Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.
Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).
Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.
Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.
Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).
AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.
But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s
At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.
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Business Strategy
warnings: manipulation
word count: 1k
ao3 link
Some people needed attention, some people needed love and Gods needed to be worshipped.
"You have been trending on almost every visual media and as a podcast topic. How does it feel to be worshipped by everyone?"
Everyone but you.
You look down at him as you sit on your desk with your legs crossed, an unnoticeable smile on your lips. The tip of his cock is glistening with precum that drips on the polished floor. He is impatiently rubbing himself while staring up at you, eyes like a puppy's, begging for you to continue.
"Good work today, John," you praise him, your smile getting wider as his hand around his hand gets faster. "If you manage to spend a single day without any casualties I might even pat your head and rest it on my lap."
He nods with his eyes wide, staring at your bottom as his mouth opens. You don’t scold or comment on him for using his X-ray vision. He has been working hard lately to make you so proud. Precious John. He wakes up every day to make his pretty boss happy and sits by her desk like an obedient dog, waiting to be rewarded.
His gloved hand moves hastily around his cock, it makes a squeaky sound with each stroke. It brings you out of your thoughts.
You continue to smile, watching him pathetically jerk off on another work day after giving his report of the day. You wonder what he is thinking about right now. A scenario where he sucks on your tits while he has his head on your lap and lets you jerk him off? Or getting fed up with your strange power over him and bending you over the desk right now? He would rip your tights and pull up your skirt, humping you aimlessly until his cock finally slid inside. Wouldn't that feel good? You wonder if he had it in him to even pull something risky like that but he would never risk upsetting you.
Good little John.
Begging to be yours.
You decide you want to reward him after the intense feeling of heat building inside your core, making your legs tremble and pussy leak.
"I'll let you do whatever," you say softly, lifting his chin with the front part of your heels. His eyes are on you, clouded from lust. "Just tell me what you want, John."
There is a smile on his face. "I want to eat your pussy," he says after clearing his throat. Nonetheless, his tone is pathetic and desperate, he cannot hide the excited expression on his face like he has been waiting for this moment all his life.
With grace, you spread your legs and let him rip your tights in the middle. He pulls you closer to the edge of the desk and slides your panties to the side. He doesn't bother lifting your skirt and shoves his face in your crotch while proceeding to pump his cock.
The feeling of his hot and wet tongue against your folds feels heavenly after a long day of work. You tilt your head up and close your eyes to focus on how he moves his tongue. He kisses your pussy slowly, nose touching your clit. He slides his tongue inside you in an attempt to taste you and quickly decides against it to focus on pleasing you. His hand on your thigh squeezes the flesh and he tries to imagine how your ass would feel like on his cock when you finally would let him fuck you. He moves to your clit, lapping at your sweet spot and drawing tight circles that get smaller and smaller.
You don’t want to admit it but it feels so good, you try to curl your toes but you don’t have enough space in your heels to do so, you let your legs rest on his shoulders. He keeps moving in a way that mimics fucking you and you find yourself imagining going against your own rule and letting him ravish you like he has been always dreaming about.
As he gets close to his orgasm he loses the rhythm of his tongue and basically moves his head up and down as if he were nodding with his tongue rubbing wildly against your pussy. Your hands grip the desk harder and you let out a quiet moan. He laps at your cunt like a fucking dog and it just works. You feel the rush of an orgasm wash over you and your legs shake as he groans and cums with you. He groans and goes frigid for a second before letting himself sit on the floor to rest.
There is a short moment before you jump down from the desk to fix your clothing and he follows your lead and gets up to fix himself as you return to your seat this time.
"I expect another great day from you tomorrow, John," you say while starting to type on the keyboard of your laptop.
"Yes, sure," he chuckles. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."
"Night," you correct him, his smile disappears as you inform him about tomorrow. "I'll be taking care of A-Train in the morning. Noir has a short meeting with me in the afternoon and well, Deep has been waiting for weeks to have a meeting, I'll take him in the evening."
He frowns, his eyes losing any sign of life in them.
You sigh and roll your eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow night at my house, hmm?" You watch another grin creep up on his face, "Don't get any ideas unless you plan to do something that'll raise our profits by 30%."
He grins all the same, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then." Then he leaves unwillingly because he knows you're having a meeting with sponsors in an hour.
The next day, you wake up to the news of Homelander selling his official Vought merch in front of the tower and giving interviews about his new show that will air only on Vought+.
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god what really gets me about dead boy detectives and what i think i love so much about the show and the relationships in it is that like. the romantic and sexual relationships aren't portrayed as being more unique or important than the platonic relationships. they're all just RELATIONSHIPS.
charles and crystal's attraction to each other and eventual hookup isn't this big end-all be-all relationship that shatter charles and edwin's friendship and draws charles' attention away from edwin; it's just a THING that happens. they're just two people that care about each other and happen to also be attracted to each other, and a hook-up happens, then they decide that neither of them are in the right place for it and it's nothing awful. crystal kisses charles, but it isn't some big spectacle of her declaring her love for him; it's just her saying goodbye and that she cares about him, like her hugs with niko and jenny and her handshake with edwin.
edwin realizes he loves charles romantically and tells him, and charles says he doesn't really love edwin romantically BACK, but it's okay, because they still love each other so much in so many other ways that this one tiny difference could never change them—and it doesn't!! they're still just as close, still care for each other just as much, still SHOW that care for each other just as much. their relationship didn't completely end because edwin loved charles in a way charles couldn't reciprocate, but at the same time it isn't "solved" by edwin getting over it, because there's nothing TO solve. it's just another type of love, added to everything that already exists between them. and they have LITERALLY FOREVER to figure out what it means.
the relationships between edwin & niko, crystal & niko, and crystal & edwin aren't given any less weight for being solely platonic, just as charles & crystal's relationship and edwin's feelings for charles aren't given (that much) MORE weight for being romantic. crystal and charles' conflict in the closet is about EDWIN, about how they're BOTH his friend and BOTH want to get him back; it has very little to do with the feelings between THEM, romantic or otherwise. similarly, the weight of charles' and edwin's relationship isn't diminished in the LEAST by charles not reciprocating the romantic side of his feelings (or SAYING he doesn't reciprocate, at least—we can all argue about the legitimacy of that in the notes).
i'm sure there are more examples than this, as well as probably some examples that CONTRADICT this, but like... by and large, it feels like dead boy detectives is a show where all the relationships are given equal weight regardless of platonic, sexual, romantic, or familial status, and as someone on both the asexual and aromantic spectrums who has struggled time and time again with shows casting out the importance of all other relationships in favor of prioritizing romance, that is INCREDIBLY refreshing to see.
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