#that's the main problem for most of the characters here actually

[thecheshirerat]

On TAZ-

Wow that sounds like I’m about to summarize some sort of discourse but I promise I’m not. I guess I’ll say that I really like this show and I will keep listening even if my worst fears come to pass, so keep that in mind!

For reference, I started listening near the end of Amnesty.

I’ve noticed, with the past few arcs- really since Ethersea- the narratives have just… not been fulfilling their promises, so to speak. They’ve been placing a lot of guns that don’t go off. What I mean by that is, the characters are great. Excellent, really. Lady Godwin? HELL YES. Emerich Dreadway? Fuck yeah! And so on! And the settings and premises have been epic- the goofiness and also horrifying nature of Engrave, the mad and thrilling world of Steeplechase- these things are COOL AS FUCK.

and then the actual narratives keep flopping?

And honestly, I notice it most in the endings, because you can really tell when an ending doesn’t land. You feel the sense of disappointment. But with vs. Dracula, for example, I could kinda see leading up to it that the ending couldn’t really BE anything special, because they lowkey didn’t set themselves up for it.

They spent the campaign fucking around in Engrave, finding clues and solving problems and not really experiencing any particularly meaningful character arcs or growth or, idk, forming relationships? So there wasn’t much to pay off, I’m not gonna lie!

Of course it doesn’t feel quite as dissatisfying when you’re in the thick of it, because they’re funny and the stuff is cool and- oh hey! Lady Godwin’s been turned into a werehorse against her will?? that’s got some real potential for a LOT of allegories and exploration of some fun character development! And then it’s kinda played as a joke. And then they do that again and again.

And they actually said that that was a move they made intentionally, in the TTAZZ. I’m not quoting them perfectly here, this is from memory, but I do remember them mentioning that they wanted lighthearted comedy without the burden of real life story stuff. And I get that, honestly, but… it’s not the choice I would’ve made. I do think you can keep a lighthearted tone while also, idk, forming relationships and wholesomely engaging with some amount of emotion. And sometimes going way too deep is funny as a tone shift!

But I digress. One thing that’s also popped out to me is the almost complete lack of any kind of romantic storyline or even references. This becomes obvious if you’re in a fandom because everyone is always dying to ship SOMEONE, and you can tell when people are really getting desperate. I don’t blame them for not wanting to roleplay romance with their family, and I do think stories lacking romance are COOL and SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED!

However if you can’t find ANYBODY to ship together… that may mean you just don’t have character bonds. The growing popularity of the PC polycule is interesting to me; I wonder if it’s partially because

a) none of the pcs have significant relationships outside of their party and

b) even within the party, there doesn’t seem to be much chemistry between any given pair of characters…? I hope I’m making my point well here- the PCs all seem equally close and have more or less the same relationship to all of their compatriots with little distinction, meaning, essentially, no shipping fodder that doesn’t involve just all of ‘em.

Either way, it makes me wonder if I can blame the “Graduation has too many NPCs!” critique. They really stopped giving the parties tag-along main NPCs after graduation, with the exception of maybe.. Urchin? Kodira? Shlabethany? Poppy? and even they get relatively little “screen” time. Steeplechase has great NPCs, I love them to death, but none of the PCs seem to ever have one on one conversations with NPCs or each other that do not explicitly focus on the plot. And I think that’s part of why the characters feel so underdeveloped despite having spent a lot of time with them- because in this character-driven genre, we get very little insight into their feelings or motivations or even their rudimentary backstories.

I started watching Fantasy High recently and it made me realize a couple things about TAZ.

1) Recently, TAZ has sooo few core NPCs, and it’s weird that the characters aren’t doing more one-on-one purely character based scenes. And that makes it really tough to develop them.

2) TAZ is- and I should have realized this before- one of many good dnd podcasts. They’re probably looking for a niche they can master.

And it sounds like they’re trying to get back to that old “Here there be Gerblins!” energy. They’ve referenced it so many times in recent TTAZZes- they wanted to be job-focused, allowing story stuff to happen organically, so they tried a more open world vibe with Ethersea. They wanted to be less afraid to kill stuff, so they tried playing criminals (and were still afraid to kill stuff). They wanted to be silly and light on character, as they tackled with taz vs dracula. Now they’re trying to bring in the silly cartoon vibe with Abnimals. I think they’re trying to make that family-friendly, funny and goofy show their niche. Something other actual plays can’t be better at them at.

And honestly it kinda makes me sad, that they keep trying to go back to Balance while ignoring everything they learned during it. Because I loved Dust. Because I loved Amnesty. Because I loved Ethersea. I loved these past arcs! But they keep doing their brilliant characters dirty for some reason!!! And i don’t know why!!!!

You know that meme about people who ask questions in movies and then the person responds “Have you ever been to a movie before? You watch them and the information is revealed.” There have been so many times in TAZ recently where information has Not been revealed and if they keep doing it the audience will stop bothering to suspend their disbelief, because the trust just isn’t there.

What is Montrose’s deal? What on earth was Carmine Denton’s whole thing? Tell me more about Zoox’s feelings, about Devo’s past, about Amber’s future. Show me how Lady Godwin feels about the body horror that is her life- like, seriously! WHY DID WE HAVE TO COMPLETELY DISMISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO DISCUSS GENERATIONAL TRAUMA IN MUTT’S LIFE FOR A JOKE??

Do you remember in Steeplechase where the boys were getting medical attention or something- i don’t remember, but they were all in one room and only talking about The Plot. And Poppy literally banged on the door (speaking for both Justin and me, tbh) and was like “does anyone want to share any feeeeelings??” and they were like NOPE! and they moved on!!

like. cmon. you can’t just put a character like montrose out there and then leave them severely underdeveloped to the point that what would be interesting in proper context, with audience insight, becomes confusing and chaotic.

I just wish they would take their stories as seriously as we do.

It feels to me like they don’t believe in themselves, and it makes me sad. Maybe they didn’t get the response they wanted from Ethersea and so they’ve been trying to pivot, hoping to recapture whatever it was that earned them a loyal audience.

Again, I love them. They’re so funny and I’ll keep listening until the day they stop making this show, and when it happens I’ll cry.

But i KNOW they have more in them. Remember the “we’ll grow gills” monologue from Justin in the Prologues? Remember Travis’s SOLID acting with Devo? Or his awesome choice to give Lyndon/Beef a clearly delineated work/irl identity? His excellent narration and prose? Remember when Montrose described being lonely?! Remember all those moments where Shit Got Real and you cared??? The nanofather said some dope shit! dracula and victor and sweater dracula had such a wild dynamic! Clint’s acting in Dust 2- I can’t remember the characters name right now- was ASTOUNDING, I genuinely didn’t know he had that in him and it blew me away!

I’m not referencing Balance on purpose, both because the fandom is way to hung up on it and because I want to prove that you don’t even have to look at Balance, or even Post-Balance arcs, to see this kind of good cool stuff!

GAAAAAAAGHHHH!!! I want them to have fun. But also. We’re starving out here.

[wc-confessions]

I’ll do a full breakdown of why the news surrounding the Tencent animation disappoints me.

Disclaimer: while you can have criticisms about Tencent as they seem to be a controversial company, don’t use it as an excuse to be sinophobic. If your thoughts ever go to “well of course a Chinese production would suck” or something of that ilk, please stop right there. The main issues are corporate greed and laziness, not China. Got it? Time to carry on.

Firstly, it strikes me as more of a proof of concept than an actual announcement. It’s the most minor problem IMO, so I’ll let them off the hook. They probably wanted to make sure people knew it was being worked on.

Secondly, AI. Warrior Cats is an art-centric community; it’s no wonder fans are pissed. I don’t like AI art, you - a (probable) Warriors fan reading this - likely don’t like AI art, your father doesn’t like AI art, everyone here doesn’t like AI art. Which means I’m going to argue on a more technical side. Looking at the confirmed and possible AI art, I have a question. What do they achieve? They don’t fit with the style of the hand-drawn illustrations, they resemble galaxy cats in space, while that Yellowfang generation is just a bootleg of the reprinted Rising Storm cover. Their existence in the presentation is a waste of time and resources (literally, AI prompts use up absurd amounts of water). I’d rather them show exclusively human art because you can tell they’re going in a direction, even if it’s uninteresting.

Speaking of the presumably human art, oh boy. To start off mildly positive, I’ll say a majority of the illustrations are decent. You get some character designs and scene concepts. They’re clearly playing with art style. I don’t find them particularly ugly, so… good job! I suppose! Now, to address the elephant in the room: anthro cats. For the love of StarClan, I’m begging on my knees, don’t make these cats anthro in the final product. It would fundamentally break the entire series. They call humans “twolegs” for a reason! Go work on the Redwall movie if you want anthro animals.

Finally, my last concern. As of writing, there hasn’t been confirmation of the Tencent animation being a movie, TV show, or other. My opinion on a TV show is “it’s fine.” Warrior Cats is a long series, making it suitable that it gets a longer adaptation. Meanwhile, my hope for a Warriors movie is as big as a single grain of sand. 

Warrior Cats is borderline unadaptable when it comes to shorter-form media unless you want to dish out a pretty penny. We can already see this with the Prophecies Begin graphic novel; it’s transparent HarperCollins or whoever is in charge of these things didn’t want to pay for six TPB comics, so they had to hastily mash two books together in one. If the Tencent animation is a movie, I’m afraid some concepts already have signs of this. Multiple pieces have what can be assumed to be Fireheart and Tigerclaw fighting. I’m sorry, but that happens later in the books. Are they going to scramble the narrative worse than the graphic novel adaptation? Are we seriously going to wait 20+ years for an official animation, watch at least one high-profile fan project get canned, only for it to be about as accurate as evil snipers in an action movie? If it’s not a movie, ignore what I’ve said. If it is a movie, sigh.

TL;DR: Should’ve made the Little Dragon Studios series official instead of forcing them to cancel, guys.

.

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

So was anyone going to tell me Faust is a bigger menace than EVERYONE in the game put together or like. Was I supposed to play the Impossible Choices event (Vincent and Charles ver) myself. I LOVE that he's the definition of: 'being smarter doesn't make me more mature or helpful, it just makes my inherent lust for chaos/entropy all the more unstoppable' This shit FUCKS

I think this is the first time I've ever seen a character make Shakespeare's life a living hell and the latter didn't expect/see it coming, that was AMAZING. Mf was out here like "What the hell??? You lot don't make me suffer I make YOU suffer. Let a man obsess IN PRIVACY" and then nobody cared. Peak comedic interaction, no notes everyone pack it up

[sonknuxadow]

they werent lying that knuckles series barely has knuckles in it

[fingertipsmp3]

Ughhhhhhh I hate writing and I hate not writing and I hate myself

[deus-and-the-machina]

ngl the worst thing about the xenoblade fandom (which I think is the root cause of a lot of other issues) is that it’s mostly on twitter. I have to subject myself to twitter for any real consistent fan talk or content. legit there's always some new stupid topic of argument ive noticed in the past few weeks on there and its all very silly and frustrating and what im saying is everyone should move to Tumblr. please. for me. 

[tsukasalover]

heyyy i’ve been really inactive on here but i Am thinking about tsukasa and planning something. Go think about tsukasa tenma’s duality

[alwayslcyal]

.

[laezelkisser]

Take the guardian creator away from me, everytime I try to make one I come out with a new tav

[whysamwhy123]

I'm sorry, I really don't wanna be a hater here (for once) because I like Skye Blue and all, but I really don't buy her new character. Not when her idea of being a spooky heel is Scooby-Doo gear and a pouty face 😩

[neo--queen--serenity]

This episode really highlighted how close Marcille, Laios, and Chilchuck actually are.

The viewer is used to seeing our main characters behave like coworkers up to this point—even friends—and they express normal, understandable levels of concern and fear when their other party members are in danger. But when the nightmare attacked Marcille, it brought out sides of Laios and Chilchuck that the viewer hadn’t seen before.

Laios immediately notices when something is wrong with Marcille, and he tells the others as soon as he’s sure of the problem. Chilchuck and Senshi then follow Laios’ lead as it becomes clear that he intends to make her get some rest.

We see Chilchuck’s hands lay out the bedroll and Senshi’s hands set up the pillow, working in almost perfect tandem as Laios physically wrangles Marcille into bed.

Senshi is in a similar perspective as the viewer, and mostly sits and watches the ordeal unfold. He doesn’t have a shared history, like these three do, so he helps in little ways, but mostly waits on standby for direction.

From here on out, it’s mostly Laios and Chilchuck who take over in planning how to help her.

It’s uncommon for Chilchuck to openly show such distress and worry for one of his party members. He’s used to Marcille being able to defend herself; he’s used to her being capable and strong. He immediately defers to Laios for instruction, (rightly) assuming he will know what to do.

This actually produces a reaction close to real fear from Chilchuck, who outright SMACKS her in a panic to wake her up before getting any further information.

Laios has to quickly stop him, explaining that he could truly hurt her if he interrupts the attack this way. He tells them how he’s going to wake her, and he doesn’t hesitate. He jumps straight in, explaining what he’s doing for the others so that they (Chilchuck) won’t be afraid.

Chilchuck doesn’t question him once. He just does what he can to hurry along the process. He tucks Laios in with his blanket as soon as he lays onto Marcille—an unnecessary action that betrays how much he cares for both of them.

And Laios succeeds in helping Marcille out of the nightmare’s grasp. While trapped in her mind, he reassures her, protects her, tells her how much she’s valued and appreciated. He isn’t embarrassed or sheepish about it, either; he openly declares these things like it’s the most normal and obvious thing in the world.

He gets her out, he saves her. He did the exact thing he set out to do, even though he’d never done it before, and only had Falin’s secondhand information to work with.

Once he wakes, Chilchuck immediately checks on him to see if he’s alright. Chilchuck is clearly still rattled, displeased with having to wait while both of his close friends were unconscious, fighting a battle neither he nor Senshi could see or help with.

Marcille wakes up shortly after Laios, but Chilchuck is still on edge, worrying that she’ll fall back asleep. Laios, too, has a moment of alarm when he makes sure she won’t close her eyes again.

Once he takes the subdued nightmares out of Marcille’s pillow, only then do Laios and Chilchuck relax.

Laios, for his part, remained calm and collected almost the entire time. He did not show panic or fear when it became clear that Marcille was being attacked, nor when he told the rest of the party what he’d be doing to help her. And once the nightmares had been collected from her bedroll, he gently explained what happened, to everyone else’s horror.

Seeing this, it’s not a huge surprise that the Touden party is so successful. We’ve seen Laios handle danger with a level head; we know he’s capable.

But it’s an entirely different kind of talent to face a threat that’s targeting one of your closest friends—which can make even the most competent fighter sloppy out of fear of losing them—one that requires a high-risk, specific rescue style that none of you have ever tried before. And then pull it off flawlessly. Like damn, these guys are lucky to have him.

[dduane]

I just received a copy of a book I've been very much looking forward to by a favorite author, but the quality of the book itself is... not great. Cheap paper, weak binding, even a weird illustration of the main character on the cover that I'm having trouble believing the author approved. Obviously, I don't want to leave a bad review on Amazon or GoodReads or anywhere, as I'm 100% certain the content is as excellent as her other work. But how can I best let the publisher (Baen) know I'm disappointed without threatening to never buy her books again? Because, well, if this is the only option, I'm gonna keep buying them even in my disappointment.

Well, the first thing I thought when I read this was "Wow, I'm really glad I don't have anything in print from Baen at the moment except a couple of anthologized short stories." :)

As for the rest of it, let's take it point by point.

Adding a cut here, because this will run a bit long. Caution: contains auctorial bitching and moaning, painful illustrations of cases in point, and brief advice on how to complain most effectively. (Also links to paintings of cats.)

Cheap paper: This has been an accurate complaint since well before COVID—and it's often been worse since, with supply chain issues also being involved. That said: one way publishers routinely save money on printing books, especially the bigger ones, is by going for thinner/cheaper paper. I remember one of our UK editors going on at great length and with huge annoyance—during one of those late-night convention-bar bitch sessions—over how the only way they could get some really good books published (because Upstairs insisted on reducing the per-copy production costs) was by reducing the paper quality to the point where you could nearly read through it. Sacrificing decent text size(s) also became part of this. Nobody in editorial was happy about the result: but there wasn't much they could do.

Bad bindings: Similar problem. Sewn bindings used to be a thing in paperbacks... but not any more: not for a good while, now. These days, it's all glue. Even hardcovers are showing up glued rather than sewn. Don't get me started. :/ (This is why I so treasure some of the oldest paperbacks I've acquired, which are actually sewn.)

Crap covers: I've had my share of these—though my share of some really good ones, too. And one of the endless frustrations of traditional publishing is that the writer routinely has little or even no influence over what the cover will look like... let alone how much will be spent on it, or (an often-related issue) how good the execution will be.

There are of course exceptions. If you're working at the, well, @neil-gaiman -esque level or similar in publishing, a lot more attention is going to be paid to your thoughts. You may even be able to get "cover veto" written into your contracts, so that if you disapprove, changes will get made. But without actual contractual stipulations, the writer has zero legal recourse or way to withhold approval. (And I bet even Neil has some horror stories.)

The normal workflow looks like this. After a book's purchased, its editor and the art director discuss what it's about and what the cover should look like. The art director then hires an artist and tells them what to do. After that, the artist executes their vision and gets paid. It is incredibly rare for a writer to have any significant input into this process. And as to whether or not they approve of the final result, well... the publisher mostly just shrugs and goes back to eyeing the bottom line, muttering "Who told them they get a vote?"

Now, I've been seriously lucky to occasionally be an exception in this regard. In particular, my editors at Harcourt (when Jane Yolen and Michael Stearns were editing Harcourt's Magic Carpet YA imprint) would ask me what I thought would be a good idea for the next Young Wizards cover, and I'd think about it a bit and send them back a paragraph or so about some core scene. They'd then talk to their art director, and after that send their notes and mine to Cliff Nielsen (who started doing the covers for the hardcover and mass-market paperback editions of the series in the mid-90s) or to Greg Swearingen (who was the artist on the digest-format editions). And the results, by and large, were pretty good. ...I also think affectionately of the UK artist Mick Posen, who insisted on seeing pictures of our cats before painting the covers for the Hodder editions of The Book of Night with Moon and On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service (the UK title for To Visit The Queen).

But this kind of treatment is a courtesy—not even vaguely suggested in the books' contracts, and very much the exception to the rule. And for every writer who's midlist, there are times when the luck runs out. For example: one time I wrote a book that was an AU-Earth-near-future fantasy police procedural, thematically pretty dark—dealing with issues of abuse of megacorporate power, institutionalized bigotry, and (explicitly) attempted genocide. And the cover, done by an artist who's a good friend and some of whose fabulous art hangs in our house, came out looking like this. It was... let's just say "not ideally representative."

So I was glad, when my local workflow allowed it, to recover the current, revised version of the book with something at least a little more apropos. But the original cover's not the artist's fault. He did what the art director told him... as a cover artist must do to get paid, and (ideally) to get hired again. At present, that's how the system works.

...So. You've got a badly-built and -presented book on your hands. How best to make your feelings known in some way that might make a difference down the line? (As you make it plain that you'll keep buying this author's books this way if you must.)

First of all: when (as part of my psych nursing training) we were taught how to complain most effectively, we were told that the first and most basic rule of the art is this:

Only Complain To Someone Who Can Actually Do Something About Your Problem

So I salute your desire not to waste your time taking the issue to the reviews on Amazon, or the pages of Goodreads... because they can't do anything. The odds that anyone from production at Baen is reading the comments there strike me as... well, not infinitesimally small, not being hit-by-a-meteorite-while-in-the-shopping-center-parking-lot small... but really low.

So: write to corporate.

In your place I would go online and rummage around a bit to find out who's on record as the publisher at Baen. I would then write them a letter on paper. And I would lay out the problem pretty much as you laid it out up at the top.

The tone I think I'd choose would be the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger approach. I'd say, "I write to comment about your recently published book by [X Writer], whose work I love. I have to say, though, that I don't think the cover on [X Book] is terribly representative of the quality of the prose inside. And also, the construction and production quality of the book itself was a disappointment to me because [here spell out why].

"I'd really like to see [X. Writer's] books succeed with you, and I'd like to buy more of them without wondering whether I was going to be disappointed again. But if this is typical of how they're being produced, I'd also be concerned that the state of these books is setting up a situation in which the author's sales will be damaged, and you would stop publishing them... which would really be a shame. Whereas on the other hand, better production quality could keep previous purchasers coming back and buying, not only more books by this author, but books by others whom you publish."

This phrasing, as you'll have seen, walks a bit wide around the issue of your further purchases, while directing attention toward the bottom line... which will routinely be what the publisher's looking at from day to day. And—being, one has to hope, in possession of the wider picture as regards what's going on with their production costs—maybe they can actually do something about it.

Anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained, yeah? It's worth a try. All you can do is hope for the best.

And finally: please know that I admire your commitment to the author: whoever she is, she's lucky to have you. It's a terrific thing to have readers who'll willing to spend the time to hunt you down, and who're willing not to judge a book by its cover. :)

[roughlytwentytwofrogs]

There is an issue in this community with misstagged fics on AO3, specifically in the FxF tags. I don't know if it's going to reach the actual people or not but I'm still going to put this here:

A lot of MxM and FxM are tagging FxF ships in the main relationship category despite the ship itself only being written in the background.

Which is a problem because when you go into your ship tag to find fics of your ship, a ridiculous amount of them are off topic. And while yes you can lower that amount significantly by filtering and tag exclusion, AO3 has a built in feature that is made to avoid this.

I am going to use the Shadowzel tag for that because it's the most popular FxF ship on there and it's also one of the most misstagged rn. As of right now, there is 607 fics in the Shadowzel tag without filter. If you restrict the search to only include FxF, you are down to 397 fics. That is more than a third gone!

And it gets rid of some shadowzel content as well, so it's either you filter that out or you have to scroll through a tag where 1 out of 3 fics are about Astarion, Gale, Halsin, etc instead of the ship you looked up.

If your fic, let's take for example a Tav x Astarion, has either consistent mention of Shadowheart x Lae'zel, the most popular wlw ship, or has them in the background as support characters, or even just mentions them as a funny little wink and you want to make sure your readers know they are in here, you do not use the relationship tag! You go down to the additional tags and add "Minor Lae'zel/Shadowheart (Baldur's Gate)".

Unless the pairing you are tagging is the main focus or have a significant role and spotlight on them, you should not use the relationship tag! It clogs the feed for no reason, AO3 is not a website where you have to advertise your posts to the most tags possible.

Adding a visual for clarity:

[i6eyes]

%% jean kirstein bf hcs !!

pt 2

contains: sfw and nsfw, implied fem!reader (no y/n), established relationship, soft jean teehee, jean’s horse cawk, nothing too graphic tbh

— who knew a fucking stallion will be the one who's going to bring me back from the dead .

sfw

omg omg he's soo tall right

definitely puts his arms around your shoulder, and kisses u on your temple or forehead too

the sweetest !! i feel like he would be so so attentive to u

oooh u did a double take at the dress u guys walked passed by earlier in the mall? woah it's suddenly in ur bed the next day !! :OO

he's a nice cook ! can cook but the best, his expertise are mostly breakfast foods but he can cook you lunch and dinner as long as he has a recipe

oh he'd be absolutely smitten !!!! i luv big scary men being total sweethearts to their s/o

if ur trying some shoes, he'd be the one to do all of the work ! he'd kneel down, take off your shoes, puts on what you chose on you, will be the who's going to take it off too, then will tie or buckle your shoes up for you

or or or, he'd be out alone and he passes by this little store filled with trinkets and stuff. safe to say, he walked out of the store with a silly little keychain he knew you'd like

^^ one of his love language is acts of service

he loves spending time with you. specially the moments where you two just chill and share some occasional kisses here and there

his favorite thing to do is have you lay on top of him while he's laying down and make you talk about your day !! he'd play with your hair and caress your nape and back while you do so :((

he's obviously attractive, but he doesn't know how much

there's so many simple things that he makes attractive

his attentiveness. you'd be in the grocery then he'd suddenly disappear for a while, only for him to come back with arms full of chips and snacks. "these are your favorites, right?" he said while dumping them in the cart, not even waiting for your answer.

oddly specific but the way he leans on every door way. you know the thing where people place their hands on top of a doorway? that, but he subconsciously does it everywhere. omg imagine he fetches you from your house for a date and the moment you open your door, boom! there's jean, towering you with a smile on his face.

he knows how to slow dance, like the ones in the movies where the main characters would suddenly dance in their living room, to which, he did with you!

slow dancing in the living room with jean :(

if you're still in school and he sees you struggling with a subject or school work, he'd help you as soon as he could, specially if it's something he already learned before. but! if that's not the case, he'd take his time to learn what you're having problems with and try to come up with an explanation to make you understand better

he's so lame (affectionate)

nsfw

oh boy

he's not the stallion for nothing

easily one of the biggest cock in the aot verse

usually, i'd be realistic when it comes to sizes, but jean is at 7-8 inches.

hhhhhhgggh, king of dick prints. he's naturally big even when soft, about 5 to 5.5 maybe. < he's a grower

he's such a big man, his proportions are perfect, of course he needs a big fucking cock to go along with it

he keeps his happy trail no matter what happens. he knows it's attractive and knows that you love seeing it on him

^^ up to you whether you want him to shave or trim, he's fine with anything as long as he keeps his happy trail

wide athletic shoulders that he puts your legs at while he's eating you out our splitting you open with his cock

this man's proportions are actually making me insane i don't know how to put my thoughts into words anymore

his hands are big, but not huge or ginormous. it's pretty and rough looking at the same time. his fingers are longer than most men's but are thick enough like the ones most are familiar with when thinking about a man's hand.

his nape is sensitive, simple touches like brushing his hair back will make him shiver. hickeys also show more easily on his neck, just suck on it lightly and there's already a blooming red mark left in its wake.

oh my god, touch his torso or the bottom of his stomach (ehem, close or at his happy trail) and he's gone. it's starting to become an actual problem because there would be completely innocent moments where you touch those places because you need to get pass by him and he'd just suddenly pop a boner on the spot.

*taps mic* soft dom

he absolutely loves praising you, it's an unconscious thing he does

you'd be on your knees, sucking in his cock on your mouth as much as you could, and he'd groan while keeping your hair out of your face using a hand while the other caresses your cheek, wiping away the tears that lay there.

^^ "there we go, knew you could do it.", "fuckin' natural at it.", "think you could take me a little deeper? uh huh? yeah that's my good girl."

im in shambles

he's SOOOOO good with his fingers my GOD.

he knows what it takes to make you cum with his fingers, he has an actual technique it's crazyyy. doesn't prioritize in making it fast or hard or whatever, whether you like it like that or slow, he will follow his own lead on what he thinks will make you feel spineless.

knows the fingers inside you, palm on your clit thing. has made you squirt using it on multiple occasions

while he adores missionary because he loves seeing your face and folding you in half with your legs beside your ears, doing it doggy will always make him carnal

he has a thing for your backkk. he'd grab the one side of your shoulder while he's hitting it from the back, sometimes he'd bruise your hips with his grip instead

will slap your ass. not really in a sub/dom dynamic. he just likes the way he sees his handprint on your ass while you're writhing beneath him

stroke game is unmatched !!!!!!!!!

he doesn't rely on his size alone, this bitch is actually prepared and knows his shit y'all

even if he doesn't or can't push all of him in, he'd work with what he's able to put inside you and god does he do it well

during missionary, expect him to put a pillow under your hips despite his size and knowledge. he want to make you feel the best at any given time

while he doesn't mind if you're a loud moaner or what, he LOVES hearing you whine.

if you're a whiner, boy is it a good time to be ALIVEEEEEE

he founds it so cute and hot <3

[zepskies]

Series Masterlist - Lost on You

Pairing: Soldier Boy (Ben) x F. Reader

Summary: 1983 is a big year for you. You’re finally chosen to join the ranks of Payback, led by the most (in)famous supe in the world: Soldier Boy. He’ll never admit that he’s trying his damndest to figure you out. You’ll never admit that he’s actually growing on you. But the problem with this game is deciding who's the predator, and who is prey.

Song Inspo: “Lost on You” by the Cubaneros (originally by LP)

AN: Oh, here we go! Get ready for another Boys AU. And in the immortal words of Cher, we're actually turning back time, to the '80s, no less.

Series Tags/Warnings: **18+ only! It's the world of The Boys, so angsty and messy, with morally gray and downright charcoal characters, including Soldier Boy, of course (and even the reader herself). **Smut, language, misogyny, violence, drug use, and other chapter-specific tags.

Chapters:

Part 1: Siren Song

Part 2: Foolish Game

Part 3: A Deal is a Deal

Part 4: Better Shape Up

Part 5: Eminence Front

Part 6: Drowned and Spellbound

Part 7: Welcome to the Jungle

Part 8: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Part 9: Free to Be You and Me

Part 10: I Need a Hero - COMING 9/27

Part 11: Heroes and Monsters

Part 12: A Fire in the Blood

Epilogue: As Good as It Gets

New chapters on Fridays!

Or become a Patreon member to read new chapters a week early!

🎙️ Listen while you read:

The Lost on You Playlist: YouTube || Spotify

The Game Begins...

But wait! There's more:

"Interrupt the flow, they better not dare..."

Ko-Fi Me ☕

Join My Patreon 🌟

Soldier Boy Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Soldier Boy Tag List:

If you would like to follow along as I post each chapter, please follow my side blog @zepskieswrites with notifications on so you don't miss out. 💚

@spnwoman @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @adoringanakin @rizlowwritessortof @chernayawidow

@midnightmadwoman @deans-spinster-witch @chriszgirl92 @lyarr24 @ladysparkles78

@deansbbyx @sarahgracej @this-is-me19 @kazsrm67 @jacklesbrainworms

@foxyjwls007 @iamsapphine @roseblue373 @lacilou @fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like

@waynes-multiverse @my-stories-vault @syrma-sensei @alwaystiredandconfused @globetrotter28

@mrsjenniferwinchester @charmed-asylum @waywardxwords @k-slla @deanbrainrotwritings

@jackles010378 @deans-daydream @deanwinchestersgirl87 @rachiem4-blog @just-levyy

@leigh70 @kmc1989 @ghostslillady @siampie @jessjad

@beautyvaliant @mimaria420 @lifeonawhim @pieandmonsters @twinkleinadiamondsky

@stoneyggirl2 @sl33pylilbunny @spnfamily-j2 @mostlymarvelgirl @artemys-ackles

[brucewaynehater101]

I think it would be really funny if Tim kept up one very specific connection he made during Young Justice. One that no one but Tim and his team know about. One of the most dangerous beings in all the Universe.

Lobo The Space Biker.

The Main Man Himself, who has either tied or beaten Superman in a number of different comics *and* shows. When he showed up during the Justice Leauge Animated show, the entire JL (minus Clark) had to work together to just *barely* keep him in line and even *then* they did not command full authority nor respect from him. He is a top tier threat almost everytime he is spotted.

And I can only think of one person who he canonically will do basically whatever they say.

Tim Drake.

Tim managed to reign Lobo in multiple times during their adventures together, and no I don't mean the weaker clone. I mean The Real Actual Lobo (who had been turned into a teen by Klarion at the start of their friendship but *still*) does what if asked of him by Tim Drake, up to and including *walking away from unfinished fights*. Evidence by the time Tim got him to not fight the Space Cops right before The Baseball Game and got him and Big Bear to stop fighting when both wanted to continue.

All this to say, some kind of all hands on deck happens and the JL needs some back up for some kind of invasion and Tim says, "I have someone who owes me a few favors and it pretty strong." And makes a phone call. All the JL can hear is Tim as he says, "hey, Lil- I'm cashing in a favor... Yeah there's an invasion about to happen... Yes, you are the first person I call for Cracking Skulls, of course.... yes well, with or without you it's happening in an hour. Get here sooner and after we can have an extra meeting... of course I'll make the usual tea, plus Lavender and Rose cookies~... yes I know you very well.... see you in 25 minuets Lil." And he hangs up.

30 minutes later, Lobo breaks into the Watch Tower and the whole JL is like "WE DONT HAVE TIME FOR THIS DAMN IT." until Tim walks past them saying, "Lil! I got some cookies, they're chocolate chunk." And Lobo simply replies, "you know me so fraggin well, Runt."

Tim gets placed on Lobo's shoulder and they start talking about where Lobo will be so he can Crack the most skulls.

I don't know enough about Lobo (so thank you for the explanations), but I am all for Tim's friendship powers.

I don't know how he does it, but he's constantly nestling himself into villainous or morally grey characters' soft spots. Is there a list out there of folks that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't like Tim but got bedazzled by his friendship charm?

Anyways, I'd love a 5 plus one fic of Tim being like: "Oh? We've got this problem? Hold up. I know a guy." Then he just calls up someone he definitely shouldn't be friends with. They act like the best of buds, too.