#rather than the lyrics making any sense to the character

[darabeatha]

  /  ONE QUESTION- how do u guys put those cool lil songs on ur pinned posts?

[omotelie]

WHERE’S MY FUKING CAPO

[the-whispers-of-death]

Home Again

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Most gods would be happy that they were back in the paradise realm after previously being banished and stripped of their divinity, but Fallen God!Ghost aches for you.

His nights are spent dreaming about you, the mortal who showed him what love was. He dreamt of sleeping beside you, kissing you, even cooking with you. He dreamt of your beautiful hair, your breathtaking eyes, your jaw-dropping smile. His dreams were filled with memories of your laughter, your smooth and lyrical voice.

Paradise realm is a paradise, sure, but nothing could compare to you. Your beauty outshines the paradise realm's, your presence calms Ghost in a way the paradise realm can never. The air was always lighter when he was around you, the colors of the world always brighter. You are his light, his world, and everything is dull without you.

He spends week after week searching for how to get back to the mortal realm and back to you. His power is potent, he can just teleport himself down to the mortal realm to see you but that doesn't seem like a satisfying answer to him.

Ghost would eventually have to leave you and go back to the paradise realm, forced to be able to only visit you from time to time. He didn't want that, he can't bear the thought of leaving you. Of sleeping in his own bed, alone.

He also couldn't make you a concubine of his, bring you to the paradise realm. It didn't feel right for him to ask you to leave everything you knew behind just so you could spend hours alone in his temple while he worked. You deserve better than that.

So what else was there to do?

It takes Ghost a few days to realize what he must do. What he has to do in order to see you again.

He is standing in God!Price's temple, all of the deities summoned there for the monthly update of what the pantheon has been doing since they last convened. He can barely hear what the others are saying, it being meaningless as his mind finally reaches an answer to his burning question.

"I'm stripping myself of my godhood and powers, permanently," Ghost says, interrupting the conversation.

The entire temple is silenced at once, everyone turning their heads to stare at Ghost in disbelief.

A god deliberately turning himself mortal? That was unheard of. It was absurd to even those deities who loved the mortals so much.

Price frowns, clearly thinking Ghost has gone mad. "Now, Ghost, let's think about this," he says, his words slow and carefully curated. "You can't just abandon your godly duties, you're the God of Warfare. If there's one thing that the mortals do the most, it's engaging in war."

Ghost scoffs. "My duties can easily be done by our Goddess of War," he replies, gesturing with his hand towards said goddess. "I no longer want to be a god."

His words ignite a flurry of murmurs between the other deities, all of them shocked beyond disbelief. They don't understand why he wouldn't want to be a god, especially after centuries of hearing him look down on mortals.

"Is this because of the mortal you met during your banishment, {Name}?" Price asks, peeved now. "I hadn't thrown you down to them for you to fall in love with them, Ghost."

"No, you did it so I could learn the importance of mortals and I have," Ghost cuts in, his power flaring up as his anger spikes. This isn't up for debate. "I'm doing this no matter what any of you say, I was doing a courteous thing by giving you all a heads-up."

Price shifts in the seat of his throne, itching to get up and slap some sense into Ghost. "Enough of this, Ghost. You don't even know if they will take you if you're not a god. Perhaps that was the only reason they fell in love with you in the first place."

Ghost snarls in rage at the accusation and assassination of your character. "Even if that's the case, which I doubt it is, it is my choice. I'd rather spend the rest of my mortal life heartbroken if they turn me away than spend eternity aching for them," he says defiantly.

Immense power fills the temple, all of it Ghost's as he pools it all in his veins. Stripping himself of his godhood and powers is excruciating, the pain almost enough to stop him, but he keeps pressing on with the action.

It was worth it, for you.

"Someone stop him!" Price bellows at the other deities, but it's too late.

Just as God!Soap reaches for Ghost to try and stop him, Ghost's godhood and powers are stripped from him, his last act of being a god is to send his mortal form where it needs to be: at your doorstep.

His second fall seems euphoric, a laugh bubbling up in his chest as he falls through the clouds and lands on your front porch just like he had done months ago.

He looks to the side just as you open your front door, a smile gracing his lips at the sight of you. The weight on his chest is lifted, everything falling into place once more.

"Ghost?" You ask, surprised. You had thought you would never see him again. "Did... Did you get your godhood taken away again?"

Ghost stands with your help, his skin thrumming at the sensation of your hands on him again. "I took it away myself," he murmurs, breathless as he stares in your beautiful eyes.

Your face twists into confusion, which makes sense since he had been itching to be a god again the first time he fell. "Why?"

"For you, love. I couldn't bear to live eternity without you," Ghost says, secretly nervous that you won't take him now that he's not a god. "I love you, {Name}."

"I love you too," you reply, making him relax. You step closer, happy that this isn't a dream. "I don't care that you're not a god anymore, I only ever wanted you."

"You will always have me, for as long as you will have me."

Ghost steps closer as well, reaching up to gently cradle your face between his hands. He can't wait for you to lean in as well, though you do so as he gently presses his lips against yours.

The kiss can only be described as heavenly, all of the noises of city life fading away until there was only the sound of you two kissing. It's so gentle and slow, Ghost savoring what it's like to kiss you. He pours every ounce of love into the kiss, needing you to be filled with his love.

It feels like you are kissing for hours before you both pull away for air. Your soft pants fill the air between you two, you smiling at him.

"Come on," you say, gently grabbing his hand and intertwining your fingers together. "Let's go inside and have dinner together."

Ghost nods and follows you inside the house that truly feels like home now. He lets you lead him into the kitchen, not even complaining about having to cook with you.

He had been a fallen god when he had first met you but now, he was neither fallen nor a god. He was just Ghost. A man you loved.

Reblogs are welcomed & appreciated! Asks are open, feel free to pop in and talk or request something! (SFW requests only, please and thank you)

[painfullyprickedandticked]

a common debate within the fandom is the annual question of “is striker a supremacist?”

particularly, whenever one makes an analysis on striker, there’s always one comment mentioning “he is a supremacist.” however, there have been, recently, arguments that he is not a supremacist but rather just believes himself to be superior.

let’s look into both sides of this debate and draw our own conclusions.

the argument on why he isn’t:

BLITZØ is the one who refers to striker as a supremacist and blitzø isn’t particularly good at perceiving people. he tends to resort to insults instead (like when he called fizz a “peppy fuck doll” and verosika a “drunken whore”).

if someone’s views contrast with how blitzo sees the world, he immediately resorts to throwing an insult and that’s his perception of the person up until they shake the viewpoint. we’ve seen this with clown boy and we’ve seen him relent with verosika. basically, there’s some bias on blitzo’s end towards cowboy snake dude.

a supremacist is someone who believes a certain type of person is better than another. striker doesn’t believe imps are superior to other hell species, he thinks HE is superior to other hell species. therefore he’s not a supremacist, he has a superiority complex. those are two different things.

“what is a superiority complex?”

 examples of evidence proving striker does have a superiority complex include:

he wrote a song dedicated to his own victory in harvest moon festival, with lyrics literally declaring “i’m so much better than you.” he’s always been self-centered, having an overexaggerated self-worth. 

a lot of his anger towards moxxie can be taken as self projections, and same with fizz.

the reason striker mentions to blitzø that the two of them are superior to most of their kind was a manipulation tactic to throw blitzø off of his case when he was caught trying to shoot stolas

it amazes me how many people miss this context when its so clear as day. its also apparent that hybrid imps can sniff out other hybrids, akin to how in real life, if youre mixed race, you can often have a gut feeling that someone might also be mixed.

another point someone made: blitzø doesn’t know about striker’s past. we know striker implied it in western energy, but blitzø himself doesn’t know. if he understood what happened to him, then maybe he’d gain more of an understanding of striker as a person instead of this “evil supremacist” facade he sees.

“"Look. Not every ring is some fancy ass city, with some fancy ass mansion, that only fancy ass royals get to live in. Some of us have hard lives to live. And some of us have everything we care about taken away by fuckers like you."”

I’ll quote someone I discussed this topic with, though I won’t tag or name because I don’t want people to go after them. I’m not here to start discourse—I’m here to explore viewpoints. Here's their take:

“His anger and pain is so genuine and so real, you hear it in Ed’s performance, i don’t get how ppl look at the disgust in his voice and his face whenever things get personal (his speech to Stolas and his reaction to Fizz saying he’s no better than any royal) and take it as he’s putting on an act and lying about it.” […] “Extremist is a better word for him imo than supremacist and he def has some self-racism/hatred going on for sure hence how he put downs imps he feels are lower than him but upholds those he feels meets his standards, if that makes sense yk? It’s about what he sees as weak or embarrassing for his own kind. It’s not actually about wanting any class to be superior, it’s about him and what he thinks.”

it’s important to note, no matter how you view the angle of coding characters who aren’t human – giving them racial coding and all – there is an allegory within the series. imps are the lowest on the hierarchy, and the goetias are merely only a step below the deadly sins and lucifer (+ charlie and lilith). so if we put imps into the minority role, that implies imp hybrids are, well, mixed race.

we notice this in an example of how stella treats imps, even including striker himself.

[attempted script format here. didnt work, lol]

he doesn’t like working for her. he puts up with her because that’s his meal ticket. it’s payment. there isn’t a moral high ground he stands on, but there is a ground where he’s below her and he knows it – he’s exhausted. he’s tired. resorts to a slur because that’s how much she exasperates him. because she’s a privileged royal lady, and he’s at the bottom of the caste system. he cant pick or choose, unlike with IMP and their jobs.

it’s a lot more nuanced than a lot of people are willing to take on simply because some don’t like striker and dismiss everything surrounding his character that isn’t those specific lines talking about superiority or blitzo’s supremacist comment. 

as i finish writing up this section, i wanna make it clear i also like blitzo and stolas and i’m not justifying striker’s treatment of anyone. i’m not being an apologist, but i’m examining this particular case “he’s not a supremacist” because, yknow, you gotta look at the other side sometimes when it is presented in a calm manner and not just straight up character bashing or disrespect to the creator bc “omg my ship didn’t happen” or “whaaaat? the villain was always a villain and NOT a love interest? how dare that BITCH” [these takes exist and my brain melts each time…]

okay, i think im done with this side. ill make the rest pretty concise and cite someone else here who's detailed things for the other side of the argument. thanks to TVM for letting me quote you. im tired to write up the other side because my fucking google doc with these notes got erased. i hate it here!!!!!!!

why striker at least has some Certain Ideals (sigh)

"Blue Bloods"

"Disgusting, rich, pompous goetia"

"Some of us have everything we care about taken away by fuckers like you."

"You don't get to talk over me. . . all you ever do is try to talk over us."

"Once I split your neck open and let you choke on your own blue blood, you won't be worth any more than the tomb stone you'll be buried under."

So . . . first, he doesn't actually say a lot that's solely about royals, and ALL of the quotes above are about how royals look down on people like him, NOT about any inherent flaws that they have. They're about class, not race, unless you count "blue blood" as race. I don't. It's tied directly to money. "Disgusting" comes up in reference to Blitz's relationship with Stolas, but the words "rich" and "pompous" follow immediately. Striker hates royals because he hates that society places them above him.

Imps

"Pathetic."

"You little things aint worth the cleanup."

"Oh I remember how easy you are to choke the life out of, little one."

"Blitz, come on. You know the two of us are superior to most of our kind."

"I still think it's embarrassing. You're wasting a lot of potential relying on a weak little . . ."

"Vermin"

I think that this is where Striker's worldview comes into clearer focus. He thinks that Moxxie and Millie (and by extension MOST imps) are inferior to him. The word "vermin" is particularly telling. There's something visceral about his disgust for "lesser" imps.

I think Striker worries that they reflect who he really is. I think he truly believes that imps are inferior to higher class demons, and he fears that if he doesn't prove himself to be special (through violent dominance), he's vermin himself.

Notice how in the image below, his edge over Moxxie is all about size and physical strength- the things he implies throughout the episode make him the superior being. Look at that wide smile. He loves the feeling of being superior.

Relationships between imps and royals

"You are so above sucking on a disgusting rich pompous goetia . . ."

"kill the unkillable . . . starting with the one that treats you like a plaything."

"Blitzy"

"You two are both embarrassments to our kind for meddlin' with blue bloods to begin with. But at least loud mouth here has the sense to only fuck his rich bitch, instead of being a little purse dog."

"This worthless little pet reeks of his over bloated master. I'll at least enjoy getting rid of him."

Striker clearly sees these relationships as imps lowering themselves. It doesn't seem to occur to him even for a moment that these relationships might involve genuine care because he sees all interactions between social classes as being about power and "who wins."

all sourced from here.

conclusion?

I don’t know how to finish off this post. I was trying to give both sides a microphone and at this point, every time I make a post on Striker, I have to make it clear that I hate the woobification of him from a loud majority who only do so because they’ve got a weird hate boner for Stolas. Y’all might not have seen it, but I have on Twitter. I have seen it from here. I have seen it in fucking AO3 with straight up disrespectful cross tagging of character bashing and actual flanderization (see here on why striker is not canonically ruined), along with straight up kill-fics and thinly veiled disrespect to the creators.

But lately I’m also hating the boring, simplistic take of “he’s just a supremacist” and not analyzing him more than that. He’s such an interesting, complex character in a show of complex characters, and nobody bothers to examine him! They just either dismiss him as revolutionary or a supremacist! They never go into his grey areas or “hey, why is he like THAT?” - no, it’s just the boring same old takes.

This guy has so many layers. He’s a minority within a minority. He’s turned off by sex jokes yet has such rizz. He has an adrenaline rush from fighting. He is self centered yet also emotional. Yes, he’s a dick and a murderer. No, he’s not just a rat bastard and no he didn’t threaten to kill Octavia - he simply brought her up to throw Stolas off. It was more so "shame your kid won't see you again", not "oh im gonna kill your baby girl after i show her your decapitated head". Yes, his layers and tragic backstory yet unyielding thirst for killing when he sets eyes on a target make him interesting. It’s called being a villain enjoyer but no one seems to like a villain for being a villain anymore in his case. They either gotta justify him or they gotta woobify him, or they have to demonize him. I’ve seen people make the worst comparisons and it baffles me.

I just wanna enjoy this rat bastard in peace but then stupidity resurfaces in my head and it’s inescapable at times. Tiring. </3

This isn’t the conclusion you probably wanted if you read this far. Sorry. But I'm at a loss of what else to say atp. I wanna find more normal fans of Striker who aren’t just insane people who woobify him to bash Stolas. And I'm also tired of people who actively bash him trying to weigh in on my stuff. Like... is there any normal enjoyer of him besides @eldritchcreatureofwords ?

Anyway, live laugh love Edward Bosco, bye.

[thatgirlie-diaries]

Academic tips that work for me

Hello girlies! This is a post that I have been delaying for like 2 weeks, but now it's time or me to post it. In this blog I will give you all the things I do to keep myself getting high grades and maintain the "intelligent" persona I have worked for since I started studying my college career and fortunately others see me this way now.

I do not study hevy or know a lot about studying methods, I am more into "smart work > hard work" kind of thing

My personal tips

This are my tips being an auditory person focused on being effortless

Understand your learning style: Are you visual? Auditory? Or kinesthetic? By knowing this you can apply studying methods that are efficient for you.

Pay attention to your classes!: I think the main reason I slay effortlessly my exams is because of this so I only need a quick study. You will be saving future time since your study sessions will be lighter because you will remember lots of the things.

Participate / Ask questions: It's easy, you will get points with your teachers as a great student, plus you will get your questions solved.

Put your on a place you can't see it so it doesn't distract you, for classes or when you need to study / get work done.

Study in a place when you feel comfortable, it can be at an cafe or at the library, even in your bedroom at a desk, what matters is that you feel comfortable and that you get the feel of "this is a place where I can study / do my assignments" and not feel lazy or uncomfortable by "x or y" reason. As a plus, keep your space clean and only with the necessary at sight.

Use music that doesn't distract you and you vibe with: Listen to music that doesn't have lyrics, but that's a basic by now. What I recommend you is to listen to music that you just vibe with to get your desired mood and motivation. In my case, I listen to videogame soundtracks since it makes me feel relaxed or to classical music because I fee like "that business girly", either way music helps me concentrate.

Romanticize your studies: This can mean different things to all of you reading this post, I am talking about making your academic journey fun and pleasing rather than streesing! Some ideas are having cute stationery, take cute notes, act like one of your fav academic characters, have study playlists, drinking coffee, go to the library or to cafes, dress cute for school, read, light candles, watch "study with me" videos and study vlogs, create a pinterest board, stablish academic goals, etc.

Do your homework when you have free time at school / college or do it as a first thing after your schedule, this will help you save time. Think about it, if you do it while having free time at school / college you don't need to do it at home. And if you need to do it at home, if done as the first thing, you will either way get so much free time and can focus on other tasks or activities freely.

Be organized: Have a bullet journal or use an app to keep track of your subjects and assignments. By this you will remember and keep in sight upcoming deadlines and events.

Take care of your academic relationships: I make sure that the people inside my circle of friends are girls (mainly, but boys too) who I feel comfortable, have fun with but also are similar to me in the sense that they take seriously her studies and are good teammates. Outside of them I also focus on other potential classmates that are intelligent and have similar values. There is no need to bother on the ones who don't attend classes, are irresponsable and don't even know what are they doing in the course.

Take care of yourself: Ask yourself? Will it be worth it while not sleeping enough, having a poor diet and exercise? By not letting yourself rest or have fun from time to time? By not practicing self-care? By not practicing any hobby or taking the time for your interests ? Please take care of yourself, girl, this is the lowest part of the pyramid. The reason to care is not only your wellbeing, but also because having a poor lifestyle can have bad effects for you that also affect your performance, and we won't like that.

Now go and slay your academic year / course! 𑄽𑄺ྀ

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 68 - Babel by R. F. Kuang

Overview

I came to Babel with extremely little knowledge about the actual contents of the book but a deep sense of all the vibes swirling around its reception – that it was robbed of a Hugo nomination (if the author didn’t outright refuse it), that it’s probably the single buzziest and most Important sf/f release of 2022, that it was stridently political, and plenty more besides. I also went in having mostly enjoyed The Poppy War series and being absolutely enamoured by the elevator pitch of an alternate history Industrial Revolution where translation is literally magic. And, well-

It is wrong to say I hated this book, but only because keeping track of my complaints and starting organize this review in my head was entertaining enough to keep me invested in the reading experience.

The story is set in an alternate 1830s, where the rise of the British Empire relies upon the dominance of its translators, as it is the mixture of translation and silverworking, the inscription of match-pairs in different languages on bars of worked silver and the leveraging of the ambiguity and loss of meaning between them that fuels the world’s magic. The protagonist is pluckted from his childhood home in Canton after his family dies in a cholera outbreak and whisked away to the estate of Professor Lowell, an Oxford translator he quickly realized is his unacknowledged father. He’s made to choose an English name (Robin Swift) and raised and tutored as a future translator in service to the Empire.

The meat of the story is focused on Robin’s education in Oxford, his relationship with the rest of his cohort, and his growing radicalization and entanglement with the revolutionary Hermes Society. Things come to a head when in his fourth year the cohort is sent back to Canton to, well, help provoke the first Opium War, though none of them aware of that. The final act follows the fallout of that, by which I mean it lives up to the full title of “Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution”.

To be clear, this was technically a very accomplished book. The writing never dragged and the prose was, if not exactly lyrical, always clear and often evocative. Despite the breadth of space and time the story covers, I never had any complaints about the pacing – and honestly, the ending was, dramatically speaking, one of the more natural and well-executed ones I’ve read recently. It’s very well-constructed.

All that being said – allow me to apologize for how the rest of this is mostly just going to be a litany of complaints. But the book clearly believes itself to be an important and meaningful work of political art, which means I don’t feel particularly bad about holding it to high standards.

Narrative Voice

To start with, just, dear god the tone. This is a book with absolutely zero faith in its audience’s ability to reach their own conclusions, or even follow the symbolism and implication it lays down. Every important point is stated outright, repeated, and all but bolded and underlined. In this book set in 1830s England there are footnotes fact-checking the imperialists talking heads to, I guess, make sure we don’t accidentally become convinced by their apologia for the slave trade? Everything is just relentlessly didactic, in a way that ended up feeling rather insulting even when I agreed with the points Kuang was making.

More than that, and this is perhaps a more subjective complaint but – for an ostensible period piece, the narrative voice and perspective just felt intensely modern? This was theoretically an omniscient third person book, with the narrative voice being pretty distinct from any of the actual characters – with the result that the implicit narrator was instead the sort of person of spends six hours a day getting into arguments on twitter and for this effort calls themselves a progressive activist. The identities of all the characters – as delivered by the objective narration – were all very neat and legible from the perspective of someone at a 2022 HR department listing how diverse their team was, which was somewhere between a tragic lost opportunity to show how messy and historical racial/ethnic/national identities are and outright anachronistic, depending. (This was honestly one of the bigger disappointments, coming from Kuang’s earlier work. Say what you will of The Poppy War series, the narration is with Rin all the way down, and it trusts the reader enough not to blink.) More than that it was just distracting – the narration ended up feeling like an annoying obstacle between me and the story, and not in any fun postmodern way either.

Characters

Speaking of the cast – they simply do not sound or feel like they actually grew up in the 19th century. Now, some modernization of speech patterns and vocabulary and moral commensense is just the price of doing business with mass market period pieces, granted, but still – no 19th century Anglo-Indian revolutionary is going use the phrase ‘Narco-military state’ (if for no other reason than we’re something like a century early for ‘narco-state’ to be coined as a term at all). An even beyond feeling out of time most of the characters feel kind of thinly sketched?

Or no, it’s not that the characters are thinly sketched so much as their relationships are. We’re repeatedly, insistently told that these four students are fast friends and closer than family and would happily die for each other, but we’re very rarely actually shown it. This is partly just a causality of trying to skim over a four-year university education in the middle third of one book, I think, but still – the good times and happy moments are almost always sort of skimmed over, summarized in the course of a paragraph or two that usually talk in terms of memories and consequences more than the relationships themselves. The points of friction and the arguments, meanwhile, are usually played out entirely on the page, or at least described in much more detail. In the end you kind of have to just take it as read that any of these people actually love each other, given that at least two of them seem to be feuding at any given point for the entire time they know each other.

Letty deserves some special attention. She’s the only white member of Robin’s cohort at Babel and she honestly feels like less of acharacter and more a collection of tropes about white women in progressive spaces? Even more than the rest, it’s hard to believe the rest of the class views her as beloved ride-or-die found family when essentially every time she’s on screen it’s so she can do a microagression or a white fragility or something. Also, just – you know how relatively common it is to see just, blatantly misogynistic memes repackaged as anti-racist because it specifies ‘white women’? There’s a line in this that almost literally says ‘Letty wasn’t doing anything to disprove the stereotype of woman as uselessly emotional and hysteric’.

Also, she’s the one who ends up betraying the other three and trying to turn them in when they turn revolutionary. Which is probably inevitable given the book’s politics, but as it happened felt like less of the shocking betrayal that it was supposed to be and more just, checking off a box for a dramatic reverse. Of course she turned on them, none of them ever really seemed to even like each other.

As a Period Piece

So, the book is set in the 1830s, in the midst of the industrial revolution and its social fallout, and the leadup to the First Opium War (which is, through the magic of, well, magic ,but also mercantilist economics, make into a synecdoche for British global dominion more broadly). On the one hand, the setting is impeccably researched, recent and relevant historical events are referenced whenever they would come up, and the footnotes are full to bursting with quotes and explanations of texts or cultural ephemera that’s brought up in the narration.

On the other, the setting doesn’t feel authentic in the slightest, the portrayal of the British Empire is bizarrely inconsistent, and all that richly researched historical grounding ends up feeling less like a living world and more like a particularly well-down set for a Doctor Who episode.

The story is incredibly focused around Oxford as a city and a university. There’s a whole author’s note about the research and slight changes made into its geography and I absolutely believe its portrayal as a physical location and the laws about how women were treated and how the different colleges were organized and all that is exactly as accurate as Kuang wanted them to be. The issue is really the people. With the exception of a few cartoonish villains who barely get more than a couple pages apiece, no one feels, sounds like, or acts like they actually belong in the 19th century. The racism the protagonists struggle with all feels much more 21st century than Victorian, and the frame of mind everyone inhabits still comes across more as ‘unusually blatantly racist Englishman’ than 19th century scholars and polymaths.

This is especially blatant as far as religion goes. It’s occasionally mentioned, sure enough, but to the extent anyone actually believes in Christianity it’s of a very modern and disenchanted sort – this is a society that sends out missionaries as a conscious tool of colonial expansion, not because of anything as silly or absurd as actually wanting to spread their gospel. Also like, it’s Oxford, in the nineteenth century. For all the racism the protagonists have to deal with, they should be getting so much more shit from ‘well-meaning’ locals and students trying to save their (one Muslim, one atheist, one probably Christian but black and protective of Haitian Vodou on a cultural level which would be more than enough) souls.

Or, and this is more minor, it is a central conceit of the whole finale that if a few (like, two) determined revolutionaries can infiltrate Babel they’ll be able to take the entire place hostage with barely any trouble. This is because the students and professors there are, basically, whimpy bookworms who’ll faint at the sight of blood and have no stomach for the sort of violence their work actually supports and drives. Which – look, I really don’t want to defend the ruling class of Victorian Britain here, but I’m not sure physical cowardice is really one of their failings, as a group? I mean, there’s an entire system of institutionalized child abuse in the boarding schools they went to to get them used to taking and dealing out violence and abuse. Basically every upper-class sport is thinly disguised military drill or ritual combat (okay, or rowing). Half of them would graduate to immediately running off and invading places for the glory of the queen. I’m not sure two sleep-deprived nerds with knives would actually have been able to cow the crowd here, is what I’m saying. (This would stick out less if the text wasn’t so dripping with contempt for them on precisely these grounds.)

Much less minor are our heroic revolutionaries themselves. And okay, this is more a matter of taste than anything but like – the Hermes Society is an illegal conspiracy of renegade current and former Babel scholars dedicated to using their knowledge of magic and access to university resources to oppose and undermine the British Empire in general and the work of the school in particular. Think Metternich’s worse nightmare, but in Oxford instead of Paris and focused on colonial liberation (continental Europe barely exists for the purposes of the book, Britain is Empire.) So! A secret society of professional revolutionaries in the heydey of just that, with a name that just has to be Hermetic symbolism, who concern themselves with both high politics and metaphysics.

They are just so very, very boring. This is the age of the Conspiracy of the Equals, the Carbonari, the Seasons! The literal Illumanti are still within living memory! Where’s the pageantry, the ritual, the grandiosity? The elaborate initiation rituals and oaths of undying loyalty? They’re so pragmatic, so humble, so (and I know I keep coming back to this) modern. It’s just such an utter wasted opportunity. Even beyond the level of aesthetics, these are revolutionaries with remarkably little positive ideology – the oppose colonialism and racism for reasons they take as self-evident and so don’t feel the need to theorize about it (and talk about them with the vocabulary of a modern activist, because of course they do), but they’re pretty much consciously agnostic as to what world should look like instead. They vaguely end up supporting a sort of petty-bourgeois socialism (in the Marxist sense), but the alliance with Luddites is essentially political convenience – they really don’t seem to have any vision of the future at all, either in England or the various places they claim as homelands.

On Empire and Industrialization

The story is set during the early nineteenth century, so of course the Industrial Revolution is a pretty core part of the background. The Silver Industrial Revolution, technically, since the Babellers translation magic is in this world a key and load-bearing part of it. Despite the addition of miracle-working enhancers and supports to its fundamental technology, the industrial revolution plays out pretty identically to history – right down to the same cities becoming hubs of industry, despite steam engines using enchanted silver instead of coal and thus, presumably, the entire economic and logistical system that brought this particular cities to prominence being totally unrecognizable. This is not a book that’s in any way actually about tracing how something would change history – which isn’t a complaint, to be clear, that’s a perfectly valid creative choice.

It does, however, make it rather galling that the single actually significant difference to history is that the introduction of magic turns the industrial revolution into a Legend of Zelda boss with a giant glowing weak point you can hit to destroy the whole enterprise.

On a narrative level, I get it – it simplifies things and allows for a far happier and more dramatic ending if destroying Babel is not just a symbolic act but also literally sends London Bridge falling down and scuttles the entire royal navy and every mill and factory in Britain. It’s just that I think that by doing so it trades away any chance for actually making interesting commentary on anti-colonial and -capitalist resistance. A world where a single act of spectacular terrorism really can destroy a modern empire is frankly so detached from our world that it ceases to be able to really materially comment upon it.

Like, the principle reason to not take the Luddites as your role models is not that they were morally vicious but that they were doomed – capitalism’s ability to repair damage to infrastructure and fixed goods is legitimately very impressive! Trying to force an entire ruling class not to adopt a technology that makes whoever commits to it tremendous amounts of money (thus, power) is a herculean task even when you have a state apparatus and standing army – adding an ‘off’ button to the lot of it just trades all sense of relevance for a satisfyingly cathartic ending.

(This is leaving untouched how the book just takes it as a given that the industrial revolution was a strictly immiserating force that did nothing but redistribute money from artisans to capitalists. Which certainly tracks as something people at the time would have thought but given how resolutely modern all the other politics in the work are rings really weirdly.)

All of which is only my second biggest issue with how the book presents its successful resistance movement. It all pales in comparison to making the Empire a squeamish paper tiger.

Like, the book hates colonialism in general and the British Empire in particular, the narrative and footnotes are filled with little asides about various atrocities and injustices and just ways it was racist or complicit in some particular atrocity. But more than that it is contemptuous of it, it views the empire as (as the cliche goes) a perpetually rotting edifice that just needs one good kick; that it persists only through the myth of its own invincibility, and has no stomach for violent resistance from within. Which is absolutely absurd, and the book does seem to know it on occasion when it off-handedly mentions e.g. the Peterloo Massacre – but a character whose supposed to be the grizzled cynical pragmatic revolutionary still spouts off about how slave rebellions succeed because their masters aren’t willing to massacre their own property. Which is just so spectacularly wrong on every axis its actually almost offensive.

More importantly, the entire final act of the story relies upon the fact that the British Empire would allow a handful of foreign students seize control of a vital piece of infrastructure for weeks on end and do nothing but try to wait them out as the national physically falls apart around them. Like, c’mon, there would be siege artillery set up and taking shots by the end of week two. As with the Oxford students, the Victorian elite had all manner of flaws – take your pick, really – but squeamishness wasn’t really one of them.

On Magic

So the magical system underlying the whole story is – you know how Machinaries of Empire makes imperial ideology and metaphysics literally magical, giving expert technicians the ability to create superweapons and destroy worlds provided that the Hexarchate’s subjects observe the imperial calendar of rites and celebrate its triumphs/participate in rituals glorying in the torture of its ‘heretics’? It’s not exactly a subtle metaphor, but it works.

Babel does something similar, except the foundational atrocity fueling the engine of empire on a metaphysical level is, like, cultural appropriation. As an organizing metaphor, I find this less compelling.

Leaving that aside, the story makes translation literally capable of miracle-working – which of necessity requires making ‘languages’ distinct natural categories with observable metaphysical boundaries. It then sets the story in the 19th century – the era of newborn nation states and education systems and national literatures, where the concept of the national-linguistic community was the obsession of the entire European intelligentsia. Now this is not a book concerned with how the presence of magic would actually have changed history, in the slightest, but like – given how fascinated it is by translation and linguistics you’d think the whole ‘a language is a dialect with a navy’ cliché would at least get a light mention (but then the book doesn’t really treat language as any more inherent or natural than it does any other modern identity category, I suppose.)

As an Allegory

Okay, so having now spent an embarrassing number of words establishing to my own satisfaction that the book really doesn’t work at all as a period piece, let us consider; what if it wasn’t trying to be?

A great many things about the book just fit much better if you take it as a commentary on the modern university with Victorian window-dressing. Certainly the driving resentment of Oxford as an institution that sustains itself and grows rich off the exploitation of international students it considers second-class seems far more apt applied to contemporary elite western schools than 19th century ones. Likewise the racism the heroes face all seems like the kind you’d expect in a modern English town rather than a Victorian one. I’m not well-versed enough on the economics of the city to know for sure, but I would wager that the gleeful characterization of Oxford as a city that literally starts falling to ruin without the university to support it was also less accurate in the 1830s than it is today.

Read like this, everything coheres much better – but the most striking thing becomes the incredible vanity of the book. This is a morality tale where the natural revolutionary vanguard with the power to bring global hegemony to its knees through nothing but witholding their labour are..students at elite western universities (not, I must say, a class I’d consider in dire need of having their egos boosted). The emotions underlying everything make much more sense, but the plot itself becomes positively myopic.

Beyond that – if this is a story about international students at elite universities, it does a terrible job of actually portraying them. Or, properly, it only shows a certain type; just about every foreign-born student or professor we meet is some level of revolutionary, deeply opposed in principle to the empire they work within. No one is actually convinced by the carrot of a life as an exploited but exceedingly comfortable and well-compensated technician in the imperial core, and there’s not really acknowledgement at all of just how much of the apparatus of international institutions and governments in the global south – including positions with quite a bit of real power – end up being staffed by exactly that demographic who just sincerely agree with the various ideological projects employing them. Kuang makes it far too easy on herself by making just about every person of colour in the books one of the good guys, and totally undersells how convincing hegemonic ideology can be, basically.

The Necessity of Violence

This is a pet peeve and it’s a very minor thing that I really wouldn’t bring it up if that wasn’t literally part of the title. But it is, so – it’s a plot point that’s given a decent amount of attention that Griffin (Robin’s secret older brother, grizzled professional revolutionary, his introduction to anti-colonialism) is blamed for murdering one of his classmates who had the bad luck to be studying while he was sneaking in to steal some silver – a student that was quite well-loved by the faculty and her very successful classmates, who have never forgiven him. Later on, it’s revealed that this is an utter rewriting of history, and she’d been a double agent pretending to let herself be recruited into the Hermes Society who’d been luring Griffin into an ambush when he killed her and escaped.

This is – well, the most predictable not-even-a-twist imaginable, for one, but also – just rank cowardice. You titled the book ‘the necessity of violence’, the least you can do is actually own it and show that violent resistance means people (with faces, and names, not just abstractions only ever talked about in general terms) who are essentially personally innocent are going to end up collateral damage, and people are going to hold grudges about it. Have some courage in your convictions!

Translation

Okay, all of that said, this isn’t a book that’s wholly bad, or anything. In particular, you can really tell how much of a passion Kuang has for the art and science of translation. The depth of knowledge and eagerness to share just about overflows from the page whenever the book finds an excuse to talk about it at length, and it’s really very endearing. The philosophizing about translation was also as a rule much more interesting and nuanced then whenever the book tried to opine about high politics or revolutionary tactics.

Anyways, I really can’t recommend the book in any real way, but it did stick in my head for long enough that I’ve now written 4,000 words about it. So at the very least it’s the interesting sort of bad book, y’know?

[ireadwithmyears]

even if it’s handcuffed, I’m leaving here with you.

Pairing: Commander Fox/fem Reader

Word count: 4.7K

Tags/warnings, smut (18+: (miners DNI) dumb decisions, they turn out alright, slight exhibitionism (they fuck in the back of 79’s and Fox enjoys the idea of being overheard), oral (F receiving), fingering, light bondage, spanking, but like only one, unprotected P in V sex, dom/sub elements, biting/marking (it’s Fox, what do you expect)

Summary: Fox hasn’t been giving you the attention you’ve been craving. The way in which you go about fixing that is highly questionable, but ultimately, a resounding success.

Note: yes, this was 100% inspired by a specific lyric in I’mgonnagetyoubac by Taylor Swift, referred to in the title. I heard it, went Fox bby c’mere I need to do something with this, and this is the end result, which I hope is enjoyable. Also, do these characters have communication issues that they probably should acknowledge and talk through? Probably. Are we not going to acknowledge any of that here for the sake of✨minimal plot✨ yes.

“This, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, is one of the stupidest ideas you’ve ever had.”

To be fair, your best friend is saying this all while she downs a shot, barely containing her smirk behind the glass. She’s already given her rather enthusiastic consent to this idea that she has just declared is stupid

Because that’s what best friends do. 

Look, you have to agree, the idea sounds completely outlandish and lacks any sound logic whatsoever, not to mention, there’s no guarantee that it’ll even work. But, lounging around a table at a bar on Coruscant’s Clubbing scene, and with your ride or die best friend perched across from you to egg on your delusions, it starts to sound not as crazy as it had initially sounded when you had first spoke the words aloud.

In theory, the idea is straightforward and simple enough. 

Start a fight at the clone bar while Fox is on duty so that you can actually get him alone for more than two minutes.

You’re aware, somewhere in the back of your mind, that these are rather drastic measures for you to take just to get your boyfriend to notice you. But, with your rationalizing, alcohol emboldening you, and your friends immediate agreement to help without hesitation, this idea starts to seem not only reasonable, but solid.

Listen, if you were able to be a normal, sensible couple, and you could just do something like, you know, talk to Fox, you would.

The problem is, though, that Fox has been making that very difficult.

Being the marshal commander of the Coruscant guard carries a lot of weight and responsibilities, you get that. You really, really do. But, when he rarely makes it home most nights because he’s fallen asleep at his desk from overworking himself, and you can count the amount of times he’s touched you over the past two weeks on one hand, you’re starting to go a little bit insane.

Okay, so, you’re horny and so desperate for his attention that you’re willing to do something completely unreasonable, not to mention a little bit illegal, to get it. So what.

*

The plan, for all of its complete lack of sense and sound judgment, goes a little too perfectly.

The guard often sends some of their own out on patrols during 79’s busiest nights to keep order and ensure that there are no inter-battalion style brawls. 

You have Fox’s schedule memorized. So, you wait until you know he’s set to make his rounds, pick a table that is clearly within his eyeline, and then, minutes after he shows up, give your friend the subtle signal.

It starts with raised voices, shouted accusations and glaring until you know you’ve peaked his interest. Even through the tint of his visor, you can practically feel his eyes on you from across the room. 

Once you’re sure his eyes are securely glued on you, you allow high school drama and improv skills to take over, letting the fight escalate into something physical.

It’s hard, knowing that your friend is about to take the brunt of this for you, and your equal parts appreciative, and a little bit terrified, that she’s letting you launch yourself at her. But, you think to console yourself, you had practised this. How to make it look convincing, just good enough that it draws the attention of the cori’s, while also inflicting minimal damage because due to the fact that you don’t want your friend to get in heat for this too, making yourself the clear instigator, she’s only dodging, refusing to hit back.

When the thud of boots and the crackle of voices through helmet speakers come, barking gruff orders to break it up, you’re more than a little relieved. 

Even with his bucket still on, it’s easy for you to identify that it’s him. Him who pulls you off of her, none too gently. Him, whose rough, gloved fingers enclose around your wrists, smoothly pinning them behind your back before you can even blink and fuck, why was that so hot? Him, who, for a brief moment, you feel the cold and unforgiving plastoid of his chest plate digging as he presses flush against you, voice a low, displeased rumble as he addresses you, voice too quiet for anyone else to hear.

“You know, princess,” he mutters darkly, giving your wrists a squeeze. “If you wanted tonight to end with me locking binders around those pretty wrists of yours, there was no need to go to all of this trouble.”

He knew. 

Somehow, he’s figured out exactly what you were doing within seconds and for some reason, this only intensifies the thrill that runs through your body and causes your thighs to clench.

You’re not given time to ruminate on this, though, barely catch the subtle wink that your friend gives you before another member of the guard blocks your view of her as he kneels down to check on her. Fox, reflexes lightning fast, spins you around and immediately begins to usher you towards the back of the establishment, giving the other guard member on duty, you think it might be Thorn, a curt nod to acknowledge that he can handle this on his own.

Your led away to the sounds of low whistles, and many identical sets of brown eyes peering at you interestedly as Fox’s brothers stare at you when you pass by their tables.

Your face, at this point, has the decency to flush with oncoming embarrassment as they watch Fox leading you away.

No time for regrets now, you think to yourself as Fox reaches around you, still keeping your wrists firmly in one hand as he unlocks the door to an out-of-the-way office, frequently used to detain clones who start fights in the bar.

For better or for worse , you have captured his full, undivided attention for the night. 

now, you think, it’s only a matter of what he’s going to do about it.

*

“You know,” he muses, arms expertly caging you in and crowding you against the office wall, “if you’re going to fake a fight to get my attention, you could at least have picked an accomplice who I haven’t already met, and who I am perfectly aware you are on good terms with.”

“How would you know?” You ask, still slightly breathless as his amber eyes catch yours in the dim light, levelling you with a look. “A lot could change in the two weeks that I’ve barely seen you.” 

“Is that what this is about?” He asks, voice low and somehow too smooth and even, tilting his head to the side. “That explains why she made the effort to do this.” 

He doesn’t back down, doesn’t even look away in any semblance of guilt, which is infuriating. You’re about to tell him so when you’re cut off abruptly, words dissolving into nothing but a short gasp as his head lowers, lips, followed by the sharp bite of his teeth along the much too exposed skin of one of your breasts.

You blink, looking down at yourself, startled. It appears that whilst your friend was engaged in skirmishing with you, she had managed to tactfully pull open a few buttons from your shirt, splitting it just so that one of your breasts is tantalizingly exposed, nipple barely covered by the remaining fabric.

It’s fabric that is quickly shoved to the side as Fox, eyes never leaving yours as he does, takes your nipple into his mouth, tongue rolling over the bud, encouraging it to harden between warm lips.

“It’s almost like this was... planned,” he muses, accentuating his words with a sharp pinch as he tweaks your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, smirking at the way you jolt with surprise. His breath ghosts along the column of your throat as he moves to whisper in your ear. “Wasn’t it, cyar’ika.”

You’re prevented from answering when his teeth nip at your earlobe, causing any words you had in your mind to fall away, giving way to a shiver as you arch into him. A thrill runs through your body, and a pleasant hum has replaced the void where your thoughts used to be. If you had the sense to be embarrassed about how easy it was for him to get you like this, you would be. But right now, pushed up against the wall with him looming over you, it takes all you have to reach for him, fingers trying to find perch’s between his armour plating.

“Fox,” you let out a whine, tilting your head up to look at him pleadingly as you press yourself against him.

“Uh uh,” he chides, quickly extricating your hands. “These stay here,” he orders, swiftly pinning your wrists above your head with one hand. “If you know what’s good for you,” he continues darkly.

“A and what if I don’t?” You try to challenge, but your voice comes out in more of a squeak, wobbling slightly, as his fingers trail down your sides, just teasing at the skin beneath your shirt.

He chuckles, the sound a husky, dangerous rumble in his throat. Abruptly, he drops to his knees in front of you, pulling both your skirt and panties down with him in one harsh tug. They pool around your feet on the floor.

“Oh, meshla,” he coos at you, voice dripping with mock sincerity as one gloved fingertip, tantalizingly featherlight, sweeps through your already wet folds, only grazing over your clit enough to make your hips stutter in surprise before he pulls away. 

“Trust me, by the time I’m done with you, you will.”

Your ability to form a quick witted retort to that is greatly impeded, and ultimately foiled, probably intentionally, by Fox lifting one of your legs, manoeuvring it so it drapes over the curve of one of those broad, imposing shoulders of his. 

Before you’re given time to react to this sudden shift of balance, he’s leaning forward, his impatience evident in the way he roughly holds your thighs apart as he does. Your clit is suckled into his mouth with an almost unadulterated greed as it’s pulled between his lips, tongue barely fluttering over it before your hips jolt, and the sound that manages to escape you, half in surprise, half a needy whine before you manage to check yourself, remembering where, exactly, he’s doing this to you, sounds just about as uncontrolled as his actions are.

He pulls back, only to give you a deceptively teasing smirk as he tugs off his gloves. “What’s the matter, cyar?” He almost purrs, a now gloveless finger slowly teasing at your entrance, eyes fixated on how you clench around nothing. “Got nothing to say now?” 

He evidently finds his ability to have you this riled up with only a few touches amusing, because he’s again leaning forward before you can respond. A series of gentle kitten licks targeted at your clit, as his finger slowly presses into your heat has you forgetting about that fact quickly, the only sound escaping your lips being that of a strangled gasp-moan.

With the way his lips quirk and he lets out a small hum of satisfaction, the vibrations of which run through your body like a shockwave that leaves you breathless, it’s evident that this is exactly the way he wants you, squirming and desperate.

“Fox, I, we can’t do this here ohh.”

You lose track of the point you were trying to make with the smallest movement of his finger, almost gentle as it curls inside you, just brushing over your G spot, causing you to start stammering.

“Mm, why’s that, princess?” He asks, pulling out his finger only so that he can insistently begin to open you up with a second. “I don’t really think you’re in the position to be making demands like that, hm?”

Teeth nipping at that sensitive spot high on your inner thigh silences your retort. “So pretty,” he breathes, almost to himself as his tongue lazily soothes over the mark he’s made, before he’s back on your clit, lips, tongue, and fingers that curl and press and thrust all working to bring you up and straight to the edge.

And take you to the edge, he does. Within minutes that feel like seconds, he has you arching your back, pushing your hips to meet the delicious, constant thrust of his fingers and the targeted, precise teasing of his tongue and lips against your already sensitive clit, breathless begging and pleading because you’re just, you need, you’re almost.

There’s an audible clap as you desperately press your hand against your mouth, trying to silence the high-pitched, feverish whimper that’s fighting to escape your lips because there, right there, rightfuckingthereyoujust...

Then he’s pulling away, releasing your clit with an obscene sounding wet pop as he rises to his feet, calm and totally unfazed in the face of your obvious frustrated desperation, hips still vainly moving in an attempt to find something that’s no longer there. He looks down at you, watching with evident amusement in his eyes as you lose the high that he’s given you, languidly taking the time to idly suck on his fingers, still slick with your arousal as he waits.

He’s patient, simply staring down at your quivering form as he holds you within his scrutiny, deliberately drawing out the silence until the tension has grown thick, and it starts to make you feel disquieted, nervous, almost like you’ve done something you shouldn’t have and you’re now waiting for him to pronounce your punishment.

Only then, only once he sees the realization dawn on your face and your eyes widen slightly does he reach out, lightly tracing one finger over the back of your hand.

Your hand that he told you to stay above your head on the wall. 

Your hand that is, right now, still pressed firmly against your half open mouth. 

“I thought I told you,” he muses casually, fingers delicately wrapping around your wrist and pulling it away from your lips, “to keep these where I put them.”

You swallow, but look up at him with a falsely innocent expression because fuck it, you’re already out of the frying pan, might as well just jump headfirst into the fire.

“Well, technically you told me to do that only if I knew what was good for me, so... guess I don’t,” you say with a shrug, flashing him a smirk.

“Hm,” he huffs, pondering as he continues to hold your wrist, giving it a squeeze in warning. “So it appears you don’t.”

Within seconds, he’s smoothly spun you around, and pulled both of your wrists behind your back, with a speed that’s so succinct that you don’t even comprehend what’s happening until the heavy, cold weight of the binders settles against your skin, locking your wrists in place with a smooth, resounding click.

Oh.

A hand on your back gently nudges you forward and without question, you begin to walk, only pausing when he’s directed you to stand in front of a desk, the height of which reaches just above your waist. He urges you down, hand pressing in between your shoulder blades until you’re bent over, skin flush against the cool wood. 

You jump when his voice appears, low and inches away from your ear as he leans over you, hands delicately scheming down your sides as he speaks.

“Oh, meshla, you misunderstand me,” he purrs, and he can’t resist gently nipping at your earlobe just to hear the small noise of surprise that escapes you and feel the way your body shivers beneath him. 

You hear him settle behind you, armoured knees hitting the ground with a dull thump as his hands, warm and rough, ease your thighs apart, holding them wide.

Fingers lazily circle you’re already swollen clit as he continues. “You can cum, pretty girl. In fact, I want you to cum, and I want everyone outside to be able to hear all those pretty sounds you make when you do it.”

Outside, a muffled round of drunken cheering from several of his vode seems to punctuate his demand, causing your heart to quicken, and before you’re given time to really think about it, he’s opening you further, diving back in with his lips and tongue as his hands continue to hold your thighs apart.

For a moment, it’s just hot, heavy breaths, warm air tickling and brushing against your incredibly sensitive clit, the barest sensation and the heat enough to pull a breathless “mmm” from your lips, hips desperately pushing back against his waiting mouth. 

You both know that you’re not going to last long, so Fox takes time to relish each moment he spends in between your thighs, every movement of his tongue and lips deliberate and controlled. The firm muscle of the flat of his tongue pressing against you is neither frantic nor fast, but it urges and demands with an almost maddening precision.  The slightest role of his tongue over the bud as his lips pull you into his mouth nearly does you in, turning small, gasping whimpers into “oh please I fuck I please,” without any regard to the level of your voice.

Fox hums a response, and after that, you’re done, tipped over the edge by just the slightest nudge as if you had been clinging to it by your fingertips, and were now free falling.

You only come back to yourself when you feel fingernails raking up your trembling thighs, and Fox’s low, husky voice as he stares up at you.

“Mm, good,” he murmurs, running a finger through your sensitive folds just to watch you tremor.

He rises to his feet, and you’re not sure what you’re expecting him to do, if anything. Your mind is so addled by your orgasm that it comes completely unanticipated. 

A quick, stinging swat lands against your ass, calloused fingers caressing over the skin as soon as it begins to heat beneath the palm of his hand. It makes you let out of rather undignified, surprised squeak, hands instinctively trying to move to cover yourself, but of course, they’re not going anywhere. The unforgiving metal of the binders cooley nipping at your skin as you strain being a good enough reminder of that. 

“But I think you can do better.”

There’s the familiar sound of his codpiece being unclipped, a small clang as it hits the floor and is kicked away without consequence. Fox lets out a low groan, the only evidence to suggest that he’s nearly as affected as you are as he pulls himself free of his blacks, taking his hard length into his hand.

Your head drops to the desk, which is met with an immediate tsk of disapproval, Fox threading his fingers through your hair as he tugs it back up, pulling just enough to ensure that the tingle is painful, a reprimand as sharp as his words.

“Keep your head up, princess,” he orders sternly. “I want everyone to hear the sounds you make when I fuck you.”

He glides his cock through your wet folds, pausing to tease a few circles around your clit with the head as he continues. “And I want everyone to know how good I make you cum.”

The head of his cock lightly slaps against your clit, punctuating his words and causing the already overly sensitive nerves to spark and tingle. The whine that leaves your parted lips is a needy, pitiful thing.

You hear his low, throaty chuckle as he backs off, nudging the glistening head of his cock between your parted lips, smoothly lining himself up at your entrance. With one drawn out, controlled roll of his hips, he’s sinking into you, hands coming to grasp your hips as your tight, warm heat clenches around him.

Once he’s fully seated himself, feeling your walls fluttering around him, he moves, adjusting his angle in several quick, sharp snaps of his hips as he gages your response. When he finds the angle that has you crying out the loudest, and he’s satisfied that his cock insistently nudges against your G spot with every thrust, he begins to move in earnest.

Fox sets an even, measured pace, pulling back only to thrust back in with more power and intensity behind the insistent movement of his hips, cock pressing against all of those spots that need to be touched, caressed, and stretched for him.

Only when it starts to build inside you, because really, after you’ve already came from the talents of his skilled tongue, it really doesn’t take much to bring you back up, only once you start moaning and writhing beneath him does the rhythm change, not stopping, but slowing considerably as his fingers grasp at your hips, pulling you against him and keeping you still despite your squirming and protests. 

You can feel his armour plates digging against your skin as he moves, the cold, unforgiving plastoid in combination with the hot slick of skin on skin as he firmly presses your hips against him is dizzying, and sends your head spinning with each gentle pulse of his throbbing cock.

He holds you there, keeping your ass pressed flush against his pelvis, only allowing small, controlled ruts of his hips that brush his cock against your walls, his form radiating patience and authority as he looms over you, watching as you mercilessly struggle for him to give you more than what he’s allowing.

Your hips try to push back, to do anything, but without being able to brace your hands, you’re not getting anywhere fast at all, and your struggle to gain any kind of leverage ends with you throwing your head back, letting out a high-pitched, frustrated whine as you look back at your tormentor, who watches with an almost impassive expression, eyes dark.

He sweeps your hair over your shoulder, littering a trail of hot kisses and sharp bites along the exposed column of your throat as he moves to your ear. 

“Got something to say, meshla?” He coos condescendingly, nuzzling his nose against your neck and letting out a warm breath that sends goosebumps down your spine.

Under the full weight of his attention, he manages to scatter the few strings of coherent words that your brain was trying to piece together into something useful. All you can do is moan helplessly, feebly pushing back against him in an attempt to get him to move in vain.

“Hm,” he muses, and you feel the brief scraping of teeth as he runs them along your shoulder. “Guess not. Maybe I’ll just stay here, until you can figure out how to use your pretty mouth to tell me what you want.”

You know what he wants, and it only takes one small, barely there nudge of his hips for it to come spilling out of you, with minimal protest or fight. 

“Please, sir, please,” you beg, both cheeks and eyes burning at how unsteady your voice sounds. “Please fuck me.”

“Ah,” he pretends to come to the understanding and that bastard, you don’t have to look at him to know that there’s a devilish smirk on his face as one of his hands leaves your hips, dipping to run along your inner thigh. 

“Understood,” he says, voice as short and crisp as if he’s just barking an order to one of his troopers. 

With that, he withdraws, unsheathing himself so slowly that every inch of him drags along your walls as he pulls out. Then, without warning, grasping your hip tightly, he slams back into you, pushing against your tightness and pulling you back onto him at the same time. His pace is now brisk, unyielding, and unwaveringly steady as he impales you on his cock, letting out low, breathy sounds, pausing to listen to the mules and moans that leave you in response.

As soon as he starts hitting someplace deep, quick and primal and constant, your back is arching, your ability to form any coherent words seemingly depleted. 

Or at least, that’s what you think, until his hand, that had up until this point been squeezing and massaging the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, moves in between your legs, fingers expertly catching on your clit, circling, pressing, and the occasional tap against the overly sensitive bud that has you gasping and jolting in place.

“Fox,” you whimper desperately, hips wriggling even though there’s nowhere to go. “Please.”

Whether you’re saying please to beg him to stop because you can’t, it’s too much, or you’re saying please because you want, you need him to never stop, to keep going because the attention he’s lavishing on your clit combined with the delicious way he’s filling and stretching you on his cock feels so wonderfully good is unclear.

The decision is quickly taken out of your hands when Fox, evidently seeing how close you are, abruptly adjusts his angle, redirecting his focus yet again to your G spot, hips rolling against you as he targets it with small, precise and shallow thrusts.

“Be a good girl,” he murmurs, hand releasing your hip to rake his fingernails down your spine. “Cum,” he orders, giving your clit another tap before he continues his tantalizing circles. “Cum for me.”

You throw your head back, spine contorting as you arch, only vaguely aware of the desk digging into your ribs as you cum, eyes squeezing shut and walls clamping down on him as some sound that you don’t even begin to hear nor control is ripped from your throat.

Only then does his pace falter and does he pull you back onto him to bury himself to the hilt within you, cold armour plating firmly pressing against your ass and your thighs, as he lets  out a long, low rumble as he stills within you, spilling his release within your warm, convulsing heat. 

You’re aware of your head falling against the desk, finally too exhausted to keep it up as your body trembles with aftershocks. You’re aware of his hand, soothing as it strokes through your hair. You’re aware of him slowly easing himself out, you think you might make a small sound at the loss, judging by his low chuckle, but you’re not sure.

You only really begin to engage with the world again when you feel the rush of liquid leaving your core, causing you to let out a small gasp. 

“Shh, little one, s’okay,” Fox murmurs, gathering the mix of his and your release that glistens on your folds with his fingers, slowly pushing it back inside, causing you to whimper. 

He guides your legs back into your panties and skirt with tender hands, pulling you to your feet and reaching around you to button up your top.

It’s only when he’s about to steer you out of the room that you realize. 

“Fox?” You say with a frown, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Aren’t you gonna, you know, undo the binders?”

He looks at you, hands occupied with snapping his codpiece back into place. 

“No,” he responds shortly. “You still instigated a fight. I at least have to play off the charade that I’m taking you back to HQ.”

He sets his helmet back on his head, and even though you can no longer see his face, you know that there’s amusement in his eyes, because even though this was your plan, he still has the last laugh. 

“This is still a punishment, and considering I’m letting you off the hook in terms of having to pay a fine, it’s a rather generous alternative, don’t you think, Meshla?” He reminds you lowly, voice clear even through his helmet modulator. “Get moving,” he orders, nudging you forward impatiently.

your mouth drops open as the noise from outside slowly filters into your ears.

He’s about to make you walk through the bar.

Your wrist still in binders as he escorts you out.

Past many of his vode.

With his cum still leaking out of you and the fresh bite marks that he scattered across your neck and shoulders like ornaments.

They’ll take one look at you, and even if they hadn’t managed to hear some of what was going on, which, judging by the dryness in your throat, would be a complete miracle of the force, they’ll know exactly what you did with the Marshall commander whom they all serve under and fuck, the burning twinge of humiliation should not effortlessly combine with some sort of excitement, but it does.

Your cheeks flush, and it takes all of your willpower to start shuffling your feet forward. 

Well played, Commander. Well played indeed. 

[anim-ttrpgs]

How to Choose Music for a TTRPG Session & Eureka Song Selections

When our own group plays any TTRPG, we always like to have some amount of background music to help with the mood and tone, and if you do too, then here's a post about how best to choose it, because it is a learnable skill!

I am one of the creators of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

and the idea for this post grew out of making a curated list of songs for Eureka sessions, each sorted into different categories for easy access. The Narrator in a Eureka campaign exercises very little control over the story and pacing of the game, so it isn't very helpful to plan for a specific reveal of specific scene set to a certain song. To that end, I have sorted these songs into various types of scenes, tones, etc. for you to grab as the story is emerging.

You can find these lists here:

Session Intro Music (in case you wanna open each session with a musical theme like an episode of a tv show)

Investigation Scene Music (low-stakes) or Meal Scene

Investigation Scene Music (tense/creepy) Part 1

Investigation Scene Music (tense/creepy) Part 2

Foot Chase Music

Vehicle Chase Music

Scooby-doo-ass Chase Music

Investigators Fleeing/Hiding from Monster Music

Unarmed Combat Music

Deadly/Armed Melee Combat Music

Deadly/Firearm Combat Music

Monster Rampage Music

Monster Hunting Music (as in the monster is a PC who is hunting prey)

How to Choose Music for a TTRPG Session

There’s a few things that make a good TTRPG session song that aren’t immediately obvious.

Avoid Lyrics

Lyrics are a no-go 90% of the time. You gotta assume that the players will be trying to read rules and/or do math during the session and lyrics can make that harder.

Avoid Loud, Dissonate, or Disorienting Music

For the very same reasons—and this is especially useful to keep in mind for a horror-themed game like Eureka—it can't be too dissident or grating. A lot of horror video game music is really dissident screechy and offensive to the ears because this induces a tiny sense of panic, but again, like with lyrics, this means it’s hard to actually play a TTRPG while listening to this.

Don't Outpace the Combat

For combat music, a fast-paced “action” song can work, but if it’s too fast-paced it really quickly outpaces the combat itself because TTRPG combat is necessarily kind of slow. I do have plenty of fast-paced actiony songs in those lists, but those are best grouped into a playlist in sequence rather than looped, because then you at least have the rather frequent serendipity of the song changing on a per-turn basis.

The usual better option is something “tense” and “cool” but a bit more understated, usually with a mid-intensity repeating beat. Complex action songs work in other mediums like movies because their notes can be tailored to sync up to the actual actions on-screen, but that won’t happen in a TTRPG 90% of the time, even if just because describing a character throwing a punch takes way longer than a character throwing a punch in a movie.

For Eureka I also had to like make sure there was a good selection of action music in there that wasn’t too “cool” or “heroic.” Eureka characters are not fearless action heroes nor usually trained soldiers. If they are in a fight, it usually isnt cool, it’s scary. If anything, the combat music should be the bad guy’s theme, not the protagonists’, because they’re the ones with the advantage. When a Eureka PC does have the advantage and can be super “cool” in a fight, they’re probably a monster, in which case it’s the other way around, they’re the terrifying bad guy in the NPC’s story, and I tried to pick music to reflect that with “darker,” more “sinister” tracks.

Choose Songs without Shifts in Tempo or Intensity

You want something that is very easy to loop. Lots of cool songs go through pretty dramatic changes in their intensity over the course of their runtime. This is cool like I said when they can be synced up to action in a movie, but they’ll never (or rarely) sync up with anything in a TTRPG session. They’re going to be playing over and over on like a 3-minute loop as you roll dice and occasionally look up rules, and if this loop is really noticeable because of how the song starts out slow and then swells in intensity, that is going to be annoying fast. You want a song that has a relatively consistent level of intensity throughout its whole runtime.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[genshinemblem564]

Genshin Isekai Headcanons

These can be sagau, but they don't have to be.

• Xinyan is stoked that you love her music, and is excited when you offer to play her some music from your world, but she's confused by some of the lyrics. She understands metaphorical lyrics, like the person described in the song isn't actually a rocket, but some of them don't make sense or feel like they were added just to fill a void. Aside from that, she kinda wants to perform some of these songs, now if only she had some band members.

• Tartaglia doesn't have much to say about the guns of your world. The pyro and hydro fatui agents already use guns of some kind, and the cryo fatui agent uses, um. What would you call an ice based flamethrower? No, what he's interested in is the immense amount of new weapons that Teyvat doesn't have, or they probably do, and we just don't hear about them. Like chain blades, I don't know what else to call them, essentially a flail, but instead of a mace, it's blade. I would write something about axes, but I feel like saving that for my crossover series. A scythe is often seen as a special lance, but you tell him that it's much more complicated than that specifically pointing out the blade, and depending on your own skill, you give him a demonstration. He is way too excited to learn all of these new weapons, like a kid excited about a new toy, you can't help but smile.

• Baizhu is perplexed when he first prescribes medicine to you, as you give him a list of allergies, if any, and are more than willing to go through proper examination to learn how resistant your body is to certain toxins. He's even more surprised when you tell him that his unique practice is actually common in your world, so that's why you don't bat an eye at potentially poisonous ingredients.

• Bennett is rather surprised. When you hang out, his bad luck seems to go away. It's actually just you using a bit of foresight, like checking the date on a flyer before rushing to a sale that had already ended, but seeing that glimmer in his eyes, you decide to let his imagination roam.

• You and Cyno are reference lords. You two reference everything, Cyno, his favorite book or book series, and you, your favorite media source. Now, if only people actually understood them, and yes, you do quote Yu-Gi-Oh when playing Genius Invokation.

• If you're an artist, then you quickly catch Albedo's attention. When he sees your drawings, he is quick to ask what you used as a muse, and your answer will have great impact on his reaction. If you point to an object or animal, his response will be normal. If you draw from memory though, he is astounded, especially if what you drew was a scene of some kind, with people, animals, or what have you. Drawing all that from memory is incredible. If you say it's something you made up, he'll compare it to when he's commissioned for his own art.

• Depending on your own interests, you'll be interacting with several different characters. I can't think of anything in depth for these few, so here's a general basis. Barbara is relieved that you're so open to different views. She knows how cruel people can be when they're closed-minded, and she's happy to teach you about the Church of Favonius and Barbatos. Noelle was lamenting not being a knight yet, which led you to bring up the seven chivalric virtues. Yae Miko and Xingqiu are very interested in the stories of your world. Xingqiu hoping to learn more about your worlds code of chivalry, but he ends up learning about justice's different forms. Yae is simply searching for new inspiration. She often calls on you when her old nemesis, writers block, appears. Nahida takes interest in you right away, wanting to gain knowledge from your world, and you seem fun. She knows better than anyone how dangerous knowledge can be, so she asks you to omit potentially dangerous subjects.

• Mona was shocked when you said that you only wanted to know the bad stuff coming your way, not that she could help you, with you being an outworlder and all. When she asked why, you told her "It's best to be prepared for all the bad coming your way, and if you know all the good coming your way, it takes away from life's natural wonder." Which was promptly followed by you asking "Where did that come from?"

___________________________________________

I'm thinking making more of that last one, like " Characters reaction to reader who is randomly philosophical" might need to work on the title a bit. Also, as stated above, these can be sagau, but can also be normal isekai, so I'll use both tags so they can be found more easily

[afairytalestray]

OK so on Saturday I got to go to Milan to see the Cats Il Sistina tour and HOLY GOD IT WAS AWESOME. I'm glad I studied the character designs in advance because a lot of the costumes are really different. I'm not typically a huge fan of nonreplicas but Il Sistina may well change that!

I've compiled my thoughts on the show here! Nb, I do not speak Italian so I'm not sure how close to the original lyrics the translation is 😅

There were no green goggles, but the Cats did come in through the audience. I had an aisle seat and Cassandra walked right past me! She was right there and so beautiful omg.

I've gotta get in right at the start that Simone Ragozzino is my new all-time favourite Mungojerrie. The most ever! A little guy. He got most of the acrobatics that Tumblebrutus usually does - apparently Simone used to be an acrobat/gymnast so that makes sense. He and Rumpleteazer were sufficiently chaotic but also clearly valued and beloved members of the tribe. Idk man Simone just got it. Tumble-jerrie ftw. 

The cathedral from "round the cathedral" was changed to a Colosseum reference which I loved 😍

I'm obsessed with Demeter’s makeup from this tour actually. I'm personally not the biggest fan of cryptid-style makeup and looks in Cats in general, but I feel like Deme was balancing just on the edge and it really worked and I loved it. Maybe it was Viviana Salvo's acting as well - she was fabulous at toeing that line between stunning and unnerving!

Tugger and Munkustrap were super close! Munk was less annoyed by Tugger’s antics than normal and they did this thing at one point where Tugger was holding onto Munk who leant fully backwards off the edge of the stage - it was like a trust exercise and I was a fan. Their rendition of Old Deuteronomy was lovely and their voices worked so good together! Tugger was definitely Munkustrap’s second in command of the tribe. I wish Tugger was a bit more Tugger in appearance, he seemed very yellow with not a lot of detail on his costume, but the personality was hundo p present and accounted for. He did the "bite is worse than your bark" line in Jellicle Songs and legit barked at the end.

Jennyanydots was fabulous! Instead of a big coat she literally wore a giant ball of wool, and one of the props was giant knitting needles and the start of what might have been a giant scarf - it took 6 of the Cats to carry it. It actually worked super well for Milan, which is known for fashion and fabrics - there's even a giant sewing needle sculpture outside Cadorna Station! It was probably a happy coincidence but I enjoyed it!

Victoria's role was changed quite a bit, her solo was totally different and the pas de deux was gone. There also kinda just... wasn't the big small first touch Vic and Grizabella moment, which I was sad about, but if Griz's big moment wasn't "TOUCH MEEEEEE" in the translation, I'm not so bothered by it. I wish Vic had a bit bigger of a role because I love her, but she was killing it whenever she was on stage.

We are all stan pink Jemima, she had such a lovely voice too. Her and Alonzo were playing with a tennis ball during the interval and it was adorable.

My beloved Coricopat and Tantomile were lying in the Mouth of Truth prop after Moments of Happiness; they had their usual role of translating Old Doots through Jemima so I thought their placement here was deliberate! They weren't always fully in sync which I kinda liked, it was like they were allowed to be their own characters rather than just "the twins". I definitely got the impression that Tantomile was the older sister which hella backs up my hcs about her!

Gus was absolutely WILD. He comes in after Jellylorum has done her whole first part of the song in this raggedy old tradiotional Sherlock Holmes-style beige plaid coat instead of being there but kinda out of it the whole time. At first he wasnt keen on replaying any of his roles, but then all the others were like please please please and he relented. I think they were calling him (or his role) Romero? Idk if that's an Italian reference I just don't get? They did Pekes and Pollicles (one of the above had been changed to chihuahuas!) and then the bold Rumpus/Romero appeared... in a red satin bath robe and holding a sabre??? I need to look up this reference! Dude didn't just intimidate the pollicles, he straight up cut a couple of them down with his sword! Grandpa woke up and chose violence 😂

There was no trash train in Skimbleshanks 😭😭 there were giant glowstick things that changed colours though. Skimble and Bustopher were played by the same actor which is a combo I haven't seen before. Skimble was definitely still everyone's favourite train dad, all the characters were totally hyped for his song. HE DID TAP LIKE IN 2019. It was really cool how they did it, all the music stopped and he started a call and response tap dance with some of the other characters. The background showed an animated video of going through a train tunnel, like from the perspective of a train driver! The tap was gradually speeding up and became the sound effects of a train setting off and moving through the tunnel. I'm not explaining this super well but it was SO cool.

The Macavity Fight was quite different. There wasn't him disguised as Old Deuteronomy and then unmasked. What happened was he showed up and caused some shenanigans and then disappeared. There were about 4 of him around, so it looked like he was teleporting around the stage and audience! Bombalurina and Demeter performed his song which was absolutely fantastic (seriously how do these actresses actually manage to dance like that and sing at the same time?? Goddesses), after that he showed up again and the full cast was involved in the fight. Munkustrap still got the good choreography, but the whole tribe was involved trying to protect Old Deuteronomy. Tugger was definitely a protector in this production, he was very involved. Jerrie got KO'd a good few times, and Macavity absolutely destroyed poor Jenny! It felt like all of them were trying to protect their family and I really liked that. Despite that, Macavity was still able to win and successfully kidnap Old Doots!

"Mungojerrie, RUMPLETEAZER, Griddlebone" they let my girl do crime again!

Mistoffelees and Quaxo were besties, and Misto was REALLY enjoying Tugger's song I'm just saying. Delighted to announce Il Sistina Misto was a fruity little guy. He didn't get the terrible bore line, sad face, that went to Quaxo, but tbh idk how they translated that so it could be totally different! At one point Alonzo was holding him back at the start of Tugger’s song! We then saw a sponge-like Misto who picked up behaviours from the others around him, like he wasn't too sure of himself. This is actually one of my favourite Misto hcs so i was so chuffed to see it so clearly. He then helped Alonzo rein George (at least I think it was George!) in from going mental fanboy at Tugger. He was originally curious about Griz but then adjusted to hissing upon seeing the others. This fully went forward into his song. They did some big choreo changes. It was significantly less dance-heavy than traditional Misto performances and had a stronger focus on him being magic. There was a levitating box that they spent a lot of time with - Magician's Assistant Cass got in, but then she didn't disappear? She just popped back out again after the box had been rotated a few times. Some of the Kittens were waving their hands under the box to prove there was nothing holding it up and looking amazed which was adorable though. There was also a bit where Misto put some cards into a hat, the hat got passed down a line of Cats and then at the end they just sort of flew out? Like idk maybe they changed the lyrics where they're describing different magic tricks and it all makes sense! I THOUGHT THE CONJURING TURNS WERE GONE, but they were just moved to the very end of the song and cut down quite a bit.

Ok BUT LISTEN, à la 2019, the poor boy tried and failed twice to bring back Old Deuteronomy and then just sort of flopped in the corner all defeated but then BOYFRIEND TUGGER HELD HIS HANDS AND GOT RIGHT UP CLOSE AND WAS LIKE I BELIEVE IN YOU BABE and omg for real those actors knew EXACTLY what they were doing Tuggoff nation RISE. I'm always a red-sheet-turned-cape stan but I can definitely get behind the sparkly tail coat and playing card bowtie. He also had this handkerchief that he threw up in the air and it became a magic wand. I have no idea how and it was very silly so obviously I loved it. Although I wasn't massively into the choreo changes (ballet dancer Misto 5eva), Pierpaolo Scida was a magnificent Misto and I adored him - he was so cute! The little background actions and looks he did were so in character with how he interpreted Misto! Also he was beautiful you can't change my mind.

Malika was such an intense Grizabella - 10/10. She was proud but so vulnerable. She walked right past me when she first came in and lads, she did the whole show in these massive stilettos - absolute queen. At one point it literally rained on her on stage! During her first Memory, Old Deut was really watching her, and at the end of it he approached her, but she ran off when she saw him. I thought it was a super cool character moment, like she knew she wanted to be accepted, but wasn't quite ready for it. Even after the big Memory and Old Deuteronomy declared her the Jellicle Choice, Victoria approached her, but she was still too scared to let her, and it was Jemima who finally was able to reach her and bring her in. At the end she just kinda disappeared off stage - there were no flying tyres or magic stairs in the circus tent!

During the bit after the bows some of the cats were out in the audience and Tugger scared the absolute crap out of this one woman by poking his head in between her and the person sitting next to her. Iconic. Also during the latter part of the interval the audience was allowed to come up to the edge of the stage where some of the actors were goofing about in character. This mf pretended to cough up a hairball and now I have it on video. I also got some close ups of Teazer and the beautiful Bomba!

The Italian Junkyard was fabulous! It was mostly roman landmarks like Piazza Navona and Bocca della Verità, but there was also Michelangelo's David (which I'm pretty sure is in Florence) above the orchestra! There was also a giant marble foot, an Italian-style water fountain, and a broken column. My favourite prop was the bench, it's elevated at the back left of the stage and the cast were using it like a slide to enter the stage! Also it seemed to be Misto’s preferred location to lounge.

In conclusion, I will never get over this.

[kleinblue52]

It's been a little over a month since my second time at Next to Normal London and I have some thoughts

(note: this was mostly translated from a review I wrote in Italian so some phrasing might sound strange)

Like many of you, I knew Next to Normal thanks to several videos of the original Broadway production, while my first time live was with the good Italian adaptation directed by Marco Iacomelli. It’s a musical that I have always appreciated and admired, but for some reason, there had never been the emotional impact necessary to make me feel like it was mine. The original version was chronologically closer to the end of the nineties than any subsequent production and I believe that the influence of the analytical deconstruction of the American nuclear family so relevant in the culture of those years (think of American Beauty) greatly influenced how the musical was originally conceived. In the direction, in the performances of the original cast, in the visuals, I have always found a coldness that led the libretto towards biting and detached social criticism rather than emotional involvement. Obviously, I do not believe this is a flaw, on the contrary. I really appreciate the analytical approach to social criticism and I believe that in this Next to Normal was revolutionary in its genre. But a lot of time has passed since then and many things have changed in the way we perceive the concepts of family, social relationships, neurodivergence and gender. The thing that surprises me most, from a personal point of view, is that along with all this I also feel changed and the more the years pass the more I realize that intellectualism is not everything and that it’s so important to consume art that expresses pure and raw human experience, that shows open wounds without fear of being accused of excessive emotionality. Until a few years ago, the social attitude towards artistic experiences so shamelessly sincere in showing feelings branded them as superficial. Today, I believe, the trend is changing, the new generations are discovering the importance of sensitivity and fragility that doesn’t need to be hidden, which is no longer accompanied by a sense of shame and inferiority. This is the new Next to Normal. It is no longer the show of 2008, it is no longer a successful exercise in style that wants to say in music what Sam Mendes had said in film, what Jeffrey Eugenides and Sofia Coppola had said with their Virgin Suicides.

Next to Normal is now pure and raw life. It is the human experience that shows itself in all its incoherence, without fear of going straight to the heart, without fear of staging a melodrama in which there are no winners and no heroes, definitely without fear of making the audience uncomfortable. An audience that, if truly sensitive, will find something of their own personal chaos in the chaos of what is shown to us.

The price of love is loss, but still we pay, we love anyway. This, in my opinion, is the key lyric of this new identity of Next to Normal, a lyric that in its most intimate nature had not really found expression in the previous and more “clinical” versions of the musical. It is a sentence that for the first time truly speaks to the heart and expresses a chilling truth, which we must all accept as a rule of life and which all the characters on stage must accept by extension. You will always lose what you love, in one way or another. It is not just about the loss of Gabe. Diana loses herself along with her son, but she also loses the love of her life and loses the chance to be a mother to Natalie. Natalie loses faith in the possibility of changing and getting out of the unhealthy relationships of her family, ending up a victim, with the only glimmer of hope represented by Henry. Dan loses the girl he had loved and the boy he had been and, for the love of Natalie, he manages to save his sanity, but he loses the opportunity to know what it feels like to be a father to Gabe. Caissie Levy, Jamie Parker, Eleanor Worthington-Cox all have the ability to manifest the most intimate, difficult, disturbing part of their characters. They are people who are losing themselves and everything they believe in and like anyone with a heartbeat, the attitude in the face of loss is fear, anger, an extreme attempt to cling to what can be saved. It is not always pleasant to see, as I said there are no heroes on that stage and the three actors lose themselves into performances that seem to have no safety net.

Then there is Gabe. I have great respect for many of the actors who played him in the past, but theirs was the Gabe suited to that historical moment. He was the perfect varsity jock that every American soccer mom wanted: handsome, athletic, self-confident. With an unsolved mystery inside, which emerged restless and dangerous. In this new era in which sensitivity is the only weapon to counteract the lack of humanity that the world offers us, Jack Wolfe gives us a Gabe who is delicate, fragile, ambiguous, selfish and desperately attached to "life".

Every look, every gesture, every expression aided by Wolfe's enormous expressive eyes show us a Gabe who is not the projection of an ideal, but something much more terrible: he is the projection of disease, a shield that Diana uses to protect herself from reality, not by creating a perfect version of the son she never had, but by creating a codependent version of a son who will never leave her. Everything in Wolfe's Gabe speaks of a morbid attachment that Diana creates as the only way to ensure that Gabe never leaves her, using him to push Natalie and Dan away, shaping him in her mind as a boy who will never replace his mother with another woman. Just this morning I read that Michael Longhurst, the director, openly said that he took inspiration from his adolescence as a homosexual boy for his version of the character. The very strong queer-coding of this version of Gabe is perfect for this new vision of a codependent relationship and elevates the drama of loss to something heartbreaking and apparently with no escape. The other incredible aspect of the new direction of this new Gabe, and of the performance, is that for the first time the character made me feel uneasy. I thought after this second viewing that it would take very few changes to transform this production of Next to Normal into a real psychological horror in which the ghosts are pure destructive energy linked to the lack of a clear break with their life on earth. Because if we move away from the vision of Gabe as a projection of the disease, if we accept Gabe as an almost supernatural manifestation of unresolved mourning, the character in Wolfe's hands takes on frightening twists. His Gabe has the attitude of a newborn who has grown only in body. His needs are still the primary ones of the child he was when he died, his attachments are so strong and primordial that they lead him to challenge anyone who questions them. His need to have his mother by his side leads him to be destructive, but with all the naivety of a child who does not understand the consequences of his actions. From this point of view, There’s a World becomes a moment that really gives you the shivers, full as it is of all the need of a child who cannot imagine anything outside of his own needs. A child who, out of excess love, hugs his puppy too tightly and ends up suffocating it.

Finally, since I have already gone on too long, I just wanted to add how that hunger for love translates in this production also into a need to rediscover love for oneself, which however in the borderline situation described in the story becomes an unhealthy condition: the continuous parallels between Diana and Natalie, masterfully interpreted by the two actresses, show us the dark and self-destructive side of Diana, trapped in an infinite cycle of need to rediscover herself and need to love her daughter that transform into envy for the potential that her daughter still has ahead of her and that she has left behind. These types of parallels are often found between the characters and find a touching expression in the physicality of the actors, as in the choice to create continuous references between Diana and Gabe's movements, even before the audience becomes aware of the bond between the two. Every acting choice, every directorial choice, everything brings into that rational and linear kitchen (the Bauhaus poster is brilliant) the most twisted, confused, desperate and breathless aspect of the human experience. Next to Normal, in this version, is truly not just a show, it is a mirror.

[multiversxwhore]

Bayley x black!fem reader

Warnings: alcohol, under the influence.

A/n: I’ve been mulling over rather I should do any type of sapphic/ wlw fic for a very long while just never knew how to go about it. Plus the “BBL Bayley” line was the finale straw lmao. Anywho I just really wanted to have fun with this, the idea of Bayley being down bad for a plus size Black woman just make sense in my spirit. This is not edited like at all, I typed this whole thing on tumblr which is a risky move iykyk. I hope y’all enjoy, let me know if you want more. Reblog, and follow for more. ( follow my wrestling side blog for even more wwe fics @slutouttanowhere )

Spin

You typically wouldn’t be in the club till 3am, but it was Wrestlemania weekend, everyone was acting bad. Like on their worst behavior, there were three different hotel parties going on as the company had rented out the whole establishment. You, Liv, and Naomi, your inner click, was hotel room hopping. The last room you ended up in was the most unhinged, of course this happened to Damian, and company, hotel. As soon as you crossed the threshold someone was handing you a red solo, despite the fact you already had a mini, clear cup in your hand from Austin’s room you finished off the mini cup, then moved on to the red solo.

“Oh shit! The champs in the building!” Damian’s loud ass voice shouted over the music, everyone turned to us cheering, and raising their drinks. On cue Naomi and I raised our new shiny golden titles, a group of our colleges swallowed the three of us into the mix. ‘Aye, it’s 7pm Friday, it’s 95 degrees.’ GloRilla’s thick Memphis accent cut off any words you planned on saying. You were already too gone to care about acting professional, the liquor getting the best of you. You hopped into Damian’s arms, wrapped your legs around your bus waist, and screamed along to Glo’s lyrics. “I’m about to show my ass, these niggas love a freak!” You popped your ass while hanging off Damian like he was a jungle gym. Which you know he loved, he made a habit of him being one of the biggest men on the roaster his whole personality. And he was an attention whore.

The liquor was making the room sway, you hadn’t even noticed when you were out back on your feet, but when the music changed again your body moved accordingly. You stumbled to a near by couch and threw your title down, it being far to bulky for you to dance in, however Dolph made it look easy all these years you don’t think you could pull it off. ‘This type shit have you wildin…’ you swayed your hips, slowly twirling them in circles, and your hands caressing your body. Another pair of hands wrapped around your waist, they pulled you into them, you didn’t care who it was, as long as they caught your rhythm. That they did. “I thought I seen that ass walk through the door.” Bayley softly breathed into your ear, her lips pressed to your earlobe, a soft giggle came from her. Which isn’t too out of character for her, Bayley is known to be a bit of a goof, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t notice her going the extra mile to get more than a chuckle out of you. Your eyes slid down her body, you weren’t used to seeing her wear all black, but her one piece, black body suit accentuated her curves. The embellishments of lace detailing throughout the outfits added a sexy touch to it without doing too much. She had a diamond, Cuban link, a matching bracelet, and an expensive looking watch on her wrist. Her eyes caught how your tongue flicked out, and slid over your perfect white teeth. Your lips pulling back into a grin.

You leaned your body against hers, your outfit more than revealing allowing her to feel your skin with ease. “You’re so soft y/n.” She whispered, her hands pressing to your midsection, and gently squeezing your tummy. You reached behind you, and wrapped your arms lazily around her neck. You could feel her buzz cut from on the side of her head, you always thought Bayley to be pretty, beautiful even. As of recently though with her character change, her wardrobe, and the way she carried herself changed as well. It made you look at her with brand new eyes, she even started talking to you with more convictions as if she just knew she was gonna get you into bed with her…and she was.

You turned in her arms to face her, the pit of your stomach full of butterflies, the alcohol lingering, so you held onto that liquid courage as long as you could. “Kiss me.” You murmured under the blasting music, ‘we can’t just keep talking about, we think too often about it, we can’t just can’t be cautious about it. I wanna get wild.’ You noticed how she slowed her movements, Bayley knew you didn’t care too much about labels, or much about what others thought of you. However, dancing together was one thing, you and the other girls are usually touchy with one another, this was something else.

“You sure?” Her hands held you by hips, she didn’t make a move till you nodded your head. Her hand gently grabbing her chin, your gazes locked, under this lighting you couldn’t really tell what she was thinking. You let your bodies do all the talking, she pulled you into her, she isn’t the tallest, but she talk enough to tower over you. Your eyes fluttered closed as your glossed lips pressed to her, at first she kissed you back softly. The pulsing between your thighs caused you to become slick with your own juices, you had no idea how you were still standing on your own two feet right now. Between the effects all the shots of Cos Amigos, and the way Bayley squeezed your ass, all your coherent thoughts flew out the window. You and Bayley’s eyes fluttered open at the same time, a lustrous look in both your eyes. “You’re so damn fine y/n, you gonna let me taste you?” Bayley pecked at your lips, you stuck your tongue out, and she met you half way. Your tongues swirled around, slipping, and sliding in a wet tangled kiss…if you can even call it that.

“I want you to slurp it Bay.” You moaned out, your nipples twisted painful. The fabric of your shirt top making you regret not wearing a bra with it, it was too late to go back now. The two of you weren’t even dancing anymore, just slowly swaying as you held Bayley as close to you as possible. Her hands slid up and down your back relaxing you beyond what any nights sleep routine could.

“Mm, I bet your pussies so pretty too, I daydream about it. What you taste like, what you like between those beautiful thick thighs of yours…” Bayley went into detail about how your pearl is pretty and brown, and your plushie your labia lips probably were. At a certain point you didn’t have it in you to actually pay attention to because now all you could think about was how fucking pretty she looked. The lighting was purple, but it looked good on her tan skin. Her dimples pushing in on her cheeks every time she talked, and that fucking half shaved buzz cut was doing it for you more than she understood.

You pressed your index finger to her lips, “and you can show me all that in a little while.” You shushed her playfully, you thought it was cute when she rambled, but tonight wasn’t the night for that. “When we get back to my room…I wanna see all that shit you promised.” You purred, you pressed your lips to her again, this time you met each other in the middle of a deeper, hotter kiss. Reluctantly you pulled away, caught your breath, and looked around the hotel room. It looked trashed, the big crowd that was originally al in the center of the room had fanned out. A lot of your colleges were either passed out, on their way, or drunkenly chatting another persons ears off. You caught Liv and Finn off in a far corner damn near dry humping each other, his bucket hat clinched in Livs hand as he sucked on her neck. ‘I told him about that damn hat, it’s a hoe magnet.’ You thought to yourself, Naomi was no where to be found, but knowing her she was in the bathroom on the phone with Jimmy.

“You ready to go? I got your title.” Bayley wrapped an arm around your waist, and pulled you back into her side. You could feel yourself sobering up as the minutes passed by, but that didn’t disrupt your desperate need to have Bayley between your thighs.

You kissed her on the cheek, and took the title from her hands, then took her by the hand. “Yeah.” You spoke ever so softly, if it weren’t for looking directly at your lips you would have thought she didn’t hear you. Without anyone caring to notice, you and Bayley slipped out of Damian’s room, making the long journey back to yours.

[roserunodays]

Kotoko's Connection with the Fairy Tale of Red Riding Hood

So THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE POST, but I kept looking into it, and now here's a full blown analysis instead lol. I realized that Kotoko has many allusions to the story of Red Riding Hood besides the wolves and her signature red jacket. The themes of familial love, protection, and deception all seem to be reflected in Kotoko's actions and what we know of her past and personal life so far. So this post will detail more of the connections between her and this tale, as well as theorize on certain parts on what her story might reveal in the future!

MAJOR THANKS to my English major himejoshi librarian bunny mutual @lillyviarabbit for proof reading this so that my writing doesn't sound clunky af 🙏

A Quick Aside: The Other Side of this Tale (TW for sexual assault and rape mention)

So...there's another side to the original tale of Red Riding Hood, one that deals with much heavier themes on what the story as a whole is supposed to symbolize. I didn't want to analyze these themes of rape, sexual assault, and analogies of being 'turned' into a woman (such as hoods/veils representing both marriage and bereavement). They are there though, and easy analogies can be made, but that's not the content I want to cover. This is mainly because I just don't think we have enough evidence or hints as of now from Kotoko's past that suggests these parts from the Red Riding Hood story are also in her story. I did not want to speculate on these parts either because I wanted to treat them with respect and sensitivity, rather than simply speculate that they have to do with a fictional character's past when we don't even have any evidence to theorize that they do. So this post will only touch upon the more well known parts of the story instead!

Also I won't be talking about Jacques Roulet and his weird ass story because none of it makes sense to me with how it's related to Kotoko, so I will leave that to someone with a bigger brain to analyze that 💀 and I'll be sticking to analyzing similarities with Perrault's version of the story, though the analysis referenced at the end also includes the Grimm version!

Allusions to Red Riding Hood Herself:

One of the major similarities between Kotoko and Red Riding Hood is — well — the red hooded jacket!

This jacket is the most recognizable part of the fairy tale, and it clearly sticks out in Kotoko's wardrobe as the outfit she wears while she's in her forest world, notably with the wolves she's running with in HARROW.

Appearance wise, Kotoko also seems to fit the bill for how Red has been portrayed throughout various iterations of the story over time.

Red's appearance generally describes a girl with short black hair and a bob that reaches down to be exact.

"Another difference lies in the fact that, in addition to [her hair] being black, Little Red Riding Hood’s hair is generally short, reaching to her chin at most, with a charming bob that frames her face."

The signature hood is also noted, with Kotoko's prisoner uniform being the only one to notably have a hood on it.

"It becomes a powerful indicator of sense. History shows that an object that goes on a woman’s or girl’s head has always been ambivalent, not to say ambiguous. It covers, it conceals, it protects, but it also alludes, adorns and attracts."

Not only does Kotoko's hood uniform reflect her similarity with Red Riding Hood, it also highlights Kotoko's tendency to protect/conceal all the aspects of herself she does not want to reveal to anyone else.

It's clear that Kotoko doesn't trust anyone else in the prison, wanting to conceal as much stuff about her as possible so she can analyze their behavior and how much they change following the time between trial 1 and trial 2. This secretive nature, interpreted by her actions and the hood she wears as a way for Kotoko to protect herself and her fragile self-worth, is also highlighted in Streaming Heart's lyrics.

"Though I seem to say many things, please try and seek out the real me. In the space between truth and lies, hidden away so well."

The Grandmother:

Another major fact that gets overlooked is how Kotoko offhandedly mentions in her family structure that she has a grandmother. As a lot of us already know, the main plot of Little Red Riding Hood is that the girl delivers food to her grandmother, who is sick and lives in a house in the woods. This detail from her interrogation is rather...specific, given that she doesn't even mention having a grandfather, just a grandmother along with her parents and older brother.

One additional piece of evidence that connects to this is the symbolism of her birthday flower, Monstera Deliciosa!

In many Asian cultures, this plant can also symbolize a respect and honoring of the elderly. Interesting, considering that this is the plant Yamanaka picked out for Kotoko.

While we don't exactly know the details between Kotoko and the relationship she has with her grandmother, her birthday flower seems to hint that she has some kind of respect for her, or at least they are most likely on good terms with each other.

"Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little red riding hood made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood."

And that is why I wonder: did something happen to Kotoko's grandmother that made her realize how flawed and unfair justice can really be? Well, we know that in the story, the wolf disguises himself as Red's grandmother to try and trick her. But why litter Kotoko with all this wolf symbolism (besides the dog/tool dehumanization she's associated with) if she's supposed to allude to the character of Red Riding Hood?

The Wolf:

There is a major difference when it comes to the Tale of Red Riding Hood and Kotoko’s MV symbolism, which is the wolf’s role in each of their stories.

For Red, the wolf is the enemy. The wolf is one who tricks her from the very beginning, and the one who tries to eat her and her grandmother.

"Grandmother, what big arms you have!" "All the better to hug you with, my dear." "Grandmother, what big legs you have!" "All the better to run with, my child." "Grandmother, what big ears you have!" "All the better to hear with, my child." "Grandmother, what big eyes you have!" "All the better to see with, my child." "Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!" "All the better to eat you up with."

But Kotoko…she’s with the wolf. The wolf is instead her companion it seems, the one who runs and sits beside her when she’s doing her vigilante stuff.

And more importantly, the wolf seems like the one to be enabling her, helping her continue with rescuing the little girl and beating up the child kidnapper. It is the one thing by her side that encourages her to bare her fangs and protect the weak.

People have speculated that this wolf represents a person in Kotoko's life, a vigilante partner she used to have? Her older brother perhaps? Who knows really, but I think we can all agree that this wolf is a person who has influenced Kotoko a lot. It is the one thing that pushes her continue with this, to continue with the cycle of cruelty and violence in her act of handing out her own form of justice. And that brings me to Kotoko's jacket again.

The Red/Pink Jacket:

I want to address the difference between Kotoko's jacket in her forest world, as opposed to it in the real world. In the forest world, we see that the jacket is more of a hot pinkish color.

I'm not sure if this is fully because of the lighting, but the color difference for the jacket is very notable if you compare them side by side. In the real world, the jacket is clearly more red than pink:

So why make this jacket be two different colors in two different places? Well, I'd like to theorize that the answer has to do with this girl that appears for a brief few seconds in HARROW, in the flashback sequence while Kotoko is beating up the child kidnapper dude.

Or as I like to call her: PINK SHIRT GIRL ���

One final thing I wanted to talk about is how this girl relates to Kotoko, the different colors for her same jacket in the MV, and the sole reason why I think she wears a pink shirt. A lot of people have speculated that this girl is a younger version of Kotoko, possibly back when she was a child. Pink for Kotoko seems to emphasize her ideals at their most pure level.

When Kotoko is wearing her jacket when it's pink, she's in her forest world that emphasizes Kotoko's purpose in protecting the weak. She's emotional there, she falters, worn out by the running and desperate to continue going. There is nothing shown in those scenes that shows her childlike ideals being tainted, yet.

But when Kotoko alludes to her self-hatred and the wolf urges her to go on with the attack, HARROW switches back to the real world where the jacket is red. We Kotoko smile after she presumably kills the child kidnapper guy as she declares that she wants to be "drowning in the knowledge that [she] is right", and thus, this seems like we the audience realize this is the moment when Kotoko's ideals begin to become more distorted than how they were presented in the forest world.

We see that she finally gains a satisfaction that everything that she did wasn't for completely nothing, and that she now has the purpose that makes her existence useful. While she does want to protect the weak and give out justice, it is not entirely motivated by altruism, as HARROW points out. When Kotoko's pink jacket becomes red, it seems to signify how her pure, child-like ideals become tainted and much more flawed compared to them initially.

This, along with Kotoko having the wolf as her companion, all seem to point at just how much Kotoko herself has become the very monsters she wanted to destroy. The child-like pink has now become a red stained with blood, or rather a shade of magenta. A mix of red and pink that highlights Kotoko's immature and child-like view of a black and white world, while also noting that Kotoko is not the innocent Little Red Riding Hood she once was anymore—

She is the wolf. She is a Red Riding Hood who has been led on by the wolf's ideals, the prey that has been ensnared and eaten by the wolf at the end of the original Charles Perrault story.

She is the wolf, the monster now.

She is now the sinner she hates so much.

Sources:

https://journals.openedition.org/strenae/6423 This one is the Red Riding Hood clothing analysis!

https://core.ecu.edu/parillek/littleredcinder.pdf "Little Red Riding Hood" Charles Perrault version

https://medium.com/@monsterahelpful/the-symbolism-and-history-behind-the-monstera-leaf-unveiling-its-meaning-11ba828837c2 Monstera Deliciosa symbolism!

https://twitter.com/pug_maniac/status/1735912110423732687 Yamanaka's tweet for Kotoko's birthday flower!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood The Wikipedia page for Little Red Riding Hood! This also contains the heavier themes I was talking about in the beginning, so if you want to find out more, they have a whole section about it here. Trigger Warnings for sexual assault and rape for this Wikipedia page.

https://youtu.be/VrAW8zyoEiY?si=a3p4nb8B1TTza-x_ Translation video for Kotoko's first voice drama, Task.

https://youtu.be/_gTTtS0Fvxk?si=Y1Zwu3XOI_nRHgex HARROW MV

Also I'd love to read more analyses if anyone writes them, especially on topics I avoided, so tag me if you write any!!!

[canonically47]

i just watched disney’s wish. after months of seeing only negative feedback, i decided, as a major disney fan, to dive into it myself - sadly influenced by some of that negative feedback, i couldn’t form an opinion completely of my own, but...

it’s bad anyways. there are some good parts, but not many.

the characters feel flat and one-dimensional (this one is dumb, this one sneezes, this one is quiet, this one is best friend, this one is sleepy, this one is sarcastic...) or ridiculous. magnifico is a good guy turned bad for plot purposes - like, i UNDERSTAND HIM. he has built rosas from the ground and he is the only one who knows magic, of course he should get to decide which wishes are granted and which not!

the songs are... really really REALLY bad. the lyrics make no sense in the english language. for example you could definitely get away with “felt this, no, i haven’t”, “system solar” or any other of the sort in my own language, but in english they are very bad and rather avoidable mistakes. adjectives and adverbs are thrown around with no care, allegories and metaphors fall flat, and also, THE VILLAIN SONG FUCKING SUCKS. IT IS ABYSMAL. there should be A CHILL to it. it should make you fucking hate the guy. it should make you want to yell at the abusive and overwhelming mother gaslighting her child, it should make you want to give the lion another scar as he boasts about his plans to kill the king, it should make you want to jump in to defend the poor victims of a deceitful and unassuming villain - not jump around and dance with joy and whismy!!!! this is the thanks i get is a good song if you were looking for a pop parody of a top tier musical, not an actual song for a disney movie, much less the one made for its 100th anniversary!!!!

THE ANIMATION??? it looks so unfinished. i genuinely felt as if i was watching somebody’s unfinished WIP in blender. the characters and backgrounds never get along, either one or the other looking out of place at all times.

the message is not there. so many moments are cringey with barely any moments that got a genuine smile out of me. the heroine feels like a stereotype rather than an actual character i should be rooting for. the character design for most suck. the story makes no sense. so much is left unexplained.

i am so disappointed with this movie

[for-a-longlongtime]

Songs and musings in the Key of Peña-Rockford

(Those gun holsters have me all fucked up. Seriously.)

I warned y'all about how obsessive my hyperfocus can get, right? Damn ADHD. The choke hold (all the puns intended) that this fic idea has on me is unreal, haha. But all of your comments and encouragements about this Rockford Pena WIP are making me so happy and relieving some of the stress I feel about writing it - thank you! I don't have another snippet to share just yet (so I hope this post isn't too much of a cock tease), but since I always love to read about character thots and writing processes (e.g. the extra posts by @mysterious-moonstruck-musings about her Destiny & Deliverance series, and @gracieispunk with her White Lotus posts), I figured I'd post a little update with some musings and songs I'm associating with this fic.

My Spotify currently is curated by @sin-djarin, who somehow knew just the right songs that relate to this WIP. Particularly these three tracks are on constant repeat. Going back and forth with her about little things that come up, or question ‘why this and not’ has been so much fun really. It makes me giddy because it turns the fic into something collaborative rather than just something from the inside of my brain, you know?

Whisper - Morphine

I included this track the other day already with the WIP snippet; it’s sexy and slow and that bass line really gets to me, then the saxophone ups it even more. @sin-djarin sent me several Morphine songs (I have to admit that somehow I wasn’t familiar with them) but this one stands out. The push and pull that’s happening in the lyrics is also delicious, and a lot of it feels like it’s coming from Rockford’s POV about Javi - that’s all I’ll say about it for now.

A Perfect Twist - Mike Patton

This song has an exuberant, rather bombastic vibe to it that I would’ve never associated with anything related to Peña. Although, those lyrics... they are definitely about brat taming.

I'll bend you over my knee Let's see what you can take You're never gonna break

And I'll squeeze that noose a little tighter Breathing like a snake How much can you take? You're never gonna break

And I'll turn those screws a little tighter You can hardly wait You're never gonna break

Just one more twist of the pliers Got you on the brink How much can you take? You're never gonna break

There’s something about the dizzying tune and pace that somehow evokes the noir-like Rockford vibes in the Merge Mansion clips, laced with liquor and cigarette smoke and things spinning kinda out of control.

Wait who said Masquerade Mansion? 🎭

In relation to these two?

Shhhh let’s pretend you didn’t see that. Keep your eyes wide shut. 🎭

Broad Daylight - Gabriel Rios

This is the only song that suddenly came to me re: this fic, and I was all… the fuck is this. I like the song, it's catchy, but it just didn’t make any sense to me with regard to Javi and Tim. The only thing I could think of in relation to the track was maybe a vague reference of Peña getting caught up with Los Pepes, things that were done in the dark and shouldn't come out in the daylight:

Back in the old days, tight like a fight Used to hang with the devil in the broad daylight

But still, it puzzled me. I think something in one of the Morphine songs musically led me to Broad Daylight, weird as that may sound. After way too many replays of that song (and @sin-djarin joking about 'what are those Polaroids Tim has on Javi?', since the song mentions polaroids), the relevance of the song finally clicked with me;

Look at you shaking you can't find his plight Got you scared of ghosts in the dead of night While you're making up stories trying to make it ok He'll be bringing them in to let them out and play In the broad daylight

We'll see how it goes from there.

At some point, there's also going to be a bit of Marcus Pike in the fic (pancakes!). I have to be honest - I don’t really read a lot of Marcus!fic, so I’ve been trying to figure out how he fits in and some of his character traits etc. But the wonderful @secretelephanttattoo was very quick to offer me some insights about Marcus that I needed! Go read it here.

TBH, I had absolutely not planned to write anything about Peña any time soon, because why I love him in canon and in the many fics I've read, I didn't exactly feel like I had a good enough handle on writing something about him that has some plot rather than just fucking. But then this fic idea popped up. If there's anyone who knows him really well, it's @goodwithcheese (you'd better be reading her incredible new story Paranoid Heart about Javi!). So I dropped some questions and fortunately she was totally up for some character chat right here, which is really helping me figure out some things. Thank you babe, and I hope more people will contribute thots to your 1K Celebration Confessional about their sins!

Also, I've been trying to put a time and place to the fic, but I've decided to not get too hung up about that because it's really not literature but Fic/Porn With Plot. It doesn't all have to make sense. But in case you're curious, I'm leaning towards this taking place in the US in recent enough times that smartphones are a thing.

Age wise, I'm seeing Tim Rockford as being 48/50 years old probably. Javier is about 40, 41 years old - just to give you an idea of 'which Javi' I'm looking at, I've got a sense of him as he is in Narcos S2 around episode 4-9, after Carillo is murdered, and Berna takes him to see Judy Moncada.

Reader insert (I know, I haven't spoken a lot about her yet!) is probably about 40 years old too. And finally, Marcus Pike is give r take about 37 years old, which corresponds with his Mentalist appearance.

BTW, I came across an edit that had all of the Tim Rockford bits from the ads without the additional stuff. A whopping total of 48 seconds. Man, I hope that Pedro is aware of how fucked up he has us about Rockford with less than a minute of his acting. Even my wife said 'I would totally watch a show or movie based on this character' when I played the Merge Mansion ads for her.

Finally, here's a video of Pedro talking about "real fantasy fullfillment in terms of getting to immerse yourself in an experience" and how he "loves being a detective, that's fantasy fullfilment for me" re: the Merge Mansion event day.

*hits replay*

Say 'fantasy fullfillment' one more time? Respectfully.

Like I said, I hope he knows how fucked up he has us all about Rockford. I sure am glad he did these ads and whatever he got paid, it sure wasn't enough.

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Updated tag list (comment if you want to be added, or if I added you by accident!) based on folks who commented/reblogged on the prev posts:

@sin-djarin @legendary-pink-dot @imalrightllama @secretelephanttattoo @rhoorl @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @trulybetty @goodwithcheese @linzels-blog @rifflovesjoey @maggiemayhemnj @magpiepills @youandmeand5bucks @morallyinept @5oh5 @missredherring @avastrasposts @anavatazes @imaswellkid @pedrit0-pascalit0 @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @survivingandenduring @boliv-jenta @prolix-yuy @sheepdogchick3 @inept-the-magnificent @northernwindd @alltheglitterandtheroar @readingiskeepingmegoing @txlady37 @rebel-held @alwaysmicado @heareball @clawdee @covetyou @bellsbluebrd @alltheglitterandtheroar @axshadows @casa-boiardi @bastardmandennis @stealyourblorbos @chronically-ghosted @katw474 @beabliss @nerdieforpedro

I don't know why some usernames don't seem to link when I try to tag them, btw. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

[deancasforcutie]

While we’re I’llJustWaitHereThen.mp3 for Act Two of The Winchesters -or rather thee reboot, which should be known for the extra high bar it’s gained this year- I’d like us to round off 2023 considering a song choice from the finale I haven’t seen discussed, but illuminates Dean’s path going forward.

The moment Dean, Jack, Bobby, and Baby disappear, “One of These Things First” by Nick Drake plays. For the curious, Nick Drake is ingrained in the cultural consciousness as a precursor to the likes of Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith for his musical talent, melancholic lyrics drawn from a troubled life, and (at 26, one year too young for the original 27 Club of Jimi Janis Jim Morrison) untimely tragic death.

Such allusions seem all too pertinent to our not-so-Mystery Man who’d also sooner burn out than fade away, huh? But first and foremost, “One of These Things First” here evokes the multiverse reveal - playing over scenes of Lata helping restore Ada’s soul and Mary and Samuel parting. The characters could be any number of things, but as Mary says of her possible alternate selves, “I’m gonna make my own”; with the meta knowledge that Dean is “picking the music” non-diegetically, this track’s relevance to his own life (and death) becomes apparent.

I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook A real live lover, could have been a book

From the start we see well-chosen lyrics for thee episode of Dean “Hello Sailor” Winchester; it goes without saying, here and in the series’ deafeningly loud negative space, how Dean’s desire to be “a real live lover” drives his search for happy endings in this Supernatural Romance. Genius.com notes that “a book” in Nick Drake’s metaphor means “someone who spent their time gaining knowledge about the world”; leaving them his own book, evidently a record of Supernatural’s main events and likely intended as a setup for revelations about his postseries shenanigans, Dean becomes their absent guide opposite John’s original series role through his journal.

I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock

Following lyrics about metaphorical objects also evoke Dean’s role as a guide - but given his view that “I think I did” find a model for his found family’s happiness in them, it goes both ways (and so does he).

I could be here and now I would be, I should be, but how?

These last few lyrics played in the episode call to mind the final undying core of Dean’s self-doubt: his inability to move on, like so many restless spirits parallel him. Dean’s sensation that he is not “here and now,” being unstuck in time and lamenting that he’s “already dead,” highlights his distance from the lead characters and their sense of closure - as does his use of the James Hetfield alias as a false name, dodging the central question of Who You Are. For all his heroism, Dean’s role as the central mystery never fully solved implicates him as the haunting force derailing another story into his own as much as any reality-warping trauma parasites.

Minding all these exhortations to mind the gap, it’s absolutely relevant that the episode omits a second verse centering on romantic longings. (It wouldn’t be the first time - “So on your woman and your child/You release your bitterness,” anyone?)

I could have been your pillar, could have been your door I could have stayed beside you, could have stayed for more I could have been your statue, could have been your friend A whole long lifetime could have been the end

Mary and Samuel’s exchange (“Be safe out there” “I love you too, kiddo”) continues the theme of Just Saying It before any goodbye - acknowledging you can say “I love you” without saying it and be understood. But apropos of everything, the romantic pair never exchanges what they promise they will on reuniting - at once begging the same question as Dean’s aborted love confession(s) to Cas (indicting the heteronormative double standard that makes the answer “obvious” here) and keeping their promise of no goodbyes, meaning “Ramble On” with its tale of a romantic reunion can only refer to one yet to come.

So with Dean left to learn that death is no goodbye for him either, The Winchesters reaffirms Supernatural’s humanistic heart: the conviction that -whether for great artists we romanticize or fictional characters representing our values- we need not mythologize and bemoan death as “robbing” the world of someone’s promise at the expense of affirming the intrinsically worthy human life as they are now and forever (we will all live forever no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be). A life cut tragically short was still a life worth living, and its legacy one worth carrying on. And I can think of no truth more apt from the series cut short at 13 traxx we will nevertheless replay and remix and resonate with for years to come.

As we ramble on to future installments, I reiterate: “If you had the chance to do it all over again, would you?” “I followed my heart. I don’t think that’s ever a mistake.”