like to say is the only thing she is good for) while at the same time not making it all about him on her account (since you say she uses him for attention posts all the time). She gave you exactly what you wanted and still, you get upset and over analyze the whole situation? Literally anything she does is a problem to this blog, I don’t get it.

Thank you for sharing your point of view on this, anon. 😊 First of all, you say that "literally anything she does is a problem to this blog", as if this blog's sole purpose is to demonize Johanne, which is not. This is simply a place for everyone to share their opinions, and it's okay if you don't agree with them. Maybe they're not as positive as you would like them to be, but they're valid. Just like you thinking differently is also valid and respected here. Absolutely anyone can share their thoughts, both positive & negative.

Now, trying to answer the questions you raised, I can only speak for myself and give you my point of view, so if anyone else would like to add theirs, they're more than welcome to do so. First of all, I believe we'd much rather have Alex posting for himself, his own content and new, interesting projects, or just the fun tidbits of his daily life like he used to do in the past. No one asked for Johanne to give the fandom "Alex content", and certainly not in the way she does. I think observing Johanne & Alex's interactions in comparison to those of Lucas & Laura during this weekend really helped putting things in perspective, showing what really feels like some nice chemistry and companionship, and being there to support one's boyfriend, instead of trying to make oneself "the main character" once more. Maybe Johanne was super excited to be there and that's why she kept tagging the brand, but one would think that she was actually the one who got the invitation, when the truth was far from that. She didn't have to make a whole post dedicated to Alex, but she also didn't have to make herself look like this super influencer, describing her weekend and tagging all the brands. Again, using Laura's post as an example, it's actually a nice recap of their weekend — it's fun, it still shows Lucas, but it's not over the top, nor is she pretending to be more relevant that she was (in the context of Paris Fashion Week, of course). It's all a matter of balance, in my opinion.

Plus, no one got "angry" or "upset" with Johanne. We're just discussing things for the fun of it, it's not that serious and none of this affects our lives at the end of the day. So it's totally okay if you actually like her & her content. We don't always have to agree or like the same things. 😊

[moultinmush]

5# A Fandom Worse Than It's Content: Nothing Is Scary

Mandi's reaction to what they thought to be betrayal was horrific, if not sad. But Scary's reaction was downright demonic—He'd led the charge to destroy my server, all in order to gain what he perceived to be justice.

When it comes to Scary, I would still prefer a certain amount of leniency in his emotion reaction to the situation. Although he never changed throughout the years—He still was a late teenager and near young adult in these. He wasn't (Still isn't I'd wager) Well, I'm sharing the below to explain where his obsession with hating Reitanna spurred on from—Along with offering proof that he has a history of harassment and spamming pornography.

Now, there is censored loli beyond the ''Keep Reading'' Once again, it's censored. But I am strongly emphasising the warning here because it’s still grim and clear that what’s being depicted is of a minor. I do vaguely remember what it looked like pre-censored (I did not keep the uncensored version.) And apart from boobs being slapped on it’s so clearly a child/a very young teenager.

He spammed between 10-20 images (It would've been more if Discord didn't have an image limit.) And they consisted of Loli/Furry content—Of which I won't be going through and censoring because 1) Why would I subjugate myself to that, I already feel disgusted including the above at all. 2) He spammed, a lot of pornography. Far to much for me to sort through.

I want to emphasis I will always prioritise the truth, and the facts of the matter over my own emotions. It's true Scary hadn't done the raids alone, hell he probably wasn't the one to suggest the idea (It was more likely to have been Mandi, who was in her mid 20s.) When it comes to the matter of the type of pornography he was showing, he apparently had just left a relationship that started when he was 14 with an adult that stemmed of Omegle. He was groomed, and unlike how he'd decide to treat me half a year after this, I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

(Below Scary briefly discusses being groomed.)

At the end of the day, he was one of the main raiders. He instead of thinking for himself and considering what his friend was like—Lashed out, and proceeded to after the raids themselves, harass and emotionally guilt them. That wasn't Mandi, that wasn't Yums, that was Nothingisscary.

The screenshots above were Scary’s attempt at comparing the writing style between me and Ma7chsticks. First off, for fucks sake it was literally so incredibly obvious Ma7chsticks was attempting to copy me. I am dyslexic, certain spellings of words was hard for me, but you could tell why—I write phonetically (As in, how words sound.) not so much anymore as I’ve got many words memories now—But you could still see a pattern and logic to the chaos.

you will also notice I say ‘’Huh, why are you showing me a screenshot from the politics discussion? That couldn’t be less relevant if you tried!’’ Dyslexia isn’t just about spelling, but comprehension of a text and linking things together to create a picture of meaning. Half the time I barely understood what people were saying, so putting together one part of a discussion and another was difficult. Straight up, I had no idea what he was trying to say.

Meanwhile in Mandis server people were consoling him, and saying how they knew we were close. Course later on things would be sorted, in the second screen (It's dated I think a week later?) Mandi says it's old news, and I cannot word how deeply both upsetting and cruel that is. She was apart of the bullying, and harassment of a minor. And it's old news.

Eventually it finally got out it wasn't me. And all I wanted was for us to be friends, I didn't want revenge or a lengthy apology. Just a sorry, and for us all to be friends again.

A good amount of people knew what kind of images Scary was sharing. Pearl was one of them, and I'd have to guess she saw them during the raid. (Wouldn’t know, as I wasn’t there—Can only guess. Does make me question why Mandi nor Yums said anything.) At that point in the timeline, Scary had also been relentlessly harassing Pearl as to if they were the Kiwi Farmer or not.

Also Pearl is completely right here, being underage yourself isn't an excuse or pass for sharing the images he'd been. As Scary said, he's not into Loli, his earlier perception of that developed due to being groomed. Is that true? Not my place to say, at the end of the day he was a minor too. And unless more recent evidence surfaced, I'm not willing to entirely support that narrative.

When I had my new server up and running, Scary still wanted a channel for graphic content. At that point, I had a bit more of a back bone and said it wasn't something for me to decide (Ah yes, a diversion.) Now as of writing this, Scary creeped into my DMs to "Apologies" And clarified back then he was the kind of person to beg to be allowed in NSFW channels because he genuinely couldn't see how it was wrong.

Which makes me think perhaps my only option back then really had been to pretend to be on his side, that it was "out of my hands" because he would've kept trying to pressure me otherwise.

Another thing was he hated Tara. She was the only person actively trying to do anything and stand up for what was right. Obviously, Scary who had a porn addiction, didn't like that.

You'll see in the end screenshot I snapped and finally had enough. I told him to get over himself, as I'd only been pretending to agree with him because I assumed he wouldn't attempt to drag someone else into this to defame Tara when she did nothing wrong.

Next ->

[hanzi83]

Fandom

Blog 

Here I am partaking in a forbidden rule that only applies to me by the official rules, trying to be creative, even if writing run on sentences blogs just to put more out there. I don’t need it to be appreciated or anything because I have come to grips that shit I write, or talk about is only for private consumption so people who hate me will all analyze it and make shitty remarks because they can’t stand me, while plotting and figuring out ways to undermine me, and take more from me mentally because they have already suppressed me enough. And when you look at the origin of why stuff like this happens, and again this is just my personal feeling. I know I am not allowed to go off vibes when writing. I am not trying to sell myself as this ultimate intellectual or someone who has read all the fictional works of all the obscure authors and writers out there, I just kind of decide I want to write and I just do it, I am already wasting time with not even getting to the subject matter and instead constantly wallow in self awareness and being ahead of the criticism, even though these people will be steps ahead of me because of their advanced knowledge and where my trajectory is going, which will never not be disturbing because once you realize people know your trajectory and they decide to pick and choose when to be nice, but on a sociopathic level are looking for other ways to bring in problematic people in your life, or trying to take from me on any level, and when the system, who hates me gives people incentive to do that shit, and do other fucked up shit, I have to sit there and take the mental abuse, and the undermining and if I dare speak up, the ones in charge can make the mental torture even more unbearable while letting people show off the luxurious shit they get, or who they are connected to, and how they are growing a cult that will have to tell uncharismatic people how they are really a personality, and all of it is because they see me as a threat, someone who has been suppressed and harassed and pushed to insanity while disturbing people have gotten away with so much to instill fear, and I have to chalk it up to low level trolls, because then the bigger potential picture of these “trolls” being Arkham Asylum funded weirdos, or fed accounts themselves, but because it is online you have to think it is so random, yet people get defensive. And when I look at the overall picture, a lot of this shit is incentivized because of this problem we have with “fandom” and the most you can say about fandom is how people are just crazy and unhinged, but why are these people unhinged and fucked up, for people online who love to poke holes in the MSM, the establishment and legacy entertainment, I never seen a bunch of sports entertainer accounts who have lowered the bar and become even more parody like compared to the supposed MSM shit they fucking say they despise, but find their coded ways to become those same people, but I guess because you use a shitty emoji of you laughing at your own comment, it suddenly means that it means a lot more because it comes off more organic, and not to mention the horny on main jokes to really show us they are not part of the system. So I guess the basic topic of this is about fandom becoming its own little cult and religion, and it is making people a lot worse. Again this is just my opinion, but take a look at the in fighting and nonstop discourse online through culture wars, while there are valid shit to say about topics of misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, but even stuff online to take advantage of real stories and deep rooted causes, we reduce it to culture wars which leads to ignorant people who follow their favorite fandom, to only consume these topics by the most sensationalized ways. 

Now someone like me pointing it out won’t do much because I no longer have the social media clout I once had when I was relevant, but back then I was a lot more ignorant and scattered brained from already being dumbed down because it was too difficult to put energy into thoughts, I always assumed in my dumbed down way as a kid that magically I would be able to know the shit I needed to because maybe the brain would automatically do that work, which then makes me wonder if we lived past lives where technology was at an all time level, and we had machines to basically memorize everything that we didn’t need to think, it is like when I was born in this world, I automatically had that thought in my head but never knew how to articulate shit, me being a free thinker or thinker in general is a big threat for people because they are so used to my thoughts representing my aesthetic, the aesthetic that snobs, who are corrupted inside and out, to judge me, and people have assured I am no longer relevant again, my trauma and issues have to be ignored and prodded because officially we can’t prove them, because it is not convenient to make money off of just yet, so a bunch of uncharismatic characters from my past can then give their shitty testimonial because they are desperate to become cultic characters who couldn’t last a day in my shoes mentally, they need the support behind the scenes, they need power in numbers, they are afraid of having to defend their point on their own, me on the other hand, I know what it is like to have no one support you mentally and wish the worst out of you I have taken every insult, every fucking pathetic tactic to discredit me, and I am still standing here, even if I don’t want to be here, and people who already have everything by the aesthetic get mad that I have not been knocked down permanently, which they will eventually do, but someone like me is not supposed to even have any free thoughts, I have to be limited and then if I dare express the accumulation constantly from the mental illness in my head, then there is revenge toward me, if I mean this less to you, and all of you hate me this much, why not just fucking end me then. Is it because the system needs me alive for some odd reason, I am one of few people who genuinely don’t want to cross over to the far right wing side and have my breaking point of “wokeness getting out of control” even though the system keeps that shit out there to make it unbearable, and people just arguing in bad faith and talking in circles, and all of this revolves around fandom in every aspect of life, not just religion, politicals, race, gender, sexual orientation, but now these fandoms have mixed in a bunch of these things to now keep nonstop conversations going that go nowhere, and to me for someone who has been considered a parody his entire life, it is amazing how much people have ended up themselves being a parody, a shell of a human being, they all end up becoming the same as a Howard Stern Wack Packer, and none of us are going to get any better because in order to make a difference, you have to join the circus and become something you are not. You know how many convos I tune out of online and in real life because a lot of time, I don’t feel it is genuine and organic, it is just people doing their version of previous artistic acts that have already been run into the ground. 

I know the propped up accounts who will secretly hate this will make these snide remarks of “Imagine being this upset about fandom and the internet” And that would suffice maybe 10 years ago, even though to me, that point is completely shit if you actually expand your thoughts and maybe put in 2 in 2 together that maybe that people take the internet seriously because it is just as much a funded platform as much as the legacy entertainment and media you claim to hate, they will call out obvious shit that is transparently designed to be an error because the legacy shit is becoming a dumbed down parody and I don’t mind people pointing how shitty it is, the issue then becomes, the same system will then create new narratives online which then are seen as the official story because a bunch of sports entertainers online claim that is and use the obvious gimmicked shit to add to their point. Narratives are designed to be changed every couple of years and this is why I don’t just sit with one, because if I see the patterns of how the system designs and manipulates our thoughts, I am allowed not to want fall for it, it becomes uncomfortable for people who want to socially climb up and be beholden to billionaires, they aren’t happy enough they get this contact, but they get increasingly mad that someone like me does not want to believe every single human being at their word when I have been shown what people can be driven to. People are so mentally unwell, they don’t realize how dangerous being beholden to entertainment and fandom is, they will downplay it, the political analysts, who now want to become entertainers, will never want to point out how entertainment as a whole has played a role in manipulating us and manufacturing consent, this is not one of those overly religious rants about “ENTERTAINMENT IS THE DEVIL’S WORK” i think that shit is used to downplay entertainment’s role in shit, because who wants to rock with the the side of the overly fundamentalist religious assholes who are gonna sound like the party poopers for ranting out this entertainment, but there is a valid claim to point out how entertainment has influenced people in good and bad ways, we can only acknowledge good shit, never the bad shit. I am just saying you will never get to the root cause if you don’t accept that there is a possibility that portions of entertainment have propaganda, it can only be pointed out when it is forced neoliberal diversity that is designed not to come off well, so people can get their regressive shit back, and the only entertainment that does get called out for its effect on society, is hip hop. They don’t mind throwing that shit under the bus, not saying music can’t play a role in how people think, but you really think hip hop is the most dangerous, because to me comedy has become one of the most dangerous propaganda tool, and the reason why no one wants to hear that is because everyone who has a platform, thinks they are funny within their echo chambers, and through the guise of entertainment, you rather present shit in a very goofy way while people drop their guard down for the eventual evil that is gonna run the world, like it hasn’t already but dumbing down your villains with comedic tropes and routines, is not gonna fucking do a god damn thing and if everyone thinks they are funny, then what is really funny then. I know that might sound like a Hopsin lyric, “Did the man who invented college, go to college?” which I always thought was a fair question, there goes my credibility, I am not completely shitting on Hopsin. 

But listen the fandom shit is so out of control, I am kind of glad I am not a propped up account or desirable, because it feels like the same convos happen every fucking day and no one wants to fucking have their mind changed, everyone wants to smell their own farts, some will take their skid marked riddled tightie whities and whip it in the air like they are Petey Pablo in 2001. I don’t know why I keep naming rappers who have not been as popular in the discourse, but who fucking reads this shit anyways, my trolls will read this and try to organize more torment, they have to be on top of what I say since they monitor my private thoughts. But again I get it, I am not supposed to be taken seriously and normally it would hurt my soul a lot more like it has in the past, because I am a human being, believe it or not, but when I see how parody like and how dumbed down and elitist people in general have become, even if they have a good aesthetic, I know the mental pain a lot of you are going through might be worse, it is just a lot of those people think they can double down by being shittier and because they have connections and resources, and get to be part of the upper echelon, you will not be cured mentally and more and more I see people unraveling more, whether it is being forced to do fucked up shit or reducing yourself to do some fucked up shit because you blindly hate me and hate that someone like me can see through it, it is ironic because I am one of the dumbest people alive if you are judging by society’s standards, because I dare to look at how advanced the game is, because if I think by the limited narratives, you will never get to the solutions, and you can tell people who have parroted the official rules are scrambling more and more, when we have public figures who are getting away with horrible shit, society on a bigger level, was able to give you the illusion in the past because one big public figure suffered consequences that it was the standard when people knew otherwise, but now we have never been in an era where every public figure, every other fucking day is being accused of rape and being a pedo etc, and it has never meant less, Peewee Herman and Milli Vanilli’s only issue was not doing the shit they did during this era, because you would be given a fucking cult for lip syncing or jerking off in a porn theater. So now this is happening and people who have always parroted the rules society lives by can’t even come up with valid reasons for why this is happening the way it is. How can I survive in this world where everyone seems to be joining the fucking circus. I really don’t belong here on any fucking level. I know most of you agree, because a lot of you hate me, and you won’t hesitate to destroy me even more, maybe give random vacations to people I know so it makes me feel like shit I am left out, me being in isolation from making my own connections and new friends because people are greedy to take everything away from me. That is my perception, and with all the secrecy I had to endure for the last decade plus, I have my reasons to perceive shit the way I do, and I might not be for everyone, but I don’t need to be. No one forces you to listen or read what I say, but god forbid I try to vent out and be a bit creative. I just do it because I feel like it, I don’t need to get boosted up to feel good about the work I put in with giving my thoughts, I rather have my own lane than do the standard cookie cutter shit, and this is what internet has become, this is what fandom has made people become, people needing to be boosted and they will do things they don’t even want to do but they are addicted to being boosted up and copying every cookie cutter regressive edge lord character or a played out preachy politically correct person, who might have a good message but know because you are compromised, your point won’t mean shit because once you become discredited, you still exist in the discourse, but people will constantly dunk on you for shit you did if you dare given an opinion in the future. 

I don’t know where this blog is going. Either way people will pretend they didn’t read it and even though no one will acknowledge this other than my trolls who want to constantly want to push me to suicidal thoughts, and make me feel like shit for even existing, partaking in trying to destroy my image even more, and no one had my fucking back, they let me fucking sink and let the white supremacists cunts destroy me mentally and some of them are disappointed I didn’t get lured to that side because they were beaten into mental submission, got their privates grabbed metaphorically or literally, and they are now parroting shit the system says and it makes people mad that I didn’t give in to regress because they have been trying and before I would cross over to that side, I rather fucking die. I don’t care if I am likable or not, I am the anti villain. I just wanted to ramble on and get myself in the thick of things by writing down my opinions. I feel more people will read this shit than listen to the podcast anyways and not having to hear my stuttering and just reading my thoughts might seem more venomous to some people, because at least when I speak, there is the stuttering you can mock more directly and do your shitty impressions in your group chat, that other uncharismatic shit heads will love, not that people won’t mock this shit in private, but at least the words will get to them which will take them off their game when trying to come up with shit to say about me, and people won’t break bad habits, because we are beholden to being in cults under the guise of fandom, there is reason why people take entertainment seriously because it is the number one tool to manipulate people because we are not supposed to take entertainment seriously and the more I see people who are supposed to be educating us through the news etc and other intellectuals, when everyone ends up doing sports entertainment, your expertise in whatever field does not mean shit as much anymore, because the sports entertainment element is what takes over. You think people gave a shit that Brutus the Barber Beefcake was a barber after a while, he became a sports entertainer through countless gimmick names and watering it down even more, that is what most public figures and social climbers now remind me of. I just hate how people online who are connected will book shit to be an error so they can then book themselves as Jim from the Office, to be the one who is looking at the camera when weird shit in the scene is going down. You would think we would want to advance the ways to improve shit, but we remix old shit and pretend we are coming up with solutions within limitations, anyways I better go, I better appreciate the platforms I have for my own thoughts before funded system people will come into my life to take over what I talk about because they rather be close to the people in the system, so they limit me even more and try for a fucking takeover because they hate that I actually have a more unique outlook, and their personality is just whatever entertainment they watched and what their echochamber will fucking prop up. People who take pleasure in being closer with people in my family than me, and the only reason they stay around because if things turn around for me, they won’t hesitate to count my money or try to insert themselves in being part of my life, if they can’t do it, they will get others to be “nice” to me, and lure me in, but the more I see through it, eventually everyone shows their true colors, they can’t conceal their ugliness when they have this fucking hatred for me. They will even hate this blog and I am sure people will be on the horn and will fucking punish me more mentally. If you do that, just kill me because I want to see all of you who have secretly needed me behind the scenes to do this on your own, and you will see that me not being around, you will then have people who will then not have this common hatred, you will see a bunch of people who have showed how ugly they can get and you won’t have any choice but to think if that person will fuck you over. Maybe I am being irrational, but this is my blog and I am allowed to vent my shit out, what else am I supposed to do when it has been impossible to vent to anyone since everyone reports to everyone, at least with these blogs, it is out there since everyone is gonna be monitoring it anyways. I just felt like writing and getting shit off my chest. People claim they want people to get better mentally, but when someone does it, it becomes so unbearable because people don’t want to see the ugliness in how someone could think, or they don’t want it pointed out that is what they are doing. I am just saying being beholden to entertainment has been one of the more destructive things on the planet because everyone has showed their true colors of how manipulative, greedy, sociopathic etc they all are, and even at some point I have also been that but even if I am not the desirable I would have loved to have been, I do feel a bit happier that I have skirted away from trying to be a sports entertainer online. Here let me make this blog even more by quoting a really shitty Drake lyric, “Toodles to these bitches” what the fuck was that asshole thinking saying that line? Anyways I better stop before I start asking what happened to rapper Yung Wun and how his main event level push was derailed or some other shit that doesn’t make any fucking sense.

[dollslayer]

Sweeter Endings

Sugar Daddy!Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Still reeling from the financial realities of losing your mother you turn to a lucrative website for help and get more than you could have bargained for.

W/C: 5,325

Warnings: Smut (no minors 18+ only), light D/S dynamics, brief mentions of alcohol consumption, unprotected sex, swearing

A/N: NO MINORS, I wrote this for @donutloverxo 's Sugary 4k Challenge (Congrats!!) I love sugar daddy AUs so I was really excited to write this!! If you like it then please like/reblog/comment I'm all ears! Also maybe check out my other stuff if you want! Cheers!

Main Masterlist

____

The saying ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’ was truer than you’d ever imagined and you found out the hard way. Life had hit you hard last year. You had watched your mother succumb very quickly to cancer. A cold that just wouldn’t go away turned into a doctor’s visit turned into three months left to live. Having no one else in her life, the cost of her funeral and medical bills fell to you. The bills outweighing the inheritance you had no choice but to drop out of school.

One year later you were hanging on by threads to keep yourself off the streets without turning to a loan shark or selling yourself. Stocking shelves at a bougie grocery store in Soho by day and bartending in Tribeca by night had you working six days a week. What free time you had you were too exhausted to do anything with. Something had to give or you were going to collapse from the stress, you just didn’t know what.

A couple weeks ago you had been casually venting about how broke you were with a coworker when she jokingly suggested signing up for one of those Sugar Daddy sites. You laughed along with her but it sounded better than getting a third job. You had quietly asked one of your roommates to borrow their laptop saying you needed to look at job postings only half a lie, really and locked yourself in your room.

You were just gonna check out the website, maybe sign up and poke around, it didn’t mean you were committing to anything, just looking. You remembered first looking at the website once your shitty wifi loaded it, promising ‘beautiful and successful people making mutually beneficial connections’. You balked after reading that but you couldn’t look at any profiles without making one yourself so you had set to work.

After making your profile you hadn’t gotten any hits in about a week so you shrugged it off. You couldn’t keep hogging your roommate’s computer anyways so you set off back to work. Your days at the store wore on into endless nights at the bar and you wondered what other options you really had when you had no degree and no experience in any relevant field.

___

6 o’clock on a Thursday night, the typical after work crowd begins to roll in. The bar you work in is upscale, classy. Definitely trying to lure in the businessmen that worked in the area and their wallets. It annoyed you to deal with the same type of customers you did at the store all over again but with the high end crowd came good tips so you couldn't complain too much.

It was busier than usual when a group of men in suits walked in together asking for a booth. You saw a lot of business meetings take place over whiskey sours in this place so you didn’t think much of it. You tried your best to keep tending to your regulars when a pair from the group came over.

One of the men had deep brown eyes and a sly grin that when split gave you the perfect view of the gap between his teeth. He was confident but he had a kind look to him. His friend had dirty blond hair and a beard that clung to his perfect jawline and you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t snuck a second look. You turned your back and continued filling orders to distract yourself when one of them cleared their throat behind you.

As you turned to face them you found it was the blond calling after you. His face held a hint of surprise but it was quickly replaced by a look of amusement as he smirked and one brow lifted, like he knew something you didn’t. He was like any other typical customer for you, professional and handsome, probably over-confident in himself. You returned his smirk and prepared your best charming banter. Time to earn those tips.

“Something to drink for you, gentleman?” You offered.

“We’d like a round of scotch for the table over there. You don’t mind bringing it over, do you sweetheart?” the brown-eyed man asked.

“Of course not” you answered. Pricks.

“Good girl” the blond said with a wink. Creep. A hot creep but still. Before you could ask he took his card out of his wallet and put it on the counter for the tab.

____

A round had come and passed, soon they’d asked for another but this time it was just the blond that approached you. You lifted your eyebrows in anticipation of an order.

“You here often?” he asked. Ugh, not even a good pick up line.

“Am I here at my job often?” You retorted with a playful smile.

The man’s shoulders shook as he chuckled. “Sorry you just uh, you look familiar that’s all. What’s your name?”

You supplied him with it and asked him if he wanted another round of scotch. He nodded.

“Smart girl, I’m Steve by the way.” He laid down his business card which you picked up with a look of challenging curiosity. Steve Rogers, CEO of Shield inc.

Oh. You didn’t recognize the name but you definitely knew the company. It felt like a quarter of their employees stopped in for a drink throughout the week and it was prominent enough of a company that you read about it weekly. Play it cool, these types want to feel like an every-man at the bar but still wanna feel important.

You raised your eyebrows again in recognition. “Nice to meet you, Steve, I’ll have your round right out.”

“Good Girl” he winked again at you. Okay so it’s hot, but he’s a total stranger and you don’t even know him. Stay on your game.

___

10 o’clock came around and things were thinning out slightly, regulars made their way out, awkward Tinder dates and rowdy young 20-somethings made their way in. The party of businessmen was still around but they were hopefully wrapping up after the 2 more rounds they’d had. Steve approached the bar once more and you preemptively picked up the bottle of scotch.

“Whoa, easy, girl! I’m here to pick up the tab” He said, taking out his wallet.

“What’s the name on the tab?” You decided to play dumb but based off the grin on his face he knew you were playing with him.

“Steve. Rogers.” He replied, his tone was stern but his eyes told you he was in on the joke.

You cashed him out and left him to sign his receipt so you could make more drinks. You saw him move in your peripheral and turned your head to see his face.

“Have a good night, sweetheart. I’ll be seein’ ya” he promised.

“Take care!” You smiled back.

A few minutes later you circled back to collect his receipt and found three $100 bills staring back at you. You blinked dumbly in disbelief, who the hell leaves a 200% tip? Looking around to see if Steve was still here he was nowhere to be found. You had no choice but to pocket the money.

____

Another week went by and left you wondering how much energy and concentration it would take for you to just evaporate, since that seemed easier than going to work today. Sadly still in solid form, you punched in at the store and stowed your things in your locker.

Your upscale customer base was a mostly pretentious and successful group of yuppies so even though you were grateful to not be on the streets you were constantly reminded of the professional success you couldn’t help but feel that you were missing out on. Stuck instead to listen to incessant whining ‘is this organic? I won’t eat it unless it’s organic’.

The upside of this job was that the time went by quickly because you always had so much to do. Plus with how monotonous the work was it was easy enough to zone out. So much so that you hadn’t heard someone calling your name and approaching you. A hand softly touching your shoulder snapped you into the present.

You looked up, startled to find a pair of blue eyes staring back into yours. You took a step back and processed who it was. “CEO guy?” Steve?

“‘CEO guy?’ I thought I recognized you, ‘barmaid’ or should I say… ‘stock girl?’” He joked using his fingers to make quotations.

Now that you thought about it, the store isn’t that far at all from the bar, it would make sense if he’s in the area. You smiled and tapped your nametag in response.

“I just came in on my lunch to grab a few groceries” looking down at his basket it held some protein powder, some eggs, and one lonely banana. “Clearly, I’m single. But you’d know that already, wouldn’t you?”

Your brows twinged together in confusion. What is that supposed to mean?

“Excuse me?”

He edged a little closer to you and lowered his voice “SeekingConnection.com?”

Your eyes widened in shock. The fucking Sugar Daddy site! I forgot about that! Surprise was quickly replaced with humiliation. You looked down and away as you felt your cheeks heat up.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you” Steve placated, “But I gotta say, I’m pretty hurt you never responded to me. I sent that message weeks ago and let’s just say I’m not used to rejection.” He kept his tone light, letting you know he wasn’t mad.

“I-I um, I’m sorry, I don’t have a computer and they don’t have an app, I was using my roommates’ computer and I guess I forgot about it…” You admitted.

Steve nodded in acknowledgement. Please say something to salvage this conversation. Please.

“Well,” Steve rummaged in his pocket for another business card. “You got a pen on you?”

You dug around in your apron and came up with one. Handing it to him you watched as he wrote on the back of the card. He held the card and the pen out to you.

“That’s my number, I’d ask for yours but I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, you already look like you wanna sink through the floor” Not helping, but I do. You took them from him and tucked them away in the pocket of your apron.

“You do have a phone right?” You only glared at him in response. “Well, if you check your profile, you would’ve seen I asked you out to lunch, offer still stands. Just text me when you’re free”

Should I even say yes? I mean, the winking the other night was weird but he’s good looking and at least somewhat considerate. I mean, it’s not like I had any other intention when I signed up for that site. What the hell. right?

“I… usually work mid shifts so I don’t know if lunch is doable, they only give me half an hour but, maybe we could do coffee? I’ve got tomorrow off from the bar I could meet you” you suggested.

If Steve felt pity for you he hid it well behind the wide smile he made when you offered coffee instead.

“There’s a place around the corner from here, just up a block, you know it? I’m off tomorrow at 6, why don’t you meet me there?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He winked at you again and started walking away. What the hell just happened?

____

You did end up borrowing your roommate’s computer once again when you got home to look up Steve’s DM. Sure enough, there he had been in all his internet glory. ‘Steve, 33, CEO. likes: art, conversation, whiskey. Digging around further on his profile you found that he owned several houses here and in Europe, he had a dog that was cuter than he was, and that he was ‘Seeking deeper connection’. All of these things piqued your interest.

‘Hey, Doll. Saw your profile and I had to ask, what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? Kidding, of course. But maybe you’d care to tell me your story over lunch? Your profile says we’re both in New York. - Steve’ Sent three weeks ago. Fuck.

You had texted him earlier to confirm, which is how you found yourself walking up the sidewalk towards the shop with a mind running rampant with nervous thoughts. What if he just wants to feel big about himself in comparison to me? What would I even really have to offer the relationship? A college dropout working two dead-end jobs with no social life. You needed to snap yourself out of it. You were just meeting for coffee doesn’t mean anything.

Pushing open the door you found Steve waving at you from a quiet corner. He was still in a suit, presumably coming from work himself. Even the buttons on his shirt looked expensive. You were wearing dirty jeans and a worn pair of work boots paired with a flannel. You couldn’t have looked more different if you tried.

“I waited for you to order,” He said. You smiled up at him, only now realizing how tall he was in comparison to you. He ushered you both towards the counter where you both placed your orders. You moved to take your wallet from your purse but he had already beat you there.

“Really? As if I’d let the lady pay, and on the first date no less?” He said playfully.

“Oh, so this is a date now, is it?” You kidded.

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets and gave you that boyish grin and a shrug. The pair of you made your way back to the table and waited for your drinks to be brought over.

“How was work?” You asked, “What exactly is it that your company does?”

“We offer security and surveillance software domestically as well as international. Stadiums, airports, other government buildings. Things of that nature. And work was fine, thank you for asking” Steve said with a genuine smile. “How was your day, doll?”

“Oh, my day was fine, more of the same but y’know,” You answered half-heartedly.

“You know, you never answered me, what’s a funny, pretty gal like you doing on a site like that?”

Embarrassment hit you again, this time maybe accompanied with a hint of shame. You were saved momentarily by your drinks being delivered. He seemed truly interested and since he was paying you supposed you owed him an answer.

“I was going to Columbia and I had a pretty good internship when my mom got diagnosed with cancer. She died three months later and since it was only always just the two of us I ended up footing the bill. I was on partial scholarship but between the hospital and the funeral I can’t really afford the rest of tuition on top of working for free so here I am” you explained, “Oh my god, I’m sorry I’m totally oversharing aren’t I? You probably don’t wanna hear about a bummer like this, sorry”

You tried to laugh to ease the tension you thought you’d created. Braving a look at Steve, he looked thoughtful and only a little bit like he pitied you. You could live with that.

“I’m really sorry about your mom, mine also got really sick before she died, I know it must’ve been hard. What were you in school for?”

___

You and Steve talked for hours, trading anecdotes of childhood and talking about each other’s interests. You had a similar sense in humour so you got on swimmingly. The evening seemed to be coming to a close as the night sky sent in through the window.

Being with Steve was probably the most relaxed you’d felt since before your mom was diagnosed. It became difficult to focus on anything but your financial situation and even though that’s what brought you here in the first place you had managed to forget all about it.

“So look, us getting together wasn’t exactly the most conventional on meet-cutes but to put it bluntly,” He said, “The CEO life makes it hard to meet real people and it gets kinda lonely, I mean, you saw my grocery basket” You both laughed at that. “You need money and I need company, I feel like we could help each other out. Whad’ya say? Think you could put up with me?”

You knew what this was but hearing it put so plainly was a little surprising. At least he was to the point.

“So if I said yes what does that mean, exactly?” you inquired.

“Well,” he started, “We take care of each other. Let me cover some of your bills at the very least, make it so you’d be comfortable quitting at least one of your jobs. And you’d keep me company, we go on dates, maybe you could come over, there’s the occasional work event or charity gala I’d need you on my arm for. Thoughts?”

God I can’t even imagine what it’s like to work only one job anymore. Maybe I could even save up and go back to school. He’s cute and he seems sensible, why not?

“Could we maybe take things slow? What you describe is something I’m down for but I don’t want to make myself completely dependent on you. But I’d love to be there for you, and I have to admit, the thought of only working one full time job is pretty crazy to me” You laughed.

Steve swallowed and placed one of his large, warm hands over yours.

“I can do things the old fashioned way, if that’s what you’d feel good with. I gotta say though, with looks like that it’s not gonna be easy” he jested.

You smiled shyly and looked away. You both stood to leave and he held the door open for you.

“I’ve already got your number from when you texted me earlier but I’ll talk to my assistant about my schedule and maybe I could take you out to dinner this weekend?”

“I um, I’d really like that. It’s a date” You stated.

“Oh, so you think this is a date now?” He jested.

You lightly punched him in the arm and he took the opportunity to pull you closer to him. You looked up to find his face inches from yours. You could smell his aftershave and his deep voice gave you goosebumps when he spoke next.

“I kinda want to kiss you goodnight, would that be okay?”

You could only nod as he shut his eyes and closed in. Your lips met in one perfect, chaste kiss. You sighed and leaned into his hand as it briefly cupped your face.

You broke apart and made promises to see each other soon. You felt like you could’ve floated home as you boarded the subway, caught up in the swarm of newly forming feelings.

_____

You sat in the break room when your phone buzzed to life, ‘Saturday at 7?’

You were about to type out a yes when you forgot you worked closing at the bar. Your thumbs moved quickly to tap out the reply ‘Working, sorry :/ the pitfalls of bartending. Sunday at 7?’

You were nervous telling him no and asking to change plans. You hated not being able to make things work but you only just met the man and the weekend tips were killer, it’s not like you could turn the shift down.

‘Ah yes, almost forgot. Sunday works too, I’ll text you the details. What’s your address? I’ll pick you up’

Oh, God. Steve can’t see my building! His cufflinks probably cost more than my rent!

‘I’ll just meet you there, don’t worry about it’

‘Not a chance, doll. Just tell me where and I’ll come get you’

You let out a worried sigh but knew you had to let it go. You sent him your address and went back to work.

____

Saturday was maybe the longest day in your entire week, in fact you loathed it. Mornings at the store followed by running immediately to the bar. Last call in New York was 4am so it’s a good thing you didn’t try to make brunch plans with Steve for Sunday. But ultimately both your shifts passed without major incident and now it was Sunday and you tried to ready yourself the best you could.

The place Steve mentioned was fancy, you knew that much from a quick search. Panicking instantly upon realizing you don’t really have any nice clothes you turned to your most fashionable roommate for help. She loaned you a cocktail dress that was revealing enough to draw interest without giving everything away. You just hoped Steve would like it.

‘Downstairs, doll. Silver BMW’ you exhaled. Hoo boy, here we go.

____

Steve handed his keys to the valet and rushed around to open your door for you. You held his hand and you clambered onto the sidewalk in your heels. His warm hand on the small of your back as he steered you towards the doors was a comforting weight.

Dinner has been lovely so far, he chose a place that wasn’t completely white-glove but was upscale enough to make you feel only a little underdressed.

You joked back and forth with him over the course of the meal, talked about your lives, and even found out you both have a guilty pleasure for cheesy rom-coms. It wasn’t until dessert and your third glass of wine came that you realized how much time had passed. You frowned slightly thinking of the early morning ahead of you followed by a long night at the bar.

“What’s wrong, doll?”

“Oh, nothing I just didn’t realize how late it was, I’ve got both jobs tomorrow it’ll just be a long day that’s all” you tried to wave it off but Steve frowned in response.

“Quit the bar” he stated.

“What?”

“Quit the bar. This is your card, I’ve already loaded $3000 on there. Put me in touch with your landlord and I’ll get you taken care of.” He slid the card across the table to you. Your name printed on the front. This got real very quickly.

“Steve, that’s.” You were in shock, a loss for words almost “that’s too much, I don’t know what to say.” You felt embarrassed taking the money. You knew that was the essence of your arrangement but actually taking his money had you feeling uneasy.

“Honey, this is what I’m here for. Let me take care of you. Give up your late nights. I wanna take you out on the weekends and you’ll need to be available for events. You can stay at the store if you want but quit the bar, you don’t need it.”

You took a deep sigh. He did say he wanted you to be comfortable quitting one of your jobs; it's just making the change that scares you. But something about Steve felt safe so you nodded and looked up to him.

“I’ll put in my two weeks”

“Good girl” he patted your knee and you involuntarily clenched your thighs. He smirked at that but let it go.

____

A few months had come and gone since that night and your time with Steve had been great. Only working the one job gave you so much more free time. You'd spent a good chunk of it just trying to form a normal sleep schedule but all the time you spent with Steve made it difficult. Not that you minded especially since your allowance was monthly but he’d showered you with gifts here and there.

They started off small, perfume, chocolates and flowers, or a simple pair of white gold hoops that reminded him of you. They gradually became pricier and more elaborate. You’d felt guilty accepting it all at first but he was insistent you deserve the best. He had even mentioned you moving out maybe finding a better place but you reminded him you needed to go slow.

He’d also been nothing short of a gentleman. Out in public at least, you’d learned the hard way that he was an absolute animal in bed. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep your hands off of him.

Something you had appreciated about Steve is that he never made you feel bad or less than for being broke. Never held his money over your head like leverage. You’d felt equal to him in all aspects, understanding you had just as much say as he did.

Still, there was a small nagging voice in the back of your head that reminded you Steve is not your boyfriend. This isn't a relationship and he's looking to get something out of just like you are. But if you were being honest you were catching feelings, it was hard not to when the man was giving you the fantasy. You decided to push that voice aside whenever it came up and let yourself be swept away. Maybe that would bite you in the ass but for now you were happy.

____

You were buzzed into Steve’s building and on the elevator ride up to his penthouse your phone buzzed. ‘I have to make a quick call- I’ve got a present waiting for you in the living room.’ You couldn’t help but feel giddy.

The doors opened and Steve was nowhere in sight but as you entered the living room a bag from Chanel and the Apple Store sat on the table. Oh god, what this time? I swear this man is too much.

You opened the smaller bag from Chanel first and found a beautiful black and white evening bag. It was sleek and simple, very much to your tastes. You were nervous to open the Apple bag, Steve always went overboard. Shakily removing the paper you pulled out the slim case in disbelief. A MacBook Air and a pair of AirPod Pros. The man well and truly spoiled you.

“You said you didn’t have a computer.” His voice came from behind you and startled you.

“Steve, this is too much. You’re too much.” You swung your arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Nothin’s too much for you, doll.” He kissed the top of your head.

“Think you could take a couple days off of work? I just got off the phone and confirmed plans for my house in Nice.”

A trip? France?? Oh my god. How is this my life? You felt so overwhelmed that you grabbed Steve by the collar and brought his face down to meet you in a kiss. His tongue swiped your lips and you granted him entrance. Moaning into his mouth your hands traveled up into his hair, pulling softly and coaxing a groan out of him.

He guided you to sit on the couch and brought you down into his lap. You ground down onto him and felt his hard-on through his slacks. Your hand moved slowly to undo the buttons of his shirt as he kissed down your jaw towards your neck. You sighed softly when he found your sweet spot and started sucking.

He helped you take off his shirt while you got started on his belt and undid his pants. He lifted himself off the couch slightly to move them down to his knees, taking his briefs with them. His cock stood proud and an angry red, leaking at the tip.

“I wanna ride you, I can’t wait.” You pouted as you writhed against him in need.

Steve tutted at you “that’s no way to get what you want. Ask me nicely, baby. Beg to ride my cock,”

You ground down even harder and whined. “Please, sir, please let me ride your cock. I need to feel you, I can’t wait any longer please.”

“Good Girl” Steve's hands flipped up your skirt and found your panties, ripping them to shreds. They were La Perla and had cost a pretty penny but he didn’t care.

He lined himself up and brought you down harshly gripping your hips. You moaned loudly in surprise and satisfaction and wasted no time moving back and forth. Steve made you feel so close and connected to him whenever he fucked you but he still made you feel sordid and dirty. You couldn’t get enough of the feeling, you’d gladly chase it.

His eyes were hooded as watched you chase your own pleasure and giving him some in return. His hands kneaded your ass and smacked it just to get a gasp out of you. He grabbed the back of your head and brought you in for a searing kiss that was all teeth and tongue. He’d nip at you and lick the pain away.

His hips met yours, finding your rhythm and speeding you both up when he gripped your hips.

“Can’t wait to have me, you had to fuck me on the couch huh?” Steve panted, “my dirty girl. So fuckin’ gorgeous.”

You put your forehead against his and went harder, pushing your clit to grind against the muscles of his abs.

“Only yours, sir.” Your orgasm was building. Steve was a pretty relaxed dom but you still needed permission.

“Sir, please let me cum I can’t wait any longer” you tried your best to slow your movements a bit.

“I think you can hold it baby, I wanna enjoy you a little longer”.

You could only whine in response and tried to slow your pace but his grip on your hips and his own movements pushed you further and further towards the edge. You tried to squirm out of his grasp but his hands only tightened. It felt like forever until Steve finally gave you permission.

“Go on baby, cum for me you earned it. Fuck your self on my cock and cum all over me”

Your movements were frantic, desperate to chase your orgasm when finally the perfect angle of his cock inside you and your clit against him set you free. You cried out above him and dug your nails in deep.

Steve held you firmly in place and started slamming into you from below, finally letting himself think about cumming. All you could do was hold on for mercy. Moments later he brought you down onto him one final slam as he came inside of you with a cry.

The only sound in the room was both of you trying to catch your breath. You sighed again and collapsed against him, nuzzling your face into his neck. He kissed the side of your face and let you make yourself at home while he caressed your back.

____

One shower and two more orgasms later you were both clean and made your way to the kitchen. Steve was gathering the ingredients for dinner when you hugged him from behind. Your head resting against his back. Steve twisted around and hugged you in full. You both stayed like that for a moment until you looked up at him.

You were so content. Moments like this where you were just domestic were some of the best between you. It wasn’t about money or material, it was just the two of you making dinner and enjoying each other, no barriers.

“Are you really going to take me to France?” Your voice came out muffled against his chest.

“Of course, doll. After dinner I want you to use your new laptop to buy some outfits for the trip. I left my card in your new purse.”

You lifted onto your tiptoes and kissed his nose.

“You really do think of everything, don’t you?”

“What can I say? I’m a planner” he retorted.

You didn’t know it yet but Steve was going to ask you to become official while you were there. He wasn’t worried in the slightest. In fact he’d never been so sure about something in his life.

[themalice-ofalex]

My Favorite Moment of Chu Wanning

I just wanna share an excerpt from 2ha - a small scene, not really relevant to the plot but to Chu Wanning's own character. It's my most favorite scene of him and I think it really defined him the most.

After reading this part, it stayed with me always and would randomly appear in my mind. I don't think a lot of readers remember this part which understandable because 2ha is very long with many arcs and many more memorable moments.

And I just want to share one of my favorite moments of Chu Wanning.

also, not gonna lie, i even forgot which chapter this was in and had to look back on the chapters and arcs which i thought were in

And so, on the first day of Yuheng Elder's confinement, all three of his got the runs from food poisoning. On the second day, Jielu Elder sought out Chu Wanning and tactfully conveyed that Mengpo Hall had no need for extra helpers, and to please go sweep the fallen leaves and wipe the pillars at Naihe Bridge instead. Naihe Bridge connected the main areas of Sisheng Peak with the disciples' living quarters, wide enough for five horse carriages to pass through side by side. It was a majestic structure, with nine beasts of white jade representing the nine sons of the dragon atop its main pillars, and three hundred and sixty low pillars decorated with lion heads. Chu Wanning quietly swept the ground, then set about diligently wiping down the jade beasts. The task took most of the day. As the sky started getting dark, it began to rain. Most of the disciples returning from their classes didn't have umbrellas, squawking as they scampered through water puddles on the ground. Drops of rain pitter-pattered on the stone steps. Chu Wanning glanced at the disciples in the distance, the young boys and girls were drenched through and through but the smiles on their faces were bright and carefree. "......" Chu Wanning knew that those smiles would vanish the moment they saw him; he looked around, and went to stand under the bridge. The disciples who ran ahead and arrived at the bridge first couldn't help uttering "eh?" as they took in the sight before them. "A barrier?" "Why is there a barrier over Naihe Bridge?" "It was probably set up by Xuanji Elder." One of the disciples guessed, "Xuanji Elder is always nice to us." The translucent golden barrier covered Naihe Bridge, extending all the way to the main walkway of the disciples' quarters, sheltering them from the rain the rest of the way. "This is definitely Xuanji Elder's work, he's in charge of the area right?" "Xuanji Elder is the best." "What a pretty barrier, Xuanji Elder is incredible." The disciples shook the water out of their dripping hair, shoving playfully at one another and laughing as they ducked under the barrier and continued towards their quarters, chattering the whole way. Chu Wanning stood under the bridge, listening as the commotion above passed by, until everything became quiet once more, before slowly putting away the barrier and leisurely walking out. "Shizun." He was surprised to hear someone calling for him. Chu Wanning looked up abruptly, but there was no one on the shore. "I'm over here." Following the voice, he saw Mo Ran sitting sideways on the white jade bridge, dressed in the customary silver-blue light armor of the sect, a leg draped lazily over the edge. The youth had striking features, eyelashes long and thick like a little pair of fans hanging over his eyes. He held an oil paper umbrella, and almost seemed to be smiling, yet also not, as he gazed at Chu Wanning. One on the bridge, leaves rustling in the wind; one under the bridge, rain splashing in the river. For a moment, neither spoke, both simply looking at the other. The misty rain blurred the line between heaven and earth almost poignantly. Fallen bamboo leaves drifted between the two of them now and again, carried by the wind. Finally, Mo Ran laughed and said teasingly: "Xuanji Elder, you're getting drenched." Chu Wanning spoke at nearly the same time, coldly: "How did you know it was me?" Mo Ran pressed his lips together, dimples deep and eyes curved in a smile: "A barrier this big is beyond Xuanji Elder, right? Who else could it be but Shizun?" Chu Wanning: "......" Mo Ran knew that he couldn't be bothered to put up a barrier for himself, but an idea popped into his head, and he tossed the umbrella over. "I'll give this to you, catch." The bright red paper umbrella drifted slowly down. Chu Wanning caught it. The glossy, jade-green bamboo handle still held a remainder of warmth, droplets of rain sliding along the top of the umbrella and sparkling as they fell. Chu Wanning looked up at him: "Then what about you?" Mo Ran grinned deviously: "Won't I get back

perfectly fine if Shizun just uses a little spell?" Chu Wanning let out a hmph, but his hand waved lightly in his sleeve nevertheless, a translucent golden barrier spreading out immediately above Mo Ran. He looked up and laughed: "Haha, how pretty, it's even got peony patterns. Thanks." Chu Wanning shot him a look: "Those are haitang flowers, only five petals." Then he left, white robes under a scarlet umbrella, leaving Mo Ran in the rain to count the flower petals by himself: "One, two, three, four, five......ah, it really does only have five petals......" When he looked back up, Chu Wanning had already walked far away.

- Excerpt from Chapter 31: This Venerable One's Uncle, from the translation of Rynn and Suika

I just love how Chu Wanning silently covers up the disciples and let them think that it's Xuanji Elder because it shows how kind he is and how he doesn't care if his kindness is overlooked because he's not expecting a reward, he just wants to be kind and protect the other people (that part of him is also shown in his first introduction- when it is shown that Chu Wanning was the only one who cared to fix the barrier of the ghost realm when it is said that fixing the barrier didn't help you with getting stronger or helping grow your cultivation.)

He is very much aware how the disciples think about him thus hiding under the bridge and I want to say that this doesn't affect him but it does. It affects his self-esteem and the way he thinks about himself.

And goddamn, I just wanna shower that character with love and affections but I can't. That's why ranwan's interaction there at the end was also meaningful to both me and Chu Wanning because even though ranwan doesn't realize it yet, Mo Ran loves Chu Wanning and wants protect him as well.

ksjdhfldfh sorry for ranting. i'm just overwhelmed with feelings for this well-written character that is called chu wanning 😭😭

[sweetbitterimpossiblecreature]

A Brief And Concise Summary Of Is Wrong With The ACOTAR Series

I think we can agree that a lot of ACOTAR is pretty iffy. Consider this a very brief refresher.

What's Wrong With Feyre/Rhysand (juxtaposed against Feyre/Tamlin)

Rhysand drugs and sexually assaults her in Book 1

This is "for her own good". Because he "has no choice". Despite the fact that, from what we know of the plot, Amarantha thinks that Clare Beddor was the one Rhysand was diddling, and is only interested in Feyre because Rhysand, "her" man male, has taken an interest in her.

If we extrapolate from this we can figure that Rhysand is the one directly putting her into danger.

Now, let's be clear: drugging someone is bad. Sexually assaulting someone is bad. One could argue there were extenuating circumstances. But if, in such a situation, what your mind goes to is "I know, I should assault this person... for their safety" I have questions about your moral qualities. There were a million things he could have done. He could have done whatever he did to Clare - that is, remove her ability to feel any pain - easily. He could have helped her escape. Under The Mountain, he - while still there unwillingly - has a lot of power, as Amarantha's side piece. Maybe this would have resulted in him being punished- however, he is hundreds of years old and a badass motherfucker, and she is a nineteen year old human girl.

Now, onto Tamlin. Obviously not a lot of people really ship F/T anymore after ACOMAF, because compared to F/R, it's boring. I read another person's post about it, which was very enlightening: they said that Feyre's personality is essentially a mirror. When she is with Rhysand, she's snarky and malicious- because she is "bouncing off" his energy. When she's with Mor she's super feminist and "in awe of her strength". On the other hand, Tamlin is kind of an empty character. He's a pretty boy with anger issues, which should be more interesting than it is. SJM manages to make him bland. Because Feyre has nothing to bounce off of, (a lot of this is from the person's post), she and Tamlin together is mainly just him introducing her to his world.

What Tamlin Does: prevents a skinny twenty year old from going on dangerous missions with him and combat-trained soldiers, accidentally blows up a room with her in it, and, at the end, prevents her from leaving the house.

This is not a Tamlin apologist post. Obviously it was really fucking gross of him to do that, and their relationship was toxic. However, a lot of his abuse stems from their inability to communicate, as well as own negligence. He does not knowingly and purposefully sexually assault her or rape her mind. And tbh, leaving a girl without combat training at home while he goes on missions with a bunch of muscled sentries is... kind of reasonable?

Again: not a Tamlin apologist post. It was abuse. However, if Rhysand is "allowed" to sexually assault, mind-rape, and drug Feyre "for her own safety", why is Tamlin demonized for preventing her from leaving his mansion "for her own safety"?

Another pertinent point: Rhys is never punished for sexually assaulting her. It is brushed off as part of his "mask" or that his hand was forced. Jesus Christ my dudes, his hand was not forced under her skirt. If he has to maintain his gross rapist abuser tyrant oppressor mask... why? Who did that benefit beside him? None of his actions remotely helped Prythian. They were done solely for his buddies - five people safe in a rich hidden city - and no one else, which is explicitly stated.

Finally, the power dynamic is fucked up. Feyre is less than twenty five years old. Rhysand is 500. There is a tendency in fantasy romance to romanticize a centuries year old man with a young girl, because the man does not show symptoms of age, and so it is easily ignorable. However, can we just briefly acknowledge how fucked up it is? Rhys is over five times older than Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and other known predators/abusers. She is twenty. That is really fucking gross. She is in a vulnerable position and he takes rampant advantage of that.

If he had wrinkles, liver problems, and erectile dysfunction, more people would acknowledge it.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying writing a book with an uneven power dynamic is automatically bad. For example, in The Locked Tomb series, which is in my opinion THE BEST FANTASY SERIES THAT HAS GRACED THIS EARTH (lol i'm starting fires), one main character Harrowhark Nonagesimus is in a position of power over Gideon Nav, the other main character. However, this is not glossed over or romanticized. Gideon resents Harrow for this- there is a relationship of mutual antagonism, fraught with unwilling familiarity and intimacy from growing up together. They are roughly the same age. While there is a certain power dynamic (in that world, there is a dynamic of necromancer and cavalier, i.e. sorcerer and sword) the "empowered" character (Harrow) emphatically respects her and does not abuse this power, although both would of course deny this, and she does make a show of threatening and being aloof. In short, while Gideon obeys her, Gideon also has power over Harrow, and the idea of what is essentially slavery is not romanticized.

Feyre Doesn't Face Any Consequences For Her Own Actions

Let me present a radical notion: a guy preventing you from leaving his house does not justify completely fucking ruining his country and harming the people inside it.

In other words: Tamlin does not deserve what she did to him.

I know that sounds iffy. We're conditioned to think that if someone is an abuser, then they are the scum of the earth, they deserve to die, torturing/murdering/doing anything to them is completely A-OK. However, here's another radical notion: someone harming you does not justify you doing worse.

Obviously, the effects of psychological abuse can cause you to hurt other people (see: Nesta), but Feyre deliberately and maliciously (oh, God, that insufferable POV of her in Spring Court; she reads like a cartoonish Disney villain) dismantles his country. She uses sexual manipulation (Lucien), torture (causing the sentry to be whipped), and mind-rape (who didn't she do this to? lol).

A summary of the entire first half of ACOWAR: "It smelled like roses. I hated roses. For this capital offense against my olfactory system, Tamlin and the entire Spring Court deserved to burn in hell. I knew exactly what I was doing. I smiled at him sweetly: no longer a doe, but a wolf. He didn't see my fangs.............." *aesthetic noises*

Man. I'm starting to think SJM had a horrible experience at a Bath & Body Works and took it out on the rest of us. Don't do it, Sarah!! I know Pink Chiffon and Triple Berry Martini are way too strong, but don't take it out on an innocent population!!

She steals from Summer Court (there are, yk, other solutions to theft. Like maybe asking politely) and ruins Spring Court. Her boyfriend - yeesh sorry, MATE - does nothing while a dozen Winter Court children are murdered.

Now: moral ambiguity is not automatically bad. Again using The Locked Tomb as an example, in the second book (spoiler alert), Harrowhark has a sort of moral ambiguity. She was raised from the beginning to worship the King Undying as God, and so she obeys him without question. Because of this, she commits a lot of crimes in His name: she "flips" - i.e. kills - the life force of planets, and she plots murder (albeit the murder of someone who tried to kill her first). There is no attempt to justify this. There is also no attempt to paint her as a virtuous and yet also badass Madonna figure. She is desperate, plagued with the "wreck of herself", and the book clearly displays her moral pitfalls. While her POV is of course colored by her mindset, it also is limited by her lack of information, and we as readers can acknowledge that.

BACK TO ACOTAR: Feyre is seen by everyone as gorgeous, formidable, and essentially perfect. Rhys sees her as flawless, "made for him", wonderful, beautiful, blah blah blah. (THEY ARE SO BAD FOR EACH OTHER; THEY EXCUSE AND GLORIFY EACH OTHER'S CRIMES, IT'S SO BAD, GUYYYS). Tamlin is insanely batshit in love with her, or whatever. To the Night Court she's the High Lady. In this way she personifies the Mary Sue character. (Excerpt from the TV Tropes page on Mary Sues: "She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal." Sound familiar?)

There is the Ourobous scene. And yet, paradoxically, while presented as an acknowledgment of her flaws, it is in fact a rejection of them. She sees her own brutality... and instead of recognizing that she has these deep, deep moral flaws and realizing that she needs to grow and be better, she in fact "accepts" them.

Guys: Self love means: "I'm important to me, so I'm going to get a massage today after work", or "heck, why not splurge on some expensive lotion, you only live once" or "you know what? I had a tough day today. I'm going to get that strawberry cupcake". SELF LOVE DOES NOT MEAN "oh, I accept all the war crimes I have done, I love myself". LOVING YOURSELF DOES NOT MEAN ABSOLVING YOURSELF OF ALL WRONGDOING.

It's this refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing that is so grating about ACOTAR. It's so goddamn one-sided. And you can tell that after Book 1, SJM decided to completely change the trajectory simply because of how jarring Book 2 reads compared to the first one.

Also: Feyre is a very, very young girl (compared to the other ruling fey) who did not know how to read for the majority of her life. She has no experience whatsoever in politics. Her being High Lady is not a win for feminism.

Rhysand: He Sucks

First, he is 500 years old. He should be written as such, not as some 20 year old virile frat boy feminist. Fantasy is all the more compelling for its elements of realism, which is a concept that SJM does not appear to grasp.

Second of all, his morals are absurd. He is written as the Second Coming of Christ, as someone who can do no wrong, ever, and his flaws only serve to make Feyre love him more. Anything shitty he does is written as part of his "mask" and she can See Beneath It and knows that it "hurts" him to maintain this "mask".

Fellas, WHY DOES HE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THIS MASK???? There is no reason for it. If A) he does not give a shit about Court of Nightmares (we'll get back to that), only about Velaris, and B) Velaris is hidden/protected from the world, what is he pretending for?

It would not hurt him politically to be seen as someone who cares about his country.

"Pretending" to be "Amarantha's whore" does not in any way shape or form benefit the macro-world that is Prythian. In Amarantha's name, he commits atrocities. He commits war crimes; he systemically oppresses entire societies. It doesn't even really benefit Velaris, because Velaris is already hidden.

Let me put this in a real-world perspective. This would be like if Donald Trump was suddenly like: "I know I was a shitty president but IT WAS ALL PART OF MY MASK, WHICH WAS TO PROTECT THIS MICROCOSM OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE THAT I CARE ABOUT". Like: okay? Sorry, or whatever, but I don't actually give a shit. What about the parents of the children who died? What about Clare Beddor? What about the people who were held in slavery, murdered, tortured?

Rhysand: omg it sucks that my cousin Mor was oppressed by this toxic misogynistic culture from the Court of Nightmares.

Also Rhysand: lol whatever, who gives a shit about Court of Nightmares. They all suck. They meanie. Lol what did you say? That there might be other girls just like Mor who are oppressed by this system? Lol whatever. I can't do anything, I gotta maintain my Mask. I gotta sit on this throne and show the entire Court that not respecting women is completely okay.

In summary: by parading Feyre around as his "whore" (!!) he demonstrates by example that it is completely okay for the Court of Nightmares to abuse their women.

A good ruler cares about all his people. Rhysand cares about a tiny tiny fraction of his people: those who were fortunate enough to be born into Velaris.

God, I'm exhausted. Onto Nesta:

The only character who successfully breaks the Mary Sue effect Feyre exerts on her people is Nesta. Her POV for the first half is a joy to read.

Obviously it sucks that Nesta was a huge bitch to Feyre for the beginning of her childhood. However, it was wrong for Rhysand to threaten her- he is a man male with a huge insane amount of power, and it is not okay for him to threaten to bring the brunt of it down on a young girl because she was a bitch to his girlfriend.

I've seen a lot of discourse on the morality of F/R sending her out of Velaris. Here is my two cents:

It was okay for them to cut her off of their money. If they don't want to enable her self-harm, that is their choice. Again, it's their money, even if it wasn't fairly earned (Rhysand born into an enormous fortune).

It was not okay for them to banish her from Velaris with the implication that she was an embarrassment. Let me explain.

If Rhysand and Feyre are talking to her as sister/brother-in-law, then that is that. They have the complete right to express disapproval and try to help. However, they should not be using their royal privilege against her.

If they are talking to her as ruler to subject, then they have the power to banish her from the city. However, a ruler would not give a shit about a random subject getting drunk and having sex. So, they should not be talking her about her problems as a ruler to subject.

I've heard it compared to her being sent to rehab. However, rehab is a system designed to help people with certain problems. It has specialized medical centers and involves therapy. Nesta gets her life threatened multiple times. It is not rehab.

In summary: why did SJM inflict this upon us. Throne of Glass was actually good! GAHHH! After the first few books she completely whipped around and introduced the idea of males and mates and fey and that C is actually A and the quality took a huge nosedive. Sigh.

Final horrible but unmistakable truth: The entire ACOTAR series reads like a bad A/B/O fic. I hate to say it but it's true. We're lucky there were no heat cycles. OH WAIT

[teamgalacticpropaganda]

Have I not talked about part 2 yet? It's time for me to talk about part 2!

Long post under here :

For starters, let me say my point about part 1 being total ass still applies. It was more Cynthia fanservice and 90% of what they talked about had zero relevancy to the actual thing. If they had released part 1 and 2 together, it would've been significantly better, but because it was released on it's own it made the Sinnoh arc look absolutely horrendous. The most Sinnoh content we had in received in Masters since basically launch, and it was by a long shot the worst.

So, did part 2 fix it? Yes! Oh my god! Part 2 is SO much better!!

Making it so Dawn didn't just fix everything in a minute was the first major improvement, that was one of my biggest issues with part 1- suddenly, the main issue was gone because she randomly found a legendary and made everything better! But they pulled a twist and said that actually, it did nothing, and everyone's asleep again. What's more, that Darkrai is even more powerful now, and perhaps not pursuing Cyrus and instead just letting Dawn and her flying croissant magic everything back to normal was a bad idea! Because they left him be, just as Cynthia did in the original event, he managed to gain more strength and even so close with Darkrai that he got a Sygna Suit out of it. We also see characters like Sycamore falling asleep too instead of just random NPCs this time. They fixed the ending of part 1 perfectly.

Another major issue with part 1, the mini arc they were beginning to bring up with the three commanders that then went nowhere is fully addressed and given plenty of attention here, with each commander even getting their own spotlight. Rather than turning their backs on him and calling them evil, they decide to try and help Cyrus, wanting to understand him. Notice how when the showdown with Cyrus did happen, none of the commanders even sent out their Pokémon? They're not here to fight him, they just wanted him back, not caring whether or not Cyrus saw them as tools to be used and then discarded. Even with everything they had been hearing about him, knowing his plan would lead to their deaths, they stayed by his side. The three of them never gave up on him. I love that they went down the route of the commanders trying to help Cyrus and give him a new goal rather than making them all betray him, even if it means that we don't get them playable for a while longer. What Cyrus needs is people who won't abandon him no matter what, and there they are. Genuinely, if we see Cyrus again and he's made even more steps towards change, it's very likely the commanders had something to do with it. This is also the second time that we've gotten an ending for Team Galactic where Cyrus and the commanders leave together! I'm willing to bet at some point, we'll get a line talking about how Cyrus would never admit it but he's gotta be attached to those three...

And let me highlight the moment between Saturn and Dawn here. Bringing up how selfless he is for Cyrus and how that's unhealthy was something I didn't think they'd do. They actually challenged a team admin's devotion to their leader. This obviously wouldn't phase the likes of Archer or Courtney, but for someone like Saturn? It's what he needed, and he'd listen too! Not only does it help him massively, but it helps him help Cyrus. We are on a one way train to that sweet sweet redemption arc and Saturn has now become the third subway brother (thanks Dawn)

Talking about the ending again- "Take care of Dialga." Once again, Cyrus effortlessly displaying that his words about not caring for people and Pokémon are lies. He's putting on this front of being unfeeling when you can see the way he cares for others. Even the fact how he took the commanders with him after all, calling them out one by one and by name, proves it further.

What a great ending.

Side note : Saturn slapping Looker was hilarious